Such power was a thing for the little prince to marvel at. If he had been master of
such complete authority, he would have been able to watch the sunset, not forty-four
times in one day, but seventy-two, or even a hundred, or even two hundred times,
with out ever having to move his chair. And because he felt a bit sad as he remembered
his little planet which he had forsaken, he plucked up his courage to ask the king a favor:
"I should like to see a sunset... do me that kindness... Order the sun to set..."
"If I ordered a general to fly from one flower to another like a butterfly,
or to write a tragic drama, or to change himself into a sea bird, and if the general
did not carry out the order that he had received, which one of us would be in the wrong?"
the king demanded. "The general, or myself?"
"You," said the little prince firmly.
"Exactly. One much require from each one the duty which each one can perform," the king went on.
"Accepted authority rests first of all on reason. If you ordered your people to go and
throw themselves into the sea, they would rise up in revolution. I have the right to require
obedience because my orders are reasonable."
"Then my sunset?" the little prince reminded him: for he never forgot a question once
he had asked it.
"You shall have your sunset. I shall command it. But, according to my science of government,
I shall wait until conditions are favorable."
"When will that be?" inquired the little prince.
"Hum! Hum!" replied the king; and before saying anything else he consulted a bulky almanac.
"Hum! Hum! That will be about-- about-- that will be this evening about twenty minutes to eight.
And you will see how well I am obeyed."
The little prince yawned. He was regretting his lost sunset. And then, too, he was already
beginning to be a little bored.
"I have nothing more to do here," he said to the king. "So I shall set out on my way again."
"Do not go," said the king, who was very proud of having a subject. "Do not go.
I will make you a Minister!"
"Minister of what?"
"Minster of-- of Justice!"
"But there is nobody here to judge!"
"We do not know that," the king said to him. "I have not yet made a complete tour of my kingdom.
I am very old. There is no room here for a carriage. And it tires me to walk."
"Oh, but I have looked already!" said the little prince, turning around to give one more glance to
the other side of the planet. On that side, as on this, there was nobody at all...
"Then you shall judge yourself," the king answered. "that is the most difficult thing of all.
It is much more difficult to judge oneself than to judge others. If you succeed in
judging yourself rightly, then you are indeed a man of true wisdom."
"Yes," said the little prince, "but I can judge myself anywhere. I do not need to
live on this planet.
"Hum! Hum!" said the king. "I have good reason to believe that somewhere on my planet
there is an old rat. I hear him at night. You can judge this old rat.
From time to time you will condemn him to death. Thus his life will depend on your justice.
But you will pardon him on each occasion; for he must be treated thriftily.
He is the only one we have."
"I," replied the little prince, "do not like to condemn anyone to death.
And now I think I will go on my way."
"No," said the king.
But the little prince, having now completed his preparations for departure,
had no wish to grieve the old monarch.
"If Your Majesty wishes to be promptly obeyed," he said, "he should be able to give me
a reasonable order. He should be able, for example, to order me to be gone
by the end of one minute. It seems to me that conditions are favorable..."
As the king made no answer, the little prince hesitated a moment. Then, with a sigh,
he took his leave.
"I made you my Ambassador," the king called out, hastily.
He had a magnificent air of authority.
"The grown-ups are very strange," the little prince said to himself, as he continued on his journey.