[ Chapter 15 ]
- the little prince visits thegeographer 小王子拜访地理学家
The sixth planet was ten times larger than the last one. It was inhabitedby an old gentleman who wrote voluminous books.
"Oh, look! Here is an explorer!" he exclaimed to himself when hesaw the little prince coming.
The little prince sat down on the table and panted a little. He hadalready traveled so much and so far!
"Where do you come from?" the old gentleman said to him.
"What is that big book?" said the little prince. "What areyou doing?"
"I am a geographer," the old gentleman said to him.
"What is a geographer?" asked the little prince.
"A geographer is a scholar who knows the location of all the seas,rivers, towns, mountains, and deserts."
"That is very interesting," said the little prince. "Hereat last is a man who has a real profession!" And he cast a look around himat the planet of the geographer. It was the most magnificent and stately planetthat he had ever seen.
"Your planet is very beautiful," he said. "Has it anyoceans?"
"I couldn't tell you," said the geographer.
"Ah!" The little prince was disappointed. "Has it anymountains?"
"I couldn't tell you," said the geographer.
"And towns, and rivers, and deserts?"
"I couldn't tell you that, either."
"But you are a geographer!"
"Exactly," the geographer said. "But I am not an explorer.I haven't a single explorer on my planet. It is not the geographer who goes outto count the towns, the rivers, the mountains, the seas, the oceans, and thedeserts. The geographer is much too important to go loafing about. He does notleave his desk. But he receives the explorers in his study. He asks themquestions, and he notes down what they recall of their travels. And if the recollectionsof any one among them seem interesting to him, the geographer orders an inquiryinto that explorer's moral character."
"Why is that?"
"Because an explorer who told lies would bring disaster on the booksof the geographer. So would an explorer who drank too much."
"Why is that?" asked the little prince.
"Because intoxicated men see double. Then the geographer would notedown two mountains in a place where there was only one."
"I know some one," said the little prince, "who would makea bad explorer."
"That is possible. Then, when the moral character of the explorer isshown to be good, an inquiry is ordered into his discovery."
"One goes to see it?"
"No. That would be too complicated. But one requires the explorer tofurnish proofs. For example, if the discovery in question is that of a largemountain, one requires that large stones be brought back from it."
Thegeographer was suddenly stirred to excitement.
