Маленький принц / The Little Prince

“You will have your sunset. I shall command it. But I shall wait until conditions are favorable.”

“When will that be?” inquired the little prince.

“Hum! Hum!” replied the king; and he consulted a bulky almanac. “Hum! Hum! That will be about—about—that will be this evening about twenty minutes to eight!”

The little prince yawned. He was already a little bored.

“I have nothing more to do here,” he said to the king. “So I shall go away.”

“Do not go,” said the king, because wanted to have a subject. “Do not go. I will make you a Minister!”

“Minister of what?”

“Minister of—of Justice!”

“But there is nobody here to judge!”

“We do not know that,” the king said to him. “I did not make a complete tour of my kingdom. I am very old. And it is difficult for me to walk.”

“Oh, but I looked already!” said the little prince, He turned around to look at the other side of the planet. On that side, there was nobody at all.

“Then you will 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 can judge 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 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 can condemn him to death[26 - to condemn him to death – приговаривать его к смерти]. Thus his life will depend on your justice. But you will pardon him. We don’t have any more rats.”

“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 had no wish to grieve the old monarch.

“If Your Majesty wishes,” he said, “you can give me a reasonable order. 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 went away.