B E B E R E

XII

La planete suivante etait habitee par un buveur. Cette visite fut tres courte, mais elle plongea le petit prince dans une grande melancolie:

-Que fais-tu la? dit-il au buveur, qu'il trouva installe en silence devant une collection de bouteliies vides et une collection de bouteilles pleines.
-Je bois, repondit le buveur, d'un air lugubre.
-Pourquoi bois-tu? lui demanda le petit prince.
-Pour oublier, repondit le buveur.
-Pour oublier quoi? s'entuit le petit prince qui deja le plaignait.
-Pour oublier que j'ai honte, avoua le buveur en baissant la tete.
-Honte de quoi? s'informa le petit prince qui desirait le secourir.
-Honte de boire! acheva le buveur qui s'enferma definitivement dans le silence.

Et le petit prince s'en fut, perplexe.
Les grandes personnes sont decidement tres tres bizarres, se disait-il en lui-meme durant le voyage.

de "Le Petit Prince," Antoine de Saint-Exupery


XII

The following planet was inhabited by a drinker. This visit was very short, but it plunged the little prince into a great depression:

-"What are you doing there?" he asked the drinker, who he found seated in silence in front of a collection of empty bottles and a collection of full bottles.
-"I'm drinking," answered the drinker, lugubriously.
-"Why are you drinking?" the little prince asked him.
-"To forget," answered the drinker.
-"To forget what?" enquired the little prince, who already felt sorry for him.
-"To forget that I am ashamed," confessed the drinker, hanging his head.
-"To forget what?" asked the little prince again, who wanted to help him.
-"The shame of drinking!" finished the drinker who definitively closed himself off in silence.

And the little prince went on his way, perplexed.
"Big people are decidedly very very strange," he said to himself during the rest of his trip.