The Little Prince

The prince's comment about the sheep leads the pilot to realize that his planet is "hardly bigger than a house" (9). The pilot is not actually surprised by this, since he already knew that there are far more small objects in space than full-sized planets, and that "[w]hen an astronomer discovers one of them, he gives it a number instead of a name" (9).

The pilot believes that the little prince's planet is Asteroid B-612, which was discovered in 1909 by a Turkish astronomer. When this astronomer initially presented his findings to the international community, "no one had believed him on account of the way he was dressed" (9). It was only after the Turkish government ordered citizens to wear Western clothes that his discovery made any impact. The pilot explains that he has provided these details about Asteroid B-612 because "grown-ups like numbers" (10). As an example of this, he notes that for grown-ups to be able to picture a house and appreciate its beauty, they need to know exactly how much it costs. In other words, people will only believe in the prince's existence if they have details like the asteroid number rather than descriptions of him laughing and wanting a sheep.

The pilot urges children to understand that this is simply the way grown-ups are but admits that anyone who truly "understand[s] life couldn't care less about numbers" (12). It would have been "truer," for instance, for him to begin his story with "once upon a time," but then people might take it "lightly" (12). The pilot wants to avoid this: in fact, he is telling his story specifically so that he won't turn into a typical grown-up or forget a "friend"(12)whose loss was painful to him. He has even bought paint and pencils to try to avert this, although he admits that many of his drawings are slightly off, and that there are details he can't remember: "I may be a little like the grown-ups. I must have grown old" (13).

Through casual conversation, the narrator learns more about the prince. On the third day, for instance, the prince asks whether sheep eat bushes, and he is glad to learn that they do. He then asks whether sheep also eat baobabs, and the pilot explains that baobabs are large, and even a "herd of elephants […] couldn't finish off a single baobab" (13–14). The prince laughs about trying to fit elephants on his planet, but also hints that a sheep might be able to eat a young baobab. When the pilot asks why this is important, the prince simply says, "Oh, come on! You know!" (14).

The pilot eventually works out the prince's meaning, which he explains to his readers. There are both "good plants" and "bad plants" on the prince's planet:

They sleep in the secrecy of the ground until one of them decides to wake up. Then it stretches and begins to sprout, quite timidly at first, a charming, harmless little twig reaching toward the sun. If it's a radish seed, or a rosebush seed, you can let it sprout all it likes. But if it's the seed of a bad plant, you must pull the plant up right away, as soon as you can recognize it (14).

This is the case with the baobabs, which—if they overgrow a small planet—break it apart with their roots. The prince explains that he does his best to pull up the baobab sprouts every morning, but the work is difficult, in part because at that stage they resemble rosebushes. He also asks the pilot to draw baobabs taking over a planet as a warning to children not to put off pulling up any baobabs they find. The pilot admits he doesn't like "assuming the tone of a moralist," but complies with the prince's request, drawing a large picture of a planet inhabited by a "lazy man" (16)who allowed three trees to grow. It is the largest picture in the book, the pilot says, because he was "inspired by a sense of urgency" (16)and worries about what might happen if someone from Earth found himself on an asteroid. 

The pilot eventually learns that the prince's "sad little life" (16) offers little in the way of amusement. On the fourth day, the prince says that he likes sunsets and asks to go look at one. The pilot replies that they have to wait for the sun to set, and the prince laughs when he realizes his mistake: as the pilot explains, the prince's planet is so small that by moving your chair over a few feet, you could watch the sun set at any time. The prince says he once watched the sunset 44 times, remarking that sunsets can cheer people up. However, when the pilot asks whether the prince was sad the day he watched 44 sunsets, the prince doesn't reply.