But the shrub soon stopped growing and started getting ready to produce a flower. The little prince watched the growth of an enormous bud, convinced that some miracu-lous apparition must follow. Closeted in her green room, however, this flower took an age preparing herself to be beautiful. She chose her colours with care. She dressed slowly, adjusting her petals one by one. She did not want to come into the world all crumpled, like the field poppies; she wanted to appear only in the full radiance of her beauty. That's right! She was very stylish! Her mysterious preparations lasted for days and days. Then one morning, exactly at sunrise, she suddenly revealed herself.

And after labouring with such painstaking precision, she merely said with a yawn:

'Oh! I am scarcely awake ... You must excuse me ... I'm still all dishevelled … '

At this the little prince could not contain his admiration:

'But you are so beautiful!'

'Aren't I, just?' replied the flower, sweetly. 'And to think I was born at the same moment as the sun ...'

The little prince soon guessed that this flower was none too modest — but how thrilling she was!

'Surely it must be time for breakfast,' she announced shortly. 'Would you be so kind as to attend to me?'

And the little prince, all flustered, fetched a watering can of cool water and proceeded to wait upon the flower.

From the beginning, then, she began to torment him with her somewhat touchy vanity. One day, for example, talking about her four thorns, she said to the little prince:

'Let them come, the tigers, with their claws!'

'There are no tigers on my planet,'the little prince inter¬rupted. 'In any case — tigers do not eat weeds.'

'I am not a weed,' the flower murmured sweetly.

'Forgive me ...'

'Nor am I in the least afraid of tigers, but I do have a horror of draughts. You wouldn't happen to have a screen to hand?'

'A horror of draughts? That is bad luck, for a plant,' the little prince remarked, and added to himself, 'This flower is very complicated.'

'In the evenings you may place a glass dome over me. It is very cold on your planet. It lacks conveniences. Where I come from-'

Here she interrupted herself. For she had come in the shape of a seed, and could not possibly know anything about other worlds. Ashamed at letting herself be caught on the verge of such a naive lie, she coughed two or three times, to make the little prince feel at fault.

'About that screen . . .?'

'I was going to fetch it, but you were talking to me!'

At which she pretended to cough once more, so that he might suffer some remorse just the same.