The Little Prince
XX
But it happened that after walking for a long time through sand, and rocks, and snow, the little prince at last came upon a road. And all roads lead to the abodes of men.
"Good morning," he said.
He was standing before a garden, all a-bloom with roses.
"Good morning," said the roses.
The little prince gazed at them. They all looked like his flower.
"Who are you?" he demanded, thunderstruck.
"We are roses," the roses said.
And he was overcome with sadness. His flower had told him that she was the only one of her kind in all the universe. And here were five thousand of them, all alike, in one single garden!
"She would be very upset," he said to himself, "if she should see that... She would cough most dreadfully, and she would pretend to be dying, to avoid the ridicule. And I would be forced to pretend to nurse her back to life--for if I didn't, to further humiliate me, she would really allow herself to die..."
Then he went on with his reflections: "I thought I was rich, with a flower that was unique in all the world; and all I had was a common rose. A common rose, and three volcanoes that come up to my knees--and one of them perhaps extinct forever... That doesn't make me a very great prince..."
And he lay down in the grass and cried.
XXI
It was then that the fox appeared.
"Good morning," said the fox.
"Good morning," the little prince responded politely, although when he turned around he saw nothing.
"I am right here," the voice said, "under the apple tree."
"Who are you?" asked the little prince, and added, "You are very pretty."
"I am a fox," the fox said.
"Come and play with me," proposed the little prince. "I am so sad..."
"I cannot play with you," the fox said. "I have not been tamed."
"Ah! Forgive me," said the little prince.
But, after some thought, he added:
"What does that mean--'tame'?"
"You are not from around here," said the fox. "What is it that you are looking for?"
"I am looking for men," said the little prince. "What does that mean--'tame'?"
"Men," said the fox. "They have guns, and they hunt. It is very annoying. They also raise chickens. These are their only interests. Are you looking for chickens?"
"No, said the little prince. "I am looking for friends. What does that mean--'tame'?"
"It is an act too often neglected," said the fox. "It means 'to establish ties.'"
"'To establish ties'?"
"Just that," said the fox. "To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world..."
"I am beginning to understand," said the little prince. "There is a flower... I think that she has tamed me..."
"It is possible," said the fox. "One sees all sorts of things here on Earth."
"Oh, but this is not on Earth!" said the little prince.
The fox seemed perplexed, and very curious.
"On another planet?"
"Yes."
"Are there hunters on that planet?"
"No."
"Oh, how interesting! Are there chickens?"
"No."
"Nothing is perfect," sighed the fox.
But he came back to his idea.
"My life is very monotonous," he said. "I hunt chickens; men hunt me. All the chickens are just alike, and all the men are just alike. And, in consequence, I get a little bored. But if you tame me, it will be like sunshine in my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow. And then, look! You see the grain fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me, and this is sad. But you have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The golden grain will bring me back the thought of you. And I will love to listen to the breeze through the wheat..."
The fox gazed at the little prince for a long time.
"Please... tame me!" he said.
"I want to, very much," the little prince replied. "But I don't have much time. I have friends to discover, and a great many things to understand."
"One only understands the things that one tames," said the fox. "Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy things already made at shops. But there is no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship, so men have no friends anymore. If you want a friend, tame me..."
"What must I do to tame you?" asked the little prince.
"One must be very patient," replied the fox. "First you will sit down at a little distance from me--like that--on the grass. I will look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings. But you will sit a little closer to me every day..."
The next day the little prince came back.
"It would have been better to come back at the same hour," said the fox. "If, for example, you come at four o'clock in the afternoon, then at three o'clock I will begin to be happy. I will be anxious and restless. I will show you how happy I am! But if you come at just any time, I will never know when to prepare my heart to greet you... One must observe the proper rites..."
"What is a rite?" asked the little prince.
"Those are also often neglected," said the fox. "They are what make one day different from other days, one hour from other hours. There is a rite, for example, among my hunters. Every Thursday they dance with the village girls. So Thursday is a wonderful day for me! I can take a walk as far as the vineyards. But if the hunters danced at just any time, every day would be like every other day, and I would never have any vacation at all."
So the little prince tamed the fox. And when the hour of his departure drew near--
"Ah," said the fox, "I think I will cry."
"It is your own fault," said the little prince. "I never wished to hurt you, but you wanted me to tame you..."
"Yes, that is so," said the fox.
"Then it has done you no good at all!"
"It has done me good," said the fox, "because of the color of the wheat fields." And then he added:
"Go and look at the roses again. You will understand now that yours is unique in all the world. Then come back to say goodbye to me, and I will present you with a secret."
The little prince went away, to look at the roses again.
"You are not at all like my rose," he said. "As yet you are nothing. No one has tamed you, and you have tamed no one. You are like my fox when I first met him. He was only a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But I have made him my friend and now he is unique in all the world."
And the roses were very embarrassed.
"You are beautiful, but you are empty," he went on. "One could not die for you. An ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked just like you--the rose that belongs to me. But she alone is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses: because it is she that I have watered; because it is she that I have put under the glass globe; because it is she that I have sheltered behind the screen; because it is she that I have listened to when she grumbled, or boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing. Because she is my rose."
And he went back to meet the fox.
"Goodbye," he said.
"Goodbye," said the fox. "And now here is my secret, a very simple one: It is only with the heart that one can see properly. The essential things are invisible to the eye."
"The essential things are invisible to the eye," the little prince repeated, to make sure he would remember.
"It is the time you have devoted to your rose that makes your rose so important."
"It is the time I have devoted to my rose--" said the little prince, to make sure he would remember.
"Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose..."
"I am responsible for my rose," the little prince repeated, to make sure he would remember.
--From The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupery