Friday, May 1, 2009

It was then the fox appeared.

"Good morning," said the fox.
"Good morning," said the little prince, "Come and play with me, I'm feeling so sad."
"I can't play with you," the fox said. "I'm not tamed."
"What does tamed mean?" asked the little prince.
"It's something that's been too often neglected. It means 'to create ties'..."
"To create ties?"
"That's right," the fox said. "For me you're only a little boy just like a thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you have no need of me, either. For you I'm only a fox like a thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, we'll need eachother. You'll be the only boy in the world for me and I'll be the only fox in the world for you...
"Nothing's perfect," the fox sighed. "But if you tame me, my life will be filled with sunshine. I will know the sound of your footsteps that will be different from the rest. Yours will call me out of my burrow like music. And then, look! You see the wheat fields over there? I do not eat bread. For me wheat is useless. Wheat fields say nothing to me. Which is sad. But you have hair the color of gold. So it will be wonderful, once you've tamed me! The wheat, which is golden, will remind me of you. And I'll love the sound of the wind in the wheat..."
The fox fell silent and stared at the little price for a long time. "Please...tame me!" he said.
"I'd like to," the little prince replied, "but I haven't much time. I have friends to find and so many things to learn."
"The only things you learn are the things you tame," said the fox. "If you want a friend, tame me!"
"What do I have to do?" asked the little prince.
"You'll have to be very patient," the fox answered.

And that was how the little prince tamed the fox. And when the time to leave was near:
"Ah!" the fox said. "I shall weep."
"It's your own fault," the little prince said. "I never wanted to do you any harm, but you insisted that I tame you..."
"Yes, of course," the fox said.
"But you're going to weep!" said the little prince.
"Yes, of course," the fox said.
"Then you get nothing out of it?"
"I get something," the fox said, "because of the color of the wheat."
Then the fox added, "Go look at the roses again. You'll understand that yours is the only rose in all the world. Then come back to say goodbye, and I'll make you the gift of a secret."

The little prince went back to look at the roses again.
"You're not at all like my rose, you're nothing at all yet," he told them. "No one has tamed you and you haven't tamed anyone. You're lovely, but you're empty. My rose, on her own, is more important than all of you together, since she's the one I've watered, since she's the one I put under glass. Since she's the one I sheltered behind a screen. Since she's the one for who I killed the caterpillars, since she's the one I listened to when she complained, or when she boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing at all. Since she's my rose."

And he went back to the fox.
"Good-bye," he said.
"Good-bye," said the fox.
"Here is my secret, it's quite simple: One sees clearly only with the heart, anything essential is invisible to the eyes. It's the time you spent on your rose that makes your rose so important. People have forgotten the truth, but you must'n forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You're responsible for your rose..."