Chapter 21 🔊✎
That was when the fox appeared. 🔊✎
“Hello,” replied the little prince politely. He turned round, but he couldn’t see anyone. 🔊✎
“I’m here,” said the voice, “under the apple tree”. 🔊✎
“Who are you?” asked the little prince. “You’re very beautiful…” 🔊✎
“Come and play with me,” asked the little prince. “I’m feeling so sad…” 🔊✎
“I can’t play with you,” said the fox. “I haven’t been tamed yet.” 🔊✎
“Oh! I’m sorry,” said the little prince. 🔊✎ But after a little thought, he added:
“You aren’t from here, are you?” said the fox. “What are you looking for?” 🔊✎
“I’m looking for people,” said the little prince. “What does ‘tamed’ mean?” 🔊✎
“People,” said the fox. “They have guns and they hunt. It’s a pain. 🔊✎ But they raise chickens too. It’s their only good point. 🔊✎ Are you looking for chickens?” 🔊✎
“No,” said the little prince. “I’m looking for friends. What does ‘tamed’ mean?” 🔊✎
“It’s something too many people have forgotten,” said the fox. “It means ‘when you’ve created ties’.” 🔊✎
“When you’ve created ties?” 🔊✎
“That’s right,” said the fox. 🔊✎ “For me, all you are so far is a little boy like a hundred thousand other little boys. I don’t need you. And you don’t need me either. 🔊✎ For you, I’m just a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. 🔊✎ But if you tame me, we’ll need each other. You will be unique for me in the whole world. And I will be unique for you in the whole world…” 🔊✎
“I’m starting to get it,” said the little prince. “There’s this flower. I think she’s tamed me…” 🔊✎
“That’s possible,” said the fox. “You see all sorts of things on Earth.” 🔊✎
“Oh, but this wasn’t on Earth!” said the little prince. 🔊✎
The fox seemed very curious. 🔊✎
“Yes.” 🔊✎
“Are there hunters on this planet?” 🔊✎
“No.” 🔊✎
“This sounds interesting! How about chickens?” 🔊✎
“No.” 🔊✎
“Nothing’s perfect,” sighed the fox.
But he went back to his first thought:
“My life is dull. I hunt chickens, people hunt me. 🔊✎ All the chickens are the same, and all the people are the same. 🔊✎ It makes me feel kind of bored. 🔊✎ But if you tame me, it will be a ray of sunshine in my life. 🔊✎ I’ll learn to recognise a sound that’s different from every other sound. 🔊✎ When I hear other people’s steps, I run and hide in my hole. 🔊✎ The sound of your steps will make me come out, it’ll be like music. 🔊✎ And look! You see the fields of wheat over there? 🔊✎ I don’t eat bread. Wheat is no use to me. The wheat fields don’t remind me of anything, and that’s sad. 🔊✎ But your hair is the colour of gold. It’ll be so wonderful when you’ve tamed me! 🔊✎ The golden wheat will remind me of you. And I’ll love the sound of the wind in the wheat field…”
The fox was quiet and looked at the little prince for a long time.
“Please… tame me!” he said. 🔊✎
“I would like to,” said the little prince, “but I don’t have much time. I need to find friends and learn all sorts of things.” 🔊✎
“You only know the things you tame,” said the fox. 🔊✎ “People don’t have time anymore to get to know anything. They buy it all ready-made in the shops. 🔊✎ And since there aren’t any shops for friends, people don’t have friends anymore. 🔊✎ If you want a friend, tame me!” 🔊✎
“What do I have to do?” asked the little prince. 🔊✎
“You have to be patient,” replied the fox. 🔊✎ “First, you’re going to sit down a little way from me, like that, in the grass. 🔊✎ I’ll watch you out of the corner of my eye and you won’t talk. Talking just confuses things. 🔊✎ But every day, you’ll be able to sit a bit closer…” 🔊✎
The next day, the little prince came back again. 🔊✎
“It would have been better to come back at the same time,” said the fox. 🔊✎ “Say you came at four o’clock. By three I’ll already start to feel happy. 🔊✎ The later it gets, the happier I’ll feel. 🔊✎ By four, I’ll be feeling nervous and worried; well, I’ll find out that that’s the price of happiness! 🔊✎ But if you don’t arrive at any particular time, I’ll never know when I can start getting my heart ready. 🔊✎ You need customs.” 🔊✎
“What you mean, customs?” asked the little prince. 🔊✎
“That’s another thing too many people have forgotten,” said the fox. 🔊✎ “That’s what makes one day different from another day and one hour different from another hour. 🔊✎ For example, my hunters have a custom. Every Thursday they dance with the girls from the village. 🔊✎ So Thursday is a wonderful day for me! I walk all the way up to the grapevines. 🔊✎ If the hunters didn’t have a special day for dancing, all the days would be the same, and I’d never get a vacation.” 🔊✎
So the little prince tamed the fox. 🔊✎ And when the time for him to leave came near:
“Ah!” said the fox. “I’m going to cry.” 🔊✎
“It’s your fault,” said the little prince. “I never meant to hurt you, but you said you wanted to be tamed…” 🔊✎
“But you’re going to cry!” said the little prince. 🔊✎
“Then you got nothing out of it!” 🔊✎
“What I got out of it,” said the fox, “is the colour of the wheat.” 🔊✎
“Go and look at the roses again. You’ll understand that your rose is quite different. 🔊✎ Come back after that to say goodbye, and I’ll tell you a secret.” 🔊✎
The little prince went back to the roses. 🔊✎
“You aren’t like my rose at all, so far you are nothing,” he told them. 🔊✎ “No one has ever tamed you, and you have never tamed anyone. 🔊✎ You’re like my fox was at the beginning. 🔊✎ He was just a fox like a hundred thousand others. 🔊✎ But now he is my friend, and there is no one like him in the world.” 🔊✎
The roses looked very embarrassed. 🔊✎
“You are beautiful, but you are empty,” he told them again. 🔊✎ “No one would die for you. 🔊✎ Of course, someone who didn’t know her would say my rose is like you. 🔊✎ But she’s more important than any of you, because she’s the one I watered. 🔊✎ Because she’s the one I put under the glass cover. 🔊✎ Because she’s the one I sheltered behind the screen. 🔊✎ Because she’s the one I killed the caterpillars for (except two or three to make butterflies). 🔊✎ Because she’s the one I’ve listened to when she’s been complaining or boasting or just not talking to me. 🔊✎ Because she’s my rose.” 🔊✎
And he returned to the fox. 🔊✎
“Goodbye,” said the fox. 🔊✎ “Here’s my secret. It’s very simple. 🔊✎ You only see truly with the heart. The things that matter are invisible to the eyes.” 🔊✎
“The things that matter are invisible to the eyes,” said the little prince, so that he would remember. 🔊✎
“It’s the time you’ve wasted on your rose that makes her so important.” 🔊✎
“It’s the time I’ve wasted on my rose…” said the little prince, so that he would remember. 🔊✎
“This is something people have forgotten,” said the fox. “But you shouldn’t forget. 🔊✎ You are responsible for what you’ve tamed. 🔊✎ You are responsible for your rose…” 🔊✎
“I am responsible for my rose…” said the little prince, so that he would remember. 🔊✎