20

The little prince was walking for a long time through sand, and rocks, and snow, and at last came upon a road. And all roads lead to the men.

“Good morning,” he said.

He was standing before a garden 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 very sad. His flower told him that she was the only one in all the universe. And here were five thousand of them, all alike, in one single garden!

“She will be very much annoyed,” he said to himself, “if she sees that. She will cough dreadfully, and she will pretend that she is dying. And I shall nurse her back to life.”

Then he went on with his reflections: “I thought that 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. I’m not the great prince after that.”

And he lay down in the grass and cried.

21

Suddenly a fox appeared.

“Good morning,” said the fox.

“Good morning,” the little prince responded politely, although he saw no one.

“I am right here,” said the fox, “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 unhappy.”

“I cannot play with you,” the fox said. “I am not tamed.”

“Ah! Please excuse me,” said the little prince.

But, after some thought, he added:

“What does that mean—‘tame’?”

“You do not live here,” said the fox. “What are you 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 disturbing. 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 means ‘to establish ties’,” said the fox.

“‘To establish ties’?”

“Just that,” said the fox. “To me, you are just 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 just 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 tamed me.”

“It is possible,”” said the fox. “It may happen on the Earth.”

“Oh, but this is not on the Earth!” said the little prince.

The fox seemed very curious.

“On another planet?”

“Yes.”

“Are there hunters on that planet?”

“No.”

“Ah, that is interesting! Are there chickens?”

“No.”

“Nothing is perfect,” sighed the fox.

But he came back to his idea.

“My life is very monotonous,” the fox said. “I hunt chickens; men hunt me. All the chickens are just alike, and all the men are just alike. And, in consequence, I am a little bored. But if you tame me, the sun will shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me underneath the ground. Your steps will call me, like music. And then look: do you see those grain-fields? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields say nothing to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the colour of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you tame me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in 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 time. I must find friends, and understand many things.”

“One only understands the things that one tames,” said the fox. “Men have no time to understand anything. They buy ready things at the shops. But there is no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship, and so men have no friends any more. If you want a friend, tame me.”

“What must I do, to tame you?” asked the little prince.

“You must be very patient,” replied the fox. “First sit down at a little distance from me—like that—in the grass. I shall 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’s 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 shall be happy. I shall feel happier and happier. At four o’clock, I shall already worry and jump about. I shall show you how happy I am! But if you come at just any time, I shall never know at what hour to greet you. One must observe the proper rites.”

“What is a rite?” asked the little prince.

“The rites are actions that make one day different from other days, one hour from other hours,” said the fox. “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 walk freely. But if the hunters dance at any time, every day will be like every other day, and I shall never have any vacation at all.”

So the little prince tamed the fox. And when the hour of his departure came—

“Ah,” said the fox, “I shall cry.”

“It is your own fault,” said the little prince. “I never wished to hurt you; but you wanted to be tamed.”

“Yes, that is so,” said the fox.

“But now you are going to cry!” said the little prince.

“Yes, that is so,” said the fox.

“Then it is not good at all!”

“It is good,” said the fox, “because of the colour of the wheat fields.” And then he added:

“Go and look again at the roses. You will understand now that your rose is unique in all the world. Then come back to say goodbye to me, and I shall tell you a secret.”

The little prince went away, to look again at the roses.

“You are not at all like my rose,” he said. “You are nothing. No one tamed you, and you tamed no one. You are like my fox when I first knew him. He was only a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But now he is my friend, and now he is unique in all the world.”

And the roses were very much embarassed.

“You are beautiful, but you are empty,” he went on. “One cannot die for you. Of course, an ordinary passerby will think that my rose looks just like you. But she is more important than all the hundreds of other roses: because I watered her; because I put her under the glass globe; because I sheltered her behind the screen; because I killed the caterpillars for her (except the two or three that we saved, they will become butterflies); because I listened to her, when she grumbled, or boasted, or ever 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 secret: it is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

“What is essential is invisible to the eye,” the little prince repeated.

“You wasted time for your rose and that makes your rose so important.”

“I wasted time for my rose,” said the little prince.

“Men forgot this truth,” said the fox. “But you must not forget it. You are responsible, forever, for what you tamed. You are responsible for your rose.”

“I am responsible for my rose,” the little prince repeated.

22

“Good morning,” said the little prince.

“Good morning”, said the railway switchman.

“What do you do here?” the little prince asked.

“I sort out travelers,” said the switchman. “I send off the trains that carry them: now to the right, now to the left.”

And an express train shook the switchman’s cabin with a roar like thunder.

“They are in a great hurry,” said the little prince. “What are they looking for?”

“Not even the locomotive engineer knows that,” said the switchman.

And a second express thundered by, in the opposite direction.

“Are they coming back already?” demanded the little prince.

“These are not the same ones,” said the switchman. “It is an exchange.”

“Were they not satisfied where they were?” asked the little prince.

“No one is ever satisfied where he is,” said the switchman.

And they heard the roaring thunder of a third express.

“Are they pursuing the first travelers?” demanded the little prince.

“They are pursuing nothing at all,” said the switchman. “They are sleeping, or if they are not sleeping they are yawning. Only the children are looking through the windows.”

“Only the children know what they are looking for,” said the little prince. “They waste their time over a doll and it becomes very important to them. If anybody takes it away from them, they cry.”

“They are lucky,” the switchman said.