"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'?"
"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 she has tamed me. . ."
But if you tame me,
it will be as if the sun came to shine on 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 that is sad.
But you have hair that is the color of gold.
Think how wonderful that will be
when you have tamed 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 have not much time.
I have friends to discover,
and a great many things to understand."
So the little prince tamed the fox.
And when the hour of his departure drew near---
"Ah," said the fox, "I shall cry."
"It is your own fault," said the little prince.
"I never wished you any sort of harm;
but you wanted me to tame you. . ."
"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 has done you no good at all!"
"It has done me good," said the fox,
"because of the color of the wheat fields."
Slowly, all of these things become so much more to me every day. Life is new. Love is universal and it is real.
