The Little Prince (Chapters 20-23)

Reading from The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Meeting of the fox, the switchman and the merchant. "What is essential is invisible to the eye." Be carried by the adventures of the aviator and his young friend full of wisdom and sweetness.

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(Music by Kai Engel and Doctor Turtle.)

Transcript

The Little Prince,

Chapter 20 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 man.

Good morning,

He said.

He was standing before a garden,

All abloom with roses.

Good morning,

Said the roses.

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 the whole universe.

And here were five thousand of them,

All alike,

In one single garden.

She would be very much annoyed,

He said to himself.

If she were to see that,

She would cough most dreadfully,

And she would pretend that she was dying to avoid being laughed at.

And I should be obliged to pretend that I was nursing her back to life,

For if I didn't do that,

In order to humble myself also,

She would really allow herself to die.

And he went on with his reflection.

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.

That doesn't make me a very great prince.

And he lay down in the grass and cried.

Chapter 21 And 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 didn't see anything.

I'm right here,

The voice said.

Enter the apple tree.

Who are you?

Asked the little prince,

And added,

You are very pretty to look at.

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.

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 is it that you are looking for?

I am looking for man,

Said the little prince.

What does that mean,

Tame?

Man,

Said the fox.

They have guns,

And they hunt.

It is very disturbing.

They also raise chickens.

That's the only thing that makes them interesting.

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 the whole world.

To you,

I shall be unique in the whole world.

I am beginning to understand,

Said the little prince.

There is a flower.

I think she has tamed me.

It is possible,

Said the fox.

On the earth,

One sees all sorts of things.

Oh,

But this is not on the earth,

Said the little prince.

The fox seemed perplexed and very curious.

On another planet?

Yes.

Are there hunters on that planet?

No.

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,

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 don't have much time.

I have friends to make and great many things to understand.

One only understands the things that one tames,

Said the fox.

Men have no time to understand anything.

They buy things already made 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 you will 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 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 shall begin to be happy.

I shall feel happier and happier as the hour advances.

At four o'clock I shall already be worrying and jumping around.

I shall show you how happy I am.

But if you come at just any time,

I shall never know at what hour my heart is to be ready to greet you.

One must observe the proper rituals.

What is a ritual,

Asked the little prince.

Hm!

Those are actions too often neglected,

Said the fox.

They are what make one day different from other days,

One hour from other hours.

There is a ritual,

For example,

Among the 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 should never have any vacation at all.

So the little prince tamed the fox,

And when the hour of his departure drew near.

Hm!

Said the fox.

I shall cry.

It's your own fault,

Said the little prince.

I never wished you any sort of harm,

But you wanted me to tame you.

Hm!

Yes,

That is so,

Said the fox.

But now you are going to cry,

Said the little prince.

Hm!

Yes,

That is so,

Said the fox.

Then it has done you no good at all.

Yes,

It has done me good,

Said the fox,

Because of the color of the wheat fields.

And then he added,

Go and look again at the roses.

You will understand now that yours is unique in the whole universe.

Then come back to say goodbye to me and I will make you a present of a secret.

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

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 knew 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 the whole world.

And the roses were very much embarrassed.

You are beautiful,

But you are empty,

He went on.

One could not die for you.

To be sure,

An ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked just like you,

The rose that belongs to me.

But in herself alone,

She 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 for her that I have killed the caterpillars,

Except for the two or three that we saved for the butterflies.

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 secret.

It is only with a 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,

So that he would be sure to remember.

It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.

It is the time I have wasted for my rose,

Said the little prince so that he would be sure to 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,

So that he would be sure to remember.

Chapter 22 Good morning,

Said the little prince.

Good morning,

Said the railway switchman.

What do you do here,

Asked the little prince.

I sort out travelers in bundles of a thousand,

Said the switchman.

I send off the trains that carry them now to the right,

Now to the left.

And the brilliantly lighted express train shook the switchman's cabin as it rushed by with a roar like thunder.

There 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 brilliantly lighted express thundered by in the opposite direction.

Are they coming back already,

Asked the little prince.

These are not the same ones,

Said the switchman.

It's an exchange.

Were they not satisfied where they were,

Asked the little prince.

No one is ever satisfied where they are,

Said the switchman.

And they heard the roaring thunder of a third brilliantly lighted express.

Are they running after the first travelers,

Asked the little prince.

They're not running after anybody,

Said the switchman.

They're asleep in there,

Or if they're not asleep,

They are yawning.

Only the children are flattening their noses against the window panes.

Only the children know what they are looking for,

Said the little prince.

They waste their time over a ragdoll,

And it becomes very important to them.

And if anybody takes it away from them,

They cry.

They are lucky,

The switchman said.

Chapter 23 Good morning,

Said the little prince.

Good morning,

Said the merchant.

This was a merchant who sold pills that had been invented to quench thirst.

You just need to swallow one pill per week,

And you will experience no need to drink anything.

Why are you selling those,

Asked the little prince.

They save a tremendous amount of time,

Said the merchant.

Computations have been made by experts,

But these pills you save fifty-three minutes every week.

And what do you do with fifty-three minutes?

Anything you like.

If it were me,

Thought the little prince to himself,

If I had fifty-three minutes to spend as I liked,

I would walk at my leisure towards a spring of fresh water.

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