So the little prince tamed the fox. And when the hour of his departuredrew near--
"Ah," said the fox, "I shall cry."
"It is your own fault," said the little prince. "I neverwished 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 colorof the wheat fields." And then he added:
"Go and look again at the roses. You will understand now that yoursis unique in all the world. Then come back to say goodbye to me, and I willmake 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 arenothing. No one has tamed you, and you have tamed no one. You are like my foxwhen I first knew him. He was only a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. ButI have made him my friend, and now he is unique in all the world."
And the roses were very much embarrassed.
"Youare beautiful, but you are empty," he went on. "One could not die foryou. To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked just likeyou-- the rose that belongs to me. But in herself alone she is more importantthan all the hundreds of you other roses: because it is she that I havewatered; because it is she that I have put under the glass globe; because it isshe that I have sheltered behind the screen; because it is for her that I havekilled the caterpillars (except the two or three that we saved to becomebutterflies); because it is she that I have listened to, when she grumbled, orboasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing. Because she is my rose.