English
the little prince befriends the fox
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 saw nothing.
“I am right here,” the voice said, “under the apple tree.”
“Who are you?” asked the little prince, and added, “You are very pretty to look at.”
“I am a fox,” said the fox.
“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 is it that you are 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 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 that 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 this 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, 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 colour 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.”
“One only understands the things that one tames,” said the fox. “Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy things all ready 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 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 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 about. 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 rites…”
“What is a rite?” asked the little prince.
“Those also 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 rite, for example, among my 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–
“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.” And then he added:
“Go and look again at the roses. You will understand now that yours is unique in all the world. 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 all the 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 the two or three that we saved to become 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 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, 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.
中文
小王子结交了狐狸
就在这时候，狐狸出现了。
“你好，”狐狸说。
“早上好，”小王子礼貌地回应道，尽管他转过身去时，什么也没看见。
“我在这儿，”那个声音说，“在苹果树下。”
“你是谁？”小王子问。他接着又加了一句，“你长得真漂亮。”
“我是一只狐狸，”狐狸说。
“来跟我一起玩吧，”小王子提议道，“我很不开心。”
“我不能跟你玩，”狐狸说，“我还没被驯服呢。”
“啊！真对不起，”小王子说。
但思索了一会儿后，他又问道：
“‘驯服’是什么意思？”
“你不是这儿的人，”狐狸说，“你在寻找什么？”
“我在找人，”小王子说，“‘驯服’到底是什么意思？”
“人嘛，”狐狸说，“他们有猎枪，他们还打猎。这真是叫人不得安生。他们也养鸡，这是他们唯一的兴趣。你是在找鸡吗？”
“不，”小王子说，“我在找朋友。‘驯服’到底是什么意思？”
“这是个早就被人们遗忘了的行为，”狐狸说，“它的意思是‘建立联系’。”
“‘建立联系’？”
“正是，”狐狸说，“对我来说，你还只是一个小男孩，和成千上万个小男孩一模一样。我不需要你，你也不需要我。对你来说，我也只不过是一只狐狸，和成千上万只狐狸没两样。但是，如果你驯服了我，我们就会彼此需要。对我来说，你就是这世界上的唯一；对你来说，我也会是这世界上的唯一……”
“我开始明白了，”小王子说，“有一朵花……我想，她已经把我驯服了……”
“这是可能的，”狐狸说，“在地球上，什么样的事儿都能撞见。”
“噢，那不是在地球上！”小王子说。
狐狸显得很困惑，也非常好奇。
“在另一个星球上？”
“是的。”
“那个星球上有猎人吗？”
“没有。”
“啊，这可真有意思！那有鸡吗？”
“没有。”
“没有十全十美的事。”狐狸叹了口气。
但狐狸又绕回到了它的那个念头：
“我的生活很单调，”狐狸说，“我捕捉鸡，人捕捉我。所有的鸡都长得一模一样，所有的人也长得一模一样。因此，我感到有点厌倦。但如果你驯服了我，我的生活就仿佛洒满了阳光。 我会辨认出一种与众不同的脚步声。别人的脚步声会让我匆忙躲回地底下，而你的脚步声却会像音乐一样，把我从洞穴里召唤出来。”
“再看那边：你看到那边的麦田了吗？我不吃面包，小麦对我来说毫无用处。麦田也不会对我诉说什么。这真叫人伤心。但是，你有着金色的头发。一旦你驯服了我，那该是多么美妙啊！那金灿灿的麦子，会让我想起你。我甚至会爱上那风吹麦浪的声音……”
狐狸盯着小王子看了很久。
“请——驯服我吧！”它说。
“我很想这么做，”小王子回答道，“但我时间不多了。我还要去寻找朋友，还有许多事物要去了解。”
“人只有驯服了事物，才能真正了解它们，”狐狸说，“人们再也没有时间去了解任何东西了。他们总是到商店里去买现成的东西。但在这个世界上，没有哪家商店能买到友谊，所以人们也就再也没有朋友了。如果你想要一个朋友，那就驯服我吧……”
“那么，我该怎么做呢？”小王子问。
“你必须非常有耐心，”狐狸回答，“首先，你要坐得离我稍微远一点——就像那样——坐在草丛里。我会用余光偷偷地打量你，而你什么也别说。语言是误解的源头。 但是，每一天，你都可以坐得离我更近一点……”
第二天，小王子又来了。
“你最好在相同的时间过来，”狐狸说，“比如说，如果你下午四点来，那么从三点起，我就开始感到幸福。时间越临近，我就越感到幸福。到了四点，我就会坐立不安、跳来跳去。我会让你看看我有多幸福！但如果你随心所欲地在任何时间过来，我就永远不知道该在什么时候准备好我的心情去迎接你……应当有一定的仪式。”
“什么是‘仪式’？”小王子问。
“这也是一种经常被遗忘的行为，”狐狸说，“它使某一天不同于其他日子，使某一时刻不同于其他时刻。 比如说，我的那些猎人就有一种仪式。每个星期四，他们都和村里的姑娘们跳舞。于是，星期四就成了我绝妙的日子！我可以一直散步到葡萄园去。但如果猎人们随心所欲地在任何时间跳舞，每一天都会变得一模一样，我也就永远没有假期了。”
就这样，小王子驯服了狐狸。而当离别的时刻临近时——
“啊，”狐狸说，“我要哭了。”
“这是你自己的错，”小王子说，“我并不想伤害你，但你偏要我驯服你……”
“是的，是这样。”狐狸说。
“可你现在都要哭了！”小王子说。
“是的，是这样。”狐狸说。
“那这对你一点好处也没有！”
“它对我大有好处，”狐狸说，“因为麦田的那种颜色。”接着它又补充道：
“再去看看那些玫瑰吧。你现在会明白，你的那朵玫瑰确实是世界上的唯一。然后回来跟我告别，我会送给你一个秘密作为礼物。”
小王子离开后，又跑去看那些玫瑰。
“你们一点也不像我的那朵玫瑰，”小王子说道，“你们现在什么也不是。没有人驯服过你们，你们也没有驯服过任何人。你们就像我刚认识时的那只狐狸。它那时只不过是一只和成千上万只没两样的狐狸。但我把它当成了朋友，现在它就是世界上的唯一了。”
那些玫瑰听了，显得非常尴尬。
“你们很美，但你们是空虚的，”小王子继续说道，“没有人会为你们去死。当然，一个普通的路人会觉得我的那朵玫瑰长得和你们一样——那朵属于我的玫瑰。但在她一朵花身上，就比你们这成百上千朵玫瑰合在一起还要重要： 因为是我给她浇的水；因为是我把她罩在玻璃罩下；因为是我用屏风保护她；因为是我为了她杀死了毛毛虫（除了留下两三只为了变蝴蝶）；因为当她抱怨、吹牛，甚至有时沉默不语时，我都在听着。因为她是我的玫瑰。”
于是，小王子回到狐狸那里告别。
“再见，”小王子说。
“再见，”狐狸说，“现在，这就是我的秘密，一个非常简单的秘密：只有用心，才能看得清。本质的东西，用眼睛是看不见的。”
“本质的东西，用眼睛是看不见的，”小王子重复着，为了让自己牢牢记住。
“正是你为你的玫瑰付出的时间，才使你的玫瑰变得如此重要。”
“是我为我的玫瑰付出的时间……”小王子重复着，为了让自己牢牢记住。
“人们已经忘记了这个道理，”狐狸说，“可是，你不应该忘记它。你现在 要对你驯服过的一切负责到底。你要对你的玫瑰负责……”
“我对我的玫瑰负有责任，”小王子重复着，为了让自己牢牢记住。
一部分内容摘录自《小王子》。 如有侵权， 请联系作者删除
