The Little Prince

I love listening to audiobooks. Some I have bought, some I have found online through a free site where volunteer readers upload their reading.

One such book I listened to yesterday, abridged version though it was, was that of "The Little Prince".

I was 14 years old when I first had to read that book and I thought I was too mature to read such a childish book and 'what was wrong with the teacher that she would have us sophisticated young women read this silly fantasy???'

The book definitely made an impression and never left me and one day I reopened the book and finally found myself mature enough to really appreciate its content.

My favorite part in the book has always been Chapter 21 when the fox teaches the Little Prince to tame him and the responsibility that comes with it.

Just before they part ways, the fox shares a secret with the boy.

He says: "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… It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important… 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..."

As I was listening to the story my mind wandered back to the previous chapter and I began to associate it with someone I knew a long time ago. And I thought of his wife… his rose.

The Little Prince's rose was capricious and haughty and he felt compelled to go far far away from her because he could not stand being around her any more. When he saw all the other roses he was 'thunderstruck' and then 'overcome with sadness'.

"She would be very much annoyed," he said to himself, "if she should 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 did not do that, to humble myself also, she would really allow herself to die... I thought that I was rich, with a flower that was unique in all the world; and all I had was a common rose..." And he lay down in the grass and cried. (Chapter 20)

Poor Little Prince… Until he goes back to the rose garden and tells the rose what he has finally learned.

" 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."

Maybe some day he'll understand that his rose has tamed him and their life together will be enriched by this understanding. Maybe he'll even tame her a little… (=

I found an online copy of this book in English at http://www.spiritual.com.au/articles/prince/prince_contents.htm.

A better copy in French can be found at http://www.scribd.com/doc/90275/Antoine-de-SaintExupery-Le-Petit-Prince

You can also The Little Princefind a French version of this audiobook at http://petitprince.podomatic.com/