Impossible

What does that mean—“tame”?It is an act too often neglected …It means to establish ties.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 …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 …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 … Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! …Please—tame me!One only understands the things that one tames … there is no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship … If you want a friend, tame me …What must I do to tame you?You must be very patient … 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 …As yet you are nothing. No one has tamed you, and you have tamed no one … But I have made him my friend, and now he is unique in all the world.—Antoine de Saint-Exupéry,

The Little Prince

Chapter 1

The Suvery Gallery in Paris was housed in an impressive building, an elegant eighteenth-century hôtel particulier on the Faubourg St. Honoré. Collectors came there by appointment, through the enormous bronze doors into the courtyard. Straight ahead was the main gallery, to the left the offices of Simon de Suvery, the owner. And to the right was his daughter's addition to the gallery, the contemporary wing. Behind the house was a large elegant garden filled with sculptures, mainly Rodins. Simon de Suvery had been there for more than forty years. His father, Antoine, had been one of the most important collectors in Europe, and Simon had been a scholar of Renaissance paintings and Dutch masters before opening the gallery. Now he was consulted by museums all over Europe, held in awe by private collectors, and admired although often feared by all who knew him.