The fox had walked a long way, and the afternoon had turned hot, and somewhere along the lane he had begun to think of nothing but how thirsty he was.
So when he came upon the grapes, he could scarcely believe his luck. They hung in a great purple cluster from a vine that had climbed high along a garden wall, fat and ripe and beaded with the morning’s dew. His mouth watered at the sight of them.
He gathered himself and jumped. He missed.
He backed up, took a running start, and jumped again, higher this time, snapping at the air where the grapes swayed just out of reach. He missed once more.
He tried a third time. He tried a fourth. He tried until his legs ached and his coat was damp and the grapes hung above him, exactly as far away as they had been at the start.
At last he sat down in the dust and looked up at them for a long moment.
“They are sour anyway,” he said. “I could tell from here. Green little things, hardly worth the trouble.”
And he trotted off down the lane with his head held high, as though the whole matter had been beneath him from the very beginning.
It is easy to despise what you cannot have.