CHAPTER 23 – WELL

“What makes the desert beautiful,“ said the little prince, “is that it hides a well somewhere.”

I agreed with the little prince. When I was a little boy, we lived in an old house, and there was a story. The story said that the house had a treasure somewhere in the floor. Of course, nobody was able to find the treasure. Mayby, nobody was really looking for it. But that treasure made the house special. My home was hiding a secret.”

“Yes,” I said to the little prince, “it can be a house or the stars or the desert. What makes them beautiful, is invisible!”

“I’m glad,” he said, “that you agree with my fox.”

When the little prince fell asleep, I took him in my arms and I started walking again. I was full of emotions. It looked to me that I was carrying a great treasure. In the light of the moon, I looked at his white face, his closed eyes, his golden hair which moved in the wind. And I said to myself, “What I see here is only a shell. What is most important, we can’t see.”

And when his mouth opened a little with a smile, I said to myself again, “What is so amazing about this sleeping little prince is his loyalty to a flower. I could see a picture of a rose which shines from his heart, even when he sleeps.”

I felt that I had to protect this light. The wind could take it away.

We continued walking like that and, in the morning, we found the well.

The little prince woke up and he said, “People get on their express trains, but they don’t know what they are looking for. Then they are excited and they start to run around in cirles. It’s not necessary.”

The well wasn’t like the wells of the Sahara. The wells of the Sahara are only holes in the sand. This one looked more like a village well. But there was no village here, and I thought that I was in a dream.

“It’s strange,” I said to the little prince, “everything is ready, the bucket, the rope.”

He laughed, he took the rope, and he let the bucket go down the well. As the bucket went down, we heard some interesting sound.

“Can you hear it?” said the little prince. “We woke up the well and the well is singing.”