twenty-four

It had been eight days since my crash in the desert. I was drinking the last of my water while listening to the merchant's story.

"Ah," I said to the little prince, "your memories are lovely, but I haven't fixed my plane yet. I have no more water, and I would be happy too if I could walk slowly to a fresh water spring!"

"My friend the fox—" the little prince said to me.

"My dear little man, this has nothing to do with the fox anymore!" "Why not?"

"Because I am going to die from thirst..."

He didn't understand my point, and he replied: "It's good to have had a friend, even if you're going to die. For example, I'm very happy to have had a fox as a friend..."

"He can't guess the danger," I thought. "He has never been hungry or thirsty. He only needs a bit of sunshine..."

But he looked at me firmly and answered my thought: "I'm thirsty too. Let's look for a well..."

I showed I was tired. It's silly to look for a well by chance in the huge desert. But still, we began to walk.

After walking for hours in silence, it got dark, and the stars appeared. Thirst made me a bit feverish, and I looked at the stars like in a dream. I remembered the little prince's last words: "So you're thirsty too?" I asked.

But he didn't answer my question. He just said: "Water might be good for the heart too..."

I didn't understand, but I stayed quiet. I knew I couldn't question him further.

He was tired. He sat down. I sat next to him. After a short silence, he spoke again: "The stars are beautiful because of a flower you can't see."

I said, "Yes, that's right." And without another word, I looked at the sand dunes in front of us under the moonlight.

"The desert is beautiful," the little prince added.

And that was true. I've always loved the desert. You sit on a sand dune, see nothing, hear nothing. But in the silence, something beats and shines...

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

I was amazed by a sudden insight into the sand's mysterious glow. As a boy, I lived in an old house. Stories said a treasure was buried there. Surely, no one knew how to find it; maybe no one ever looked. But it put a spell on the house. My home hid a secret deep inside...

"Yes," I said to the little prince. "The house, the stars, the desert—their beauty comes from something invisible!"

"I'm glad," he said, "that you agree with my fox."

As the little prince fell asleep, I picked him up and started walking again. I felt very touched and stirred. It seemed like I was carrying a very delicate treasure. I even thought there was nothing more delicate in the world. In the moonlight, I looked at his pale forehead, closed eyes, and hair blowing in the wind. I thought: "What I see here is just a shell. The most important thing is invisible..."

As his lips parted with a hint of a smile, I thought again: "What touches me so much about this sleeping little prince is his loyalty to a flower—the image of a rose that glows through him like a lamp's flame, even when he sleeps..." And I felt he was even more delicate. I felt I must protect him, as if he were a flame that could be blown out by a small breeze...

And as I kept walking, I found the well at dawn.