We were now at the eighth day after my forced landing, and I listened to the story of the salesman as I swallowed the last of my water. 🔊✎
“Ah!” I said to the little prince, “these things you remember are very pretty, but I still haven’t fixed my plane, I’ve got nothing left to drink, and I’d also be very happy if I could stroll quietly to some fountain!” 🔊✎
“My friend the fox…” he began. 🔊✎
“Kid, this isn’t about the fox!” 🔊✎
“Because soon I’m going to die of thirst…” 🔊✎
He didn’t understand what I meant and replied:
“It’s good to have had a friend, even if you’re going to die. 🔊✎ I’m very happy that the fox was my friend…” 🔊✎
“The danger doesn’t mean anything to him,” I said to myself. 🔊✎ “He’s never hungry or thirsty. 🔊✎ All he needs is a bit of sunlight…” 🔊✎
But he looked at me and answered my thoughts:
“I’m thirsty too. Let’s go find a well.” 🔊✎
I made a tired gesture: what are your chances of just stumbling over a well in the huge Sahara desert? But all the same, we started walking. 🔊✎
We walked for hours in silence, and after a while night fell and the stars started to come out. 🔊✎ I saw them as if I was in a dream, the thirst was making me feverish. 🔊✎ The little prince’s words danced in my memory. 🔊✎
“You’re thirsty too?” I asked him. 🔊✎
But he didn’t answer. He just said:
“Water can be good for the heart as well…” 🔊✎
I didn’t understand what he meant, but I was quiet. 🔊✎ I knew there was no point in asking more questions. 🔊✎ He was tired. He sat down. I sat down next to him. 🔊✎ After another silence, he said:
“The stars are beautiful, because of a flower you can’t see…” 🔊✎
“I guess so,” I said, and without speaking I looked at the folds of sand under the moon. 🔊✎
“The desert is beautiful,” he added… 🔊✎
It was true. I’ve always loved the desert. 🔊✎ You sit down on a sand dune. You don’t see anything. You don’t hear anything. But all the same, something is shining there in the silence… 🔊✎
“What makes the desert so beautiful,” the little prince said, “is that it’s hiding a well somewhere.” 🔊✎
I found to my surprise that I understood this mysterious shining in the sands. 🔊✎ When I was a small boy, I lived in an old house, and people said there was a treasure buried there. 🔊✎ Obviously no one had ever found it or even looked for it. 🔊✎ But it cast a spell over the whole house. 🔊✎ My house hid a secret somewhere in the depths of its heart… 🔊✎
“Yes,” I said to the little prince, “it’s the same with the house and the stars and the desert. 🔊✎ What makes them so beautiful is invisible.” 🔊✎
“I’m so happy,” he said, “that you agree with my fox.” 🔊✎
After a while, since the little prince was falling asleep, I took him in my arms and started walking again. 🔊✎ I felt so moved. 🔊✎ It seemed to me I was carrying something precious and terribly fragile, that there was nothing more fragile in the whole world. 🔊✎ In the moonlight, I looked at his pale forehead, at his closed eyelids, at the locks of hair fluttering in the wind, and I said to myself: “What I see is just a shell. The thing that’s really important is invisible…”
His lips, slightly open, sketched out a half-smile, and I continued my thought: “What moves me so much with this sleeping child is his faithfulness to the flower he loves. 🔊✎ It’s the image of the rose which burns in him like the flame of a lamp, even when he is asleep…” 🔊✎ He seemed even more fragile. You need to be so careful with lamps, a gust of wind can blow them out.