CHAPTER 23 – WELL

“The desert is beautiful,“ says the little prince, “because it hides a well somewhere.”

I agree with the little prince. When I am a little boy, we live in an old house. And people say a story about the house. The story says that the house has a treasure somewhere in the floor. Of course, nobody can find the treasure. Maybe, nobody is really looking for it. But this treasure makes the house special. My home is hiding a secret.

“Yes,” I say to the little prince, “what is beautiful, we can’t see!”

“I am happy,” he says, “that you agree with my fox.”

Then the little prince starts to sleep. I take him in my arms. I start to walk again.

I am full of emotions. I am holding the little prince. I feel that I am holding a great treasure. In the moonlight, I look at his white face, his closed eyes, his golden hair which moves in the wind. And I think, “What I see here is only a shell. What is most important, we don’t see.”

And when his mouth opens a little with a smile, I think again, “What is so beautiful about this little prince is his relationship with his flower. I can see a picture of a rose which shines from his heart when he sleeps.”

I feel that I have to protect this light. The wind can take the light away.

I continue to walk. And in the morning, I see the well.

The little prince wakes up and he says, “People get on their trains, but they don’t know what they are looking for. People run around. It is not necessary.”

The well is not like the wells of the Sahara. The wells of the Sahara are only holes in the sand. This well looks more like a village well. But there is no village here. And I think that I am in a dream.

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

The little prince laughs. He takes the rope. And he lets the bucket go down the well. When the bucket is going down, we hear some interesting sound.

“Can you hear it?” says the little prince. “The well is singing.”