The Little Prince (92)

The Little Prince (92)

  He was tired.
  He sat down.

  I sat down beside him.

  And after a little silence, he spoke again :
  " This stars are beautiful, because of a flower that cannot be seen. "

  I replied, " Yes, that is so. "
  And, without saying anything more, I looked across the ridges of sand that were stretching out before us in the moonlight.

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

  And that was true. I have always loved the desert. One sits down on a desert and dune, sees nothing, hears nothing. Yet through the silence something throbs, and gleams. . .

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

  I was astonished by a sudden understanding of that mysterious radiation of the sands. When I was a little boy I lived in an old house, and legend told us that a treasure was buried there. To be sure, no one had ever known how to find it ; perhaps no one had ever even looked for it. But it cast an enchantment over that house. My home was hiding a secret in the depth of its heart. . .

(92)