|
Chapter 5
As each day passed I would learn, in our talk, something about the
little prince's planet, his departure from it, his journey. The information
would come very slowly, as it might chance to fall from his thoughts. It
was in this way that I heard, on the third day, about the catastrophe of
the baobabs.
This time, once more, I had the sheep to thank for it. For the
little prince asked me abruptly-- as if seized by a grave doubt-- "It is
true, isn't it, that sheep eat little bushes?"
"Yes, that is true."
"Ah! I am glad!"
I did not understand why it was so important that sheep should
eat little bushes. But the little prince added:
"Then it follows that they also eat baobabs?"
I pointed out to the little prince that baobabs were not little
bushes, but, on the contrary, trees as big as castles; and that even if
he took a whole herd of elephants away with him, the herd would not eat
up one single baobab.
The idea of the herd of elephants made the little prince laugh.
"We would have to put them one on top of the other," he said.
But he made a wise comment:
"Before they grow so big, the baobabs start out by being little."
"That is strictly correct," I said. "But why do you want the sheep
to eat the little baobabs?"
He answered me at once, "Oh, come, come!", as if he were speaking
of something that was self-evident. And I was obliged to make a great mental
effort to solve this problem, without any assistance.
Indeed, as I learned, there were on the planet where the little
prince lived-- as on all planets-- good plants and bad plants. In consequence,
there were good seeds from good plants, and bad seeds from bad plants.
But seeds are invisible. They sleep deep in the heart of the earth's darkness,
until some one among them is seized with the desire to awaken. Then this
little seed will stretch itself and begin-- timidly at first-- to push
a charming little sprig inoffensively upward toward the sun. If it is only
a sprout of radish or the sprig of a rose-bush, one would let it grow wherever
it might wish. But when it is a bad plant, one must destroy it as soon
as possible, the very first instant that one recognizes it.
Now there were some terrible seeds on the planet that was the
home of the little prince; and these were the seeds of the baobab. The
soil of that planet was infested with them. A baobab is something you will
never, never be able to get rid of if you attend to it too late. It spreads
over the entire planet. It bores clear through it with its roots. And if
the planet is too small, and the baobabs are too many, they split it in
pieces...
"It is a question of discipline," the little prince said to me later
on. "When you've finished your own toilet in the morning, then it is time
to attend to the toilet of your planet, just so, with the greatest care.
You must see to it that you pull up regularly all the baobabs, at the very
first moment when they can be distinguished from the rosebushes which they
resemble so closely in their earliest youth. It is very tedious work,"
the little prince added, "but very easy."
And one day he said to me: "You ought to make a beautiful drawing,
so that the children where you live can see exactly how all this is. That
would be very useful to them if they were to travel some day. Sometimes,"
he added, "there is no harm in putting off a piece of work until another
day. But when it is a matter of baobabs, that always means a catastrophe.
I knew a planet that was inhabited by a lazy man. He neglected three little
bushes..."
So, as the little prince described it to me, I have made a drawing of
that planet. I do not much like to take the tone of a moralist. But the
danger of the baobabs is so little understood, and such considerable risks
would be run by anyone who might get lost on an asteroid, that for once
I am breaking through my reserve. "Children," I say plainly, "watch out
for the baobabs!"
My friends, like myself, have been skirting this danger for a
long time, without ever knowing it; and so it is for them that I have worked
so hard over this drawing. The lesson which I pass on by this means is
worth all the trouble it has cost me.
Perhaps you will ask me, "Why are there no other drawing in this
book as magnificent and impressive as this drawing of the baobabs?"
The reply is simple. I have tried. But with the others I have
not been successful. When I made the drawing of the baobabs I was carried
beyond myself by the inspiring force of urgent necessity.
To Main Page
To Table of Contents
Next Chapter Previous
Chapter
|
|
|