Little
Prince Table of Contents
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.
Go
to Chapter 6
