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Chapter five

Every day I’d learn something about the little prince’s planet, about his departure, about his journey. It would come quite gradually, in the course of his remarks.

This was how I learned, on the third day, about the drama of the baobabs.

This time, too, I had the sheep to thank, for suddenly the little prince asked me a question, as if overcome by a grave doubt.

“Isn’t it true that sheep eat bushes?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Ah! I’m glad.”

I didn’t understand why it was so important that sheep should eat bushes.

But the little prince added:

“And therefore they eat baobabs, too?”

I pointed out to the little prince that baobabs are not bushes but trees as tall as churches, and that even if he took a whole herd of elephants back to his planet, that herd couldn’t finish off a single baobab.

The idea of the herd of elephants made the little prince laugh.

“We’d have to pile them on top of one another.”

But he observed perceptively:”Before they grow big, baobabs start out by being little.”

“True enough! But why do you want your sheep to eat little baobabs?”

He answered, “Oh, come on! You know!” as if we were talking about something quite obvious. And I was forced to make a great mental effort to understand this problem all by myself.

And, in fact, on the little prince’s planet there were - as on all planets - good plants and bad plants. The good plants come from good seeds, and the bad plants from bad seeds. But the seeds are invisible.

They sleep in the secrecy of the ground until one of them decides to wake up. Then it stretches and begins to sprout, quite timidly at first, a charming, harmless little twig reaching toward the sun.

If it’s a radish seed, or a rosebush seed, you can let it sprout all it likes. But if it’s the seed of a bad plant, you must pull the plant up right away, as soon as you can recognize it.

As it happens, there were terrible seeds on the little prince’s planet… baobab seeds. The planet’s soil was infested with them. Now if you attend to a baobab too late, you can never get rid of it again. It overgrows the whole planet.

Its roots pierce right through. And if the planet is too small, and if there are too many baobabs, they make it burst into pieces.

“It’s a question of discipline,” the little prince told me later on. “When you’ve finished washing and dressing each morning, you must tend your planet.

You must be sure you pull up the baobabs regularly, as soon as you can tell them apart from the rosebushes, which they closely resemble when they’re very young. It’s very tedious work, but very easy.

” And one day he advised me to do my best to make a beautiful drawing, for the edification of the children where I live.

“If they travel someday,” he told me, “it could be useful to them. Sometimes there’s no harm in postponing your work until later. But with baobabs, it’s always a catastrophe.

I knew one planet that was inhabited by a lazy man. He had neglected three bushes…”

So, following the little prince’s instructions, I have drawn that planet.

I don’t much like assuming the tone of a moralist. But the danger of baobabs is so little recognized, and the risks run by anyone who might get lost on an asteroid are so considerable,

that for once I am making an exception to my habitual reserve. I say, “Children, watch out for baobabs!”

It’s to warn my friends of a danger of which they, like myself, have long been unaware that I worked so hard on this drawing.

The lesson I’m teaching is worth the trouble. You may be asking, “Why are there no other drawings in this book as big as the drawing of the baobabs?

” There’s a simple answer: I tried but I couldn’t manage it. When I drew the baobabs, I was inspired by a sense of urgency.