第五章[第5页/共6页]

我对小王子指出说，猴面包树可不是甚么小灌木，而是像城堡那么大的大树，即便是带回一群大象，也啃不了一棵猴面包树。

这一次，我还要再次感激那只绵羊，因为小王子仿佛是非常担忧地问我道：“绵羊吃矮小的灌木，这是真的吗？”

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.

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