自学英语——小王子——chapter2

So I lived all a lone, without anyone I could really talk me, until had to make a crash landing in the Sahara Desert six years ago. Something in my plane's engine was broken, and since I had to neither a mechanic nor passengers in the plane with me, I was preparing to undertake the difficult repair job by myself. For me it was a matter for life or death: I had only enough drinking water for eight days.

The first night, then, I went to sleep on the sand a thousand miles from any inhabited country. I was more isolated than a man shipwrecked on a raft in the middle of the ocean. So you can imagine my surprise when I was awakened at daybreak by a funy little voice saying.

"Please... draw me a sheep..."

"What?"

"Draw me a sheep..."

I leaped up as if I had been struck by lighting. I rubbed my eyes hard. I stared. And I saw an extraordinary little fellow staring back me very seriously. Here is the best portrait managed to make of him, later on. But of course my drawing is much less attractive than my model. This is not fault. My career as a painter was discouraged at the age of six by the grown-ups, and I had never learned to draw anything except boa constrictors, outside and inside.

So I stared wide-eyed at this apparition. Don't forget that I was a thousand miles from any inhabited territory. Yet this little fellow seemed to be neither lost or dying of exhaustion, hunger, or thirst; nor did he seem scared to death. There was nothing in his appearence that suggested a child lost in the middle of the desert a thousand miles from any inhabited territory. When i finally managed to speak, I asked him, "But... what are you doing here?"

"And then he repeated, very slowly and very seriously, "Please ... draw me a sheep..."

So then I made a drawing.

He looked at it carefully, and then said. "No. This one is alreadly quite sick. Make another."

I made another drawing. My friend gave me a kind, indulgent smile:

"You can see for yourself... that's not a sheep, it's a ram. It has horns..."

So i made my third drawing, but it was rejected, like the others:

"This one's too old. I want a sheep that will live a long time."

So then, impatiently, since I was in a hurry to start work on my engine, I scribbled this drawing, and added, "This is just a crate. The sheep you want is inside."

But I was amazied to see my young critic's face "That's just the kind I wanted! Do you think this sheep will need a lot of grass?"

"Why?'

"Because where I live, everything is very small..."

"There's sure to be enough, I've given you a very small sheep."

He bent over the drawing:" Not so small as all that... Look! He's goen to sleep..."

And that's how I made the acquaintance of the little prince.