By 一起读书吧BookBar
The podcast currently has 6 episodes available.
So I lived my life alone, without anyone that I could really talk to, until I had an accident with my plane in the Desert of Sahara, six years ago. Something was broken in my engine. And as I had with me neither a mechanic nor any passengers, I set myself to attempt the difficult repairs all alone. It was a question of life or death for me: I had scarcely enough drinking water to last a week.
The first night, then, I went to sleep on the sand, a thousand miles from any human habitation. I was more isolated than a shipwrecked sailor on a raft in the middle of the ocean. Thus you can imagine my amazement, at sunrise, when I was awakened by an odd little voice. It said:
"If you please−− draw me a sheep!"
"What!"
"Draw me a sheep!"
I jumped to my feet, completely thunderstruck. I blinked my eyes hard. I looked carefully all around me. And I saw a most extraordinary small person, who stood there examining me with great seriousness. Here you may see the best portrait, that, later, I was able to make of him. But my drawing is certainly very much less charming than its model.
That, however, is not my fault. The grown−ups discouraged me in my painter's career when I was six years old, and I never learned to draw anything, except boas from the outside and boas from the inside.
Now I stared at this sudden apparition with my eyes fairly starting out of my head in astonishment. Remember, I had crashed in the desert a thousand miles from any inhabited region. And yet my little man seemed neither to be straying uncertainly among the sands, nor to be fainting from fatigue or hunger or thirst or fear.
Nothing about him gave any suggestion of a child lost in the middle of the desert, a thousand miles from any human habitation. When at last I was able to speak, I said to him:
"But−− what are you doing here?"
And in answer he repeated, very slowly, as if he were speaking of a matter of great consequence: "If you please−− draw me a sheep..."
When a mystery is too overpowering, one dare not disobey. Absurd as it might seem tome, a thousand miles from any human habitation and in danger of death, I took out of my pocket a sheet of paper and my fountain−pen. But then I remembered how my studies had been concentrated on geography, history, arithmetic, and grammar, and I told the little chap （a little crossly, too） that I did not knowhow to draw. He answered me:
"That doesn't matter. Draw me a sheep..."
But I had never drawn a sheep. So I drew for him one of the two pictures I had drawn so often. It was that of the boa constrictor from the outside. And I was astounded to hear the little fellow greet it with,
"No, no, no! I do not want an elephant inside a boa constrictor. A boa constrictor is a very dangerous creature, and an elephant is very cumbersome. Where I live, everything is very small. What I need is a sheep. Draw me a sheep." So then I made a drawing. He looked at it carefully, then he said:
"No. This sheep is already very sickly. Make me another."
So I made another drawing. My friend smiled gently and indulgently.
"You see yourself," he said, "that this is not a sheep. This is a ram. It has horns."
So then I did my drawing over once more. But it was rejected too, just like the others.
"This one is too old. I want a sheep that will live a longtime."
By this time my patience was exhausted, because I was in a hurry to start taking my engine apart. So I tossed off this drawing. And I threw out an explanation with it.
"This is only his box. The sheep you asked for is inside."
I was very surprised to see a light break over the face of my young judge:
"That is exactly the way I wanted it! Do you think that this sheep will have to have a great deal of grass?"
"Why?"
"Because where I live everything is very small..."
"There will surely be enough grass for him," I said. "It is a very small sheep that I have given you." He bent his head over the drawing:
"Not so small that−− Look! He has gone to sleep..." And that is how I made the acquaintance of the little prince.
我就这样孤独地生活着，没有一个能真正谈得来的人，一直到六年前，在撒哈拉沙漠发生了那次飞行意外，我的飞机引擎出了故障，被迫在撒哈拉沙漠降落。当时由于我身边既没有机械师也没有乘客，我只能尝试独自完成这项困难的维修工作。可是我带的水只够饮用一个星期，这对我来说是一个生与死的问题。
第一天晚上，我就睡在这远离人间烟火的大沙漠上，比大海中伏在小木排上的遇难者还要孤独得多。所以你就不难想象，第二天早上，当我被一个奇怪而又微弱的声音唤醒时，我有多惊讶。那个细小的声音说道：
“请你给我画一只羊，好吗？”
“什么！”
“请你......帮我画一只绵羊……”
我仿佛遭受了雷击般一跃而起，我使劲眨了眨眼睛，环顾四周，看见了一个十分奇特的小家伙，他正目不转睛地看着我。这儿有一张他的画像，是我后来尽了最大的努力画的。不过，他本人要比这张画像好看多了。然而这并不是我的错，早在六岁那年，大人们就打消了我想要成为一名画家的念头。我除了画过蟒蛇的外观图和透视图，再没画过别的东西。
我目瞪口呆地站着，看着这个突然出现的像幻影一样的小家伙。别忘了，我当时迫降在方圆千里荒无人烟的大沙漠上。而眼前这个小家伙看起来既不像是在沙漠里迷失了方向，也没有一点疲惫、饥饿或害怕的神情。他丝毫不像一个在大沙漠里迷了路的孩子。当我在惊讶之余终于又能说出话来的时候，我问他：
“你在这儿做什么？”
他并没有回答我的问题，而是缓缓地重复了一遍他刚才说过的话，仿佛在说一件很重要的事情：
“请你……帮我画一只绵羊……”
当一个人被某种神秘力量震慑住的时候，你是不敢不听从它的支配的。在旷无人烟的沙漠上，又面临死亡的威胁，尽管这样的举动让我觉得十分荒诞，我还是从口袋里掏出了一张纸和一支笔。这个时候我才想起，我把主要精力都花在地理、历史、算术和文法这些科目上了，于是我告诉这个小家伙，我不会画画。他回答道：
“没有关系，给我画一只羊吧！”
可是我从来没有画过绵羊，我只画过蟒蛇的外观图和透视图，于是，我就给他画了一张蟒蛇的外观图。
“不是，不是！我不要蟒蛇肚子里的大象。蟒蛇是一种很危险的动物，大象又太笨重，在我住的地方，一切都很小。我只想要一只绵羊，请帮我画一只绵羊。”
我听了他的话，简直目瞪口呆。于是我给他画了这幅图。
他仔细地看了我的画，然后说：
“不，这只羊已经病得很重了。帮我重新画一只。”
于是，我又画了一张。
这次，他微微一笑，用宽容的语气说：“看，你画的不是绵羊，他头上长着犄角，是一头公羊。”
于是我又重新画了一张。
可是，这次的画也遭到了否定，和前几次一样。
“这只太老了。我想要一只能活得久一些的羊。”
这时，我已经没有耐心了，因为我急于要检修飞机的发动机，于是草草又画了一张，丢下一句话：
“这是装羊的箱子，你要的羊在里面。”
然而我却很惊奇地看到我的小评判员脸上露出了欣喜的光芒。
“这正是我想要的，……你说这只羊需要吃很多草吗？”
“为什么这样问？”
“因为在我住的地方，一切都很小……”
“我给你画的是一只很小的小羊，地方小也够喂养它的。”
他弯下头来看着画。
“并不像你说的那么小……看！它睡着了……”
就这样，我认识了小王子。
Once when I was six years old, I saw a magnificent picture in a book, called True Stories from Nature, about the primeval forest.It was a picture of a boa constrictor in the act of swallowing an animal. Here is a copy of the drawing.
In the book it said: "Boa constrictors swallow their prey whole, without chewing it. After that they are not able to move, and they sleep through the six months that they need for digestion." I pondered deeply, then, over the adventures of the jungle. And after some work with a colored pencil I succeeded in making my first drawing. My Drawing Number One. It looked like this:
I showed my masterpiece to the grown-ups, and asked them whether the drawing frightened them. But they answered: "Frighten? Why should anyone be frightened by a hat?" My drawing was not a picture of a hat. It was a picture of a boa constrictor digesting an elephant. But since the grown-ups were not able to understand it, I made another drawing: I drew the inside of the boa constrictor, so that the grown-ups could see it clearly. They always need to have things explained. My Drawing Number Two looked like this:
The grown-ups' response, this time, was to advise me to lay aside my drawings of boa constrictors, whether from the inside or the outside, and devote myself instead to geography, history, arithmetic and grammar. That is why, at the age of six, I gave up what might have been a magnificent career as a painter. I had been disheartened by the failure of my Drawing Number One and my Drawing Number Two. Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.
So then I chose another profession, and learned to pilot airplanes. I have flown a little over all parts of the world; and it is true that geography has been very useful to me. At a glance I can distinguish China from Arizona. If one gets lost in the night, such knowledge is valuable.
In the course of this life I have had a great many encounters with a great many people who have been concerned with matters of consequence. I have lived a great deal among grown-ups. I have seen them intimately, close at hand. And that hasn't much improved my opinion of them.
Whenever I met one of them who seemed to me at all clear-sighted, I tried the experiment of showing him my Drawing Number One, which I have always kept. I would try to find out, so, if this was a person of true understanding. But, whoever it was, he, or she, would always say: "That is a hat." Then I would never talk to that person about boa constrictors, or primeval forests, or stars. I would bring myself down to his level. I would talk to him about bridge, and golf, and politics, and neckties. And the grown−up would be greatly pleased to have met such a sensible man.
当我还只有六岁的时候，在一本描写原始森林的，名叫《真实的故事》的书中看到了一幅扣人心弦的插画，画的是一条蟒蛇正在吞食一只大野兽的情形。看，就是下面这副图。
书上这样写道：“蟒蛇连嚼都不嚼就把捉到的动物整个囫囵吞下，肚子撑得无法动弹，直到他们睡上六个月的长觉消化所有吃进去的食物为止。”
从此，我对丛林中的种种奇遇产生了无穷无尽的遐想。于是，我拿起彩色铅笔勾勒了下面这副画，它便是我的一号作品：
我把这副杰作拿给大人们看，还问他们有没有被我的画吓到。
他们却回答说：“一顶帽子有什么可怕的？”
我画的不是帽子，而是一条蟒蛇正在消化吃进去的大象。于是我就再画了一张蟒蛇的内部透视图，这样大人们就可以看得懂了。这些大人总是需要解释。我的二号作品是这样的：
大人们看完之后，劝我别再画这些蟒蛇图了，无论是外观图还是透视图，要把心思放在好好地念地理、历史、算术和文法上。就这样，在六岁那年，我就放弃了成为一名画家的美好愿望。我对一号作品和二号作品的失败感到沮丧。这些大人从来就不主动去了解任何事情，而对我们小孩儿来说，老是要跟他们再三作出解释，实在是太累了。
后来，我选择了另一个职业，我学会了开飞机。现在，我已经差不多飞遍了全世界各个角落。的确，地理学帮了我大忙，我一眼就可以分辨出中国和美国的亚利桑那州。如果夜航时迷了路，这样的本领很管用。
在这样的职业生涯中，我跟很多重要人物打过交道，我花了许多时间跟很多大人接触，也曾经很仔细地观察他们，但是对他们的看法并没有多大的改变。
无论何时，每当我遇到一个看起来头脑清楚的人，我就会拿出一直保存着的一号作品给他看，我的确想知道，他是否有足够的理解能力。可是，无论男女，看过之后都说：“这是一顶帽子。”于是我就不会再和他们说什么蟒蛇，原始森林，或星星了。我只会谈他们能够理解的事情。譬如谈谈桥牌，高尔夫球，政治，还有领带等等。于是，这个人就会非常高兴能认识我这样一个通情达理，善解人意的人。
I ask the indulgence of the children who may read this book for dedicating it to a grown−up. I have a serious reason: he is the best friend I have in the world. I have another reason: this grown−up understands everything, even books about children. I have a third reason: he lives in France where he is hungry and cold. He needs cheering up. If all these reasons are not enough, I will dedicate the book to the child from whom this grown-up grew. All grown-ups were once children—although few of them remember it. And so I correct my dedication:
TO LEON WERTH
WHEN HE WAS A LITTLE BOY
The podcast currently has 6 episodes available.