- we are introduced to the narrator (叙述者) , a pilot (飞行员) , and his ideas about grown-ups (成年人)
Once when I was six years old I saw a magnificent (精彩的) picture in a book, called True Stories from Nature, about the primeval forest (原始森林). It was a picture of a boa constrictor (蟒蛇) in the act of swallowing (吞下) an animal.
13.jpg
Here is a copy of the drawing. In the book it said: "Boa constrictors swallow their prey (猎物) whole, without chewing (咀嚼) it. After that they are not able to move, and they sleep through the six months that they need for digestion (消化)."
I pondered (思考) deeply, then, over the adventures (冒险) 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 (杰作) to the grown-ups, and asked them whether the drawing frightened them. But they answered: "Frighten?
14.jpg
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:
15.jpg
The grown-ups' response (回答) , this time, was to advise me to lay aside (搁置) my drawings of boa constrictors, whether from the inside or the outside, and devote myself instead to geography (地理), history, arithmetic (算术) and grammar.{1}
That is why, at the age of six, I gave up what might have been a magnificent career (职业) as a painter. I had been disheartened (使绝望) by the failure of my Drawing Number One and my Drawing Number Two.
Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome (令人厌倦的) for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.{2} So then I chose another profession (职业), and learned to pilot airplanes.
I have flown (fly 的过去分词) 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 (分辨) China from Arizona (美国亚利桑那州). If one gets lost in the night, such knowledge is valuable.
In the course of this life I have had a great many encounters (相遇) with a great many people who have been concerned with matters of consequence (结果). I have lived a great deal among grown-ups. I have seen them intimately (密切地) , 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 (有见解的)，I tried the experiment of showing him my Drawing Number One, which I have always kept.{3} 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 (领带). And the grown-up would be greatly pleased to have met such a sensible (理智的) man.
- the narrator crashes in the desert and makes the acquaintance (认识；结识) of the little prince
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 (撒哈拉沙漠) , six years ago. Something was broken in my engine (发动机).
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 (几乎不) 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 (住所). I was more isolated (孤立的) than a shipwrecked sailor (海上遇难者) on a raft in the middle of the ocean. Thus you can imagine my amazement (吃惊), 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 (吓坏了的) . I blinked (眨眼) my eyes hard. I looked carefully all around me.
And I saw a most extraordinary (非凡的；特别的) small person, who stood there examining me with great seriousness (严肃). Here you may see the best portrait (画像) that, later, I was able to make of him.
05.jpg
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.{4}
Now I stared at this sudden apparition (幻影) with my eyes fairly starting out of my head in astonishment (惊讶). 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 (昏倒) from fatigue (疲劳) 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 (无法抵抗的) , one dare not disobey (违反).
Absurd (荒谬的) as it might seem to me, 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 (钢笔). {5}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 know how 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 (使惊愕) 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 (笨重的).
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."
17.jpg
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 (公羊). It has horns (犄角)." So then I did my drawing over once more. But it was rejected too, just like the others.
