小王子Chapter2-2

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 long time.”
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.

但我从未画过一只羊，所以我给他画了我曾经所画的两幅画中的一幅，那是一条从外部结构来画的蟒蛇。然后我被这个小家伙的反应给震惊了，“不不不我不是想要蟒蛇以及被它吞掉的大象，蟒蛇是一种非常危险的生物，而大象是非常笨拙的。在我居住的地方，所有的东西都非常小。我要的是一只羊。给我画一只羊。”
于是我作了一幅画
他小心翼翼地看着它，然后开口了:“不。这只羊病殃殃的。给我另外画一张。”
于是我作了另一幅画
我的朋友毫无顾忌地轻笑起来。
“你看你，”他说，“这不是一只羊(sheep)，这是一只公羊(ram),他有角。”
于是我再作了一幅画
但那仍是不合格的，就像另外几幅一样。“这只太老了，我想要一只能够活很久的羊。”
到这时我的耐心已经消失殆尽，因为我忙着去把我的引擎拆下来。于是我随便画了一幅画甩给他。
然后胡乱扔给他一套解说:
“这只是它的箱子，你要寻找的羊就在这里面。”
我惊讶地发现，喜悦的光芒充满在了我的小评委的脸上
“这正是我想要的!你觉得这只羊会是草的克星吗？”
“什么？”
“因为在我居住的地方，所有的东西都非常小……”
“那里面当然有充足的草供给它吃，”我说，“这就是我给你的，一只非常非常小的羊。”
他歪头端详着这幅画:
“并不是小到足以……看!他睡觉去啦……”
这就是我怎么和这个小王子认识的过程