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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 boaconstrictor 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 any one 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.
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，看到了一副精彩的插画，
画的是一条蟒蛇正在吞食一只大野兽。
页头上就是那副画的摹本。
这本书中写道：“这些蟒蛇把它们的猎获物不加咀嚼地囫囵吞下。”
尔后就不能再动弹了；它们就在长长的六个月的睡眠中消化这些食物。
当时，我对丛林中的奇遇想得很多。
于是，我也用彩色铅笔画出了我的第一副图画。
我的第一号作品。
它是这样的： 我把我的这副杰作拿给大人看，我问他们我的画是不是叫他们害怕。
他们回答我说：“一顶帽子有什么可怕的？”
我画的不是帽子，
是一条巨蟒在消化着一头大象。
但由于大人们无法理解它,我做了另一个图:
于是我又把巨蟒肚子里的情况画了出来，以便让大人们能够看懂。
这些大人总是需要解释。
我的第二号作品是这样的：
大人们劝我把这些画着开着肚皮的，或闭上肚皮的蟒蛇的图画放在一边，
还是把兴趣放在地理、历史、算术、语法上。
就这样，在六岁的那年，我就放弃了当画家这一美好的职业。