Day 2 外教原文朗读

Chapter 2

    Thus I lived alone, with no one I could really talk to, until I had an accident in the Sahara Desert six years ago. Something broke down in my engine. And since there was neither a mechanic nor a passenger with me, I prepared myself for a difficult but what I hoped would be a successful repair. It was a matter of life or death for me. I had scarcely enough drinking water for a week.

    On the first night, I fell asleep on the sand, from any human habitation. I was far more isolated than a shipwrecked sailor on a raft in the middle of the ocean .So you can imagine my surprise at sunrise when an odd little voice woke me up.

    It said:‘Please…draw me a sheep.’

    ‘What?’

    ‘Draw me a sheep.’

    I jumped up, completely thunderstruck. I rubbed my eyes, blinked hard and looked carefully around me. And I discovered an extraordinary little boy watching me gravely. Here is the best portrait I was able to draw of him later. But of course, my drawing is not half as charming as its model. It is not my fault. I had been discouraged by grown-ups in my career as a painter when I was six years old, and I hadn’t learnt to draw anything with the exception of boas from the outside and boas from the inside.  

 

   I therefore stared in total astonishment at this sudden apparition. Do not forget that I was away from any inhabited region.

But my little chap did not seem to be either lost or dead tired or dying of hunger, thirst or fear. He did not look like a child lost in the middle of the desert, from any inhabited region.

    When I finally managed to speak, I said to him: ‘But…what are you doing here?’

    Whereupon he repeated softly and gravely: ‘Please draw me a sheep.’

    When a mystery is too overpowering, one dares not disobey. Absurd as it seemed to me from any human habitation and in danger of death, I took a sheet of paper and my fountain pen out of my pocket. But I suddenly remembered that my studies had been concentrated on geography, history, arithmetic and grammar, so I told the little chap （a little crossly） that I did not know how to draw.

    He replied: ‘That doesn’t matter. Draw me a sheep.’

    Since I had never drawn a sheep，I drew for him one of the two pictures I had drawn before. That was the boa constrictor from the outside. And I was astounded to hear the little fellow saying: ‘No! No! I don’t want an elephant inside a boa. A boa constrictor is a very dangerous creature and an elephant is very cumbersome. Everything is very small where I live. I need a sheep. Draw me a sheep.’

    So I drew.

     He looked at it carefully and said: ‘ No. That one is already very sick. Draw me another one.’

    And I drew.

    My little friend said gently and indulgently: ‘Don’t you see that is not a sheep, it is a ram. It has horns…'

    Once again, I made another drawing.

    But it was rejected too, like the previous ones.

    ‘This one is too old. I want a sheep that will live for a long time.’

    My patience had run out by then as I was in a hurry to start dismantling my engine as soon as possible, so I scribbled this drawing. And I explained: ‘That is only the box. The sheep you asked for is inside.’

 
   But I was very surprised to see the face of my young judge lighting up: ‘That is exactly the way I wanted it. Do you think this sheep will need a lot of grass?’

    ‘Why?’

    ‘Because where I live everything is so small…’

    ‘There should be enough grass for him. I have given you a very small sheep.’

    He bent his head over the drawing: ‘ Not so small that … Look. He has gone to sleep.’

    And that is how I met the little prince.