小王子 Le Petit Prince‧Chap2

我過著孤單的生活，沒有真正能夠和我交談的人。一直到六年前，有次我的飛機在撒哈拉沙漠發生事故，我的引擎故障了，當時我身邊沒有機械師，也沒有乘客，我準備獨自修理它，這對我來說是關係存亡的問題，因為最後一星期，我連足夠喝的水都沒有。

第一個晚上，我在一千英里內都沒有人煙的沙地上睡覺，比一個遇難的水手乘著木筏在汪洋大海中飄流還孤單。所以你可以想像，我在天快亮時，被一個奇怪的小聲音叫醒是多麼的驚訝，那個小聲音說：「請你......畫一隻綿羊給我！」
「什麼！」
「畫隻綿羊給我！」
我跳了起來，完全愣住。我努力的眨了眨眼，仔細的打量我的四周，然後看到一個十分奇特的小人兒，站在那嚴肅地審視我。
這就是你能看到我描繪他最好的一張畫了，當然我的模特兒比我的畫好看多了。不過這不是我的錯，我當畫家的志業在六歲時就被大人們給挫傷了，而除了那些大蟒蛇跟大蟒蛇內部的畫之外，我沒再試著畫過什麼。

這時我對突然出現在我眼前的小人感到十分驚愕，還記得我是墜落在一千英里內毫無人煙的沙漠區嗎？但我的小人兒看來既不像是在沙漠迷路，也沒有疲倦、挨餓、飢渴或害怕的樣子。他就像是一個失蹤在沙漠裡的孩子，等到我終於講得出話來時，我說：「但是......你在這兒幹什麼？」

他慢慢地重複說：「請你......畫隻綿羊給我......」，好像那是件很重要的事。

當一個謎團太強烈時，我們大多不敢違抗。對我來說那真是荒謬，在一千英里內沒有人煙的地方，面對生死存亡的威脅，我從口袋裡掏出了我的鋼筆和一張紙。然後我想起我學習專攻都在地理、歷史、算術和文法方面，於是有點不高興地跟那小孩說：我不懂畫畫。

他答說：「沒有關係，畫隻綿羊給我。」

我從沒畫過綿羊，所以我替他畫了我曾畫的兩張畫當中的一張，那張從外面看的蟒蛇。但當我聽到小傢伙接過畫之後的答話，我獃住了，他說：「不！不！我不要一隻裝有大象的蟒蛇。蟒蛇是很危險的，還有象太大了，我住的地方很小很小，我需要的是隻綿羊，畫一隻綿羊給我。」於是我畫了一張。

他看了之後說：「不！這隻病得很嚴重了，畫隻別的。」
所以我又畫了另一張。

我的朋友笑著說：「你看見了....這不是綿羊，這是隻公山羊。牠有角......。」
我又重新畫了一張。

但是跟之前一樣，又被拒絕了。
「這隻太老了，我要隻活得很久的綿羊。」
這時我耐性盡失，因為我急著要動手拆開我的引擎，我把這張畫丟給他說：「這只是箱子，你所要的綿羊就在裡面。」

沒想到我這位年輕的審判官卻容光煥發地說：「這就是我要的，你認為要給這隻綿羊很多草嗎？」
「為什麼？」
「因為我住的地方很小…」
「一點點就夠了，我給你的是一隻很小的綿羊。」我說。
他把頭挨近那張畫。
「不像你所說的那樣小......看！他睡著了......。」
這就是我認識小王子的經過。

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 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. 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 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.

註：《小王子》是法國童話，法文原書名為Le Petit Prince，作者是聖艾修伯里，1943年在紐約出版，被譯成超過 180種語言，銷售量超過8千萬冊，還有拍成電影和動畫片、改編成話劇和音樂劇演出。
圖片出處：http://www.odaha.com/