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Imagination is more important than knowledge.—Albert Einstein
想象力比知识更重要。——阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦
“Draw me a sheep!”
I jumped to my feet, completely thunderstruck.① I looked carefully all around me. And I saw a most extraordinary small person, who stood there examining me with great seriousness.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 staring 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 tiredness 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.②When 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.③ Absurd as it might seem to me, I took out of my pocket a sheet of paper and my fountain-pen. 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 from the outside. And I was surprised to hear the little fellow greet it with, “No, no, no! I do not want an elephant inside a boa. The are too big. 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. Thi sheep is already very sick. Make me another.”
So I made another drawing.
My friend smiled gently. “You see yourself,” he said, “that this is not a sheep. Thi is a ram.It has horns.”
So then I did my drawing over once more.
But it was rejected too, just like the others. “Thi 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 drawin. And I threw out an explanation with it.
“Thi is only his box. Th sheep you asked for is inside.”
“Tha 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.
(Selected from Chapter 3 of The Little Princ )
(540 words)
① I jumped to my feet, completely thunderstruck. 我像是受到惊雷轰击一般，一下子就站立起来。
jump to one’s feet一跃而起
② Nothing about him gave any suggestion of a child lost in the middle of the desert, a
thousand miles from any human habitation. 他丝毫不像是一个迷失在旷无人烟的大沙漠中的孩子。
suggestion of... ……的迹象
③ When a mystery is too overpowering, one dare not disobey. 当一种神秘的东西把你镇住的时候，你是不敢不听从它的支配的。
overpowering adj. 过于强大的
1. How did the author feel when he firs met the small person?
A. Indifferent B. Delighted.C. Surprised. D. Frightened.
2. Th author didn’t learn to draw anything when he was young because
A. adults didn’t think he was a good painter
B. he could draw nothing well but boas
C. his drawing was less charming than its model
D. the small person was not satisfie with his drawings
3. How do you understand the underlined sentence in Paragraph 11?
A. I drew it angrily.B. I finishe it quickly.
C. I drew it badly.D. I painted it carefully.
4. Which picture did the small person feel satisfied
A. A sheep with healthy body.B. A sheep with horns.
C. A sheep with long life.D. A box with a sheep inside.
5. According to the text, how did the author make the acquaintance of the little prince? (in 35 words)
What do you think of the little prince? Do you want to become his friend? Why or why not?