draw me a little sheep too!

An extract from ‘The Little Prince’ by Antoine De Saint-Exupery:

…I therefore stared in total astonishment at this sudden apparition. Do not forget that I was a thousand miles 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, a thousand miles 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 dare not disobey. Absurd as it seemed to me a thousand miles 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 of 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, so I scribbled a box with some holes in it. 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…