I lived all alone, without anyone I could really talk to, until I made a crash landing in the Sahara Desert six years ago. Something in my plane's engine had broken. Since I had neither a mechanic nor passengers in the plane with me, I was preparing to undertake the difficult repair job by myself. For me, it was a matter of life or death: I had only enough drinking water for eight days.
The first night, then, I went to sleep on the sand a thousand miles from any inhabited country. I was more isolated than a man shipwrecked on a raft in the middle of the ocean. So you can imagine my surprise when I was awakened at daybreak by a funny little voice saying, "Please... draw me a sheep..."
"What?" I replied. "Draw me a sheep..." I leaped up as if I had been struck by lightning. I rubbed my eyes hard. I stared. And I saw an extraordinary little fellow staring back at me very seriously. Here is the best portrait I managed to make of him, later on.
But of course, my drawing is much less attractive than my model. This is not my fault. My career as a painter was discouraged at the age of six by the grown-ups, and I had never learned to draw anything except boa constrictors, outside and inside.
So I stared wide-eyed at this apparition. Don't forget that I was a thousand miles from any inhabited territory. Yet this little fellow seemed to be neither lost nor dying of exhaustion, hunger, or thirst; nor did he seem scared to death. There was nothing in his appearance that suggested a child lost in the middle of the desert a thousand miles from any inhabited territory.
When I finally managed to speak, I asked him, "But... what are you doing here?" And then he repeated, very slowly and very seriously, "Please... draw me a sheep..." When you encounter an overpowering mystery, you don't dare disobey. Absurd as it seemed, a thousand miles from all inhabited regions and in danger of death, I took a piece of paper and a pen out of my pocket.
But then I remembered that I had mostly studied geography, history, arithmetic, and grammar, and I told the little fellow (rather crossly) that I didn't know how to draw. He replied, "That doesn't matter. Draw me a sheep."
Since I had never drawn a sheep, I made him one of the only two drawings I knew how to make - the one of the boa constrictor from outside. And I was astounded to hear the little fellow answer: "No! No! I don't want an elephant inside a boa constrictor. A boa constrictor is very dangerous, and an elephant would get in the way. Where I live, everything is very small. I need a sheep. Draw me a sheep."
So then I made a drawing. He looked at it carefully, and then said, "No. This one is already quite sick. Make another." I made another drawing. My friend gave me a kind, indulgent smile: "You can see for yourself... that's not a sheep, it's a ram. It has horns..."
So I made my third drawing, but it was rejected, like the others: "This one's too old. I want a sheep that will live a long time." So then, impatiently, since I was in a hurry to start work on my engine, I scribbled this drawing, and added, "This is just the crate. The sheep you want is inside."
But I was amazed to see my young critic's face light up. "That's just the kind I wanted! Do you think this sheep will need a lot of grass?" "Why?" "Because where I live, everything is very small..." "There's sure to be enough. I've given you a very small sheep."
He bent over the drawing. "Not so small as all that..." Look! He's gone to sleep...
And that's how I made the acquaintance of the little prince.
