and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.

at the age of six, I gave up what might have been a magnificent career as a painter.

So then I chose another profession, and learned to pilot airplanes.

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.

If you please– draw me a sheep!

If you please– draw me a sheep!

But– what are you doing here?

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 I had never drawn a sheep.

So I drew for him the boa constrictor from the outside.

I do not want an elephant inside a boa constrictor.

What I need is a sheep.

If you please, draw me a sheep.

This sheep is already very sickly.

Make me another

You see yourself,

This is not a sheep. This is a ram.

It has horns.

This one is too old.

I want a sheep that will live a long time.

This is only his box.

The sheep you asked for is inside.

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

It is a very small sheep that I have given you.

Not so small that

Look! He has gone to sleep. . .

And that is how I made the acquaintance of the little prince.