“拴住它?多么奇特的主张啊!”
"Oh! That is funny!"
“是的。”我谦逊地答道。
这时,我俄然有点明白他为甚么会在这里,对于他奥秘呈现这个费解的奥妙,我模糊发明了一点线索。因而,我间断了他的发问,迫不及待地问道:“你是从另一个星球上来的吗?”
The first time he saw my airplane, for instance (I shall not draw my airplane; that would be much too complicated for me), he asked me: "What is that object""That is not an object. It flies. It is an airplane. It is my airplane." And I was proud to have him learn that I could fly.
After a reflective silence he answered: "The thing that is so good about the box you have given me is that at night he can use it as his house.""That is so. And if you are good I will give you a string, too, so that you can tie him during the day, and a post to tie him to."But the little prince seemed shocked by this offer: "Tie him! What a queer idea!"“But if you don’t tie him,” I said, “he will wander off somewhere, and get lost.”
It took me a long time to learn where he came from. The little prince, who asked me so many questions, never seemed to hear the ones I asked him. It was from words dropped by chance that, little by little, everything was revealed to me.
“这没有甚么干系,我那边统统都很小很小。”
“如果你不拴住它,”我说,“它就到处跑,会跑丢的。”
Chapter 3
My friend broke into another peal of laughter: "But where do you think he would go""Anywhere. Straight ahead of him."Then the little prince said, earnestly: "That doesn’t matter. Where I live, everything is so small!"And, with perhaps a hint of sadness, he added: "Straight ahead of him, nobody can go very far..."