第一章[第2頁/共4頁]

小時候，當時我還隻要6歲，看到一本描述原始叢林壯觀氣象的書，名叫《實在的故事》。書裡有一幅很出色的插畫，畫的是一條大蟒蛇正在吞食一隻植物，上麵就是那幅插畫的覆成品。

但是，我畫的不是一頂帽子，畫裡代表的是一條蟒蛇正在消化著一頭大象。為了讓這些大人們能夠瞭解，我隻好又畫了一張畫：我把大蟒蛇肚子裡的環境畫了出來――這些大人們老是需求解釋。我的第二號作品是如許的：

我把這幅佳構拿給大人們看，我問他們我的畫是否讓他們感到驚駭。

以是從當時起，我挑選了彆的一個職業，我學會了開飛機。我幾近飛遍了天下的每個角落。的確，地理學對我非常有效。飛過天下各地的我一眼就能辯白出中國和亞利桑那州。如果夜裡丟失了航向，如許的知識是很有代價的。

Chapter 1

The grown-ups' response, this time, was to advise me to lay aside my drawings of boa constrictors, whether from the inside or the outside, and devote myself instead to geography, history, arithmetic and grammar. That is why, at the age of six, I gave up what might have been a magnificent career as a painter. I had been disheartened by the failure of my Drawing Number One and my Drawing Number Two. Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.

In the course of this life I have had a great many encounters with a great many people who have been concerned with matters of consequence. I have lived a great deal among grown-ups. I have seen them intimately, close at hand. And that hasn't much improved my opinion of them.