Respuestas
Respuesta:
CHAPTER 1
To Leon Werth:
I apologize to the children for having dedicated this book to an older person. I have a serious excuse: this older person is the best friend I have in the world. I have another excuse: this older person is capable of understanding everything, even children's books. I have a third excuse: this elderly person lives in France, where he is hungry and cold. You really need comfort. If all these excuses weren't enough, I may as well dedicate this book to the boy who was once this older person. All the elders have been children first. (But few remember it). So I correct my dedication:
TO LEON WERTH
WHEN I WAS A CHILD
I
When I was six years old, I saw in a book about the virgin forest called "Living Stories", a magnificent picture. It represented a boa snake that swallowed a beast.
In the book it was stated: "The boa snake swallows its prey whole, without chewing it. Then it can no longer move and sleeps during the six months that its digestion lasts."
I reflected a lot at that time on the adventures of the jungle and at the same time I managed to trace my first drawing with a colored pencil. My number 1 drawing was like this:
Drawing 1
I showed my artwork to older people and asked them if my drawing scared them.
"Why should a hat scare you?"
My drawing did not represent a hat. It represented a boa snake that digests an elephant. So I drew the inside of the boa snake so that older people could understand. These people always need explanations. My drawing number 2 looked like this:
Older people advised me to abandon the drawing of boa snakes, whether open or closed, and put more interest in geography, history, calculus, and grammar. In this way, at the age of six, I abandoned a magnificent career as a painter. I had been disappointed by the failure of my drawings number 1 and number 2. Older people can never understand something on their own and it is very boring for children to have to explain them over and over again.
So I had to choose another profession and I learned to fly airplanes. I have flown a little around the world and geography, indeed, has served me well; at first glance he could perfectly distinguish China from Arizona. This is very useful, especially if you lose one during the night.
Throughout my life I have had many contacts with many serious people. I lived a lot with older people and have known them very closely; but this has not greatly improved my opinion of them.
When I have met someone who seemed a bit lucid to me, I have subjected him to the experience of my drawing number 1 that I have always kept. I wanted to know if he was truly understanding. And invariably they always answered me: "It's a hat." I refrained from talking to them about the boa snake, the virgin forest and the stars. Catching up with them, I talked to them about bridge, golf, politics, and ties. And my interlocutor was very happy to meet such a reasonable man.
Explicacion
este es el primer capitulo. en ingles