The Eternal Wonder Read Online Free

to touch. He liked to hold and to touch. He liked also to taste, which after all was only touching with his tongue. When he found this way of knowing, he put everything in his mouth or if it were too big, then to his mouth. That was how he found out about taste. Everything had a taste as well as a surface for touch. He began to know more and more, because it was instinct to learn and so to know.
    HE BECAME ENTIRELY DEVOTED TOthe business of learning, and as part of this business it became necessary to move. He had found that if he put one hand in front of the other, one after the other, his knees followed. The narrow pen became too small to contain him. He felt impelled to get out, to go into the beyond and he cried, he shouted, using his voice to have his way until he was lifted out and into the beyond. Then on hands and knees he explored. When he reached a chair or table leg, his instinct to climb moved him to pull himself up to a greater height. At first he did not know what to do. He was on his feet, holding on to something with his hands, but what came next he did not know. True, he saw what other Creatures did, but he did not know how they did it. There was also the danger of falling. He had tried letting go with his hands and immediately he sat down so suddenly on the floor that he had felt it necessary to cry so that the Creature came and took him in her arms to comfort him. He did not know that nothing is permanent. Everything began with not knowing. He had to learn that he could try again and this began by instinct impelling him to continue to try.
    The Creature helped him now. She held him by both hands and drew him to his feet. Then pulling him gently toward her, he found that by instinct one foot followed another and he moved. He could move! Never again would he be content to be contained in a space. He was a free Creature like the other Creatures. True, he still fell now and then, sometimes with pain, but he learned to push himself to his feet and start again.
    This was new pleasure. He had no wish or will to go anywhere, to reach any goal but simply to keep on his feet and move. True, he was often attracted by some object to stop, to see, to feel, to touch, to taste, to learn by all such means what an object was and what its use. Once he knew, instinct moved him on to something new. Gradually he learned to balance himself so that he did not fall, or not so often.
    MEANWHILE HE FOUND IT NECESSARY to make noises. His voice he had discovered almost immediately after he had emerged from the private sea, for instinctively he had cried from pain. Pain had taught him to make a noise of protest. Then he had learned laughter. He used both of these noises every day and often. But there were other noises of the voice. The Creatures used their voices constantly, sometimes for laughter, but also for other sounds. They used a certain noise for him, for example. It was the first special noise he learned, the first constant, the first word—his name, Randolph, Rannie. This word was most often used with a few others, again connected with pain or pleasure. They were two short words, “no” and “yes.” No, Rannie—yes, Rannie—meant pain or pleasure. Words could not be learned by instinct. They could only be learned by experience. At first he had disregarded them. No meant nothing to him. But he soon found that, if he disregarded it, it was followed by pain, a sudden slap of his hand, or on his bottom. He learned then to pause when he heard the word “no,” especially when it was followed by “Rannie,” which meant him. He learned that everyone had a special word. He learned “Mama,” he learned “Papa.” They were the Creatures to whom he belonged and who belonged to him. They were the ones who said no and yes to him. They also said “come.” He began to know by learning when to use “no” and “yes” himself. One day they said, “Come, Rannie, come, come.” It happened that at this moment he did not want