The Eternal Wonder Read Online Free Page A

to come. He was busy with his own concerns. Instinctively he used the word he knew best.
    “No,” he said. “No—no—no.”
    Swiftly he found himself picked up by the tall one.
    “Yes—yes—yes—,” the tall one said.
    This pleasant word was accompanied, to his surprise, by a sharp slap on his bottom. He began immediately to cry. He could cry easily, whenever he liked. Sometimes it helped, sometimes it did not. This time it did not.
    “No, no crying,” the tall one said.
    He looked at the tall one’s face and decided to stop crying. This was learning by knowing. One did not say “no” when a big one said “come” or “yes.”
    HIS REAL INTEREST, HOWEVER, WASnot in such incidental scraps of knowledge. His occupation, self-chosen, was investigation. He was obsessed by the desire to investigate, to open every box, to see if he could close it again after finding what, if anything, was in it, to open every door, to climb the stairs over and over again, to take out of closets the pots and pans, the tins, the boxes, to remove the books from the shelves, to open drawers, to unscrew jars and unstopper bottles. Once he had made a discovery, he saw no reason to replace anything as it had been. He had learned what he wanted to know, he was through with it. He enjoyed emptying drawers and unrolling tissue paper. He liked playing in water and turning it off and on in the bathroom. He saw no reason for his mother’s outcries of horror, but when she said, “No—no, Rannie,” he left whatever he was doing and continued his work elsewhere.
    On his first birthday, which he did not understand, he was diverted by a single candle on the cake and upon learning how to blow it out, he demanded that it be lit again and again, so that he could try to understand what the light was. When the tall one lit the candle for the last time—“No more, Rannie—no, no, no,”—he decided to try another method of finding out what it was. He put his forefinger in the flame—and instantly withdrew it. He was too shocked to cry. Instead he inspected his forefinger, and looked inquiringly at his mother.
    “Hot,” she said.
    “Hot,” he repeated. Then, since he knew, he began to cry because hot was also hurt.
    At this his mother took a bit of ice from her lemonade glass and held it to the now blistering forefinger.
    “Cold,” she said.
    “Cold,” he repeated.
    Now he knew hot and cold. It was hard, this learning, but exciting. When he ate the ice cream, he communicated his knowledge.
    “Cold,” he said.
    He did not know why his two Creatures laughed and clapped their hands.
    “Cold,” they agreed. He had made them happy, he did not know why, but he was happy with himself and he laughed too.
    HE KNEW NOTHING OF TIME but he was always conscious of his own body and its needs, and in this way he became conscious of time. Something in his belly, an emptiness that was almost pain but not quite, was such discomfort that it could only be stopped by food. This necessity divided the day into times. Darkness fell and he grew drowsy. His eyes closed and the mother Creature put him into warm water and warm, soft garments. He drank milk and ate comforting food and then in his bed he tried to play with a toy Creature but his eyes shut. The room was dark but when he opened his eyes again it was light. He got to his feet and shouted for his mother and she came in, all smiles, and lifted him out of the bed and he was washed and fed again and then he went about the business of his day, which still was to investigate everything over and over and pause upon what was new or, if he were alone, to investigate what she always said “no—no” about if she were in the room. Privately he felt no limits to this business of knowing. He had to know.
    One day a new creature came into his knowing. The tall one brought it. It was small and soft, it had four legs, and it made a noise he had not heard before.
    “Erh—erh!” the new creature said.
    “Dog,”