The Eternal Wonder (3 page)

WHEN HE WOKE FROM SLEEP,
he was in his crib, lying on his right side. He turned on his back and then on his left side. With a desire new to him, he felt impelled to his right side and, still impelled, to turn onto his stomach. Then because his face was pressed against the bed, he was impelled to lift his head. Everything looked new and different, as though he had never been here before. He seemed to be gazing from a height. Moreover, he could turn his head to one side and another. He was constantly being surprised like this. Now he heard a loud cry and felt himself swept up into the arms of the Creature, she who could inflict such pain that he had wept himself to sleep. But this was pleasure he was feeling, a new sort of pleasure, having nothing to do with food. If he had felt inner pain, he was now pervaded by inner pleasure. He belonged to her again. He felt himself enfolded and attached again. She was making sounds, he felt her lips on his cheeks, in his neck. She called and another Creature came and stared at him. He looked from one to the other, feeling attached to them both. This was instinct again. He did not know them nor why he felt a part of them. But it was pleasurable. He felt his mouth move, his lips waver by instinct, he made a new sound and he heard cries of joy and surprise from the two others.

AFTER THIS HE FELT HIMSELF CHANGING
almost daily. What seemed impossible to do, he felt impelled to do. It became entirely natural when he was in his crib to roll over onto his stomach and lift his head. Then he pushed himself up and his world grew bigger. He could see outside the crib. In a few days, how many he did not know, for he was still impelled by instinct, he found that he could also raise his body to his knees. On hands and knees he rocked back and forth, feeling motion throughout his body. It was pleasurable, and he did it again and again. After this, the days moved quickly. Instinct moved more and more swiftly to knowledge. Now it was a matter of habit to get on his hands and knees. He knew how to do it, and it was no longer enough. Instinct persuaded him to move forward, putting one hand in front of the other, his knees following, and then when he reached the limits of the crib, or the place the Creature put him by day, since he could go no farther, he grasped the wooden slats and pulled himself upward.

Now he was really at a height. At such a height everything, the whole world, looked different. He was no longer beneath. He was above. He was high above the world and he laughed with joy.

PRESSING HIS FACE BETWEEN THE SLATS
, he saw the Creatures, those with whom he belonged, one or two, moving here and there. Instinct stirred in him, but it was also knowledge. He had many ways now of knowing. He watched with his eyes, he had seen without knowing at first, but now knowing came, when he continued to see—spoon, plate, cup—instead of breast, these, too, he knew were for feeding. He was learning to know. More time was spent now in learning than in instinctive movements. He was surrounded by things. Each of these had to be learned about, how it felt in his hands, or if it were too big to hold, then 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
TO
the 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 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,
WAS
not 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,” the tall one explained.

But he was afraid of Dog and he drew back and put his hands behind his back.

“Erh—erh—erh,” Dog said.

“See, Rannie’s dog,” the tall one said.

He took Rannie’s hand in his and smoothed Dog.

“Dog,” Rannie said, and was no longer afraid. This was new knowing. Dog had to be examined and his tail pulled. Why a tail?

“No—no,” the mother said. “Don’t hurt Dog.”

“Hurt?” Rannie repeated, puzzled.

She pulled Rannie’s ear sharply. “Hurt, no—no,” she repeated. “See, like this—”

She smoothed dog gently, and Rannie, after watching, did the same. Suddenly Dog licked his hand. He drew back.

“Dog—no, no,” he exclaimed.

The mother laughed. “He likes you—nice dog,” she said.

DAY BY DAY HE WAS LEARNING
new words. He did not know that it was unusual to learn words so early. He was only pleased that his parents laughed and clapped their hands often.

By the time he came to his second birthday he could even count. He knew that one following one and another and another and each had a name. He learned these names by accident one day with blocks. He put a block on the floor from a box full of blocks.

“One,” his mother said.

He took out another and placed it beside the one. “Two,” his mother said.

And so he proceeded until she had said “Ten.” Here he went back again to one and repeated the names himself. His mother stared at him, then swept him into her arms in joy. When the father came home at dark, she put out the blocks again.

“Say them, Rannie,” she told him.

He remembered the names easily, and the two looked at each other in gravity and astonishment.

“Isn’t he—”

“It seems so—”

He said them over again very fast and laughing. “One—two—three—four—five—six—seven—eight—nine—ten!”

They did not laugh. They looked at each other. Then suddenly the father took some small round objects from his pocket.

“Pennies,” he said.

“Pennies,” Rannie repeated. He repeated everything they said to him, remembering afterward which word belonged to each object.

His father put down one penny on the carpet, where he knelt before Rannie.

“One penny,” he said distinctly.

Rannie listened without repeating. It was obvious that this was one penny. His father put down another penny and looked at Rannie.

“Two,” Rannie said.

And so on the game went until ten pennies finished it. They looked at each other, the parents.

“He does understand—he understands numbers,” the father said, astonished.

“I told you,” the mother retorted.

AFTER THIS, OF COURSE,
EVERYTHING
had to be counted. Apples in a bowl, books on the shelves, plates in the cupboard. But what came beyond ten? He demanded this knowledge of his mother.

“Ten—ten—ten,” he said impatiently. What came after ten?

“Eleven—twelve—thirteen—,” his mother said.

He grasped the idea at once. Counting went on and on. There was no end to it. He counted everything and reached for the innumerable. He began to realize endlessness. Trees in the woods, for example, where they went for picnics—there was no use in counting them once he understood counting, so that it simply became more of the same.

Money, of course, was different from trees or daisies in a field. By the time he was three he knew that money must be given in exchange for what one wanted. He walked with his mother to the grocery store down the street and he saw her give pieces of metal or paper in return for bread and milk, meat and vegetables and fruit.