The Eternal Wonder

by Pearl S. Buck

  “I don’t know Dr. Sharpe very well,” his mother was saying.

  “Neither do I, really,” he replied. “It’s good to have someone young with fresh ideas. I’ve known the other professors all my life, it seems. They’re all right, of course, but—”

  His mind took over again and he fell silent. His mother prodded him.

  “But what?”

  “But what?” he repeated. “Only that I like having something new. Especially if it’s something I am already thinking about.”

  “And that is? …”

  He glanced at his mother’s questioning face and smiled, half shyly, “I don’t know—creativity, I suppose!”

  Half an hour later he was in Donald Sharpe’s small living room. They were alone, for Sharpe was a bachelor and kept his own house, except for a cleaning woman once a week. It was a charming room, decorated with taste and design. Two French paintings, in the style of the Old Masters, hung on facing walls, and on a third, opposite the chimney piece, was a Japanese scroll. An easy chair covered in old gold velvet was on each side of the fireplace. The autumn was late autumn, the evenings were chill, and a wood fire scented the room.

  He felt at ease and somehow comforted in this room as he had not been comforted since his father died. The gold velvet chair fitted his lanky body, and he liked its luxurious softness. Donald Sharpe sat opposite him, and on the small table beside him was a tall-stemmed wineglass.

  “You’re still quite young, Rannie,” he had said, “but this is such a gentle drink that I don’t think it will count.”

  So saying, he had poured a glass of wine for his visitor and Rannie had tasted it and set it down on the table beside his chair.

  “You don’t like it?” Sharpe asked.

  “Not really,” he replied honestly.

  “It’s an acquired taste, I suppose,” Sharpe said.

  That was how the evening began. Now it had progressed to solid talk, interspersed with long moments of working silence.

  He was a handsome man in a dark way, almost too handsome, not tall, and with a feminine lightness of bone structure. His eyes were his most notable feature, large and dark under clearly marked brows, their gaze penetrative, bold, or stealthy by turns. He continued to speak.

  “Of course imagination is the beginning of creation. Without imagination there can be no creation. But I’m not sure that explains art. Perhaps art is the crystallization of emotion. One has to feel an overflow. I write poetry, for example. But days and months go by—sometimes a year or even longer—when I write nothing, not a line, because I’ve felt nothing deeply enough to crystallize. There has to be a concentration of emotion before I can crystallize it into a poem. I feel a relief, actual relief, emotionally, when I’ve written the poem. I have it, I have something in my hand as solid as a gem.”

  His voice was beautiful, a baritone flexible and melodious. He leaned forward suddenly and with a total change of manner he put forward a question.

  “What is your name—I mean, what do they call you at home?”

  “My name is Randolph—Rannie for short.”

  “Ah, but I always choose a special name for someone I like very much—as I do you. I shall call you Rann—two n’s.”

  “If you wish—”

  “But do you wish?”

  “Rann—yes, I like it. I’m too big for diminutives.”

  “Much too big! Where were we? Emotion! It’s still not at all clear to me, however, why we feel compelled to create art. I suppose it began in an awareness of beauty—dim, at first, perhaps merely surprise at a sudden sight of a flower or a bird. But the ability must have been there—the ability to perceive—which must have meant a step in intelligence, an awakening, a wonder.”

  He listened to Sharpe’s voice in the same way he listened to music, half sensuously, and only now and again venturing to speak.

  “But when did science begin?” he asked.

  “Ah, very late,” Sharpe replied. “Natural man, the uneducated mind, poetized in myth and dream before he analyzed, I suppose, contradictorily enough, science began with religion. Priests had to learn time-telling and so they had to match the seasons and the stars—accuracy, in a word, which is the basis of science—and this led to factual truth. Galileo laid the foundation of modern science, of course, experimentally speaking, using bodies in motion and measuring and observing until he affirmed a theory—the theory—that the sun was the center of the universe, for which he died in banishment. Later, Isaac Newton put this same theory into mathematics! Yes, science is creativity as much as art is—the two go together—must go together, for each is basic and indispensable to human progress.”

  Hours passed while he listened, now and then asking a question, but all the while yielding to the fascination of the man. The clock on the mantelpiece striking midnight startled him.

  “Oh, I must go home—I still have a theme to finish for your class tomorrow, sir!”

  Sharpe smiled. “I’ll give you an extra day. You’ve given me a pleasant evening. It’s not often that I have a listener who knows what I am talking about.”

  “You’ve clarified my own wondering and thinking, sir.”

  “Good! You must come again. A teacher keeps searching for the ideal pupil.”

  “Thank you, sir. The search is mutual.”

  They clasped hands, and Sharpe’s hand strangely felt hot and soft. It surprised him and he withdrew his own hand quickly.

  When he reached home, his mother was sitting up for him in the kitchen.

  “Oh, Rannie, I was wondering—”

  “I’ve had a wonderful evening. I’ve learned a lot. And—Mother!” He paused.

  “Yes, Rannie?”

  “I wish you wouldn’t call me Rannie anymore.”

  “No? Then what? Randolph?”

  “Just Rann—with two n’s.”

  “Very well—if you wish. I’ll try to remember.”

  “Thanks, Mother.”

  She looked at him strangely, nevertheless, as though she were pondering a question. But he put off questions.

  “Good night, Mother,” he said, and was gone.

  He was sleepless. Donald Sharpe had awakened his whole being. The question now focusing itself in his mind was himself. What was he, artist or scientist? He felt the impulse, the urge, the necessity to create somehow compelling him—but to what? How could he know what to do when he did not know himself or who he was? How was this to be discovered? He felt a mighty impatience with going to school. What was the use of learning about the past, and of studying what other people had done? Yet was it not helpful to know what they had done? Galileo, for example, had been everything—musician, painter, scientist. But had he learned all this in school or had he learned by himself and for himself?

  He was kept awake by his own questions. Around him the house was dark and silent. Downstairs in the dining room the old grandfather clock, which had belonged to his Dutch great-grandfather on his mother’s side, twanged out the early morning hours, one and two and finally three. The moon sank below the horizon before dawn brought him to sleep. It was a troubled sleep, broken by confused dreams. But the confusion was dominated by the recurrent appearance of Donald Sharpe.

  When he woke in the morning, the sun was streaming through the eastern window of his room. He woke in a strange and quiet peace, altogether different from the turmoil of the night. This peace, as he lay enjoying it, savoring its rest, centered about Donald Sharpe. He relived again the hours that had passed so quickly the night before. Not since his father’s death had he enjoyed anything as much as the evening. Indeed, perhaps he had never had such enjoyment before; the stretching of his mind to meet Sharpe’s had been stimulated by the charm of the man, his youth, his maturity, even his physical beauty stirred the very soul, an attraction beyond any person he had ever known. And this attraction was to a living pers
on, someone who might become, perhaps already was, his friend. He had never had a real friend. Boys of his own age might be partners in sports and casual occupations, but he had met none with whom he could talk on terms of equality. Now he had a friend!

  The certainty ran through his blood, an elixir of joy. He sprang out of bed and rushed to meet the day, a shower, clean clothes, an enormous breakfast. He had not been hungry for days. Now he could scarcely wait to get to his breakfast. His first class of the morning was with Donald Sharpe.

  “YOU MUST PAY HEED to your conscious mind,” Donald Sharpe said.

  He stood before his class, a hundred or more students sitting before him, rising tier upon tier until the last row under the ceiling. He spoke to them all, but Rann, seated in the middle seat of the first row, met his warm, half-caressing gaze.

  “Feed it and then heed it,” Sharpe said, smiling. “The subconscious mind is different. Feed it by not heeding it. Let the subconscious mind be as free as a hummingbird in a flower garden. Did you ever watch a hummingbird? No? Next time watch! A hummingbird is the swingiest of birds. It darts here, there, everywhere, tasting this flower and that, trying one garden and another. So with your mind! Let it be free. Read anything, everything, go everywhere, anywhere, know something about everything and all you can about as many things, as many people, as many worlds, as you can. Then when you pose a problem, heed your subconscious mind. Wait for it to draw out of its stores the information you need, upon which you can base your decision. Sometimes the information you need will express itself in a dream while you sleep, or even in a daydream. I believe in daydreaming. Don’t let your parents—and teachers—tell you that daydreaming is idleness. No, no—it gives the subconscious mind a chance to speak. Newton pondered gravity in many daydreams until one day a falling apple triggered his subconscious mind and told him that gravity was an interplanetary force. Two brothers—the Montgolfiers—were daydreaming before a fire they had lit on a chilly evening and they noticed that the hot air carried bits of paper up the chimney—why not a balloon of hot air to carry a man into the sky?

  “And not only scientists, but artists use the subconscious mind. Coleridge dreamed his poem Kubla Khan before he wrote it, which he did the moment he woke—and forgot when a friend interrupted him, alas! Our modern artists, some of them, use the subconscious mind before it is directed into its crystal form—example: James Joyce in literature, Dalí in art—interesting, but perhaps too literal to convey meaning. The subconscious mind has to be pressured by need, by demand, before it will focus and produce the necessary information in organized form. This is the method of art.”

  Rann raised his hand and Sharpe nodded.

  “Doesn’t a scientist have to imagine, or dream, as much as an artist does—perhaps more? Because he knows so definitely what he wants to achieve.”

  “He knows,” Sharpe said, “and therefore his search among his dream materials is directed. But sometimes it is not. Sometimes his focus comes out of wonder. Wonder—then ask why! That’s a technique too—though a technician is not a pure scientist. Yes, I’d say a real artist and a pure scientist are related. Matter of fact, most top scientists are also musicians, painters, and so forth, as you will discover when you come to know them.”

  “Can artists be scientists?” Rann asked.

  Question and answer sped between them like lightning and thunder.

  “Yes,” Sharpe said firmly. “Not basically in dream stuff, but artist imagination lays hold on any effect as material. Electronic sound produces a new kind of music, new color formations affect painters. The artist receives the new material, makes it his own, and through it expresses his reactions, his feelings.”

  “I see a difference between scientists and artists,” Rann declared.

  “Tell me,” Sharpe commanded.

  “Scientists invent, discover, prove. Artists express. They don’t have to prove. If they are successful—”

  “That is, if they communicate—,” Sharpe interpolated.

  “Yes,” Rann said.

  “Right,” Sharpe replied. “You and I must talk about this further. Stay after class a moment.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “Class dismissed.”

  To Rann, lingering at his desk, he said almost abruptly, “I have a committee meeting tonight. Come over tomorrow night about eight. If you have your theme finished, bring it to me.”

  “Yes, Dr. Sharpe,” Rann said.

  For a reason he could not explain he felt almost rebuffed, and he went away puzzled to the point, almost, of wound.

  “YOU’RE NOT EATING,” his mother said.

  “I’m not hungry,” he said.

  She looked at him, surprised. “I’ve never known you not to be hungry. Do you feel sick?”

  “No,” he said.

  “Has something happened today?”

  “I went to my classes as usual, but I have a theme to write tonight. I keep thinking about it.”

  “What’s it about?”

  Her persistence drove him near to anger. “I don’t know yet.”

  “What class is it for?”

  “Psychology II.”

  “That’s Dr. Sharpe.”

  “Yes.”

  She reflected briefly. “There’s something about that man I don’t like.”

  “Perhaps you don’t know him well enough.”

  “He wasn’t a special friend of your father’s.”

  “Were they not friends?”

  “I don’t remember that I ever heard him speak of Donald Sharpe.”

  “They weren’t in the same department.”

  “That’s another thing. It would have pleased your father if you’d chosen his department—English.”

  “Father always wanted me to choose for myself.”

  He tried to keep irritation out of his voice, for he loved his mother in the depths of his being. On the surface of his life, his daily life in this house that he had shared with her as long ago as he could remember, she was beginning to irritate him in ways that made him ashamed and puzzled. He had always loved her wholeheartedly and simply with childhood love. Now his love was tinged with a sense of repulsion that was almost physical. He did not like to know that he had been formed in her womb, from whence he had emerged red with her blood. Especially he hated to hear her advocate breast-feeding when she spoke with young faculty wives in pregnancy.

  “I nursed my baby,” she would declare.

  It sickened him to think of himself ever as a baby sucking at her full breasts, and that she was in fact a very pretty woman, her smooth fair hair scarcely gray, and blue eyes gentle, and her features finely cut, the mouth especially soft and tender. Her very prettiness added to his conflict about her. It seemed unnecessary, even unwise, for a mother to be so pretty that other people remarked on it, and since his father’s death, especially, that men liked to talk with her, young or old they liked her, and this roused in him a cold sort of jealousy, for his father’s sake.

  In his instant and unavoidable imagination he saw the process of himself feeding at her breast, and tried not to see it. It had become disgusting to him. He wished that he could have been born in some other way and independently, out of the air, or chemically in a laboratory. As yet he was not attracted to women, and he avoided the memory of Ruthie’s rosy organs, though sometimes, to his surprise, he dreamed of her, although he had not seen her for years, nor Chris, either.

  Such facts he put away as he sat at his desk in his own room before his typewriter. His subject, which he wrote in careful capitals, was INVENTORS AND POETS.

  “The dreams of poets,” he began, “led to the inventions of scientists. A poet imagines himself in the body of a bird. What is it like to fly above the treetops, what is it like to soar in the sky? If he is only a poet, then he only dreams. But if he longs to make his dream come true, he imagines himself flying somehow just as he is, a m
an without wings. Yet wings, it is obvious, he must have if he is ever to fly and so he must manufacture wings. He must make a machine which will lift him from the earth. He dreams again but now of such a machine, and with his hands, guided by his dream, he tries until he succeeds in making an airplane. It may not be the same man who finishes the making of the machine. Many men worked on aircraft before one was successful, and the dream itself was as old as Icarus. But the dream came first. Dreamer and inventor both are necessary. They are the creators, the one of the dream, the other of its concrete and final form.”

  The thoughts poured into his brain, and his fingers flew to put them down. When the pages were finished—twenty pages, more than he had ever written before—it was midnight. He heard his mother pause at the door, but she did not open the door or even call. She merely paused; he thought he heard her sigh and then she went away. He was growing beyond her direction and she knew it. But then, so did he, and thinking about it as he made ready for bed, he became aware that he might feel lonely, thus separating himself from her as inevitably he must if he were to grow to be himself, except that he had a friend, a guiding friend, a man, Donald Sharpe. Tomorrow he would see him again. He would get up early and correct his theme and without copying it over, he would hand it in. And Donald Sharpe, his friend, his teacher, would say, “Come around this evening, and we’ll talk about it.”

  He went to bed and was sleepless in a certain excitement.

  “I SHAN’T CRITICIZE THIS, RANN,” Sharpe said, ruffling the sheets of closely written paper.

  “I want you to criticize,” Rann said.

  He was aware of Sharpe’s powerful charm, resisted it and then succumbed to it. It was a combination he felt helpless to resist, an aura of the spirit, a scintillating intelligence shining through the dark eyes, a physical presence of attraction. He felt a strange new longing to touch Sharpe’s hands, almost too perfectly shaped for a man’s hands, the skin fine grained and smooth like the skin on his face, the bone structure sculptured and delicate in spite of size.