Pearl Buck - The Eternal Wonder

“Grandfather, do you mean she—Serena, your wife—really comes back to you… now?”

His grandfather, placidly eating an ice dessert, wiped his lips with his huge old-fashioned linen napkin before he spoke.

“Oh yes, indeed, dear boy,” he said cheerfully. “I never know when, of course, any more than I knew when she’d come into my room at night when she was alive. And she didn’t come at all for nearly four years after she died. I suppose it takes a certain length of time to become accustomed after the shock of death. It must be a shock to die, just as it is to be born. It takes time—it takes time. That’s a very delicious sweet, Sung. I’ll have a bit more.”

His grandfather ate heartily and with enjoyment. He appeared so sane, so healthy, so alive in spite of his age, that Rann could not believe his mind was deranged. Indeed, he was sure it was not. Then, his grandfather must have experiences not common to ordinary folk. But he himself was not ordinary either, and his sense of wonder would not let him rest.

“What I am trying now to discover,” his grandfather continued, “strictly through the science of parapsychology, is just how she does it, or how I do it. It is probably a combination, which as yet with me is accidental. But in time, as I do more study, I shall discover the proper technique. I am a scientist, Randolph. I learned that in China. I don’t know how much you know of my work. It began with my interest in the heart as the center of life.”

“Nothing, I’m afraid, Grandfather.”

“Ah well, that doesn’t surprise me. My first wife was a dear, good woman, as your mother is, but she had an ordinary, though intelligent mind. I never knew your mother, my daughter, well enough to discuss my work with her. But you have an extraordinary mind. I can see that—indeed, I saw it the moment you walked in the door.”

He was infused, inspired, impelled by his sense of wonder, his insatiable curiosity. “How did you know, Grandfather?”

His grandfather pushed away the plate from which he had been eating with such enjoyment, and Sung removed it and disappeared. They were alone.

“I will tell you what I have told no one since Serena died,” his grandfather replied. “I was born with a rare ability. Serena had it to some degree, and I was able to discuss it with her frankly, as I did everything else. It may be you have some of the same ability, though possibly expressed in a different way. You may want to tell me. With me it is expressed in color.”

“Color, Grandfather?”

“Yes, I don’t like to use the word ‘aura,’ for that is the jargon of mediums and fraudulent people who make their living through a false mysticism and suchlike nonsense. I am a scientist, trained first in medicine then in electronics. I understand—to some extent—the interplay of electrical waves. We are all a part of such interplay. Given the right combination of forces, a human being is the result—a crystallization, if you like. Or a dog or fish or insect, or any manifestation. When we ‘die,’ as we call it, the combination is merely moving from that form to make another. Change is the word. There is constant movement in the universe, and we are part of that change. Nothing is destroyed, only changed. What the change is, which we call death, interests me very much at my age, naturally. I doubt I can find the real explanation until I undergo the change myself, which will not be soon, because I inherit longevity and health—as you do, too, through me.”

Oh, his persistent mind! He was half-ashamed of it. “But color, Grandfather?”

“Ah yes,” his grandfather said. “But I hadn’t forgotten, dear boy! I never forget anything, any more than you do. I had to give the preliminary explanation. Well, all my life I have seen color about living creatures and most strongly, of course, about the concentrations we call human beings.”

“Do you see color about me?”

“Oh, very strongly.”

“What color, Grandfather?”

“More than one.”

His grandfather studied his head, and was silent for a minute. “Green is predominant—in what I see in your emanation—a living, vital green, signifying that the life force in you is very strong. This shades off into a rich blue—nothing pallid about you! And the blue fringes off into yellow. Yellow denotes intelligence, and blue denotes integrity. You won’t have an easy life. Everything in you—your feelings, your determination, your idealism—all very strong. You’ll suffer on all counts. But you know that, you’re a creator.”

“Of what, Grandfather? I feel the pressure in myself to create—but what?”

He spoke intensely, his elbows leaning on the white tablecloth, silver and china pushed aside, everything forgotten except what his grandfather was saying.

“It’s too soon, boy!” his grandfather said gravely. “Much, much too soon! You’ve talents—but talent is a means, a tool to use. You must find your material, and that can only come out of knowing, learning and knowing. When you’ve learned enough, when you know enough, your own talent will guide you—no, force you, push you, compel you. So be at ease, dear boy! Wander the Earth, look and listen. But never waste yourself. Use your body as well as mind. Put it better—your body is the valuable container for the precious talent. Keep your body clean and free of disease.”

Their eyes met, his grandfather’s electric blue, his own dark and vividly penetrating in their gaze. His grandfather gave a deep, shaking sigh.

“Serena!” he murmured. “Do you see who has come to our house?”

They rose in silence then and went into the library and he sat, still silent and absorbed in thought while his grandfather played a small pipe organ at one end of the room. It was Bach—ordered, coordinated, scientifically beautiful music, a whole made up of controlled parts. Control, he thought. That was the key to life—control of self, of time, of will.

IT WAS PERHAPS A WEEK LATER. During the week he had seen very little of his grandfather. Each morning after breakfast his grandfather had told him briskly that he had work to do, and so he could wander about as he liked until dinnertime.

“Wandering is never waste, dear boy,” he said. “While you wander you will find much to wonder about, and wonder is the first step to creation.”

On this evening, upon finishing dinner they had as usual gone to the library, to talk, to read, to listen to music, or even to play chess. Upon a chess table made in Korea, his grandfather kept set in position a great set of chessmen carved in white and black marble. His grandfather was a superb chess player, and though his own father had taught him the game, he had yet to win over his grandfather.

“I could let you win, in order to avoid your possible discouragement, dear boy,” his grandfather had said, “but out of respect for your intellect, I will not do so. In time you will surpass me, for you learn, I observe, from your mistakes, each time. You teach yourself, and that is true learning.”

Tonight, however, there was to be no chess, it appeared. The evening was cold, the sky overcast and the first snowflakes were floating past the windows. Sung came in and drew the long velvet curtains over the windows, lit the fire, and went away again. His grandfather opened a small leather case and drew forth a magnifying glass—“a very fine one that I picked up in Paris, years ago,” he observed. Then he opened a silver box.

“To prove to you, if you need proof, of Serena’s visits,” his grandfather said, “I’ve made these photographs of her. I’ve taken them regularly over the visits she has made. I rigged up a camera in my room and took a series of pictures while she was in the process of materializing. These are the photographs. Study each one carefully, please. You will see me seated in a chair in Serena’s room. If my face seems strange to you it is because I am concentrating upon nothingness. Ordinarily this might be called trance. I learned in India how to enter into nothingness. I dislike the condition, for I lose myself. But I know that Serena cannot communicate with me otherwise. I daresay that others might communicate with me also if I cared to have them do so. But I do not care. In due time I shall be where they are. Serena, however, I need from time to time.”