An Artist and
His Granddaughter
by David He
An old artist
lives with his six-year-old granddaughter called
Lily. She likes drawing. One day Lily drew a tree.
He looked at it for several moments and said,
“Lily, there is something wrong with your
tree.”
“What is
wrong with it?” Lily asked.
He reminded
her that something was wrong with its branches.
Lily seemed not to be able to understand him.
Further, he said, “How can the branches grow
bigger than the tree?”
“Why
can’t the branches grow bigger than the
trunk?” Lily asked. He replied that it would
not be a tree.
Lily said,
“But why did you call it tree?”
He kept silent.
Another time
Lily drew a little rabbit. As soon as her
grandfather saw it, he said, “Lily, you
didn’t draw a perfect rabbit.” Lily
asked why. He replied that there was no such
thing as a red rabbit. However, she asked why
there couldn’t be a red rabbit. He further
asked, “Have you seen a red rabbit?”
She asked him whether he thought red rabbits
couldn't exist simply because he'd never seen one.
The only answer he gave was that it couldn’t
be called a rabbit, but Lily asked why he called
it a rabbit if it wasn’t. He made no answer.
The next day
Lily drew a horse. Seeing it, he told her that
she didn’t draw the horse in a perfect way.
Lily asked him why and he said, “Does a
horse have wings?”
Lily said,
“No, It doesn’t.” Then he asked
why she drew two wings on the horse. Lily thought
for a while and replied that she wished that the
horse could grow wings. He then said, “It
wouldn’t be called a horse.”
Lily seemed a
little annoyed. “But why did you call it a
horse if it isn’t?” He stood there
still, not knowing what to say.
In her drawing
class, Lily drew an old hen. She laid an egg,
which looked much bigger than the hen itself. Her
teacher had it sent to an International
Children’s Exhibition. To her great joy, she
won the first prize.
The artist
said to himself, “How silly the judges are!
There is no difference between them and children.”
|
