A Portrait of Peter
12/03/1996
1
Eventually, I said to Peter ,"we graduate."
He just smiled, without saying a word.
"Three years of high school days have all passed ,"I said,"and perhaps you are the most glorious winner."
Staring at his article set in lead type in the latest joumal of students ,he looked as if deep in thought.
"There still exists a bit of truth and conscience in the society ",I added.
"Apparently, it is far from sufficient .It takes at least eighteen years for a man to get the fruit of it,"he smiled bitterly ,while slowly turning his vision toward the beautiful scenery outside the window.
"What happened in the past is just a flash of memories now, leaving no traces in the world, and, in reality, has disappeared forever, he sighed.
2
People of our age receive education only to pass exams.Especially for the most significant, the college entrance examination, we have to bury ourselves in enormous textbooks ,conference books,extraordinaly materials ,and cram studies. Being much more interested in literature and writing, Peter became an exile under the unreasonable,or more accurately ,terrible system. In the night ,he burned the midnight
oil reading poems, novels ,and proses as well as originating touching articles and works .But, during the day ,he had to make up the studying and fought with the deadline of sixty points .The worst of it ,he was often much disappointed with the refusal of his works by the editors of publishment. Sitting besides him, I persuaded him all the time,
"Probably, it is just because your works are filled with too much sarcasm and criticism toward the social system and the mass environment "I said, 'which are not easily accepted by the 'adults'"
"it is just the most terrible reality.The thoughts we have will never be heard by the people of higher social levels whose brain and heart are fultered with fame and power.The voices of the truth are always neglected. I will never change my mind no matter how people think! "said Peter.
"But I think you can try to be more optimistic and not to be so sefiously....."
"A prophet is always lonely",he said," and is never understood by people."
"It is useless trying or making any efforts. As said in Bible ,the human are only human and cannot be God. Human's greed, selfishness ,and scheming can never be transformed into God'skindness,selflessness, and love!"
When it came to Bible ,I was no opponent of him. Perhaps mostly ,what he said is right .But about humanity, we cannot give up any opportunities even if they are so little. I think, it is still worth spending our whole life improving the poor condition.Maybe through partly compromising ,we can gradually, make some progress .Being a Christian, he clearly see the defects of the world, but he does not think of figuring out ways available to make it better. It is a pity, which I usually think of.
3
At times ,I was quite curious about how he could be so pessimistic and how he became a Christian with so different ideas.
It was not until the event happened that I knew the beginning and subsequent development of the incident.
In the first year of our high school days ,I was elected as the class section leader of learning and arts .At that time ,in order to improve our ability of composition, our Chinese teacher ,Miss Su ,came up with the idea that good articles written by students will be stuck onto the bulletin board in the back of the classroom.
As usual, Peter's articles are always seen on it. Being a section leader ,I was fond of writing some words on the bulletin board. To play a trick on Peter ,I wrote "Another Masterpiece of Peter" in the margin of his article ,which was originally anonymous without reading the whole contents in detail first. Who knows, it was about the unfortunate stories of Peter himself and the sad memories he had .For this purpose, I was blamed by Miss Su and was asked to apologize to him.
'I apologize to you for the mistake I made, I said embarrassingly.
"Never mind. It doesn't matter."
I can clearly recall the condition that day .It was a cloudless sunny afternoon, and we walked under the shadow of Banyans with the sound of the shaking leaves like music from the Heaven.
"In my elementary school years ,my life was quite lonely until a considerable girl came into my world in my fifth grade.
"The girl played ed the lute while I played the fiddle .On account of sitting next to each other, I had many chances discussing several things including music and others. The passionate love for Chinese music made us get closer and, the rumour disgusting and hurtful ,started to spread among classmates.
"How can you fall in love with her! Are you aware of your poor grade of math? Keep away from her!" my teacher shouted; "Don't you know how I work so hard to support the family by myself ? :And you just only learn to love girls in school! How disappointed I am, do you know? I strongly doubt if you are my son! "my mother, a poor widow ,also severely blamed me with bursting tears .Is it possible that love is an evil? I deeply wondered.
"At that time, I happened to have appendicitis and was hospitalized. It was rather fortunate for me that I received the Gospel from God, and I became a Christian .I discovered the periect of God, and ,also ,the repulsiveness of human.
"I attended the church even to the present. But recently, I find the church filled with the vulgar of ignorant people who are just desired to enter the Heaven without learning how to love others first And, the pastor there also overlook the opinions of young people and only perform a" form" of love, but not the "essence" of love .So I leave there at last."
"In fact, I am born lonely and is now still lonely ,and perhaps, will be lonely forever ,"he sighed ,"a prophet is destined to be solitary."
He added ,"Truth can never be understood by normal people."
4
However, after three years of high school days ,the twilight bursts out of the passive thoughts of him. That is his discovery of true love and warmth from our teacher-guide ,also our math teacher,Mr. Wang.
Mr. Wang was just like a shepherd to our whole class ,the lambs .For Peter ,Mr. Wang was especially much more than a shepherd .When Peter again got poor math grades, originally he was extremely ashamed .But in stead of scolding ,Mr. Wang asked sincerely, "have you thought over where the problem occurs?" which touched him
a lot.
Always ,while we met with the bottle-neck of growth ,Mr. Wang tried his best coming to our aid .He guided all of us against the umreasonable rules set by the school and encouraged us to coordinate in every aspects of life ,and cherish the precious friendslfip in high school.
"Each of you are one-tenth of my son, and you forty classmates are viewed as my four sons ,"Mr. Wang often said, "I will take care of you all like my children."
"A son? What is the experience of being a son? "Peter wondered, "is it real that I am qualified to be a son?"
He felt the deep concem as well as sincerity, and found the hope of the world previously considered dark by himseff for he had never met such a considerate teacher, and this time ,not a severe animal-trainer ....
5
The writing style of Peter dramastically changed. He praised truth, goodness, and beauty of the world, but no longer only attack the dark face of it. Before graduation, he wrote down the true feelings and complete an impression of graduation which was published as mentioned before, and is regarded as the best article in the journal.
This achievement ,in reality, was very precious ,because at that time, articles about simple feelings are less possible to be adopted while novels about complicated love, sex ,and theories of"----ism"s are thought of as higher level .Peter defeated it, and create a fresh atmosphere of culture for the whole school.
I really want to say that ,"Peter you are really a wise and brave man!"
<Notes>
The story is totally true, and Peter is my best high school classmate. For three years,I have been seated besides him ,and is quite impressed by his deep thoughts and will. I think the article is just also in memory of the three years' firm friendship between he and I.
Wiitten on 12,3,1996