Wine might just as easily be replaced with beer. I'm not entirely sure what the proper alcoholic beverage should be in this case. Either way, Daddy's drinking a decent dollop.
“Oh life, this thing called life....” Father drained a large glass of wine in a single gulp, his eyes peering intently at the cluster of little flames. “So unpredictable! Everything is chance and circumstance, like the twig floating in a stream, tripped up by a stone or trapped in a whirlpool....”
“The child is too young. He can't understand all that,” Mother said.
“He's not too young!” Father replied, “He's old enough to learn what life is really like!”
“As if you know what life is really like,” Mother answered with a sarcastic laugh.
“I know! Of course I know!” Father drained another half glass of wine, then turned toward me. “Actually, son, living a wonderful life is not at all difficult. Listen, I'll teach you: First you have to select a world-renowned, unsolved problem. The best kind are the ones that require only a sheet of paper and a pencil, like a difficult math problem. For example, Goldbach's Conjecture1, or Fermat's Last Theorem2, or something like that. Or you could even discard the paper and pencil, and focus purely on questions of natural philosophy, like the origin of the universe. Throw yourself into your study, body and soul. Only think of your efforts, never think of the rewards. In the oblivion of single-minded devotion, you can pass an entire lifetime without realizing it. The repose that people often talk about is just this sort of thing. Or you can do the opposite, and make earning money your only goal. Devote all your time to figuring out how to make money. There's no need to even ask what you'll do with the money, until you're on your deathbed, like Monsieur Grandet3, clutching a pile of gold and saying, 'Ah, it warms me....' So you see, the key to having a wonderful life depends on what you can become fascinated with. For example, me -–” Father pointed around the room at the small watercolor paintings arranged therein. They were painted in a very traditional style, the strokes conforming precisely with classical technique, and totally devoid of liveliness. Lit by the flashes of lightning through the window, the paintings looked like a bunch of flickering screens. “I fell in love with painting, even though I knew I could never become Van Gogh.”
“It's true. Idealists and cynics both think the other is quite pitiable, but actually they are very lucky,” Mother said thoughtfully.
My parents, normally extremely busy all day, had suddenly turned into philosophers, as if this were their birthdays being celebrated.
“Mom, don't move!” So saying, I plucked a single white strand from my mother's dense, crow-black hair. The strand was only half white; the other half was still black.
My father took the strand and examined it in the light. Illuminated by the lightning, the hair flashed as if it were a filament in a bulb. “As far as I know, this is the first white hair your mother's ever had in her whole life. At least, it's the first that's been found.”
1 Goldbach's Conjecture states that every even integer greater than 2 can be expressed as the sum of two primes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldbach's_conjecture
2 Fermat's Last Theorem states that no three positive integers a, b, and c can satisfy the equation an2 + bn2 = cn2 for any integer value of n greater than two. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermat's_Last_Theorem
3 Monsieur Grandet is a miserly character in a French novel. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eug%C3%A9nie_Grandet
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