no doubt at all that I was seeing an eldil, and little doubt that I was seeing the archon of Mars, the Oyarsa of Malacandra. And now that the thing had happened I was no longer in a condition of abject panic. My sensations were, it is true, in some ways very unpleasant. The fact that it was quite obviously not organic – the knowledge that intelligence was somehow located in this homogeneous cylinder of light but not related to it as our consciousness is related to our brains and nerves – was profoundly disturbing.1 It would not fit into our categories. The response which we ordinarily make to a living creature and that which we make to an inanimate object were here both equally inappropriate. On the other hand, all those doubts which I had felt before I entered the cottage as to whether these creatures were friend or foe, and whether Ransom were a pioneer or a dupe, had for the moment vanished. My fear was now of another kind. I felt sure that the creature was what we call ‘good’, but I wasn’t sure whether I liked ‘goodness’ so much as I had supposed. This is a very terrible experience. As long as what you are afraid of is something evil, you may still hope that the good may come to your rescue. But suppose you struggle through to the good and find that is also dreadful? How if food itself turns out to be the very thing you can’t eat, and home the very place you can’t live, and your very comforter the person who makes you uncomfortable? Then, indeed, there is no rescue possible: the last card has been played. For a second or two I was nearly in that condition. Here at last was a bit of that world from beyond the world, which I had always supposed that I loved and desired, breaking through and appearing to my senses: and I didn’t like it, I wanted it to go away. I wanted every possible distance, gulf, curtain, blanket and barrier to be placed between it and me. But I did not fall quite into the gulf. Oddly enough my very sense of helplessness saved me and steadied me. For now I was quite obviously ‘drawn in’. The struggle was over. The next decision did not lie with me.
Then, like a noise from a different world, came the opening of the door and the sound of boots on the doormat, and I saw, silhouetted against the greyness of the night in the open doorway, a figure which I recognised as Ransom. The speaking which was not a voice came again out of the rod of light: and Ransom, instead of moving, stood still and answered it. Both speeches were in a strange polysyllabic language which I had not heard before. I make no attempt to excuse the feelings which awoke in me when I heard the unhuman sound addressing my friend and my friend answering it in the unhuman language. They are, in fact, inexcusable; but if you think they are improbable at such a juncture, I must tell you plainly that you have read neither history nor your own heart to much effect. They were feelings of resentment, horror and jealousy. It was in my mind to shout out, ‘Leave your familiar alone, you damned magician, and attend to Me.’
What I actually said was, ‘Oh, Ransom. Thank God you’ve come.’
1 In the text I naturally keep to what I thought and felt at the time, since this alone is first-hand evidence: but there is obviously room for more further speculation about the form in which eldila appear to our senses. The only serious considerations of the problem so far are to be sought in the early seventeenth century. As a starting point for future investigation I recommend the following from Natvilcius (De Aethereo et aerio Corpore, Basel. 1627, II. xii.); liquet simplicem flammem sensibus nostris subjectam non esse corpus proprie dictum angeli vel daemonis, sed potius aut illius corporis sensorium aut superficiem corporis in coelesti dispositione locorum supra cogitationes humanas existentis (‘It appears that the homogeneous flame perceived by our senses is not the body, properly so called, of an angel or daemon, but rather either the sensorium of that body or the surface of a body which exists after a manner beyond our conception in the celestial frame of spatial references’). By the ‘celestial frame of references’ I take him to mean what we should now call ‘multi-dimensional space’. Not, of course, that Natvilcius knew anything about multi-dimensional geometry, but that he had reached empirically what mathematics has since reached on theoretical grounds.
The door was slammed (for the second time that night) and after a moment’s groping Ransom had found and lit a candle. I glanced quickly round and could see no one but ourselves. The most noticeable thing in the room was the big white object. I recognised the shape well enough this time. It was a large coffin-shaped casket, open. On the floor beside it lay its lid, and it was doubtless this that I had tripped over. Both were made of the same white material, like ice, but more cloudy and less shining.
‘By Jove, I’m glad to see you,’ said Ransom, advancing and shaking hands with me. ‘I’d hoped to be able to meet you at the station, but everything has had to be arranged in such a hurry and I found at the last moment that I’d got to go up to Cambridge. I never intended to leave you to make that journey alone.’ Then, seeing, I suppose, that I was still staring at him rather stupidly, he added, ‘I say – you’re all right, aren’t you? You got through the barrage without any damage?’
‘The barrage? – I don’t understand.’
‘I was thinking you would have met some difficulties in getting here.’
‘Oh, that!’ said I. ‘You mean it wasn’t just my nerves? There really was something in the way?’
‘Yes. They didn’t want you to get here. I was afraid some thing of the sort might happen but there was no time to do anything about it. I was pretty sure you’d get through somehow.’
‘By they you mean the others – our own eldila?’
‘Of course. They’ve got wind of what’s on hand …’
I interrupted him. ‘To tell you the truth, Ransom,’ I said, ‘I’m getting more worried every day about the whole business. It came into my head as I was on my way here –’
‘Oh, they’ll put all sorts of things into your head if you let them,’ said Ransom lightly. ‘The best plan is to take no notice, and keep straight on. Don’t try to answer them. They like drawing you into an interminable argument.’
‘But, look here,’ said I. ‘This isn’t child’s play. Are you quite certain that this Dark Lord, this depraved Oyarsa of Tellus, really exists? Do you know for certain either that there are two sides, or which side is ours?’
He fixed me suddenly with one of his mild, but strangely formidable, glances.
‘You are in real doubt about either, are you?’ he asked.
‘No,’ said I, after a pause, and felt rather ashamed.
‘That’s all right, then,’ said Ransom cheerfully. ‘Now let’s get some supper and I’ll explain as we go along.’
‘What’s that coffin affair?’ I asked as we moved into the kitchen.
‘That is what I’m to travel in.’
‘Ransom!’ I exclaimed. ‘He – it – the eldil – is not going to take you back to Malacandra?’
‘Don’t!’ said he. ‘Oh, Lewis, you don’t understand. Take me back to Malacandra? If only he would! I’d give anything I possess … just to look down one of those gorges again and see the blue, blue water winding in and out among the woods. Or to be up on top – to see a sorn go gliding along the slopes. Or to be back there of an evening when Jupiter was rising, too bright to look at, and all the asteroids like a Milky Way, with each star in it as bright as Venus looks from Earth! And
