That Hideous Strength

by Clive Staples Lewis

  She rose and held the door open for Jane. They passed out into the plain, narrow passage and thence up shallow steps into a large entrance hall whence a fine Georgian staircase led to the upper floors. The house, larger than Jane had at first supposed, was warm and very silent, and after so many days spent in fog the autumn sunlight, falling on soft carpets and on walls, seemed to her bright and golden. On the first floor, but raised above it by six steps, they found a little square place with white pillars where Camilla, quiet and alert, sat waiting for them. There was a door behind her.

  “He will see her,” she said to Miss Ironwood getting up.

  “Is he in much pain this morning?”

  “It is not continuous. It is one of his good days.”

  As Miss Ironwood raised her hand to knock on the door, Jane thought to herself, “Be careful. Don’t get let in for anything. All these long passages and low voices will make a fool of you if you don’t look out. You’ll become another of this man’s female adorers.” Next moment she found herself going in. It was light-it seemed all windows. And it was warm-a fire blazed on the hearth. And blue was the prevailing colour. Before her eyes had taken it in she was annoyed, and in a way ashamed, to see that Miss Ironwood was curtseying. “I won’t “contended in Jane’s mind with “I can’t. “: for it had been true in her dream, she couldn’t.

  “This is the young lady, sir,” said Miss Ironwood.

  Jane looked; and instantly her world was unmade.

  On a sofa before her, with one foot bandaged as if he had a wound, lay what appeared to be a boy, twenty years old. On one of the long window-sills a tame jackdaw was walking up and down. The light of the fire with its weak reflection, and the light of the sun with its stronger reflection, contended on the ceiling. But all the light in the room seemed to run towards the gold hair and the gold beard of the wounded man.

  Of course he was not a boy-how could she have thought so? The fresh skin on his forehead and cheeks and, above all, on his hands, had suggested the idea. But no boy could have so full a beard. And no boy could be so strong. She had expected to see an invalid. Now, it was manifest that the grip of those hands would be inescapable, and imagination suggested that those arms and shoulders could support the whole house. Miss Ironwood at her side struck her as a little old woman, shrivelled and pale-a thing you could have blown away.

  The sofa was placed on a kind of dais divided from the rest of the room by a step. She had an impression of massed hangings of blue-later, she saw that it was only a screen-behind the man, so that the effect was that of a throne room. She would have called it silly if, instead of seeing it, she had been told of it by another. Through the window she saw no trees nor hills nor shapes of other houses: only the level floor of mist, as if this man and she were perched in a blue tower overlooking the world.

  Pain came and went in his face: sudden jabs of sickening and burning pain. But as lightening goes through the darkness and the darkness closes up again and shows no trace, so the tranquillity of his countenance swallowed up each shock of torture. How could she have thought him young? Or old either? It came over her, with a sensation of quick fear, that this face was of no age at all. She had, or so she had believed, disliked bearded faces except for old men with white hair. But that was because she had long since forgotten the imagined Arthur of her childhood-and the imagined Solomon too. Solomon . . . for the first time in many years the bright solar blend of king and lover and magician which hangs about that name stole back upon her mind. For the first time in all those years she tasted the word King itself with all its linked associations of battle, marriage, priesthood, mercy, and power. At that moment, as her eyes first rested on his face, Jane forgot who she was, and where, and her faint grudge against Grace Ironwood, and her more obscure grudge against Mark, and her childhood and her father’s house. It was, of course, only for a flash. Next moment she was once more the ordinary social Jane, flushed and confused to find that she had been staring rudely (at least she hoped that rudeness would be the main impression produced) at a total stranger. But her world was unmade; she knew that. Anything might happen now.

  “Thank you, Grace,” the man was saying. “Is this Mrs. Studdock?”

  And the voice also seemed to be like sunlight and gold. Like gold not only as gold is beautiful but as it is heavy: like sunlight not only as it falls gently on English walls in autumn but as it beats down on the jungle or the desert to engender life or destroy it. And now it was addressing her.

  “You must forgive me for not getting up, Mrs. Studdock,” it said. “My foot is hurt.”

  And Jane heard her own voice saying “Yes, sir,” soft and chastened like Miss Ironwood’s voice. She had meant to say, “Good morning, Mr. Fisher-King,” in an easy tone that would have counteracted the absurdity of her behaviour on first entering the room. But the other was what actually came out of her mouth. Shortly after this she found herself seated before the Director. She was shaken: she was even shaking. She hoped intensely that she was not going to cry, or be unable to speak, or do anything silly. For her world was unmade: anything might happen now. If only the conversation were over so that she could get out of that room without disgrace, and go away, not for good, but for a long time.

  “Do you wish me to remain, sir?” said Miss Ironwood.

  “No, Grace,” said the Director, “I don’t think you need stay. Thank you.”

  “And now,” thought Jane, “it’s coming-it’s coming-it’s coming now.” All the most intolerable questions he might ask, all the most extravagant things he might make her do, flashed through her mind in a fatuous medley. For all power of resistance seemed to have been drained away from her and she was left without protection.

  II

  For the first few minutes after Grace Ironwood had left them alone, Jane hardly took in what the Director was saying. It was not that her attention wandered: on the contrary, her attention was so fixed on him that it defeated itself. Every tone, every look (how could they have supposed she would think him young?), every gesture, was printing itself upon her memory: and it was not until she found that he had ceased speaking and was apparently awaiting an answer that she realised she had taken in so little of what he had been saying.

  “I-I beg your pardon,” she said, wishing that she did not keep on turning red like a schoolgirl.

  “I was saying,” he answered, “that you have already done us the greatest possible service. We knew that one of the most dangerous attacks ever made upon the human race was coming very soon and in this island. We had an idea that Belbury might be connected with it. But we were not certain. We certainly did not know that Belbury was so important. That is why your information is so valuable. But in another way, it presents us with a difficulty. I mean a difficulty as far as you are concerned. We had hoped you would be able to join us-to become one of our army.”

  “Can I not, sir?” said Jane.

  “It is difficult,” said the Director after a pause. “You see, your husband is in Belbury.”

  Jane glanced up. It had been on the tip of her tongue to say “Do you mean that Mark is in any danger?” But she had realised that anxiety about Mark did not, in fact, make any part of the complex emotions she was feeling, and that to reply thus would be hypocrisy. It was a sort of scruple she had not often felt before. Finally she said,

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why,” said the Director, “it would be hard for the same person to be the wife of an official in the N.I.C.E. and also a member of my company.”

  “You mean you couldn’t trust me?”

  “I mean nothing we need be afraid to speak of. I mean that, in the circumstances, you and I and your husband could not all be trusting one another.”

  Jane bit her lip in anger, not at the Director but at Mark. Why should he and his affairs with the Feverstone man intrude themselves at such a moment as this?

  “I must do what I think right, mustn’t I?” she said softly. “I mean-if Mark-if my husband-is on the wrong s
ide, I can’t let that make any difference to what I do. Can I?”

  “You are thinking about what is right?” said the Director. Jane started, and flushed. She had not, she realised, been thinking about that.

  “Of course,” said the Director, “things might come to such a point that you would be justified in coming here, even wholly against his will, even secretly. It depends on how close the danger is-the danger to us all, and to you personally.”

  “I thought the danger was right on top of us now, from the way Mrs. Denniston talked.”

  “That is just the question,” said the Director, with a smile. “I am not allowed to be too prudent. I am not allowed to use desperate remedies until desperate diseases are really apparent. Otherwise we become just like our enemies-breaking all the rules whenever we imagine that it might possibly do some vague good to humanity in the remote future.”

  “But will it do anyone any harm if I come here?” asked Jane.

  He did not directly answer this. Presently he spoke again.

  “It looks as if you will have to go back; at least for the present. You will, no doubt, be seeing your husband again fairly soon. I think you must make at least one effort to detach him from the N.I.C.E.”

  “But how can I, sir?” said Jane. “What have I to say to him. He’d think it all nonsense. He wouldn’t believe all that about an attack on the human race.” As soon as she had said it she wondered, “Did that sound cunning?” then, more disconcertingly, “Was it cunning?”

  “No,” said the Director. “And you must not tell him. You must not mention me nor the company at all. We have put our lives in your hands. You must simply ask him to leave Belbury. You must put it on your own wishes. You are his wife.”

  “Mark never takes any notice of what I say,” answered Jane. She and Mark each thought that of the other.

  “Perhaps,” said the Director, “you have never asked anything as you will be able to ask this. Do you not want to save him as well as yourself?”

  Jane ignored this question. Now that the threat of expulsion from the house was imminent, she felt a kind of desperation. Heedless of that inner commentator who had more than once during this conversation shown her her own words and wishes in such a novel light, she began speaking rapidly.

  “Don’t send me back,” she said. “I am all alone at home, with terrible dreams. It isn’t as if Mark and I saw much of one another at the best of times. I am so unhappy. He won’t care whether I come here or not. He’d only laugh at it all if he knew. Is it fair that my whole life should be spoiled just because he’s got mixed up with some horrible people? You don’t think a woman is to have no life of her own just because she’s married?”

  “Are you unhappy now?” said the Director. A dozen affirmatives died on Jane’s lips as she looked up in answer to his question. Then suddenly, in a kind of deep calm, like the stillness at the centre of a whirlpool, she saw the truth, and ceased at last to think how her words might make him think of her, and answered, “No.”

  “But,” she added after a short pause, “it will be worse now, if I go back.”

  “Will it?”

  “I don’t know. No. I suppose not.” And for a little time Jane was hardly conscious of anything but peace and well-being, the comfort of her own body in the chair where she sat, and a sort of clear beauty in the colours and proportions of the room. But soon she began thinking to herself, “This is the end. In a moment he will send for the Ironwood woman to take you away.” It seemed to her that her fate depended on what she said in the next minute.

  “But is it really necessary?” she began. “I don’t think I look on marriage quite as you do. It seems to me extraordinary that everything should hang on what Mark says . . . about something he doesn’t understand.”

  “Child,” said the Director, “it is not a question of how you or I look on marriage but how my Masters look on it.”

  “Someone said they were very old fashioned. But-”

  “That was a joke. They are not old fashioned: but they are very very old.”

  “They would never think of finding out first whether Mark and I believed in their ideas of marriage?”

  “Well-no,” said the Director with a curious smile.

  “No. Quite definitely they wouldn’t think of doing that.”

  “And would it make no difference to them what a marriage was actually like . . . whether it was a success? Whether the woman loved her husband?”

  Jane had not exactly intended to say this-much less to say it in the cheaply pathetic tone which, it now seemed to her, she had used. Hating herself, and fearing the Director’s silence, she added, “But I suppose you will say I oughtn’t to have told you that.”

  “My dear child,” said the Director, “you have been telling me that ever since your husband was mentioned.”

  “Does it make no difference?”

  “I suppose,” said the Director, “it would depend on how he lost your love.”

  Jane was silent. Though she could not tell the Director the truth, and indeed did not know it herself, yet when she tried to explore her inarticulate grievance against Mark, a novel sense of her own injustice and even of pity for her husband, arose in her mind. And her heart sank, for now it seemed to her that this conversation, to which she had vaguely looked for some sort of deliverance from all problems, was in fact involving her in new ones.

  “It was not his fault,” she said at last. “I suppose our marriage was just a mistake.”

  The Director said nothing.

  “What would you-what would the people you are talking of say about a case like that?”

  “I will tell you if you really want to know,” said the Director.

  “Please,” said Jane reluctantly.

  “They would say,” he answered, “that you do not fail in obedience through lack of love, but have lost love because you never attempted obedience.”

  Something in Jane that would normally have reacted to such a remark with anger or laughter was banished to a remote distance (where she could still, but only just, hear its voice) by the fact that the word obedience-but certainly not obedience to Mark-came over her, in that room and in that presence, like a strange oriental perfume, perilous, seductive, and ambiguous . . .

  “Stop it!” said the Director sharply.

  Jane stared at him, open-mouthed. There were a few moments of silence during which the exotic fragrance faded away.

  “You were saying, my dear?” resumed the Director.

  “I thought love meant equality,” she said, “and free companionship.”

  “Ah, equality!” said the Director. “We must talk of that some other time. Yes; we must all be guarded by equal rights from one another’s greed, because we are fallen. Just as we must all wear clothes for the same reason. But the naked body should be there underneath the clothes, ripening for the day when we shall need them no longer. Equality is not the deepest thing, you know.”

  “I always thought that was just what it was. I thought it was in their souls that people were equal.”

  “You were mistaken,” said he gravely; “that is the last place where they are equal. Equality before the law, equality of incomes-that is very well. Equality guards life; it doesn’t make it. It is medicine, not food. You might as well try to warm yourself with a blue-book.”

  “But surely in marriage . . . ?”

  “Worse and worse,” said the Director. “Courtship knows nothing of it; nor does fruition. What has free companionship to do with that? Those who are enjoying something, or suffering something together, are companions. Those who enjoy or suffer one another, are not. Do you not know how bashful friendship is? Friends . . . comrades . . . do not look at each other. Friendship would be ashamed . . .”

  “I thought,” said Jane and then stopped.

  “I see,” said the Director. “It is not your fault. They never warned you. No one has ever told you that obedience-humility-is an erotic necessity. You are putting equality just where it ought
not to be. As to your coming here, that may admit of some doubt. For the present, I must send you back. You can come out and see us. In the meantime, talk to your husband and I will talk to my authorities.”

  “When will you be seeing them?”

  “They come to me when they please. But we’ve been talking too solemnly about obedience all this time. I’d like to shew you some of its drolleries. You are not afraid of mice are you?”

  “Afraid of what?” said Jane in astonishment.

  “Mice,” said the Director.

  “No,” said Jane in a puzzled voice.

  The Director struck a little bell beside his sofa which was almost immediately answered by Mrs. Maggs.

  “I think,” said the Director, “I should like my lunch now, if you please. They will give you lunch downstairs, Mrs. Studdock-something more substantial than mine. But if you will sit with me while I eat and drink, I will show you some of the amenities of our house.”

  Mrs. Maggs presently returned with a tray, bearing a glass, a small flagon of red wine, and a roll of bread. She set it down on a table at the Director’s side and left the room.

  “You see,” said the Director, “I live like the King in Curdie. It is a surprisingly pleasant diet.” With these words he broke the bread and poured himself out a glass of wine.

  “I never read the book you are speaking of,” said Jane.

  They talked of the book a little while the Director ate and drank; but presently he took up the plate and tipped the crumbs off on to the floor. “Now, Mrs. Studdock,” he said, “you shall see a diversion. But you must be perfectly still.” With these words he took from his pocket a little silver whistle and blew a note on it. And Jane sat still till the room became filled with silence like a solid thing and there was first a scratching and then a rustling and presently she saw three plump mice working their passage across what was to them the thick undergrowth of the carpet, nosing this way and that so that if their course had been drawn it would have resembled that of a winding river, until they were so close that she could see the twinkling of their eyes and even the palpitation of their noses. In spite of what she had said she did not really care for mice in the neighbourhood of her feet and it was with an effort that she sat still. Thanks to this effort she saw mice for the first time as they really are-not as creeping things but as dainty quadrupeds, almost, when they sat up, like tiny kangaroos, with sensitive kid-gloved forepaws and transparent ears. With quick, inaudible movements they ranged to and fro till not a crumb was left on the floor. Then he blew a second time on his whistle and with a sudden whisk of tails all three of them were racing for home and in a few seconds had disappeared behind the coal box. The Director looked at her with laughter in his eyes. “It is impossible,” thought Jane “to regard him as old.” “There,” he said, “a very simple adjustment. Humans want crumbs removed; mice are anxious to remove them. It ought never to have been a cause of war. But you see that obedience and rule are more like a dance than a drill-specially between man and woman where the roles are always changing.”