The History of Middle Earth: Volume 8 - The War of the Ring

by J. R. R. Tolkien

  'Well?' said Saruman. 'You have a voice of brass, Gandalf.

  You disturb my repose. You have come to my private door without leave. What is your excuse?'

  'Without leave?' said Gandalf. 'I had the leave of such gatekeepers as I found. But am I not a lodger in this inn? My host at least has never shown me the door, since he first admitted me!'

  'Guests that leave by the roof have no claim to re-enter by the door at their will,' said Saruman.

  'Guests that are penned on the house-top against their will have a right to knock and ask for an apology,' answered Gandalf.(2) 'What have you to say, now?'

  'Nothing. Certainly not in your present company. In any case I have little to add to my words at our last meeting.'

  'Have you nothing to withdraw?'

  Saruman paused. 'Withdraw?' he said slowly. 'If in my eagerness and disappointment I said anything unfriendly to yourself, consider it withdrawn. I should probably have put matters right long ago. You were not friendly yourself, and persisted in misunderstanding me and my intentions, or pretending to do so. But I repeat: I bore you no ill-will personally; and even now, when your - your associates have done me so much injury, I should be ready to forgive you, if you would . dissociate yourself from such people. I have for the moment less power to help you than I had; but I still think you would find my friendship more profitable in the end than theirs. We are after all both members of an ancient and noble profession: we should understand one another. If you really wish to consult me, I am willing to receive you. Will you come up?'

  This passage, whose original germ is seen in the outlines given in VII.212, 436, was developed into that in TT pp. 186-7. The draft text (3) goes on at once to 'Gandalf laughed. "Understand one another? ..."', and there is nothing said about the effect of Saruman's words on the bystanders; but in the manuscript his speech was changed, apparently at once, to a form somewhat nearer to that in TT (with 'a high and ancient order' for 'an ancient and noble profession'), and this was followed by the passage (TT p. 187) in which the voice of Saruman 'seemed like the gentle remonstrance of a kindly king with an errant but beloved minister'. But here the words 'So great was the power that Saruman exerted in this last effort that none that stood within hearing were unmoved' are absent; for of all that precedes this in TT', his long opening trial of Théoden's mind and will, with the interventions of Gimli and Eomer, there is no hint or suggestion in either draft or finished text. The interview is conducted exclusively between the two wizards.

  For the remainder of the dialogue between them I give here the original draft: (4)

  Gandalf laughed. 'Understand one another? I don't know. But I understand you at any rate, Saruman - well enough. No! I do not think I will come up. You have an excellent adviser with you, adequate for your understanding. Wormtongue has cunning enough for two. But it had occurred to me that since Isengard is rather a ramshackle place, rather old-fashioned and in need of renovation and alteration, you might like to leave - to take a holiday, say. If so, will you not come down?'

  A quick cunning look passed over Saruman's face; before he could conceal it, they had a glimpse of mingled fear and relief/hope. cunning. They saw through the mask the face of a trapped man, that feared both to stay and to leave his refuge. He hesitated. 'To be torn by the savage wood-demons?' he said. 'No, no.'

  'O do not fear for your skin,' said Gandalf. 'I do not wish to kill you - as you would know, if you really understood me. And no one will hurt you, if I say no. I am giving you a last chance. You can leave Orthanc - free, if you choose.'

  'Hm,' said Saruman. 'That sounds well. More like the old Gandalf. But why should I wish to leave Orthanc? And what precisely is "free"?'

  'The reasons for leaving lie all around,' said Gandalf. 'And free means not a prisoner. But you will surrender to me the key of Orthanc - and your staff: pledges for your conduct. To be returned, if I think fit, later.'

  Saruman's face was for a moment clouded with anger. Then he laughed. 'Later!' he said. 'Yes - when you also have the keys of Baraddur, I suppose; and the crowns of seven kings, and the staffs of the five wizards,(5) and have purchased yourself a pair of boots many sizes larger than those you have now. A modest plan. But I must beg leave to be excused from assisting. Let us end this chatter. If you wish to deal with me, deal with me! Speak sense - and do not come here with a horde of savages, and these boorish men, and foolish children that dangle at your tail.'

  He left the balcony. He had hardly turned away, when a heavy thing came hurtling down from above. It glanced off the parapet, narrowly missed Gandalf, and splintered [struck out: into fragments] on the rock beside the stair. It seemed to have been a large ball of dark shining crystal.

  'The treacherous rogue,' cried Eomer, but Gandalf was unmoved. 'Not Saruman this time,' he said. 'It came from a window above. That was a parting shot from Master Wormtongue, I fancy. I caught the flash of a hand. And ill-aimed. Which do you think it was meant for, me or Saruman?' 'I think maybe the aim was ill because he could not make up his mind which he hated most' (? said Gimli). 'I think so too,' said Gandalf. 'There will be pleasant words in the Tower when we are gone.'

  'And we had better go quickly out of stone's throw at least,' said Eomer.

  'It is plain to me that Saruman has not yet given up hope [added: in his own devices],' said Gandalf. 'Well, he must nurse his hope in Orthanc.'

  Here this draft stops, the ending being very ragged. It is notable that in this text there is no mention of Gandalf's summons to Saruman to return to the balcony when he turned away, and so the breaking of his staff does not appear (in the original sketches of the scene in the outlines referred to above, where Saruman was not in his tower, Gandalf took his staff from him and broke it with his hands).

  Since there is no evidence at all that the conception of the Palantír had arisen at any earlier stage or in any earlier writing, this must be presumed to be its first appearance, but the draft does not make it dear whether my father perceived its nature at the moment of its introduction as Wormtongue's missile - Gandalf does not say what he thought of it, nor hint that it might be a device of importance to Saruman. In his letter to W. H. Auden of 7 June 1955 my father said (immediately following the passage from that letter cited at the beginning of The Return of the Shadow): 'I knew nothing of the Palantíri, though the moment the Orthanc-stone was cast from the window, I recognized it, and knew the meaning of the 'rhyme of lore' that had been running in my mind: seven stars and seven stones and one tuhite tree.'(7) On the other hand, in this initial version of the scene he saw the ball of crystal as shattered by the impact, and still in the finished manuscript immediately following this draft he wrote that the ball 'splintered on the rock beside the stair. It seemed from the fragments', before breaking off at this point and writing that it smote the stair, and that it was the stair that cracked and splintered while the globe was unharmed. What further significance for the story could it have had if it were immediately destroyed?

  The completed text develops the dialogue of Gandalf and Saruman a good way towards the form in TT, though much still remains from the original draft. But there now enters, almost in the final form, Gandalf's summons to Saruman to come back, his final admonition to him, and the breaking of his staff. The crystal ball now rolled down the steps, and it was 'dark but shining with a heart of fire'. In reply to Aragorn's suggestion that Wormtongue could not make up his mind whom he hated most Gandalf says: 'Yes, that may be so. There will be some debate in the Tower, when we are gone! We will take the ball. I fancy that it is not a thing that Saruman would have chosen to cast away.'

  Pippin's running down the stair to pick up the globe, and Gandalf's hasty taking of it and wrapping it in the folds of his cloak, were later additions (see p. 79 note 12). Yet that the globe was to be important is now plain. The scene ends thus in this version:

  'Yet there may be other things to cast,' said Gimli. 'If that is the end of the debate, let us go out of stone's throw, at least.'

  'It
is the end,' said Gandalf. 'I must find Treebeard and tell him how things have gone.'

  'He will have guessed, surely?' said Merry. 'Were they likely to end any other way?'

  'Not likely,' answered Gandalf, 'But I had reasons for trying. I do not wish for mastery. Saruman has been given a last choice, and a fair one. He has chosen to withhold Orthanc at least from us, for that is his last asset. He knows that we have no power to destroy it from without, or to enter it against his will; yet it might have been useful to us. But things have not gone badly. Set a thief to hinder a thief! [Struck out: And malice blinds the wits.] I fancy that, if we could have come in, we should have found few treasures in Orthanc more precious than the thing which the fool Wormtongue tossed down to us!'

  A shrill shriek, suddenly cut off, came from an open window high above. 'I thought so,' said Gandalf. 'Now let us go! '

  The end of the chapter in TT, the meeting of Legolas and Gimli with Treebeard, his parting from Merry and Pippin, and the verse in which the Hobbits are entered into 'the Long Lists', is present in this first completed text all but word for word, save only at the very end, where his last words are brief:

  'Leave it to Ents,' said Treebeard. 'Until seven times the years in which he tormented us have passed, we shall not tire of watching over him.'(8)

  NOTES.

  1. The draft has: 'low, rather melodious, and yet unpleasant: it spoke contemptuously.'

  2. Though this exchange was subsequently lost, the reference to Gandalf's manner of departure from Orthanc on the previous occasion was brought in at a later point (TT p. 187): 'When last I visited you, you were the jailor of Mordor, and there I was to be

  sent. Nay, the guest who has escaped from the roof will think twice before he comes back in by the door.'

  3. The draft of Saruman's speech is very close to that cited from the completed manuscript, but after 'We should understand one another' Saruman says 'Building not breaking is our work.'

  4. Not strictly the original draft, since as already noted it is inked over a faint and illegible pencilled text.

  5. The first reference to the Five Wizards.

  6. In drafting for the end of the chapter Gandalf's reply to Treebeard's 'So Saruman would not leave? I did not think he would' (TT p. 192) runs thus: 'No, he is still nursing what hope he has. He is of course pretending that he loves me and would help me (if I were reasonable - which means if I would serve him, and help him to power without [?bounds]). But he is determined to wait - sitting among the ruins of his old plans to see what comes. In that mood, and with the Key of Orthanc and his staff he must not be allowed to escape.'

  7. The need that the Palantír would come to fulfil had already been felt, as is seen from Aragorn's (rejected) remarks on p. 50: 'And we should do best never to mention it [the Ring] aloud: I do not know what powers Saruman in his tower may have, nor what means of communication with the East there may be.'

  8. The meeting of Treebeard with Legolas and Gimli and his parting from Merry and Pippin was very largely achieved in preliminary drafting, but was placed at a different point, since it begins: 'The afternoon was half gone and the sun going behind the western arm of the valley when Gandalf and the King returned. With them came Treebeard. Gimli and Legolas gazed at him in wonder. "Here are my companions that I have spoken of to you," said Gandalf. The old Ent looked at them long and searchingly', &c. This was how the part of the narrative afterwards constituting 'The Voice of Saruman' originally began.

  VI. THE Palantír.

  Drafts and outlines for the opening of this chapter show my father very uncertain of the immediate course of events when the company left Isengard. These pages are extremely difficult to interpret and to place in sequence, but I take the one that I give now to be that first written, since it treats as the actual event what would become merely the abandoned plan ('When we came, we meant to go straight from Isengard back to the king's house at Edoras over the plains', TT p. 194).

  The sun was sinking behind the long western arm of the mountains when Gandalf and his companions, and the King with his riders, set out from Isengard.

  Ents in a solemn row stood like statues at the gate, with their long arms uplifted; but they made no sound. Merry and Pippin looked back as they passed down hill and turned into the road that led to the bridge.(1) Sunlight was shining in the sky, but long shadows reached out over Isengard. Treebeard stood there still, like a dark tree in the shade; the other Ents were gone, back to the sources of the stream.

  By Gandalf's advice the company crossed the bridge and then struck away from the river, southward and east, making straight across the rolling plains of Rohan back to Eodoras: a journey of some forty-eight leagues.(2) They were to ride more with secrecy than speed, by dusk and night, hoping to reach the king's house by nightfall of the second day. By that time many of the king's men who had fought at the Fords and at Helm's Deep would be gathering at Eodoras.

  'We have gained the first victory,' said Gandalf, 'yet that has some danger. There was a bond between Isengard and Mordor. Of what sort and how they exchanged their news I have not discovered. But the eyes of the Dark Tower will look now in this direction, I think.

  'There is no one of this company, I think, whose name (and deeds) is not noted now in the dark mind of Sauron. We should walk in shadow, if we walk abroad at all - until we are ready. Therefore, though it may add to the miles, I counsel you go now

  by night, and go south so that day does not find us in the open plain. After that we may ride with many men, or ride maybe [??back to the] Deeping Coomb that would be better by ways among the foothills of your own mountains Théoden, and come thus down to Eodoras... long ravines about Dunharrow.

  The last few lines are a ragged scrawl, across which my father wrote (at the same time) 'They meet Huorns returning'. Since against the statement that 'they passed down hill and turned into the road that led to the bridge' he noted in the margin 'No they rode south to the Fords', and against 'the company crossed the bridge and then struck away from the river' he wrote 'No, they go south', it seems clear that it was as he was writing this first draft of the opening that he realised that the company did not in fact make straight for Eodoras but went first to Helm's Deep - and therefore abandoned this text.(3)

  In a rejected speech of Aragorn's (p. 67 note 7) there was a suggestion that he had given some thought to the matter, but there is here the first clear expression of the idea that there must have been some means by which news was rapidly exchanged between Orthanc and Barad-dûr. Why Gandalf was so certain of this is not made plain,(4) and one might wonder whether the idea did not arise from the Palantír rather than the other way about.

  On the reverse of this page is an outline that one would naturally suppose to have been written continuously with the text on the other side. That it followed the abandoned narrative draft is obvious from the fact that here the company did not head straight for Eodoras but rode down from Isengard to the Fords. The writing is here exceptionally difficult, not only extremely rapid but with letters idiosyncratically formed.

  This was the Orthan[c] Stone [written above: Orthancstone Orthankstone Orpancstan] which kept watch on movements in neighbourhood but its range was limited to some 100 leagues?(5) It will help to keep watch on Orthanc from afar.

  Night comes swiftly. They come to the Fords and note the river is failing and running dry again.(6) The starry night. They cross and pass the mounds.

  They halt under stars and see the great black shadow passing between [?them] and stars. Nazgûl.

  Gandalf takes out dark globe and looks at it. Good, he said. It shows little by night. That is a comfort. All they could see [?was] stars and [?far away] small batlike shapes wheeling. At the edge was a river in the moon. The moon is already visible in Osgiliath said Gandalf. That seems the edge of sight.(7)

  As they draw near Helm's Deep a shadow comes up like a mist. Suddenly they hear a rustling whisper and on both sides of them so that they are in a lane .... Shadows pass away northwa
rd. Huorns. Insert now page 3 of Ch.XXIX.

  Next day they ride with many men in the Westfold Vale and .... by [?paths winding] among the mountains. They strike the Dunharrow ravine on the second day. And find folk streaming back to Eodoras. Aragorn rides with Éowyn.(8)

  Gandalf looks at the Dark Crystal on the terrace before King's House. They see quite clearly Orthanc - Ents [?moving] ..... water all very [?small] and clear. Horsemen riding over plain from west and north. Strange [? figures of various kind]. And from Minas Tirith. It only shows lights and men [?no country].

  The reference to 'page 3 of Chapter XXIX' is to the first completed version of 'The Road to Isengard', where the description of the departure of the Huorn wood from the Deeping Coomb was placed before Théoden and Gandalf and their company left for Isengard, and so before they passed through the wood (p. 27). It is clear from the passage of the Huorns at this point in the story that the final time- scheme had not yet been reached (see pp. 5 - 6, $$ III-IV): Théoden and Gandalf and their company still reached Isengard on the day (2 February) following the Battle of the Hornburg and did not spend the night of 2 February encamped below Nan Gurunir (where in TT, p. 158, they heard the Huorns passing, and after which the passage about the departure of the wood from the Deeping Coomb, and the Death Down, finally found its place).