returnoftheshadow72

by Miguel

  On the reverse of the second page of these notes is the following in pencil:

  (13) Simpler Story.

  Bilbo disappears on his 100th [written above: 111] Birthday party. Bingo is his heir - much to the annoyance of the Sackville- Bagginses.

  ['If you want to know what lay behind these mysterious events we must go back a month or two.' Then have a conversation of Bilbo and Gandalf.

  The talk dies down; and Gandalf is seldom seen again in Hobbiton.

  Next chapter begins with Bingo's life. Gandalf's furtive visits. Conversation. Bingo is bored by Shire (ring-restlessness?): and makes up his mind to go and look for Bilbo. Also he has been rather reckless and the money is running out. So he sells Bag- end to the Sackville-Bagginses who thus get it go years too late, pockets the money, and goes off when 72 (144) - same tendency to longevity as Bilbo had had. Gandalf encourages him for reasons of his own. But warns him not to use the Ring outside the Shire - if he can help it [cf. note (8)]. Bilbo used it for a last big jest, but you had better not. (Bingo does not tell Gandalf that looking for Bilbo was his motive).

  All this was subsequently struck through; and the passage which is here enclosed in square brackets was struck out separately, perhaps at the time of writing.

  The narrative structure in its principal relations is now that of the final story:

  Bilbo disappears (putting on the Ring) at his 111th birthday party, and leaves Bingo as his heir.

  Years after, Gandalf talks to Bingo at Bag End; Bingo is anxious to leave for his own reasons, and Gandalf encourages him to go (but apparently without telling him much, though he warns him against using the Ring).

  Although the Party now reverts to Bilbo, and is held on his 111th birthday - his age when he departed out of the Shire in the existing version of 'A Long-expected Party' (p. 40), Bingo still leaves at the age of 72 - his age when it was he who gave the Party. The bracketed figure 144 is presumably Bilbo's age at the time, as in the existing version, from which it follows that at the time of Bilbo's Farewell Party Bingo was 39; the total of their two ages was 150. But what my father had in mind on this point cannot be said, for he never wrote the story in this form. The bracketed passage suggests that some account would be given, in a conversation between Bilbo and Gandalf a month or two before the party, of what had led up to Bilbo's decision to leave the Shire in this way; and this account would follow the opening chapter describing the festivity. What this conversation would be about is suggested by another note, doubtless written at the same time:

  Place 'Gollum' chapter after 'Long-expected party': with a heading: 'If you want to know what lay behind these mysterious events, we must go back a month or two.'

  This presumably means that my father was thinking of making the conversation between Bilbo and Gandalf before the Party (but standing in the narrative after it) cover the story of Gollum and the Ring. The 'Gollum chapter' would thus be in its final place, though the context here suggested for it would be entirely changed.

  Lastly, a scribbled note reads:

  (14) Bilbo carries off 'memoirs' to Rivendell.

  THE SECOND PHASE

  XIV. RETURN TO HOBBITON.

  My father now settled at last for the 'simpler story' which he had roughed out in the Queries and Alterations (note 13); and so the Birthday Party at Bag End returns again to Bilbo, with whom it had begun (pp. 13, 19, 40). The following rough outline no doubt immediately preceded the rewriting of the opening chapter: the fifth version, and an exceedingly complicated document.

  Bilbo disappears on his 111th birthday. 'Long-expected Party' chapter(1) suitably altered up to point where Gandalf disappears into Bag-End. Then a short conversation between Gandalf and Bilbo inside.

  Bilbo says it is becoming wearisome - stretched feeling. He must get rid of it. Also he is tired of Hobbiton, he feels a great desire to go away. Dragon gold curse? or Ring. Where are you going? I don't know. Take care! I don't care. He gets Gandalf to promise to hand on Ring to his heir Bingo. He leaves it to him - but I don't want him to worry or to try and follow: not yet. So he does not even tell Bingo of the joke. At end of chapter make Bilbo say goodbye to Gandalf at gate, hand him a package (with Ring) for Bingo, and disappear.

  Chapter 11 is then Bingo. Furtive visits of Gandalf. Gandalf urges him to go off - for reasons of his own. Bingo on his side never tells Gandalf that looking for Bilbo is his great desire. Gandalf does not [? tell? talk] of the Ring. The Gollum business must come in later (at Rivendell) - after Bingo has met Bilbo; and Gandalf has now found out much more. It will probably be necessary to run this Chapter I I on to head of present II 'Two's company - and three's more'.(2)

  The fourth version of 'A Long-expected Party' had in fact reached quite an advanced stage in most respects - in some respects virtually the final form; but the Party was Bingo's on his 72nd birthday, Bilbo having quietly disappeared out of the Shire for good thirty-three years before, when he was 111 and Bingo was 39, and apart from providing the fireworks Gandalf played no part in the chapter at all.

  The outline just given says that the chapter must be 'suitably altered up to the point where Gandalf disappears into Bag-End', and the story

  now begins: 'When Bilbo Baggins of the well-known Hobbiton family prepared to celebrate his one-hundred-and-eleventh (or eleventy-first) birthday, there was some talk in the neighbourhood,' etc. (see pp. 28, 36). The fourth version is then followed (3) as far as 'And if he was in, you never knew who you would find with him: hobbits of quite poor families, or folk from distant villages, dwarves, and even sometimes elves' (p. 36); here a new passage concerning Gandalf and Bilbo was introduced.

  Gandalf the wizard, too, was sometimes seen going up the hill. People said Gandalf 'encouraged' him, and accused him in turn of 'encouraging' some of his more lively nephews (and removed cousins), especially on the Took side; but what exactly they meant was not clear. They may have been referring to the mysterious absences from home, and to the strange habit Bilbo and his encouraged young friends had of walking all over the Shire in untidy clothes.

  As time wore on the prolonged vigour, not to say youthfulness, of Mr Bilbo Baggins also became the subject of comment. At ninety he seemed much the same as ever he had been. At 99 they began to call him 'well-preserved'; but 'unchanged' would have been nearer the mark. Nevertheless he surprised them all that year by making a considerable change in his habits: he adopted as his heir his favourite and most completely 'encouraged' nephew, Bingo. Bingo Baggins was then a mere lad of 27,(4) and was strictly speaking not Bilbo's nephew (a title he used rather loosely), but both his first and his second cousin, once removed in each case,(5) but he happened to have the same birthday, September 22, as Bilbo, which seemed an additional link between them.(6) He was the son of poor Primula Brandybuck and [> who married late and as last resort] Drogo Baggins (Bilbo's second cousin but otherwise quite unimportant).

  In Queries and Alterations, note 2, my father had said that he was 'too used to Bingo' to change his name to Frodo, but he was now following up the suggestions in that note that Bolger-Baggins ('a bad name') should be got rid of, and that Bingo should be a Baggins in his own right. Later in this passage Drogo takes over the rumoured boating accident on the Brandywine from Rollo Bolger (see p. 37): some said that Drogo Baggins had died of over-eating while staying with the old gormandizer Gorboduc; others said that it was his weight that had sunk the boat.' It is now told that Bingo was twelve years old at the time,

  and that he afterwards lived mostly with his grandfather [Gorboduc Brandybuck, p. 37] and his mother's hundred and one relatives in theGreat Hole of Bucklebury,(7) the ancestral and very overcrowded residence of the gregarious Brandybucks. But his visits to 'Uncle' Bilbo became more and more frequent, until at last, as has been said, Bilbo adopted him, when he was a lad of 27.

  But all that was old history. People had become in the last 12 years used to having Bingo about. Neither Bilbo nor Bingo did anything outrageous. Their parties were sometimes a bit noisy (and
not too select), perhaps; but hobbits don't mind that kind of noise now and again. Bilbo - now in his turn 'encouraged' by Bingo - spent his money freely, and his wealth became a local legend. It was popularly believed that most of the Hill was full of tunnels stuffed with gold and silver. Now it was suddenly given out that Bilbo, perhaps struck with the curiosity of the number 111, was planning to give something quite unusual in the way of birthday-parties. 111 was a respectable age even for hobbits.(8) Naturally tongues wagged, and old memories were stirred, and new expectations aroused. Bilbo's wealth was guessed afresh... (etc. as before, see p. 30) .

  In the account of the comings and goings at Bag End there are a few slight changes. The Men and the waggon painted with a D (pp. 20, 30) have been removed, as proposed in Queries and Alterations (note 1), but Elves as well as Dwarves are still mentioned. The bundles of fireworks were labelled not only with a big red G but also with ()- 'That was Gandalf's mark' (the same rune appears in his letter at Bree and in his note left on Weathertop). The disappointed children given pennies but no fireworks are introduced (FR p. 33); and now at last appears the 'short conversation between Gandalf and Bilbo inside Bag-End' sketched in the outline on p. 233.

  Inside Bag-End Bilbo and Gandalf were sitting at the open window of the sitting-room looking west onto the garden. The late afternoon was bright and peaceful; the flowers were red and golden; snapdragons, and sunflowers, and nasturtians trailing all over the turf walls and peeping in at the windows.

  'How bright your garden is! ' said Gandalf.

  'Yes,' said Bilbo. 'I am very fond indeed of it, and of all the dear old Shire; but I think the time has come.'

  'You mean to go on with your plan then?' asked Gandalf.

  'Yes, I do,' Bilbo answered. 'I have made up my mind at last. I really must get rid of It.(9) "Well-preserved" indeed!' he snorted. 'Why, I feel all thin - sort of stretched, if you know what I mean: like a string that won't quite go round the parcel, or - or - butter that is scraped over too much bread. And that can't be right.'

  'No!' said Gandalf thoughtfully. 'No. I daresay your plan is the best, at any rate for you. At least at present I know nothing against it, and can think of nothing better.'

  'Yes, I suppose it may seem a bit hard on Bingo,' said Bilbo. 'But what can I do? I can't destroy it, and after what you have told me I am not going to throw it away; but I don't want it, in fact I can't abide it any more. But you did promise me, didn't you, to keep an eye on him, and help him if he needs it later on? Otherwise, of course, I should have to.'

  'I will do what I can for him,' said Gandalf. 'But I hope you will take care of yourself.'

  'Take care! I don't care!' said Bilbo, and then going suddenly into verse (as was becoming his habit more and more) he went on in a low voice looking out of the window with a far-away look in his eyes:

  The Road etc. as II .5.

  (This is a reference to the typescript of 'Three's Company', p. 53). All of this new passage, from the words 'I really must get rid of It', was struck out in pencil and marked 'Later' (see pp. 237 and 239 - 40).

  The text continues: 'More carts rolled up the Hill next day, and still more carts. There might have been some grumbling about "dealing locally",' etc. (p. 20). From this point in the fourth version (essentially the same as the third and second, pp. 31, 28, and as FR) the fifth of course very largely follows the old drafts, 'Bingo' being changed to 'Bilbo' where necessary. To the guests at the select dinner party are now added members of the families of Gawkroger (10) (Goodbody in FR) and Brock- house: the latter 'did not live in the Shire at all, but in Combe-under- Bree, a village on the Eastern Road beyond Brandywine. They were supposed to be remotely connected with the Tooks, but were also friends Bilbo had made in the course of his travels.' On this see Queries and Alterations note 5, and my comment on it; cf. also the original Chapter VII (p. 137), of the hobbits at The Prancing Pony: 'there were also some (to hobbits) natural names like Banks, Longholes, Brockhouse... which were not unknown among the more rustic inhabitants of the Shire.'

  A curious point is that at this stage there were 'eight score or one hundred and sixty' guests at the dinner party in the pavilion under the tree, not 144; and in his speech Bilbo said: 'For it is of course also the birthday of my heir and nephew, Bingo. Together we score one hundred and sixty. Your numbers were chosen to fit this remarkable total.' Emendations to the preceding part of the chapter relate to this: Bingo's age at his adoption was changed from 27 to 37, so that when Bilbo was 111 (twelve years later) Bingo was 49 - totalling 160. My father had of course decided - the party being Bilbo's, and both he and Bingo being present - that the significance of the number of guests must now relate, not as previously to the elder hobbit's years, but to the total of their combined ages; but why he did not stick to 144 and reduce Bingo's age accordingly to 144 minus 111 I cannot say.

  Bilbo now refers to its being the anniversary of his arrival by barrel at Lake-town; but there is still no flash when he stepped down and vanished. This part of the text was soon revised - indeed before the story had gone much further,(11) and in a rewritten version of Bilbo's speech the number of guests reverts to 144, Bingo becomes 33 (which is the year of his 'coming of age'), and there is a blinding flash of light when he vanishes. Emendation to the earlier part of the text now changed Bingo's age at adoption once more, and finally, to 21.

  In the hubbub that followed Bilbo's disappearance

  there was one person harder hit than all the rest: and that was Bingo. He sat for some time quite silent in his seat beside the empty chair of his uncle, ignoring all remarks and questions; and then abandoning the party to look after itself he slipped out of the pavilion unnoticed.(12)

  'What do we do now?' This question became more and more popular, and louder and louder. Suddenly old Rory Brandybuck, whose wits neither old age, nor surprise, nor an enormous dinner, had quite clouded was heard to shout: 'I never saw him go. Where is he now, anyway? Where is Bilbo - and Bingo, too, confound him?' There was no sign of their hosts, anywhere.

  As a matter of fact, Bilbo Baggins, even while he was making his speech, had been fingering a small ring in his pocket: his magic ring, that he had kept secret for so many years. As he stepped down he slipped it on - and was never seen in Hobbiton again.

  There now enters a wholly new element in the narrative, and it was clearly at this time that the passage of conversation between Gandalf and Bilbo inside Bag End before the party was largely struck out and marked 'Later' (pp. 235 - 6); at this time also that that conversation was re-extended from the point where Bilbo says 'Yes, I do. I have made up my mind at last', as follows (cf. FR pp. 33 - 4):

  'Very well,' said Gandalf. 'I can see you mean to have your own way. I hope it will turn out all right - for all of us.'

  'I hope so,' said Bilbo. 'Anyway I mean to enjoy myself on Thursday, and have my little joke in my own way.'

  'Well, I hope you will still be laughing this time next year,' said Gandalf.

  'And I hope you will, too,' retorted Bilbo.

  The new version continues (from 'and he was never seen in Hobbiton again'):

  He walked briskly back to his hole, and stood listening with a smile for a moment to the sounds of merrymaking going on in various parts of the field. Then he went in. He took off his party clothes, folded up and wrapped in tissue paper his embroidered waistcoat with the silk [> gold] buttons and put it away. Then he put on some old and untidy garments,(13) and from a locked bottom drawer (reeking of mothballs) he got out an old cloak and an old hood that seemed to have been laid up as carefully as if they were very precious, though they were so weatherstained and mended that their original colour (probably dark green) could hardly be guessed. They were rather too big for him. He put a large bulky envelope on the mantelpiece, on which was written BINGO.

  He chose his favourite thick stick from the hall stand, and then whistled. Several dwarves appeared from various rooms where they had been busy.

  'Is everything ready?' Bilbo asked. 'Everyt
hing packed up [added: and labelled]?'

  'Everything,' they said.

  'Well, let's start then. Lofar, you are stopping behind, of course [added: for Gandalf]: please make sure that Bingo gets the letter on the dining room mantelpiece as soon as he comes in. Nar, Anar, Hannar, are you ready?(14) Right. Off we go.'

  He stepped out of the front door. It was a fine clear night, and the black sky was full of stars. He looked up, sniffing the air. 'What fun!' he said. 'What fun to be off again - on the Road with dwarves: this is what I have really been longing-for for years.' He waved his hand to the door: 'Goodbye,' he said. He turned away from the lights and voices in the field and the tents, and followed by his three companions went round to the garden on the west side of Bag-End, and trotted down the long sloping path. They jumped the low place in the hedge at the bottom and took to the meadows, passing like a rustle in the grasses.

  At the bottom of the Hill they came to a gate opening on to a narrow lane. As they climbed over, a dark figure in a tall hat rose up from under the hedge.