But as she was thinking more about herself than what was going on around her, she hadn't noticed that the scene was changing. She was just saying to herself, "I must be a very different person to look at from the long, black, sulky creature I was"—when suddenly she realized that she was floating on water and that the weather-grains had become a starry sky above her. But she was not in the least upset: she felt perfectly safe. And she was safe; for she was lying in a boat made of— well, anyway she felt quite safe and was quite dry, which was all that mattered for the moment. And when she thought about home and getting home, it was her forest-room she thought about, and that seemed very near, so near that she had only to think about it to be back in it. So she floated serenely along with her question: how long was it since she had been a long, black, sulky creature called Frances Cat? Then it dawned upon her that she had never really been a long, black, sulky creature called Frances Cat. And while it was dawning on her, sure enough, it began to grow light and her boat ran gently against land. So she stepped on to the shore, and when she looked back to the water again it was gone, and the boat as well, and she was back in her forest-room again. "Oh," she said, "this must be nearly to-morrow," which made her feel a little sleepy. And she lay down without taking the trouble to notice if there was anything to lie down on, and was soon, as she thought, fast asleep.
But she was not fast asleep at all. Her eyes were closed and she was saying to herself how lovely it was to do whatever she felt like doing and to feel like doing such lovely things. If she wanted to lie down on a low couch made of crisp, flowery leaves and close her eyes for a few minutes and give free rein to her most private feelings, she could do all this without any danger of unpleasant consequences. And if she felt like going to sleep—but she did not feel like going to sleep. She did not want to lose a single moment of this life. No, she was not the same creature at all as she had been, she thought. The same self, yes; but she was certainly not Frances Cat any more. Fancy having slept herself away as she had in the old days! But no, it wasn't herself that she had slept away, but them. For here she was, and there was quite a lot of her. Why, there was more and more of her every moment. "Yes," she said to herself, "I really must see what I look like now. I could never bear the idea of looking at myself then, because it reminded me that other people could also look at me and form whatever opinion they pleased."
So she got up to go to the mirror. But there was no mirror. There was only a table laid for one, and a chair drawn up to it, and the cupboard that had been mentioned in the book, and, what she couldn't help being surprised at, two actual windows—one on her left and the other on her right. But she would not allow herself to be surprised. "After all," she said to herself, "those are my windows, why should I be surprised at them?" And she sat down to eat her breakfast in the most serene manner in the world—no, in her world. Yes, it was her world, she thought as she lifted a spoonful of she-did-not- know-what to her lips. Then it occurred to her that she had no appetite for eating. Having an appetite was like conversing with a few chosen, boring people who you were sure would not disagree with you and make you any more ill than you were.
"But I am not ill," she said, putting down her food without having touched it, "and what's more, let anyone dare to disagree with me in my own world!" At this the plate and the spoon and the table and the chair disappeared with a frightened clatter. Then she strutted to the left window and looked out in a possessive way on her sun and her fine weather, which she had apparently put out of doors (she decided) for convenience—one couldn't always be having them about; in a world of one's own one had many things to think of besides the weather. Then she strutted to the right window and looked out. But there it was neither light nor dark, nor was there anything like weather to be seen. She looked and looked, and the harder she looked the more convinced she became that out of the right window there was nothing to see.
This made her feel a little nervous. "Oh, dear," she said to herself, "I wonder if I am going mad." "No," she answered herself, "I am not going mad. People only go mad when they disregard the facts. Now I have only to study the facts a little more closely, and I shall discover what it is that I have been disregarding." And no sooner had she said this than she found herself sitting reading the book which she had been previously reading; only this time she sat at a writing-desk, with pen, ink and paper neatly arranged in the partitions—in case she should want to write anything down.
"I understand very well now what was wrong," she said, as soon as she had the book before her. "I was going too fast for my intelligence. For when I was Frances Cat I always made a point of knowing as little as possible about the world I lived in, and my intelligence got into bad habits. But this is a different world altogether, and it won't hurt me to know more about it, since it is, after all, my own world. Knowledge in that world merely meant learning about other people, and how to please them, and so it was necessary to know as little as possible if one wanted to avoid ruining one's life for other people. For once you knew how to please them it was difficult not to please them, knowledge being a thing that cannot resist showing itself off. Well, I must begin to think more and be less selfish. It won't hurt me to be unselfish, because I am entirely by myself here."
But being now in such a reasonable mood, she remembered that she was not entirely alone here: she had forgotten all about the Indescribable Witch! She remembered how from wondering what the Indescribable Witch was like she had slipped into wondering what she herself must be like, and so on. She really must behave better, she told herself—not because she was afraid of the Indescribable Witch, but because the Indescribable Witch had been so very kind to her. She did not want to hurt her feelings. A small mirror lying face downwards on the top of the writing-desk caught her eye, but she had suddenly lost all curiosity about herself. She wanted to know about the Indescribable Witch. Yes, she who had been lazy, stupid Frances Cat was now sitting down with a large, serious book in front of her, impatient to learn. Before, when she had read out of it, it had seemed a moderate-sized book, no bigger than a novel. Now it was not only one large, serious book; it was three large, serious books. The other two stood on a shelf over the writing-desk, each with its appropriate title. The title of the book in front of her was, as might be expected, The Indescribable Witch, Volume I.
So Frances, or whatever her name was now, began to study her lesson. But she was surprised to find that instead of having a lot to learn she had a lot of questions to answer. "This must be what the pen, ink and paper are for," she said. And she explained to herself that this was the right way to study, because one couldn't expect studying to be as easy as reading, which merely meant turning over from one page to the next. But they were not so much questions about her ideas or opinions of the Indescribable Witch as, at any rate to begin with, questions about herself. It is not necessary to go over everything she wrote in reply to the questions she set herself to answer; it will be enough for our story to say that she answered all the questions as truthfully and thoughtfully as she could, and that when she had finished she sewed the pages together with a long, stout needle and some leathery thread which she found in a basket on top of the writing-desk. In one of the drawers of the writing-desk (where there were two little drawers instead of a partition) she also found a piece of soft goatskin just the right size, when it was unrolled, to make a cover for her book like the covers of the other three books on the shelf. And in one of the partitions she found two stiff pieces of cardboard, and in another a pot of glue. And she glued the first page of her book, which was naturally blank, as a first page should be, on to one of the boards, and the last page, which was also blank, as a last page should be, on to the other of the boards. And then she glued the soft goat-skin round the boards, turning the edges neatly inside.
And there was her book, except for the title. But that meant printing out her own name, and she did not know what her name was now. She was Frances Cat, in a way; that is, she was what Frances Cat was turning into. To avoid making
a mistake, she called it The Indescribable Witch, Volume X. This left six volumes between the three books that she had found on the shelf, and her own; and 6 was her lucky number. She knew that it was her lucky number because she always thought of herself as just six years old—an age when people stopped treating you like a child and before they began thinking of you as one of themselves.
Having done this she felt extremely pleased with herself. As for the book about the Indescribable Witch, it had apparently disappeared page by page as fast as she had written her own book. As for the other two books on the shelf, she now took them down in turn to study. And for each of them she made an answering book, so that all three of the original books were now gone; and in their place stood three books of Frances' own writing, called respectively, The Indescribable Witch, Volume X, The Indescribable Witch, Volume IX, The Indescribable Witch, Volume VIII. But what about the other seven volumes? She did not like the number 7: it was other people's lucky number. And the paper was all used up, and the inkpot dry, and there was no more leathery thread, and there had been only three pieces of soft goatskin just the right size, and no more. Besides, her head was turning round and round in the wrong direction, from thinking numbers backwards—ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, none. That came of tracing things back too carefully. It wasn't at all necessary to be so careful. She was perfectly sure that everything was quite perfect.
She got up from the writing-desk almost disdainfully. In fact, there was no writing-desk. There were no books. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, none. It had been, more or less, her fussiness about details. Well, she was fussy. There was a hole in her stocking, under the knee. She must mend it. She slipped her hand under the elastic that held her stocking up, and under the stocking, and mended. It was a black cotton stocking, but she was mending it with pale blue silk—the silk must have come out of the basket that had stood on the writing-desk. Well, she wasn't as fussy as all that; blue was a nice colour. The mirror that had been lying face downwards on the top of the writing-desk had had a blue, silver- blue, back. The needle was also silver-blue. It went in and out, as if it were several needles. Her eyes were sparkling before her in silver-blue rays. It was really a mirror that she was looking into, and what a pretty little girl she was, no more than six years old, and so grown-up-looking. And the mirror was not a hand-mirror lying face downwards on top of the writing-desk, but more like a mirror hanging up, the silver-blue back coming over the edge and mixing in with the glass the way that the frames of mirrors always mix themselves in with the glass —only this frame seemed to pour out of the glass as well as into it.
In fact, a great deal of silver-blue light was coming in from the window on the right and, so to speak, feeding the mirror, which in turn gave it all out again—to the frame, to her. Yes, just such a steady glittering was going on as always happens when thoughts begin to clear and soon one will find oneself understanding a great deal. And, as always happens when thoughts begin to clear, the glittering seemed something apart from her mind. One cannot help being a little stupid when one is on the point of understanding; one is naturally afraid of understanding too much and getting tired. It is not very serious if one's body gets tired—this is what bodies are for. But Frances Cat (or whatever her name was now) knew that it was dangerous to tire one's mind. This was why, even when her thoughts began to clear, she kept them in a glittering daze until she was quite sure that she wasn't presuming on her intelligence. No, it does not do to tire one's mind. For by the time one comes to understand a great deal, there is very little left of oneself besides one's mind, and it is not very interesting to be merely a tired mind.
The frame seemed to move into the mirror and take the shape of her own reflection there, and then out again and take the shape of a door, and then still further in again and take the shape of a keyhole. And through the keyhole she could almost see what was on the other side. At any rate, she could see a distance which must be really quite close, because she saw it through a keyhole.
On the other side of keyholes, she knew, there were always secrets which ceased to be secrets as soon as one was on the other side oneself. The secrets on the other side of this keyhole were only, indeed, certain experiences that she needed to have before she entirely understood the nature of her present life. They seemed distant, if looked at through the keyhole, but once she had had them it would be the time before she had had them that would seem distant. What she saw through the keyhole was her own inexperience, as if she were looking back into herself from later.
In sitting down at the writing-desk she had turned herself into a little girl, by the way she went about it—like someone at school. And with each book she grew a little older, not so much in years as in self-possession—like any schoolgirl. She was a little girl in an extraordinary position, and she had to be careful not to tire her mind by thinking things out too carefully. She walked round the room briskly to refresh herself. Stopping to look out of the window on the right, she now thought she saw a narrow street full of shops in the distance, where the silver-blue light went into perspective, and decided that she felt sure enough of her head to go out for a bit and buy a few things, just for the exercise. "I mustn't let myself get stale—this is apt to happen to students," she said to herself. So she had to think about money. Where was her purse? A purse was always in a drawer, and she found one in a drawer in the writing-desk—somewhere in the writing-desk, which by now had practically disappeared and was more like an upstairs room than a writing-desk. The purse was empty, but she had only to hold it out in the weather to fill it. This meant going to the other window. She held her purse out without looking, and with rather a toss of her head, as much as to say that she didn't care whether the purse was filled or not.
Of course, it came back filled, which was what she wanted, but she did not like the business at all. She did not want to feel beholden to mysteries. But never mind (she said, with another toss of her head), she would go for her walk. She took down a cape from a peg near the mirror which was also her door, and her keyhole, and, for that matter, her entire future, or, at least, all the time she had to waste; or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it stood for to-day. As for its being a mirror, there was no more need to think of it like that, since she knew very well what she looked like: a pretty little girl with a thoughtful face and silver-blue eyes and hair like a very natural-looking doll's. So out she went.
For some time as she walked on she thought a great deal about the Indescribable Witch and her not being able to learn anything about her. "She obviously does not want me to think about her, but rather about myself. Now, what is the shortest possible way of thinking about oneself? I don't want to go on thinking about myself for ever, but only long enough to settle everything, and then to be—well, to be nothing, that is, no trouble at all to myself. I suppose it means deciding what I really want to do. That's easy to say. I want to enjoy myself and be quite free of responsibility and the opinions of other people. The problem is, how not to be serious like other people and yet how not to be silly. It was rather silly, my dancing about like that—wasn't it just last night? Not exactly silly, because nobody was watching me and I really had to let myself go just once to show that I wasn't such a sulky creature after all. But I couldn't go on dancing about like that for always. There must be quieter ways of enjoying oneself."
Perhaps it is not entirely clear what Frances was trying to do with herself? Why, of course, she was patterning herself on the Indescribable Witch, since that was the only way she could think about herself and the Indescribable Witch at the same time. For, however earnestly she may have meant to devote herself to thinking about the Indescribable Witch, she could never really have got herself out of her head. No one could who really had a self, and the Indescribable Witch was well aware of this, and would not have allowed Frances to forget herself (her real self) for a moment. This is why the books about the Indescribable Witch had turned into books about herself. Moreov
er, it must be understood that the Indescribable Witch was not to be known of or thought about in any of the usual ways in which people are known of or thought about. What had made it seem to Frances that she had forgotten about the Indescribable Witch was not that she had, in dancing about like that, lost some definite idea of her she had got at the beginning—since it was not possible at any time to have a very definite idea of the Indescribable Witch; the point was that in dancing about like that Frances had almost forgotten about herself. Yet some such foolishness had been necessary, as a means of forgetting about Frances Cat. Yes, it had been a very critical moment indeed. For in it she had had to forget about Frances Cat without forgetting about herself; not to forget altogether what Frances Cat was like, but to think of her as a thing of the past, that she could never again go back to be. Some people would call this remembering, not forgetting; but it is all very much the same thing.
And here she was walking calmly on by herself—behaving almost as if she were the Indescribable Witch herself. But as she was only a little girl in a cape, with a purse full of money in her pocket, she felt no more than that she was quite able to look after herself—not that she meant to be self-willed (or cat-headed, as her father would have said), even though as a competent little girl this might have been forgiven her. And looking round her as she walked on, she noticed on her left a field full of nibbling goats, and stopped to have a conversation with the man who was tending them—tightening the hobbles of some, loosening those of others, and being as gentle as he knew how with them, because, as he explained, goats were very sensitive animals. "Of course, everyone who tends animals thinks his kind of animal is more sensitive than any other kind," said Frances in an experienced but not rude tone. "My own father, who knew a great deal about goats, used to say, 'It's a queer thing is a goat!' But tell me, what isn't a queer thing!" And to this the old man—and he wasn't such an old man at that, but rather a long-ago man—said, "Yes, what isn't a queer thing?" And as he said it he looked at her in the queerest way, and all of a sudden the man and the goats and the field went out like a light.
Progress of Stories Page 22