by C. S. Lewis
We were so thirsty that we did not think about lunch till we had drunk our pints. Then, having been assured by Orfieu’s servant that Mr Knellie had had his lunch and gone out of college, we stole into the cool darkness of the combination room and tackled our bread and cheese.
‘Well,’ said Orfieu, ‘this is a most remarkable discovery and you certainly have the laugh of us all, MacPhee. But when one comes to think it over, I don’t know why we should be very surprised. It only proves that the time we’re looking at is in the future.’
‘How do you mean?’ said I.
‘Well, obviously the Dark Tower is an imitation of the university library. We have an imitation of the Colosseum somewhere in Scotland and an imitation of the Bridge of Sighs in Oxford—ghastly things they both are. In the same way, those Othertime people have an imitation of what to them is the ancient British Library at Cambridge. It’s not at all odd.’
‘I think it is very odd,’ said MacPhee.
‘But why?’ asked Orfieu. ‘We have always thought that what we see on the screen is in the same place as ourselves, whatever time it may be. In other words, those people are living—or will be living—on the site of Cambridge. The library has survived for centuries and at last fallen, and now they are putting up a replica. Probably they have some superstition about it. You must remember that to them it would be almost infinitely ancient.’
‘That’s just the trouble,’ said MacPhee. ‘Far too ancient. It would have disappeared centuries—millions of centuries, maybe—before their time.’
‘How do you know they are so far in the future?’ asked Ransom.
‘Look at their anatomy. The human body has changed. Unless something very queer occurs to speed up the evolutionary process, it will take nature a good time to produce human heads that can grow stings. It’s not a question of centuries—it’s a question of millions, or thousands of millions, of years.’
‘Nowadays,’ said I, ‘some people don’t seem to agree about evolution being necessarily so very gradual.’
‘I know,’ said MacPhee. ‘But they’re wrong. I’m talking of science, not of Butler and Bergson and Shaw and all those whigmaleeries.’
‘I don’t think Bergson—’, I was beginning, when Scudamour suddenly broke out, ‘Oh we may as well chuck it, chuck it, chuck it. What’s the good of finding all those explanations why the university library should be in Othertime when they won’t explain why I’m there? They’ve got one of our buildings; and they’ve got me too, worse luck. They may have hundreds of people in there—people who are now alive—and we haven’t recognised them. And that brute, the first Stingingman—the only one till I grew my sting—do you remember how he came to the front and looked at us? Do you still think he didn’t see us? Do you still think it’s all only in the future? Don’t you see, it’s all . . . all mixed up with us somehow—bits of our world in there, or bits of it out here among us.’
He had been speaking with his eyes on the table, and as he looked up he caught us exchanging glances. This did not mend matters.
‘I see I’m making myself unpopular,’ he went on, ‘just as Dr Ransom did the other day. Well, I dare say I am rather poor company at present. You wait till you see yourselves in Othertime, and we’ll find how you like it. Of course I oughtn’t to complain. This is science. And who ever heard of a new scientific discovery which didn’t show that the real universe was even fouler and meaner and more dangerous than you had supposed? I never went in for religion, but I begin to think Dr Ransom was right. I think we have tapped whatever reality is behind all the old stories about hell and devils and witches. I don’t know. Some filthy sort of something going on alongside the ordinary world and all mixed up with it.’
Ransom was able to meet him on this ground with perfect naturalness and obvious sincerity.
‘As a matter of fact, Scudamour,’ he said, ‘I’ve changed my mind. I don’t think the world we see through the chronoscope is hell, because it seems to contain quite decent, happy people, along with the Jerkies and the Stingingmen.’
‘Yes, and the decent people get automatised.’
‘I know, and very bad luck it is. But a world in which beastly things can happen to people through no fault of their own—or, at least, not mainly through their own fault—isn’t hell: it’s only our own world over again. It only has to be faced, like our own world. Even if one was taken there—’
Scudamour shuddered. The rest of us thought Ransom was being very unwise, but I now think he was right. He usually is.
‘Even if one was taken in there—which would be worse than merely seeing one’s double there—it wouldn’t be essentially different from other misfortunes. And misfortune is not hell, not by a long way. A man can’t be taken to hell, or sent to hell: you can only get there on your own steam.’
Scudamour, who had at least paid Ransom the compliment of listening to him with great attention, now asked him, ‘And what do you think the Othertime is?’
‘Well,’ said Ransom, ‘like you, I am extremely doubtful if it is simply the future. I agree that it is much too mixed up with us for that. And I’ve been wondering for several days whether the past and the present and the future are the only times that exist.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Orfieu.
‘I don’t know yet,’ said Ransom. ‘In the meanwhile, have we positive proof that what we are seeing is a time at all?’
‘Well,’ said Orfieu after a pause, ‘I suppose not. Not irrefutable proof. It is, at present, much the easiest hypothesis.’
And that was all that was said at lunch. Two more things happened this day. One was that MacPhee, who had been observing in the afternoon, told me at dinner-time that the ‘new Stingingman’ or ‘Scudamour’s Double’ was now ensconced in the carved room. We did not know what had become of the old Stingingman. Some thought the Double must have defeated him as a new bull defeats an old bull and becomes master of the herd. Others imagined he might have succeeded him peacefully according to the rules of some sort of diabolical civil service. The whole conception of Othertime was altering now that we knew there could be more than one Stingingman. ‘A whole stinging caste,’ said MacPhee. ‘A centrocracy,’ suggested Ransom.
The other event was, in itself, unimportant. Something went wrong with the college electric light and Orfieu, on the morning watch, had to use candles.
IV
It must have been a Sunday, I think, when the lights failed, or else all the electricians in Cambridge were engaged—at any rate, we were still using candles when we assembled in Orfieu’s rooms after dinner. The little lamp in front of the chronoscope, which worked off its own battery, was of course unaffected. The curtains were drawn, the candles blown out, and we found ourselves once more looking at the carved room—and almost immediately I realised with a faint sensation of nausea that we were in for another of the stinging scenes.
This was the first time I had seen the Double since his transformation, and it was a strange experience. He was already very like the original Stingingman—in some ways more like him than he was like Scudamour. He had the same yellowish pallor and the same immobility; both, indeed, were more noticeable in him than in his predecessor because he lacked the beard. At the same time, however, his resemblance to Scudamour was quite undiminished. One sometimes sees this paradox on the faces of the dead. They look infinitely changed from what they were in life, yet unmistakably the same. A resemblance to some distant relation, never before suspected, may creep into the corpse’s face, but under that new resemblance the pitiful identity between corpse and man remains. He looks more and more like his grandfather but no less like himself. Something of this sort was happening with the Double. He had not ceased to look like Scudamour: rather, if I may so express it, he looked like Scudamour-looking-like-a-Stingingman. And one result of this was to show the characteristics of the Stingingman face in a new light. The pallor, the expressionless calm, even the horrible frontal deformity itself, now that I saw them induced upon a fami
liar face, acquired a different horror. I had never thought of pitying the original Stingingman, never suspected that he might be a horror to himself. Now I found that I thought of the poison as pain: of the sting as a solid promontory of anguish bursting out of a tortured head. And then, as the Double put down his head and coolly transfixed his first victim, I felt something like shame. It was as if one had caught Scudamour himself—Scudamour in the grip of madness or of some perversion equivalent to madness—at the moment of performing some monstrous, yet also petty, abomination. I began to have an inkling of how Scudamour himself must feel. Believing him to be at my side, I turned with the vague idea of saying something that might make him feel more comfortable, when to my surprise a quite unexpected voice said, ‘Charming. Charming. I had no idea that our age was producing work of this quality.’
It was Knellie. None of us had had any idea that he had followed us into the observatory.
‘Oh, it’s you, is it?’ said Orfieu.
‘I hope I do not intrude, my dear fellow,’ said the old man. ‘It will be very kind of you, very kind indeed, if you allow me to remain. It is a privilege to be present at the performance of so great a work of art.’
‘This is not a cinematograph, you know, Mr Knellie,’ said MacPhee.
‘I did not for a moment suggest that dreadful name,’ said Knellie in a reverential voice. ‘I fully understand that work like this differs toto caelo from the vulgarities of the popular theatres. And I understand, too, the reticence—might I say the secrecy?—of your proceedings. You cannot at present show such work to the British philistine. But I am hurt, Orfieu, that you did not take me into your confidence. I trust I, at least, am pretty free from prejudices. Why, my dear fellow, I was preaching the complete moral freedom of the artist when you were a child. May I ask who is the supreme genius to whom we are indebted for this fantasia?’
And while he talked two human beings had come in, had worshipped the idol, been seized and stung, and strutted out again. Scudamour could stand it no longer.
‘Do you mean to say you like it?’ he cried.
‘Like it?’ said Knellie thoughtfully. ‘Does one like great art? One responds—perceives—intuits—sympathises.’
Scudamour had risen. I could not see his face.
‘Orfieu,’ he said suddenly, ‘we must find a way of getting at those brutes.’
‘You know it’s impossible,’ said Orfieu. ‘We’ve been into that all before. You can’t travel in time. We’d have no bodies there.’
‘It’s not so obvious that I shouldn’t,’ said Scudamour. I had been hoping for some time that this point would not occur to him.
‘I am not sure that I understand either of you,’ said Knellie, making the assumption that the conversation had been addressed to him with such security that no one could accuse him of interrupting. ‘And I don’t think time has much to do with it. Surely art is timeless. But who is the artist? Who invented this scene—these superb masses—this splendid, sombre insolence? Who is it by?’
‘It’s by the Devil, if you want to know,’ shouted Scudamour.
‘Ah—,’ said Knellie very slowly, ‘I see what you mean. Perhaps in a certain sense that is true of all art at its supreme moments. Didn’t poor Oscar say something like that—?’
‘Look out!’ cried Scudamour. ‘Camilla! For God’s sake!’
It took me the fraction of a second to realise that he was shouting not at us but at someone on the screen. And after that everything happened so quickly that I can hardly describe it. I remember seeing a girl—a tall, straight girl with brown hair—coming into the carved room from the left along the dais as dozens of other victims had come in, both men and women. I remember, at the very same moment, a shout from Orfieu (the words were something like ‘Don’t be a fool!’) and the sight of Orfieu rushing forward, like a man about to tackle at football. He was doing this to intercept Scudamour who had suddenly and inexplicably plunged forward, with his head down, straight at the chronoscope. Then, all in an instant, I saw Orfieu reeling back under the impact of the younger and heavier man, I heard the deafening noise of a broken electric light bulb, I felt Knellie’s tremulous hands grab me by the sleeve, and found myself sitting on the floor in absolute darkness.
The room was perfectly still for a moment. Then I heard the unmistakable sound of dripping—someone’s drink had apparently been overturned. Then came a voice, MacPhee’s.
‘Is anyone hurt?’ it said.
‘I’m all right,’ said Orfieu’s voice in the tone of a man who is considerably hurt. ‘Got my head a nasty knock, that’s all.’
‘Are you hurt, Scudamour?’ asked MacPhee.
But instead of Scudamour’s voice it was Knellie’s that replied—in a sort of silvery whine, if a whine can be silvery—‘I’m a good deal shaken. I think if someone could bring me a glass of really good brandy I should be able to get to my own rooms.’
Exclamations of pain burst simultaneously from Orfieu and MacPhee who had struck their heads smartly together in the darkness. The room was full of noises and movements now as we searched for matches. Someone or other was successful. Blinking as the light flared up, I had a momentary vision of a dark figure—presumably Scudamour’s—rising from amidst the wreck of the chronoscope. Then the match went out.
‘It’s all right,’ said MacPhee. ‘I’ve got the box now. Oh damnation—’
‘What’s wrong?’ said I.
‘Man, I’ve opened it upside down and they’re all away out on the floor. Wait a bit now, wait a bit. Are you all right, Lewis?’
‘Oh yes, I’m all right.’
‘And are you all right, Scudamour?’
There was no answer. Then MacPhee found a match and succeeded in lighting a candle. I found myself looking at the face of a stranger. Then, with something of a shock, I realised that it was Scudamour’s face. Two things had, I think, prevented me from recognising him at first. One was the odd way in which he was looking at us. The other was the fact that the candlelight found him engaged in retreating towards the door. Retreating is exactly the word: he was moving backwards as quickly as he could without exciting attention, and at the same time keeping his eyes fixed on us. He was, in fact, behaving exactly like a man of iron nerves suddenly placed among enemies.
‘What’s the matter with you, Scudamour?’ said Orfieu.
But the young man made no reply, and now his hand was on the door handle. The rest of us were still staring at him in bewilderment when Ransom suddenly leaped from his chair. ‘Quick! Quick!’ he cried. ‘Don’t let him go,’ and with that he flung himself on the retreating figure. The other, who had by this time opened the door, put down his head—the gesture had now a ghastly familiarity for us all—butted Ransom in the stomach, and disappeared.
Ransom was doubled up and could say nothing for some minutes. Knellie was beginning to murmur something about brandy when MacPhee turned to Orfieu and me.
‘Are we all mad?’ he said. ‘What’s happening to us? First Scudamour and then Ransom. And where’s Scudamour gone to?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Orfieu contemplating the wreck of the chronoscope, ‘and I’m tempted to say I don’t care. He’s made hay of a year’s work, bloody young fool, that’s all I know.’
‘Why did he go for you like that?’
‘He wasn’t going for me, he was going for the chronoscope. Trying to jump through it, the young ass.’
‘To jump into the Othertime, you mean?’
‘Yes. Of course you might as well try to jump on to the Moon through a telescope.’
‘But what set him off?’
‘What he saw on the screen.’
‘But that’s no worse than he’s seen dozens of times.’
‘Ah, but you don’t understand,’ said Orfieu. ‘It’s much worse. That girl who came in—she’s another double.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It took my breath away. She’s as like a certain real woman—I mean, a woman in our time—as the o
ld double is like Scudamour. And the woman she is like is Camilla Bembridge.’
The name meant nothing to us. Orfieu sat down with a gesture of impatience. ‘I forgot, you wouldn’t know,’ he said, ‘but Camilla Bembridge is the girl he’s going to marry.’
MacPhee whistled.
‘You can’t blame the poor devil, Orfieu,’ he said. ‘It’s enough to loosen a screw in the soundest head. To see a copy of yourself first, and then to see it doing that to a copy of your sweetheart. . . . I wonder where he’s gone.’
By this time Ransom had recovered his speech.
‘So do I,’ he said. ‘I wonder very much. Why on earth did none of you help me to stop him?’
‘Why should he be stopped?’ said I.
‘Come on,’ said Ransom, ‘don’t you see? No, there’s not a moment to spare. We’ll talk about it afterwards.’
I think MacPhee saw what was in Ransom’s mind from the first. I certainly did not, but when I saw the other two leaving the room I followed them. Orfieu remained behind, absorbed, apparently, in investigating the ruin of his chronoscope. Knellie was still nursing his bruise and murmuring about good brandy.