Perelandra

by Clive Staples Lewis

  The stillness and the smiling lasted for perhaps two whole minutes: certainly not less. Then Ransom made to take a step towards the thing, with no very clear notion of what he would do when he reached it. He stumbled and fell. He had a curious difficulty in getting to his feet again, and when he got to them he overbalanced and fell for the second time. Then there was a moment of darkness filled with a noise of roaring express trains. After that the golden sky and coloured waves returned and he knew he was alone and recovering from a faint. As he lay there, still unable and perhaps unwilling to rise, it came into his mind that in certain old philosophers and poets he had read that the mere sight of the devils was one of the greatest among the torments of Hell. It had seemed to him till now merely a quaint fancy. And yet (as he now saw) even the children know better: no child would have any difficulty in understanding that there might be a face the mere beholding of which was final calamity. The children, the poets, and the philosophers were right. As there is one Face above all worlds merely to see which is irrevocable joy, so at the bottom of all worlds that face is waiting whose sight alone is the misery from which none who beholds it can recover. And though there seemed to be, and indeed were, a thousand roads by which a man could walk through the world, there was not a single one which did not lead sooner or later either to the Beatific or the Miserific Vision. He himself had, of course, seen only a mask or faint adumbration of it; even so, he was not quite sure that he would five.

  When he was able, he got up and set out to search for the thing. He must either try to prevent it from meeting the Lady or at least be present when they met. What he could do, he did not know; but it was clear beyond all evasion that this was what he had been sent for. Weston’s body, travelling in a space-ship, had been the bridge by which something else had invaded Perelandra-whether that supreme and original evil whom in Mars they call The Bent One, or one of his lesser followers, made no difference. Ransom was all goose flesh, and his knees kept getting in each other’s way. It surprised him that he could experience so extreme a terror and yet be walking and thinking-as men in war or sickness are surprised to find how much can be borne. “It will drive us mad,” “It will kill us outright,” we say; and then it happens and we find ourselves neither mad nor dead, still held to the task.

  The weather changed. The plain on which he was walking swelled to a wave of land. The sky grew paler: it was soon rather primrose than gold. The sea grew darker, almost the colour of bronze. Soon the island was climbing considerable

  hills of water. One or twice he had to sit down and rest. After several hours (for his progress was very slow) he suddenly saw two human figures on what was for the moment a skyline. Next moment they were out of sight as the country heaved up between them and him. It took about half an hour to reach them. Weston’s body was standing-swaying and balancing itself to meet each change of the ground in a manner of which the real Weston would have been incapable. It was talking to the Lady. And what surprised Ransom most was that she continued to listen to it without turning to welcome him or even to comment on his arrival when he came and sat down beside her on the soft turf.

  “It is a great branching out,” it was saying. “This making of story or poetry about things that might be but are not. If you shrink back from it, are you not drawing back from the fruit that is offered you?”

  “It is not from the making a story that I shrink back, o Stranger,” she answered, “but from this one story that you have put into my head. I can make myself stories about my children or the King. I can make it that the fish fly and the land beasts swim. But if I try to make the story about living on Fixed Land I do not know how to make it about Maleldil. For if I make it that He has changed His command, that will not go. And if I make it that we are living there against His command, that is like making the sky all black and the water so that we cannot drink it and the air so that we cannot breathe it. But also, I do not see what is the pleasure of trying to make these things.”

  “To make you wiser, older,” said Weston’s body.

  “Do you know for certain that it will do that?” she asked. “Yes, for certain,” it replied. “That is how the women of my world have become so great and so beautiful.”

  “Do not listen to him,” broke in Ransom; “send him away. Do not hear what he says, do not think of it.”

  She turned to Ransom for the first time. There had been some very slight change in her face since he had last seen her. It was not sad, nor deeply bewildered, but the hint of something precarious had increased. On the other hand she was clearly pleased to see him, though surprised at his interruption; and her first words revealed that her failure to greet him at his arrival had resulted from her never having envisaged the possibility of a conversation between more than two speakers. And throughout the rest of their talk, her ignorance of the technique of general conversation gave a curious and disquieting quality to the whole scene. She had no notion of how to glance rapidly from one face to another or to disentangle two remarks at once. Sometimes she listened wholly to Ransom, sometimes wholly to the other, but never to both.

  “Why do you start speaking before this man has finished, Piebald?” she inquired. “How do they do in your world where you are many and more than two must often be together? Do they not talk in turns; or have you an art to understand even when all speak together? I am not old enough for that.”

  “I do not want you to hear him at all,” said Ransom. “He is-” and then he hesitated. “Bad”, “liar”, “enemy”, none of these words would, as yet, have any meaning for her. Racking his brains he thought of their previous conversation about the great eldil who had held on to the old good and refused the new one. Yes; that would be her only approach to the idea of badness. He was just about to speak but it was too late. Weston’s voice anticipated him.

  “This Piebald,” it said, “does not want you to hear me, because he wants to keep you young. He does not want you to go on to the new fruits that you have never tasted before.”

  “But how could he want to keep me younger?”

  “Have you not seen already,” said Weston’s body, “that Piebald is one who always shrinks back from the wave that is coming towards us and would like, if he could, to bring back the wave that is past? In the very first hour of his talking with you, did he not betray this? He did not know that all was new since Maleldil became a man and that now all creatures with reason will be men. You had to teach him this. And when he had learned it he did not welcome it. He was sorry that there would be no more of the old furry people. He would bring back that old world if he could. And when you asked him to teach you Death, he would not. He wanted you to remain young, not to learn Death. Was it not he who first put into your mind the very thought that it was possible not to desire the wave that Maleldil was rolling towards us; to shrink so much that you would cut off your arms and legs to prevent it coming?”

  “You mean he is so young?”

  “He is what in my world we call Bad,” said Weston’s body. “One who rejects the fruit he is given for the sake of the fruit he expected or the fruit he found last time.”

  “We must make him older, then,” said the Lady, and though she did not look at Ransom, all the Queen and Mother in her were revealed, to him and he knew that she wished him, and all things, infinitely well. And he-he could do nothing. His weapon had been knocked out of his hand.

  “And will you teach us Death?” said the Lady to Weston’s shape, where it stood above her.

  “Yes,” it said, “it is for this that I came here, that you may have Death in abundance. But you must be very courageous.”

  “Courageous. What is that?”

  “It is what makes you to swim on a day when the waves are so great and swift that something inside you bids you to stay on land.”

  “I know. And those are the best days of all for swimming.”

  “Yes. But to find Death, and with Death the real oldness and the strong beauty and the uttermost branching out, you must plunge into things
greater than waves.”

  “Go on. Your words are like no other words that I have ever heard. They are like the bubble breaking on the tree. They make me think of-of-I do not know what they make me think of.”

  “I will speak greater words than these; but I must wait till you are older.”

  “Make me older.”

  “Lady, Lady,” broke in Ransom, “will not Maleldil make you older in His own time and His own way, and will not that be far better?”

  Weston’s face did not turn in his direction either at this point or at any other time during the conversation, but his voice, addressed wholly to the Lady, answered Ransom’s interruption.

  “You see?” it said. “He himself, though he did not mean nor wish to do so, made you see a few days ago that Maleldil is beginning to teach you to walk by yourself, without holding you by the hand. That was the first branching out. When you came to know that, you were becoming really old. And since then Maleldil has let you learn much-not from His own voice, but from mime. You are becoming your own. That is what Maleldil wants you to do. That is why He has let you be separated from the King and even, in a way, from Himself. His way of making you older is to make you make yourself older. And yet this Piebald would have you sit still and wait for Maleldil to do it all.”

  “What must we do to Piebald to make him older?” said the Lady.

  “I do not think you can help him till you are older yourself,” said the voice of Weston. “You cannot help anyone yet. You are as a tree without fruit.”

  “It is very true,” said the Lady. “Go on.”

  “Then listen,” said Weston’s body. “Have you understood that to wait for Maleldil’s voice when Maleldil wishes you to walk on your own is a kind of disobedience?”

  “I think I have.”

  “The wrong kind of obeying itself can be a disobeying.” The Lady thought for a few moments and then clapped her hands. “I see,” she said, “I see! Oh, how old you make me. Before now I have chased a beast for mirth. And it has understood and run away from me. If it had stood still and let me catch it, that would have been a sort of obeying-but not the best sort.”

  “You understand very well. When you are fully grown you will be even wiser and more beautiful than the women of my own world. And you see that it might be so with Maleldil’s biddings.”

  “I think I do not see quite clearly.”

  “Are you certain that He really wishes to be always obeyed?”

  “How can we not obey what we love?”

  “The beast that ran away loved you.”

  “I wonder,” said the Lady, “if that is the same. The beast knows very well when I mean it to run away and when I want it to come to me. But Maleldil has never said to us that any word or work of His was a iest. How could our Beloved need to jest or frolic as we do? He is all a burning joy and a strength. It is like thinking that He needed sleep or food.”

  “No, it would not be a jest. That is only a thing like it, not the thing itself. But could the taking away of your hand from His-the full growing up-the walking in your own way could that ever be perfect unless you had, if only once, seemed to disobey Him?”

  “How could one seem to disobey?”

  “By doing what He only seemed to forbid. There might be a commanding which He wished you to break.”

  “But if He told us we were to break it, then it would be no command. And if He did not, how should we know?”

  “How wise you are growing, beautiful one,” said Weston’s mouth. “No. If He told you to break what He commanded, it would be no true command, as you have seen. For you are right, He makes no jests. A real disobeying, a real branching out, this is what He secretly longs for: secretly, because to tell you would spoil all.”

  “I begin to wonder,” said the Lady after a pause, “whether you are so much older than I. Surely what you are saying is like fruit with no taste! How can I step out of His will save into something that cannot be wished? Shall I start trying not to love Him-or the King-or the beasts? It would be like trying to walk on water or swim through islands. Shall I try not to sleep or to drink or to laugh? I thought your words had a meaning. But now it seems they have none. To walk out of His will is to walk into nowhere.”

  “That is true of all His commands except one.”

  “But can that one be different?”

  “Nay, you see of yourself that it is different. These other commands of His-to love, to sleep, to fill this world with your children-you see for yourself that they are good. And they are the same in all worlds. But the command against living on the Fixed Island is not so. You have already learned that He gave no such command to my world. And you cannot see where the goodness of it is. No wonder. If it were really good, must He not have commanded it to all worlds alike? For how could Maleldil not command what was good? There is no good in it. Maleldil Himself is showing you that, this moment, through your own reason. It is mere command. It is forbidding for the mere sake of forbidding.”

  “But why . . . ?”

  “In order that you may break it. What other reason can there be? It is not good. It is not the same for other worlds. It stands between you and all settled life, all command of your own days. Is not Maleldil showing you as plainly as He can that it was set up as a test-as a great wave you have to go over, that you may become really old, really separate from Him.”

  “But if this concerns me so deeply, why does He put none of this into my mind? It is all coming from you, Stranger. There is no whisper, even, of the Voice saying Yes to your words.”

  “But do you not see that there cannot be? He longs-oh, how greatly He longs-to see His creature become fully itself, to stand up in its own reason and its own courage even against Him. But how can He tell it to do this? That would spoil all.

  Whatever it did after that would only be one more step taken with Him. This is the one thing of all the things He desires in which He must have no finger. Do you think He is not weary of seeing nothing but Himself in all that He has made? If that contented Him, why should He create at all? To find the Other-the thing whose will is no longer His-that is Maleldil’s desire.”

  “If I could but know this-”

  “He must not tell you. He cannot tell you. The nearest He can come to telling you is to let some other creature tell it for Him. And behold, He has done so. Is it for nothing, or without His will, that I have journeyed through Deep Heaven to teach you what He would have you know but must not teach you Himself?”

  “Lady,” said Ransom, “if I speak, will you hear me?”

  “Gladly, Piebald.”

  “This man has said that the law against living on the Fixed Island is different from the other Laws, because it is not the same for all worlds and because we cannot see the goodness in it. And so far he says well. But then he says that it is thus different in order that you may disobey it. But there might be another reason.”

  “Say it, Piebald.”

  “I think He made one law of that kind in order that there might be obedience. In all these other matters what you call obeying Him is but doing what seems good in your own eyes also. Is love content with that? You do them, indeed, because they are His will, but not only because they are His will. Where can you taste the joy of obeying unless He bids you do something for which His bidding is the only reason? When we spoke last you said that if you told the beasts to walk on their heads, they would delight to do so. So I know that you understand well what I am saying.”

  “Oh, brave Piebald,” said the Green Lady, “this is the best you have said yet. This makes me older far: yet it does not feel like the oldness this other is giving me. Oh, how well I see it! We cannot walk out of Maleldil’s will: but He has given us a way to walk out of our will. And there could be no such way except a command like this. Out of our own will. It is like passing out through the world’s roof into Deep Heaven. All beyond is Love Himself. I knew there was joy in looking upon the Fixed Island and laying down all thought of ever living there, but I did not till no
w understand.” Her face was radiant as she spoke, but then a shade of bewilderment crossed it. “Piebald,” she said, “if you are so young, as this other says, how do you know these things?”

  “He says I am young, but I say not.”

  The voice of Weston’s face spoke suddenly, and it was louder and deeper than before and less like Weston’s voice.

  “I am older than he,” it said, “and he dare not deny it. Before the mothers of the mothers of his mother were conceived, I was already older than he could reckon. I have been with Maleldil in Deep Heaven where he never came and heard the eternal councils. And in the order of creation I am greater than he, and before me he is of no account. Is it not so?” The corpse-like face did not even now turn towards him, but the speaker and the Lady both seemed to wait for Ransom to reply. The falsehood which sprang to his mind died on his lips. In that air, even when truth seemed fatal, only truth would serve. Licking his lips and choking down a feeling of nausea, he answered:

  “In our world to be older is not always to be wiser.”

  “Look on him,” said Weston’s body to the Lady; “consider how white his cheeks have turned and how his forehead is wet. You have not seen such things before: you will see them more often hereafter. It is what happens-it is the beginning of what happens-to little creatures when they set themselves against great ones.

  An exquisite thrill of fear travelled along Ransom’s spine. What saved him was the face of the Lady. Untouched by the evil so close to her, removed as it were ten years’ journey deep within the region of her own innocence, and by that innocence at once so protected and so endangered, she looked up at the standing Death above her, puzzled indeed, but not beyond the bounds of cheerful curiosity, and said:

  “But he was right, Stranger, about this forbidding. It is you who need to be made older. Can you not see?”

  “I have always seen the whole whereof he sees but the half. It is most true that Maleldil has given you a way of walking out of your own will-but out of your deepest will.”