Клайв Льюис – A Year With Aslan: Words of Wisdom and Reflection from the Chronicles of Narnia (страница 12)
“Yes, I think there is,” answered Peter, “but I can’t read it in this light. Let’s get out into the open air.”
They all went out in the daylight and crowded round Peter as he read out the following words:
The children stared at each other.
“I don’t know that I’m going to like this place after all,” said Susan.
“Who is this Queen, Lu?” said Peter. “Do you know anything about her?”
“She isn’t a real queen at all,” answered Lucy; “she’s a horrible witch, the White Witch. Everyone – all the wood people – hate her. She has made an enchantment over the whole country so that it is always winter here and never Christmas.”
“I – I wonder if there’s any point in going on,” said Susan. “I mean, it doesn’t seem particularly safe here and it looks as if it won’t be much fun either. And it’s getting colder every minute, and we’ve brought nothing to eat. What about just going home?”
“Oh, but we can’t, we can’t,” said Lucy suddenly; “don’t you see? We can’t just go home, not after this. It is all on my account that the poor Faun has got into this trouble. He hid me from the Witch and showed me the way back. That’s what it means by comforting the Queen’s enemies and fraternizing with Humans. We simply must try to rescue him.”
– The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
FEBRUARY 20
Eustace Clarence Scrubb
THERE WAS A BOY CALLED Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it. His parents called him Eustace Clarence and masters called him Scrubb. I can’t tell you how his friends spoke to him, for he had none. He didn’t call his father and mother “Father” and “Mother”, but Harold and Alberta. They were very up-to-date and advanced people. They were vegetarians, non-smokers and teetotallers and wore a special kind of underclothes. In their house there was very little furniture and very few clothes on beds and the windows were always open.
Eustace Clarence liked animals, especially beetles, if they were dead and pinned on a card. He liked books if they were books of information and had pictures of grain elevators or of fat foreign children doing exercises in model schools.
Eustace Clarence disliked his cousins, the four Pevensies, Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy. But he was quite glad when he heard that Edmund and Lucy were coming to stay. For deep down inside him he liked bossing and bullying; and, though he was a puny little person who couldn’t have stood up even to Lucy, let alone Edmund, in a fight, he knew that there are dozens of ways to give people a bad time if you are in your own home and they are only visitors.
– The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
FEBRUARY 21
Edmund Enters Narnia
[EDMUND] CAME INTO THE ROOM just in time to see Lucy vanishing into the wardrobe. He at once decided to get into it himself – not because he thought it a particularly good place to hide but because he wanted to go on teasing her about her imaginary country. He opened the door. There were the coats hanging up as usual, and a smell of moth-balls, and darkness and silence, and no sign of Lucy. “She thinks I’m Susan come to catch her,” said Edmund to himself, “and so she’s keeping very quiet in at the back.” He jumped in and shut the door, forgetting what a very foolish thing this is to do. Then he began feeling about for Lucy in the dark. He had expected to find her in a few seconds and was very surprised when he did not. He decided to open the door again and let in some light. But he could not find the door either. He didn’t like this at all and began groping wildly in every direction; he even shouted out, “Lucy! Lu! Where are you? I know you’re here.”
There was no answer and Edmund noticed that his own voice had a curious sound – not the sound you expect in a cupboard, but a kind of open-air sound. He also noticed that he was unexpectedly cold; and then he saw a light.
“Thank goodness,” said Edmund, “the door must have swung open of its own accord.” He forgot all about Lucy and went towards the light, which he thought was the open door of the wardrobe. But instead of finding himself stepping out into the spare room he found himself stepping out from the shadow of some thick dark fir trees into an open place in the middle of a wood.
There was crisp, dry snow under his feet and more snow lying on the branches of the trees. Overhead there was a pale blue sky, the sort of sky one sees on a fine winter day in the morning. Straight ahead of him he saw between the tree-trunks the sun, just rising, very red and clear. Everything was perfectly still, as if he were the only living creature in that country. There was not even a robin or a squirrel among the trees, and the wood stretched as far as he could see in every direction. He shivered.
He now remembered that he had been looking for Lucy; and also how unpleasant he had been to her about her “imaginary country” which now turned out not to have been imaginary at all. He thought that she must be somewhere quite close and so he shouted, “Lucy! Lucy! I’m here too – Edmund.”
There was no answer.
“She’s angry about all the things I’ve been saying lately,” thought Edmund. And though he did not like to admit that he had been wrong, he also did not much like being alone in this strange, cold, quiet place; so he shouted again.
“I say, Lu! I’m sorry I didn’t believe you. I see now you were right all along. Do come out. Make it Pax.”
Still there was no answer.
– The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
FEBRUARY 22
Talking Beasts
“CREATURES, I GIVE YOU YOURSELVES,” said the strong, happy voice of Aslan. “I give to you forever this land of Narnia. I give you the woods, the fruits, the rivers. I give you the stars and I give you myself. The Dumb Beasts whom I have not chosen are yours also. Treat them gently and cherish them but do not go back to their ways lest you cease to be Talking Beasts. For out of them you were taken and into them you can return. Do not so.”
– The Magician’s Nephew
FEBRUARY 23
How Can I Help It?
SHASTA HAD SO ENJOYED HIS DINNER and all the things Tumnus had been telling him that when he was left alone his thoughts took a different turn. He only hoped now that the real Prince Corin would not turn up until it was too late and that he would be taken away to Narnia by ship. I am afraid he did not think at all of what might happen to the real Corin when he was left behind in Tashbaan. He was a little worried about Aravis and Bree waiting for him at the Tombs. But then he said to himself, “Well, how can I help it?” and, “Anyway, that Aravis thinks she’s too good to go about with me, so she can jolly well go alone,” and at the same time he couldn’t help feeling that it would be much nicer going to Narnia by sea than toiling across the desert.
– The Horse and His Boy
FEBRUARY 24
Happy Is the Horse
“ASLAN,” SAID BREE in a shaken voice, “I’m afraid I must be rather a fool.”
“Happy is the Horse who knows that while he is still young. Or the Human either.”
– The Horse and His Boy
FEBRUARY 25
Deathwater Island
“GET BACK!” [shouted Edmund.] “Back from the water. All of you. At once!!”
They all did and stared at him.
“Look,” said Edmund, “look at the toes of my boots.”
“They look a bit yellow,” began Eustace.
“They’re gold, solid gold,” interrupted Edmund. “Look at them. Feel them. The leather’s pulled away from it already. And they’re as heavy as lead.”
“By Aslan!” said Caspian. “You don’t mean to say—?”
“Yes, I do,” said Edmund. “That water turns things into gold. It turned the spear into gold, that’s why it got so heavy. And it was just lapping against my feet (it’s a good thing I wasn’t barefoot) and it turned the toe-caps into gold. . . . And what a narrow shave
“Narrow indeed,” said Reepicheep. “Anyone’s finger, anyone’s foot, anyone’s whisker, or anyone’s tail, might have slipped into the water at any moment.”