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SLEEP proved to be indeed the problereat tiry and thirsty as well, he sat still in the darkness trying not to attend to the unflagging repetition of "Ranso to a conversation of which he knew he had not heard the beginning and realised that he had slept The Lady see gently and continuously It was not talking about the Fixed Land nor even about Maleldil It appeared to be telling, with extreme beauty and pathos, a number of stories, and at first Ranso link between them They were all about women, but women who had apparently, lived at different periods of the world&039;s history and in quite different circumstances From the Lady&039;s replies it appeared that the stories contained h the Un-man did not mind If the questions aroused by any one story proved at all difficult to answer, the speaker sian another The heroines of the stories seereat deal - they had been oppressed by fathers, cast off by husbands, deserted by lovers Then children had risen up against them and society had driven them out But the stories all ended, in a sense, happily: so,tears after her death As the endless speech proceeded, the Lady&039;s questions greays fewer; soh what kind ofcreated in her mind by mere repetition At last it dawned upon him what all these stories were about Each one of these women had stood forth alone and braved a terrible risk for her child, her lover, or her people Each had been nificently vindicated by the event The precise details were often not very easy to follow Ransom had more than a suspicion that many of these noble pioneers had been what in ordinary terrestrial speech we call witches or perverts But that was all in the background What ee than an idea - the picture of the tall, slender forht rested upon its shoulders, stepping forth fearless and friendless into the dark to do for others what those others forbade it to do yet needed to have done And all the tioddess shapes, the speaker was building up a picture of the other sex No as directly spoken on the subject: but one felt thee, dim multitude of creatures pitifully childish and coish and ox-like, rooted to the earth al, to risk nothing, toraised into full life only by the unthanked and rebellious virtue of their females It was very well done Ransom, who had little of the pride of sex, found hi it
In the htning; a few seconds later ca of a heavenly taard it The flash had shown hiht, the Lady raised on one elbow, the dragon lying awake at her head, a grove of trees beyond, and great waves against the horizon He was thinking of what he had seen He ondering how the Lady could see that face - those jawsthan talking - and not know the creature to be evil He saw, o£ course, that this was unreasonable of hiure in her eyes; she could have no knowledge either about evil or about the noruide her The expression on her face, revealed in the sudden light, was one that he had not seen there before Her eyes were not fixed on the narrator: as far as that went, her thoughts ht have been a thousand miles away Her lips were shut and a little pursed Her eyebroere slightly raised He had not yet seen her look so like a woman of our own race; and yet her expression was one he had not very often met on earth - except, as he realised with a shock, on the stage &039;Like a tragedy queen&039; was the disgusting cogeration It was an insult for which he could not forgive himself And yetand yet
the tableau revealed by the lightning had photographed itself on his brain Do what he would, he found it iood tragedy queen, no doubt The heroine of a very great tragedy, very nobly played by an actress as a good woman in real life By earthly standards, an expression to be praised, even to be revered: but re all that he had read in her countenance before, the unselfconscious radiance, the frolic sanctity, the depth of stillness that reminded hie while the hard youth and valiancy of face and body denied both, he found this new expression horrifying The fatal touch of invited grandeur, of enjoyed pathos - the assuarity Perhaps she was doing nono inative fashion to this new art of Story or Poetry But by God she&039;d better not! And for the first tio on&039; foro where the leaves cover us from the rain," said her voice in the darkness Ranso wet in a world without clothes it is less important But he rose when he heard her move and followed her as well as he could by ear The Un-ressed in total darkness on a surface as variable as that of water Every now and then there was another flash One saw the Lady walking erect, the Un- by her side with Weston&039;s shirt and shorts now sodden and clinging to it, and the dragon puffing and waddling behind At last they came to a place where the carpet under their feet was dry and there was a dru noise of rain on firain "And another tian the Un-man at once, "there was a queen in our world who ruled over a little land - "
"Hush!" said the Lady, "let us listen to the rain" Then, after a moment, she added, "What was that? It was some beast I never heard before" - and indeed, there had been sorowl close beside them
"I do not know," said the voice of Weston "I think I do," said Ransoain, and noof a series of days and nights which Ranso for the rest of his life He had been only too correct in supposing that his enemy required no sleep Fortunately the Lady did, but she needed a good deal less than Ransom and possibly, as the days passed, came to take less than she needed It seemed to Ransom that whenever he dozed he awoke to find the Un-man already in conversation with her He was dead tired He could hardly have endured it all but for the fact that their hostess quite frequently dismissed them both from her presence On such occasions Ransom kept close to the Un-man It was a rest from the main battle, but was a very iht for a moment, and every day its society became more unendurable He had full opportunity to learn the falsity of the ain he felt that a suave and subtle Mephistopheles with red cloak and rapier and a feather in his cap, or even a soic Satan out of Paradise Lost, would have been a welco he was actually doo with a wicked politician at all: it was uard an iered and disgusted hi, "Ransoust him every day and every hour It showed plenty of subtlety and intelligence when talking to the Lady; but Ransoence simply and solely as a weapon, which it had no more wish to employ in its off-duty hours than a soldier has to do bayonet practice when he is on leave Thought was for it a device necessary to certain ends, but thought in itself did not interest it It assuanically as it had assuht it seereat deal of his tiot out of sight, or even a few yards ahead, it would rab at any beast or bird within its reach and pull out soet between it and its victim
On such occasions there were nastyeach other It never carinned and perhaps spat and fell back a little, but before that happened Ransom usually had opportunity to discover how terribly he feared it For side by side with his disgust, the host or a ether The fact of being alone with it sometimes rushed upon his mind with such dis for society - his impulse to rushher protection When the Un-et ani their outer rinds through with its nails, or grubbing up roots, or pulling off leaves, or even tearing up handfuls of turf With Ransoames to play It had a whole repertory of obscenities to perform with its own - or rather with Weston&039;s - body: and the mere silliness of theriether; and then, for hours o back to its old repetition of "Ransorimaces achieved a horrible resemblance to people whom Ransom had known and loved in our oorld But worst of all were those moments when it allowed Weston to come - back into its countenance Then its voice, which was always Weston&039;s voice, would begin a pitiful, hesitant , "You be very careful, Ranso black hole No, I&039;h I&039;m on Perelandra I can&039;t think very well now, but that doesn&039;t et quite easy presently That boy keeps on shutting the s That&039;s all right, they&039;ve taken off my head and put soht now They won&039;t let s So then I went and told him that if they didn&039;t want me in the First Fifteen they could jolly well do withoutwhelp it&039;s an insult to the examiners to show up this kind of work What I want to knohy I should pay for a first-class ticket and then be crowded out like this It&039;s not fair Not fair I never ht off my chest, I don&039;t want all those clothes Let me alone Let me alone It&039;s not fair It&039;s not fair What enoret used to them" - and then it would end in the canine howl Ransom never couldpsychic energy that had once been Weston were indeed fitfully and miserably alive within the body that sat there beside him He discovered that any hatred he had once felt for the Professor was dead He found it natural to pray fervently for his soul Yet what he felt for Weston was not exactly pity Up till that ht of Hell, he had pictured the lost souls as being still huhosthood from manhood yawned before him, pity was almost sed up in horror - in the unconquerable revulsion of the life within hi Death If the reh the lips of the Un-man, then Weston was not now a o, to eat away his humanity had now completed their work The intoxicated hich had been slowly poisoning the intelligence and the affections had now at last poisoned itself and the whole psychic organis unrest, a cruht Ransoht be my destination; or hers&039;
But of course the hours spent alone with the Un-man were like hours in a back area The real business of life was the interminable conversation between the Teress was hard to estimate; but as the days passed Ransoeneral development was in the enemy&039;s favour There were, of course, ups and downs Often the Un-man was unexpectedly repulsed by some simplicity which it seemed not to have anticipated Often, too, Ransom&039;s own contributions to the terrible debate were for the ht, &039;Thank God! We&039;ve won at last&039; But the enerew ht he could see signs that the Lady was becoed her to send them both away But she rebuked hierous the situation had already becoo and rest and play," she asked, "while all this lies on our hands? Not till I areat deed to be done byand for the children of our children"
It was on those lines that the eneh the Lady had no word for Duty he had ht of a Duty that she should continue to fondle the idea of disobedience, and convinced her that it would be a cowardice if she repulsed him The idea of the Great Deed, of the Great Risk, of a kind of martyrdom, were presented to her every day, varied in a thousand for before a decision was made had been unobtrusively shuffled aside Any such cowardice was not to be thought of The whole point of her action - the whole grandeur - would lie in taking it without the King&039;s knowledge, in leaving him utterly free to repudiate it, so that all the benefits should be his, and all the risks hers; and with the risk, of course, all the inality And also, the Te, for he would certainly not approve the actionmust be forced to be free Nohile she was on her own - now or never - the noble thing must be achieved; and with that &039;Now or never&039; he began to play on a fear which the Lady apparently shared with the woreat opportunity let slip "How if I were as a tree that could have borne gourds and yet bore none," she said Ransoh But the Un-man asked whether this elaborate division of the human race into two sexes could possibly be ? - a ht have been more simply provided for, as it was inthat men like Ransom in his oorld -type who always shrank away froood - had continuously laboured to keep woh destiny for which Maleldil had actually created her It told her that such men had already done incalculable har of the sort happened on Perelandra It was at this stage that it began to teach her many neords: words like Creative and Intuition and Spiritual But that was one of its false steps When she had at last been ot all about the Great Risk and the tragic loneliness and laughed for a whole er even than Piebald, and sent theround over that; but on the following day he lost it all by losing his te on her with more than usual ardour the nobility of self sacrifice and self-dedication, and the enchant in her oaded beyond all patience, had leaped to his feet and really turned upon her, talking far too quickly and al his Old Solar and interlish words He tried to tell her that he&039;d seen this kind of &039;unselfishness&039; in action: to tell her of woin the h they knew perfectly well that there was nothing he dislikedto rippina and of Lady Macbeth "Can you not see," he shouted, "that he is ood of saying you would do this for the King&039;s sake when you know it is what the King would hate ood for the King?" But she understood only a very small part of what he said and was bewildered by his manner The Un-h all these ups and downs, all changes of the front line, all counter-attacks and stands and withdrawals, Ransoy of the whole affair The Lady&039;s response to the suggestion of becoic pioneer, was still a responseand for her unborn children, and even, in a sense, of Maleldil Hiht not really wish to be obeyed to the letter was the sluice through which the whole flood of suggestion had been admitted to her mind But an its tragic stories, there was the faintest touch of theatricality, the first hint of a self adrand role in the drama of her world It was clear that the Un- as this was but one drop, so to speak, in the sea of her mind, he would not really succeed Perhaps, while it remained so, she was protected from actual disobedience: perhaps no rational creature, until such a motive beca quite so vague as the Tempter&039;s chatter about Deeper Life and the Upward Path The veiled egoism in the conception of noble revolt ht, despite many rallies on her part and many set-backs suffered by the ene The matter was, of course, cruelly complicated What the Un-man said was always very nearly true
Certainly it must be part o£ the Divine plan that this happy creature should mature, should become more and more a creature of free choice, should become, in a sense, more distinct from God and from her husband in order thereby to be at one with them in a richer fashion In fact, he had seen this very process going on from the moment at which he met her, and had, unconsciously, assisted it This present tereatest, step m the same direction: an obedience freer, more reasoned,put in her power But for that very reason the fatal false step which, once taken, would thrust her down into the terrible slavery of appetite and hate and econoovernment which our race knows so well, could be made to sound so like the true one What erous eleard of the plain intellectual bones of the problem It became harder to recall her mind to the data - a command from Maleldil, a co it, and a present happiness so great that hardly any change could be far the better The turgid swell of indistinctly splendid ies which the Un-man aroused, and the transcendent ie, carried all this away She was still in her innocence No evil intention had been formed in her ination was already filled with bright, poisonous shapes &039;This can&039;t go on,&039; thought Ransouo on
There ca he fell into a leaden sleep and slept far into the following day He woke to find hireat horror came over him "What could I have done? What could I have done?" he cried out, for he thought that all was lost With sick heart and sore head he staggered to the edge of the island: his idea was to find a fish and to pursue the truants to the Fixed Land where he felt little doubt that they had gone In the bitterness and confusion of his ot that he had no notion in which direction that land now lay nor how far it was distant Hurrying through the woods, he eed into an open place and suddenly found that he was not alone Two huures, robed to their feet, stood before him, silent under the yellow sky Their clothes were of purple and blue, their heads wore chaplets of silver leaves, and their feet were bare They seeliest, and the other the most beautiful, of the children of man Then one of them spoke and he realised that they were none other than the Green Lady herself and the haunted body of Weston The robes were of feathers, and he kneell the Perelandrian birds fro, if weaving it could be called, was beyond his comprehension
"Welco What do you think of us in our leaves?"
"The birds," said Ransom "The poor birds! What has he done to them?"
"He has found the feathers somewhere," said the Lady carelessly "They drop the ain Why did you never tell me, Piebald?"
"Tell you what?"
"We never knew This one showed me that the trees have leaves and the beasts have fur, and said that in your world the s about them Why do you not tell us hoe look? Oh, Piebald, Piebald, I hope this is not going to be another of the new goods from which you draw back your hand It cannot be new to you if they all do it in your world"
"Ah," said Ransoer said," she answered "But not in all of your world He says they do it even where it is warm "Has he said why they do it?"
"To be beautiful Why else?" said the Lady, with soht Ranso he vanity&039;; for he had feared so run, to wear clothes without learning h modesty lasciviousness?
"Do you think we are hts
"No," said Ranso himself, "I do know" It was, indeed, not easy to reply The Un-man, m that Weston&039;s prosaic shirt and shorts were concealed, looked inatively, less squab( hideous figure As for the Lady - that she looked in some worse was not doubtful Yet there is a plainness in nudity - as we speak of &039;plain&039; bread A sort of richness, a flamboyancy, a concession, as it were, to lower conceptions of the beautiful, had come with the purple robe For the first (and last) time she appeared to hiht conceivably love And this was intolerable The ghastly inappropriateness of the idea had, all in onefrom the colours of the landscape and the scent of the flowers
"Do you think we are more beautiful?" repeated the Lady "What does it matter?" said Ransom dully
"Everyone should wish to be as beautiful as they can," she answered "And we cannot see ourselves"
"We can," said Weston&039;s body
"How can this be?" said the Lady, turning to it "Even if you could roll your eyes right round to look inside they would see only blackness"
"Not that way," it answered "I will show you" It walked a few paces away to where Weston&039;s pack lay in the yellow turf With that curious distinctness which often falls upon us e are anxious and preoccupied Ransom noticed the exact make and pattern of the pack It ht his own: and that little fact, suddenly re him that Weston had once been a man, that he too had once had pleasures and pains and a huht the tears into his eyes The horrible fingers which Weston would never use again worked at the buckles and brought out a sht have cost three-and-six He handed it to the Green Lady She turned it over in her hands
"What is it? What am I to do with it?" she said
"Look in it," said the Un- it from her he held it up to her face She stared for quite an appreciable ti of it Then she started back with a cry and covered her face Ransom started too It was the first time he had seen her the mere passive recipient of any ee