A Year with Aslan: Daily Reflections from The Chronicles of Narnia Page 22

  JULY 23

  The Ape in Its Glory

  AT THE CENTER OF THE CLEARING, which was also the highest point of the hill, there was a little hut like a stable, with a thatched roof. Its door was shut. On the grass in front of the door there sat an Ape. Tirian and Jewel, who had been expecting to see Aslan and had heard nothing about an Ape yet, were very bewildered when they saw it. The Ape was of course Shift himself, but he looked ten times uglier than when he lived by Caldron Pool, for he was now dressed up. He was wearing a scarlet jacket which did not fit him very well, having been made for a dwarf. He had jeweled slippers on his hind paws which would not stay on properly because, as you know, the hind paws of an Ape are really like hands. He wore what seemed to be a paper crown on his head. There was a great pile of nuts beside him and he kept cracking nuts with his jaws and spitting out the shells. And he also kept on pulling up the scarlet jacket to scratch himself. A great number of Talking Beasts stood facing him, and nearly every face in that crowd looked miserably worried and bewildered. When they saw who the prisoners were they all groaned and whimpered.

  “O Lord Shift, mouthpiece of Aslan,” said the chief Calormene. “We bring you prisoners. By our skill and courage and by the permission of the great god Tash we have taken alive these two desperate murderers.”

  “Give me that man’s sword,” said the Ape. So they took the King’s sword and handed it, with the sword-belt and all, to the monkey. And he hung it round his own neck: and it made him look sillier than ever.

  —The Last Battle

  Why does the Ape look silly? How does the Ape think he looks? Have you ever put on a front you thought was impressive, only to realize later that you looked more ridiculous than remarkable?

  JULY 24

  The Treasure in the Dragon’s Lair

  THE CLIMATE of this island was a very unpleasant one. In less than a minute Eustace was wet to the skin and half blinded with such rain as one never sees in Europe. There was no use trying to climb out of the valley as long as this lasted. He bolted for the only shelter in sight—the dragon’s cave. There he lay down and tried to get his breath.

  Most of us know what we should expect to find in a dragon’s lair but, as I said before, Eustace had read only the wrong books. They had a lot to say about exports and imports and governments and drains, but they were weak on dragons. That is why he was so puzzled at the surface on which he was lying. Parts of it were too prickly to be stones and too hard to be thorns, and there seemed to be a great many round, flat things, and it all clinked when he moved. There was light enough at the cave’s mouth to examine it by. And of course Eustace found it to be what any of us could have told him in advance—treasure. There were crowns (those were the prickly things), coins, rings, bracelets, ingots, cups, plates and gems.

  Eustace (unlike most boys) had never thought much of treasure but he saw at once the use it would be in this new world which he had so foolishly stumbled into through the picture in Lucy’s bedroom at home. “They don’t have any tax here,” he said. “And you don’t have to give treasure to the government. With some of this stuff I could have quite a decent time here—perhaps in Calormen. It sounds the least phony of these countries. I wonder how much I can carry? That bracelet now—those things in it are probably diamonds—I’ll slip that on my own wrist. Too big, but not if I push it right up here above my elbow. Then fill my pockets with diamonds—that’s easier than gold. I wonder when this infernal rain’s going to let up?” He got into a less uncomfortable part of the pile, where it was mostly coins, and settled down to wait. But a bad fright, when once it is over, and especially a bad fright following a mountain walk, leaves you very tired. Eustace fell asleep.

  —The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

  Until this point, Eustace’s main concern has been getting back to the others and the Dawn Treader. Why does finding treasure make him change his mind? What promises do treasure and riches hold for you?

  JULY 25

  What If We Get Killed Here?

  THIS TIME JILL AND EUSTACE walked together. They had been feeling very brave when they were begging to be allowed to come with the others, but now they didn’t feel brave at all.

  “Pole,” said Eustace in a whisper. “I may as well tell you I’ve got the wind up.”

  “Oh, you’re all right, Scrubb,” said Jill. “You can fight. But I—I’m just shaking, if you want to know the truth.”

  “Oh, shaking’s nothing,” said Eustace. “I’m feeling I’m going to be

  sick. . . .

  “Pole,” said Eustace presently.

  “What?” said she.

  “What’ll happen if we get killed here?”

  “Well we’ll be dead, I suppose.”

  “But I mean, what will happen in our own world? Shall we wake up and find ourselves back in that train? Or shall we just vanish and never be heard of any more? Or shall we be dead in England?”

  “Gosh. I never thought of that.”

  “It’ll be rum for Peter and the others if they saw me waving out of the window and then when the train comes in we’re nowhere to be found! Or if they found two—I mean, if we’re dead over there in England.”

  “Ugh!” said Jill. “What a horrid idea.”

  “It wouldn’t be horrid for us,” said Eustace. “We shouldn’t be there.”

  “I almost wish—no I don’t, though,” said Jill.

  “What were you going to say?”

  “I was going to say I wished we’d never come. But I don’t, I don’t, I don’t. Even if we are killed. I’d rather be killed fighting for Narnia than grow old and stupid at home and perhaps go about in a bath-chair and then die in the end just the same.”

  —The Last Battle

  What about Jill has changed that she’d rather “be killed fighting for Narnia than grow old and stupid at home”? Do you agree with her?

  JULY 26

  Governor Gumpas

  CASPIAN THEN ORDERED most of his own men to remain in the courtyard. He, with Bern and Drinian and four others, went into the hall.

  Behind a table at the far end with various secretaries about him sat his Sufficiency, the Governor of the Lone Islands. Gumpas was a bilious-looking man with hair that had once been red and was now mostly grey. He glanced up as the strangers entered and then looked down at his papers saying automatically, “No interviews without appointments except between nine and ten p.m. on second Saturdays.”

  Caspian nodded to Bern and then stood aside. Bern and Drinian took a step forward and each seized one end of the table. They lifted it, and flung it on one side of the hall where it rolled over, scattering a cascade of letters, dossiers, ink-pots, pens, sealing-wax and documents. Then, not roughly but as firmly as if their hands were pincers of steel, they plucked Gumpas out of his chair and deposited him, facing it, about four feet away. Caspian at once sat down in the chair and laid his naked sword across his knees.

  “My Lord,” said he, fixing his eyes on Gumpas, “you have not given us quite the welcome we expected. We are the King of Narnia.”

  “Nothing about it in the correspondence,” said the governor. “Nothing in the minutes. We have not been notified of any such thing. All irregular. Happy to consider any applications—”

  “And we are come to inquire into your Sufficiency’s conduct of your office,” continued Caspian. “There are two points especially on which I require an explanation. Firstly I find no record that the tribute due from these islands to the crown of Narnia has been received for about a hundred and fifty years.”

  “That would be a question to raise at the Council next month,” said Gumpas. “If anyone moves that a commission of inquiry be set up to report on the financial history of the islands at the first meeting next year, why then . . .”

  “I also find it very clearly written in our laws,” Caspian went on, “that if the tribute is not delivered, the whole debt has to be paid by the Governor of the Lone Islands out of his private purse.”

  At this Gump
as began to pay real attention. “Oh, that’s quite out of the question,” he said. “It is an economic impossibility—er—your Majesty must be joking.”

  Inside, he was wondering if there were any way of getting rid of these unwelcome visitors. Had he known that Caspian had only one ship and one ship’s company with him, he would have spoken soft words for the moment, and hoped to have them all surrounded and killed during the night. But he had seen a ship of war sail down the straits yesterday and seen it signaling, as he supposed, to its consorts. He had not then known it was the King’s ship for there was not wind enough to spread the flag out and make the golden lion visible, so he had waited further developments. Now he imagined that Caspian had a whole fleet at Bernstead. It would never have occurred to Gumpas that anyone would walk into Narrowhaven to take the islands with fewer than fifty men; it was certainly not at all the kind of thing he could imagine doing himself.

  —The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

  How does this passage illustrate the differences between Gumpas and Caspian as leaders? Why does Gumpas hardly react at all to Caspian, at least at first? Have you ever known people who were so wrapped up in order and method that they failed to see what was in front of their eyes? When have you been guilty of this?

  JULY 27

  Other Powers

  [NIKABRIK SAID,] “The stories tell of other powers besides the ancient Kings and Queens. How if we could call them up?”

  “If you mean Aslan,” said Trufflehunter, “it’s all one calling on him and on the Kings. They were his servants. If he will not send them (but I make no doubt he will), is he more likely to come himself?”

  “No. You’re right there,” said Nikabrik. “Aslan and the Kings go together. Either Aslan is dead, or he is not on our side. Or else something stronger than himself keeps him back. And if he did come—how do we know he’d be our friend? He was not always a good friend to Dwarfs by all that’s told. Not even to all beasts. Ask the Wolves. And anyway, he was in Narnia only once that I ever heard of, and he didn’t stay long. You may drop Aslan out of the reckoning. I was thinking of someone else. . . . I mean a power so much greater than Aslan’s that it held Narnia spellbound for years and years, if the stories are true.”

  “The White Witch!” cried three voices all at once, and from the noise Peter guessed that three people had leaped to their feet.

  “Yes,” said Nikabrik very slowly and distinctly, “I mean the Witch. Sit down again. Don’t all take fright at a name as if you were children. We want power: and we want a power that will be on our side. As for power, do not the stories say that the Witch defeated Aslan, and bound him, and killed him on that very Stone which is over there, just beyond the light?”

  “But they also say that he came to life again,” said the Badger sharply.

  “Yes, they say,” answered Nikabrik, “but you’ll notice that we hear precious little about anything he did afterward. He just fades out of the story. How do you explain that, if he really came to life? Isn’t it much more likely that he didn’t, and that the stories say nothing more about him because there was nothing more to say? . . . But it’s very different with the Witch. They say she ruled for a hundred years: a hundred years of winter. There’s power, if you like. There’s something practical.”

  “But, heaven and earth!” said the King, “haven’t we always been told that she was the worst enemy of all? Wasn’t she a tyrant ten times worse than Miraz?”

  “Perhaps,” said Nikabrik in a cold voice. “Perhaps she was for you humans, if there were any of you in those days. Perhaps she was for some of the beasts. She stamped out the Beavers, I dare say; at least there are none of them in Narnia now. But she got on all right with us Dwarfs. I’m a Dwarf and I stand by my own people. We’re not afraid of the Witch.”

  —Prince Caspian

  Why does Nikabrik want to bring back the White Witch? What kind of power does he seem to be seeking?

  JULY 28

  No Longer a Friend of Narnia

  SIRE,” SAID TIRIAN, when he had greeted all these. “If I have read the chronicle aright, there should be another. Has not your Majesty two sisters? Where is Queen Susan?”

  “My sister Susan,” answered Peter shortly and gravely, “is no longer a friend of Narnia.”

  “Yes,” said Eustace, “and whenever you’ve tried to get her to come and talk about Narnia or do anything about Narnia, she says ‘What wonderful memories you have! Fancy your still thinking about all those funny games we used to play when we were children.’ ”

  “Oh Susan!” said Jill. “She’s interested in nothing nowadays except nylons and lipstick and invitations. She always was a jolly sight too keen on being grown-up.”

  “Grown-up, indeed,” said the Lady Polly. “I wish she would grow up. She wasted all her school time wanting to be the age she is now, and she’ll waste all the rest of her life trying to stay that age. Her whole idea is to race on to the silliest time of one’s life as quick as she can and then stop there as long as she can.”

  “Well, don’t let’s talk about that now,” said Peter.

  —The Last Battle

  Do you find yourself trying to rush ahead or stay in one phase of life? How is that a waste?

  JULY 29

  Lucy and the Dragon

  BUT WHEN [THE DRAGON] SAW THEM, instead of rising up and blowing fire and smoke, the dragon retreated—you could almost say it waddled—back into the shallows of the bay.

  “What’s it wagging its head like that for?” said Edmund.

  “And now it’s nodding,” said Caspian.

  “And there’s something coming from its eyes,” said Drinian.

  “Oh, can’t you see?” said Lucy. “It’s crying. Those are tears.”

  “I shouldn’t trust to that, Ma’am,” said Drinian. “That’s what crocodiles do, to put you off your guard.”

  “It wagged its head when you said that,” remarked Edmund. “Just as if it meant No. Look, there it goes again.”

  “Do you think it understands what we’re saying?” asked Lucy.

  The dragon nodded its head violently.

  Reepicheep slipped off Lucy’s shoulder and stepped to the front.

  “Dragon,” came his shrill voice, “can you understand speech?”

  The dragon nodded.

  “Can you speak?”

  It shook its head.

  “Then,” said Reepicheep, “it is idle to ask you your business. But if you will swear friendship with us raise your left foreleg above your head.”

  It did so, but clumsily because that leg was sore and swollen with the golden bracelet.

  “Oh look,” said Lucy, “there’s something wrong with its leg. The poor thing—that’s probably what it was crying about. Perhaps it came to us to be cured like in Androcles and the lion.”

  “Be careful, Lucy,” said Caspian. “It’s a very clever dragon but it may be a liar.”

  Lucy had, however, already run forward. . . .

  —The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

  Why do you think Lucy runs forward? Should she have heeded Caspian’s warning? Would you be more inclined to advise caution, as Caspian does, or to run forward, as Lucy does?

  JULY 30

  Unnatural Habits

  [EUSTACE ASKED,] “If this owls’ parliament, as you call it, is all fair and above board and means no mischief, why does it have to be so jolly secret—meeting in a ruin in dead of night, and all that?”

  “Tu-whoo! Tu-whoo!” hooted several owls. “Where should we meet? When would anyone meet except at night?”

  “You see,” explained Glimfeather, “most of the creatures in Narnia have such unnatural habits. They do things by day, in broad blazing sunlight (ugh!) when everyone ought to be asleep. And, as a result, at night they’re so blind and stupid that you can’t get a word out of them. So we owls have got into the habit of meeting at sensible hours, on our own, when we want to talk about things.”

  —The Silver Chair

  Why
do we expect others to conform to what’s normal for us?

  JULY 31

  Deep Magic

  YOU HAVE A TRAITOR THERE, Aslan,” said the Witch. Of course everyone present knew that she meant Edmund. But Edmund had got past thinking about himself after all he’d been through and after the talk he’d had that morning. He just went on looking at Aslan. It didn’t seem to matter what the Witch said.

  “Well,” said Aslan. “His offense was not against you.”

  “Have you forgotten the Deep Magic?” asked the Witch.

  “Let us say I have forgotten it,” answered Aslan gravely. “Tell us of this Deep Magic.”

  “Tell you?” said the Witch, her voice growing suddenly shriller. “Tell you what is written on that very Table of Stone which stands beside us? Tell you what is written in letters deep as a spear is long on the fire-stones on the Secret Hill? Tell you what is engraved on the scepter of the Emperor-beyond-the-Sea? You at least know the Magic which the Emperor put into Narnia at the very beginning. You know that every traitor belongs to me as my lawful prey and that for every treachery I have a right to a kill. . . .

  “And so,” continued the Witch, “that human creature is mine. His life is forfeit to me. His blood is my property.”

  “Come and take it then,” said the Bull with the man’s head in a great bellowing voice.

  “Fool,” said the Witch with a savage smile that was almost a snarl, “do you really think your master can rob me of my rights by mere force? He knows the Deep Magic better than that. He knows that unless I have blood as the Law says all Narnia will be overturned and perish in fire and water.”

  “It is very true,” said Aslan, “I do not deny it.”