The Pilgrim's Regress Read online

  ‘I cannot tell you,’ said she, ‘because you do not know.’

  ‘But you know.’

  ‘But I can tell you only what you know. I can bring things out of the dark part of your mind into the light part of it. But now you ask me what is not even in the dark of your mind.’

  ‘Even if it were only a feeling in my own mind, would it be a bad feeling?’

  ‘I have nothing to tell you of good and bad.’

  ‘I mean this,’ said John. ‘And this you can tell me. Is it true that it must always end in brown girls, or rather, that it really begins from brown girls? They say it is all a pretence, all a disguise for lust.’

  ‘And what do you think of that saying?’

  ‘It is very like that,’ said John. ‘Both are sweet. Both are full of longing. The one runs into the other. They are very alike.’

  ‘Indeed they are,’ said the lady. ‘But do you not remember my third riddle?’

  ‘About the copy and the original? I could not understand it.’

  ‘Well, now you shall. The people in the country we have just left have seen that your love for the Island is very like your love for the brown girls. Therefore they say that one is a copy of the other. They would also say that you have followed me because I am like your mother, and that your trust in me is a copy of your love for your mother. And then they would say again that your love for your mother is a copy of your love for the brown girls; and so they would come full circle.’

  ‘And what should I answer them?’

  ‘You would say, perhaps one is a copy of the other. But which is the copy of which?’

  ‘I never thought of that.’

  ‘You are not yet of an age to have thought much,’ said Reason. ‘But you must see that if two things are alike, then it is a further question whether the first is copied from the second, or the second from the first, or both from a third?’

  ‘What would the third be?’

  ‘Some have thought that all these loves were copies of our love for the Landlord.’

  ‘But surely they have considered that and rejected it. Their sciences have disproved it.’

  ‘They could not have, for their sciences are not concerned at all with the general relations of this country to anything that may lie East of it or West of it. They indeed will tell you that their researches have proved that if two things are similar, the fair one is always the copy of the foul one. But their only reason to say so is that they have already decided that the fairest things of all—that is the Landlord, and, if you like, the mountains and the Island—are a mere copy of this country. They pretend that their researches lead to that doctrine: but in fact they assume that doctrine first and interpret their researches by it.’

  ‘But they have reasons for assuming it.’

  ‘They have none, for they have ceased to listen to the only people who can tell them anything about it.’

  ‘Who are they?’

  ‘They are younger sisters of mine, and their names are Philosophy and Theology.’

  ‘Sisters! Who is your father?’

  ‘You will know sooner than you wish.’

  And now the evening was falling and they were near a little farm, so they turned in there and asked a night’s lodging of the farmer, which was readily given them.

  III

  Esse is Percipi

  NEXT MORNING THEY continued their journey together. In my dream I saw them go through a country of little hills where the road was always winding to conform to the lie of the valleys: and John walked at the lady’s stirrup. The fetter of his hands had broken at the moment when she killed the giant, but the handcuffs were still on his wrists. One half of the broken chain hung down from each hand. There was a greater mildness in the air this day and the buds were fully formed in the hedges.

  ‘I have been thinking, lady,’ said John, ‘of what you said yesterday and I think I understand that though the Island is very like the place where I first met the brown girl, yet she might be the shadow and the Island the reality. But there is one thing that troubles me.’

  ‘What is that?’ said Reason.

  ‘I cannot forget what I have seen in the giant’s prison. If we are really like that inside, whatever we imagine must be abominable however innocent it looks. It may be true in general that the foul thing is not always the original and the fair thing not always the copy. But when we have to do with human imaginations, with things that come out of us, surely then the giant is right? There at least it is much more likely that whatever seems good is only a veil for the bad—only a part of our skin that has so far escaped the giant’s eyes and not yet become transparent.’

  ‘There are two things to be said about that,’ replied the lady, ‘and the first is this. Who told you that the Island was an imagination of yours?’

  ‘Well, you would not assure me that it was anything real.’

  ‘Nor that it was not.’

  ‘But I must think it is one or the other.’

  ‘By my father’s soul, you must not—until you have some evidence. Can you not remain in doubt?’

  ‘I don’t know that I have ever tried.’

  ‘You must learn to, if you are to come far with me. It is not hard to do it. In Eschropolis, indeed, it is impossible, for the people who live there have to give an opinion once a week or once a day, or else Mr. Mammon would soon cut off their food. But out here in the country you can walk all day and all the next day with an unanswered question in your head: you need never speak until you have made up your mind.’

  ‘But if a man wanted to know so badly that he would die unless the question was decided—and no more evidence turned up.’

  ‘Then he would die, that would be all.’

  They went on in silence for a while.

  ‘You said there were two things to say,’ said John. ‘What was the second?’

  ‘The second was this. Did you think that the things you saw in the dungeon were real: that we really are like that?’

  ‘Of course I did. It is only our skin that hides them.’

  ‘Then I must ask you the same question that I asked the giant. What is the colour of things in the dark?’

  ‘I suppose, no colour at all.’

  ‘And what of their shape? Have you any notion of it save as what could be seen or touched, or what you could collect from many seeings and touchings?’

  ‘I don’t know that I have.’

  ‘Then do you not see how the giant has deceived you?’

  ‘Not quite clearly.’

  ‘He showed you by a trick what our inwards would look like if they were visible. That is, he showed you something that is not, but something that would be if the world were made all other than it is. But in the real world our inwards are invisible. They are not coloured shapes at all, they are feelings. The warmth in your limbs at this moment, the sweetness of your breath as you draw it in, the comfort in your belly because we breakfasted well, and your hunger for the next meal—these are the reality: all the sponges and tubes that you saw in the dungeon are the lie.’

  ‘But if I cut a man open I should see them in him.’

  ‘A man cut open is, so far, not a man: and if you did not sew him up speedily you would be seeing not organs, but death. I am not denying that death is ugly: but the giant made you believe that life is ugly.’

  ‘I cannot forget the man with the cancer.’

  ‘What you saw was unreality. The ugly lump was the giant’s trick: the reality was pain, which has no colour or shape.’

  ‘Is that much better?’

  ‘That depends on the man.’

  ‘I think I begin to see.’

  ‘Is it surprising that things should look strange if you see them as they are not? If you take an organ out of a man’s body—or a longing out of the dark part of a man’s mind—and give to the one the shape and colour, and to the other the self-consciousness, which they never have in reality, would you expect them to be other than monstrous?’

  ‘I
s there, then, no truth at all in what I saw under the giant’s eyes?’

  ‘Such pictures are useful to physicians.’

  ‘Then I really am clean,’ said John. ‘I am not—like those.’

  Reason smiled. ‘There, too,’ she said, ‘there is truth mixed up with the giant’s conjuring tricks. It will do you no harm to remember from time to time the ugly sights inside. You come of a race that cannot afford to be proud.’

  As she spoke John looked up, in doubt of her meaning: and for the first time since he came into her company he felt afraid. But the impression lasted only for a moment. ‘Look,’ said John, ‘here is a little inn. Is it not time that we rested and ate something?’

  IV

  Escape

  IN THE WARMTH of the afternoon they went on again, and it came into John’s mind to ask the lady the meaning of her second riddle.

  ‘It has two meanings,’ said she, ‘and in the first the bridge signifies Reasoning. The Spirit of the Age wishes to allow argument and not to allow argument.’

  ‘How is that?’

  ‘You heard what they said. If anyone argues with them they say that he is rationalizing his own desires, and therefore need not be answered. But if anyone listens to them they will then argue themselves to show that their own doctrines are true.’

  ‘I see. And what is the cure for this?’

  ‘You must ask them whether any reasoning is valid or not. If they say no, then their own doctrines, being reached by reasoning, fall to the ground. If they say yes, then they will have to examine your arguments and refute them on their merits: for if some reasoning is valid, for all they know, your bit of reasoning may be one of the valid bits.’

  ‘I see,’ said John. ‘But what was the second interpretation?’

  ‘In the second,’ said Reason, ‘the bridge signifies the giant’s own favourite doctrine of the wish-fulfilment dream. For this also he wishes to use and not to use.’

  ‘I don’t see how he wishes not to use it.’

  ‘Does he not keep on telling people that the Landlord is a wish-fulfilment dream?’

  ‘Yes; surely that is true—the only true thing he did say.’

  ‘Now think. Is it really true that the giant and Sigismund, and the people in Eschropolis, and Mr. Halfways, are going about filled with a longing that there should be a Landlord, and cards of rules, and a mountain land beyond the brook, with a possibility of a black hole?’

  Then John stood still on the road to think. And first he gave a shake of his shoulders, and then he put his hands to his sides, and then he began to laugh till he was almost shaken to pieces. And when he had nearly finished, the vastness and impudence and simplicity of the fraud which had been practised came over him all again, and he laughed harder. And just when he had nearly recovered and was beginning to get his breath again, suddenly he had a picture in his mind of Victoriana and Glugly and Gus Halfways and how they would look if a rumour reached them that there was a Landlord and he was coming to Eschropolis. This was too much for him, and he laughed so hard that the broken chains of the Spirit of the Age fell off his wrists altogether. But all the while Reason sat and watched him.

  ‘You had better hear the rest of the argument,’ she said at last. ‘It may not be such a laughing matter as you suppose.’

  ‘Oh, yes—the argument,’ said John, wiping his eyes.

  ‘You see now the direction in which the giant does not want the wish-fulfilment theory used?’

  ‘I’m not sure that I do,’ said John.

  ‘Don’t you see what follows if you adopt his own rules?’

  ‘No,’ said John, very loudly: for a terrible apprehension was stealing over him.

  ‘But you must see,’ said Reason, ‘that for him and all his subjects disbelief in the Landlord is a wish-fulfilment dream.’

  ‘I shall not adopt his rules.’

  ‘You would be foolish not to have profited at all by your stay in his country,’ said Reason. ‘There is some force in the wish-fulfilment doctrine.’

  ‘Some, perhaps, but very little.’

  ‘I only wanted to make it clear that whatever force it had was in favour of the Landlord’s existence, not against it—specially in your case.’

  ‘Why specially in mine?’ said John sulkily.

  ‘Because the Landlord is the thing you have been most afraid of all your life. I do not say that any theory should be accepted because it is disagreeable, but if any should, then belief in the Landlord should be accepted first.’

  As Reason said these words they had reached the top of a little hill, and John begged for a halt, being out of breath. He looked back and saw beyond the green, rolling country the dark line of mountains which was the frontier of the giant’s land: but behind them, and far bigger, rose the old mountains of the East, picked out in the rays of the declining sun against a dark sky. They seemed no smaller than when John had looked at them long ago from Puritania.

  ‘I do not know where you are leading me,’ he said at last, ‘and among all these winding roads I have lost my sense of direction. As well, I find the pace of your horse fatiguing. If you will excuse me, I think I will henceforth pursue my journey alone.’

  ‘As you wish,’ said Reason. ‘But I would strongly advise you to take this turn to the left.’

  ‘Where does it go to?’ asked John suspiciously.

  ‘It takes you back to the main road,’ said Reason.

  ‘That will do well enough,’ said John. ‘And now, lady, give me your blessing before I go.’

  ‘I have no blessing to give,’ said the Virgin. ‘I do not deal in blessings and cursings.’

  Then John bade her good-bye and took the road she had pointed out to him. As soon as she was out of sight, I dreamed that he put down his head and ran; for the silly fellow supposed that she might follow him. And he continued running until he found that he was going up a hill—a hill so steep that it left him no breath for running—and at the very top his road cut into another which ran left and right along the ridge. Then John looked one way along it to the East and the other way along it to the West, and saw that it was indeed the main road. He stayed for a minute to mop his brow. Then he turned to the right, with his face towards the setting sun, and resumed his journey.

  BOOK FIVE

  THE GRAND CANYON

  Not by road and foot nor by sail and ocean

  Shalt thou find any course that reaches

  The world beyond the North.

  PINDAR

  The ephemerals have no help to give. Behold them;

  They are deedless and cripple, like to

  A dream. The kind of mortals

  Is bound with a chain and their eyes are in darkness.

  AESCHYLUS

  Alas, what can they teach and not mislead,

  Ignorant of themselves, of God much more,

  And how the world began, and how man fell.

  MILTON

  I

  The Grand Canyon

  THE MAIN ROAD SOON began to ascend and after a short climb John found himself on a bleak tableland which continued to rise before him, but at a gentler angle. After he had walked a mile or so he saw the figure of a man ahead, outlined against the setting sun. At first the figure stood still: then it took a few paces to the left and to the right as if in indecision. Then it turned about to face him, and to his surprise hailed him as an old acquaintance. Because of the light in his face John could not at first see who it was, and they had joined hands before he knew that it was Vertue.

  ‘What can have delayed you?’ cried John. ‘I thought by your pace when I left you that you would have been a week’s journey ahead of me by now.’

  ‘If you think that,’ said Vertue, ‘your way must have been easier than mine. Have you not crossed mountains?’

  ‘I came through a pass,’ said John.

  ‘The main road took them without a bend,’ said Vertue. ‘And I often made scarcely ten miles a day. But that does not signify: I have learned something of
climbing and sweated off a good deal of soft flesh. What has really delayed me is this—I have been here for several days.’

  With that he motioned John to proceed and they went forward together to the brow of the slope. Then I saw John start back a pace or so with a cry, for he had found that he stood on the edge of a precipice. Then presently he re-approached it with caution and looked.

  He saw that the road ran up without warning to the edge of a great gorge or chasm and ended in the air, as if it had been broken off. The chasm might be seven miles wide and as for its length, it stretched southward on his left and northward on his right as far as he could see. The sun shining in his face cast all the further side into shadow, so that he could not see much of it clearly. It seemed to him, however, a rich country from the verdure and the size of the trees.

  ‘I have been exploring the cliffs,’ said Vertue. ‘And I think we could get half-way down. Come a little nearer. You see that ledge?’

  ‘I have a very poor head for heights,’ said John.

  ‘That one,’ said Vertue, pointing to a narrow strip of greenery a thousand feet below them.

  ‘I could never reach it.’

  ‘Oh, you could reach that easily enough. The difficulty is to know what happens beyond it. I am inclined to think that it overhangs: and though we could get down to it, I am not sure that we could get back if the rest of the descent was impracticable.’

  ‘Then it would be madness to trust ourselves so far.’

  ‘I don’t know about that. It would be in accordance with the rule.’

  ‘What rule?’

  ‘The rule is,’ said Vertue, ‘that if we have one chance out of a hundred of surviving, we must attempt it: but if we have none, absolutely none, then it would be self-destruction, and we need not.’

  ‘It is no rule of mine,’ said John.

  ‘But it is. We all have the same set of rules, really, you know.’

  ‘If it is a rule of mine, it is one that I cannot obey.’

  ‘I don’t think I understand you,’ said Vertue. ‘But of course you may be such a bad climber that you wouldn’t have even one chance . . . that would make a difference, I allow.’