That Hideous Strength

  ‘I hear and obey,’ said the magician. ‘But I meant no harm. If not to heal your own wound, yet for the healing of Logres, you will need my commerce with field and water. It must be that I should go in and out, and to and fro, renewing old acquaintance. It will not be changed, you know. Not what you would call changed.’

  Again that sweet heaviness, like the smell of hawthorn, seemed to be flowing back over the Blue Room.

  ‘No,’ said the Director in a still louder voice, ‘that cannot be done any longer. The soul has gone out of the wood and water. Oh, I daresay you could awake them; a little. But it would not be enough. A storm, or even a river-flood would be of little avail against our present enemy. Your weapon would break in your hands. For the Hideous Strength confronts us and it is as in the days when Nimrod built a tower to reach heaven.’

  ‘Hidden it may be,’ said Merlinus. ‘But not changed. Leave me to work, Lord. I will wake it. I will set a sword in every blade of grass to wound them and the very clods of earth shall be venom to their feet. I will–’

  ‘No,’ said the Director. ‘I forbid you to speak of it. If it were possible, it would be unlawful. Whatever of spirit may still linger in the earth has withdrawn fifteen hundred years further away from us since your time. You shall not speak a word to it. You shall not lift your little finger to call it up. I command you. It is in this age utterly unlawful.’ Hitherto, he had been speaking sternly and coldly. Now he leaned forward and said in a different voice, ‘It never was very lawful, even in your day. Remember, when we first knew that you would be awaked, we thought you would be on the side of the enemy. And because Our Lord does all things for each, one of the purposes of your reawakening was that your own soul should be saved.’

  Merlin sank back into his chair like a man unstrung. The bear licked his hand where it hung, pale and relaxed, over the arm of the chair.

  ‘Sir,’ said Merlin presently, ‘if I am not to work for you in that fashion, then you have taken into your house a silly bulk of flesh. For I am no longer much of a man of war. If it comes to point and edge I avail little.’

  ‘Not that way either,’ said Ransom, hesitating like a man who is reluctant to come to the point. ‘No power that is merely earthly,’ he continued at last, ‘will serve against the Hideous Strength.’

  ‘Then let us all to prayers,’ said Merlinus. ‘But there also…I was not reckoned of much account…they called me a devil’s son, some of them. It was a lie. But I do not know why I have been brought back.’

  ‘Certainly, let us stick to our prayers,’ said Ransom. ‘Now and always. But that was not what I meant. There are celestial powers: created powers, not in this Earth, but in the Heavens.’

  Merlinus looked at him in silence.

  ‘You know well what I am speaking of,’ said Ransom. ‘Did not I tell you when we first met that the Oyéresu were my Masters?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Merlin. ‘And that was how I knew you were of the College. Is it not our pass-word all over the Earth?’

  ‘A pass-word?’ exclaimed Ransom with a look of surprise. ‘I did not know that.’

  ‘But…but,’ said Merlinus, ‘if you knew not the password, how did you come to say it?’

  ‘I said it because it was true.’

  The magician licked his lips which had become very pale.

  ‘True as the plainest things are true,’ repeated Ransom. ‘True as it is true that you sit here with my bear beside you.’

  Merlin spread out his hands. ‘You are my father and mother,’ he said. His eyes, steadily fixed on Ransom, were large as those of an awe-struck child, but for the rest he looked a smaller man than Ransom had first taken him to be.

  ‘Suffer me to speak,’ he said at last, ‘or slay me if you will, for I am in the hollow of your hand. I had heard of it in my own days–that some had spoken with the gods. Blaise my Master knew a few words of that speech. Yet these were, after all, powers of Earth. For–I need not teach you, you know more than I–it is not the very Oyéresu, the true powers of Heaven, whom the greatest of our craft meet, but only their earthly wraiths, their shadows. Only the earth-Venus, the earth-Mercurius; not Perelandra herself, not Viritrilbia himself. It is only…’

  ‘I am not speaking of the wraiths,’ said Ransom. ‘I have stood before Mars himself in the sphere of Mars and before Venus herself in the sphere of Venus. It is their strength, and the strength of some greater than they, which will destroy our enemies.’

  ‘But, Lord,’ said Merlin, ‘how can this be? Is it not against the Seventh Law?’

  ‘What law is that?’ asked Ransom.

  ‘Has not our Fair Lord made it a law for Himself that He will not send down the Powers to mend or mar in this Earth until the end of all things? Or is this the end that is even now coming to pass?’

  ‘It may be the beginning of the end,’ said Ransom. ‘But I know nothing of that. Maleldil may have made it a law not to send down the Powers. But if men by enginry and natural philosophy learn to fly into the Heavens, and come, in the flesh, among the heavenly powers and trouble them, He has not forbidden the Powers to react. For all this is within the natural order. A wicked man did learn so to do. He came flying, by a subtle engine, to where Mars dwells in Heaven and to where Venus dwells, and took me with him as a captive. And there I spoke with the true Oyéresu face to face. You understand me?’

  Merlin inclined his head.

  ‘And so the wicked man had brought about, even as Judas brought about, the thing he least intended. For now there was one man in the world–even myself–who was known to the Oyéresu and spoke their tongue, neither by God’s miracle nor by magic from Numinor, but naturally, as when two men meet in a road. Our enemies had taken away from themselves the protection of the Seventh Law. They had broken by natural philosophy the barrier which God of His own power would not break. Even so they sought you as a friend and raised up for themselves a scourge. And that is why Powers of Heaven have come down to this house, and in this chamber where we are now discoursing Malacandra and Perelandra have spoken to me.’

  Merlin’s face became a little paler. The bear nosed at his hand, unnoticed.

  ‘I have become a bridge,’ said Ransom.

  ‘Sir,’ said Merlin, ‘what will come of this? If they put forth their power, they will unmake all Middle Earth.’

  ‘Their naked power, yes,’ said Ransom. ‘That is why they will work only through a man.’

  The magician drew one large hand across his forehead.

  ‘Through a man whose mind is opened to be so invaded,’ said Ransom, ‘one who by his own will once opened it. I take Our Fair Lord to witness that if it were my task, I would not refuse it. But he will not suffer a mind that still has its virginity to be so violated. And through a black magician’s mind their purity neither can nor will operate. One who has dabbled…in the days when dabbling had not begun to be evil, or was only just beginning…and also a Christian man and a penitent. A tool (I must speak plainly) good enough to be so used and not too good. In all these Western parts of the world there was only one man who had lived in those days and could still be recalled. You–’

  He stopped, shocked at what was happening. The huge man had risen from his chair, and stood towering over him. From his horribly opened mouth there came a yell that seemed to Ransom utterly bestial, though it was in fact only the yell of primitive Celtic lamentation. It was horrifying to see that withered and bearded face all blubbered with undisguised tears like a child’s. All the Roman surface in Merlinus had been scraped off. He had become a shameless, archaic monstrosity babbling out entreaties in a mixture of what sounded like Welsh and what sounded like Spanish.

  ‘Silence,’ shouted Ransom. ‘Sit down. You put us both to shame.’

  As suddenly as it had begun the frenzy ended. Merlin resumed his chair. To a modern it seemed strange that, having recovered his self-control, he did not show the slightest embarrassment at his temporary loss of it. The whole character of the two-sided society in which th
is man must have lived became clearer to Ransom than pages of history could have made it.

  ‘Do not think,’ said Ransom, ‘that for me either it is child’s play to meet those who will come down for your empowering.’

  ‘Sir,’ faltered Merlin, ‘you have been in Heaven. I am but a man. I am not the son of one of the Airish Men. That was a lying story. How can I?…You are not as I. You have looked upon their faces before.’

  ‘Not on all of them,’ said Ransom. ‘Greater spirits than Malacandra and Perelandra will descend this time. We are in God’s hands. It may unmake us both. There is no promise that either you or I will save our lives or our reason. I do not know how we can dare to look upon their faces; but I know we cannot dare to look upon God’s if we refuse this enterprise.’

  Suddenly the magician smote his hand upon his knee.

  ‘Mehercule!’ he cried. ‘Are we not going too fast? If you are the Pendragon, I am the High Council of Logres and I will counsel you. If the Powers must tear me in pieces to break our enemies, God’s will be done. But is it yet come to that? This Saxon king of yours who sits at Windsor, now. Is there no help in him?’

  ‘He has no power in this matter.’

  ‘Then is he not weak enough to be overthrown?’

  ‘I have no wish to overthrow him. He is the king. He was crowned and anointed by the Archbishop. In the order of Logres I may be Pendragon, but in the order of Britain I am the King’s man.’

  ‘Is it then his great men–the counts and legates and bishops–who do the evil and he does not know of it?’

  ‘It is–though they are not exactly the sort of great men you have in mind.’

  ‘And are we not big enough to meet them in plain battle?’

  ‘We are four men, some women, and a bear.’

  ‘I saw the time when Logres was only myself and one man and two boys, and one of those was a churl. Yet we conquered.’

  ‘It could not be done now. They have an engine called the Press whereby the people are deceived. We should die without even being heard of.’

  ‘But what of the true clerks? Is there no help in them? It cannot be that all your priests and bishops are corrupted.’

  ‘The Faith itself is torn in pieces since your day and speaks with a divided voice. Even if it were made whole, the Christians are but a tenth part of the people. There is no help there.’

  ‘Then let us seek help from over sea. Is there no Christian prince in Neustria or Ireland or Benwick who would come in and cleanse Britain if he were called?’

  ‘There is no Christian prince left. These other countries are even as Britain, or else sunk deeper still in the disease.’

  ‘Then we must go higher. We must go to him whose office it is to put down tyrants and give life to dying kingdoms. We must call on the Emperor.’

  ‘There is no Emperor.’

  ‘No Emperor…’ began Merlin, and then his voice died away. He sat still for some minutes wrestling with a world which he had never envisaged. Presently he said, ‘A thought comes into my mind and I do not know whether it is good or evil. But because I am the High Council of Logres I will not hide it from you. This is a cold age in which I have awaked. If all this West part of the world is apostate, might it not be lawful, in our great need, to look farther…beyond Christendom? Should we not find some even among the heathen who are not wholly corrupt? There were tales in my day of some such: men who knew not the articles of our most holy Faith, but who worshipped God as they could and acknowledged the Law of Nature. Sir, I believe it would be lawful to seek help even there. Beyond Byzantium. It was rumoured also that there was knowledge in those lands–an Eastern circle and wisdom that came West from Numinor. I know not where–Babylon, Arabia or Cathay. You said your ships had sailed all round the earth, above and beneath.’

  Ransom shook his head. ‘You do not understand,’ he said. ‘The poison was brewed in these West lands but it has spat itself everywhere by now. However far you went you would find the machines, the crowded cities, the empty thrones, the false writings, the barren beds: men maddened with false promises and soured with true miseries, worshipping the iron works of their own hands, cut off from Earth their mother and from the Father in Heaven. You might go East so far that East became West and you returned to Britain across the great Ocean, but even so you would not have come out anywhere into the light. The shadow of one dark wing is over all Tellus.’

  ‘Is it then the end?’ asked Merlin.

  ‘And this,’ said Ransom, ignoring the question, ‘is why we have no way left at all save the one I told you. The Hideous Strength holds all this Earth in its fist to squeeze as it wishes. But for their one mistake, there would be no hope left. If of their own evil will they had not broken the frontier and let in the celestial Powers, this would be their moment of victory. Their own strength has betrayed them. They have gone to the gods who would not have come to them, and pulled down Deep Heaven on their heads. Therefore, they will die. For though you search every cranny to escape, now that you see all crannies closed, you will not disobey me.’

  And then, very slowly, there crept back into Merlin’s white face, first closing his dismayed mouth and finally gleaming in his eyes, that almost animal expression, earthy and healthy and with a glint of half-humorous cunning.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘if the Earths are stopped, the fox faces the hounds. But had I known who you were at our first meeting, I think I would have put the sleep on you as I did on your Fool.’

  ‘I am a very light sleeper since I have travelled in the Heavens,’ said Ransom.

  14

  ‘Real Life Is Meeting’

  Since the day and night of the outer world made no difference in Mark’s cell, he did not know whether it was minutes or hours later that he found himself once more awake, once more confronting Frost, and still fasting. The Professor came to ask if he had thought over their recent conversation. Mark, who judged that some decent show of reluctances would make his final surrender more convincing, replied that only one thing was still troubling him. He did not quite understand what he in particular or humanity in general stood to gain by cooperation with the Macrobes. He saw clearly that the motives on which most men act, and which they dignify by the names of patriotism or duty to humanity, were mere products of the animal organism, varying according to the behaviour pattern of different communities. But he did not yet see what was to be substituted for these irrational motives. On what ground henceforward were actions to be justified or condemned?

  ‘If one insists on putting the question in those terms,’ said Frost, ‘I think Waddington has given the best answer. Existence is its own justification. The tendency to developmental change which we call Evolution is justified by the fact that it is a general characteristic of biological entities. The present establishment of contact between the highest biological entities and the Macrobes is justified by the fact that it is occurring, and it ought to be increased because an increase is taking place.’

  ‘You think, then,’ said Mark, ‘that there would be no sense in asking whether the general tendency of the universe might be in the direction we should call Bad?’

  ‘There could be no sense at all,’ said Frost. ‘The judgment you are trying to make turns out on inspection to be simply an expression of emotion. Huxley himself, could only express it by using emotive terms such as “gladiatorial” or “ruthless”. I am referring to the famous Romanes lecture. When the so-called struggle for existence is seen simply as an actuarial theorem, we have, in Waddington’s words, “a concept as unemotional as a definite integral” and the emotion disappears. With it disappears that preposterous idea of an external standard of value which the emotion produced.’

  ‘And the actual tendency of events,’ said Mark, ‘would still be self-justified and in that sense “good” when it was working for the extinction of all organic life, as it presently will?’

  ‘Of course,’ replied Frost, ‘if you insist on formulating the problem in those terms. In reality
the question is meaningless. It presupposes a means-and-end pattern of thought which descends from Aristotle, who in his turn was merely hypostatising elements in the experience of an iron-age agricultural community. Motives are not the causes of action but its by-products. You are merely wasting your time by considering them. When you have attained real objectivity you will recognise, not some motives, but all motives as merely animal, subjective epiphenomena. You will then have no motives and you will find that you do not need them. Their place will be supplied by something else which you will presently understand better than you do now. So far from being impoverished your action will become much more efficient.’

  ‘I see,’ said Mark. The philosophy which Frost was expounding was by no means unfamiliar to him. He recognised it at once as the logical conclusion of thoughts which he had always hitherto accepted and which at this moment he found himself irrevocably rejecting. The knowledge that his own assumptions led to Frost’s position combined with what he saw in Frost’s face and what he had experienced in this very cell, effected a complete conversion. All the philosophers and evangelists in the world might not have done the job so neatly.

  ‘And that,’ continued Frost, ‘is why a systematic training in objectivity must be given to you. Its purpose is to eliminate from your mind one by one the things you have hitherto regarded as grounds for action. It is like killing a nerve. That whole system of instinctive preferences, whatever ethical, aesthetic, or logical disguise they wear, is to be simply destroyed.’

  ‘I get the idea,’ said Mark though with an inward reservation that his present instinctive desire to batter the Professor’s face into a jelly would take a good deal of destroying.

  After that, Frost took Mark from the cell and gave him a meal in some neighbouring room. It also was lit by artificial light and had no window. The Professor stood perfectly still and watched him while he ate. Mark did not know what the food was and did not much like it, but he was far too hungry by now to refuse it if refusal had been possible. When the meal was over Frost led him to the ante-room of the Head and once more he was stripped and re-clothed in surgeon’s overalls and a mask. Then he was brought in, into the presence of the gaping and dribbling Head. To his surprise, Frost took not the slightest notice of it. He led him across the room to a narrower little door with a pointed arch, in the far wall. Here he paused and said, ‘Go in. You will speak to no one of what you find here. I will return presently.’ Then he opened the door and Mark went in.

  The room, at first sight, was an anticlimax. It appeared to be an empty committee room with a long table, eight or nine chairs, some pictures, and (oddly enough) a large stepladder in one corner. Here also there were no windows; it was lit by an electric light which produced, better than Mark had ever seen it produced before, the illusion of daylight –of a cold, grey place out of doors. This, combined with the absence of a fireplace, made it seem chilly though the temperature was not in fact very low.

  A man of trained sensibility would have seen at once that the room was ill-proportioned, not grotesquely so, but sufficiently to produce dislike. It was too high and too narrow. Mark felt the effect without analysing the cause and the effect grew on him as time passed. Sitting staring about him he next noticed the door –and thought at first that he was the victim of some optical illusion. It took him quite a long time to prove to himself that he was not. The point of the arch was not in the centre: the whole thing was lop-sided. Once again, the error was not gross. The thing was near enough to the true to deceive you for a moment and to go on teasing the mind even after the deception had been unmasked.