Complete Works of Lewis Carroll (57 page)

"Yes," said Sylvie: "if one tried to kill me, Bruno would kill it if he could."

"Well, and so the men—the hunters—get to enjoy it, you know: the running, and the fighting, and the shouting, and the danger."

"Yes," said Sylvie.
"Bruno likes danger."

"Well, but, in this country, there aren't any lions and tigers, loose: so they hunt other creatures, you see."
I hoped, but in vain, that this would satisfy her, and that she would ask no more questions.

"They hunt foxes," Sylvie said, thoughtfully.
"And I think they kill them, too.
Foxes are very fierce.
I daresay men don't love them.
Are hares fierce?"

"No," I said.
"A hare is a sweet, gentle, timid animal—almost as gentle as a lamb."

"But, if men love hares, why—why—" her voice quivered, and her sweet eyes were brimming over with tears.

"I'm afraid they don't love them, dear child."

"All children love them," Sylvie said.
"All ladies love them."

"I'm afraid even ladies go to hunt them, sometimes."

Sylvie shuddered.
'"Oh, no, not ladies!'
she earnestly pleaded.
"Not Lady Muriel!"

"No, she never does, I'm sure—but this is too sad a sight for you, dear.
Let's try and find some—"

But Sylvie was not satisfied yet.
In a hushed, solemn tone, with bowed head and clasped hands, she put her final question.
"Does GOD love hares?"

"Yes!"
I said.
"I'm sure He does!
He loves every living thing.
Even sinful men.
How much more the animals, that cannot sin!"

"I don't know what 'sin' means," said Sylvie.
And I didn't try to explain it.

"Come, my child," I said, trying to lead her away.
"Wish good-bye to the poor hare, and come and look for blackberries."

"Good-bye, poor hare!"
Sylvie obediently repeated, looking over her shoulder at it as we turned away.
And then, all in a moment, her self-command gave way.
Pulling her hand out of mine, she ran back to where the dead hare was lying, and flung herself down at its side in such an agony of grief as I could hardly have believed possible in so young a child.

"Oh, my darling, my darling!"
she moaned, over and over again.
"And God meant your life to be so beautiful!"

Sometimes, but always keeping her face hidden on the ground, she would reach out one little hand, to stroke the poor dead thing, and then once more bury her face in her hands, and sob as if her heart would break.

I was afraid she would really make herself ill: still I thought it best to let her weep away the first sharp agony of grief: and, after a few minutes, the sobbing gradually ceased, and Sylvie rose to her feet, and looked calmly at me, though tears were still streaming down her cheeks.

I did not dare to speak again, just yet; but simply held out my hand to her, that we might quit the melancholy spot.

Yes, I'll come now, she said.
Very reverently she kneeled down, and kissed the dead hare; then rose and gave me her hand, and we moved on in silence.

A child's sorrow is violent but short; and it was almost in her usual voice that she said after a minute "Oh stop stop!
Here are some lovely blackberries!"

We filled our hands with fruit and returned in all haste to where the
Professor and Bruno were seated on a bank awaiting our return.

Just before we came within hearing-distance Sylvie checked me.
"Please don't tell Bruno about the hare!"
she said.

Very well, my child.
But why not?

Tears again glittered in those sweet eyes and she turned her head away so that I could scarcely hear her reply.
"He's—he's very fond of gentle creatures you know.
And he'd—he'd be so sorry!
I don't want him to be made sorry."

And your agony of sorrow is to count for nothing, then, sweet unselfish child!
I thought to myself.
But no more was said till we had reached our friends; and Bruno was far too much engrossed, in the feast we had brought him, to take any notice of Sylvie's unusually grave manner.

"I'm afraid it's getting rather late, Professor?"
I said.

"Yes, indeed," said the Professor.
"I must take you all through the
Ivory Door again.
You've stayed your full time."

"Mightn't we stay a little longer!"
pleaded Sylvie.

"Just one minute!"
added Bruno.

But the Professor was unyielding.
"It's a great privilege, coming through at all," he said.
"We must go now."
And we followed him obediently to the Ivory Door, which he threw open, and signed to me to go through first.

"You're coming too, aren't you?"
I said to Sylvie.

"Yes," she said: "but you won't see us after you've gone through."

"But suppose I wait for you outside?"
I asked, as I stepped through the doorway.

"In that case," said Sylvie, "I think the potato would be quite justified in asking your weight.
I can quite imagine a really superior kidney-potato declining to argue with any one under fifteen stone!"

With a great effort I recovered the thread of my thoughts.
"We lapse very quickly into nonsense!"
I said.

CHAPTER 22.

CROSSING THE LINE.

"Let us lapse back again," said Lady Muriel.
"Take another cup of tea?
I hope that's sound common sense?"

"And all that strange adventure," I thought, "has occupied the space of a single comma in Lady Muriel's speech!
A single comma, for which grammarians tell us to 'count one'!"
(I felt no doubt that the Professor had kindly put back the time for me, to the exact point at which I had gone to sleep.)

When, a few minutes afterwards, we left the house, Arthur's first remark was certainly a strange one.
"We've been there just twenty minutes," he said, "and I've done nothing but listen to you and Lady Muriel talking: and yet, somehow, I feel exactly as if I had been talking with her for an hour at least!"

And so he had been, I felt no doubt: only, as the time had been put back to the beginning of the tete-a-tete he referred to, the whole of it had passed into oblivion, if not into nothingness!
But I valued my own reputation for sanity too highly to venture on explaining to him what had happened.

For some cause, which I could not at the moment divine, Arthur was unusually grave and silent during our walk home.
It could not be connected with Eric Lindon, I thought, as he had for some days been away in London: so that, having Lady Muriel almost 'all to himself'— for I was only too glad to hear those two conversing, to have any wish to intrude any remarks of my own—he ought, theoretically, to have been specially radiant and contented with life.
"Can he have heard any bad news?"
I said to myself.
And, almost as if he had read my thoughts, he spoke.

"He will be here by the last train," he said, in the tone of one who is continuing a conversation rather than beginning one.

"Captain Lindon, do you mean?"

"Yes—Captain Lindon," said Arthur: "I said 'he,' because I fancied we were talking about him.
The Earl told me he comes tonight, though to-morrow is the day when he will know about the Commission that he's hoping for.
I wonder he doesn't stay another day to hear the result, if he's really so anxious about it as the Earl believes he is."

"He can have a telegram sent after him," I said: "but it's not very soldier-like, running away from possible bad news!"

"He's a very good fellow," said Arthur: "but I confess it would be good news for me, if he got his Commission, and his Marching Orders, all at once!
I wish him all happiness—with one exception.
Good night!"
(We had reached home by this time.) "I'm not good company to-night— better be alone."

It was much the same, next day.
Arthur declared he wasn't fit for Society, and I had to set forth alone for an afternoon-stroll.
I took the road to the Station, and, at the point where the road from the 'Hall' joined it, I paused, seeing my friends in the distance, seemingly bound for the same goal.

"Will you join us?"
the Earl said, after I had exchanged greetings with him, and Lady Muriel, and Captain Lindon.
"This restless young man is expecting a telegram, and we are going to the Station to meet it."

"There is also a restless young woman in the case," Lady Muriel added.

"That goes without saying, my child," said her father.
"Women are always restless!"

"For generous appreciation of all one's best qualities," his daughter impressively remarked, "there's nothing to compare with a father, is there, Eric?"

"Cousins are not 'in it,'" said Eric: and then somehow the conversation lapsed into two duologues, the younger folk taking the lead, and the two old men following with less eager steps.

"And when are we to see your little friends again?"
said the Earl.
"They are singularly attractive children."

"I shall be delighted to bring them, when I can," I said!
"But I don't know, myself, when I am likely to see them again."

"I'm not going to question you," said the Earl: "but there's no harm in mentioning that Muriel is simply tormented with curiosity!
We know most of the people about here, and she has been vainly trying to guess what house they can possibly be staying at."

"Some day I may be able to enlighten her: but just at present—"

"Thanks.
She must bear it as best she can.
I tell her it's a grand opportunity for practising patience.
But she hardly sees it from that point of view.
Why, there are the children!"

So indeed they were: waiting (for us, apparently) at a stile, which they could not have climbed over more than a few moments, as Lady Muriel and her cousin had passed it without seeing them.
On catching sight of us, Bruno ran to meet us, and to exhibit to us, with much pride, the handle of a clasp-knife—the blade having been broken off—which he had picked up in the road.

"And what shall you use it for, Bruno?"
I said.

"Don't know," Bruno carelessly replied: "must think."

"A child's first view of life," the Earl remarked, with that sweet sad smile of his, "is that it is a period to be spent in accumulating portable property.
That view gets modified as the years glide away."
And he held out his hand to Sylvie, who had placed herself by me, looking a little shy of him.

But the gentle old man was not one with whom any child, human or fairy, could be shy for long; and she had very soon deserted my hand for his—Bruno alone remaining faithful to his first friend.
We overtook the other couple just as they reached the Station, and both Lady Muriel and Eric greeted the children as old friends—the latter with the words "So you got to Babylon by candlelight, after all?"

"Yes, and back again!"
cried Bruno.

Lady Muriel looked from one to the other in blank astonishment.
"What, you know them, Eric?"
she exclaimed.
"This mystery grows deeper every day!"

"Then we must be somewhere in the Third Act," said Eric.
"You don't expect the mystery to be cleared up till the Fifth Act, do you?"

"But it's such a long drama!"
was the plaintive reply.
"We must have got to the Fifth Act by this time!"

"Third Act, I assure you," said the young soldier mercilessly.
"Scene, a railway-platform.
Lights down.
Enter Prince (in disguise, of course) and faithful Attendant.
This is the Prince—" (taking Bruno's hand) "and here stands his humble Servant!"
What is your Royal Highness next command.?"
And he made a most courtier-like low bow to his puzzled little friend.

"Oo're not a Servant!"
Bruno scornfully exclaimed.
"Oo're a Gemplun!"

"Servant, I assure your Royal Highness!"
Eric respectfully insisted.
"Allow me to mention to your Royal Highness my various situations—past, present, and future."

"What did oo begin wiz?"
Bruno asked, beginning to enter into the jest.
"Was oo a shoe-black?"

"Lower than that, your Royal Highness!
Years ago, I offered myself as a Slave—as a 'Confidential Slave,' I think it's called?"
he asked, turning to Lady Muriel.

But Lady Muriel heard him not: something had gone wrong with her glove, which entirely engrossed her attention.

"Did oo get the place?"
said Bruno.

"Sad to say, Your Royal Highness, I did not!
So I had to take a situation as—as Waiter, which I have now held for some years haven't I?"
He again glanced at Lady Muriel.

"Sylvie dear, do help me to button this glove!"
Lady Muriel whispered, hastily stooping down, and failing to hear the question.

"And what will oo be next?"
said Bruno.

"My next place will, I hope, be that of Groom.
And after that—"

"Don't puzzle the child so!"
Lady Muriel interrupted.
"What nonsense you talk!"

"—after that," Eric persisted, "I hope to obtain the situation of Housekeeper, which—Fourth Act!"
he proclaimed, with a sudden change of tone.
"Lights turned up.
Red lights.
Green lights.
Distant rumble heard.
Enter a passenger-train!"

And in another minute the train drew up alongside of the platform, and a stream of passengers began to flow out from the booking office and waiting-rooms.

"Did you ever make real life into a drama?"
said the Earl.
"Now just try.
I've often amused myself that way.
Consider this platform as our stage.
Good entrances and exits on both sides, you see.
Capital background scene: real engine moving up and down.
All this bustle, and people passing to and fro, must have been most carefully rehearsed!
How naturally they do it!
With never a glance at the audience!
And every grouping is quite fresh, you see.
No repetition!"

It really was admirable, as soon as I began to enter into it from this point of view.
Even a porter passing, with a barrow piled with luggage, seemed so realistic that one was tempted to applaud.
He was followed by an angry mother, with hot red face, dragging along two screaming children, and calling, to some one behind, "John!
Come on!"
Enter John, very meek, very silent, and loaded with parcels.
And he was followed, in his turn, by a frightened little nursemaid, carrying a fat baby, also screaming.
All the children screamed.

"Capital byplay!"
said the old man aside.
"Did you notice the nursemaid's look of terror?
It was simply perfect!"

"You have struck quite a new vein," I said.
"To most of us Life and its pleasures seem like a mine that is nearly worked out."

"Worked out!"
exclaimed the Earl.
"For any one with true dramatic instincts, it is only the Overture that is ended!
The real treat has yet to begin.
You go to a theatre, and pay your ten shillings for a stall, and what do you get for your money?
Perhaps it's a dialogue between a couple of farmers—unnatural in their overdone caricature of farmers' dress—-more unnatural in their constrained attitudes and gestures—most unnatural in their attempts at ease and geniality in their talk.
Go instead and take a seat in a third-class railway-carriage, and you'll get the same dialogue done to the life!
Front-seats—no orchestra to block the view—and nothing to pay!"

"Which reminds me," said Eric.
"There is nothing to pay on receiving a telegram!
Shall we enquire for one?"
And he and Lady Muriel strolled off in the direction of the Telegraph-Office.

"I wonder if Shakespeare had that thought in his mind," I said, "when he wrote 'All the world's a stage'?"

The old man sighed.
"And so it is, "he said, "look at it as you will.
Life is indeed a drama; a drama with but few encores—and no bouquets!"
he added dreamily.
"We spend one half of it in regretting the things we did in the other half!"

"And the secret of enjoying it," he continued, resuming his cheerful tone, "is intensity!"

"But not in the modern aesthetic sense, I presume?
Like the young lady, in Punch, who begins a conversation with 'Are you intense?'"

"By no means!"
replied the Earl.
"What I mean is intensity of thought—a concentrated attention.
We lose half the pleasure we might have in Life, by not really attending.
Take any instance you like: it doesn't matter how trivial the pleasure may be—the principle is the same.
Suppose A and B are reading the same second-rate circulating-library novel.
A never troubles himself to master the relationships of the characters, on which perhaps all the interest of the story depends: he 'skips' over all the descriptions of scenery, and every passage that looks rather dull: he doesn't half attend to the passages he does read: he goes on reading merely from want of resolution to find another occupation—for hours after he ought to have put the book aside: and reaches the 'FINIS' in a state of utter weariness and depression!
B puts his whole soul into the thing—on the principle that 'whatever is worth doing is worth doing well': he masters the genealogies: he calls up pictures before his 'mind's eye' as he reads about the scenery: best of all, he resolutely shuts the book at the end of some chapter, while his interest is yet at its keenest, and turns to other subjects; so that, when next he allows himself an hour at it, it is like a hungry man sitting down to dinner: and, when the book is finished, he returns to the work of his daily life like 'a giant refreshed'!"