The Great Divorce - C. S. Lewis [33]
‘Frank,’ she said, ‘before anything else, forgive me. For all I ever did wrong and for all I did not do right since the first day we met, I ask your pardon.’
I looked properly at the Dwarf for the first time now: or perhaps, when he received her kiss he became a little more visible. One could just make out the sort of face he must have had when he was a man: a little, oval, freckled face with a weak chin and a tiny wisp of unsuccessful moustache. He gave her a glance, not a full look. He was watching the Tragedian out of the corner of his eyes. Then he gave a jerk to the chain: and it was the Tragedian, not he, who answered the Lady.
‘There, there,’ said the Tragedian. ‘We’ll say no more about it. We all make mistakes.’ With the words there came over his features a ghastly contortion which, I think, was meant for an indulgently playful smile. ‘We’ll say no more,’ he continued. ‘It’s not myself I’m thinking about. It is you. That is what has been continually on my mind—all these years. The thought of you—you here alone, breaking your heart about me.’
‘But now,’ said the Lady to the Dwarf, ‘you can set all that aside. Never think like that again. It is all over.’
Her beauty brightened so that I could hardly see anything else, and under that sweet compulsion the Dwarf really looked at her for the first time. For a second I thought he was growing more like a man. He opened his mouth. He himself was going to speak this time. But oh, the disappointment when the words came!
‘You missed me?’ he croaked in a small, bleating voice.
Yet even then she was not taken aback. Still the love and courtesy flowed from her.
‘Dear, you will understand about that very soon,’ she said. ‘But to-day—.’
What happened next gave me a shock. The Dwarf and Tragedian spoke in unison, not to her but to one another. ‘You’ll notice,’ they warned one another, ‘she hasn’t answered our question.’ I realised then that they were one person, or rather that both were the remains of what had once been a person. The Dwarf again rattled the chain.
‘You missed me?’ said the Tragedian to the Lady, throwing a dreadful theatrical tremor into his voice.
‘Dear friend,’ said the Lady, still attending exclusively to the Dwarf, ‘you may be happy about that and about everything else. Forget all about it for ever.’
And really, for a moment, I thought the Dwarf was going to obey: partly because the outlines of his face became a little clearer, and partly because the invitation to all joy, singing out of her whole being like a bird’s song on an April evening, seemed to me such that no creature could resist it. Then he hesitated. And then—once more he and his accomplice spoke in unison.
‘Of course it would be rather fine and magnanimous not to press the point,’ they said to one another. ‘But can we be sure she’d notice? We’ve done these sort of things before. There was the time we let her have the last stamp in the house to write to her mother and said nothing although she had known we wanted to write a letter ourself. We’d thought she’d remember and see how unselfish we’d been. But she never did. And there was the time…oh, lots and lots of times!’ So the Dwarf gave a shake to the chain and—
‘I can’t forget it,’ cried the Tragedian. ‘And I won’t forget it, either. I could forgive them all they’ve done to me. But for your miseries—.’
‘Oh, don’t you understand?’ said the Lady. ‘There are no miseries here.’
‘Do you mean to say,’ answered the Dwarf, as if this new idea had made him quite forget the Tragedian for a moment, ‘do you mean to say you’ve been happy?’
‘Didn’t you want me to be? But no matter. Want it now. Or don’t think about it at all.’
The Dwarf blinked at her. One could see an unheard-of idea trying to enter his little mind: one could see even that there was for him some sweetness in it. For a second he had almost let the chain go: then, as if it were his lifeline, he clutched it once more.
‘Look here,’ said the Tragedian. ‘We’ve got to face this.’ He was using his ‘manly’ bullying