The Great Divorce - C. S. Lewis [34]
‘Darling,’ said the Lady to the Dwarf, ‘there’s nothing to face. You don’t want me to have been miserable for misery’s sake. You only think I must have been if I loved you. But if you’ll only wait you’ll see that isn’t so.’
‘Love!’ said the Tragedian striking his forehead with his hand: then, a few notes deeper, ‘Love! Do you know the meaning of the word?’
‘How should I not?’ said the Lady. ‘I am in love. In love, do you understand? Yes, now I love truly.’
‘You mean,’ said the Tragedian, ‘you mean—you did not love me truly in the old days.’
‘Only in a poor sort of way,’ she answered. ‘I have asked you to forgive me. There was a little real love in it. But what we called love down there was mostly the craving to be loved. In the main I loved you for my own sake: because I needed you.’
‘And now!’ said the Tragedian with a hackneyed gesture of despair. ‘Now, you need me no more?’
‘But of course not!’ said the Lady; and her smile made me wonder how both the phantoms could refrain from crying out with joy.
‘What needs could I have,’ she said, ‘now that I have all? I am full now, not empty. I am in Love Himself, not lonely. Strong, not weak. You shall be the same. Come and see. We shall have no need for one another now: we can begin to love truly.’
But the Tragedian was still striking attitudes. ‘She needs me no more—no more. No more,’ he said in a choking voice to no one in particular. ‘Would to God,’ he continued, but he was now pronouncing it Gud—‘would to Gud I had seen her lying dead at my feet before I heard those words. Lying dead at my feet. Lying dead at my feet.’
I do not know how long the creature intended to go on repeating the phrase, for the Lady put an end to that. ‘Frank! Frank!’ she cried in a voice that made the whole wood ring. ‘Look at me. Look at me. What are you doing with that great, ugly doll? Let go of the chain. Send it away. It is you I want. Don’t you see what nonsense it’s talking.’ Merriment danced in her eyes. She was sharing a joke with the Dwarf, right over the head of the Tragedian. Something not at all unlike a smile struggled to appear on the Dwarf’s face. For he was looking at her now. Her laughter was past his first defences. He was struggling hard to keep it out, but already with imperfect success. Against his will, he was even growing a little bigger. ‘Oh, you great goose,’ said she. ‘What is the good of talking like that here? You know as well as I do that you did see me lying dead years and years ago. Not “at your feet”, of course, but on a bed in a nursing home. A very good nursing home it was too. Matron would never have dreamed of leaving bodies lying about the floor! It’s ridiculous for that doll to try to be impressive about death here. It just won’t work.’
13
I do not know that I ever saw anything more terrible than the struggle of that Dwarf Ghost against joy. For he had almost been overcome. Somewhere, incalculable ages ago, there must have been gleams of humour and reason in him. For one moment, while she looked at him in her love and mirth, he saw the absurdity of the Tragedian. For one moment he did not at all misunderstand her laughter: he too must once have known that no people find each other more absurd than lovers. But the light that reached him, reached him against his will. This was not the meeting he had pictured; he would not accept it. Once more he clutched at his death-line, and at once the Tragedian spoke.
‘You dare to laugh at it!’ it stormed. ‘To my face? And this is my reward. Very well. It is fortunate that you give yourself no concern about my fate. Otherwise you might be sorry afterwards to think that you had driven me back to Hell. What? Do you think I’d stay now? Thank you. I believe I’m fairly quick at recognising where I’m not wanted. “Not needed” was the exact expression, if I remember rightly.’
From this time on the Dwarf never spoke again: but still the Lady addressed it.
‘Dear, no one sends you back. Here is all joy. Everything bids you stay.’ But the Dwarf was growing