shasta & aslan

i was in the middle of rearranging the furniture to take in all the new finds of the day when, in the middle of sweeping, i was caught red-handed with a thought i knew i to be impossible to fulfill: the desire i find rustling around in me to understand someone else's story. almost immediately this passage was called to mind and since i have referenced it once before on this post, i thought i would put it here in full. for me and perhaps for you.

so here you are, my sweeping stopped mid-stroke to give you a portion of a horse and his boy by c.s. lewis:

and being very tired and having nothing inside him, he felt so sorry for himself that the tears rolled down his cheeks.

what put a stop to all this was a sudden fright. shasta discovered that someone or somebody was walking beside him. it was pitch dark and he could see nothing. and the Thing (or Person) was going so quietly that he could hardly hear any footfalls. what he could hear was breathing. his invisible companion seemed to breathe on a very large scale, and shasta got the impression that it was a very large creature. and he had come to notice this breathing so gradually that he had really no idea how long it had been there. it was a horrible shock.

it darted into his mind that he had heard long ago that there were giants in these northern countries. he bit his lip in terror. but now that he really had something to cry about, he stopped crying.

the Thing (unless it was a Person) went on beside him so very quietly that shasta began to hope he had only imagined it. but just as he was becoming quite sure of it, there suddenly came a deep, rich sigh out of the darkness beside him. that couldn't be imagination! anyway, he had felt the hot breath of that sigh on his chilly left hand.

if the horse had been any good--or if he had known how to get any good out of the horse--he would have risked everything on a break away and a wild gallop. but he knew he couldn't make that horse gallop. so he went on at a walking pace and the unseen companion walked and breathed beside him. at last he could bear it no longer.

"who are you?" he said, scarcely above a whisper.

"one who has waited long for you to speak," said the Thing. its voice was not loud, but very large and deep.

"are you a giant?" asked shasta.

"you might call me a giant," said the Large Voice. "but i am not like the creatures you call giants."

"i can't see you at all," said shasta, after staring very hard. then (for an even more terrible idea had come into his head) he said, almost in a scream, "you're not--not something dead, are you? oh please--please do go away. what harm have i ever done you? oh, i am the unluckiest person in the world."

once more he felt the warm breath of the Thing on his hand and face. "there," it said, "that is not the breath of a ghost. tell me your sorrows."

shasta was a little reassured by the breath: so he told how he had never known his real father or mother and had been brought up sternly by the fisherman. and then he told the story of his escape and how they were chased by lions and forced to swim for their lives; and of all their dangers in tashbaan and about his night among the tombs and how the beasts howled at him out of the desert. and he told about the heat and thirst of their desert journey and how they were almost at their goal when another lion chased them and wounded aravis. and also, how very long it was since he had had anything to eat.

"i do not call you unfortunate," said the Large Voice.

"don't you think it was bad luck to meet so many lions?" said shasta.

"there was only one lion," said the Voice.

"what on earth do you mean? i've just told you there were at least two the first night, and--"

"there was only one: but he was swift of foot."

"how do you know?"

"i was the lion." and as shasta gaped with open mouth and said nothing, the Voice continued. "i was the lion who forced you to join with aravis. i was the cat who comforted you among the houses of the dead. i was the lion who drove the jackals from you while you slept. i was the lion who gave the horses the new strength of fear for the last mile so that you should reach king lune in time. and i was the lion you do not remember who pushed the boat in which you lay, a child near death, so that it came to shore where a man sat, wakeful at midnight, to receive you."

"then it was you who wounded aravis?"

"it was i."

"but what for?"

"child," said the Voice, "i am telling you your story, not hers. i tell no-one any story but his own."

"who are you?" asked shasta.

"myself," said the Voice, very deep and low so that the earth shook: and again "myself," loud and clear and gay: and then the third time "myself," whispered so softly you could hardly hear it, and yet it seemed to come from all round you as if the leaves rustled with it.