The Return of the Shadow. Christopher Tolkien

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СКАЧАТЬ those mountains. The sun could never find me there. And the roots of those peaks must be roots indeed; there must be great secrets buried there which have not been discovered since the beginning.” So he journeyed by night towards the mountains, and found a hole out of which a stream issued; and he wormed his way in like a maggot in the heart of the hills, and disappeared from all knowledge. And the ring went into the shadows with him, and even the Master lost it. But whenever he counted his rings, besides the seven rings that the Dwarves had held and lost, there was also one missing.’

      ‘Gollum!’ said Bingo. ‘Do you mean that Gollum that Bilbo met? Is that his history? How very horrible and sad. I hate to think that he was connected with hobbits, however distantly.’

      ‘But that surely was plain from Bilbo’s own account,’ said Gandalf. ‘It is the only thing that explains the events – or partly explains them. There was a lot in the background of both their minds and memories that was very similar – they understood one another really (if you think of it) better than hobbits ever understood dwarves, elves, or goblins.’

      ‘Still, Gollum must have been, or be, very much older than the oldest hobbit that ever lived in field or burrow,’ said Bingo.

      ‘That was the Ring,’ said Gandalf. ‘Of course it is a poor sort of long life that the Ring gives, a kind of stretched life rather than a continued growing – a sort of thinning and thinning. Frightfully wearisome, Bingo, in fact finally tormenting. Even Gollum came at last to feel it, to feel he could not bear it, and to understand dimly the cause of the torment. He had even made up his mind to get rid of it. But he was too full of malice. If you want to know, I believe he had begun to make a plan that he had not the courage left to carry out. There was nothing new to find out; nothing left but darkness, nothing to do but cold eating, and regretful remembering. He wanted to slip out and leave the mountains, and smell the open air even if it killed him – as he thought it probably would. But that would have meant leaving the Ring. And that is not easy to do. The longer you have had one the harder it is. It was especially hard for Gollum, as he had had a Ring for ages, and it hurt him and he hated it, and he wanted, when he could no longer bear to keep it, to hand it on to someone else to whom it would become a burden – [?bind] itself as a blessing and turn to a curse.¹⁷ That is in fact the best way of getting rid of its power.’

      ‘Why not give it to the goblins, then?’ asked Bingo.

      ‘I don’t think Gollum would have found that amusing enough,’ said Gandalf. ‘The goblins are already so beastly and miserable that it was wasting malice on them. Also it would have been difficult to escape from the hunters if there was an invisible goblin to reckon with. But I suppose he might have put it in their path in the end (if he had plucked up enough courage to do anything); but for the unexpected arrival of Bilbo. You remember how surprised he was. But as soon as the riddles started a plan formed in his mind – or half-formed. I dare say his old bad habits would have beaten his resolves and he would have eaten Bilbo if it had proved easy. But there was the sword, you remember. In his heart, I fancy, he never seriously expected to get a chance of eating Bilbo.’

      ‘But he never gave Bilbo the ring,’ said Bingo. ‘Bilbo had got it already!’

      ‘I know,’ said Gandalf. ‘And that is why I said that Gollum’s ancestry only partly explained events. There was, of course, something much more mysterious behind the whole thing – something quite beyond the Lord of the Rings himself, peculiar to Bilbo and his great Adventure. There was a queer fate over these rings, and especially over [?this] one. They got lost occasionally, and turned up in strange places. This one had already slipped away from its owner treacherously once before. It had slipped away from Gollum too. That is why I let Bilbo keep the ring so long.¹⁸ But for the moment I am trying to explain Gollum.’

      ‘I see,’ said Bingo doubtfully. ‘But do you know what happened afterwards?’

‘Not very clearly,’ said Gandalf. ‘I have heard a little, and can guess more. I think it certain that Gollum knew in the end that Bilbo had somehow got the Ring. He may well have guessed it soon. But in any case the news of the later events went all over Wilderland and far beyond, East, West, and South and North. The mountains were full of whispers and reports; and that would give Gollum enough to think about.¹⁹ Anyway, it is said that Gollum left the mountains – for the goblins had become very few there, and the deep places more than ever dark and lonely, and the power of the ring had left him. He was probably feeling old, very old, but less timid. But I do not think he became less wicked. There is no news of what happened to him afterwards. Of course, it is quite likely that wind and the mere shadow of sunlight killed him pretty quickly. But it is possible that it did not. He was cunning. He could hide from daylight or moonlight till he slowly grew more used to things. I have in fact a horrible fancy that he made his slow sneaking way bit by bit to the dark tower, to the Necromancer, the Lord of the Rings. I think that Gollum is very likely the beginning of our present trouble; and that through him the Lord found out where to look for this last and most precious and potent of his Rings.’

      ‘What a pity Bilbo did not stab the beastly creature when he said goodbye,’ said Bingo … .

‘What nonsense you do talk sometimes, Bingo,’ said Gandalf. ‘Pity! It was pity that prevented him. And he could not do so, without doing wrong. It was against the rules. If he had done so he would not have had the ring, the ring would have had him at once. He might have been a wraith on the spot.’

      ‘Of course, of course,’ said Bingo. ‘What a thing to say of Bilbo. Dear old Bilbo! But why did he keep the thing, or why did you let him? Didn’t you warn him about it?’

      ‘Yes,’ said Gandalf. ‘But even over Bilbo it had some power. Sentiment............... He liked to keep it as a memento. Let us be frank – he continued to be proud of his Great Adventure, and to look on the ring now and again warmed his memory, and made him feel just a trifle heroic. But he could hardly have helped himself anyway: if you think for a moment, it is not really very easy to get rid of a Ring once you have got it.’

      ‘Why not?’ said Bingo, after thinking for a moment. ‘You can give it away, throw it away, or destroy it.’

      ‘Yes,’ said Gandalf – ‘or you can surrender it: to the Master. That is if you wish to serve him, and to fall into his power, and to greatly increase his power.’

      ‘But no one would wish to do that,’ said Bingo, horrified.

      ‘Nobody that you can imagine, perhaps,’ answered Gandalf. ‘Certainly not Bilbo. That is what made it difficult for him. He dared not throw it away lest it get into evil hands, and be misused, and find its way back to the Master after doing much evil. He would not give it away to bad folk for the same reason; and he would not give it away to good folk or people he knew and trusted because he did not wish to burden them with it, any sooner than he was obliged. And he could not destroy it.’

      ‘Why not?’

      ‘Well, how would you destroy it? Have you ever tried?’

      ‘No; but I suppose one could hammer it, or melt it, or do both.’

      ‘Try them,’ said Gandalf, ‘and you will find out what Bilbo found out long ago.’

      Bingo drew the Ring out of an inner pocket, and looked at it. It was plain and smooth without device, emblem, or rune; but it was of gold, and as he looked at it it seemed to Bingo that its colour was rich and beautiful, and its roundness perfect. It was very admirable СКАЧАТЬ