The Once and Future King. T. H. White

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СКАЧАТЬ might call it that, and then again you might not. Of course, when one has lived in the world as long as I have, and backwards at that, one does learn to know a thing or two about pathology. The wonders of analytical psychology and plastic surgery are, I am afraid, to this generation but a closed book.’

      ‘What did you do to him?’

      ‘Oh, I just psycho-analysed him,’ replied the magician grandly. ‘That, and of course I sewed on a new nose on both of them.’

      ‘What kind of nose?’ asked the Wart.

      ‘It is too funny,’ said Kay. ‘He wanted to have the griffin’s nose for one, but I would not let him. So then he took the noses off the young pigs which we are going to have for supper, and used those. Personally I think they will grunt.’

      ‘A ticklish operation,’ said Merlyn, ‘but a successful one.’

      ‘Well,’ said the Wart, doubtfully. ‘I hope it will be all right. What did they do then?’

      ‘They went off to the kennels. Old Wat is very sorry for what he did to the Dog Boy, but he says he can’t remember having done it. He says that suddenly everything went black, when they were throwing stones once, and he can’t remember anything since. The Dog Boy forgave him and said he did not mind a bit. They are going to work together in the kennels in future, and not think of what is past any more. The Dog Boy says that the old man was good to him while they were prisoners of the Fairy Queen, and that he knows he ought not to have thrown stones at him in the first place. He says he often thought about that when other boys were throwing stones at him.’

      ‘Well,’ said the Wart, ‘I am glad it has all turned out for the best. Do you think I could go and visit them?’

      ‘For heaven’s sake, don’t do anything to annoy your nurse,’ exclaimed Merlyn, looking about him anxiously. ‘That old woman hit me with a broom when I came to see you this forenoon, and broke my spectacles. Could you not wait until tomorrow?’

      On the morrow Wat and the Dog Boy were the firmest of friends. Their common experiences of being stoned by the mob and then tied to columns of pork by Morgan le Fay served as a bond and a topic of reminiscence, as they lay among the dogs at night, for the rest of their lives. Also, by the morning, they had both pulled off the noses Merlyn had kindly given them. They explained that they had got used to having no noses, now, and anyway they preferred to live with the dogs.

Chapter XIII

      In spite of his protest, the unhappy invalid was confined to his chamber for three mortal days. He was alone except at bedtime, when Kay came, and Merlyn was reduced to shouting his eddication through the key-hole, at times when the nurse was known to be busy with her washing.

      The boy’s only amusement was the ant-nests – the ones between glass plates which had been brought when he first came from Merlyn’s cottage in the forest.

      ‘Can’t you,’ he howled miserably under the door, ‘turn me into something while I’m locked up like this?’

      ‘I can’t get the spells through the key-hole.’

      ‘Through the what?’

      ‘The KEY-HOLE.’

      ‘Oh!’

      ‘Are you there?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘What?’

      ‘What?’

      ‘Confusion take this shouting!’ exclaimed the magician, stamping on his hat. ‘May Castor and Pollux … No, not again. God bless my blood pressure …’

      ‘Could you turn me into an ant?’

      ‘A what?’

      ‘An ANT! It would be a small spell for ants, wouldn’t it? It would go through the key-hole?’

      ‘I don’t think we ought to.’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘They are dangerous.’

      ‘You could watch with your insight, and turn me back again if it got too bad. Please turn me into something, or I shall go weak in the head.’

      ‘The ants are not our Norman ones, dear boy. They come from the Afric shore. They are belligerent.’

      ‘I don’t know what belligerent is.’

      There was a long silence behind the door.

      ‘Well,’ said Merlyn eventually. ‘It is far too soon in your education. But you would have had to do it some time. Let me see. Are there two nests in that contraption?’

      ‘There are two pairs of plates.’

      ‘Take a rush from the floor and lean it between the two nests, like a bridge. Have you done that?’

      ‘Yes.’

      The place where he was seemed like a great field of boulders, with a flattened fortress at one end of it – between the glass plates. The fortress was entered by tunnels in the rock, and, over the entrance to each tunnel, there was a notice which said:

      EVERYTHING NOT FORBIDDEN IS COMPULSORY

      He read the notice with dislike, though he did not understand its meaning. He thought to himself: I will explore a little, before going in. For some reason the notice gave him a reluctance to go, making the rough tunnel look sinister.

      He waved his antennae carefully, considering the notice, assuring himself of his new senses, planting his feet squarely in the insect world as if to brace himself in it. He cleaned his antennae with his forefeet, frisking and smoothing them so that he looked like a Victorian villain twirling his moustachios. He yawned – for ants do yawn – and stretch themselves too, like human beings. Then he became conscious of something which had been waiting to be noticed – that there was a noise in his head which was articulate. It was either a noise or a complicated smell, and the easiest way to explain it is to say that it was like a wireless broadcast. It came through his antennae.

      The music had a monotonous rhythm like a pulse, and the words which went with it were about June – moon – noon – spoon, or Mammy – mammy – mammy, or Ever – never, or Blue – true – you. He liked them at first, especially the ones about Love – dove – above, until he found that they did not vary. As soon as they had been finished once, they were begun again. After an hour or two, they began to make him feel sick inside.

      There was a voice in his head also, during the pauses of the music, which seemed to be giving directions. ‘All two-day-olds will be moved to the West Aisle,’ it would say, or ‘Number 210397/WD will report to the soup squad, in replacement for 333105/WD who has fallen off the nest.’ It was a fruity voice, but it seemed to be somehow impersonal – as if its charm were an accomplishment that had been practised, like a circus trick. It was dead.

      The boy, or perhaps we ought to say the ant, walked away from the fortress as soon as he was prepared to walk about. He began exploring the desert of boulders uneasily, СКАЧАТЬ