The Pilgrim's Regress (4 page)

BOOK
TWO

THRILL

Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image, nor the likeness of anything that is in the heaven above.

EXODUS

The soul of man, therefore, desiring to learn what manner of things these are, casteth her eyes upon objects akin to herself, whereof none sufficeth.
And then it is that she saith,
With the
Lord and with the things whereof I spoke, there is nothing in that likeness; what then is it like? This is the question, oh son of Dionysius, that is the cause of all evils—or rather the travail wherein the soul travaileth about it.

PLATO
¹

Following false copies of the good, that no
Sincere fulfilment of their promise make.

DANTE

In hand she boldly took

To make another like the former dame,

Another Florimell in shape and look

So lively and so like that many it mistook.

SPENSER

I

Dixit Insipiens

S
TILL I LAY DREAMING
in bed, and looked, and I saw John go plodding along the road westward in the bitter black of a frosty night. He walked so long that the morning broke. Then presently John saw a little inn by the side of the road and a woman with a broom who had opened the door and was sweeping out the rubbish. So he turned in there and called for a breakfast, and while it was cooking he sat down in a hard chair by the newly-lit fire and fell asleep. When he woke the sun was shining in through the window and there was his breakfast laid. Another traveller was already eating: he was a big man with red hair and a red stubble on all his three chins, buttoned up very tight. When they had both finished the traveller rose and cleared his throat and stood with his back to the fire. Then he cleared his throat again and said:

‘A fine morning, young sir.'

‘Yes, sir,' said John.

‘You are going West, perhaps, young man?'

‘I—I think so.'

‘It is possible that you don't know me.'

‘I am a stranger here.'

‘No offence,' said the stranger. ‘My name is Mr. Enlightenment, and I believe it is pretty generally known. I shall be happy to give you my assistance and protection as far as our ways lie together.'

John thanked him very much for this and when they went out from the inn there was a neat little trap waiting, with a fat little pony between the shafts: and its eyes were so bright and its harness was so well polished that it was difficult to say which was twinkling the keener in the morning sunshine. They both got into the trap and Mr. Enlightenment whipped up the fat little pony and they went bowling along the road as if nobody had a care in the world. Presently they began to talk.

‘And where might you come from, my fine lad?' said Mr. Enlightenment.

‘From Puritania, sir,' said John.

‘A good place to leave, eh?'

‘I am so glad you think that,' cried John. ‘I was afraid—'

‘I hope I am a man of the world,' said Mr. Enlightenment. ‘Any young fellow who is anxious to better himself may depend on finding sympathy and support in me. Puritania! Why, I suppose you have been brought up to be afraid of the Landlord.'

‘Well, I must admit I sometimes
do
feel rather nervous.'

‘You may make your mind easy, my boy. There is no such person.'

‘There is no Landlord?'

‘There is absolutely no such thing—I might even say no such
entity
—in existence. There never has been and never will be.'

‘And is this absolutely certain?' cried John; for a great hope was rising in his heart.

‘Absolutely certain. Look at me, young man. I ask you—do I look as if I was easily taken in?'

‘Oh, no,' said John hastily. ‘I was just wondering, though. I mean—how did they all come to think there was such a person?'

‘The Landlord is an invention of those Stewards. All made up to keep the rest of us under their thumb: and of course the Stewards are hand in glove with the police. They are a shrewd lot, those Stewards. They know which side their bread is buttered on, all right. Clever fellows. Damn me, I can't help admiring them.'

‘But do you mean that the Stewards don't believe it themselves?'

‘I dare say they do. It is just the sort of cock and bull story they would believe. They are simple old souls most of them—just like children. They have no knowledge of modern science and they would believe anything they were told.'

John was silent for a few minutes. Then he began again:

‘But how do you
know
there is no Landlord?'

‘Christopher Columbus, Galileo, the earth is round, invention of printing, gunpowder! !' exclaimed Mr. Enlightenment in such a loud voice that the pony shied.

‘I beg your pardon,' said John.

‘Eh?' said Mr. Enlightenment.

‘I didn't quite understand,' said John.

‘Why, it's as plain as a pikestaff,' said the other. ‘Your people in Puritania believe in the Landlord because they have not had the benefits of a scientific training. For example, I dare say it would be news to you to hear that the earth was round—round as an orange, my lad!'

‘Well, I don't know that it would,' said John, feeling a little disappointed. ‘My father always said it was round.'

‘No, no, my dear boy,' said Mr. Enlightenment, ‘you must have misunderstood him. It is well known that everyone in Puritania thinks the earth flat. It is not likely that I should be mistaken on such a point. Indeed, it is out of the question. Then again, there is the palaeontological evidence.'

‘What's that?'

‘Why, they tell you in Puritania that the Landlord made all these roads. But that is quite impossible for old people can remember the time when the roads were not nearly so good as they are now. And what is more, scientists have found all over the country the traces of
old
roads running in quite different directions. The inference is obvious.'

John said nothing.

‘I said,' repeated Mr. Enlightenment, ‘that the inference was obvious.'

‘Oh, yes, yes, of course,' said John hastily, turning a little red.

‘Then, again, there is anthropology.'

‘I'm afraid I don't know—'

‘Bless me, of course you don't. They don't mean you to know. An anthropologist is a man who goes round your backward villages in these parts, collecting the odd stories that the country people tell about the Landlord. Why, there is one village where they think he has a trunk like an elephant. Now anyone can see that that couldn't be true.'

‘It is very unlikely.'

‘And what is better still, we know how the villagers came to think so. It all began by an elephant escaping from the local zoo; and then some old villager—he was probably drunk—saw it wandering about on the mountain one night, and so the story grew up that the Landlord had a trunk.'

‘Did they catch the elephant again?'

‘Did who?'

‘The anthropologists.'

‘Oh, my dear boy, you are misunderstanding. This happened long before there were any anthropologists.'

‘Then how do they know?'

‘Well, as to that . . . I see that you have a very crude notion of how science actually works. To put it simply—for, of course, you could not understand the
technical
explanation—to put it simply, they know that the escaped elephant must have been the source of the trunk story because they know that an escaped snake must have been the source of the snake story in the next village—and so on. This is called the inductive method. Hypothesis, my dear young friend, establishes itself by a cumulative process: or, to use popular language, if you make the same guess often enough it ceases to be a guess and becomes a Scientific Fact.

After he had thought for a while, John said:

‘I think I see. Most of the stories about the Landlord are probably untrue; therefore the rest are probably untrue.'

‘Well, that is as near as a beginner can get to it, perhaps. But when you have had a scientific training you will find that you can be quite certain about all sorts of things which now seem to you only probable.'

By this time the fat little pony had them several miles, and they had come to a place where a by-road went off to the right. ‘If you are going West, we must part here,' said Mr. Enlightenment, drawing up. ‘Unless perhaps you would care to come home with me. You see that magnificent city?' John looked down by the by-road and saw in a flat plain without any trees a huge collection of corrugated iron huts, most of which seemed rather old and rusty.

‘That,' said Mr. Enlightenment, ‘is the city of Claptrap. You will hardly believe me when I say that I can remember it as a miserable village. When I first came here it had only forty inhabitants: it now boasts a population of twelve million, four hundred thousand, three hundred and sixty-one souls, who include, I may add, the majority of our most influential publicists and scientific popularizers. In this unprecedented development I am proud to say that I have borne no small part: but it is no mock modesty to add that the invention of the printing press has been more important than any merely personal agency. If you would care to join us—'

‘Well, thank you,' said John, ‘but I think I will keep to the main road a little longer.'

He got out of the trap and turned to bid good-bye to Mr. Enlightenment. Then a sudden thought came into his head, and he said:

‘I am not sure that I have really understood all your arguments, sir. Is it absolutely certain that there is no Landlord?'

‘Absolutely. I give you my word of honour.'

With these words they shook hands. Mr. Enlightenment turned the pony's head up the by-road, gave it a touch with the whip, and in a few moments was out of sight.

II

The Hill

T
HEN I SAW JOHN
bounding forward on his road so lightly that before he knew it he had come to the top of a little hill. It was not because the hill had tired him that he stopped there, but because he was too happy to move. ‘There is no Landlord,' he cried. Such a weight had been lifted from his mind that he felt he could fly. All round him the frost was gleaming like silver; the sky was like blue glass; a robin sat in the hedge beside him: a cock was crowing in the distance. ‘There is no Landlord.' He laughed when he thought of the old card of rules hung over his bed in the bedroom, so low and dark, in his father's house. ‘There is no Landlord. There is no black hole.' He turned and looked back on the road he had come by: and when he did so he gasped with joy. For there in the East, under the morning light, he saw the mountains heaped up to the sky like clouds, green and violet and dark red; shadows were passing over the big rounded slopes, and water shone in the mountain pools, and up at the highest of all the sun was smiling steadily on the ultimate crags. These crags were indeed so shaped that you could easily take them for a castle: and now it came into John's head that he had never looked at the mountains before, because, as long as he thought that the Landlord lived there, he had been afraid of them. But now that there was no Landlord he perceived that they were beautiful. For a moment he almost doubted whether the Island could be more beautiful, and whether he would not be wiser to go East, instead of West. But it did not seem to him to matter, for he said, ‘If the world has the mountains at one end and the Island at the other, then every road leads to beauty, and the world is a glory among glories.'

At that moment he saw a man walking up the hill to meet him. Now I knew in my dream that this man's name was Mr. Vertue, and he was about of an age with John, or a little older.

‘What is the name of this place?' said John.

‘It is called Jehovah-Jirah,' said Mr. Vertue.

Then they both turned and continued their journey to the West. After they had gone a little way Mr. Vertue stole a glance at John's face and then he smiled a little.

‘Why do you smile?' said John.

‘I was thinking that you looked very glad.'

‘So would you be if you had lived in the fear of a Landlord all your life and had just discovered that you were a free man.'

‘Oh, it's that, is it?'

‘You don't believe in the Landlord, do you?'

‘I know nothing about him—except by hearsay like the rest of us.'

‘You wouldn't like to be under his thumb.'

‘Wouldn't like? I wouldn't
be
under anyone's thumb.'

‘You might have to, if he had a black hole.'

‘I'd let him put me in the black hole sooner than take orders if the orders were not to my mind.'

‘Why, I think you are right. I can hardly believe it yet—that I need not obey the rules. There's that robin again. To think that I could have a shot at it if I liked and no one would interfere with me!'

‘Do you want to?'

‘I'm not sure that I do,' said John, fingering his sling. But when he looked round on the sunshine and remembered his great happiness and looked twice at the bird, he said. ‘No, I don't. There is nothing I want less. Still—I could if I liked.'

‘You mean you could if you chose.'

‘Where's the difference?'

‘All the difference in the world.'

III

A Little Southward

I
THOUGHT THAT JOHN
would have questioned him further, but now they came in sight of a woman who was walking slower than they so that presently they came up with her and wished her good-day. When she turned, they saw that she was young and comely, though a little dark of complexion. She was friendly and frank, but not wanton like the brown girls, and the whole world became pleasanter to the young men because they were travelling the same way with her. But first they told her their names, and she told them hers, which was Media Halfways.