Chapter 15 Chapter XV The End of This Story and the Beginning of Others

"With me here, you don't need a ring," said Aslan.The children blinked, looked left and right, and suddenly came to the woods between the worlds.Uncle Andrew was lying on the grass, still asleep.Aslan stood beside them. "Come," said Aslan, "it's time for you to go back. But two things, a warning and an order. Look here, boys." They saw a small hollow in the grass, with warm, dry grass growing at the bottom. "When you last came," said Aslan, "it was a pool. When you jumped into it, you came to Charn, the world where a dying sun shone on the ruins. Now the pool is gone, and the Worlds are gone as if they never existed. Let the race of Adam and Eve take this as a warning."

"Yes, Aslan," said the two children together.But Polly added, "But our world isn't as bad as Charn, is it, Aslan?" "Not yet, Daughter of Eve," it said, "not yet. But you are heading in that direction. Maybe some villain of your race will discover a curse as evil as the Exterminating Curse, and use it to destroy all life Soon, soon, before you become old men and women, the great powers of your world will be ruled by dictators who, like Queen Jadis, take happiness, justice, and kindness for granted. Beware your world Well. This is the warning. Now give the order. Get your uncle's rings as quickly as possible, and bury them in the ground so that no one can use them again."

When the Lion spoke these words, both children raised their heads and gazed at him.In an instant (and they had no idea how it happened) that face became a heaving sea of ​​gold in which they floated, a feeling of strength and sweetness that wrapped around them, overwhelmed them and penetrated within them, making them realize that they have never been truly happy, wise, beautiful, or even alive, awake, before.The memory of that moment has always been with them. In their lifetime, as long as they feel sad, afraid or angry in their hearts, they will think of the golden moment at that moment. That feeling still exists, very close, at a certain corner or somewhere After a door, it will come back again, making them believe from the bottom of their hearts that life is good.In a few moments the three of them (Uncle Andrew was also awake) were stumbling back into the noise, heat, and pungent smells of London.

They were walking on the pavement outside Ketley's front door, and everything remained the same except that the witch, the horse, and the coachman were gone.The lamppost is still there, but a crossbar is missing.The wreckage of the carriage and the crowd were there.There was talk of people kneeling next to the wounded policeman and saying things like "He's awake," "How are you feeling now, buddy?" or "The ambulance will be here soon." "My God!" thought Digory, "I believe the whole adventure took no time at all." Most of the people were still looking anxiously about Jadis and the horse, and no one paid any attention to the children, because no one had seen them go and would not have noticed their return.As for Uncle Andrew, his clothes and the honey on his face made him impossible to be recognized.By coincidence, the front door was open and the maid was standing on the porch watching. (How happy the girl was!) So the children hurried Uncle Andrew through the door before anyone asked any questions.

He rushed upstairs ahead of them, and at first they were afraid that he would run headfirst into the attic and hide the rest of the magic rings.But their worries are unfounded.He was thinking of the bottles in the cupboard; he went into the bedroom at once and locked the door.When he came out again (not long), he had put on his dressing gown and went straight to the bathroom. "Can you get the other rings, Polly?" said Digory. "I want to see Mamma." "Okay, good-bye," said Polly, and ran up the attic. Digory caught his breath for a while, then walked softly into mother's room.His mother was still lying there leaning on the pillow, her pale, bloodless face was really tearful.Digory took the Fruit of Life from his bag.

Just as the Jadis you see in our world is different from what you see in hers, the fruit in the garden on the mountain looks different.There was of course a lot of color in the bedroom: the bedspread, the wallpaper, the sunlight coming in through the window, and my mother's beautiful light blue jacket.But as soon as Digory took the apple out of his pocket, everything, even the sunlight, was eclipsed.The bright apples cast such a strange brilliance on the ceiling that nothing else was worth seeing--you really couldn't see anything else.The scent of the fruit of youth makes you feel as if there is a window in the room opening to heaven. "

"Oh, dear, how lovely," said Digory's mother. "Eat it, will you? Please, mother," said Digory. "I don't know what the doctor's going to say," she replied, "but really—I feel like I could eat." He peeled it, cut it open, and fed it piece by piece to his mother.Immediately after eating, my mother smiled and fell asleep as soon as her head was thrown back against the pillow: it was a really natural and gentle sleep without any medicine.Digory knew that, of all the things in the world, this was what mother needed most.And, he was sure, a little change had taken place in her face.He leaned down, kissed her softly, took the apple core, and quietly left the room with an excited heart.Whatever he saw that day seemed so common and uncommon that he could hardly hope for it, but when he thought of Aslan's face his heart was filled with hope again.

That night, he buried the apple core in the back garden. Next morning, when the doctor came for his usual visit, Digory leaned on the banister of the stairs, and heard the doctor and Aunt Letty come out and say: "Miss Ketterley, this is the most extraordinary case I have ever seen in my medical career. It--it was like a miracle. I don't want to tell the child anything now; we don't want to give any false hope. But, In my opinion..." Then his voice was too low to be heard. That afternoon he went to the garden and whistled to Polly their agreed code word (she hadn't been able to come the previous day).

"Any good news?" said Polly, climbing up the wall. "I mean, your mother?" "I think—I think it's getting better," said Digory, "but if you don't mind, I really don't want to mention it. How about the ring?" "I've got them all," said Polly. "Look, it's all right, I've got gloves on. Let's bury them." "Okay, let's go. I've marked the place where I buried the core yesterday." Polly climbed over the wall and they both walked across.Actually, Digory didn't need to make a mark at all, something had already grown there.Not growing, like the new trees growing in Narnia, but already out of the ground.They took a shovel and went around the thing, burying all the magic rings in a circle.

After about a week, Digory's mother was clearly getting better.After two weeks, she was able to sit in the garden.After a month. , the whole house has changed.Aunt Letty did everything Mother liked; the windows were opened, the dirty curtains were drawn and the room was brightened, and there were fresh flowers here and there.When the old piano was tuned, Mamma sang again, and played with Digory and Polly, until Aunt Letty said, "I dare say, Mabel, you are the eldest of three children." When things don't go your way, you'll find that they get worse for a while, but when things start to improve, they often get better.After about six weeks of this good life, my father in India wrote a long letter, which contained a lot of amazing good news.Old great-uncle Kirk died, which of course meant that Dad was now very rich.He is about to retire home from India and never leave again.The great country house which Digory had heard of but never seen all his life was now their home.There are several suits of armor in the big house, there are stables, kennels, there are rivers, parks, greenhouses, vineyards and woods, and mountains behind.So, Digory and

You are as sure as you are that they will live happily ever after.But maybe you want to know another thing or two. Polly and Digory were always very good friends, and she went to the country almost every holiday, and lived with them in that beautiful house: there she learned to ride a horse, swim, milk a cow, bake bread and climb mountains . In Narnia the animals lived happily and peacefully, and neither witch nor any other enemy came to trouble that paradise for hundreds of years.King Frank, Queen Helen and their children lived happily in Narnia.Their second son became king of Archenland.The sons married fairies, and the daughters married river gods and tree gods.The lamppost which the Witch had planted (unknown to herself) shone day and night in the Narnian woods, and the place where it grew up was called Lamppostwild.Hundreds of years later, another child walked from our world into Narnia one snowy night and found that the light was still on.That adventure is in a way closely connected with the story I have just told you. ' Here's the thing.An apple core that Digory buried in his back garden grew into a beautiful tree.For it grows in the soil of our world, far from the voice of Aslan and the young air of Narnia, and though its fruit is much prettier than all the other apples in England, and very good for you, it is not quite Nor would it bring a dying woman back to life as it had brought back Digory's mother.But, as far as the inner nature of the fruit-tree is concerned, in its sap, the tree (so to call it) still has not forgotten the tree in Narnia to which it belonged.Sometimes it wobbles mysteriously when there is no wind blowing.There must be a strong wind blowing in Narnia at such a time, I thought; and the tree in England trembled because the mother tree in Narnia swayed and swayed in the strong south-west wind.However, as it later turned out, there was still magic in the wood of the tree.When Digory reached middle age (by which time he had become a famous scholar, professor and great traveler, and owned the old Ketterley house), a storm in the south of England blew the tree down.He couldn't bear to let it be used as firewood, so he used part of the wood to make a large wardrobe and put it in his big house in the country.While he himself had not discovered the magic of the wardrobe, the other man had.That is the beginning of all the stories between our world and Narnia, which you can read about in the other stories in this book. When Digory and his family moved to their big house in the country, they took Uncle Andrew with them to live with them: for Digory's father said, "We must stop the old fellow from messing around, poor Letty always It's not fair to babysit him." Uncle Andrew never did any magic experiment after that.He learned his lesson, and in his later years, he was no longer as selfish as before, and became more lovely.But he always preferred to meet alone in the billiard-room, and to tell them the story of a mysterious foreign royal woman with whom he had once driven in a carriage through the streets of London. "She's very bad-tempered," he liked to say, "but she's a pretty dame, sir, a pretty dame."