THE PILGRIM'S REGRESS (Philosophical & Psychological Novel). C. S. Lewis

something different to them, and ‘If so,’ he argued, ‘what very pure-minded people they must be.’ Feeling himself among his betters, he became ashamed.

      ‘You like it, hein?’ said the bearded singer.

      ‘I—I don’t think I understood it,’ said John.

      ‘I make you like it, hein,’ said the singer, snatching up his tom-tom again. ‘It was what you really wanted all the time.’

      ‘No, no,’ cried John. ‘I know you are wrong there. I grant you, that—that sort of thing—is what I always get if I think too long about the Island. But it can’t be what I want.’

       It was a low-brow blunder to mention the most obvious thing about it

      ‘No? Why not?’

      ‘If it is what I wanted, why am I so disappointed when I get it? If what a man really wanted was food, how could he be disappointed when the food arrived? As well, I don’t understand——’

      ‘What you not understand? I explain to you.’

      ‘Well, it’s like this. I thought that you objected to Mr. Halfways’ singing because it led to brown girls in the end.’

      ‘So we do.’

      ‘Well, why is it better to lead to black girls in the beginning?’

      A low whistle ran round the whole laboratory. John knew he had made a horrible blunder.

      ‘Look here,’ said the bearded singer in a new voice, ‘what do you mean? You are not suggesting that there is anything of that kind about my singing, are you?’

      ‘I—I suppose—perhaps it was my fault,’ stammered John.

      ‘In other words,’ said the singer, ‘you are not yet able to distinguish between art and pornography!’ and advancing towards John very deliberately, he spat in his face and turned to walk out of the room.

      ‘That’s right, Phally,’ cried the Clevers, ‘serve him right.’

      ‘Filthy-minded little beast,’ said one.

      ‘Yah! Puritanian!’ said a girl.

      ‘I expect he’s impotent,’ whispered another.

      ‘You mustn’t be too hard on him,’ said Gus. ‘He is full of inhibitions and everything he says is only a rationalization of them. Perhaps he would get on better with something more formal. Why don’t you sing, Glugly?’

      Chapter Three

      Freedom of Thought

       Table of Contents

      Glugly instantly rose. She was very tall and as lean as a post: and her mouth was not quite straight in her face. When she was in the middle of the room, and silence had been obtained, she began to make gestures. First of all she set her arms a-kimbo and cleverly turned her hands the wrong way so that it looked as if her wrists were sprained. Then she waddled to and fro with her toes pointing in. After that she twisted herself to make it look as if her hip bone was out of joint. Finally she made some grunts, and said:

       The gibberish-literature of the Lunatic Twenties

      ‘Globol obol oogle ogle globol gloogle gloo,’ and ended by pursing up her lips and making a vulgar noise such as children make in their nurseries. Then she went back to her place and sat down.

      ‘Thank you very much,’ said John politely.

      But Glugly made no reply, for Glugly could not talk, owing to an accident in infancy.

      ‘I hoped you liked it,’ said young Halfways.

      ‘I didn’t understand her.’

      ‘Ah,’ said a woman in spectacles who seemed to be Glugly’s nurse or keeper, ‘that is because you are looking for beauty. You are still thinking of your Island. You have got to realize that satire is the moving force in modern music.’

      ‘It is the expression of a savage disillusionment,’ said someone else.

      ‘Reality has broken down,’ said a fat boy who had drunk a great deal of the medicine and was lying flat on his back, smiling happily.

      ‘Our art must be brutal,’ said Glugly’s nurse.

      ‘We lost our ideals when there was a war in this country,’ said a very young Clever, ‘they were ground out of us in the mud and the flood and the blood. That is why we have to be so stark and brutal.’

      ‘But, look here,’ cried John, ‘that war was years ago. It was your fathers who were in it: and they are all settled down and living ordinary lives.’

      ‘Puritanian! Bourgeois!’ cried the Clevers. Everyone seemed to have risen.

      ‘Hold your tongue,’ whispered Gus in John’s ear. But already someone had struck John on the head, and as he bowed under the blow someone else hit him from behind.

      ‘It was the mud and the blood,’ hissed the girls all round him.

      ‘Well,’ said John, ducking to avoid a retort that had been flung at him, ‘if you are really old enough to remember that war, why do you pretend to be so young?’

      ‘We are young,’ they howled; ‘we are the new movement; we are the revolt.’

       He abandons ‘the Movement’, though a little damaged by it

      ‘We have got over humanitarianism,’ bellowed one of the bearded men, kicking John on the kneecap.

      ‘And prudery,’ said a thin little old maid trying to wrench his clothes off from the neck. And at the same moment six girls leaped at his face with their nails, and he was kicked in the back and the belly, and tripped up so that he fell on his face, and hit again as he rose, and all the glass in the world seemed breaking round his head as he fled for his life from the laboratory. And all the dogs of Eschropolis joined in the chase as he ran along the street, and all the people followed pelting him with ordure, and crying:

      ‘Puritanian! Bourgeois! Prurient!’

      Chapter Four

      The Man Behind the Gun

       Table of Contents

      When John could run no further he sat down. The noise of the pursuers had died away and, looking back, he could see no sign of Eschropolis. He was covered with filth and blood, and his breathing hurt him. There seemed to be something wrong with one of his wrists. As he was too tired to walk he sat still and thought for a while. And first he thought that he would like to go back to Mr. Halfways. ‘It is true,’ he said, ‘that if you listened to him too long it would lead you to Media—and she had a trace of brown in her. But then you had a glimpse of the Island first. Now the Clevers took you straight to brown girls—or worse—without even a glimpse of the Island. I wonder would it be possible to keep always at the Island stage with Mr. Halfways? Must it always end like that?’ Then it came into his head that after all he did not want Mr. Halfways’ songs, but the Island itself: and that this was the only thing he wanted in the world. And when he remembered this he rose very painfully to continue his journey, looking round for the West. He was still in the flat country, but there seemed to be mountains ahead, and above them the sun was setting. A road ran towards them: so he began to limp along it. Soon the sunset disappeared and the sky was clouded over and a cold rain began.

       What did the Revolutionary Intellectuals live on?

      When he had limped about a mile he passed a man who was mending the fence of his field and smoking a big cigar. John stopped and asked