Dymer by C.S. Lewis - Canto 7

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Canto seven of Dymer Dimer by C. S. Lewis, Canto seven.
The host had trimmed his lamp. The downy moth came
from the garden, where the lamp light shed its circle
of smooth white upon the cloth. Down mid the rinds
of fruit and broken bread upon his sprawling arms lay

(00:23):
Dimer's head, And often as he dreamed he shifted place,
muttering and showing half his drunken face. The beating stillness
of the dead of night flooded the room. The dark
and sleepy powers settled upon the house and filled it.
Quite far from the roads. It lay from belfry towers

(00:45):
and hen roosts, in a world of folded flowers, buried
in loneliest fields, where beasts that love the silence through
the unrustled hedgerows move. Now from the master's lips there
breathed a sigh, as of a man released from some
control that wronged him. Without aim, his wandering eye, unsteadied

(01:08):
and unfixed, began to roll, his lower lip dropped loose.
The informing soul seemed fading from his face. He laughed
out loud once, only then looked round him, hushed and cowed.
Then summoning all himself with tightened lip, with desperate coolness

(01:28):
and attentive air, he touched between his thumb and finger tip,
each in its turn, the four legs of his chair,
then back again in haste, there that when there had
been forgotten once more safer. Now that's better, and he
smiled and cleared his brow. Yet this was but a

(01:49):
moment's ease. Once more, he glanced about him like a
startled hair, his big eyes bulged with horror as before,
quick to the touch that saves him, But despair is
nearer by one step, And in his chair, huddling, he waits.
He knows that they'll come strong again, and yet again,

(02:10):
and all night long, and after this night comes another night,
night after night, until the worst of all, and now too,
even the noonday and the light let through the horrors. Oh,
could he recall the deep sleep and the dreams that
used to fall around him for the asking. But somehow

(02:32):
something's amiss. Sleep comes so rarely now Then, like the
dog returning to its vomit, he staggered to the bookcase
to renew yet once again the taint he had taken
from it, and shuddered as he went. But horror drew
his feet as joy draws others. There in view was

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his strange heaven and his far stranger hell, his secret lust,
his soul's dark city. Dell old theogmagia, demonology, Kabbalah, chemic magic,
book of the dead, damning hermetic rolls that none may
see save the already damned. Such gruels are bred for

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minds that lose the spirit and seek instead for spirits
in the dust of dead men's error, buying the joys
of dream with dreamland terror. This lost soul looked them
over one and all, now sickened at the heart's root,
for he knew this night was one of those when
he would fall and scream alone. Such things they made

(03:38):
him do, and roll upon the floor. The madness grew
wild at his breast. But still his brain was clear
that he could watch the moment coming near. But ere
it came, he heard a sound, half groan, half muttering
from the table, like a child caught unawares that thought
it was alone. He started as in guilt. His gaze

(04:01):
was wild, yet pitiably with all his will. He smiled
so strong a shame even then, and dimer stirred, now
waking and looked up and spoke one word. Water. He said,
he was too dazed to see what hell wrung face
looked down, what shaking hand poured out the draft? He

(04:23):
drank it thirstily and held the glass for more. Your land,
your land of dreams, He said, all lies, I understand
more than I did. Yes, Water, I've the thirst of
hell itself. Your magic's all accursed. When he had drunk again,
he rose and stood pallid and cold with sleep. By God,

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he said, you did me wrong to send me to
that wood. I sought a living spirit and found instead
bogies and wraiths. The Master raised his head, calm as
a sage, and answered, are you mad? Come? Sit you down.
Tell me what dream you had. I dreamed about a wood,

(05:06):
an autumn red of beech trees, big as mountains. Down
between the first thing that I saw, a clearing spread
deep down, oh very deep, like some ravine, or like
a well. It sank that forest green under its weight
of forest, more remote than one ship in a land
locked sea afloat. Then through the narrowed sky, some heavy

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bird would flap its way, a stillness more profound following
its languid wings. Sometimes I heard far off in the
long woods with quiet sound, the sudden chestnut thumping to
the ground, or the dry leaf that drifted past upon
its endless loiter earthward and was gone. Then next I

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heard twigs splintering on my right and rustling in the thickets.
Turning there I watched out of the foliage. Came in
sight the head and blundering shore of a bear, glistening
in sable black, with beady stare of eyes towards me,
and no room to fly, but patting soft and slow.
The beast came by and mark there flattery, stood and

(06:15):
rubbed his flank against me. On my shaken legs. I
felt his heart beat, and my hand that stroked him
sank wrist deep upon his shoulder in soft pelt. Yes,
and across my spirit. As I smelt the wild things scent,
a new sweet wildness ran, whispering of eden fields long

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lost by man. So far was well, But then came
emerald birds singing about my head. I took my way,
sauntering the cloistered woods. Then came the herds, the roebuck,
and the fallow deer at play, trooping to nose my hand.
All this, you say, was sweet, Oh, sweet. Do you

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think I could not see that beasts and wood were
nothing else but me, That I was making everything I
saw too sweet, far too well fitted to desire to
be a living thing. Those forests draw no sap from
the kind earth. The solar fire and soft rain feed them,
not that fairy briar pricks. Not the birds sing sweetly

(07:23):
in that break, not for their own delight, but for
my sake. It is a world of sad, cold, heartless stuff,
like a bought smile, no joy in it. But stay,
did you not find your lady? Sure enough? I still
had hopes till then the autumn day was westering, the
long shadows crossed my way. When over daisies folded for

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the night, beneath rope gathering elms, she came in sight.
Was she not fair? So beautiful? She seemed almost a
living soul. But every part was what I made it
all that I had dreamed, no more, no less the
mirror of my heart, such things as boyhood feigns beneath

(08:07):
the smart of solitude and spring. I was deceived almost
in that first moment. I believed for a big, brooding rapture,
tenses fire and calm, as a first sleep had soaked
me through, without thought, without word, without desire. Meanwhile, above

(08:28):
our heads, the deepening blue burnished the gathering stars. Her
sweetness drew a veil before my eyes. The minutes passed
heavy like loaded vines. She spoke at last, She said,
for this land only did men love, the shadow lands
of earth. All our disease of longing, all the hopes

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we fabled of fortunate islands or hesperian seas, or woods
beyond the west, were but the breeze that blew from
off those shores, one far spent breath that reached even
to the world of change and death. She told me,
I had journeyed home at last, into the golden age

(09:10):
and the good country that had been always there. She
bade me cast my cares behind forever. On her knee,
worshiped me Lord and love. Oh, I can see her
red lips even now. Is it not wrong that men's
delusions should be made so strong? For listen, I was

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so besotted now. She made me think that I was
somehow seeing the very core of truth. I felt, somehow
beyond all veils. The inward pulse of being thought was enslaved.
But oh, it felt like freeing and drafts of larger air.
It is too much who can come through untainted? From

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that touch there I was nearly wrecked, But mark the rest,
she too fast, soft to my arms, she came. The
robe slipped from her shoulder. The smooth breast was bare
against my own. She shone like flame before me in
the dusk. All love, all shame, faugh, and it was myself.

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But all was well, for at the least that moment
snapped the spell. As when you light a candle, the
great gloom, which was the unbounded knight, sinks down, compressed
to four white walls in one familiar room. So the
vague joy shrank, wilted in my breast and narrowed to

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one point, unmasked, confessed fool's paradise was gone. Instead was
there King Lust, with his black, sudden serious stare. That
moment in a cloud among the trees, wild music and
the glare of torches came on sweated faces, on the
prancing knees of shaggy satyrs, through the smoky flame, on

(11:02):
ape and goat and crawlers without name, on rolling breast,
black eyes and tossing hair on old bald headed witches
lean and bare. They beat the devilish tom tom rub
a dub, lunging, leaping in unwieldy rump, singing Cootito and
Beelzebub with devil dancers, mask and phallic pomp. Torn raw

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with briars and caked from many a swamp, they came
among the wild flowers, dripping blood and churning the green
mosses into mud. They sang return, Return, We are the
lust that was before the world and still shall be
when your last law is trampled into dust. We are
the mother's swamp, the primal sea. Whence the dry land

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appeared old old are we? It is but a return.
It's nothing new, easy as slipping on a well worn shoe.
And then there came warm mouths and fingers tips, preying
upon me, whence I could not see. Then a huge face,
low browed, with swollen lips, crooning, I am not beautiful

(12:10):
as she, but I'm the older love. You shall love
me far more than beauty's self. You have been ours always.
We are the world's most ancient powers. First flatterer and
then bogey like a dream, Sir, are you listening? Do
you also know how close to the soft laughter comes

(12:31):
the scream down yonder. But his host cried sharply, no,
leave me alone. Why will you plague me? Go out
of my house? Begone with all my heart, said Dimer.
But one word before we part. He paused, and in
his cheek the anger burned. Then, turning to the table,

(12:52):
he poured out more water. But before he drank, he turned,
then leaped back to the window with a shout, For
there it was no dream, beyond all doubt, he saw
the Master crouch with leveled gun, cackling in maniac voice.
Rundimer run. He ducked and sprang far out the starless

(13:13):
night on the wet lawn closed round him every way.
Then came the gun crack, and the splash of light vanished.
As soon as seen cool garden clay slid from his feet.
He had fallen, and he lay face downward among leaves,
then up and on through branch and leaf, till sense
and breath were gone. End of Cantos seven.