The War of the Ring (12 page)

, all his counterfeits? Well, we shall see, perhaps. He may be. shy of showing himself before many different eyes together....'

The description of Orthanc in this text at first ran like this:

". A few scorings, and small sharp splinters near the base, were all the marks it showed of the fury of the Ents. In the middle from two sides, north and south, long flights of broad stairs, built of some other stone, dark red in hue, climbed up to the great chasm in the crown of the rock. There they met, and there was a narrow platform beneath the centre of the great arch that spanned the cleft; from it stairs branched again, ranning up west and east to dark doors on either side, opening in the shadow of the arch's feet.

This is the general conception described in version 'D' of the passage

'The Road to Isengard' (p. 32), and precisely illustrated in the drawing 'Orthanc (3)' reproduced on p. 33. But the text just given was, replaced at the time of writing by the following:

... the fury of the Ents. On two sides, west and east, long flights of broad stairs, cut in the black stone by some unknown art, climbed up to the feet of the vast arch that spanned the chasm in the hill. At the head of each stair was a great door, and above it a window opening upon a balcony with parapet of stone.

This is the rather simpler conception illustrated in the drawing

'Orthanc (4)' reproduced on p. 33. At a later stage this was rejected and replaced on a slip inserted into the manuscript by the description in TT, where of course the conception of Orthanc had been totally changed (pp. 33 - 5, and the drawing reproduced on p. 34).

The description of Orthanc was followed immediately by 'Gandalf led the way up the western stair. With him went Theoden and Eomer, and the five companions.' There is thus no discussion here of who shall go up, or how close they shall stand.

From this point initial drafting (inked over very faint pencil, which is effectively illegible) exists for the interview with Saruman, and this was pretty closely followed in the first completed manuscript. Saruman's voice was at this stage differently described, and this was at first repeated in the manuscript: The window closed. They waited.

Suddenly another voice spoke, low, melodious, and yet it seemed unpleasant [> unpleasing: its tone was scornful).'(1) This was changed, probably at once, to: 'low, melodious, and persuasive; yet now its tone was of one who, in spite of a gentle nature, is aggrieved.' All else that is said of that voice in TT (p. 183) is here absent; and the description of Saruman is briefer: 'His face was long with a high forehead; he had deep darkling eyes; his hair and beard were white, smudged with darker strands. "Like and unlike", muttered Gimli.'

With the opening of the conversation at this stage (cited here from the completed manuscript rather than from the draft text) cf. the original outline on pp. 47 - 8.

'Well?' said Saruman. 'You have a voice of brass, Gandalf.

You disturb my repose. You have come to my private door without leave. What is your excuse?'

'Without leave?' said Gandalf. 'I had the leave of such gatekeepers as I found. But am I not a lodger in this inn? My host at least has never shown me the door, since he first admitted me!'

'Guests that leave by the roof have no claim to re-enter by the door at their will,' said Saruman.

'Guests that are penned on the house-top against their will have a right to knock and ask for an apology,' answered Gandalf.(2) 'What have you to say, now?'

'Nothing. Certainly not in your present company. In any case I have little to add to my words at our last meeting.'

'Have you nothing to withdraw?'

Saruman paused. 'Withdraw?' he said slowly. 'If in my eagerness and disappointment I said anything unfriendly to yourself, consider it withdrawn. I should probably have put matters right long ago. You were not friendly yourself, and persisted in misunderstanding me and my intentions, or pretending to do so. But I repeat: I bore you no ill-will personally; and even now, when your - your associates have done me so much injury, I should be ready to forgive you, if you would

. dissociate yourself from such people. I have for the moment less power to help you than I had; but I still think you would find my friendship more profitable in the end than theirs. We are after all both members of an ancient and noble profession: we should understand one another. If you really wish to consult me, I am willing to receive you. Will you come up?'

This passage, whose original germ is seen in the outlines given in VII.212, 436, was developed into that in TT pp. 186-7. The draft text (3) goes on at once to 'Gandalf laughed. "Understand one another?

..."', and there is nothing said about the effect of Saruman's words on the bystanders; but in the manuscript his speech was changed, apparently at once, to a form somewhat nearer to that in TT (with 'a high and ancient order' for 'an ancient and noble profession'), and this was followed by the passage (TT p. 187) in which the voice of Saruman 'seemed like the gentle remonstrance of a kindly king with an errant but beloved minister'. But here the words 'So great was the power that Saruman exerted in this last effort that none that stood within hearing were unmoved' are absent; for of all that precedes this in TT', his long opening trial of Theoden's mind and will, with the interventions of Gimli and Eomer, there is no hint or suggestion in either draft or finished text. The interview is conducted exclusively between the two wizards.

For the remainder of the dialogue between them I give here the original draft: (4)

Gandalf laughed. 'Understand one another? I don't know.

But I understand you at any rate, Saruman - well enough. No! I do not think I will come up. You have an excellent adviser with you, adequate for your understanding. Wormtongue has cunning enough for two. But it had occurred to me that since Isengard is rather a ramshackle place, rather old-fashioned and in need of renovation and alteration, you might like to leave - to take a holiday, say. If so, will you not come down?'

A quick cunning look passed over Saruman's face; before he could conceal it, they had a glimpse of mingled fear and relief/hope. cunning. They saw through the mask the face of a trapped man, that feared both to stay and to leave his refuge. He hesitated. 'To be torn by the savage wood-demons?' he said.

'No, no.'

'0 do not fear for your skin,' said Gandalf. 'I do not wish to kill you - as you would know, if you really understood me. And no one will hurt you, if I say no. I am giving you a last chance.

You can leave Orthanc - free, if you choose.'

'Hm,' said Saruman. 'That sounds well. More like the old Gandalf. But why should I wish to leave Orthanc? And what precisely is "free"?'

'The reasons for leaving lie all around,' said Gandalf. 'And free means not a prisoner. But you will surrender to me the key of Orthanc - and your staff: pledges for your conduct. To be returned, if I think fit, later.'

Saruman's face was for a moment clouded with anger. Then he laughed. 'Later!' he said. 'Yes - when you also have the keys of Baraddur, I suppose; and the crowns of seven kings, and the staffs of the five wizards,(5) and have purchased yourself a pair of boots many sizes larger than those you have now. A modest plan. But I must beg leave to be excused from assisting. Let us end this chatter. If you wish to deal with me, deal with me!

Speak sense - and do not come here with a horde of savages, and these boorish men, and foolish children that dangle at your tail.'

He left the balcony. He had hardly turned away, when a heavy thing came hurtling down from above. It glanced off the parapet, narrowly missed Gandalf, and splintered [struck out: into fragments] on the rock beside the stair. It seemed to have been a large ball of dark shining crystal.

'The treacherous rogue,' cried Eomer, but Gandalf was unmoved. 'Not Saruman this time,' he said. 'It came from a window above. That was a parting shot from Master Wormtongue, I fancy. I caught the flash of a hand. And ill-aimed.

Which do you think it was meant for, me or Saruman?' 'I think maybe the aim was ill because he could not make up his mind which he hated most' (? said Gimli). 'I think so too,' said Gandalf. 'There will be pleasant words in the Tower when we are gone.'

'And we had better go quickly out of stone's throw at least,'

said Eomer.

'It is plain to me that Saruman has not yet given up hope

[added: in his own devices],' said Gandalf. 'Well, he must nurse his hope in Orthanc.'

Here this draft stops, the ending being very ragged. It is notable that in this text there is no mention of Gandalf's summons to Saruman to return to the balcony when he turned away, and so the breaking of his staff does not appear (in the original sketches of the scene in the outlines referred to above, where Saruman was not in his tower, Gandalf took his staff from him and broke it with his hands).

Since there is no evidence at all that the conception of the palantir had arisen at any earlier stage or in any earlier writing, this must be presumed to be its first appearance, but the draft does not make it dear whether my father perceived its nature at the moment of its introduction as Wormtongue's missile - Gandalf does not say what he thought of it, nor hint that it might be a device of importance to Saruman. In his letter to W. H. Auden of 7 June 1955 my father said (immediately following the passage from that letter cited at the beginning of The Return of the Shadow): 'I knew nothing of the Palantiri, though the moment the Orthanc-stone was cast from the window, I recognized it, and knew the meaning of the 'rhyme of lore'

that had been running in my mind: seven stars and seven stones and one tuhite tree.'(7) On the other hand, in this initial version of the scene he saw the ball of crystal as shattered by the impact, and still in the finished manuscript immediately following this draft he wrote that the ball 'splintered on the rock beside the stair. It seemed from the fragments', before breaking off at this point and writing that it smote the stair, and that it was the stair that cracked and splintered while the globe was unharmed. What further significance for the story could it have had if it were immediately destroyed?

The completed text develops the dialogue of Gandalf and Saruman a good way towards the form in TT, though much still remains from the original draft. But there now enters, almost in the final form, Gandalf's summons to Saruman to come back, his final admonition to him, and the breaking of his staff. The crystal ball now rolled down the steps, and it was 'dark but shining with a heart of fire'. In reply to Aragorn's suggestion that Wormtongue could not make up his mind whom he hated most Gandalf says: 'Yes, that may be so. There will be some debate in the Tower, when we are gone! We will take the ball. I fancy that it is not a thing that Saruman would have chosen to cast away.'

Pippin's running down the stair to pick up the globe, and Gandalf's hasty taking of it and wrapping it in the folds of his cloak, were later additions (see p. 79 note 12). Yet that the globe was to be important is now plain. The scene ends thus in this version:

'Yet there may be other things to cast,' said Gimli. 'If that is the end of the debate, let us go out of stone's throw, at least.'

'It is the end,' said Gandalf. 'I must find Treebeard and tell him how things have gone.'

'He will have guessed, surely?' said Merry. 'Were they likely to end any other way?'

'Not likely,' answered Gandalf, 'But I had reasons for trying.

I do not wish for mastery. Saruman has been given a last choice, and a fair one. He has chosen to withhold Orthanc at least from us, for that is his last asset. He knows that we have no power to destroy it from without, or to enter it against his will; yet it might have been useful to us. But things have not gone badly.

Set a thief to hinder a thief! [Struck out: And malice blinds the wits.] I fancy that, if we could have come in, we should have found few treasures in Orthanc more precious than the thing which the fool Wormtongue tossed down to us!'

A shrill shriek, suddenly cut off, came from an open window high above. 'I thought so,' said Gandalf. 'Now let us go! '

The end of the chapter in TT, the meeting of Legolas and Gimli with Treebeard, his parting from Merry and Pippin, and the verse in which the Hobbits are entered into 'the Long Lists', is present in this first completed text all but word for word, save only at the very end, where his last words are brief:

'Leave it to Ents,' said Treebeard. 'Until seven times the years in which he tormented us have passed, we shall not tire of watching over him.'(8)

NOTES.

1. The draft has: 'low, rather melodious, and yet unpleasant: it spoke contemptuously.'

2. Though this exchange was subsequently lost, the reference to Gandalf's manner of departure from Orthanc on the previous occasion was brought in at a later point (TT p. 187): 'When last I visited you, you were the jailor of Mordor, and there I was to be sent. Nay, the guest who has escaped from the roof will think twice before he comes back in by the door.'