A Year With Aslan: Words of Wisdom and Reflection from the Chronicles of Narnia. C. S. LewisЧитать онлайн книгу.
– I – I just know,” said Lucy, “by his face.”. . .
“Her Majesty may well have seen a lion,” put in Trumpkin. “There are lions in these woods, I’ve been told. But it needn’t have been a friendly and talking lion any more than the bear was a friendly and talking bear.”
“Oh, don’t be so stupid,” said Lucy. “Do you think I don’t know Aslan when I see him?”
“He’d be a pretty elderly lion by now,” said Trumpkin, “if he’s one you knew when you were here before! And if it could be the same one, what’s to prevent him having gone wild and witless like so many others?”
Lucy turned crimson and I think she would have flown at Trumpkin, if Peter had not laid his hand on her arm. “The DLF doesn’t understand. How could he? You must just take it, Trumpkin, that we do really know about Aslan; a little bit about him, I mean. And you mustn’t talk about him like that again. It isn’t lucky for one thing: and it’s all nonsense for another. The only question is whether Aslan was really there.”
“But I know he was,” said Lucy, her eyes filling with tears.
“Yes, Lu, but we don’t, you see,” said Peter.
– Prince Caspian
Why are the others having such a hard time believing Lucy? Do you often have to see with your own eyes to believe something?
JANUARY 16
The Vote
“THERE’S NOTHING FOR IT BUT A VOTE,” said Edmund.
“All right,” replied Peter. “You’re the eldest, DLF. What do you vote for? Up or down?”
“Down,” said the Dwarf. “I know nothing about Aslan. But I do know that if we turn left and follow the gorge up, it might lead us all day before we found a place where we could cross it. Whereas if we turn right and go down, we’re bound to reach the Great River in about a couple of hours. And if there are any real lions about, we want to go away from them, not towards them.”
“What do you say, Susan?”
“Don’t be angry, Lu,” said Susan, “but I do think we should go down. I’m dead tired. Do let’s get out of this wretched wood into the open as quick as we can. And none of us except you saw anything.”
“Edmund?” said Peter.
“Well, there’s just this,” said Edmund, speaking quickly and turning a little red. “When we first discovered Narnia a year ago – or a thousand years ago, whichever it is – it was Lucy who discovered it first and none of us would believe her. I was the worst of the lot, I know. Yet she was right after all. Wouldn’t it be fair to believe her this time? I vote for going up.”
“Oh, Ed!” said Lucy and seized his hand.
“And now it’s your turn, Peter,” said Susan, “and I do hope—”
“Oh, shut up, shut up and let a chap think,” interrupted Peter. “I’d much rather not have to vote.”
“You’re the High King,” said Trumpkin sternly.
“Down,” said Peter after a long pause. “I know Lucy may be right after all, but I can’t help it. We must do one or the other.”
– Prince Caspian
Why is Edmund the only one to believe Lucy this time? Why do you think Peter makes the decision he does?
JANUARY 17
Lu, You’re a Hero
“I OUGHT TO HAVE MY HEAD SMACKED for bringing us this way at all,” said Peter.
“On the contrary, your Majesty,” said the Dwarf. “For one thing it wasn’t you, it was your royal brother, King Edmund, who first suggested going by Glasswater.”
“I’m afraid the DLF’s right,” said Edmund, who had quite honestly forgotten this ever since things began going wrong.
“And for another,” continued Trumpkin, “if we’d gone my way, we’d have walked straight into that new outpost, most likely; or at least had just the same trouble avoiding it. I think this Glasswater route has turned out for the best.”
“A blessing in disguise,” said Susan.
“Some disguise!” said Edmund.
“I suppose we’ll have to go right up the gorge again now,” said Lucy.
“Lu, you’re a hero,” said Peter. “That’s the nearest you’ve got today to saying I told you so. Let’s get on.”
– Prince Caspian
Would you be able to resist the temptation to say “I told you so”? How is this heroic?
JANUARY 18
Are You Good at Believing Things?
“LOOK HERE, POLE, you and I hate this place about as much as anybody can hate anything, don’t we?”
“I know I do,” said Jill [Pole].
“Then I really think I can trust you.”
“Dam’ good of you,” said Jill.
“Yes, but this is a really terrific secret. Pole, I say, are you good at believing things? I mean things that everyone here would laugh at?”
“I’ve never had the chance,” said Jill, “but I think I would be.”
“Could you believe me if I said I’d been right out of the world – outside this world – last hols?”
“I wouldn’t know what you meant.”
“Well, don’t let’s bother about worlds then. Supposing I told you I’d been in a place where animals can talk and where there are – er – enchantments and dragons – and – well, all the sorts of things you have in fairy-tales.” [Eustace] Scrubb felt terribly awkward as he said this and got red in the face.
“How did you get there?” said Jill. She also felt curiously shy.
“The only way you can – by Magic,” said Eustace almost in a whisper. “I was with two cousins of mine. We were just – whisked away. They’d been there before.”
Now that they were talking in whispers Jill somehow felt it easier to believe. Then suddenly a horrible suspicion came over her and she said (so fiercely that for the moment she looked like a tigress):
“If I find you’ve been pulling my leg I’ll never speak to you again; never, never, never.”
“I’m not,” said Eustace. “I swear I’m not. I swear by – by everything.”. . .
“All right,” said Jill, “I’ll believe you.”
– The Silver Chair
Why do you think Eustace chooses to share his secret? Are you good at believing things? What’s the hardest thing anyone’s ever asked you to believe?
JANUARY 19
Nobody Special
BREE TURNED ROUND AT LAST, his face mournful as only a horse’s can be.
“I shall go back to Calormen,” he said.
“What?” said Aravis. “Back to slavery!”
“Yes,” said Bree. “Slavery is all I’m fit for. How can I ever show my face among the free Horses of Narnia? – I who left a mare and a girl and a boy to be eaten by lions while I galloped