“That is one of the things that is bewildering me,” said Ransom. “That you are not different. You are shaped like the women of my own kind. I had not expected that. I have been in one other world beside my own. But the creatures there are not at all like you and me.”

“What is bewildering about it?”

“I do not see why different worlds should bring forth like creatures. Do different trees bring forth like fruit?”

“But that other world was older than yours,” she said. “How do you know that?” asked Ransom in amazement. “Maleldil is telling me,” answered the woman. And as she spoke the landscape had become different, though with a difference none of the senses would identify. The light was dim, the air gentle, and all Ransom’s body was bathed in bliss, but the garden world where he stood seemed to be packed quite full, and as if an unendurable pressure had been laid Upon his shoulders, his legs failed him and he half sank, half fell, into a sitting position.

“It all comes into my mind now,” she continued. “I see the big furry creatures, and the white giants-what is it you called them?-the Sorns, and the blue rivers. Oh, what a strong pleasure it would be to see them with my outward eyes, to touch them, and the stronger because there are no more of that kind to come. It is only in the ancient worlds they linger yet.”

“Why?” said Ransom in a whisper, looking up at her.

“You must know that better than I,” she said. “For was it not in your own world that all this happened?”

“All what?”

“I thought it would be you who would tell me of it,” said the woman, now in her turn bewildered.

“What are you talking about?” said Ransom.

“I mean,” said she, “that in your world Maleldil first took Himself this form, the form of your race and mine.”

“You know that?” said Ransom sharply. Those who have had a dream which is very beautiful but from which, nevertheless, they have ardently desired to awake, will understand his sensations.

“Yes, I know that. Maleldil has made me older to that amount since we began speaking.” The expression on her face was such as he had never seen, and could not steadily look at. The whole of this adventure seemed to be slipping out of his hands. There was a long silence. He stooped down to the water and drank before he spoke again.

“Oh, my Lady,” he said, “why do you say that such creatures linger only in the ancient worlds?”

“Are you so young?” she answered. “How could they come again? Since our Beloved became a man, how should Reason in any world take on another form? Do you not understand? That is all over. Among times there is a time that turns a corner and everything this side of it is new. Times do not go backward.”

“And can one little world like mine be the corner?”

“I do not understand. Corner with us is not the name of a “And do you,” said Ransom with some hesitation-“and do you know why He came thus to my world?”

All through this part of the conversation he found it difficult to look higher than her feet, so that her answer was merely a voice in the air above him. “Yes,” said the voice. “I know the reason. But it is not the reason you know. There was more loan one reason, and there is one I know and cannot tell to you, and another that you know and cannot tell to me.”

“And after this,” said Ransom, “it will all be men.”

“You say it as if you were sorry.”

“I think,” said Ransom, “I have no more understanding than a beast. I do not well know what I am saying. But I loved the furry people whom I met in Malacandra, that old world. Are they to be swept away? Are they only rubbish in the Deep Heaven?”

“I do not know what rubbish means,” she answered, “nor what you are saying.”

“That is what I have come to speak to you about,” he said. “Maleldil has sent me to your world for some purpose. Do you know what it is?”

She stood for a moment almost like one listening and then answered “No.”

“Then you must take me to your home and show me to your people.”

“People? I do not know what you are saying.”

“Your kindred-the others of your kind.”

“Do you mean the King?”

“Yes. If you have a King, I had better be brought before “I cannot do that,” she answered. “I do not know where to find him.”

“To your own home then.”

“What is home?”

“The place where people live together and have their possessions and bring up their children.”

She spread out her hands to indicate all that was in sight. “This is my home,” she said.

“Do you live here alone?” asked Ransom. “What is alone?”

Ransom tried a fresh start.

“Bring me where I shall meet others of our kind.”

“It you mean the King, I have already told you I do not know where he is. When we were young-many days ago-we were leaping from island to island, and when he was on one and I was on another the waves rose and we were driven apart.”

“But can you take me to some other of your kind? The King cannot be the only one.”

“He is the only one. Did you not know?”

“But there must be others of your kind-your brothers and sisters, your kindred, your friends.”

“I do not know what these words mean.”

“Who is this King?” said Ransom in desperation.

“He is himself, he is the King,” said she. “How can one answer such a question?”

“Look here,” said Ransom. “You must have had a mother. Is she alive? Where is she? When did you see her last?”

“I have a mother?” said the Green Lady, looking full at him with eyes of untroubled wonder. “What do you mean? I am the Mother.” And once again there fell upon Ransom the feeling that it was not she, or not she only, who had spoken. No other sound came to his ears, for the sea and the air were still, but a phantom sense of vast choral music was all about him. The awe which her apparently witless replies had been dissipating for the last few minutes returned upon him.

“I do not understand,” he said.

“Nor I,” answered the Lady. “Only my spirit praises Maleldil who comes down from Deep Heaven into this lowness and will make me to be blessed by all the times that are rolling towards us. It is He who is strong and makes me strong and fills empty worlds with good creatures.”

“If you are a mother, where are your children?”

“Not yet,” she answered.

“Who will be their father?”

“The King-who else?”

“But the King-had he no father?”

“He is the Father.”

“You mean,” said Ransom slowly, “that you and he are the only two of your kind in the whole world?”

“Of course.” Then presently her face changed. “Oh, how young I have been,” she said. “I see it now. I had known that there were many creatures in that ancient world of the Hrossa and the Sorns. But I had forgotten that yours also was an older world than ours. I see-there are many of you by now. I had been thinking that of you also there were only two. I thought you were the King and Father of your world. But there are children of children of children by now, and you perhaps are one of these.”

“Yes,” said Ransom.

“Greet your Lady and Mother well from me when you return to your own world,” said the Green Woman. And now for the first time there was a note of deliberate courtesy, even of ceremony, in her speech. Ransom understood. She knew now at last that she was not addressing an equal. She was a queen sending a message to a queen through a commoner, and her manner to him was henceforward more gracious. He found it difficult to make his next answer.

“Our Mother and Lady is dead,” he said. “What is dead?”

“With us they go away after a time. Maleldil takes the soul out of them and puts it somewhere else-in Deep Heaven, we hope. They call it death.”

“Do not wonder, O Piebald Man, that your world should have been chosen for time’s corner. You live looking out always on heaven itself, and as if this were not enough Maleldil takes you all thither in the end. You are favoured beyond all worlds.”