"Why am I so afraid?" "I never knew that love could add so much, but I love you, and all I want is to love you." "Now, at every door, I hear your voice saying to me" ""This is only the land of shadows..." "Real life hasn't begun yet."" "The time is just coming up to 10 minutes to 3." "We are now broadcasting the 6th in the series of 8 talks by the writer C.S. Lewis best known for his imaginative fable "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe"" "and "The Screwtape Letters"." "This afternoon, his theme is "Christian Marriage"." "I must begin by making it plain that I have never been married, myself." "However, the Christian ideal of marriage is not based on the experience of individual men and women but on the teaching of Christ." "That is, that marriage is for life." "And now the honourable professor, plain Jack Lewis will make another very complicated question very simple!" "This week... "Infanticide"." ""Infanticide" is a long word, isn't it." "Let me put it to you in the bluff common man's language that has made me so popular among bluff common men..." "I don't believe you heard a word of it." "A noble address, Jack!" "Judiciously navigated!" "Shouldn't I have said that I've not been married." "Not at all!" "The personal touch." "Anyway, I don't see it makes any difference..." "We don't expect those who teach us sexual morality, to be practising fornicators!" "I shouldn't play that card too often, Jack." "The "expert on marriage", who's never been married." "The lecturer on romantic love, who believes that romantic love is a medieval invention!" "The author of children's books, who's never had any children." "You'll end up the non-playing captain in the cricket game of life." ""Cricket game of life"!" "The spectator sees more of the sport." "Oh, come on Jack..." "When was the last time you even talked to a woman?" "I mean, about anything that matters." "Women have no concept about what really matters!" "How could Jack possibly talk to them about it." "Most of my letters come from women..." "They write about what really matters." "To them, very much so." ""Dear Professor Lewis, last night I had a vision of a man with a brown beard..."" ""Was it Jesus?"" "Often, it's about their faith, yes..." "But just as often, it's about their marriages." "Don't ask me why." ""Cricket game of life!"" "Listen to this one..." "Dear Mr Lewis, you've played a greater part in my life, than you can ever know..." ""My children adore your Narnia fantasies, especially my youngest boy."" "My husband is fascinated by your science-fiction books..." "So, who am I?" "So far, I have been, in the following order, a Jewish atheist, an award-winning poet... ..a card-carrying Communist a convert to Christianity... ..and mother of 2 boys." "Must be American." "Mrs William L Gresham, Pleasant Plains, New York State." "Am I right that you are as fascinated as I am by the image of the unfound door?" "The mythical door that leads out of time and space, into where?" "The undiscovered country?" "The Never-Never Land?" "Is this your land of Narnia that you get to through the magic wardrobe?" "I know you wrote your Narnia books for children..." "Maybe I'm still a child." "Maybe YOU are, for that matter!" "I enclose one of my poems." "It's called "Snow in Madrid", written during the civil war in Spain." "First, I must boast a little and tell you that my collection of poems won a National Institute award which I shared with Robert Frost, so you won't write me off as a nut." "Here's "Snow in Madrid"." "Softly, so casual, lovely, so light, so light..." "The cruel sky let's fall something one does not fight." "Men before perishing See with unwounded eye" "For once a gentle thing Fall from the sky." "I propose to start this morning with a picture." "Pictures do not tax the brain, they say." "So picture if you please, gentlemen," "It is a May morning in the country..." "You are walking a little aimlessly beside a river..." "You come upon a garden, enclosed by a high wall." "You walk around the wall, you find a door." "You enter the garden..." "Inside there is a fountain." "Inside the fountain lie 2 crystal stones." "You look into the stones, and there you see, in reflection, another garden." "A rose garden!" "In the midst of the roses, there grows one beautiful rosebud." "You're filled with longing for this rosebud." "You stretch out one hand and pluck the bud." "Not exactly real life, is it?" "This is Guillaume de Lorris' allegorical description of the experience of falling in love." "From the "Roman de la Rose"." "Now, the question I want to put to you, is..." "Is it true?" "Is this real life?" "Now, before you jump to the obvious conclusion..." "Ask yourself a further question..." "Which is more real..." "Falling in love or picking a rose?" "Abide with me...fast falls the eventide..." "That Mrs Gresham writes a strange sort of letter." "Who is Mrs Gresham?" "The Jewish-Communist-Christian American." "Ah, yes..." "Pleasant Plains." "She writes as if she knows me already." "Price of fame." "I don't mean she's presumptuous..." "but I suppose she is." "I mean, she seems to have seen through me." "How can she have?" "I don't know..." "I suppose she's read my books." "I expect it's just the American style." "Americans don't understand about inhibitions." "I'm amused that you see me as the child." "I believe I would rather be the child caught in the magic spell than the magician, casting it." "In my book called "The Magician's Nephew" it is of course the child who brings the magic that saves his brother from death." "This I fear is pure "wishfuldom"." "Long ago, there WAS a time, when such events were real." "I refer to my own life." "But I have no such magic." "As for Narnia itself, no it is not your Never-Never Land." "I take it, you mean Heaven." "Narnia exists in time, and will come to an end." "Like our real world by which we set such store." "It is only a PART of the Shadowlands." "Friday." "Friday..." "BBC all day." "Saturday?" "Annual Assembly of the Women's Literary Guild." "Couldn't I give them the talk I gave the disabled veterans?" "Mightn't one of the literary women be married to a disabled veteran?" "Mrs Gresham is coming to England." "Mrs Gresham of the pleasant plains?" "Does she want a talk, too?" " No, she wants to meet us." " US?" "Yes, I quote..." ""Perhaps you and your brother, Major Lewis, would find time to join me for tea in an hotel."" ""Tea" is safe... "hotel" is safe..." " Shall we say yes?" " Do you want to?" "It might be curious to see what she looks like." "Voluminous fur coat, long pointed nose." " This, nervy, shrill voice..." " Spectacles." " Thick brown rims." " Thick brown eyes." "Relentlessly understanding." "There she is in the red and green check." "She's too young." " How old is she?" " Forty?" "..." "I don't know." "What about the fur coat?" "Didn't we say she'd have a fur coat?" "God preserve us!" "Thank you, Lord!" "Aren't women peculiar!" "?" "Two things that men find most unnatural..." "The dominance of the female..." "and the dominance of the collective." "What are you talking about?" "Insects." "That's what's wrong with insects." "Insects?" "Mr Lewis, I'm Joy Gresham." "I remember announcing to my parents that I was an atheist, at the age of 8." "By high-school I had it all worked out." "Men are only apes." "Virtue is only custom." "Life is only and electro-chemical reaction..." "Mind is only a set of conditioned reflexes..." "and most of them aren't rational like me." "Love, art and altruism are only sex." "The universe is only matter." "Matter is only energy." "I've forgotten what I said energy was..." "Portrait of a happy materialist, but..." "But somewhere deep inside, there was this girl with dreaming eyes furiously scribbling verses." "Where is everybody?" "Working, studying, bent over books." " That's YOUR story." " I'm sorry?" "!" "I've been developing this theory about the English..." "The big question about the English is..." "Where ARE they all?" "Why are they so tired?" "You must have noticed." "They don't talk..." "They don't move." "All day long, they're timid and lethargic..." "One possible explanation is that the English are nocturnal creatures" " ...and that they're living at night." " That's your explanation, is it?" "I believe that somewhere in England, there's a terrific party going on all through the night with everyone yelling and stomping and having a great time." "See what I mean, they're all sleeping it off!" "You're different to how I imagined." "In what way?" "Beefier." "How about me?" "Am I the way you thought I'd be?" "No..." "I can honestly say you're a complete surprise." "Good!" "I like that." "How long do you plan to stay in England?" "To the end of December." "The boys aren't too happy about not being home for Christmas." "But they like the snow." " Of course, you have 2 boys, David and..." " Douglas." "He's a Narnia fan." "I must tell you he'd really like to meet you." "And he shall..." "Do you expect to be in Oxford again?" "I could be." "Well, if you'll give us adequate warning, I dare say we could rise to a tea." " What do you say, Warnie?" " Whatever you say, Jack." "How much do I owe you?" " Mom, Mom... is this the one?" " Wait a minute, will you." " Hello!" "Which one are you?" " David." "Are YOU him?" "No, I'm his brother." "So, you found us, Mrs Gresham." "Are YOU him?" "Yes, I suppose I am." "You don't LOOK like him." "This one's the tricky one, the knight..." "this is what he does." "One.. two.. see that..." "Any 2 squares as long as he turns a corner." "You try." "No, no... only 2 squares." "Were you actually a member of the Party?" "Yes... paid-up Communist Party member." "I even edited an anthology of anti-imperialist war poetry." ""War Poetry of the United Nations"." "Which English poets did you include?" "Couldn't find any English poets." "Not ones with the right ideological line." "So I invented two." "Megan Coombs-Dawson and Hadyn Weir." "Hadyn Weir?" "!" "He died in battle, early in the war." "Heroically." "So, you were a true believer?" "I THOUGHT I was." "I believed there had to be more..." "I just got the wrong "more"!" "All my life, I've known I've had a home somewhere." "So I had to go in all the houses along the way, looking for it hoping I'd recognise it." "Let me tell you, I have wandered into a lot of wrong houses." "Have you found the right house now?" "I think so." "All my life, I've had a sense of..." "I never knew what to call it..." "Moments of longing that seem to come from another world." "I wandered into a few wrong houses of my own." "For me, the great myths came from the north..." ""Siegfried"... "Twilight of the Gods"." "The Christian myth never seemed to have the same power." "You saw it as a myth." "Oh, I did then..." "The dying hero..." "The god who sacrifices himself for his people." "What always stumped me was the sheer number of other dying-god myths there were." "I could never understand why our myth should happen to be the only one that was true..." "It didn't seem to be any more likely than the others." "However you talk about gods, it's going to sound a little wacky." "Quite so!" "My problem was to tell the one true wackiness from all the competing versions." "So how did you get un-stumped?" "Well, one day I thought..." "Maybe they're ALL true." "All ways of telling the same story." "What if there is just the ONE true myth that came to reality in Jesus Christ." "And all the other myths were the echoes of it." "A little blurred, a little confused..." "Like Chinese whispers." "That sounds rather cerebral to me!" "Well, in a way I did think myself to faith." "Well, one of the uses of thought, is knowing when thought isn't enough." "Can you dive?" "Can I dive?" "I learned how to dive, the same summer I learned I was a Christian." "It's the easiest thing in the world." "You don't have to do anything." "All you have to do is STOP doing something." "You have to learn to stop trying to preserve yourself." "Once you let yourself go, head-first without worrying where you're going to land or anything it works!" "You're a diver!" " Can we go into the trees?" " Can they?" "Of course!" "The woods are part of our property as far as the fence." "Where are you all spending Christmas?" "Maybe London..." "We've not decided." "You'd be very welcome to join us here." "The boys might like it." "You don't want us rampaging all over your house." "Oh, we shall survive." "Christmas is more like Christmas, with children, isn't it?" "What I resent about Christmas is this general presumption of goodwill." "I feel no goodwill towards my fellow men..." "I feel ILL-WILL!" "It's nothing to do with how you FEEL..." "Feelings are quite unreliable." "Then what has it got to do with?" "God becomes man." "Simple as that." "Then God must be bonkers." "Who would choose voluntarily to be human?" "Far more satisfactory to stay safely divine." "Think of Christmas in terms of magic, Christopher." "The birth of a helpless squealing creature, that happens to be God." "An omnipotent baby!" "Doesn't that satisfy your taste for the peculiar?" "The coming of new life in the heart of winter, when everything seems to be dead." "The snow falls, and the trees bear fruit." "Natural magic." "Hi, Warnie!" "I hope you know what you've let yourself in for." "Douglas.." "Will you be joining us for tea?" "Is THIS the house?" "No, not this one." "The children were sent to the house of an old professor who lived in the country 10 miles from the nearest railway station." "And 2 miles from the nearest post- office" "He had no wife, and he lived in a very large house..." "It's not so big." "I was just like Douglas when I was his age." "Always sneaking off with a book to some secret hiding place." "What were you hiding from." "I don't know." "Before my mother died, there was nothing to be afraid of." "I don't think it started off as hiding, I think it started off as seeking." "What were you seeking?" "The unfound door..." "The undiscovered country." "From whose bourne no traveller returns?" "That was always the snag." "I wanted to travel to other worlds." "And I wanted to come home again." "How old were you when your mother died." "Not much older than Douglas is now." "Did it hit you hard?" "Yes, it was the end of my world." "I remember my father in tears." "Voices all over the house." "Doors shutting and opening." "It was a big house." "Long empty corridors." "I remember I had the tooth-ache." "I wanted my mother to come to me." "I cried for her to come." "But she didn't come." "My father never spoke about it." "It was too much for him." "Warnie and I knew that, so we didn't talk about it." "Children pick these things up." "They have their own way of dealing with things." "And secret hiding places." "Jack's children's stories..." "are published in America, they tell me..." "Are they, or are they not, in translation?" ""The Lion, the Witch and the Clothes Closet"?" "!" "You mustn't mind me, Jack..." "Success breeds envy, as ever." "I don't know what you call "success"." "My wife knows better than I do, when I've reached my limit." "Dangerous creatures, wives." "They know too much." "I don't understand." "Women's 6th sense... intuition." "Why should women need a 6th sense?" "I should have thought 5 senses were enough, if you made the effort to use them." "Mrs Gresham's absolutely right!" "There's no mystery here, Harry..." "Women are just naturally more inquisitive than men." "Well, have you ever wondered why?" "Well, I rather suppose it was because women always found themselves with more time on their hands." "Ignore him..." "He likes to provoke!" "I take it you'd rather be ignorant than curious." "Oh, every time!" "It's the English way, you see." "Healthy suspicion of intimacy." "I wonder the breed manages to reproduce at all!" "It's a white Christmas alright!" "The boys'll like it." "Something wrong?" "Bad news?" "Not too good." "If I was back home now, and this were happening, I'd be writing to you for advice." "Then write to me." "Dear Mr Lewis, my husband is in love with another woman and wants to marry her." "Should I give him a divorce?" "Yours anxiously, "Middle-aged Christian Mother"." "Have you been expecting this?" "Winnie and I are in love, but have been since about the middle of August." "If it had not been for our love..." "I couldn't have come through this summer with as little anguish as I have." "Things have been rough financially." " Did you know?" " Not about Winnie." "She is not the first." "Do you love your husband?" "He was very talented." "Wanted to write, like everyone." "Is a good man at heart." "He doesn't love me." "Bill is an alcoholic, he is compulsively unfaithful and he is sometimes violent." "I guess I haven't loved him for years." " Violent?" " Mm... breaks chairs." "Fires rifles in the air... not at anyone..." "just to let off steam." "Only, when he is drunk, he doesn't know what he's doing." "Once he broke a bottle over Douglas's head." "He did what?" "!" "Not so good, right?" ""This is the land of Narnia" said the faun." ""All that lies between the lamp-post and the great castle of Cair Paravel on the eastern sea."" ""It is winter in Narnia, and has been for ever so long."" "Always winter, and never Christmas." "Douglas, are you out there, catching pneumonia?" "It lasted perhaps 30 seconds." "But it changed everything for me." "I've been turning into a different person ever since." "What happened?" "We were living in Westchester.." "Bill was working in New York..." "One day, Bill called from his office." "He said he was losing control of his mind..." "he wasn't coming home." "Bang!" "Put down the phone..." "That was it!" "I had 2 small babies, I was all alone." "I had no idea what to do." "I put the babies to bed and I waited." "He didn't come." "Round about midnight, I broke down." "I felt so useless, so helpless." "Babies were upstairs asleep..." "I was downstairs, crying." "And there was someone else in the room." "Just for a few seconds, maybe half a minute." "I knew it was a real person." "A person so real, that all my precious life seemed a shadow by comparison." "It was like waking from a sleep." "I've no idea what I said..." "I guess I was just saying..." "OK then..." "OK." "He came back 3 days later." "Did you tell him?" ""Hi Bill, whaddaya know..." "God exists."" "Yes, I told him." "I'll say this for Bill, he has an open mind..." "Only he can't keep in it any one thing for long." "Oh, thank you, Warnie." "So, you're going back to him?" "What else can I do?" "Just a little, Jack." "But Mommy, you never let us have wine." "You don't like it." " I do too!" " A toast to our guests!" "To Joy, to David, to Douglas." "To say "Merry Christmas"." "And to wish you a safe voyage home." "And most of all, because both Warnie and I hope very much we'll be seeing you again..." "To our continuing friendship!" "For the position to become established the dominant characteristic of the court-based religion of love was seen to be adultery." "In a Provencal ducal court of the 11th century the number of single idle men far exceeded the number of single women." "The women were not idle." "You are about to point out, I deduce that this surplus of idle males drove them willy-nilly into mass adultery." "Yes, sir!" "Married love could not be looked upon as romantic longings... 6.because wives were items of baggage." "Now if you were Guillaume de Lorris or Chrétien de Troyes you'd no more consider writing a poem about marrying a woman than you would about buying a pound of tomatoes." "Nowadays of course poems about wives jostle democratically alongside poems about tomatoes." "Christopher, would you say you were content?" "I am as I am." "The world is as it is." "My contentment, or otherwise, has very little to do with it." "You don't ever feel a sense of waste?" "Of course." "All life is waste." "Remember, I don't have your faith in "divine recycling"." "Can't it wait?" "What?" "I said if it can wait, why am I banging on your window?" "!" " Well?" " You'll see... you'll see!" " See what?" " In there!" "It's the magic wood, Jack." "This is the wood between the worlds." "Joy!" "Where are you?" "Hello, Jack." "Bit of magic for a magician." "Where in Heaven's name have you sprung from?" ""Nice to see you again Joy!" "Do come in and have a cup of tea, Joy."" "Of course... of course!" "It's alright, Jack..." "we've a house of our own now." "Would you take that out into the kitchen." "And this?" "Put it over there." "How does Bill feel about your bringing the boys to England?" "Doesn't like it." "On the other hand he can only afford to give us $60 a month." "England's cheaper." "How much is that?" "Doesn't sound enough." "We'll manage." "You'll let me help, won't you." "I don't want to take your money, Jack." "Don't say that..." "That's what friends are for." "So, she's settled here for good, has she?" "Who knows?" "For the foreseeable future." "You know how it looks, don't you, Jack?" "I know." "She's a good friend, Warnie, that's all." "I never really know what he's thinking." "I catch glimpses, that's all." "Perhaps he doesn't know himself." "He has such a sharp, clear mind." "That's why I expect him to have everything taped, even himself." "You like him, don't you?" "Yes, I like him." "Do you think he likes me?" "I'm quite sure he does." "But...?" "I don't have to tell you..." "Tell me." "Jack plays safe." "He always has." "Thank you, Warnie." "Message received." "It's good to have everything out in the open." "Then everyone knows where they are." "That's how I like it, too." "I think it's very difficult to know exactly what is going on between people." "Sometimes it makes me quite angry." "People aren't allowed to be..." "why, just friends." " Like us, you mean." " Like us!" "That's not to say that friendship is a small thing." "As a matter of fact I rate it as one of life's most precious gifts." "But...?" "But it shouldn't be turned into a watered-down version of something that it's not." "Such as...?" "Such as..." "Well just to give you one example." "Romantic love." "Which nowadays is just about the only emotion that men and women are permitted to feel for each other." "It's not to say that friendship isn't its way a kind of..." "A kind of love." "Yes, I knew you'd understand." "Oh, I understand better than that, Jack." "You're a bachelor, and I'm a divorced woman." "Some people might think you have some idea of marrying me." "You have no such ideas." "I'm to have no false expectations." "You've decided to have this out in the open because you care about me and don't wish me to be hurt." "Have I understood you correctly?" "You are extraordinary!" "I don't know what to say." "It's OK, Jack..." "Exam over!" "Well, you know, if there's ever ANYTHING I can do to help..." "Sure..." "I know..." "Well..." "Did I tell you Warnie?" "..." "I've decided t marry Joy." "No, Jack." "Yes, it seemed like a good idea." "You astound me!" "I mean..." "Don't worry, Warnie, nothing's going to change." "I'm not really going to marry Joy." "You're not?" "The rumours are unfounded!" "They are?" "What I have agreed to do, is extend my British citizenship to her and the boys so that she can go on living in England." "By marrying her." "Only technically." "You're marrying Joy, technically?" "!" "A true marriage is a declaration before God..." "Not before some government official." "This will be a bureaucratic formality, nothing more." "Joy will keep her own name." "We'll all go on living exactly as before." "No one will even know that a marriage has taken place apart from you, Somerset House and the Department of Immigration." "It is nothing more than a bureaucratic formality." "Before you're joined in matrimony..." "I have to remind you of the solemn and binding character of the vows you are about to make." "Marriage, according to the law of this country is the union of one man with one woman voluntarily entered into for life, to the exclusion of all others." "Now we proceed to the exchange of vows." "Mr Lewis, if you will repeat after me..." "I call upon these persons here present..." "I call upon these persons here present to witness that I, Clive Staples Lewis to witness that I, Clive Staples Lewis do take thee, Helen Joy Davidman do take thee, Helen Joy Davidman to be my lawful wedded wife." "...to be my lawful wedded wife." "Do we have a ring?" "No ring." "Very well..." "the ring is not statutory." "The statement sets out the nature of the marriage the reasons why you have entered into it." "Yes, I understand." "This is a disclaimer to rights in each other's estates." "Yes, of course." "This is a declaration that the marriage is undertaken solely for the purpose of your naturalisation and that you have no intention of living as man and wife." "Yes, I understand." "If there is nothing you object to in the wording your signature, here." "This must be an unusual kind of document for you." "I don't believe I've ever drawn up such a statement before." " What's to be done with it." " It will be kept here." "Mr Lewis' instructions are very clear on this point, Mrs Gresham." "The statement is strictly confidential and it's existence will be divulged to no others beyond those now in this room." "Mr Lewis' instructions are always very clear." "Jack, it's after midnight." "You'd better go." "Quite right..." "past my bedtime." "What will the neighbours think?" "!" "The worst, I've no doubt." "Don't you sometimes burst to share the joke?" "What joke?" "The neighbours thinking we're unmarried and up to all sorts of wickedness when all the time we're married and up to nothing." "Technically married." "I should be going." "Leaving already?" "You're a good friend, Joy." "So are you, Jack." "Jack, you've given me so much..." "You've got to let me give you something back." "You know ME, Joy!" "Yes, I do." "How can a person be fit and active, leading a full and vigorous life one minute, then..." "There HAD been some pain before." "Everybody has pain, sometimes." "That's how it often goes, I'm afraid." "Sudden lurches." ""Sudden lurches"?" "Dear God." "How much has she been told?" "She's been told that the cancer has eaten away at her left femur that she has a malignant tumour in one breast..." "She knows that it's serious." "How could she not know." "Her hip-bone snaps like a frozen twig." "Nobody seems to know what's going on." "They're going to operate on the broken hip tomorrow." "It's not too good." "Dear Mr Lewis, I'm a Jew, divorced, broke, and I have cancer..." "My question is..." "Do I get a discount?" "How's the pain?" "A little pushy!" "Don't talk if it hurts." "Can you do that later, please Nurse?" "I've given you 15 minutes already." "For goodness sakes, woman, this is my wife!" "She wasn't the guilty party in the divorce and her husband committed adultery with another woman." "With several other women." "He was violent, he hit the children." "It doesn't make any difference who was the guilty party..." "You know that as well as I do." "Harry, she's dying!" "I'd marry this lunchtime if it was up to ME." "Look, a number of things have become clear to me in the past few days, Harry..." "This is NOT a sudden whim..." "You know how seriously I take the sacrament of Christian marriage." "As it happens Joy and I are already married in law..." "To me, that means nothing." "I want to marry her before God." "I really am sorry, Jack." "I just can't do it." "The bishop would never give his consent." "I'm going to marry her, Harry." "I'm going to marry you, Joy..." "I'm going to marry you before God and the world!" " You don't have to, Jack." " I want to..." "It's what I want." "Make an honest woman of me?" "It's me that's been dishonest..." "Look what it takes to make me see the truth." "Did I overdo it?" "Don't leave me, Joy!" "Jack... about marrying..." "I'll find a way, I promise." "Back home, we have a quaint old custom..." "When the guy wants to marry the girl he asks her." "It's called proposing." "It's the same here." "Did I miss it?" "Oh, Joy..." "Will you marry this foolish frightened old man who needs you more than he can bear to say." "Who loves you, even though he hardly knows how." "OK!" "Just this once!" "There is no time." "Time is what we do not have any more." "Look, it's not just for me, she wants the grace of the sacrament." "No..." "look..." "The cancer has gone too far." "We're just praying that the pain goes before the end." "Bless you, John." "Bless you!" "I say, Nurse, is the bride allowed to blush a little?" "To have and to hold..." "from this day forward... for better, for worse... for richer, for poorer... in sickness and in health... to love cherish and obey... till death do us part." "With this ring I thee wed." "With my body, I thee worship and all my worldly goods I thee endow." "In the name of The Father and of The Son and of The Holy Ghost..." "Amen." "Those whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder." "While I'm here, perhaps I could say a short prayer of healing." "Would you object, if I laid hands on you, Mrs Lewis?" "No, Father, go ahead." "I knew you'd be here." "What's the book?" "He's reading "The Magician's Nephew"." "The part where the mother's ill." "I didn't know what to say." ""Suddenly it flashed up his mind that there really were other worlds."" ""There might be a fruit in some other world that might really cure his mother."" ""It just might be true."" ""So many odd things had happened already."" ""There must be other worlds that you could get to through every pool in the wood."" ""You could hunt through them all, and then..."" ""..." "Mother well again."" "Come along then..." "Now an audience makes her very tired." "Don't let her talk too much." "Wait a minute..." "Now she doesn't look too good I'm afraid." "Now, try not to be surprised." "She's just the same as she ever was, but she hasn't got much strength." "Right... off you go." "They're almost exactly the age that you and I were." "Don't think about it." "I never knew what I was supposed to say." "What DO you say when your mother's dying?" "Let the axe do the work!" "Here's a tip for you..." "Think of someone you hate!" "Well done!" "Now, you just sit tight for a moment." "I tell you..." "They say there's...?" "... nothing someone does that to." "Pain?" "I can live with it." "There we are." "It is better, isn't it?" "It is an improvement." "No, it's not an improvement." "It means the spread of the disease is slowing down." "But it's been arrested..." "you said the cancer has been arrested." "Mr Lewis, you're looking at a train standing in the station..." "It may not be moving right now, but trains move." "That's how trains are." "But that's better, isn't it?" "Yes, it's better." "So, what next?" "What's a good sign?" "Just tell me that." "People do recover from cancer, don't they?" "Any sign of returning strength." "Any sign that the body is rebuilding the diseased bone." "Did you expect her to make it this far?" ""Digory took the apple of life out of his pocket."" ""You will eat that, won't you, please, he said to his mother."" ""The next morning, when the doctor made his usual visit..."" ""Digory heard him say "It's like a miracle.""" ""I wouldn't tell the little boy anything at present."" ""We don't want to raise any false hopes."" "I must not hope too much." "I must not hope too much." "The older man serenely accepting the will of God." "You hope and you fear then you hope..." "It's the sheer helplessness of such torture!" "Why is it that anything we really need is just beyond our control." " You can pray for it." " I pray all the time." "You know, you once explained to me about prayer..." "I was arguing that prayer was not to be relied on for results." "You told me that all prayer got results." "Only, they weren't always the results we wanted." "What are you talking about, Christopher?" "I haven't seen you really want something before." "I was wondering what you'd say, if you didn't get it." "I can't tell you how long it will last." "It could be weeks, it could be years." "There's no doubt, that for a moment at least, the cancer is remitting." "For such an advanced case, that in itself is remarkable." "So long as the remission continues I see no need to keep your wife in the hospital." "Right..." "Well, Mrs Lewis..." "You can come home." "Okay." "Bring be my bow of burning gold..." "Bring me my arrows of desire..." "Bring me my spear..." "O clouds unfold!" "Salutare alcum!" "Good morning." "I don't know why..." "I don't like to think of it as a miracle." "Why not?" "It's a miracle to me." "Maybe I feel I don't deserve it." "No, it's not that!" "The truth is, I'm frightened of loving God for giving you back to me." "Why, I could just as easily HATE God, later." "Don't be so hard on yourself." "Love God now..." "Let later come later." "`Anyway, your coming back to life is not so big a miracle." "What's wrong?" "You leave my miracle alone!" "You were alive before." "I wasn't." "That is not true." "I came alive when I started loving you." "It'll be a short life, Jack." "It's a life." "Most people know that they want something that cannot be had in this world." "One has a glimpse of a country where everyone is filled with what we should call goodness." "As a mirror is filled with light." "They do not call it goodness, they do not call it anything." "They're too busy looking at the source from which it comes." "But this is near the stage where the road passes over the rim of our world." "No one's eyes can see very far beyond that." "Mr Lewis." "I don't mind it for me." "I mind it for you." "Bad?" "Bad." "Shall I call the hospital?" "Tomorrow." "Jack... is it worth it?" "As long as we have each other." "And afterwards?" "I may need a bit of help." "I love you so much, Joy..." "I can't bear to see you in pain!" "Pain doesn't matter." "Keeps me quiet..." "I was always such a noisy one." "When it gets close, you'll find out if you really believe or not." "This is just shadows." "That's what you always say." "Real life hasn't begun yet." "You just better be right!" " John." " Yes, Douglas?" "Is Mommy gonna die?" "She might." "We have to be ready for it." "Can't YOU do something?" "I'm afraid not." "You know how frightened everyone is at dying." "When it comes to the point you don't have any choice." "It's like being arrested." "Might as well go quietly." "I don't want you to go, Joy." "I try to imagine it." "It HAS to be more than I can imagine." "More than WE can imagine, Jack." "Nearly all my stories have been about Heaven." "I have never stopped trying to imagine that." "Your pictures of Heaven... ..was how I came to love you." "Even before I met you." "Do you still love me, when you see the real thing?" "I'm like those foreign correspondents who report the war from the hotel bar." "I've never been under fire." "Your turn will come." "When it does, then it's allowed." "Will you be there to help me?" "Let them try and stop me." "You're better at this than I am." "No..." "It's always easier for the one who goes first." "I've much more to say." "I've always been bad with feelings." "Talking about feelings..." "You know that." "I love you, Joy." "I love you so much..." "You made me so happy." "I never thought I could be so happy." "You're the truest person I've ever known." "Sweet Jesus be with my beloved wife, Joy." "Forgive me for loving her too much." "Have mercy on us both." "Jack..." "Go to bed..." "Get some rest." "How's the pain?" "Not too good." "Only shadows, Joy." "Only shadows..." "..to the hearts and minds..." "and the love of God the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ" "The love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost." "Be with us all now." "and for evermore..." "Amen" "For as much as it has pleased Almighty God the Sovereign Lord of life and death to take unto Himself the soul of the departed we therefore commit the body to the elements earth to earth... ashes to ashes dust to dust." "Thank God for your faith, Jack." "Yes, thank God for your faith." "It's only faith that makes any sense, at times like this." "No!" "It won't do, Harry!" "This is a mess, and that is all there is to it!" "Nobody had told me it felt so like fear." "I'm not afraid." "But the sensation is like being afraid." "What is it you're afraid of, Jack?" "Not afraid of never seeing her again." "Not afraid of my own grief." "I'm afraid of thinking that suffering is just suffering, after all." "No cause, no purpose." "No pattern." "No sense." "Just pain in a world of pain." "Jack..." "About the boys..." "David, he's just angry, that's alright..." "I can understand that." " But Douglas..." " What about Douglas?" "Jack, your grief is your own business..." "You feel life is a mess.." "Perhaps it IS for you." "But the boy's only 8." "Talk to him." "I don't know what to say." "Just talk to him." "Warnie..." "Why can't I remember her face." "Oh, I still believe in God." "That's not the problem." "What sort of a God?" "A loving God?" "He wasn't very loving to Joy." "We don't know what's best for us, Jack." "We're not The Creature." "We're the creatures." "Creatures!" "Harry, I'm thinking the most terrible thoughts." "What if we're like rats in a laboratory..." "Part of some cosmic experiment." "For our own good, of course." "God the vivisectionist." "That's your grief talking, Jack." "What was talking before?" "My complacency?" "All we can do is to hold on to our faith." "Faith in what?" "I turn to God, now that I really need Him, and what do I find?" "A door slammed in my face." "The sound of bolting and double-bolting." "After that... silence." "It's like being in prison." "Imagine a man in total darkness..." "He thinks, because he can see nothing, that he is in a dungeon." "In the middle of that darkness, he hears a sound." "The sound is brief and comes from far away." "Perhaps the sound of waves..." "Of wind in the trees" "And for a time he senses he's not in a dungeon but in the open air." "Nothing in his situation has changed." "He still waits in darkness." "Although now he knows the unseen world is greater than anything he can imagine." "It was THEN that I remembered her." "A true set memory." "It came at the same moment I sensed that the door was neither shut nor bolted." "Was it EVER shut?" "Was it bolted on the inside by my own desperate need?" "They say that a drowning swimmer can't be saved, if he is too fearful." "As he grabs and clutches his rescuers." "I remembered her last night." "Make it any easier?" "Nothing does that." "Still a mess, eh?" "If you were God, and you created man and a woman, what would you do?" "Let them love each other, and then lose each other?" "Or keep them safe from both the love and the pain." "I'd let them choose for themselves." "Yes." "Do you wish you'd chosen differently?" "No." "I loved your mother very much." "That's OK." "I loved her too much." "She knew that." "She said to me "Is it worth it?"" "She knew how it'd be later." "Doesn't seem fair, does it?" "If you want the love, you have to have the pain." "I don't see why she had to get sick." "Nor me." "You can't hold on to things, you have to let them go." "Jack..." "Yeah?" "Do you believe in Heaven?" "Yes, I believe in heaven." "Real life hasn't begun yet." "All this is just shadows." "I don't believe in Heaven." "I sure would like to see her again." "Me, too!" "We could swim here in summer" "Do you know how to swim?" "Sure." "Do you know how to dive?" "No." "I could teach you." "OK!" "When the summer comes we could come back here where the water is deep enough... ..and I'll teach you how to dive." "OK!" "Subtitles by FatPlank for KG"