“He was the cleverest, ugliest, most wrinkled Ape you can
imagine
… And his name was Shift.”
… And his name was Shift.”
“I’m so old that I’m so wise. And it’s because I’m so wise that I’m the
only one Aslan is ever going to speak to. … And now here’s another thing, the
Ape went on, I hear some of the horses are saying let’s hurry up and get this
job of carting timber over as quickly as we can, and we’ll be free again. Well you can get that idea out of your heads
at once. Everybody who can work is going
to be made to work in the future. Aslan
has it all settled.”
“No, no, no, howled the beasts, it can’t be true. Aslan would never sell us into slavery.”
“Hold your noise, said the Ape with a snarl. Who said anything about slavery? You
won’t be slaves. You’ll be paid –
very good wages too. That is to say, your pay will be paid into Aslan’s treasury
and he will use it all for everyone’s good. … It’s all arranged, and all
for your own good. We’ll be able,
with the money you earn, to make Narnia a
country worth living in – and roads and big cities and schools and offices
and whips and muzzles and saddles and cages and kennels and prisons – oh,
everything.”
“But we don’t want those things, said an old bear. We want
to be free.”
“Now don’t you start arguing, said the Ape. What do you know about freedom? You
think freedom means doing what you like?
Well, you’re wrong. That isn’t
true freedom. True freedom means doing
what I tell you.”
“Look! Said Tirian, it has all been a lie. Aslan has not come to Narnia at all. You have been cheated by the Ape.”
“You must think we’re bloomin’ soft in the head, said
Griffle. We’ve been taken in once and now you expect us to be taken in again
the next minute. We’ve no more use for
stories about Aslan.”
“Tirian had never dreamed that one of the results of an Ape’s setting
up a false Aslan would be to stop
people from believing in the real one. … How many other Narnians might turn the
same way?”
Excerpts
from: The Last Battle -- by C. S. Lewis. (c1956)
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