_The Unenchanted Plain_
When Alveric understood that he had lost Elfland it was already evening
and he had been gone two days and a night from Erl. For the second time
he lay down for the night on that shingly plain whence Elfland had ebbed
away: and at sunset the eastern horizon showed clear against turquoise
sky, all black and jagged with rocks, without any sign of Elfland. And
the twilight glimmered, but it was Earth's twilight, and not that dense
barrier for which Alveric looked, which lies between Elfland and Earth.
And the stars came out and were the stars we know, and Alveric slept
below their familiar constellations.
He awoke in the birdless dawn very cold, hearing old voices crying
faintly far off, as they slowly drifted away, like dreams going back to
dreamland. He wondered if they would come to Elfland again, or if
Elfland had ebbed too far. He searched all the horizon eastwards, and
still saw nothing but the rocks of that desolate land. So he turned
again toward the fields we know.
He walked back through the cold with all his impatience gone; and
gradually some warmth came to him from walking, and later a little from
the autumnal sun. He walked all day, and the sun was growing huge and
red when he came again to the leather-worker's cottage. He asked for
food, and the old man made him welcome: his pot was already simmering
for his own evening meal: and it was not long before Alveric was sitting
at the old table before a dish full of squirrels' legs, hedge-hogs and
rabbit's meat. The old man would not eat till Alveric had eaten, but
waited on him with such solicitude that Alveric felt that the moment of
his opportunity was come, and turned to the old man as he offered him a
piece of the back of a rabbit, and approached the subject of Elfland.
"The twilight is further away," said Alveric.
"Yes, yes," said the old man without any meaning in his voice, whatever
he had in his mind.
"When did it go?" said Alveric.
"The twilight, master?" said his host.
"Yes," said Alveric.
"Ah, the twilight," the old man said.
"The barrier," said Alveric, and he lowered his voice, although he knew
not why, "between here and Elfland."
At the word Elfland all comprehension faded out of the old man's eyes.
"Ah," he said.
"Old man," said Alveric, "you know where Elfland has gone."
"Gone?" said the old man.
That innocent surprise, thought Alveric, must be real; but at least he
knew where it had been; it used to be only two fields away from his
door.
"Elfland was in the next field once," said Alveric.
And the old man's eyes roved back into the past, and he gazed as it
were on old days awhile, then he shook his head. And Alveric fixed him
with his eye.
"You knew Elfland," he exclaimed.
Still the old man did not answer.
"You knew where the border was," said Alveric.
"I am old," said the leather-worker, "and I have no one to ask."
When he said that, Alveric knew that he was thinking of his old wife,
and he knew too that had she been alive and standing there at that
moment yet he would have had no news of Elfland: there seemed little
more to say. But a certain petulance held him to the subject after he
knew it to be hopeless.
"Who lives to the East of here?" he said.
"To the East?" the old man replied. "Master, are there not North and
South and West that you needs must look to the East?"
There was a look of entreaty in his face but Alveric did not heed it.
"Who lives to the East?" he said.
"Master, no one lives to the East," he answered. And that indeed was
true.
"What used to be there?" said Alveric.
And the old man turned away to see to the stewing of his pot, and
muttered as he turned, so that one hardly heard him.
"The past," he said.
No more would the old man say, nor explain what he had said. So Alveric
asked him if he could have a bed for the night, and his host showed him
the old bed he remembered across that vague number of years. And Alveric
accepted the bed without more ado so as to let the old man go to his own
supper. And very soon Alveric was deep asleep, warm and resting at last,
while his host turned over slowly in his mind many things of which
Alveric had supposed he knew nothing.
When the birds of our fields woke Alveric, singing late in the last of
October, on a morning that reminded them of Spring, he rose and went out
of doors, and went to the highest part of the little field that lay on
the windowless side of the old man's house toward Elfland. There he
looked eastward and saw all the way to the curved line of the sky the
same barren, desolate, rocky plain that had been there yesterday and the
day before. Then the leather-worker gave him breakfast, and afterwards
he went out and looked again at the plain. And over his dinner, which
his host timidly shared, Alveric neared once more the subject of
Elfland. And something in the old man's sayings or silences made Alveric
hopeful that even yet he would have some news of the whereabouts of the
pale-blue Elfin Mountains. So he brought the old man out and turned to
the East, to which his companion looked with reluctant eyes; and
pointing to one particular rock, the most noticeable and near, said,
hoping for definite news of a definite thing, "How long has that rock
been there?"
And the answer came to his hopes like hail to apple-blossom: "It is
there and we must make the best of it."
The unexpectedness of the answer dazed Alveric; and when he saw that
reasonable questions about definite things brought him no logical answer
he despaired of getting practical information to guide his fantastic
journey. So he walked on the eastward side of the cottage all the
afternoon, watching the dreary plain, and it never changed or moved: no
pale-blue mountains appeared, no Elfland came flooding back: and evening
came and the rocks glowed dully with the low rays of the sun, and
darkened when it set, changing with all Earth's changes, but with no
enchantment of Elfland. Then Alveric decided on a great journey.
He returned to the cottage and told the leather-worker that he needed to
buy much provisions, as much as he could carry. And over supper they
planned what he should have. And the old man promised to go next day
amongst the neighbours; telling of all the things he would get from
each, and somewhat more if God should prosper his snaring. For Alveric
had determined to travel eastward till he found the lost land.
And Alveric slept early, and slept long, till the last of his fatigue
was gone which came from his pursuit of Elfland: the old man woke him as
he came back from his snaring. And the creatures that he had snared the
old man put in his pot and hung it over his fire, while Alveric ate his
breakfast. And all the morning the leather-worker went from house to
house amongst his neighbours, dwelling on little farms at the edge of
the fields we know; and he got salted meats from some, bread from one, a
cheese from another, and came back burdened to his house in time to
prepare dinner.
And all the provender that burdened the old man Alveric shouldered in a
sack, and some he put in his wallet; and he filled his water-bottle and
two more besides that his host had made from large skins, for he had
seen no streams at all in the desolate land; and thus equipped he walked
some way from the cottage, and looked again at the land from which
Elfland had ebbed. He came back satisfied that he could carry provisions
for a fortnight.
And in the evening while the old man prepared pieces of squirrels' meat
Alveric stood again on the windowless side of the cottage, gazing still
across the lonely land, hoping always to see emerge from the clouds
that were colouring at sunset, those serene pale-blue mountains; and
seeing never a peak. And the sun set, and that was the last of October.
Next morning Alveric made a good meal in the cottage; then took his
heavy burden of provisions, and paid his host and started. The door of
the cottage opened toward the West and the old man cordially saw him
away from his door with godspeed and farewells, but he would not move
round his house to watch him going eastward; nor would he speak of that
journey: it was as though to him there were only three points of the
compass.
The bright autumnal sun was not yet high when Alveric went from the
fields we know to the land that Elfland had left and that nothing else
went near, with his big sack over his shoulder and his sword at his
side. The may trees of memory that he had seen were all withered now,
and the old songs and voices that had haunted that land were all now
faint as sighs; and there seemed to be fewer of them, as though some had
already died or had struggled back to Elfland.
All that day Alveric travelled, with the vigour that waits at the
beginning of journeys, which helped him on though he was burdened with
so much provisions, and a big blanket that he wore like a heavy cloak
round his shoulders; and he carried besides a bundle of firewood, and a
stave in his right hand. He was an incongruous figure with his stave and
his sack and his sword; but he followed one idea, one inspiration, one
hope; and so shared something of the strangeness that all men have who
do this.
Halting at noon to eat and rest he went slowly on again and walked till
evening: even then he did not rest as he had intended, for when twilight
fell and lay heavy along the eastern sky he continually rose from his
resting and went a little further to see if it might not be that dense
deep twilight that made the frontier of the fields we know, shutting
them off from Elfland. But it was always earthly twilight, until the
stars came out, and they were all the familiar stars that look on Earth.
Then he lay down among those unrounded and mossless rocks, and ate bread
and cheese and drank water; and as the cold of night began to come over
the plain he lit a small fire with his scanty bundle of wood and lay
close to it with his cloak and his blanket round him; and before the
embers were black he was sound asleep.
Dawn came without sound of bird or whisper of leaves or grasses, dawn
came in dead silence and cold; and nothing on all that plain gave a
welcome back to the light.
If darkness had lain forever upon those angular rocks it were better,
Alveric thought, as he saw their shapeless companies sullenly glowing;
darkness were better now that Elfland was gone. And though the misery of
that disenchanted place entered his spirit with the chill of the dawn,
yet his fiery hope still shone, and gave him little time to eat by the
cold black circle of his lonely fire before it hurried him onward
easterly over the rocks. And all that morning he travelled on without
the comradeship of a blade of grass. The golden birds that he had seen
before had long since fled back to Elfland, and the birds of our fields
and all living things we know shunned all that empty waste. Alveric
travelled as much alone as a man who goes back in memory to revisit
remembered scenes, and instead of remembered scenes he was in a place
from which every glamour had gone. He travelled somewhat lighter than on
the day before, but he went more wearily, for he felt more heavily now
the fatigue of the previous day. He rested long at mid-day and then went
on. The myriad rocks stretched on and slightly jagged the horizon, and
all day there came no glimpse of the pale-blue mountains. That evening
from his dwindling provision of wood Alveric made another fire; its
little flame going up alone in that waste seemed somehow to reveal the
monstrous loneliness. He sat by his fire and thought of Lirazel and
would not give up hope, though a glance at those rocks might have warned
him not to hope, for something in their chaotic look partook of the
plain that bred them, and they hinted it to be infinite.