Once & Future King 05 - The Book of Merlyn Read Online Free PDF

time," continued the necromancer in a grim voice, "have exactly three ideas in their magnificent noodles. The first is that the human species is superior to others. The 17
    second, that the twentieth century is superior to other centuries. And the third, that human adults of the twentieth century are superior to their young. The whole illusion may be labelled Progress, and anybody who questions it is called puerile, reactionary, or an escapist. The March of Mind, God help them."
    He considered these facts for some time, then added: "And a fourth piece of scientific clap-trap which they are to have, rejoices in the name of anthropomorphism. Even their children are supposed to be so superior to the animals that you must never mention the two creatures in the same breath. If you begin considering men as animals, they put it the other way round and say that you are considering animals as men, a sin which they hold to be worse than bigamy. Imagine a scientist being merely an animal, they say! Tut-tut, and Tilly-fol-de-rido!"
    "Who are these readers?"
    "The readers of the book."
    "What book?"
    "The book we are in."
    "Are we in a book?"
    "We had better attend to the job," said Merlyn hastily.
    He took hold of his wand, rolled up his sleeves, and fixed a tight eye on the patient. "Do you agree?" he asked.
    But the old king stopped him.
    "No," he said, with a sort of firm apology. "I have earned my body and mind with many years of labour. It would be undignified to change them. I am not too proud to be a child, Merlyn,
    18 but too old. If it were my body which were to be made young, it would be unsuitable to keep an old mind in it. While, if you were to change them both, the labour of living all those years would turn to vanity. There is nothing else for it, Master. We must keep the state of life to which it has pleased God to call us."
    The magician lowered the wand.
    "But your brain," he complained. "It is like a fossilised sponge. And would you not have liked to be young, to frisk about and feel your knees again? Young people are happy, are they not? We had meant it for a pleasure."
    "It would indeed have been a pleasure, and thank you for thinking of it. But life is not invented for happiness, I do believe. It is made for something else."
    Merlyn chewed the end of his stick while he considered.
    "You are right," he said in the end. "I was against the proposal from the start. But something will have to be done to souple your intellects, for all that, or you will never catch the new idea. I suppose there would be no objection to a cerebral massage, if I could manage it? I should have to get my galvanic batteries, my extra-reds and under-violets: my french chalk and my pinches of this and that: a touch of adrenalin and a sniff of garlic. You know the kind of thing?"
    "No, if you think it is right."
    He extended his hand into the ether, with a well-remembered gesture, and the apparatus began to materialise obediently: muddled up as usual.
    THE TREATMENT WAS UNPLEASANT. It Was like having one's hair brushed vigorously the wrong way, or like having a sprained ankle flexed by that dreadful kind of masseuse who urges people to relax. The king gripped the arms of his chair, closed his eyes, clenched his teeth and sweated. When he opened them for the second time that evening, it was on a different world.
    "Good heavens!" he exclaimed, jumping to his feet. In leaving the chair he did not take his weight upon his wrists, like an old man, but upon the palms and phalanges. "Look at the dog's hollow eyes! The candles are reflected from the back, not from the front, as if it were from the bottom of a cup. Why have I never noticed this before? And look here: there is a hole in Bathsheba's bath, which needs darning. What is this entry in the book? Susp.?* Who has betrayed us into hanging people? Nobody deserves to be hanged. Merlyn, why is there no reflection from your eyes, when I put the candles between us? Why have I never thought about it? The