The Treason of Isengard Read Online Free PDF Page B

'knew, of course, that it made one invisible, if it encircled any part of the body.' In rejected drafts for this passage occur the following:

    He certainly had not yet begun to connect his long life and 'good preservation' with the ring - but he had begun to feel the restlessness that is the first symptom of the stretching of the days.

    On that last evening I saw plainly that the ring was trying to keep hold of him and prevent his parting with it. But he was not yet conscious of it himself. And certainly he had no idea that it would have made him permanently invisible, nor that his long life and
    'good preservation' - how the expression annoyed him! - had anything to do with it.

    From Frodo's question at the end of Gandalf s remarks about Bilbo, the new version retains the existing text (VI.319) concerning Gandalf's memories, but is then developed quite differently, though still far from that of FR (p. 57):

    'How long have you known?' asked Frodo again.
    'I knew very little of these things at first,' answered Gandalf slowly, as if searching back in memory. The days of Bilbo's journey and the Dragon and the Battle of Five Armies seemed dim and far off, and many other dark and strange adventures had befallen him since. 'Let me see - it was after the White Council in the South that I first began to give serious thought to Bilbo's ring. There was much talk of rings at the Council: even wizards have much to learn as long as they live, however long that may be. There are many sorts of ring, of course. Some are no more than toys (though dangerous ones to my mind), and not difficult to contrive if you go in for such things - they are not in my line. But what I heard made me think a good deal, though I said nothing to Bilbo. All seemed well with him. I thought he was safe enough from any evil of that sort. I was nearly right but not quite right. Perhaps I should have been more suspicious, and have found out the truth sooner than I did
    - yet if I had, I don't know what else could have been done.
    'Then, of course, I noticed that he did not seem to grow older.
    But the whole thing seemed so unlikely that I did not get seriously alarmed, never until the night he left this house. He said and did things then that were unmistakeable signs of something wrong. From that moment my chief anxiety was to get him to go and give up the ring. And I have spent most of the years since in finding out the truth about it.'
    'There wasn't any permanent harm done, was there?' asked Frodo anxiously. 'He would get right in time, wouldn't he - be able to rest in peace, I mean?'
    'That I don't know for certain,' said Gandalf. 'There is only one [added: Power] in this world who knows all about the ring and its effects. But I don't think you need fear for him. Of course, if anyone possessed the ring for many years, it would probably take a long while for the effects to wear off. How long is not really known. He might live for ages. But not wearily, I think. He would, I now believe, just stop as he was when he parted with the ring; and would be happy, if he parted with it of his own accord and with good intent. Though as far as I know that has only happened once. I was not troubled about dear Bilbo any more, once he had let the ring go. It is for you that I feel responsible...'(5)

    There is of course no reference here to Bilbo's 'two stories' of how he came by the Ring; nor does Saruman appear. Yet Gandalf's mention of the discussion of Rings at the White Council, and his suggestion that there are wizards who, unlike himself, 'go in for such things', prepares the place that Saruman would fill when he had arisen

    - although, characteristically, he did not arise in order to fill that place.
    The new version introduced no changes into Gandalf s account of the Ruling Ring and its history (for the text as it had developed through the three preceding versions see VI.78, 258-61, 319-20): indeed almost all of this part of the chapter is constituted from pages taken