2008-05-06

Day 44 Some More....




And I thought to myself, oh dear, how ever many skins have I got to take off? For I was longing to bathe my leg. So I scratched away for a third time and got off a third skin, just like the others and stepped out of it. But as soon as I looked at myself in the water I knew it had been no good.

Then the lion said "you will have to let me undress you". I was afraid of his claws, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him.

The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I had ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off

He peeled the beastly stuff right off- just as I thought I'd done it myself the other three times, only they hadn't hurt- and there it was lying on the grass; only looking ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. And there was I as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been.

Then he caught hold of me- I didn't like that very much for I was tender underneath for I had no skin on- and threw me in the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why.

I'd turned into a boy again.


Eustace, on trying to remove his dragon-skin.
From "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" book 5 of the Chronicles of Narnia


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