The Wake World

You mustn't suppose the honeymoon is ever really over, because it just isn't. But he said to me: "Princess, you haven't been all over the Palace yet. Your special House is the Third, you know, because it's so convenient for the Second where I usually live. The King my Father lives in the First; he's never to be seen, you know He's very, very old nowadays; I am practically Regent of course. You must never forget that I am really He; only one generation back is not so far, and I entirely represent his thought. Soon," he whispered ever so softly, "you will be a mother; there will be a Fairy Prince again to run away with another pretty little Sleepy head. Then I saw that when Fairy Princes were really and truly married they became Fairy Kings; and that I was quite wrong ever to be ashamed of being only a little girl and afraid of spoiling his prospects, because really, you see, he could never become King and have a son, a Fairy Prince without me.

But one can only do that by getting to the Third House, and it's a dreadful journey, I do most honestly assure you.

There are two passages, one from the Eighth House and one from the Sixth; the first is all water, and the second is almost worse, because you have to balance yourself so carefully, or you fall and hurt yourself.

To go through the first you must be painted all over with blood up to your waist, and cross your legs, and then put a rope round one angle and swing you off. I had such a pretty white petticoat on, and my Prince said I looked just like a white pyramid with a huge red cross on the top of it, which made me ever so glad, because now I knew I should be the Saviour of the World, which is what one wants to be, isn't it? Only sometimes the world means all the other children in the dream, and sometimes the dream itself, and sometimes the wake-things one sees before one is quite, quite awake. The Prince tells me that really and truly only the First House where his Father lives was really a wake-house, all the others had a little sleep about them, and the further you got the more awake you were, and began to know just how much was dream and how much wake.

Then there was the other passage where there was a narrow ledge of green crystal, which was all you had to walk on, and there was a beautiful blue feather balancing on the edge, and if you disturbed the feather there was a lady with a sword, and she would cut off your head. So I didn't dare hardly to breathe, and all around there were thousands and thousands of beautiful people in green who danced and danced like anything, and at the end there was the terrible door of the Fifth House, which is the Royal armoury. And when we came in the House was full of steel machinery, some red hot and some white hot, and the din was simply fearful. So to get the noise out of my head, I took the whip and whipped myself till all my blood poured down over everything, and I saw the whole House as a cataract of foaming blood rushing headlong from the flaming and scintillating Star of Fire that blazed and blazed in the candescent dome, and everything went red before my eyes, and a great flame like a strong wind blew through the House with a noise louder than any thunder could possibly be, so that I couldn't hold myself hardly, and I took up the sharp knives of the machines and cut myself all over, and the noise got louder and louder, and the flame burnt through me and through me, so that I when my Prince said: "You wouldn't think it, would you, sweetheart? But there are lots of people who stay here all their lives."

There are three ways into the Fourth House from below. The first passage is a very curious place, all full of wheels and ever such strange creatures, like monkeys and sphinxes and jackals climbing about them and trying to get to the top. It was very silly, because there isn't really any top to a wheel at all; the place you want to get to is the centre, if you want to be quiet. Then there was a really lovely passage, like a deep wood in Springtime, the dearest old man came along who had lived there all his life, because he was the guardian of it, and he didn't need to travel because he belonged to the First House really from the very beginning. He wore a vast cloak, and he carried a lamp and a long stick; and he said that the cloak meant you were to be silent and not say anything you saw, and the lamp meant you were to tell everybody and make them glad, and the stick was like a guide to tell you which to do. But I didn't quite believe that, because I am getting a grown-up girl now, and I wasn't to be put off like that. I could see that the stick was really the measuring rod with which the whole Palace was built, and the lamp was the only light they had to build it by, and the cloak was the abyss of darkness that covers it all up. That is why dream people never see beautiful things like I'm telling you about. All their houses are built of common red bricks, and they sit in them all day and play silly games with counters, and oh! Dear me, how they do chat and quarrel. When any one gets a million counters, he is so glad you can't think, and goes away and tries to change some of the counters for things he really wants, and he can't, so you nearly die of laughing, though of course it would be really sad if it were wake-life. But I was telling you about the ways to the Fourth House, and the third way is full of lions, and a person might be afraid; only whenever one comes to bite at you, there is a lovely lady who puts her hands in its mouth and shuts it. So we went through quite safely, and I thought of Daniel in the lions' den.

The Fourth House is the most wonderful of all I had ever seen. It is the most heavenly blue mansion; it is built of beryl and amethyst, and lapis lazuli and turquoise and sapphire. The centre of the floor is a pool of purest aquamarine, and in it is water, only you can see every drop as a separate crystal, and the blue tinge filtering through the light. Above there hangs a calm yet mighty globe of deep sapphirine blue. Round it there were nine mirrors, and there is a noise that means when you understand it, "Joy! Joy! Joy!" There are violet flames darting through the air, each one a little sob of happy love. One began to see what the dream-world was really for at last; every time any one kissed any one for real love, that was a little throb of violet flame in this beautiful House in the Wake-World. And we bathed and swam in the pool, and were so happy you can't think. But they said: "Little girl, you must pay for the entertainment." [I forgot to tell you there was music like fountains make as they rise and fall, only of course much more wonderful than that.] So I asked what I must pay, and they said: "You are now mistress of all these houses from the Fourth to the Ninth. You have managed the Servants' Hall well enough since your marriage; now you must manage the others, because till you do you can never go on to the Third House." So I said: "It seems to me that they are all in perfectly good order." But they took me up in the air, and then I saw that the outsides were horribly disfigured with great advertisements, and every single house had written all over it:

FIRST HOUSE

This is his Majesty's favourite Residence. No other genuine. Beware of worthless imitations. Come in here and spend life! Come in here and see the Serpent eat his Tail!

So I was furious, as you may imagine, and had men go and put all the proper numbers on them, and a little sarcastic remark to make them ashamed; so they read:

Fifth House, and mostly dream at that.

Seventh House. External splendour and internal corruption. and so on. And on each one I put "No thoroughfare from here to the First House. The only way is out of doors. By order."

This was frightfully annoying, because in the old days we could walk about inside everywhere, and not get wet if it rained, but nowadays there isn't any way from the Fourth to the Third House. You could go of course by chariot from the Fifth to the Third, or go through the House where the twins live from the Sixth to the Third, but that isn't allowed unless you have been to the Fourth House too, and go from there at the same time.

It was here they told me what T.A.R.O. on the ring meant. First it means gate, and it is the name of my Fairy Prince, when you spell it in full letter by letter.

There are seventy-eight parts to it, which makes a perfect plan of the whole Palace, so you can always find your way, if you remember to say T.A.R.O.. Then you remember I.N.R.I. is short for L.V.X., which means the brilliance of the wide-wake Light, and that too is the name of my Fairy Prince only spelt short.

The Romans said it had sixty-five parts, which is five times thirteen, and seventy-eight is six times thirteen. To get into the Wake World you must know your thirteen times table quite well. So if you take them both together that makes eleven times thirteen, and then you say "Abrahadabra," which is a most mysterious word, because it has eleven letters in it. You remember the Houses are numbered both ways, so that the Third House is called the Eighth House too, and the Fifth the Sixth, and so on. But you can't tell what lovely things that means till you've been through them all, and got to the very end. So when you look at the Ring and see I.N.R.I. and T.A.R.O. on it that means that it is like a policeman keeping on saying "Pass along, please!" I would have liked to stay in the Fourth House all my life, but I began to see it was just a little dream House too; and I couldn't rest, because my own House was the very next one. But it's too awful to tell you how to get there. You want the most fearful lot of courage, and there's nobody to help you, nobody at all, and there's no proper passage. But it's frightfully exciting, and you must wait till next time before I tell you how I started on that horrible journey, and if I ever got there or not.