The Treason of Isengard (4 page)

Where necessary to distinguish rough revision in draft and the fair copy manuscript based on it I shall call the former 'A' and the latter 'B'

for the purpose of this chapter.

The revision of this period came very near to attaining the text of FR

Book I through a great part of its length, though with certain major and notable exceptions; and in what follows a host of minor changes is to be presupposed, since there would be little purpose in spelling them out. It is indeed remarkable to see that by the end of 1939 the story as far as Rivendell had been brought, after so many and such meticulous revisions, to a point where one could read the greater part of it and scarcely suspect any difference from FR without careful comparison; yet at this time my father was without any clear conception of what lay before him.

In my account chapter by chapter of the 'fourth phase' I shall concentrate on the major elements of reconstruction that belong to this time.

Chapter I: 'A Long-expected Party'.

The sixth or 'third phase' version of this chapter (VI.314-15) was heavily reworked in certain passages, bringing the story at almost all points virtually to the form in FR. The substantial rider added at the beginning, introducing the story of the youth of Peregrin Boffin or Trotter (see VI.384-6), was rejected when the decision was finally taken that Trotter was a Man, and does not appear in the fair copy B.

Many changes reflect suggestions in the notes dated August 1939

given in VI.370 ff., and some new features derive from the notes and outlines given in Chapter I of this book. Thus Bilbo took with him 'a bundle wrapped in old cloths': his 'elf-armour' (see VI.371-2). Now, just as in FR (p. 40), he put the envelope on the mantlepiece (but suddenly took it down and stuck it in his pocket), and Gandalf entered at that moment (changing the previous story, in which Gandalf met Bilbo at the bottom of the hill, VI.315). Their conversation (for the form of it before this revision see VI.238-40) becomes exactly as in FR, as far as 'It's time he was his own master now' (p. 41), and this clearly derives from the 'August 1939' note given in VI.374: 'Neither Bilbo nor Gandalf must know much about the Ring, when Bilbo departs. Bilbo's motive is simply tiredness, an unexplained restlessness...' Bilbo's words about his book, which Gandalf says nobody will read, are taken up from the note given in VI.371. But here this

'fourth phase' version shows a significant difference from FR: for there is no quarrel between them as yet,' though it hovers on the verge of being devised (on the first germ of the quarrel see VI.378 - 9). I give the passage in the form of the fair copy B (which the draft A approaches very closely):

'Everything?' said Gandalf. 'The ring as well?'

'Well, or yes I suppose so,' stammered Bilbo.

'Where is it?'

'I put it in an envelope for him, and put it on the mantle - well no! Isn't that odd now! Here it is in my pocket!'

Gandalf looked again very hard at Bilbo, and his eyes glinted.

'I think, Bilbo,' he said quietly, 'I should leave it with him. Don't you want to?

'Well yes - and yet it seems very difficult to part with it somehow. Why do you want me to leave it behind?' he asked, and a curious note of suspicion came into his voice. 'You are always worrying about it lately, but you have never bothered me about the other things I got on my journey.'

'Magic rings are - well, magic,' answered Gandalf; 'and they are not, nowadays, very common. Let's say that I am profes-sionally interested in your ring, and would like to know where it is. Also I think you have had it long enough. You won't want it any more, Bilbo, unless I am quite mistaken.'

'Oh, very well,' said Bilbo. 'It would be a relief, in a way, not to be bothered with it. It has been rather growing on my mind lately. Sometimes I have felt that it was like an eye looking at me;(3) and I am always wanting to put it on and disappear, don't you know, or wondering if it is safe and pulling it out to make sure. I tried leaving it locked up, but I found I couldn't rest without it in my pocket. I don't know why. Well! Now I must be starting, or somebody else will catch me. I have said good-bye, and I couldn't bear to do it all over again.' He picked up his bag and moved towards the door.

'You have still got the ring in your pocket,' said the wizard.

'So I have, and my will and all the other documents too!' cried Bilbo. 'I had better give them to you to deliver to Frodo. That will be safest.' He held out the envelope, but just as Gandalf was about to take it, Bilbo's hand jerked and the envelope fell on the floor. Quick as lightning the wizard stooped and seized it, before Bilbo could pick it up. An odd look passed over the hobbit's face, almost like anger. Suddenly it gave way to a look of relief and a smile.

'Well, that's that!' he said. 'Now I'm off!'

From this point the revision brings the narrative almost to the final form. The dwarves, now three and no longer named, play only the same role as in FR; and when Frodo returns to Bag End he finds Gandalf sitting in the dark, whereupon the conversation between them in FR (pp. 44-5) follows. A minute but characteristically subtle difference remaining is that it is not said, in the passage just cited, that when the envelope fell to the floor Gandalf 'set it in its place' on the mantlepiece; and now Gandalf says to Frodo: 'He left a packet with me to give to you. Here it is!' Then Frodo took the envelope from the wizard. In FR Gandalf pointed to it on the mantelpiece; he would not sit waiting for Frodo with the envelope containing the Ring in his hand.

Once again the list of Bilbo's labelled legacies changes (see VI.247), in that Uffo Took now receives the final name Adelard, while the somnolent Rollo Bolger, recipient of the feather-bed, makes his last appearance, his first name changed to Odovacar, in A; in B he has gone.

The conversation between Gandalf and Frodo at Bag End on the following day (see VI.242-3) now becomes precisely as in FR with, of course, the one major difference that there is no reference to the variant stories which, Bilbo had told concerning his acquisition of the Ring (p. 49). The rewriting of this conversation again clearly springs from the note of August 1939 (VI.374) referred to above, to the effect that Gandalf still did not know very much about the Ring at this time; for Gandalf now knows less about it than he had done. He no longer warns Frodo against allowing it to gain power over him, nor is there now any mention in their conversation of Bilbo's state of 'preservation', and his restlessness, as concomitants of his possession of the Ring.

The revision got rid of the Dwarf Lofar, who had previously remained at Bag End after Bilbo's departure with the other Dwarves, but at first provided no dear substitute for Frodo's aide-de-camp whose task (as it turned out) was to receive the Sackville-Bagginses. In the fair copy B this is Merry, as in FR; but in the draft revision A my father replaced Lofar by one scribbled name after another: 'Merry' >

'Peregrin Boffin' > 'Folco Took'; at subsequent occurrences in this episode 'Peregrin Boffin' > 'Folco', and once 'Peregrin' retained.

'Peregrin Boffin' had been moved from the role of Trotter in his youth, but survived as one of Frodo's intimates: as such we have already met him (pp. 8, 11). See further pp. 30-2.

Chapter II: 'Ancient History'

This chapter (ultimately one of the most worked upon in all The Lord of the Rings) underwent very substantial rewriting at this time in certain passages, but remained still in important respects far different from 'The Shadow of the Past' in FR. The 'third phase' manuscript (VI.318 ff.), not much changed in substance from the second version (VI.250 ff.), was reduced to a wreck in the process; and here again my father made a new text (B) of the chapter, taking up all this rough correction and new writing (A), but incorporated into the new manuscript those parts of the old that were retained more or less intact, so that the new version is again textually a hybrid.

In draft revision of the beginning of the chapter Frodo's 'closest companions were Folco Took [pencilled above: Faramond] and Meriadoc Brandybuck (usually called Merry), both a few years younger than himself' (cf. VI.318); in B his companions become Faramond Took, Peregrin Boffin, and Hamilcar Bolger, while his closest friend was Merry Brandybuck. With this cf. the notes given on p. 8. In the drafts (A) the names Folco, Faramond, Peregrin, shift and replace each other at every occurrence, and it is scarcely possible to say whether characters or merely names are in question.

Otherwise, the new version reaches the final form in most respects for a long stretch. The chronology of Gandalf s visits to Bag End, from the Party to the time of this chapter, becomes precisely that of FR (p.

55); but the passage (FR pp. 52-3) concerning the 'rumours of strange things happening in the world outside' was at this stage left virtually unchanged - which means that it still essentially took the form it had in the second version, VI.253-The first part of the conversation between Gandalf and Frodo now takes a great step towards that in FR (pp. 55-6; cf. VI.319), but Gandalf as yet says nothing of the making of rings 'in Eregion long ago', nor does he speak here of the Great Rings, the Rings of Power.

Though his words are the same as in FR, they apply only to the ring in Frodo's possession: thus he says 'Those who keep this ring do not die,'

&c. His account of Bilbo's knowledge of and feeling about his ring are very much as in FR, but he says here that Bilbo '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)