Chapter II: The Lurch

[_Tyltyl._ “It seems hardly worth while, then, to take so much trouble.”--_The Betrothal._]

I am afraid this little Guiggol has somehow got mixed up With M. Maeterlinck; but the two schools have, of course, a good deal in common, so it should work out fairly well.

The play opens in The Place Which is Neither Here nor There; it seems to be a high hill entirely surrounded by fog. The unfortunate _Bill Tyl_ and his sister _Methyl_[3] are doing their utmost to die, driven on by the sinister figure of _Indigestion_, which grows larger and larger as the play progresses. They meet with a good deal of opposition in their simple project, and when the play begins they have already been to the House of Uncles and The Abode of the Half-Baked for permission to die; but they always find that before they can do it they have to go to just _one_ more place for information and advice. It is like walking up one of those tiresome mountains which never seem to have a top; or it is like trying to find out which Government Department is _really_ responsible; or it is like.... But enough.

[3] Who afterwards gave her name to the celebrated spirits.

_Bill_ and _Methyl_ have now been told that they cannot die until they have gone down and rescued all the people who have been left in The Lurch during their lives; so they are discovered standing on the hill preparing to go down to The Lurch. _Indigestion_ endeavours to dissuade them, saying that they had much better go down the other side of the hill into The Limbo. But the seductive figure of _Food_ intervenes, gorgeously dressed in aspic, and eventually prevails.

At this point there is a jolly bit of dialogue.--

_Bill_ (_profoundly_). Food is good.

_The Oldest Uncle_ (_I forget how he got there_). Food is very good.

_Food_ (_mysteriously_). The food which you eat is good, but the food which you do not eat is better.

_Methyl_ (_frightened_). What does she mean?

_Bill._ I do not know what she means.

_Food._ I do not know what I mean.

_The O. U._ I do not know what the author means.

_M._ Does anybody know what he means?

_Indigestion._ He does not mean anything.

_Bill._ Oh, oh! I wish he would mean something.

_Ind._ He is pulling your leg.

The next scene is The Lurch itself, a very horrible place, where we see all the people who have been left in it wishing they could get out of it; or at least we don’t see them because the whole place is full of a dense fog; but they are there, groping about and contemplating unutterably the opaque immensities of boredom. Their hands move visibly through the vast gloom, plying the instruments of Destiny; most of them knitting. You see, they are nearly all old maids. None of them can be got out of The Lurch until those who left them in it remember them and return. There are also, of course, large crowds of old men in all stages of decay. Many of them are Colonels who have been left in The Lurch by the Government and naturally there is no hope for them. It is all extremely sad.

In low tones they do a little dialogue, like sheep bleating on the Mountains of Eternity.

_The Oldest Old Maid._ Will he never come?

_The Oldest Old Maid But One._ He will never come.

_A Frightfully Old Man._ The fog is very foggy.

_The O. O. M._ It is difficult to see things in a fog.

_The O. O. M. B. O._ If he came I should not see him.

_An Awfully Old Colonel._ You are lucky.

_The O. O. M. B. O._ I am not lucky.

_The O. O. M._ She is not lucky.

_A. F. O. M._ There must be some mistake.

_An A. O. C._ You are not waiting for the Government. That is what I meant.

_The O. O. M._ Oh, oh! He meant something.

_A. F. O. M._ There must be some mistake.

_The O. O. M. B. O._ Oh, oh! Somebody is coming.

_Bill_ and his party come in on all-fours. You cannot see them because of the fog, but you can hear them coughing. It is terrible. There is a scene of intense intensity while _Bill Tyl_ and _Methyl_ crawl about trying to find the people they have come to find. _Bill_ keeps finding the _Awfully Old Colonel_ by mistake, and this causes a great deal of emotion. The one he is after is _The Oldest Old Maid But One_, and, as she says nothing but “Oh, Oh, I cannot smell him,” instead of saying, “Here I am, Bill,” it is very difficult to identify her.

But suddenly _Methyl_ remembers that in all her blameless life _she has never left anyone in The Lurch_. (Wood-wind, _sotto voce_--and strings, _vibrato_.) The rule is that anyone who comes down to The Lurch and remembers things like that may rescue everyone who is in The Lurch at the time.

This gives general satisfaction and the whole party sets off to the top, Old Maids and all.

In the next scene we are back at The Place Which Is Neither Here Nor There again, only now we have a splendid view of The Place of Ecstasy and The Golden Sea. Also a little to the left we see the yawning chasms of The Limbo (which is only one better than The Lurch).

The Place of Ecstacy is top-hole. Gleaming unspeakably in the unimaginable radiance of the inconceivable light (80 watts), immense columns of barley-sugar melt away into space, avenue by avenue, while just below in The Golden Sea, which is entirely composed of the finest golden syrup, wallow in a refined manner Those Who Have Arrived.

The travellers feast their eyes on this vision of bliss. And now comes the terrible, Guiggolian thrill. There has been a good deal of dialogue on the way up from The Lurch, and poor _Bill_ has been brooding gloomily over the prospect of spending eternity in the same company.

All the _Old Birds_ are standing in a Violet haze of ineffable gladness on the brink, with joyous springs of orangeade bubbling at their feet and castor sugar descending in showers all round, when _Bill_ has a very naughty impulse, which I regret to say he makes no attempt to resist.

He rushes the whole crowd of _Old Birds_ over into The Limbo. Then with a great cry of joy he and _Methyl_ plunge into the _Golden Sea_.

_Food_ and _Indigestion_ are left behind--immutable, eternal....

CURTAIN

The Little Guiggols