“I didn’t quite know what to say, but I told the beetle that he was entirely wrong—that I liked papa and mamma very much indeed, and rather liked almost everybody. Then I asked him how he managed to speak, being a beetle, and how he could hear me speak. He told me that neither of us had spoken a word: when I contradicted him, he said that if I had gone back to my own room I should have found that my real body was still lying asleep in bed. ‘Now,’ he pointed out, ‘you can’t speak without your body—so that is proved.’ Then he said that beetles never spoke, and that as a matter of fact we were not speaking, but just understanding each other’s silence. Still, it seemed just like speaking. We must have moved very quickly, because by this time we had got quite beyond the moon. I could see it ever so far beneath my feet, and the stars all scattered about the darkness; yet I didn’t remember passing them on our way up. I didn’t feel at all cold. As the beetle went on talking—it was just like real talking, so it doesn’t matter whether it was real or not—he stopped being like Aunt Julia. He got his own head back again, and his own voice—except that sometimes it began to be rather like yours. You haven’t gone to sleep, have you?”
Maurice had not gone to sleep, and said so.
“The strangest thing was that although his body had not really changed—except that it was so much bigger—it didn’t seem at all ugly now. In fact, I liked to look at it, and didn’t at all mind keeping hold of its fore-leg. I think the beetle must have known what I was thinking about, for all of a sudden he said, as if he were sorry for me: ‘Poor Marjorie! Poor little Marjorie! They’ve taught you all wrong, and they taught me all wrong. But I had a glimpse of the right thing: I always knew that human beings were not half as ugly as they seemed to be. I said as much, but it was of no use to talk to the Dear Friend. As for Mary—that fat-headed female had believed so many other things that she had no capacity left for believing any more. I, however, had got plenty of room left—oh, yes, plenty of room.’ When he said that he chuckled in the most horrible way you ever heard. ‘Now I come to think of it,’ he went on, ‘I believe I did say that the human breed were ugly. It was such a tame thing to believe anything that one said; it was a thing that Mary always did, and so I didn’t. Marjorie, if the good people hadn’t been good, I should have liked goodness.’”
“But who were Mary and the Dear Friend?” asked Maurice.
“I don’t know any more than you do. I don’t think he liked the Dear Friend very much; sometimes he seemed to hate Mary, and sometimes he seemed to love her and pity her. Now do you know what he told me? He said positively that all beetles believed that they had souls which never died, and that the sun, and stars, and everything were made for them alone. They believed that men, and other animals, had no souls at all. I told him how very absurd that was, and tried to explain to him what was really the case; but he only chuckled horribly again. But as we went up higher and higher he got more grave, and he didn’t laugh any more; and once or twice he said to me quite sadly, ‘Poor little Marjorie, you are very young to bother yourself about these things. You only know part—only part—and I cannot tell you the rest—I may not!’ I began to get quite sorry for him, because it seemed to trouble him; I think he really wanted to tell me some more things. Just then I saw up above us a River of Light. It was flowing very swiftly and smoothly, and looked like melted gold. I don’t know why, but I wanted to plunge into the River. It seemed to be the only thing worth doing, or that ever had been worth doing. I never wanted anything so much before in my life, but the beetle would not let me go. Last of all I began to cry; I really did, and you know, Maurice, that I hardly ever cry. But it was of no use; he still kept tight hold of my hand. The darkness was all grey darkness, except one black piece which stuck up like a mountain. We stopped on the top of it, and looked down at the River. I kept on crying—I do not know why, but I think it was because it all seemed strange and awful. I may have been frightened a little, but it was not quite like being frightened. There was a long pause, and then the beetle said, ‘Ah, if you only knew now, Marjorie! And if I had only known then!’
“Just then out of the grey darkness came a thread of light, like a little snake, moving very quickly and curling about as if it were glad; it hurried towards the great River of Light, and melted into it and was gone. I was eager about it, and asked the beetle what it was. ‘I may tell you that,’ he replied. ‘It was a soul going home!’ I stopped crying then; I felt something the way I feel at an evening service in a church in summer time, when they are singing one of the hymns I like best. It was a sort of quiet happiness; I can’t explain it properly, but I never felt so happy as I did then. ‘Beetle,’ I said, ‘you must tell me the rest now.’
“‘I will tell you one thing,’” he said.
“What was it?” asked Maurice quickly.
For a few seconds Marjorie did not answer. There was a queer dreamy look in her eyes. At last she said,—
“Maurice, I’m afraid you’ll think now that I have been making all this up, but I haven’t. I can’t tell you what the beetle said, because I don’t know. It was about you, and it was very important. I don’t even know whether it was good or bad. It has gone straight out of my memory, and I can’t get it back again. I’d give anything to be able to remember it. I’ve been thinking about it all the morning.”