But the moment Digory took the Apple out of
his pocket, all those things seemed to have scarcely any colour at all. Every
one of them, even the sunlight, looked faded and dingy. The brightness of the
Apple threw strange lights on the ceiling. Nothing else was worth looking at:
you couldn't look at anything else. And the smell of the Apple of Youth was as
if there was a window in the room that opened on Heaven.
"Oh, darling, how lovely," said
Digory's Mother.
"You will eat it, won't you?
Please," said Digory.
"I don't know what the Doctor would
say," she answered. "But really - I almost feel as if I could."
He peeled it and cut it up and gave it to her
piece by piece. And no sooner had she finished it than she smiled and her head
sank back on the pillow and she was asleep: a real, natural, gentle sleep,
without any of those nasty drugs, which was, as Digory knew, the thing in the
whole world that she wanted most. And he was sure now that her face looked a
little different. He bent down and kissed her very softly and stole out of the
room with a beating heart; taking the core of the apple with him. For the rest
of that day, whenever he looked at the things about him, and saw how ordinary
and unmagical they were, he hardly dared to hope; but when he remembered the
face of Aslan he did hope.
That evening he buried the core of the Apple
in the back garden.
Next morning when the Doctor made his usual
visit, Digory leaned over the banisters to listen. He heard the Doctor come out
with Aunt Letty and say:
"Miss Ketterley, this is the most
extraordinary case I have known in my whole medical career. It is - it is like
a miracle. I wouldn't tell the little boy anything at present; we don't want to
raise any false hopes. But in my opinion -" then his voice became too low to
hear....
From The Magician’s Nephew, C S Lewis
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