You promised not to!*

[bending_sickle]

Peter Pan by JMBarrie

First performed: 1904
First published in novelized form: 1911

“All children, except one, grow up.”

***

“She was a lovely lady, with a romantic mind and such a sweet mocking mouth. Her romantic mind was like the tiny boxes, one within the other, that come from puzzling East, however many you discover there is always one more; her sweet mocking mouth had one kiss on it that Wendy could never get, though there it was, perfectly conspicuous in the right-hand corner.

The way Mr. Darling won her was this: the many gentlemen who had been boys when she was a girl discovered simultaneously that they loved her, and they all ran to her house to propose to her except Mr. Darling, who took a cab and nipped in first, and so he got her. He got all of her, except the innermost box and the kiss. He never knew about the box, and in time he gave up trying for the kiss.”

***

“Mrs. Darling first heard of Peter when she was tidying up her children’s minds. It is the nightly custom of every good mother after her children are asleep to rummage in their minds and put things straight for next morning, repacking into their proper places the many articles that have wandered during the day.”

***

“I don’t know whether you have ever seen a map of a person’s mind. Doctors sometimes draw maps of other parts of you, and your own map can become intensely interesting, but catch them trying to draw a map of a child’s mind, which is not only confused, but keeps going round all the time. There are zigzag lines on it, just like your temperature on a card, and these are probably roads in the island, for the Neverland is always more or less and island, with astonishing splashes of colour here and there, and coral reefs and rakish-looking craft in the offing, and savages and lonely lairs, and gnomes who are mostly tailors, and caves through which a river runs, and princes with six elder brothers, and a hut fast going to decay, and one very small lady with a hooked nose.”

***

“Of all delectable islands the Neverland is the snuggest and most compact; not large and sprawly, you know, with tedious distance between one adventure and another, but nicely crammed. When you play at it by day with the chairs and table-cloth, it is not in the least alarming, but in the two minutes before you go to sleep it becomes very nearly real. That is why there are night lights.”

***

“She [Mrs. Darling] started up with a cry, and saw the boy, and somehow she knew at once that he was Peter Pan. If you or I or Wendy had been there we should have seen that he was very like Mrs. Darling’s kiss. He was a lovely boy, clad in skeleton leaves and the juices that ooze out of trees; but the most extraordinary thing about him was that he had all his first teeth. When he saw she was a grown-up, he gnashed the little pearls at her.”

***

“She [Mrs. Darling] decided to roll the shadow up and put it away carefully in a drawer, until a fitting opportunity came for telling her husband. Ah me!

The opportunity came a week late, on that ever-to-be-forgotten Friday. Of course it was a Friday.”

***

“ …she [Wendy] said, to encourage Michael, ‘That medicine you sometimes take, father, is much nastier, isn’t it?’

‘Ever so much nastier,’ Mr. Darling said bravely, ‘and I would take it now as an example to you, Michael, if I hadn’t lost the bottle.’

He had not exactly lost it; he had climbed in the dead of night to the top of the wardrobe and hidden it there.”

***

“Stars are beautiful, but they may not take an active part in anything, they must just look on for ever. It is a punishment put on them for something they did so long ago that no star now knows what it was. So the older ones have become glassy-eyed and seldom speak (winking is the star language), but the little ones still wonder.”

***

“‘I don’t ever want to be a man,’ he said with passion. ‘I want always to be a little boy and to have fun. So I ran away to Kensington Gardens and lived there a long long time among the fairies.’”

***

“‘You see, Wendy, when the first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies. […] And so,’ he went on good-naturedly, ‘there ought to be one fairy for every boy and girl.’

‘Ought to be? Isn’t there?’

‘No. You see children know such a lot now, they soon don’t believe in fairies, and every time a child says, “I don’t believe in fairies,” there is a fairy somewhere that falls down dead.’”

***

“‘If you don’t live in Kensington Gardens now—’

‘Sometimes I do still.’”

***

“‘Where are you going?’ she cried with misgiving.

‘To tell the other boys.’

‘Don’t go, Peter,’ she entreated, ‘I know such lots of stories.’

Those were her precise words, so there can be no denying that it was she who first tempted him.”

***

“‘And if he forgets them [adventures] so quickly,’ Wendy argued, ‘how can we expect that he will go on remembering us?’

Indeed, sometimes when he returned he did not remember them, at least not well. Wendy was sure of it. She saw recognition come into his eyes as he was about to pass them the time of day and go on; once even she had to tell him her name.”

***

“Feeling that Peter was on his way back, the Neverland had again woke into life. We ought to use the pluperfect and say wakened, but woke is better and was always used by Peter.”

***

“On this evening the chief forces of the island were disposed as follows. The lost boys were out looking for Peter, the pirates were out looking for the lost boys, the redskins were out looking for the pirates, and the beasts were out looking for the redskins. They were going round and round the island, but they did not meet because all were going at the same rate.

All wanted blood except the boys, who liked it as a rule, but to-night were out to greet their captain. The boys on the island vary, of course, in numbers, according as they get killed and so on; and when they seem to be growing up, which is against the rules, Peter thins them out; but at this time there were six of them, counting the twins as two. Let us pretend to lie here among the sugar-cane and watch them as they steal by in single file, each with his hand on his dagger.”

***

"Avast belay, yo ho, heave to,
A-pirating we go,
And if we’re parted by a shot
We’re sure to meet below!"

***

“In person he [Captain James Hook] was cadaverous and blackavized, and his hair was dressed in long curls, which at a little distance looked like black candles, and gave a singularly threatening expression to his handsome countenance. His eyes were of the blue of the forget-me-not, and of a profound melancholy, save when he was plunging his hook into you, at which time two red spots appeared in them and lit them up horribly. In manner, something of the grand seigneur still clung to him, so that he even ripped you up with an air, and I have been told that he was a raconteur of repute. He was never more sinister than when he was most polite, which is probably the truest test of breeding; and the elegance of his diction, even when he was swearing, no less than the distinction of his demeanour, showed him one of a different cast from his crew.”

***

“Let us now kill a pirate, to show Hook’s method. Skylights will do.”

***

“Yo ho, yo ho, the pirate life,
The flag o’ skull and bones,
A merry hour, a hempen rope,
And hey for Davy Jones."

***

“‘Shall I after him, captain,’ asked pathetic Smee, ‘and tickle him with Johnny Corkscrew?’ Smee had pleasant names for everything, and his cutlass was Johnny Corkscrew, because he wriggled it in the wound. One could mention many lovable traits in Smee. For instance, after killing, it was his spectacles he wiped instead of his weapon.”

***

"Avast, belay, when I appear,
By fear they’re overtook;
Nought’s left upon your bones when you
Have shaken hands with Cook."

***

“The extraordinary upshot of this adventure was—but we have not decided yet that this is the adventure we will narrate.”

***

“Which of these adventures shall we choose? The best way will be to toss for it.

I have tossed, and the lagoon has won. This almost makes one wish that the gulch or the cake or Tink’s leaf had won. Of course I could do it again, and make it best out of three; however, perhaps fairest to stick to the lagoon.”

***

“Peter was not quite like other boys; but he was afraid at last. A tremour ran through him, like a shudder passing over the sea; but on the sea one shudder follows another till there are hundreds of them, and Peter felt just the one. Next moment he was standing erect on the rock again, with that smile on his face and a drum beating within him. It was saying, ‘To die will be an awfully big adventure.’”

***

“Off we skip like the most heartless things in the world, which is what children are, but so attractive and we have an entirely selfish time; and then when we have need of special attention we nobly return for it, confident that we shall be embraced instead of smacked.”

***

“He regretted now that he had given the birds of the island such strange names that they are very wild and difficult to approach.”

***

“For long he muttered to himself, staring at Smee, who was hemming placidly, under the conviction that all children feared him.

Feared him! Feared Smee! There was not a child on board the brig that night who did not already love him. He had said horrid things to them and hit them with the palm of his hand because he could not hit with his fist; but they had only clung to him the more. Michael had tried on his spectacles.”

***

"Yo ho, yo ho, the frisky plank,
You walks along it so,
Till it goes down and you goes down
To Davy Jones below! "

***

"Yo ho, yo ho, the scratching cat,
Its tails are nine, you know,
And when they’re writ upon your back—"

What was the last line will never be known, for of a sudden the song was stayed by a dreadful screech from the cabin.”

***

“On that eventful Thursday week Ms. Darling was in the night-nursery awaiting George’s return home; a very sad-eyed woman. Now that we look at her closely and remember the gaiety of her in the old days, all gone now just because she has lost her babes, I find I won’t be able to say nasty things about her after all. If she was too fond of her rubbishy children she couldn’t help it. Look at her in her chair, where she has fallen asleep. The corner of her mouth, where one looks first, is almost withered up. Her hand moves restlessly on her breast as if she had a pain there. Some like Peter best and some like Wendy best, but I like her best. Suppose, to make her happy, we whisper to her in her sleep that the brats are coming back. They are really within two miles of the window now, and flying strong, but all we need whisper is that they are on the way. Let’s.”

***

“‘And, George’ she said timidly, ‘you are as full of remorse as ever, aren’t you?’

‘Full of remorse as ever, dearest! See my punishment: living in a kennel.’

‘But it is punishment, isn’t it, George? You are sure you are not enjoying it?’”

***

“She told Peter that she had adopted all the other boys, and would like to adopt him also.

‘Would you send me to school?’ he inquired craftily.

‘Yes.’

‘And then to an office?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Soon I should be a man?’

‘Very soon.’

‘I don’t want to go to school and learn solemn things,’ he told her passionately. ‘I don’t want to be a man. O Wendy’s mother, if I was to wake up and feel there was a beard!’

‘Peter,’ said Wendy the comforter, ‘I should love you in a beard’; and Mrs. Darling stretched out her arms to him, but he repulsed her.

‘Keep back, lady, no one is going to catch me and make me a man.’”

***

“‘You won’t forget me, Peter, will you, before spring-cleaning time comes?’

Of course Peter promised; and then he flew away. He took Ms. Darling’s kiss with him. The kiss that had been for no one else Peter took quite easily. Funny. But she seemed satisfied.”

***

“She had looked forward to thrilling talks with him about old times, but new adventures had crowded old ones from his mind.

‘Who is Captain Hook?’ he asked with interest when she spoke of the arch enemy.

‘Don’t you remember,’ she asked, amazed, ‘how you killed him and saved all our lives?’

‘I forget them after I kill them,’ he replied carelessly.

When she expressed a doubtful hope that Tinker Bell would be glad to see her he said, ‘Who is Tinker Bell?’

‘O Peter,’ she said, shocked; but even when she explained he could not remember.

‘There are such a lot of them,’ he said. ‘I expect she is no more.’

I expect he was right, for fairies don’t live long, but they are so little that a short time seems a good while to them.”

***

“Next year he did not come for her. She waited in a new frock because the old one simply would not meet; but he never came.”

***

“Peter came next spring cleaning; and the strange thing was that he never knew he had missed a year.”

***

“Wendy was grown up. You need not be sorry for her. She was one of the kind that likes to grow up. In the end she grew up of her own free will a day quicker than other girls.”

***

“Years rolled on again, and Wendy had a daughter. This ought not to be written in ink but in a golden splash.”

***

“‘Why can’t yo fly now, mother?’

‘Because I am grown up, dearest. When people grow up they forget the way.’

‘Why do they forget the way?’

‘Because they are not longer gay and innocent and heartless. It is only the gay and innocent and heartless who can fly.’”

***

“He was exactly the same as ever, and Wendy saw at once that he still had all his first teeth.

He was a little boy, and she was grown up. She huddled by the fire not daring to move, helpless and guilty, a big woman.

‘Hullo, Wendy,’ he said, not noticing any difference, for he was thinking chiefly of himself; and in the dim light her white dress might have been the nightgown in which he had seen her first.

‘Hullo, Peter,’ she replied faintly, squeezing herself as small as possible. Something inside her was crying ‘Woman, woman, let go of me.’”

***

“‘I can’t come,' she said apologetically, ‘I have forgotten how to fly.’

‘I’ll soon teach you again.’

‘O Peter, don’t waste the fairy dust on me.’

She had risen; and now at last a fear assailed him. ‘What is it?’ he cried, shrinking.

‘I will turn up the light,’ she said, ‘and then you can see for yourself.’

For almost the only time in his life that I know of, Peter was afraid. ‘Don’t turn up the light,’ he cried.

She let her hands play in the hair of the tragic boy. She was not a little girl heart-broken about him; she was a grown woman smiling at it all, but they were wet smiles.

Then she turned up the light, and Peter saw. He gave a cry of pain; and when the tall beautiful creature stooped to lift him in her arms he drew back sharply.

‘What is it?’ he cried again.

She had to tell him.

‘I am old, Peter. I am ever so much more than twenty. I grew up long ago.’

‘You promised not to!’”

***

“Of course in the end Wendy let them fly away together. Our last glimpse of her shows her at the window, watching them receding into the sky until they were as small as stars.

As you look at Wendy you may see her hair becoming white, her figure little again, for all this happened long ago. Jane is now a common grown-up, with a daughter called Margaret; and every spring-cleaning time, except when he forgets, Peter comes for Margaret and takes her to the Neverland, where she tells him stories about himself, to which he listens eagerly. When Margaret grows up she will have a daughter, who is to be Peter’s mother in turn; and thus it will go on, so long as children are gay and innocent and heartless.”


* Peter Pan, Barrie