Edmund was still staring after the sledge when he heard someone calling his own name, and looking round he saw Lucy coming towards him from another part of the wood.
"Oh, Edmund!" she cried. "So you've got in too! Isn't it wonderful, and now-"
"All right," said Edmund, "I see you were right and it is a magic wardrobe after all. I'll say I'm sorry if you like. But where on earth have you been all this time? I've been looking for you everywhere."
"If I'd known you had got in I'd have waited for you," said Lucy, who was too happy and excited to notice how snappishly (暴跳如雷的) Edmund spoke or how flushed and strange his face was.
"I've been having lunch with dear Mr. Tumnus, the Faun, and he's very well and the White Witch has done nothing to him for letting me go, so he thinks she can't have found out and perhaps everything is going to be all right after all."
"The White Witch?" said Edmund; "who's she?"
"She is a perfectly terrible person," said Lucy. "She calls herself the Queen of Narnia though she has no right to be queen at all, and all the Fauns and Dryads and Naiads and Dwarfs and Animals - at least all the good ones - simply hate her.{1}
And she can turn people into stone and do all kinds of horrible things. And she has made a magic so that it is always winter in Narnia - always winter, but it never gets to Christmas.
And she drives about on a sledge, drawn by reindeer, with her wand in her hand and a crown on her head."
Edmund was already feeling uncomfortable from having eaten too many sweets, and when he heard that the Lady he had made friends with was a dangerous witch he felt even more uncomfortable. But he still wanted to taste that Turkish Delight again more than he wanted anything else.
"Who told you all that stuff about the White Witch?" he asked.
"Mr. Tumnus, the Faun," said Lucy.
"You can't always believe what Fauns say," said Edmund, trying to sound as if he knew far more about them than Lucy.
"Who said so?" asked Lucy.
"Everyone knows it," said Edmund; "ask anybody you like. But it's pretty (相当地) poor sport standing here in the snow. Let's go home."
"Yes, let's," said Lucy. "Oh, Edmund, I am glad you've got in too. The others will have to believe in Narnia now that both of us have been there. What fun it will be!"
But Edmund secretly (背地里) thought that it would not be as good fun for him as for her. He would have to admit that Lucy had been right, before all the others, and he felt sure the others would all be on the side of the Fauns and the animals; but he was already more than half on the side of the Witch.
He did not know what he would say, or how he would keep his secret once they were all talking about Narnia.
By this time they had walked a good way. Then suddenly they felt coats around them instead of branches and next moment they were both standing outside the wardrobe in the empty room.
"I say," said Lucy, "you do look awful, Edmund. Don't you feel well?"
"I'm all right," said Edmund, but this was not true. He was feeling very sick.
"Come on then," said Lucy, "let's find the others. What a lot we shall have to tell them! And what wonderful adventures we shall have now that we're all in it together."{2}
Because the game of hide-and-seek was still going on, it took Edmund and Lucy some time to find the others. But when at last they were all together (which happened in the long room, where the suit of armour was) Lucy burst out:
"Peter! Susan! It's all true. Edmund has seen it too. There is a country you can get to through the wardrobe. Edmund and I both got in. We met one another in there, in the wood. Go on, Edmund; tell them all about it."
"What's all this about, Ed?" said Peter.
And now we come to one of the nastiest things in this story. Up to that moment Edmund had been feeling sick, and sulky (生气的), and annoyed with Lucy for being right, but he hadn't made up his mind what to do.
When Peter suddenly asked him the question he decided all at once to do the meanest (卑鄙的) and most spiteful (恶意的) thing he could think of. He decided to let Lucy down.
"Tell us, Ed," said Susan.
And Edmund gave a very superior (上级的) look as if he were far older than Lucy (there was really only a year's difference) and then a little snigger (吃吃窃笑) and said, "oh, yes, Lucy and I have been playing - pretending that all her story about a country in the wardrobe is true. just for fun, of course. There's nothing there really."
Poor Lucy gave Edmund one look and rushed out of the room.
Edmund, who was becoming a nastier person every minute, thought that he had scored a great success, and went on at once to say, "there she goes again. What's the matter with her? That's the worst of young kids, they always -"
"Look here," said Peter, turning on him savagely (野蛮地), "shut up! You've been perfectly beastly to Lu ever since she started this nonsense about the wardrobe, and now you go playing games with her about it and setting her off again. I believe you did it simply out of spite."{3}
