Chicken Little: The Inside Story (A Jungian ... - Inner City Books

Search for the Self 61
concerned to uncover the truth about Ms. Little, but that is inextricably
linked with a much larger issue—one in which you may have
somewhat more interest.”
“Namely?” pushed Arnold.
But Brillig was not to be hurried. He looked past us through the
French doors and contemplated the falling snow. Huge flakes fell
and glistened, melting on the glass.
“Rather early for snow, isn’t it?” he said.
“That’s what the papers say too,” said Rachel.
I blinked, for the exchange was eerily familiar. I had the growing
feeling that Brillig was to some extent prescient; more, that at times
he was speaking in some secret code that only the two of us could
understand.
“I have always thought of snowflakes as messages from
heaven,” said Brillig. “Like Iris, that sweet-tempered goddess of
the rainbow, who brings a light we only dream of.”
He turned back to Arnold. “I could tell you that what I have in
mind could lead to, among other things, the discovery of a law
governing the behavior of feathered bipeds unable to conceive the
number π . . . But I fear that something of that scope would stretch
your credulity to the breaking point. I might just as well stand on
my head and recite a verse or two from one of the masters.”
Which he proceeded to do:
‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogroves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch! 63
Rachel smiled across at me. Arnold was nonplussed.
Righting himself and making some adjustments to his clothes,
Brillig became serious.
“Well, we could banter all day,” he said, “as I do with the slow-
63 Lewis Carroll, “Jabberwocky,” in Through the Looking Glass, p. 22.