"GL3" - читать интересную книгу автора (vol06)

hundred and eleventh birthday. At which point the present tale of
the Ring begins.

Chapter I: 'A Lang-expected Party'.

At the beginning of this sixth embodiment of the opening chapter the
revised passage about Bilbo's book (p. 245, note 3) was now removed,
and replaced by: 'He was supposed to be writing a book, containing a full
account of his year's mysterious adventures, which no one was allowed to
see.'
The conversation at The Ivy Bush is taken up from the preliminary
version described on pp. 244- 5, and now reaches virtually the form it has



in FR; but at this stage the Gaffer's instruction on the subject of Bilbo
and Frodo and their antecedents was still recounted in advance by the
narrator also.(4)
The 'odd-looking waggons laden with odd-looking packages', driven
by 'elves or heavily hooded dwarves,' which had survived from the
second version of the chapter (p. 20), were now reduced to a single
waggon, driven by dwarves, and no elves appear (see p. 235); but
Gandalf's mark on the fireworks, here called 'runic', still remains, and he
is still 'a little old man'. The guests still included the Gaukrogers (so
spelt), but the remark that the Brockhouses had come in from Combe-
under-Bree (p. 236) is dropped. The young Took who danced on the
table changes his name from Prospero to Everard (as in FR), but his
partner remains Melissa Brandybuck (Melilot in FR).
The pencilled addition to the fifth version (p. 246, note 12), showing
that Bingo/Frodo was fully aware of what Bilbo intended to do, was taken
up (but as in FR Frodo stays on long enough at the dinner-table to satisfy
Rory Brandybuck's thirst: 'Hey, Frodo, just send that decanter round
again!'); as also was the passage about Bilbo's taking Sting with him
(p.246, note 13). Bilbo now (as in FR) takes a leather-bound manuscript
from a strong-box (though not the 'bundle wrapped in old cloths'), but
gives the bulky envelope, which he addresses to Frodo and into which he
puts the Ring, to the dwarf Lofar, asking him to put it in Frodo's room.
Gandalf still meets Bilbo at the bottom of the Hill after he has left Bag
End with the Dwarves (still named Nar, Anar, and Hannar), and their
conversation remains as it was (pp. 238 - 40): in answer to Gandalf's
question 'He [Frodo] knows about it, of course?' Bilbo replies: 'He
knows that I have a Ring. He has read my private memoirs (the only one I
have ever allowed to read them).' Gandalf's return to Bag End after
saying good-bye to Bilbo is incorporated from the very rough form in the
fifth version (p. 247, note 20), the only difference being that Frodo is
now actually reading Bilbo's letter as he sits in the hall.
The list of Bilbo's parting presents (p. 247, note 21) is now further
changed by the loss of Caramella Chubb and her clock and Primo Grubb
and his dinner-service (survivors from the original draft, p. 15, when
they were Caramella Took and Inigo Grubb-Took); Colombo Horn-