"GL1" - читать интересную книгу автора (vol09)

PART ONE.

THE END OF THE
THIRD AGE.

I.

THE STORY OF FRODO AND SAM
IN MORDOR.

Long foreseen, the story of the destruction of the Ring in the fires of
Mount Doom was slow to reach its final form. I shall look back first
over the earlier conceptions that have appeared in The Return of the
Shadow and The Treason of Isengard, and then give some further
outlines of the story.
The conception of the Fiery Mountain, in which alone the Ring
could be destroyed, and to which the Quest will ultimately lead, goes
back to the earliest stages in the writing of The Lord of the Rings. It
first emerged in Gandalf's conversation with Bingo Bolger-Baggins,
predecessor of Frodo, at Bag End (VI.82): 'I fancy you would have to
find one of the Cracks of Earth in the depths of the Fiery Mountain,
and drop it down into the Secret Fire, if you really wanted to destroy
it.' Already in an outline that almost certainly dates from 1939
(VI.380) the scene on the Mountain appears:

At end
When Bingo [> Frodo] at last reaches Crack and Fiery Mountain he
cannot make himself throu the Ring away. ? He hears Necro-
mancer's voice offering him great reward - to share power with
him, if he will keep it.
At that moment Gollum - who had seemed to reform and had
guided them by secret ways through Mordor - comes up and
treacherously tries to take Ring. They wrestle and Gollum takes
Ring and falls into the Crack.
The mountain begins to rumble.

Two years later, in a substantial sketch of the story to come ('The
Story Foreseen from Moria') it was still far from clear to my father just
what happened on the Mountain (VII.209):

Orodruin [written above: Mount Doom] has three great fissures
North, West, South [> West, South, East] in its sides. They are very
deep and at an unguessable depth a glow of fire is seen. Every now
and again fire rolls out of mountain's heart down the terrific
channels. The mountain towers above Frodo. He comes to a flat
place on the mountain-side where the fissure is full of fire - Sauron's
well of fire. The Vultures are coming. He cannot throw Ring in. The
Vultures are coming. All goes dark in his eyes and he falls to his

knees. At that moment Gollum comes up and wrestles with him,