Joan Lindsay's final chapterwith an introduclion by Johi Taylor

and a commentary by yrlonn" Rousseau

(Q"w,uIntroduction 1

The Invisible Foundation Stone

John Taylor 7

The Characters Mentioned

Chapter Eighteen

Joan Lindsay 21

A Cornrnentary on Chapter Ei6lhteen

1eAll chsrarters in this book areentirely .ficlitious, and no rekrenceis intended Io ony living person.

ANGUS & ROBERTSON PUBLISTTERS

Unit 4, L:den Pork, 3l llaterloo Road,North Ryde, NSW, Austrolio 2113, and16 Golden Square, London WIR 4BN,United Kingdom

This book is t:opyright.Apart front any fair dealing for thepurposes oJ privale study, reseorch,crilitism or feview, as permittedunder the Copyrighl Act, na part malbe reproduced by any proce.ss withoutv'rit len permrssion. Inquiries shouldbe addressed lo the publishers.

firsl published in Australiaby Angus & Robertson Publishers in 1987First published in the United Kingdomby .Angus & Robertson UK in 1987

Cop.yright e, John Tatlor and Yvonne Rousseau 1q87,(;hapter l8 of "Picnic at Hanging Rock" by Joan LindsayConmenlary G) l'vonne Roussesu 1987,"The Invisible F'oundalion Slone" O John Tuylor 1987.

Notiondl l-ibror;y of AustraliaCa I al o guing-in - publ ica t ion d a I a.

Lindsay, Joan, I 896- 1984.The seret oJ Ilanging Rock.

ISBN 0 207 t5550 X.

{. Rttusseau, Yvonne. I[. Lindsoy, loan,1896.1984.P,cni{' ul Hanging Rock. IIL Title. IY. Titk':Pimk ot Hanging Rock.

A82-t , .J

T.ypeset in I4il6 Bem Exponried by Midland f'ype.wftersPrirtted in ,lustruliu

Yuonne Rousseau 35

:; lohn ' l 'a,rittr l9tl/,

HRN,.; tNc; INlRonucrtot

Joan Lindsay's Picnic at Hanging Rock has beenread by several million people in English,French, Spanish and Italian, and the filmversion seen by tens of mill ions.

As a novel its appeal came chiefly fromtwo things: the way it combined mysteriousand sinister events with a picture of a perioddrawn with loving nostalgia, and the fact thatthe mystery was left unsolved.

The central story can be brieflysummarised. A party of schoolgirls goes ona picnic on St Valentine's Day, 1900. Fourof them leave the group to explore theHanging Rock. One of the schoolmistressesalso wanders off. W'hen they do not returnin time, a search is organised. The youngestgirl emerges from the hillside in hysterics, butcan recall almost nothing. Of the other threegirls and the mistress there is no trace. A weeklater, one of the girls is found on the rockwith a few cuts and bruises on her hands andface, but her bare feet unmarked and nomemory of where she has been.

Such an unlikely plot could neverwork except in the hands of a writer ofremarkable talent. It is perhaps because we

are so convinced of the reality of the time,place and people that we can accept themystery for what it is. Joan Lindsay wrotewith a sharpness of observation, a shrewdnessof insight and a humour which carry us tothe puzzling conclusion. W'e do not feelcheated, because such a writer doesn't cheat.

There have been attempts to "explain"the unsolved mystery by suggesting that itwas derived from, or inspired by, the MarabarCaves incident in E. M. Forster's A Passageto India, or an apparently bogus incidentdescribed in a book called The Ghosts ofVersailles. There is no evidence that JoanLindsay ever read either book. Her ownaccount was that the story "just came to her"in stages as she lay awake at night, to bewritten at high speed the next day.

But what came to her did include theending, and although we were not cheated,we were misled.

Joan Lindsay kept silent on the subjectof the final chapter for the sake of herpublishers and the film-makers. Flowever, sheexpressed a clear wish that it should bepublished after her death. In the light of this,

TnE Sncnet or HnNcrNc Rocx INrRonucrront

it seems absurd that many people have arguedthat it should not be published, as thoughthey had a better knowledge than the author,or a right to overrule her.

Flowever, many thousands of othershave begged to know the secret, and theyhave it now with the author's consent.

'When, to please her publisher, JoanLindsay agreed to remove the final chapter,it was not the only change she made.

At the beginning of the novel thereis a note by the author:

'Whether Picnic at Hanging Rock is Factor Fiction, my readers must decide forthemselves. As the fateful picnic tookplace in the year nineteen hundred, andall the characters who appear in thisbook are long since dead, it hardlyseems important.

But after writ ing it, sheread "Fact or Fiction or both".were never included, but onethem.

Many people have spent

altered it toThe wordscan ponder

many hours

searching through old newspapers andrecords, hoping to find the "facts". YvonneRousseau, in her remarkable scholarly spoofThe Murders at Hanging Rock, showed that anastonishing number of "solutions" could bemade to seem plausible by combining factwith fiction. She put her finger on thefundamental fact that the supposed date of thepicnic was not a Saturday, as the author said,but a 'Wednesday.

Picnic at Hanging Rock is remarkablefor the fact that it is the only one of JoanLindsay's works to contain any dates at all.One should not be surprised to find themambiguous.

=''t-"NS+'L" Vt r@^rqilt,

W(X*JOHN TAYL()R

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THe SpcRrr op HaNcrNc Rocx

Chapter Eighteen of Picnic at Humging Rockhas been the subject of a great deal ofnonsense.

Joan Lindsay wrote it as part of hernovel, intending it to be published. 'Whether

it would have "spoiled" the story to includeit is a question for each reader to decide. Thepublishers' readers thought it should bedeleted. It was a purely literary decision, buthistorians might well decide that its indirectresult was the creation of the Australian filmindustry as we know it-because it is highlyunlikely that there would have been a rushto buy the film rights in L972 if ChapterEighteen had not been deleted.

As anyone can see, the chapter is quiteunfilmable. Film can work only with whatGod gives it, and God did not give it the sameelasticity He granted the novel- thoughpeople keep trying, as the cutting-room floorforever shows.

I understand that one of the greatestsequences ever filmed was Mrs Appleyardrushing up the Hanging Rock between araging bushf i re and an approachingthunderstorm, on her way to commit suicide.

TrtE lxvrsrnrn FoUNoATIoN SroNr

But God had decreed that you can show justso many people climbing a given Rock in onepicture, and the editor's decision was final.W'hat we saw was a subtitle.

Joan gave me the manuscript ofChapter Eighteen in December t972, to myconsiderable surprise.

As Promotions Manager for herpublisher (Cheshire, Melbourne), I had theunwelcome task of dealing with the variouspeople who were seeking to buy the filmrights. It was not part of my job, and I knewlittle about it. Eventually, I observed that PatLovell and Peter W'eir were the bestcontenders, and I took them to meet LadyLindsay at her house, Mulberry Hill.

As usual with Joan, she made up hermind instantly that they were the rightpeople, and we might as well have left afterfive minutes. However, we spent a pleasantafternoon chatting and looking at her picturesand being charmed by her-an effect sheproduced without the slightest effort orartifice.

Being a professional publishing person,I naturally hadn't actually read the book.

Tnp SscREr oE HnNctttc RocxTnr Ixvrsrnrn FouNnATroN Srorup

People in publishing rarely have time to readanything -a f.act that accounts for much ofthe tension which arises between them andauthors. Publishers refer to books as "titles"and collectively as "l ists". Lists of t it les arewhat publishing is about. Actual pages ofprint are too time-consuming.

I was therefore puzzled by some of theconversation, which was about some kind ofunsolved mystery. I nodded wisely, and toldmyself I had better get hold of a copy andread it over the weekend, which I did.

The next time I saw Joan, I mentionedthat I had noticed a few things that didn'tadd up, and had drawn some conclusions."Ah," she said. "You're one of very fewpeople who've noticed that." I felt pleased thatI had joined a srnall club.

A few months laterJoan took me asideafter lunch at her club with some of herfriends. She produced the wad of manuscriptand said, "I'm giving this to you becauseyou're the only one who ever worked out thesecret."

"But Lady - just told me at lunchthat she knew the secret," f protested.

10

"Oh, she didn't work it out," said

Joan. "Shejust nagged and nagged and I hadto tell her." 'Well, they were old friends.

'What had I worked out? Nothing muchmore than that some words in Chapter Threedidn't seem to fit - that the references to"drifts of rosy smoke" and "the beating of far-off drums" seemed to anticipate later eventsand that the author appeared to be playingtricks with time.

As is now clear, some sections ofChapter Eighteen were transferred (not veryexpertly) to Chapter Three.

The manuscript used by the editor andtypesetter has not survived, so one cannotexamine the method by which this was done.With hindsight, it looks l ike a scissors-and-paste job rather than a rewrit ing of thechapter.

(Between reading the book anddiscussing my observations with the author,I tried to find the manuscript. I was told thatit was in the warchcuse-but when I calledfor it, I was told it had gone to the pulpersalong with the various unsaleable books which

11

I

THr Stcnrr op HaNcrNc Rocr

from time to time went to the cardboardmanufacturers. In those days publishers wereunder the impression thai they owned themanuscripts from which they published. TheMoorhouse judgment .hrrrg"d that idea*toolate in th is case.)

-

So far as I know, Joan,s method wasto write in longhand, then type a draft, andperhaps a second draft. t dorr,i know

"i;;;surviving longhand drafts * she and Sir O^ritused to have bonfires of unwanted paper,

";jdrawings, and no doubt the handwrittenversion perished in this way. ChapterEighteen is from a typed draft,

"rrdpresumably was never rerriseJ. The manuscriptfrom which the book *r, poUtished _ig;;have been a further revisioir _ though h"o*much of it was revised one doesn,t know.

That she made carbon copies of thefirst typed draft is evident from the fact that1

.opy of Chapter Eighteen turned up amongher papers, which *.r" inh.rit.d with thecontents of Mulberry Hil l by the NationalI rust .

In The Murders at Hanging Rock(1980), Yvonne Rousseau, working dom th.

published version as we know it, profitedgreatly from various anomalies others hadoverlooked.

I have never met Ms Rousseau, andI am not sure that I want to - she makesSherlock Holmes look l ike an amateur, andsuch people can be unnerving. Like SherlockHolmes, she had to work backwards (whichis the way Conan Doyle constructed thestories-first the solution, then the mystery).

V/ith no solution to start from, sheworked backwards from what the rextappeared to be saying, which is often not whatthe author intended. It is unfortunate that MsRousseau was deprived of the pleasure I hadin being the first to spor the bits of ChapterThree which don't quite fit. To my lasiingregret, I revealed the place where clues l ie toa Melbourne journalist in tg76- and theworld has never heard the end of his"solut ion".

Sti l l , I yield all honour to MsRousseau - i f she makes Holmes lookamateurish, she makes me look feeble-minded.I advise anyone who hasn't done so to readThe Murders at Hanging Rock. To produce five

THE h.rvtsrnrp FouNpATroN SroNp

1213

THr SEcnsr op HaNcrrlc Rocx THr INvrsrsrE FouNoATroN SroNE

equally convincing and totally contradictory"solutions" to a mystery which was nevermeant to be a mystery (except in so far asChapter Eighteen is mysterious) is anastonishing achievement.

Almost anyone living in Australia heard thestories circulated in the media in earlyFebruary 1985 about the "revelation" thatChapter Eighteen existed.

Journalism is not an exact art, butthere was something almost awe-inspiringabout the way a few simple facts weretransmogrified into a mass of confusion. Ifound myself being quoted saying things Iwould deny to the death, talking unscientificrubbish about "time zones" and agreeing withthe views of people I knew to be entirelywrong.

The general impression that ChapterEighteen either didn't exist, or was a forgery,or was public property which I had purloinedfor my own benefit will quite probablysurvive in the newspaper files long after thesepresent words are forgotten.

Joan gave me the copyright, to be used at mydiscretion after her death (she was 84 at thetime), as part of her general horrified reactionto the flood of demanding inquiries whichcame to her, especially af.ter the film wasmade. Each time the phony "solution" wastrumpeted in a newspaper, the flood wouldincrease. Being by this time her literary agent,I had to deal with them-by merely sayingthat Lady Lindsay did not care to discuss thematter.

Although she knew perfectly well thatthe huge success of both book and film hada lot to do with the mystery of "what reallyhappened", she had moments of wishing shehad published the final chapter and savedherself the pestering.

She was equally irritated by demandsto know whether the novel was based on"real" events. Any artist is insulted by thesuggestion that art is merely a matter ofrecording reality, and knows that it isimpossible to explain how imagination cantransform not only events and people, but theartist as well, into quite different "realit ies".

14 15

Tnr, Srcnst or HaNcrNc Rocx THE h.rvlsrnre FouNoATIoN SroNs

But beyond that, reality had a way ofbehaving a little differently towards Joan. Shecould not wear a watch, because watchestended to stop-not only on her, but onpeople around her. She thought it absurd towear a wedding ring-so a bird obliginglyflew in the window and carried hers off toits nest in a tall pine (where it may be sti l l).

I don't know whether she has recordedthe anecdote elsewhere, but she once told methat in about 1929 her husband was drivingher to Creswick to dine with his motherwhen Joan observed a strange sight: half adozen nuns were running frantically across afield and climbing a fence. Her husband sawnothing. Puzzled, she asked her mother-in-law if there was a convent in the area. Therehad been, she was told, but it had burneddown ycars earlier.

(Years later, in London, her cousinMartin Boyd was bemoaning the fact that hewas contracted to write a novel but had noideas-not even for a tit le: could she suggestone? "Nuns inJeopardy," saidJoan, and it wasenough.)

With reality l ike that, and the pride ofan artist who has produced a unique work,it is not surprising that she wished everybodywould accept the work for what it was andnot bother her.

But one day she handed me sonle moreletters from people who had been researchingfruitlessly through old newspapers, hoping tofind the "real" events. I remarked that it wassad they wasted so much time. "Yes," said

Joan-and then, absently, "but something didl;appen."

Whether the sornething happened in thenewspapers, in some anecdote she had heardor in her imagination's interconnections withsome other world or t ime, I had no idea-and I knew better than to ask.

Certainly she wanted Chapter Eighteen toappear. What artist wants to conceal anunflawed work? She came, I think, to feelthat it would be better not printerl. She wasmeticulous in respecting the interests of thosewho were exploi t ing her work, andunderstood that it might have worked against

16 17

THr Spcnrr op HaNcrNc Rocx

those interests. That is no longer the case.Here, then, is the previously invisible

foundation stone on whose absence theAustralian fi lm industry built i tself.

The stone which the builders rejectedis become the corner of the temple.(Psalm CXVIII)

And for what they have received, maySt Valentine make the film producers andCommissions of Australia truly thankful.

Tnn CuanacrERs MnNrtoNED

Miranda

The most popular student at Appleyard College.

fair-haired and slender,

l ike a "Bott icel l i angel"

Irrna LeopoldThe wealthiest student at the Col lege,with "ful l red l ips, naughty black eyes

and glossy black r inglets"

Marion QuadeThe cleverest student at the College,

with "thin intel l igent features"

Edith HortonThe College dunce, "plain as a frog",

"with the contours of an overstuffed bolster"

Miss Greta McCrawThe College mathematics teacher,

"a tal l wornan with dry ochre skin

and coarse greying hair"

Mrs Appleyard

The principal of Appleyard College,"an irnn-rense purposeful f igure

l ike a gal leon in fu l l sai l "

The Hon. Michael Fitzhubert

The English nephewof Colonel and Mrs Fi tzhubert of Lake View.

"a slender fair youth"

18 Tq

THn SEcRET or HaNcrNc Rocx CHaprrR ErcstEEN

It is happening now. As it has been happeningever since Edith Horton ran stumbling andscreaming towards the plain. As it wil l go onhappening unti l the end of t ime. The sceneis never varied by so much as the falling ofaleaf or the flight of a bird. To the four peopleon the Rock it is always acted out in the tepidtwil ight of a present without a past. Theirjoys and agonies are forever new.

Miranda is a l itt le ahead of Irma andMarion as they push on through thedogwoods, her straight yellow hair swingingloose as cornsilk about her thrustingshoulders. Like a swimmer, cleaving waveafter wave of dusty green. An eagle hoveringin the zenith sees an unaccustomed stirringof l ighter patches amongst the scrub below,and takes off for higher, purer airs. At lastthe bushes are thinning out before the faceof a l itt le cliff that holds the last l ight of thesun. So on a million summer evenings thepattern forms and re-forms upon the crags andpinnacles of the Hanging Rock.

The plateau on which they presently ernergedfrom the scrub had much the same confor-

mation as the one lower down-boulders,loose stones, an occasional stunted tree.Clumps of rubbery ferns stirred faintly in thepale l ight. The plain below was infinitelyvague and distant. Peering down between theringing boulders, they could just make outtiny figures coming and going, through driftsof rosy smoke. A dark shape that might havebeen a vehicle beside the glint of water.

"'Whatever can those people be doingdown there, scuttling about like a lot of busylitt le ants?" Marion came and looked overIrma's shoulder. "A surprising number ofhuman beings are without purpose." Irmagiggled. "I dare say they think themselvesquite important."

The ants and their fires were dismissedwithout further comment. Although Irmawas a\ /are, for a l itt le while, of a rathercurious sound coming up from the plain, likethe beating of far-off drums.

Miranda had been the first to see themonol i th - a s ingle outcrop of stonesomething l ike a monstrous egg, risingsmoothly out of the rocks ahead above aprecipitous drop to the plain. Irma, a few feet

22 2.1

TnE SEcRpr or HaNcrwc Rocx Cnap.rER ErcsrEeN

o{W,

behind the other two, saw them suddenlyhalt, swaying a l itt le, with heads bent andhands pressed to their breasts as if to steadythemselves against a gale.

"'W'hat is it, Marion? Is anything thematter?"

Marion's eyes were fixed and brilliant,her nostrils dilated, and Irma thought vaguelyhow like a greyhound she was.

"Irma! Don't you feel it?""Feel what, Marion?" Not a twig was

stirring on the l itt le dried-up trees."The monolith. Pull ing, l ike a tide.

It 's just about pull ing me inside out, if youwant to know." As Marion Quade seldomjoked, Irma was afraid to smile. Especially asMiranda was call ing back over her shoulder,"'What side do you feel it strongest, Marion?"

"f can't make it out. 'We seem to bespiralling on the surface of a cone - alldirections at once." Mathematicr again! WhenMarion Quade was particularly silly it wasusually something to do with sums. Irma saidlightly, "sounds to me more l ike a circus!Come oD, gir ls-we don' t want to standstaring at that great thing forever."

As soon as the monolith was passedand out of sight, all three were overcome byan overpowering drowsiness. Lying down ina row on the smooth floor of a l itt le plateau,they fell into a sleep so deep that a lizarddarted out from under a rock and lay withoutfear in the hollow of Marion's outflung arm,while several beetles in bronze armour madea leisurely tour of Miranda's yellow head.

Miranda awoke first, to a colourlesstwilight in which every detail was intensified,every object clearly defined and separate. Aforsaken nest wedged in the fork of a long-dead tree, with every straw and featherintricately laced and woven; Marion's tornmuslin skirts f luted l ike a shell; Irma's darkringlets standing away from her face inexquisite wiry confusion, the eyelashes drawnin bold sweeps on the cheek-bones.Everything, if yo., cor'tld only see it clearlyenough, l ike this, is beautiful and complete.Everything has its own perfection.

A little brown snake dragging its scalybody across the gravel made a sound like windpassing over the ground. The whole air wasclamorous with microscopic life.

) l25

Trrn Stcrtrr op HaNctNc Rocr

Irrna and Marion were sti l l asleep.Miranda could hear the separate beating oftheir two hearts, l ike two litt le drums, eachat a different tempo. And in the undergrowthbeyond the clearing a crackling and snappingof twigs where a living creature moved unseentowards them through the scrub. It drewnearer, the crunchings and cracklings split thesilence as the bushes were pushed violentlyapart and a heavy object was propelled fromthe undergrowth almost on to Miranda's lap.

It was a woman with a gaunt, raddledface trimmed with bushy black eyebrows - aclown-like figure dressed in a torn calicocamisole and long calico drawers frilled belowthe knees of two stick-like legs, feebly kickingout in black lace-up boots.

"Through!" gasped the wide-openmouth, and again, "Through!" The tousledhead fell sideways, the hooded eyes closed."Poor thing! She looks i l l ," Irma said."Where does she come frorn?"

"Put your arn) under her head,"Miranda said, "while I unlace her stays."

Freed from the confining husks, withher head pil lowed on a folded petticoat, the

stranger's breath became regular, the strainedcxpression left her face and presently she rolledover on the rock and slept.

"'Why don't we all get out of theseabsurd garments?" Marion asked. "After all,we have plenty of ribs to keep us vertical."

No sooner were the four pairs ofcorsets discarded on the stones and a delightfulcoolness and freedom set in, than Marion'ssense of order was affronted. "Everything inthe universe has its appointed place, beginningwith the plants. Yes, I rma, I meant i t . Youneedn't giggle. Even our corsets on theHanging Rock."

"'Well, you won't f ind a wardrobe,"Irma said, "however hard you look. 'Where

can we put them?" Miranda suggestedthrowing them over the precipice. "Give themto me."

"'Which way did thcy fall?" Marionwanted to know. "I was standing right besideyou but I couldn' t te l l . "

"You didn't see thenr fall because theydidn't fall." The precise croaking voice cameat them like a trumpet froru the ntouth ofthe c lown-wol-nan on the rock, nr>w si t t ing

tIIII

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CHaprEn ErcHrrrN

26 ) ' j

- I f , , , s ' , r r l | ( ' t I lnr . l r ; r r . , l<, , , , , I

up and looking perfectly comfortable. "fthink, girl, that if you turn your head to theright and look about level with your waist. . ." They all turned their heads to rhe rightand there, sure enough, were the corsets,becalmed on the windless air like a fleet ofl itt le ships. Miranda had picked up a deadbranch, long enough to reach them, and waslashing out at the stupid things seeminglyglued to the background of grey air.

"Let me try!" Marion said. Whack!'Whack! "They must be stuck fast insomething I can't see."

"If you want my opiniofl," croakedthe stranger, "they are stuck fast in time. Youwith the curls-what are you staring at?"

"I didn't mean to stare. Only whenyou said that about time I had such a funnyfeeling I had met you somewhere. A longt ime ago."

"Anything is possible, unless it isproved impossible. And sometimes eventhen." The scratchy voice had a convincingring of authority. "And no\M, since we seemto be thrown together on a plane of commonexperience-I have no idea why-may I haveyour names? I have apparently left my own

Cnaprnn ETcHTEEN

particular label somewhere over there." Shewaved towards the blank wall of scrub. "Nonratter. I perceive that I have discarded a gooddeal of clothing. Flowever, here I am. Thepressure on my physical body must have beenvery severe." She passed a hand over her eyesand Marion asked with a strange humility,"Do you suggest we should go on before thelight fades?"

"For a person of your intelligence - Ican see your brain quite distinctly - you arenot very observant. Since there are noshadows here, the l ight too is unchanging."

Irma was looking worried. "I dnn'tunderstand. Please, does that mean that ifthere are caves, they are fi l led with l ight ordarkness? I am terrif ied of bats."

Miranda was radiant. "Irma, darling-don't you see? It means we arrive in thel ight !"

"Arrive? But Mirandawe going?"

where are

"The gir l Miranda is correct. I can seeher heart, and it is ful l of understanding.Every l iving creature is due to arrivesomewhere. I f I know nothing else, at leastI know that." She had r isen to her feet . and

28 29

for a moment they thought she looked almostbeautiful. "Actually, I think we are arriving.Now." A sudden giddiness set her wholebeing spinning l ike a top. It passed, and shesaw the hole ahead.

It wasn't a hole in the rocks, nor a holein the ground. It was a hole in space. Aboutthe size of a fully rounded summer moon,coming and going. She saw it as painters andsculptors saw a hole, as a thing in itself, givingshape and significance to other shapes. As apresence, not an absence-a concreteaffirmation of truth. She felt that she couldgo on looking at it forever in wonder anddelight, from above, from below, from theother side. It was as solid as the globe, astransparent as an air-bubble. An opening,easily passed through, and yet not concave atall.

She had passed a l ifetime askingquestions and now they were answered,simply by looking at the hole. It faded out,and at last she was at peace.

The litt le brown snake had appearedagain and was lying beside a crack that ranoff somewhere underneath the lower of twoenormous boulclers balancing one on top of

t0 ,11

Tss Src;nsr on HRNcrNc Rocx CuRprsR ETcHTEEN

".,@o{W,

thc other. 'When Miranda bent down andtouched its exquisitely patterned scales itsl ithered away into a tangle of giant vines.Marion knelt down beside her and togetherthey began tearing away the loose gravel andthe tangled cables of the vine.

" I t went down there. Look,Miranda-down that opening." A hole-perhaps the lip of a cave or tunnel, rimmedwith bruised, heart-shaped leaves.

"You'll agree it's my privilege to enterfirst ? "

"To enter?" they said, looking fromthe narrow lip of the cave to the wide, angularhips.

"Quite simple. You are thinking interms of l inear measurements, girl Marion.When I give you the signal-probably a tapon the rock-you may follow me, and the girlMiranda can follow you. Is that clearlyunderstood?" The raddled face was radiant.

Before anyone could answer, the long-boned torso was flattening itself out on the

ground beside the hole, deliberately formingitself to the needs of a creature created to creePand burrow under the earth. The thin arnts,crossed behind the head with its bright staring

TnE SEcnEr or HaNcrNc Rocx CsaprER ErcHrErN

eyes, became the pincers of a giant crab thatinhabits mud-caked billabongs. Slowly thebody dragged itself inch by inch through thehole. First the head vanished: then theshoulder-blades humped together; the frilledpantaloons, the long black sticks of the legswelded together like a tail ending in two blackboots.

"I can hardly wait for the signal,"Marion said. V/hen presently a few firm rapswere heard from under the rock she went inquite easily, head first, smoothing down herchemise without a backward glance. "My turnnext," Miranda said. Irma looked at Mirandakneetring beside the hole, her bare feetembedded in vine leaves - so calm, sobeautiful, so unafraid. "Oh, Miranda, darlingMiranda, don' t go down there - I 'mfrightened. Let's go home!"

"Home? I don't understand, my litt lelove. Why are you crying? Listen! Is thatMarion tapping? I must go." Her eyes shonelike stars. The tapping carne again. Mirandapulled her long, lovely legs after her and wasgone.

Irma sat down on a rock to wait. A

lrrocession of t iny insects was windingtlrrough a wilderness of dry moss.

'Where had

tlrey come from? Where were they going?Where was anyone going? Why, oh why,had Miranda thrust her bright head into a darkhole in the ground? She looked up at thecolourless grey sky, at the drab, rubbery ferns,and sobbed aloud.

FIow long had she been staring at thelip of the cave, staring and listening forMiranda to tap on the rock? Listening andstaring, staring and listening. Two or threerunnels of ioose sand came pattering downthe lower of the two great boulders on to theflat upturned leaves of the vine as it tiltedslowly forward and sank with a sickeningprecision directly over the hole.

Irma had flung herself down on therocks and was tearing and beating at the grittyface of the boulder with her bare hands. Shehad always been clever at embroidery. Theywere pretty l i tt le hands, soft and white.

END

32 33

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Y\/ONNE ROUSSEAU

A CouuEttrARy oN CHaprER EtcurEENTsE SEcRET or HRwcrNc Rocx

Joan Lindsay agreed with her editor that Picnicat Hanging Rock would be published withoutits original Chapter Eighteen. To make upfor the loss of information, changes had tobe made to the original Chapter Three, wherethe girls on the Rock went out of view. Asan incidental result of these changes, anotherslope and a belt of dogwoods were added tothe scene; thus making things difficult forvisitors to Hanging Rock who wanted to mapthe path described in the book. A notebookand pencil belonging to Marion were alsoadded, only to be thrown into some ferns nearthe monolith and never found again, even bythe police bloodhound.

In both versions, Irma and Marion andMiranda are accompanied part way up theRock by Edith Horton, a younger girl, whois known as the school dunce, and who thinksthat the Rock is nasty. If we reconstruct theoriginal Chapter Three on the assumption thatas few changes as possible would have beenmade, then in both versions the girls decideto rest in the shade on an almost circularplatform. In both versions their experiencebecomes strange at this point. The three older

girls take off their shoes and stockings, andIrma dances barefoot on the stones. She is stillbarefooted when she is found on the Rockeight days later, but her feet are "perfectlyclean" and "in no way scratched orbruised".l Thus. the Rock has become insome way insulated from these humans; itsdust is not disturbed by their movement, itsstones will not be overturned or bloodstainedby anything they do. But only the living fleshseems to be set apart in this way; in bothversions, the dead vegetable fibres of the girls'muslin and calico get torn by the dogwoods,although we may assume that their faces andhands, l ike their feet, are not scratched.

After the dancing, Miranda andMarion set off, barefooted, tp the next littlerise. Edith draws Irma's attention to theirlunacy. Irma only laughs, siings her shoes andstockings about her waist, and sets off afterthem. In the original version, it will have beenhere that Edith makes her last attempt to recallthem. She asks Miranda, "'W'hen are we goinghome?" But Miranda only looks at herstrangely, as if not seeing her; then turns herback, and leads the other two on up the rise.

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TnE Secnnr or HaNcrNc Rocx A CovUTNTARY oN CsaprER EtcHrsrN

Edith sees them "sliding over the stones ontheir bare feet as if they were on a drawing-room carpet".2 Half-petrified, she croaksMiranda's name several times as they moveinto some dogwoods and out of sight; unti lshe sees "the last of a white sleeve parting thebushes ahead". An "awful silence" descends,and Edith begins to scream. She runs, stillscreaming, back down towards the plain; andthe author assures us that her screams areheard only by

" nearby wallaby.

In the published version, the little risewith the dogwoods becomes two rises andtwo sets of dogwoods. Between the appealto Irma and the appeal to Miranda, some ofthe material from Chapter Eighteen has beeninserted, and changed. This time Edith hascontinued trudging along behind the others.She is there when Irma looks down towardsthe plain and sees some "rosy smoke, or mist"and some people who seem so far away thatthey look l ike ants.3 Edith falls asleep withthe others too; but in the published version-the altered Chapter Three - their sleepingoccurs on the plateau where the monolith is,instead of on the next plateau, near the

llalancing Boulders. When they wake, Edithrnakes her final appeal to Miranda, with thesame results as in the original version. Butthe topography has become strangelyconfused- the three older girls are moving upa rise and into some bushes, but also "outof sight behind the monolith" at the samet ime.a

Chapter Eighteen belongs to theoriginal version, where Edith ran awaywithout climbing further than the platformwhere Irma danced. An eagle is hovering inthe sky as the three other girls approach thernonolith-just as an eagle wil l hover above,forty days later, when Mrs Appleyard (theCollege principal) jumps to her death over aprecipice close to the monolith. Edith isrunning back towards the plain, and on theway down she sees (it the distance) theCollege mathematics teacher, Miss GretaMcCraw. Miss McCraw, who is 45 years old,is on her way uphill, and is dressed only inher underclothes. Straight afterwards, Edithlooks up through some branches and seeswhat she describes as "a funny sort of cloud"of "a nasty red colour".5

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I TriE SrcREt or HaNctr.rc Rocx A CoNaNTENTARy oN CnaprER Etcsrr,pN

;r lrotrt the universe we live in. At one extremewrs the wor ld of Hermet ic magic-at the.tlrcr, the materialist detective world. Chapterl i iehteen poses a s imi lar problem ofinterpretation; but this time I shall no longerl ' 'c supporting Joan Lindsay's claim that thesolution of the mystery is unimportant.I{ather, I shall be looking for a singleworldview that makes the chapter consistentwithin itself; thereby clarifying what isactually happening, and how the chapterrelates to the rest of the book.

Chapter Eighteen's events are seenalmost entirely from lrma's point of view; andIrma is excluded both from some of the sense-impressions her schoolgirl companions have,and irom their understanding of what ishappening. She does share, however, theirinabil ity to recognise Miss McCraw - aninability which cannot be explained by the factthat nobody from the College ever before sawthe teacher scantily clad and without herglasses. Edith can easily recognise the sameapparition by its peculiar shape - and confidesthat "Irma Leopold once told me, 'theMcCraw is exactly the same shape as a flat

- Edith being gone, Joan Lindsay writes (in

the first paragraph of Chapter Eighteen) about"four people on the Rock". This means MissMcCraw, Miranda, Marion and Irma. 'We

know that Irma returns from the Rock, andlives to be a countess whose dimple (whenshe smiles) is internationally famous. Thus,there is no simple meaning in Joan Lindsay'sassurance that for Irma and the other threethe events on Hanging Rock are going onhappening "unti l the end of t ime". My owr,interpretation is that, at the end of ChapterEighteen, the other three are dead; jusi asIrma, too, wil l be dead-well before.,the endof time". The final chapter is not suggestingthat the four of them could one day ,""pp""ialive on the Rock.

Earlier, when writing The Murders atHanging Rock, I tackled the problem ofinterpreting the events described in thepublished version of Picnic at Hanging Rock.My five different interpretations were eachof them as persuasive as possible and backedwith detailed evidence from the book; buteach of them contradicted the others becauseeach was based on a different school of opinion

ltlil

IL

1i

lrit

40 41

TnE SEcRrr or HaNcrNc Rocx

iron"'.6 frma herself has lost the use of thatformer perception.

The "clown-woman" (whom thereader knows as Miss Greta McCraw) isviewed by the three girls as a "stranger"; andshe claims to know neither her own name northe girls' names (although we notice that, atthe last, she uses the "girl Marion's" namewithout having heard either of the others useit). Irma, Marion and Miranda have nodifficulty in remembering one another'snanles. As for their companion, I shallcompromise between the "Greta McCraw"and the "clown-woman" aspects and call her,in future, "the McCraw".

Conversation resembles conversationsin Lewis Carroll's Through the LookingGlass- the three girls playing the part of avisiting Alice, while the McCraw makesoracular pronouncements l ike a nativeinhabitant. Eventually, however, Irma aloneis the Alice, or foreigner. In this region,Irma's presence is suffered (it seems) onlybecause of the srrength of the affectionbetween herself and Miranda. Irma acquiescesin having her elegant French satin corset

A CoutvrENTARy oN CHaptpR EtcHrsnN

thrown over a cliff, not because she sharesMarion's and Miranda's new consciousness -not because she has forgotten the world shelater calls "home" -but rather because she hasa frivolous disposition and is genuinely carelessof her expensive belongings. She has no ideawhere the others are expecting to "arrive",but assumes she will go with them, simplybecause Marion and Miranda are her friends.She seems not to notice that no one includesher in the plan to enter the hole. If MichaelFitzhubert had not intervened, she might havewaited outside, in bewilderment, for ever.

Three distinct regions are establishedhere. Irma's aspirations and interests aregrounded in the first of them - the world weall know. The second is the region of"colourless light" where Edith's screams areinaudible and the McCraw has no name. Thethird region is the ultimate experience, "thelight", into which lrma's companions are ableto pass.

The two unearthly regions could betranslated in occult terms (the astral plane, andthen Reintegration), or religiously (Purgatoryand then Paradise, for example). However,

iiri

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I t_Li"t SrcRrr or HRrqcrNc Rocx

remembering the McCraw's opinion that thecorsets get "stuck fast in time", a more likelvmodel is P. D. Ouspensky's treatment of timeas having two extra dimensions which we donot perceive. The first of these extradimensions is described as ..the perpetual now,,of every moment ever; the second extradimension is the aggregate of all possibilities.Ouspensky writes that ..if we attempt to unitethe three co-ordinates of time into one wholewe shall obtain a spiral".7

At the monolith, Marion and Mirandafeel themselves b-eing tugged by forces actingin the form of a spiral - a spiral whicf,originates in the monolith, bur has a differentalignment from the vertical spirals thatdowsers have claimed they sense at othermonoliths. The force is not felt by lrma, andthe twigs of nearby trees are unmoved by it;we must suppose that the force acts onsusceptible consciousnesses, drawing theminto a state appropriate to the two unearthlyregions associated with what I shall ,o- b.calling Time Two and Time Three _ thenames that J. B. priestley uses, in hisadaptation of Ouspensky's model.

Priestley suggests that, after ourphysical death, we shall find our attentionconcentrated in Time Two, which "mightwell seem at first an uncontrollable dreamworld, through which our consciousnesswanders like Alice on the other side of thelooking glass".8 This Time wil l contain "allthe sensations, feelings, thoughts left to usfrom our Time-One lives", and experiencethere wi l l part ly resemble Purgatory.eBeyond purgation, 'we graduate to TimeThree-white l ight, and the abandonment ofindividual personality. During our lifetime,some of us are aware only of our Time-Oneexistence, although Priestley holds that ourtotal self always exists in the other two Timesas well. Marion and the McCraw, with theirdevotion to pure mathematics-Miranda,with her philosophical bent - are clearly moreaware of abstract existence than the light-headed Irma is.

The first paragraph of ChapterEighteen is the reason for identifying TimeTwo with the scene of the strange experiencesthat Irma never afterwards remembers.Marion, Miranda, Irma and the McCraw have

A CourvrENTARy oN CrlaprrR ErcurEp,N

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THE SEc:nrr op HaNcrruc Rocx

entered this region without being dead; thus,their Time-Onc consciousness has continuedto operate, not in the physical world, as itusually does, but in the region of whatOuspensky has called .,perpetual

now,,. Thisanomaly presumably makes it impossible toalter the "perpetual now" of these particularmoments (whereas Priestley suggests that wemay be able to alter the .,no.\ry.,, of morenormal mornents, after we have died). Time_One consciousness is out of place in thisregion, where death of the ptysical bodycannot ext in guish i t as Time_Oneconsciousness is normally extinguished. Thus,the experience persists indepenJently in Time

1-o, although the selves it should be partof may have advanced to ilime Three, o, *",be conscious again in the physical world. Thisexpiains why the happenings on the Rock areparticularised as invariable, and as existing in"a present without a past". The past that theylack is existence in the physical world.

T'his interpretation is impressivelyconfusing; but it raises the very plain questionof how the girls and the M.br"* can bephysically preserr in that kind of region. Even

A Cout'aTNTARY oN CHaprrR ErcH.reEN

'uvhen people envisage these extra dimensions.'f t ime as i[ they were really space (in casual,l isguise), they do not expect them to bev i s i table by anything grosser thant orr56l6.,rness. It is the same when occultistsc'rrvisage the astral plane; the physical bodyrrrtrst stay elsewhere. But in Picnic at HangingIlock the physical bodies have also left the.'veryday world.

Before presenting an explanation forthis, I shall briefly dismiss certain othercxplanations. Chapter Eighteen shows thatthe lost people have not taken an unexpecteddirection and so discovered themselves to bein higher dimensional space; for one thing,they experience none of the curious visualeffects associated with such an adventure. Noris there justification for loose talk by peoplewho have heard about the gravitationalcurvature of spacetirne, and who havetherefore postulated a mysterious gravitationalcffect associated with the Rock. Arygravitational effect that was extreme enoughfo account for the picnickers' disappearance(:r short-l ived small black hole, for exarnple)wciuld have such very disagreeable further

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TnE SrcnEr oE HarucrNc Rocx

effects - not only on the missing girls andgoverness but also on the Rock and itssurroundings - that there would remain noRock to be searched afterwards, and no picnicgrounds; nor any picnicking schoolfellows tocomment on anything odd. Similar objectionsapply to the notion that the pinkness observedby both Irma and Edith might be caused bygravity strong enough to alter the wavelengthof l ight.

My own explanation of ChapterEighteen's apparent anomalies will invoke theAustral ian Abor ig inal model of thesupernatural - which is translated in Englishas "the Dreaming". In a European occultistview, a human being's body may lie trancedor dreaming while the consciousness movesabout in astral form, invisible to others. Inthe same way, we may suppose that theAustralian landscape has an astral body for usein its Dreaming, and that the people and theAncestors who appear in Dreaming legendsare moving about in the landscape's astralconsciousness, having been removed from itsphysical awareness. This has become the casefor the girls and the McCraw. 'While they

A CoUUENTARY oN CHRprgn ElcureeN

r ( 'n)ain in the landscape's astral or Dreaming

.rwareness, they are only virtual beings; they

lr:rve no physical reality, any more than their

, 'ddly l i t setting has.In the "Bush Retribution" chapter of

'l'\rc Murders at Hanging Rock I quoted Jung's.'lisclosure that "certain Australian primitives

:rssert that one cannot conquer foreign soil

l',ccause in it there dwell strange ancestor-

spirits who reincarnate themselves in the

rrewborn". This suggests that Miranda and

Marion, in all ignorance, are each a human

incarnation of an Australian Ancestor for

whom, in Miranda's case, beetles are another

fcrrm of incarnation, while Marion has a lizatd

for her totem. (W. know their totems

because a lizard approaches Marion in her

sleep, while bronze beetles either tour around

Miranda's head-in Chapter Eighteen-or

trek across her ankle-in the altered Chapter

Three.) In the Dreaming legend which tells

,rf the Picnic adventure, we may suppose that

.r passing eagle let a mudcrab fall where the

lizard and beetle were sleeping. (The legend

'vould require the crab to be carried from a

rlistanCe , since the McCra'w's Ancestor-spirit

49

Tnr SEcnpr oE HaNcrNc Rocxr-would be Pictish, not Australian.) As the"Bush Retribution" chapter suggested, Irma'sJewishness prevents her having a totem, andperhaps also explains the final emphasis on thefact that her "soft" l i tt le hands are "white":perhaps this def ines her again asunAboriginal - a foreigner.

The dreams of our landscape arestrange, and they complicate the alreadydreamlike nature of Time Two, which is apart of them. A pink cloud (or pink smoke)is introduced to mark a boundary withphysical reality; within the region of the cloud(as in legendary fairy kingdoms) time passesat a different rate, so that although Edith setsoff running as fast as she can (before the othershave even reached the monolith) she does notarrive at the picnic grounds until the searchfor the McCraw has been under way for anhour. (Presumably the position of the astralboundary alters, so that Edith runs at first inthe physical world, and then in the astralconsciousness until the pink cloud passes by.)

The spectacle of corsets "stuck fast intime" is partly a dreamlike confusion betweensequences of events and spacetime mapped on

CovtutNrARy oN Crq,qp r ln Etcrr rrln

;r piece of paper; but "t ime" has also becomer name for something gluey-like the "viscoussca" which Michael Fitzhubert dreams thatIre struggles through in his quest for Miranda(really a quest to wake the landscape upagain). As in other drearns, there are severalkinds of meaning for what is seen and said;the corsets could also be stuck in time becausethey are a short-lived fashion historically. 'We

should hardly be surprised, moreover, if theMcCraw had explained that a corset remainswhere it is because another word for corsetis "stays"; there definitely is a rebus effect inthis dream-as if it imitated puzzles where"hear" is represented by the letter "h" witha picture of an ear. (Possibly her studentswould often refer to the McCraw as "an oldcrab".) A rebus-model accounts for the brainfull of intelligence and the heart full ofunderstanding that the McCraw claims toperceive; and for the hole through which thepicnickers will pass, having first been shownthe real hole that is Buddhism's positivenothingness: a statement about reality, anda portent of Time Three.

The McCraw's mind has long

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ETHE SEcnsr op FIaNcrNc Rocx

occupied itself, not with egotism, but withthe world of Forms; and her merely physicalform has meant so little to her that she readilyprepares a way for Marion and Miranda bytransforming into a crab. They are followinga snake into a hole which has a lip rimmedwith "bruised, heart-shaped leaves"; the rebushere shades into Freudian symbolism, as if thebirth-canal is being re-entered to allowanother birth into another world. Irma is leftbehind as a creature merely of curls andembroidey, who thinks of the physical worldas "home" (whereas Miranda has lost allconcern or regret for the friends and familyshe is bereaving).

The boulder crashes down over thehole; that is, the landscape's consciousness hassurfaced again in the waking physical world,and virtual being has collapsed into reality.Michael Fitzhubert's intervention has donethis. Irma and her setting are suddenlyphysical again; and so are the bodies ofMiranda, Marion and the McCraw. True tothe image produced later by hysterical girlsat the College, the lost people now ..lie

rotting in a filthy cave" - a cave which they

A CovpreNTARy oN CuRprr,R ElcgrpsN

could never have entered except in theDreaming state of the landscape. TheI)reaming events have spared them thepurgatorial stretch in Time Two whichPriestley has predicted for most of us; theirpassage into Time Three has been relativelypainless.

Clearly, Chapter Eighteen has notcxplained the mystery aw^y into trivialities,as some people have feared it might. We stilldo not know what the landscape did with theMcCraw's outer garments and with Irma'sshoes and stockings. 'W'e wonder whetherIrma's ringlets and bodice got bloodstainedbecause blood dr ipped from MichaelFitzhubertns injured forehead, as he leanedover her in a scene that has stayed unrecorded.And perhaps it was light-hearted minor spiritsof the bushland who stopped people's watchesat the Picnic?

The film and the published novel ofPicnic at Hanging Rock are complete in theirpresent form; each, in different ways, anevocation of the Australian bushland, and ofthe Rock's curious fascination. 'Whatever

Chapter Eighteen was like, its publication

5253

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. l ' t t i , Str r t .E'r r>l F{nrur; t t t r ; I { t l r ;x

could never h:rve reduced their hauntingquality. As it is, the chapter adds to th;Hanging Rock mystique. Joan Lindsay'soriginal intention is finally disclosed-but herintention was not to dissolve the mystery. ThePicnic geography is clarified, but the eerinessremains.

1.

2.3.4.5.6.7.

NOTES

Joan Lindsay, Picnic at Hanging Rock,Penguin, Harmondsworth, lg7\ , p. 106.Lindsay, p. 39-Lindsay, p. 38.Lindsay, p. 39.Lindsay, p. 64.Lindsay, p" 66.

Quoted in J. B. Priestley, ManAldus Books, London, 1964,

8, Priestlel, pp. 3A2-4.9. Priestley, p. 302.

54

lm.and I tme,

p. 267.

-a

oAN LtNosav

The daughter of Mr Justice Theyrea'Beckett 'Weigall,

Joan Lindsay was bornin 1896 in St Kilda, Victoria. Through thea'Beckett family Joan Lindsay was relatedto the Boyds, a family of artists and wrirers.Through her marriage to Daryl Lindsay shejoined another family of artists and writers.Her publications include Picnic at HangingRock, Time Without Clocks, Facts Soft andHard, Syil Sixpence and Through DarbestPondelayo (written under the pseudonymSerena Livingstone-Stanley). Joan Lindsaydied in 1984.

l

) /

loux fawo_y

A Sydney writer, editor, lecturer and critic,

John Taylor was educated in variouslibraries and at the East Sydney TechnicalCollege Cooking School. He has wrirtena children's book, Happyendia, a play aboutRasputin and articles for The Teaching ofEnglish end Aduentist Neus (about LindyChamberlain's innocence) as well as editingor reviewing hundreds of books. Heappears on the ABC radio programme"Science Bookshop".

Yvovt'.lr' Rouss.eau

A Melbourne short-story writer and book-reviewer, Yvonne Rousseau is the authoro{ The Murders at Hangin,g Rock -

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