Read Online The Double Tongue by William Golding - Free Book Online

the gods. You couldn’t be sure of any god being on your side unless it was small and personal as a good-luck charm. So when I first heard a grown man declare his disbelief I was not so much frightened as shocked and disbelieving in his disbelief. But the shock gave place to bewilderment at what he said next.
    ‘Well, yes, yes. Of course I do. I am incurably flippant. Don’t trouble yourself.’
    ‘No.’
    ‘We do need him. Yes. It’s so difficult a question one should be able to put it on one side. Let’s do that. Are you willing?’
    ‘Anything.’
    ‘It’s a question of hexameters. Um-tiddy um-tum.’
    ‘I don’t understand you at all.’
    ‘You believe Homer was inspired by the muse – by Apollo – by the god? Of course you do, like everyone else. Yet they – people, I mean – expect the god to reply to a question, “Look in the back cupboard, dear, on the left-hand side.” Of course that’s not the voice of god! In the old days, when Hellas was great, the replies to questions came in hexameters, poetry, elevated speech, because the questions were elevated ones. “How shall we defend the gods of Hellas against their enemies?” Or “Since we cannot truckle to the Persians how can we defeat them?” Sometimes the god asked for a man’s death. That priest. He was told the battle needed – but you don’t know, do you? They gave the reply in hexameters.’
    ‘But I could not do that!’
    ‘The god touched you twice. Yes?’
    ‘No. The stories were – made up. Not by me but they escaped from me. Or rather, I let them go.’
    ‘Why are we talking like this? It doesn’t really matter what you think. There’s a sense in which it doesn’t really matter what I think either. All that matters is that we should both move towards the desired end. The first step is the hexameters. If the god should never speak through you, so be it. But the instrument shall be ready. Yes?’
    ‘But the gods are real, aren’t they?’
    ‘Yes, yes. Of course. How not? Why make such a meal of the question? You have said it. There are twelve Olympians, with the odd later attachment. But they’re like hexameters – like poetry – life is like that. You can make a debate about everything, question everything and anguish over it like, well, Socrates. In that sense he was wise. But do you notice here and there when he stopped people in the street – not his friends but passers-by – they were anxious to get away? It wasn’t their world you see. They themselves didn’t question each footstep because walking came naturally.’
    ‘I haven’t heard about Socrates.’
    ‘And you lived all your life by the road up to Delphi! It’s criminal.’
    At this Ionides glanced at me and gave a visible start.
    ‘My dear child! What have I been thinking of? You must be dead on your feet! I’ll see you again tomorrow after you are rested. Farewell.’
    So that was the beginning of freedom. It was strange that I who had had nothing to do, who had thought myself a prisoner, now found I had everything to do and thought myself free! But the strangest feeling of all, and one that grew only slowly, was that I was happy. It was like those times in very early childhood when one is too young to be anything but happy, not seeing threats before they became facts. Ionides did teach me about hexameters and about many other measures too. But I was never alone with any man except him. A man came who taught me how to speak so that a whole roomful of people could hear. He taught me how to make the great movements of the body which are a language and can be read further away than a man’s voice can be heard. Another man showed me the flowing script which I use in writing down this. Wrapped, muffled, unrecognizable, I followed Ionides through the streets of Delphi as an obedient and well-mannered wife follows her husband or a girl her father. We saw the temples and treasuries, the empty treasuries, we saw the stadium and the theatre, the streets and