The Double Tongue - Softcover

Golding, William

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0374526370 ISBN 13: 9780374526375

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999

Synopsis

The Double Tongue is William Golding's last and perhaps most superbly imaginative novel. It is a fictional memoir of an aged prophetess at Delphi, the most sacred oracle of ancient Greece, just prior to Greece's domination by the Roman Empire. As a young girl, Arieka is ugly, unconventional, a source of great shame to her uppity parents, who fear they'll never marry her off. But she is saved by Ionides, the High Priest of the Delphic temple, who detects something of a seer (and a friend) in her and whisks her off to the shrine to become the Pythia - the earthly voice of the god Apollo. Arieka has now spent a lifetime at the mercy of a god, a priest, and her devotees, and has witnessed firsthand the decay of Delphi's fortunes and its influence in the world. Her reflections on the mysteries of the oracle, which her own weird gifts embody, are matched by her feminine insight into the human frailties of the High Priest himself, a true Athenian with a wicked sense of humor, whose intriguing against the Romans brings about humiliation and disaster. This extraordinary short novel, left in draft at the author's death in 1993, is a psychological and historical triumph. Golding has created a vivid and comic picture of ancient Greek society as well as an absolutely convincing portrait of a woman's experience, something rare in the Golding oeuvre. Arieka the Pythia is one of his finest creations.
Left in draft at the author's death in 1993, this extraordinary short novel is a psychological and historical triumph. An aged prophetess at Delphi, the most sacred oracle in ancient Greece, looks back over her strange life as the Pythia, the voice of the god Apollo. Golding was the author of Lord of the Flies, and a Nobel Laureate.

About this title

About the Author

William Golding (1911-93) was born in Cornwall, England. His first novel, Lord of the Flies, was published in 1954 and became an international bestseller. In 1983, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The Double Tongue

By William Golding

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Copyright © 1995 William Golding
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780374526375

Chapter One

Blazing light and warmth, undifferentiated and experiencingthemselves. There! I've done it! The best I can, that is.Memory. A memory before memory? But there was notime, not even implied. So how could it be before or after,seeing that it was unlike anything else, separate distinct aone-off. No words, no time, not even I, ego, since as I tried tosay, the warmth and blazing light was experiencing itself, ifyou see what I mean. Of course you do! It was a quality of, akind of naked being without time or sight (despite theblazing light) and nothing preceded it and nothing cameafter. It is detached from succession, which means, I suppose,it may have happened at any point in my time-or out of it!

Where, then? I remember incontinence. My nurse and mymother - how young she must have been! - cried out withlaughter which was also a reprimand. Could I speak beforeI could speak? How did I know there was the word'reprimand'? Well, there is a whole bundle of knowledge webring with us instantly; knowledge of what anger is, pain is,pleasure is, love. Either before or very closely after thatincontinence there is a view of my legs and tummy in thewarm sun. I am examining the modest slit between my legsexperimentally with no knowledge of what it leads to, whatif is for, nor that it defines me for the rest of my life. It is oneof the reasons why I am here rather than in some other place.But I was unaware of Aetolia and Achaia and all the rest.There was more laughter, perhaps slightly furtive, and areprimand. I am picked up and spanked very gently, nopain, only a sense of having done wrong.

Almost as far back is the time when I didn't have manywords for myself and couldn't explain myself. Leptides, ourneighbour's son, was kneeling by the great wall of our houseand playing a game. He had a smouldering reed in one handand a hollow reed in the other. He blew through the hollowreed and made a flame start off the end of the other. Helooked just like one of our older house slaves who workedwith copper and tin or silver and sometimes, but not often,with gold. I thought he might be making a tin ornament forme, which tells me that I started life as a hopeful child on thewhole until I got to know about things. I squalted down tolook. But he was burning up ants and doing it very neatly.He hit each one as a huntsman might and the ants wereseldom scorched but completely burned up in an instant. Iwould have liked to have a go but knew that handling thetwo reeds at once would be beyond me. Besides, I had beentaught not to play with fire! What interests me now is that Idid not think of the ants as living things. My mind could godown as far as fish but no farther. Which is why the fishmust come next.

We had a huge stone fish tank, so huge it had threegrown-up steps to climb before you could see the fish in it.The time I'm thinking of must have been summer, for thewater was low although the men kept bringing tubs ofseawater up from me beach, but in my memory they neverquite succeeded and the water stayed low until it gotthoroughly rained on. Most of all I liked the time when themen brought fish up from our boats in barrels and sloshedthem straight into the tank. How frisky the fish were then!They were frightened, I suppose, but they gave an appearanceof joy and excitement. But they would soon calm downand seem contented and if not wanted immediately, stayedthere, becoming kind of house fish and tame. They wereeasy to manage, like house slaves. I wonder was that the firsttime I compared one thing with another? This particulartime Zoileus came to fetch them. He was a house slave, too,naturally. I am getting into a muddle. They were born slavesin our house, not caught in battle or raiding or punished fora crime or that sort of thing - say, being very poor forexample. You know how it is. I was going to make anothercomparison and say it's like being born a girl, a woman, butthat isn't so. There's a time in childhood when girls don'tknow how happy they are because they don't know they'regirls if you see what I mean, though they find out later andmost of them or some of them at any rate panic the way fishdo in the pan. At least the lucky ones do. Anyway Zoileussimply dumped these fish in the oil which was smoking.One of the fish got its head over the edge of the pan andgaped its mouth at me.

I screamed. I went on screaming because it hurt so. I musthave screamed things, not just screamed, for the next Iremember is Zoileus shouting.

`All right! All right! I'll take them back -'

He stopped speaking then, for our house dame camequickly into the kitchen, the keys clanking at her waist. `What on earth is the matter?' But Zoileus had gone and the fish with him. My nurseexplained that I had been frightened of the fish and maybesomething should be offered up for luck, a root of garlicperhaps. Our house dame spoke kindly to me. Fish weremade to be eaten and didn't feel things the way we freepeople did. She commanded Zoileus to bring back the panand the fish. He explained that they were back in the tank.

`What do you mean, Zoileus, back in the tank?'

They jumped out of the pan, lady, and swam off amongthe others.'

I have never known the truth of that. Fish fried insmoking oil can't swim away, there's no doubt of that. ButZoileus was not a liar. Perhaps he was, just this once.Perhaps he threw them away or hid them. Why? Well,supposing they did indeed swim away, it doesn't follow thatI had anything to do with it. Still people thought that wasodd. The house slaves, good souls though ours were, willbelieve anything and the more unlikely the better. We did allgo solemnly to the tank but one fish is very like another andthere was a whole shoal of them stacked in the shadowunder the thatched half-root. The house dame called mymother who called my father and by that time, whether hisstory was true or not, Zoileus had to stick to it. In the end, Ithink, he came to believe it himself, believed that somepower had healed some half-burnt fish for no particularreason at all, which as far as my nurse was concerned wassatisfyingly godlike. A bit of - not awe - but respect camemy way too. In the end a sacrifice was made to the sea god,though in the case of a miraculous healing, Aesculapius orHermes would surely have been more entitled. Had I beenolder at the time I might have thought it odd in view of mygender that they did not propitiate a goddess rather than agod. But which one? Neither Artemis nor Demeter norAphrodite would have had much use for me.

But I suppose I had better tell you something about us.We are Aetolians, naturally, since we live on the north sideof the gulf. We were a Phocian family. My father is - was - arich man and my oldest brother has inherited from him.Where our land touches the sea it stretches along for morethan a mile. We have thousands of goats and sheep and alarge old house with the usual dependencies and slaves andpeople. We also have a share in the sea ferry which sailsacross from the edge of our hand to Corinth. Often the peoplewho crossed used to think our house was the next villagehigher up the valley and they would make their way to itafter they had landed and expect a bed or horses or even acarriage. But a little while before I was born my honouredfather had a notice put up where the ferry brought in thepeople. There was a wooden hand pointing up the valleypast our land and letters on a board under the hand whichsaid

TO DELPHI

So now the travellers don't bother us so much but go onup to the next village. Beyond that village and further theoracle and the shrine and the college of priests hangs on theside of Parnassus. The oracle is a woman who is inspired bythe god to say what is going to happen and so on. You'llknow all about that whoever you are and wherever you live,all the world knows! A strong man can walk from our ferryup to Delphi in about half a day I knew about the oracleWhen I was quite small because we Phocians were responsiblefor guarding it. My grandfather Anticrates son ofAnticrales took part in the appropriation. My honouredfather (also called Anticrates) said that it was absolutelynecessary. His father had told him when he was a small boythat it was necessary to take it under our protection. Delphiwas inconceivably rich and it was quite obvious at the timethat several cities (I name no names even now) were about toget their hands on all the treasure and waste it in impiousways. But, as he said, it was necessary to protect the place forwe had a just war on our hands and the god agreed that weneeded the gold for that purpose.

Living so near, being of such a degree and having takenpart in it all, the family has many stories of what happenedat the time. We used to keep some of our knowledge toourselves but so many things have passed away I can tellyou some of them now in my old age since they no longermatter. When we agreed with the Delphians and particularlywith the college of priests to take them over we askedthe Pythia - she was the oracle, of course you will rememberthat - we asked her to transmit to us the god's approval. Butall she would do was cry `Fire, fire, fire!' She came up thesteps from the holy of holies into the portico and still cried`Fire, fire, fire!' She ran wild and no one could do anythingfor her, the god had her in his hands, no one could touch heruntil at last she got among some ignorant soldiers - theywere not Phocians but mercenaries - and they killed her!

It is quite true, said my father, that the oracle has neverbeen the same since. He also said that there were a few firesin Delphi started by the mercenaries which was sufficient atthe time to make her outcry quite understandable. But youcan never really tell with an oracle. There are famous onesfrom earlier days. Once a man was told he would die by thefall of a house. So he stayed out of doors until one day aneagle dropped a tortoise on his bald head. The god speakswith a double tongue which he inherited from a huge snakehe killed at Delphi. As a matter of fact - I have never toldanyone of this - I myself have worked out what was meantby the other fork of the tongue when the Pythia cried out`Fire, fire, fire!' For that year in which we took over Delphiwas also the year in which the God Alexander the Great wasborn. You see, as all the world knows, you can never tellwith an oracle. But to say we sacked the place is a monstrouslie. The war was very expensive and lasted a long time and ifin the end the god was not wholly on our side it does notneed a theologian to explain to us that such is his privilege.

However, don't run away with the idea that I am a wisewoman and have worked out everything. I am a muddledperson. Boys of our degree have been taught to think, orthink they have been taught to think, though all it generallymeals is being able to catch you out and then shout Zany!Zany!' But I am indeed muddled and have not made senseof anything I think I am muddled partly because I am awoman, partly because I was never thought to think andpartly because cause I am me. Why! These tablets I have writtenare full of words and I haven't even told you my name! It isAricka and it is said to mean `little barbarian'. When I wasyoung I would have liked to be called by a more resoundingname, Demetria, say, or Cassandra, or Euphrosyne. But I amstuck with Aricka and there it is. Perhaps I looked like a littlebarbarian when I was born. Babies are so ugly.

After the fish my memories are successive so I don't haveany excuse for being muddled. But after the fish thingsaltered a little. My mother (not my nurse) took me aside andexplained that I had drawn attention to myself. It felt a bitlike when I was incontinent. The very words `drawn attentionto yourself' were a reprimand. I understood a little more ofwhat a girl was.

Still, there was my dear brother Demetrios - on whom beblessings and good luck wherever he may be! He was mydearest possession. He taught me my letters. He was a fewyears older than I and had hair coming on his face. I stillcan't think why he did it and I dread the only explanation Ican think of, which is that he was bored, but he drew shapesin the dust (imagine more sun!) and made me understandthat each shape was uttering something. Then he puttogether two of those he had taught me and asked me whatword they were saying and I was launched. It seems to me,remembering back, that I jumped from that first word clearover the hedges that some children find so hard and I readfluently from that moment. Of course this is impossible fortwo reasons. The first is that my brother only taught me afew letters on that first occasion and had to be pleaded withto `play that game again!' The second reason is that I had noaccess to anything which would allow of fluent reading.There were very few books when I was a child. Of coursethere are more now, when people - and not the best people - havemade a trade out of selling them. When I was a child,unless you had the luck to know a poet or writer wellenough to beg his roll of paper off him, you had to put upwith the tales people told at the hearth, the songs they sang,and if you were old enough to be present a story chanted tothe whole assembled family by some wandering `Son ofHorner'.

Though the centre of the world is just a walk away up thehill from us, my brother was the only one who had a book. Itwas his schoolbook and told the story of Odysseus in only avery few columns. He shared a schoolmaster with ourneighbour's son, but when he was sixteen - my brother Imean - he went off to Sicily to look after things there likesending corn in ships and so on and trading. As he left,laughing and shouting, he tossed the hook to me and said,`Read that to me when I come back!' The sorrows ofchildhood are complete and for many days I did not botherto examine the book, but at last I did and perhaps my sorrowwas not as complete as I had thought, for when Demetrioscame back after six months I could indeed read the book. ButDemetrios was very manly, almost unrecognizable, and hehad forgotten me, let alone his book. Then, after ten days orso, he went away again. Still, I could read and knew thebook by heart. The result was that when A `Son of Homer'was invited into the women's part of the house and gave usa section of the Odyssey - as I remember, the very famous hitwhen he's in Phacacia - the man said (bowing to my mother)that now he had seen our house he understood thatOdysseus did not immediately speak out, because he wasawed at the magnificence of the palace of Alcinous. After theman had finished, I was exalted and cried out that he shouldgo on to tell us how Odysseus had met Athene on the beach:but that exaltation led to me being told that I had drawnattention to myself again. I remember how envious I was ofthe boy who carried the man's lyre and had seen so much ofthe world. I had a daydream of disguising myself as a boyand going off with the man, though I never found asatisfactory way of getting rid of his boy, who was alwaysthere at the back of my daydream to bring me down to earthand back to my senses.

I learnt about love and grief when my brother Demetrioswent away for the second time. I don't know whether I wasa scrawny little girl her ore he went away but I am very sure Iwas soon afterwards. My race has always been uneven, theone side not properly balanced by the other. Generallypeople say that girls of my kind are redeemed by animationor a pair of beautiful eyes, but I wasn't. Leptides, the son andheir of the smaller estate which marched with ours, was justas scrawny, but seeing that he was a boy it didn't matter. Hehad light sandy hair and light brown freckles all over hispink face. He called himself a `light-haired Achaian' as inthe war story. He and his two sisters were allowed to playwith me but that all came to a sudden end. Leptides usedto make up games in which I and his sisters were his armyand sometimes his wives or his slaves. His army wasAlexander's, of course, and far more strictly disciplined thanthe Macedonians ever wear as far as I've heard.

My nurse was supposed ton be supervising these games,but she was getting fat and foolish and slept most of her lifeaway, a natural slave and only worth punishing for the lookof the thing. One day when I was his slave, he said that sinceI was no longer a free woman I should be beaten on my barebottom. Of course in real life, and particularly in a greathouse like ours, the house slaves are never beaten. They aremore or less adopted into the family, at least the girls are. Ithurt a great deal though I didn't mind it as much as youmight think. Looking back I believe Leptides was jealous ofour house and estate. That makes sense, but of course it's thekind of insight you only get when you are much older; orperhaps you know it when you are young but don't knowit - there you go, Aricka, getting things muddled again! Butyou can see how ignorant or innocent a child I was in that Iasked my nurse whether a house slave could really bebeaten on her bare bottom or whether she would be allowedto draw her hirnation tightly over her bottom. I was notprepared for the following questions nor the commotion myanswers started. Nurse had palpitations and hot flushes andbreathlessness. How she summoned up courage enough totell my mother what was going on I cannot think. Not onlywas I forbidden to play with Leptides any more but I hadsome more bread and water and hemming to teach mesomething or other.

When I came out again I had to stand in front of myhonoured father with my hands properly clasped in frontand my eyes looking at the floor midway between us. Mymother started to speak but my father silenced her with agesture.

'In this kind of situation, Demetria, it is almost always thegirl's fault.'

There was a long silence after that. My father broke it atlast.

`I suppose you know, young lady, that you've got youngLeptides into trouble? He's been sent off to do three months'military training. I don't wish to see you any more. Now go.'

So I curtsied and went to my place. Of course, whatevermy father said, the military training was not really a punishmentlike bread and water, solitude and plain hemming. Mymother said it would get all the nasty thoughts out of hishead and he might even form a lasting friendship with oneof our brave soldiers. Of course the men of our degree arecavalry. Indeed, boys who get sent early to military trainingthink it's a holiday and come back boasting of being onwatch in the middle of the night `like the other men'. I wasvery lonely at this time and became acutely aware of myown insignificance. In addition to being scrawny with alopsided face I am on the sallow side. My nurse told me thatmy father would have to pay an extra large dowry to get meoff his hands, which is why he was so stern with me. Shesaid it was enough to make any man stern because what didhe get out of it? The proper dowry for a girl of my degree - provincialaristocrat - would be a thousand silver pieces. Hewould have to pay more like two thousand.

There were times, as I moved towards my courses, when Istill had hopes that the gods and in particular Aphroditewould work their customary miracle and turn a child withmy natural disadvantages into a flower-like creature and doit more or less in a single night. There is a dread insult in ourpart of the world, and I sometimes thought I saw it behindthe faces of the people responsible for me - the thought that Ishould have been disposed of at birth, though of course noone ever uttered the words and I dare not myself. But thethought was there, behind their faces.

I was brooding on all this one day and going towards thefish tank when one of our boughten slaves came whiningout of their place with a child in her arms and thrust it at me.She was howling by the time she reached me. My arms cameup automatically to cradle, but almost as quickly I usedthem to push the child back at her for it was covered withspots. She, curious creature, fell silent at that, ducked a lamereverence and walked back again into her own place. But Ihad felt something in the instant between holding andletting go. I should be hard put to describe it further. So mysimplest recourse is to tell you baldly that the girl believed Ihad some power and that once I had touched the child itwould get better, which it did. This goes back to the half-cookedfish, a story which was now a bit of family historyand, like most family history, simplified and exaggerated. Ido not think I am a healer and I am the one to know, surely!

We are wrapped in mysteries. I know that. I have come toknow that. Until I had my courses time did really stand stillfor me. I know that too. Yet among us Hellenes, whether weare Aetolians or Achaians or no matter what, courses comelater according to our degree. I was in my fifteenth year.Things made a kind of unruly sense. This time it wasn't fishor even a baby, but a donkey. I have told nobody, ever. Thisdonkey turned the mill for the coarse grain. Naturally, mealfor the family was done at a rotary quern with the slavewomen singing the turning song, usually the one aboutPittacus, but quite often if another name would fit the turningthey used it. This donkey. which naturally again we all calledPittacus, walked round and round and at the end of a bar ahuge ball of stone rolled round in a groove full of grain, orsometimes the mush from the olive's third pressing. Well ofcourse you know how that kind of mill works! I was watchingPittacus and interested in his thing which he had under hisbelly which was sticking out and hurting him because hewas braying so loudly as he walked round. This thing was asif alive on its own and quite separate from poor Pittacus itseemed. Every now and then it would snap up against hisbelly with a sound like hitting a big drum. It was then that aweirdness overcame me so that I felt I might fall down. But Ipushed through that because I was interested and horrifiedand frightened. At the moment when I emerged - if emergedis the right word - one of our boughten slaves can with agag and I was fascinated by the struggle. He had to strap theanimal's jaws together to keep its mind on the work in hand.Pittacus was trying to clear but could do nothing but strikeout sideways with a hind leg. I found out afterwards that hehad scented one of our most valued mares which was tomate with my father's war stallion, so Pittacus couldn't be letgo even when the mush was all pulped.

There is something very strange about girls immediatelybefore menstruation. I don't mean the pretty ones, thebeauties or even those who are comely enough to bewelcomed into a family with only a modest dowry. I meanreally the unattractive ones, whom a god has blighted andwho have nothing for sale and who have become sodefensive they can never make contact with anyone, least ofall with the rites of the Paphian. They acquire theseunfortunates strange abilities. Or perhaps abilities is thewrong word. The situation is not really describable, exceptthat the girl becomes very clever in a useless way - useless itmay be to anyone else, though the girl may think there issubstance in it. Well. It may be indescribable but I will do mybest. It is a furtive power. They wish: and if they wish in theright way - wrong way? - sometimes if the balance is everso slightly on their side then - just more often than not butonly just - they get what they want or somebody does. Theworld is riddled with coincidences and the girl sees this. Sheuses this when it is available. I perhaps to somebody else whogets what he wants. Or, I mean, gets what he didn't want.You can never prove this. As I said it is furtive anddishonest, knows how to hide, how to claim, how todisguise, avoid, speak double like the snake or not at all.Moreover, this is not a power to be exaggerated. It is nooracle, does not win battles. It cannot cure the plague butonly some headaches, cannot cure heartache but can supplythe necessary tears for it.

When my father clapped me up on bread and water thefirst time, he took my doll away. I wished it back but, ofcourse, how could it come? But when they let me out I knewwhere they had put it and went straight there. I knew indeedwhere it was, went and took it because they were such andsuch and would put it there. So I watched the donkeyPittacus struggling against the spikes in his gag and theweirdness overcame me and I quietened him, feeling theconsolation and love go out, out through my aching headand suddenly reeling mind, out to poor Pittacus, andquietened him in his struggle so that his tail dropped and hismember drew back in and he stood silent at the mill with hishead down by his feet. It was at that moment that I heard ashout of laughter and there was Leptides grinning over thewall of the yard and showing his teeth through a sandybeard and crying aloud to the whole world: `He fancies you!'Into that blazing moment, drawn and irritated by the ass'sclamour, strode my lather. He stopped ten yards away. Hewent white, turned and fairly ran into the house. My headcleared as if he had run out of it. There was a great silence ofchange and discovery. I heard a faint but positive tap and, bysome instinct looking down, I saw the first drop of my bloodstarred on the strap of my right sandal.

After that of course I disappeared into the women'squarters and the usual sacrifices were made. I went into afive-day period of seclusion. The ass in rut and Leptides'loud, male laughter and his shouting out what ought not besaid - they were a kind of initiation into my new state.

I must have been happy some of the time. I think girls arecreated to be happy for a time in childhood. They can behappier in their skins than men, or boys rather, who havealways to be doing something, mischief probably. But nowof course, aged fifteen, I was grown up. It was difficult.Sometimes l think, and indeed thought at this earlyexperience of being grown up, that we should be free andnatural as birds are. What should we think of a bird whichwas different and feverish, that never flew but sat all thetime on a nest? But my parents expected such normality. Itshould have been easy enough, for all I had to worry aboutwere my courses and all the rituals attached, but the ritualsdidn't bother me and any courses hardly hurt me - merelyadded to the confusion in my head and a slight headache fora day and a half. They were just enough to remind me thatwomen aren't free, not even the free ones. It was like a notvery heavy chain which had been waiting to fasten itselfround my waist to ensure that I was a prisoner like allwomen. The only consolation was that for a few days eachmonth I was untouchable. What followed was that on thosedays I could have any thoughts I wanted without the godstaking any notice of them, because the thoughts wereuntouchable, too. l have never told anyone this truthbecause it is a mystery and only to he written down ratherthan spoken. So on those days when 1 was thought to heunclean I found myself thinking all kinds of forbiddenthoughts and planning to put them away somewhere safe. Ido it now for I am in my eighties and what does anything Ido matter?

As I was grown up. when my father had guests who weresuitable - and I don't think my father ever had guests whoweren't - I was sometimes allowed to sit on a high chair bymy mother in hers. Of course neither my mother nor I saidanything on these occasions and if a guest was so forgetful ofhis manners as to address either of us directly my fatherwould answer for us was proper. So, though I saw Ionidesvery soon after I grew up, I never spoke to him. He wasrangy and restless and gaunt. Though he was not muchmore than thirty years old there was grey in his hair and agrey tone round his mouth and chin where had shaved inthe Alexandrian manner. He smiled sometimes out of hisgaunt face and you could see how the muscles moved underthe skin. It a strange smile. There was a grief in itsappearance which I am sure enough he did not really feel. Itwas there, you might say, partly by accident and partly byhis position which was distinguished. He was, in fact, thepriest who had to interpret the mounthings of the Pythiawhen she was beside herself on account of inspiration. Thesecond visit he made, there came a moment when he actuallysmiled at me, which in a younger and less distinguishedman would have been suggestive. But it was a kind, sadsmile and it moved me much as my brother had done. Idared to smile downward slightly and drew my scarf closer.I was conscious of wearing my best dress, the one with theegg and dart border. I am sure there was some kind ofcommunication he intended, after an appraisal taken. It waslike the first glint of the sun. The very next day my fathersent me., This was not to the large hall when weentertained our guests but to a smaller room, the estates officein fact, where there was the only paper in the house andlarge bundles of tally sticks. My father was flicking the ballsof his abacus. A I came in, he threw the tablets at an estateslave who waited before him.

`Add them up for yourself!'

When the salve had gone my father turned to me.

`You may sit down there.'

I got up on the three-legged stool which was slightly toohigh for me and waited. He opened a box and took out adocument which I could see was written on all over andbeautifully written at that. He unrolled it and muttered thecontents to himself.

`So and so the son of so and so, blah blah, has given forpartnership of marriage, blah, her mother being blah to blahson of blah. Bride brings so much -'

`But, Honoured Father -'

`Don't interrupt. This is a great day for you, young lady.Where was I? "Son blah, bride brings - let husband andwife live together - duties of marriage - if separation - letthe husband restore - father of the husband Leptides - contractvalid written in duplicate - each party -"'

`Father!'

`Don't interrupt - "and in answer to the formal question -"'

`I won't! I won't marry him! Who does he think he is?

`Leptides son of Leptides. You must have known.'

I found I had climbed down from the stool. I was twistingmy hands one with the other. I suppose it's what they callwringing.grandchild. Considering the dowry I had to bring him Iought to be down on my knees begging for forgiveness frommy parents who had done mo e than their best for me. Whodid I think I was? The Queen of Egypt? Get up, child, it's notas bad as all that. Women must be married or where shouldwe be? It's ordained by the gods and who was I and soon . . .

Who was I indeed? was already down on my knees butit was not in supplication. It was in panic and anguishthough which I actually heard the threat of more bread andwater and was ordered angrily to go back to my room andthink about it. I did that, scurrying away like a mouse in arickyand - not even 3 rat. When l got back to my room Iwalked up and down, up and down, arms crossed on mybosom, hands beating the upper arm, what they call withwomen beating your your breast though not even the deepestgrief or terror would make a woman do that, up and down,up and down. I went mad, I think. Crouched on my palletbed I saw then~ was only one thing for it. I must escapesomehow. I must get away - but where? I thought of mybrother and determined that I must go in his direction - towardsSicily - something would happen, the gods wouldprotect me.

Now, at my age, I know a strange thing. I was goingthrough the motions of escape. What I was doing wasmaking a last utterly desperate appeal to my parents. see! Iam even willing to face death to escape this fate! But at thesame time the underside of my mind knew it was an appeal.The only honest determination of my mind was this: I willgo towards Sicily and I will go as far as I can.

I will not elaborate on the contrivances I made. It involvedgetting the boughten slave who thought she owed her son'slife to me to get me a boy's tunic. The necessary companionof this foolish escapade - foolish if I did not admit it was anappeal, but sensible otherwise - was, of all creatures, Pittacus.The only people who saw us leave by way of the back courtwere slaves who were at once astonished and frightened. Iwas astride the ass in my tunic with a scarf draped over mylegs and Pittacus did not much like my weight where it was,as a change from the mill to which he was in accustomed asto think it the only way of living. He had also, what was verynatural a tendency to him in a circle if I was not keepinghim straight, which I could only do by whacking on theturning hand with a stick. We had got no more than ahundred yards along the track above the beach when heardthe horn from the hill. The next thing I heard was a greatbelling of hounds and shouts of men, which confoundedPittacus who wanted to go back home. I had got him pointedtowards Sicily when the clamour increased suddenly. A full-grownstag came round the corner of the path with threehounds hanging from him and the rest of the pack boilinground him and the men on horses only a few yards behind.Even at that moment I did not understand my peril and feltfor the poor stag and its terror so that it turned aside anddragged the snarling hounds down the beach towards thewater. The hounds had a go at Pittacus and when he felt a realbite he bucked hugely and threw me into the air. I fell on ahound or two which broke my fall but it was still heavyenough to knock me out.

I came to, to feel my tunic tearing. I eptides and lonideswere either side of me, keeping the horses hoofs year of meand whipping the hounds away. The anger and contempt intheir eyes - and the laughter in the faces of the riders whonow crowded round - were worse than the nips I hadsuffered from the hounds. I find it hard to believe at thisdistance of time, but it was indeed Leptides who chased thestag into the water and ordered the huntsman to cut itsthroat while lonides wrapped his cloak and my scarf aboutme ant Set me before him on his horse. I did notice even thenhow he winced at the touch of my flesh and how, when hesaw what I tried so desperately to conceal from him, his facetwisted in disgust. But I was ignorant, weeping and sore. Ihad made my appeal sure enough and now had to abide theconsequences of it. I passed the next few hours in a kind ofdeliberate insensibility. They took me back to the house,called for my mother, said things, everybody said things. Atone point Leptides was whipping off our boughten slaves,the house slaves had too much sense to interfere. At last Iwas in my own room, wearing a dress just like a grownwoman, my nips smarting where they had laid salve onthem, my mother standing by the window and closing theshutters as if there had been a dead body in the room. Iwished at the time that there had been. When they wereclosed and the room in an artificial twilight she still stoodlooking down at me.

`You fool.'

After that, there was a long pause. She began to walk upand down, then stopped again.

`What are we to do with you?'

Still I drew myself in and hid in my own mind.

Presently my mother left me. There is not much to sayabout my state except that it is a retreat, further and furtheraway from the daily world. It is not a drawing into one's self;or rather it is, I suppose, since in those circumstances whereelse is there to go? But what it feels like is a deliberatedescent into the earth, down and down. Each time I realizedafresh the enormity of my disgrace, the depth of my shame, Idrew myself in and thrust myself down, down, away fromthe daylight, away from people. Also away from the gods. Isuppose that was where my ignorant but now one-pointedmind came on a fact which would have astonished me if Ihad been in a condition to think round it. The fact was that Imissed the gods and was not just ashamed, but strickendown with grief, and when at last I got to the level wherethere were no people but only gods, my heart broke. Do notthink it was this god or that. They had drawn together in asacred band. Even our herm, the checky column with theprivates of a man and a bearded face, who stood, frontingthe path from the ferry. even he seemed glad in myimagination to be turned away from me.

Oh, that child! It is a kind of self-love I suppose thatmakes me smile to myself when I remember her. Well. Forall the ascetics say, a degree of self-love is no bad thing. Itmakes life possible, unless like the ascetics you think itwholly bad and to be rid of as soon as you can. But whateveryou think of her, whatever I remember of her there is nodoubt about the poor thing's shame and grief with her godsturning their back on her! Until then I had accepted them asbeing there because everyone else - grown-ups I would say - believedin them or said they did. I was too young andignorant to know that people do not always believe whatthey say they do. Anyway, in that small room, with its pallet.its single chest, its hooks with one or two cloaks hangingfrom them, there in the artificial twilight she drupped downinto grief, into sorrow beyond the shame. She dissolvedaway like a lump of salt in fresh water. There was nothingbut grief before the retreating backs of the gods: then theywere gone.

There is a void when the gods have been there, thenturned their backs and gone. Before this void as before analtar there is nothing but grief contemplating the void. Timepasses but irrelevantly. The void with the grief before it iscternaL 13ven the .sound of the woodcn bolt being shot backand the latch hfting did not alter that contemplaffon. Mymother's voicc was morc decply bittcr than I had ever heardbefore.

'He has withdrawn his y Lfer. Ieptides that oaf haswithdrawn his offcr. He' - Imd it sounded as ff she spat thewords out - 'He pitles us!'

Life is not bad. It is intoleMble which is dirferent. I sat upheavily. I stared at rny mothcr'~ feet.

'He doesn't want the thouMnd pieccs of silverr

'What decent man would when a woman went with itwho has shown everything she's got to half Aetolia? But aboy heir to no more than a &rm to turn down alliance withus - with us!'

I heard the door close again and the latch drop. I listcnedfor the wooden bolt to move but it never did. WeU. Whatbolt is needed to cage a naked girl?

Presently I sat up then stood up. l felt ny nips and Iheyhad hardly broken the ~Idn. The hounds were well enou~htrained - no ~olo~ian dog~ thosc! Tl cy had known theirplace and the difference betwcen hun~n skin and a stag'sleather. I took my phial of olivc oil and rubbcd A little of itinto my face. l thou~ht to my.scU that if Leptides had gonethrou~h with his offer I might have asked him for a minor -and flinched at once from the bloodless image of his voicc:What u ould you u~nt witi~ u mirror7 I combed my hair out butunravelled the hlots with my finger~. I had neither so muchhair nor so many combs that I could afford to lose any ofthem. I eyed my opcn chcst with its folded dolhes. The bestone lay on top. I moved it on to my pallet and took oul adark gown that had frayed round the hem at the heel. I put iton slowly then fa~tened it with bronzc brooches on eithershoulder. I gudled my~lf and crossed the straps betwecnmy small, not to say insignificant breasts, then pulled up theskirt to Iet it hang down over the girdle.

You will wonder why I did all this, I who had been griefbefore the void, but the reason is simple. Nature has a worldof imperatives and I needed to obey one of them. It is oddhow people in stories never need to ease themselves, andthat bitch Helen never menstruated - no, no, not bitch - poorsoul! So I went out through the unbolted door and into theprivy and eased myself, thinking now I was no longer beforeit that of course the void was the door of death, whichexplained everything and brought me a measure of peace:for I saw that death was an escape and a refuge. That is ahard lesson for the young to understand unless they havereally been brought before the void by the unbearablecruelty of life itself! The others are right to dance and singand have best friends and marry a good man and love theirchildren. When I was back in my room I wondered what todo next, which shows that I was properly alive again andeven a bit hungry. But before I had come to any conclusionmy mother opened the door all and came in quickly.

'Arieka! No, not that dress, your best one quickly!'

'To wear?'

'Quickly, I said! For Heaven's sake get that old thing offand put on your egg and dart! You can wear the gold earrings today and the bracelet. Hurry!'

What is it, Mother?'

'Hurry, I said! I want you looking your best.'

'Oh, not Leptides! I won't -'

'No. Not Leptides. Forget him and hurry. Yuur fatherwants you.'

After I had changed as fast as I could - and my motherfussed round, pushing a strand of hair this way, pulling upthe skirt, muttering and blessing herself - we went, she infront, of course, I following with hands folded at my waist.But they came up of themselves.

He was not alone. He lay on one couch and Ionides on theother. Ionides gave me his slight version of the smile with itsaccompanying sorrow. My father opened the proceedings.

`You may sit, Demetria.'

Ionides stirred.

`And the girl old friend? The girl too, don't you think?' My father pointed to the other chair. I got myself on to itrather clumsily if the truth were to be told. My fear seemedto swirl round me. My father cleared his throat.

`Ionides Peisistratides has with great generosity offered usa way out of our - what shall I call them7'

`Your difficulties,' murmured Ionides, `your temporarydifficulties. Or do I sound too much like a money-lender?'

`Our difficulties,' said my father. `Precisely. He has madeus an offer on your behalf. He proposes to nominate you as award of the Foundation.'

There was a silence. My father stared at me, then at mymother, then at Ionides, then back at me.

`Can't you say something?'

But I was not used to saying something. There was, as Ithink the saying goes, an ox on my tongue. It was Ionideswho answered him at last.

`I think, old friend, that you had better leave this to me.'

He heaved himself up on the couch, turned a little, swunghis legs and put his feet on the floor. He was sitting on theedge of the couch, just as if he had been a girl! I shall neverforget that moment. I might have laughed but did not. But itwas, to say the least, odd to face a man sitting opposite me. Itwas certainly odd, but easier.

What has happened, Arieka, is that after all the excitement - Imean after the - well, you are called a little babarianaren't you, say may I use a babarian word I picked up on mytravels and say that after the shemozzle this morning yourparents find themselves, think themselves in a fix. Nowyou've decided to refuse that young man and, believe me, Iagree with you, the way is open for me to propose what Iwas going to before I heard you were contemplatingmatrimony. You see, I'm really a rather important person -'

My father laughed.

`A very important person.'

`If you say so, old friend. Very well. At least an importantperson in that I can decide a girl is suitable for the service ofthe shrine at Delphi.'

`Don't get the wrong idea,' my father broke in. `You'llsweep floors.'

`That is putting a rather dreary construction on the offer,don't you think? You see, my dear, there is a college ofpriests at Delphi. The Foundation, that is the divinelyconstituted body which actually runs the place, if you seewhat I mean, also has to decide what persons are worthy ofbelonging to the service of the god in however slight andmenial a position. You have heard of the Pythia of course?Or I should say in fact the Phythias. At the moment there aretwo of them. Those distinguished ladies are sacred anddivine and utter the oracles of the god' - my parents andIonides himself made a sacred sign - `but we are not directlyconcerned with them. After all' - and he smiled again - `wehave slaves to do what I may call "the dirty work"!'

`You must think yourself lucky, my girl,' said my father.

`Don't imagine you're not costing us anything!' `The Foundation,' murmured Ionides, `is not charitableinstitution. It must, if I may so phrase it, pay its way. Yourfather, Anticrates the son of Anticrates, and I have come toan agreement on behalf of your family and the Foundation.Your dowry will be held by the Foundation. On your death - wehave to mention such things, my dear, when discussinglegal matters - on your death it would become Foundationproperty in perpetuity. Should you wish to marry at anypoint the Foundation would return the whole sum to youbut keep the interest.'

`Ion, old friend, we should mention the sum to her don'tyou think?'

`I am sure a young lady like Arieka would not beinterested in such sordid details. I should say, Arieka - now Ireally think you should uncross your arms, you know! That'sbetter. You see, what your being a ward of the Foundationready comes to is that I have adopted you and shall beresponsible for you. Do you mind that? Could you possiblybear it do you think? I should have to be responsible for youreducation in your duties and - oh heavens - a whole host ofthings. I hope we shall be friends.'

Beside me I heard my mother stir. I also heard in her voicethat she had come to boiling point for she fairly hissed thewords, `Say something!'

But the words which came out of my mouth were nothingbut astonishment.

`W-why me?'

My father answered the question instantly and grimly.

`Because we've paid an arm and a leg to get -'

`Old friend! I think we have all said very nearly enough.The question now is how soon can the girl pack up andcome? She has a maid, I suppose? You'll send her up in aproper vehicle? We have to think of the reputation of theFoundation, you know! To answer your question, Arieka,we think, after what we have heard, that there may bequalities lying dormant - I mean asleep - in you which are - dareI say? - unusual; oh, nothing to be proud of, I assureyou, but qualities in which we - well there. Everything willexplain itself.'

`Where will she live?'

`Oh, we have the appropriate accommodation, old friend.It's a large foundation, you know, all those souls! And as Ihappen to be the Warden -'

`She can think herself lucky,' said my father shortly. `Isthere anything else?'

`We'll nominate our man for the agreement and you'llnominate yours, I suppose. But she can come before that. Wehave no differences do we? Everything is straight and plain.'

`We don't want the girl any more.'

`I hope you mean that as far as she is concerned the affairis settled to her satisfaction? Any other meaning -'

My mother stood up, so I did too. She spoke. `IonidesPeisistratides, I thank you.'

My father favoured me with a glare.

`Well, girl? Aren't you going to say anything?'

`Honoured Father.'

`To Ionides I mean.'

But again my words were the wrong ones and made littlesense.

`This wonderful day -'

The last I saw or Ionides that time he was not smiling butlaughing out loud, a thing he seldom did.

My mother fairly pushed me out.

Continues...

Excerpted from The Double Tongueby William Golding Copyright © 1995 by William Golding. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0374526370
• ISBN 13: 9780374526375
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 165