Spire, The by Golding William

Author:Golding, William [Golding, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Modern Classics
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 1964-01-19T03:00:00+00:00

Then the master builder was silent for a while, face in hands. He spoke at last without lifting it.

‘I’ll try to tell you about my mystery. The stones are singing. I don’t know why, but I can guess. That’s the trouble, you see. I always guess. When you come down to it, I know nothing. Or not as you —’

He looked up sideways at Jocelin.

‘Or not as you know when you speak to a congregation. You see?’

‘I see well enough.’

‘I tell you, we guess. We judge that this or that is strong enough; but we can never tell until the full strain comes on it whether we were right or wrong. And then the wind, this wind that does nothing but stir the hair round your head —’

He stared angrily at Jocelin.

‘Have you a machine to measure the weight of the wind, Father? Give me that, and I’ll tell you what will stand and what won’t.’

‘But still the pillars aren’t sinking. I told you.’

‘They’ve begun to sing.’

‘Have you never known a building sing before?’

‘Never. We’re surrounded by new things. We guess; and go on building.’

He bent back his thick neck and stared into the sky.

‘And now the spire; another hundred and fifty feet of it. Father — this is enough!’

The will spoke calmly out of Jocelin’s head. He heard it.

‘I understand you, my son. It’s the little dare all over again. Shall I tell you where we’ve come? Think of the mayfly that lives for no more than one day. That raven over there may have some knowledge of yesterday and the day before. The raven knows what the sunrise is like. Perhaps he knows there’ll be another one. But the mayfly doesn’t. There’s never a mayfly who knows what it’s like to be one! And that’s where we’ve come! Oh no, Roger, I’m not going to preach you a sermon on the dreadful brevity of this life. You know, as well as I do, that it’s an unendurable length, that none the less must be endured. But we’ve come to something different, because we were chosen, both of us. We’re mayfly. We can’t tell what it’ll be like up there from foot to foot; but we must live from the morning to the evening every minute with a new thing.’

Roger was watching him closely, tongue licking at his lips.

‘No. I don’t know what you mean. But I know how much the spire will weigh, and I don’t know how strong it’ll be. Look down, Father — right over the parapet, all the way down, past the lights, the buttresses, all the way down to the cedar top in the cloister.’

‘I see it.’

‘Let your eye crawl down like an insect, foot by foot. You think these walls are strong because they’re stone; but I know better. We’ve nothing but a skin of glass and stone stretched between four stone rods, one at each corner. D’you understand that? The stone is no stronger than the glass between the verticals because every

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