Darkness Visible by William Golding

Darkness Visible by William Golding

Author:William Golding [Golding, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780571312245
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2013-11-06T11:00:00+00:00


In their fifteenth year at a specific hour or even instant, Sophy felt herself come out into daylight. She was sitting in class and Toni was the only other girl of her age in the room. The rest were seniors with lumpy breasts and big bums and they were groaning as if the algebra was glue they were stuck in. Sophy was sitting back because she had finished. Toni was sitting back because she had not only finished but evaporated and left her body there with its face tilted up. That was when it happened. Sophy saw as well as knew, that there was a dimension they were moving through; and as she saw that she saw something else too. It was not that Toni was Toni the wet, though she was a wet hen and always would be, but yes, she was beautiful, a beautiful young girl—no, not beautiful with her smoke-grey hair afloat, her thin, no slim body, her face that could be seen through—she was not just beautiful. She was stunning. It was a pang clean through Sophy to see that so clearly; and after the pang, a kind of rage, that wet hen Toni of all people—

She asked to be excused, went and examined herself urgently in the grubby mirror. Yes. It was not like Toni’s beauty but it was alright. It was dark of course, and not to be seen through, not transparent, but regular, pretty, oh God, healthy, outdoor, winning, inviting, could be strong and yes that would be the best side for a photograph; in fact very satisfactory indeed if you didn’t have always at your side the wet hen for which or whom there was now no easy word—So Sophy stared into the grubby mirror at her reflection, seeing all things in the daylight that had brightened and cleared so suddenly. That evening after the French verbs and American history she lay on her divan and Toni on hers. Sophy wrenched up the volume of her new transistor so that it blared for a moment, a challenge perhaps, an insult even, or at least a rude jab at her silent twin.

“Do you mind, Sophy!”

“Doesn’t make any difference to you does it?”

Toni half knelt, changing her position. With her new, daylight eyes, Sophy saw the impossible curve alter and flow, from the line of the forehead under the smoky hair, down, round the curve of the long neck, the shoulder, include the suggestion of a breast, sweep round and end back there where a toe moved and pushed off a sandal.

“It does as a matter of fact.”

“Well you’ll have to go on minding then, my deah, deah Toni.”

“I’m not Toni any more. I’m Antonia.”

Sophy burst out laughing.

“And I’m Sophia.”

“If you like.”

And the strange creature drifted away again, leaving her body to lie there, as it were, untenanted. Sophy had a mind to blow the roof off with the radio but it seemed an action out of that childhood which they had so suddenly left behind.



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