There was a third option in Homer’s Greek between active and passive verbs, the middle voice, a subtle space between the doer who creates or kills and the recipient who is created or is killed. Between these opposites lies he who causes but does not do the deed himself. The patron touches no stone, yet builds the cathedral; the judge wields no sword, yet strikes off the traitor’s head. Martin says nothing, yet this conversation is his creation, born from the conjunction he has carefully assembled: MASON, Spain, Madame. Even when Odysseus planned the horse, he did not saw the boards himself.
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