that there was only one god. Now you talk about his son. He must have a wife, then."
The crowd agreed.
"I did not say He had a wife," said the interpreter, somewhat lamely.
"Your buttocks said he had a son," said the joker. "So he must have a wife and
all of them must have buttocks."
The missionary ignored him and went on to talk about the Holy Trinity. At the
end of it Okonkwo was fully convinced that the man was mad. He shrugged his
shoulders and went away to tap his afternoon palm-wine.
But there was a young lad who had been captivated. His name was Nwoye,
Okonkwo's first son. It was not the mad logic of the Trinity that captivated him. He did
not understand it. It was the poetry of the new religion, something felt in the marrow.
The hymn about brothers who sat in darkness and in fear seemed to answer a vague and
persistent question that haunted his young soul--the question of the twins crying in the
bush and the question of Ikemefuna who was killed. He lelt a relief within as the hymn
poured into his parched soul. The words of the hymn were like the drops of frozen rain
melting on the dry palate of the panting earth. Nwoye's callow mind was greatly
puzzled.