Intermezzo: A Novel

They have shown, they have demonstrated the possibility of these things, Ivan thinks, and therefore in a way proven to themselves and each other that their father is really gone, not only from the house, but from reality itself.

Life, after all, has not slipped free of its netting. There is no such life, slipping free: life is itself the netting, holding people in place, making sense of things. It is not possible to tear away the constraints and simply carry on a senseless existence. People, other people, make it impossible. But without other people, there would be no life

The most distressing thing about Bridget’s attitude to Margaret, and especially towards her marriage, is not the belief that Bridget is being cruel, so much as the suspicion, bred in the bone, a lifelong instinct, that after all she might be right.

dissolve his bad feelings in the familiar tonality of her conversation.

Language doesn’t fit onto reality like a toy fitting into a slot. Reality is actually one thing and language something else.

Relish of mutual mean-spiritedness and high discernment.

You’ve had enough sadness in your life already, Margaret, he said. You don’t need me making you sad as well. And I don’t want to, believe me.

Jesus is easy to love and God much harder. Jesus also has his own reality, his place in history, whereas God is like a dim point of light in a dark room, visible only as long as you don’t try to look directly.

Those were solid sensible ideas, powerful enough for the surface of daily life, but not powerful enough for the hidden life of desire shared between two people.