We realised afresh that behind certain windows, not fifty yards away, humanity was opening a door that had been sealed from the beginning, and that a train of consequences incalculable for good or evil was on foot.

continue the slow, perpetual rebuilding of that inner structure which, in his view, it was the main purpose of life to rebuild.

‘Anyone,’ said the other, ‘except the Fools at the Top could of course have foreseen it from the word go.’

For that dim and mostly comfortable picture of a future which hovers before most men’s eyes had vanished.

wouldn’t be essentially different from other misfortunes. And misfortune is not hell, not by a long way.