… the plans we had (and oh, we had such plans, the three of us, such plans as would make the gods wheel on their great sparkling wings) seemed laid to waste; but we were not made of such stuff. Instead of reclining on those tombs made comfortable by excess of moss, we consulted the ghosts who thronged around us, fellow-creatures of exile and doubt. Their words were of no use; but we were able to make judgements by their perturbations of the air, able to see paths rising from their shoulders, ways to accommodate the labyrinth within ourselves. If we could only take the city in (as it were; there was no hint of deception here in this lonely land), then we would be able to perfect our own union, our own reaching harmony; but this was how many felt then, and now we know better, we know … [here the manuscript again occludes, there is the faint outline of some perching thing, and then the mysterious words] … the fruit of ocular resentment.
David Punter 