II A DROP OF BLOOD IN A BOWL OF MILK

“What is it? My dear?”

“Ah, how can we bear it?”

“Bear what?”

“This. For so short a time. How can we sleep this time away?”

“We can be quiet together, and pretend—since it is only the beginning—that we
have all the time in the world.”

“And every day we shall have less. And then none.”

“Would you rather, therefore, have had nothing at all?”

“No. This is where I have always been coming to. Since my time began. And
when I go away from here, this will be the mid-point, to which everything ran, before,
and from which everything will run. But now, my love, we are here, we are now, and
those other times are running elsewhere.”

—A. S. Byatt, Possession