He turned, and flipped the ash from his cigarette on to the great marble hearth-stones, that lay bare in the room, without fender or bar.

‘I don’t know, I’m sure,’ he replied. ‘But I do think you’ve got to find some way of resolving the situation — not because you want to, but because you’ve GOT to, otherwise you’re done. The whole of everything, and yourself included, is just on the point of caving in, and you are just holding it up with your hands. Well, it’s a situation that obviously can’t continue. You can’t stand holding the roof up with your hands, for ever. You know that sooner or later you’ll HAVE to let go. Do you understand what I mean? And so something’s got to be done, or there’s a universal collapse — as far as you yourself are concerned.’