Titus Alone

Mervyn Peake

Pg. 860

It was as if those faraway days when they were lovers came flooding back, image upon image, shade upon shade, unsoloicited, unbidden, each one challenging the strength of the dykes which they had built against one another. For they knew that beyond the dykes heaved the great seas of sentiment on whose bosom they had lost their way.

How often had he stared at her in anger or in boisterous love! How often had he admired her. How often had he seen her leave him, but never quite like this. The light from the hall ... came flooding across the garden and Juno was a silhouette against the lighted entrance. From the full, rounded, and bell-shaped hips which swayed imperceptibly as she moved, arose the column of her almost military back; and from her shoulders sprang her neck, perfectly cylindrical, surmounted by her classic head.

As he gazed at her he seemed to see, in some strange way, himself. He saw her as his failure - and he knew himself to be hers. For they had each received all that the other could provide. What had gone wrong? Was it that they need no longer try because they could see through one another? What was the trouble? A hundred things. His unfaithfulness; his egotism; his eternal play-acting; his gigantic pride; his lack of tenderness; his deafening exuberance; his selfishness.

To be continued...