VIII

belonging to the underlying things were far away, only to be found in long silences, and sounding when they came out into conversations, irrelevant, often illogical and self-contradictory, impossible to prove, driving absurdly across life towards things that seemed impossible, but were true⁠ ⁠… there were two layers of truth. The truths laid bare by common sense in swift decisive conversations, founded on apparent facts, were incomplete. They shaped the surface, made things go kaleidoscoping on, recognisable, in a sort of general busy prosperous agreement; but at every turn, with every application of the commonsense civilised decisions, enormous things were left behind, unsuspected, forced underground, but never dying, slow things with slow slow fruit⁠ ⁠… the surface shape was powerful, everyone was in it, that was where free will broke down, in the moving on and being spirited away for another spell from the underlying things, but in everyone, alone, often unconsciously, was something, a real inside personality that was turned away from the surface. In front of everyone, away from the bridges and catchwords, was an invisible plank, that would bear⁠ ⁠… always⁠ ⁠… forgotten⁠ ⁠… nearly all smiles were