Neat Plymouth gins on ice by the canal, musing on our failure.

There are some thoughts that will be forever beyond us, W. says. The thought of our own stupidity, for example; the thought of what we might have been had we not been stupid. The thought of what he might have been, W., had he not been dragged down by the concrete block of my stupidity ... The thought of what I might have been, had my stupidity simply been allowed to run its course ... W. shudders.

Oh, he has some sense of what we lack, W. says. More than I have, but then he's more intelligent than I am. He has some sense that there's another kind of thinking, another order of idea, into which one might break as a flying fish breaks the surface of the water. He knows it's there, the sun-touched surface, far above him. He knows there are thinkers whose wings flash with light in the open air, who leap from wave-crest to wave-crest, and that he will never fly with them.

He lacks brilliance, that's his tragedy, W. says. There is a dimension of thought, another dimension of life, which he will never attain. The murk of his stupidity has a gleaming surface ... He half-understands, half-knows; but he doesn't understand, he doesn't know.

But isn't that what saves him?, W. says. For if he had understood, really understood, how immeasurably he had failed, wouldn't he have had to kill himself in shame? If he had known, really known, the extent of his shortcomings, wouldn't his blood have had to mingle with the water?

Then again, if he really understood, he wouldn't be stupid, W. says. To know, really to know, would mean he had already broken the surface.