with jealousies of other men, with all the heats, rancours and troubles
of the race that is set before us. He had done, was doing, something, but
it wasn't enough. He had got, was getting, far,--but it wasn't far
enough. He couldn't achieve what he wanted; there were obstacles
everywhere. Fools hindered his work; men less capable than he got jobs he
should have had. Immersed in politics, he would have liked more time for
writing; he would have liked a hundred other careers besides his own, and
could have but the one. (Gerda and Kay, still poised on the threshold of
life, still believed that they could indeed have a hundred.) No, Rodney
was not immune from sorrow, but at least he had more with which to keep
it at bay than Neville. Neville had no personal achievements; she had
only her love for Rodney, Gerda and Kay, her interest in the queer,
enchanting pageant of life, her physical vigours (she could beat any of
the rest of them at swimming, walking, tennis or squash) and her active
but wasted brain. A good brain, too; she had easily and with brilliance
passed her medical examinations long ago--those of them for which she had
had time before she had been interrupted. But now a wasted brain;
squandered, atrophied, gone soft with disuse. Could she begin to use
it now? Or was she forever held captive, in deep woods, between the two
twilights?

"I am in deep woods,
Between the two twilights.
Over valley and hill
I hear the woodland wave
Like the voice of Time, as slow,
The voice of Life, as grave,
The voice of Death, as still...."