There'd be a general titter of laughter at the humorous ones....

And the carbon prints, the "Ruysdael" always pointed out to visitors ...

and after the war it will all be going on again.

At Polchester, too, they'll be having cheap lectures in the Town-Hall and Shakespeare Readings and High-School Prize-givings....

_Where's_ the Connexion between That and This?
_Where's_ the permanent thing in us that goes on whatever life may do to us?
Is life still beautiful and noble in spite of whatever man may do with it, or is Semyonov right and there is no meaning in my love for Marie, nothing real and true except the things we see with our eyes, hear with our ears?
Is Semyonov right, or are Nikitin, Andrey Vassilievitch and I ?...