All Souls by Javier Marías

identity of that person (that "Jack") whom at the time both Dayanand and Cromer-Blake wanted or rather, perhaps, wanted to hang on to. I'd like to have known the identity of that vital nexus uniting them, for it seems possible that it was that person, for whom on that winter night I felt barely a glimmer of curiosity, who bound them together for life or beyond that into death, even though one of them is still in the land of the living and the other in the land of the dead. "And what about Edward Bayes? Is he a fanatic too? Or is he more like the Dean of York?" Cromer-Blake gave a short, serene laugh and regained at a stroke the joviality he'd shown at the beginning of our conversation. "We're all capable of being like the Dean of York at one time or another. Do I take it you're seriously interested in Clare?"
    "No, not really. I think my mind's still very much on a young girl I saw some days ago on the train from London and again yesterday in Broad Street. But since I don't know who she is and may never see her again I might well begin to think about your friend Clare too." - "What an idiot," I thought, "why can't I think about something more fruitful, more interesting? Relationships with those with whom we have no blood ties never are; the possible variety of paths such a relationship can take are minimal, the surprises all fakes, the different stages mere formalities, it's all so infantile: the approaches, the consummations, the estrangements; the fulfilment, the battles, the doubts; the certainties, the jealousies, the abandonment and the laughter; it wears you out even before it's begun. I feel troubled by my absence from the world and can no longer tell the difference between what I should spend my time thinking about and what is just a deplorable waste of time and thought. I feel completely off-balance and I shouldn't be thinking about either of them, the girl or Clare Bayes. The one thing I shouldn't be doing is thinking about them. I'm just drunk and generally confused. Here I am with all the time in the world in this staticcity I happen to have ended up in, and I'm turning into an idiot." I continued my thoughts out loud to Cromer-Blake: "I shouldn't be thinking about these things, I should be thinking about something more interesting. More to the point, I should be talking about something more interesting, I'm sorry."
    "Is there anything more interesting?" Cromer-Blake had once more adopted a serious tone, though less serious than before and without losing his indulgent, good-humoured air. This was real after-dinner talk. He'd taken out a cigarette from the packet I'd placed on the table and rather ineffectively put a flame to it with my lighter. He never carried cigarettes or matches of his own. He held the cigarette as if it were a pencil. He didn't inhale. In fact he didn't really know how to smoke at all.
    "I suppose not," I said and drank the last of my port while I looked for answers; Cromer-Blake refilled my glass. His hand was steady again. I relit his cigarette, properly this time.
    'Thanks. I mean, take me, take Dayanand, or even the Warden; take Kavanagh, Toby or the Ripper, who, given their ages and temperaments, must surely lead chaste lives. And take Ted of course. Well, you don't know them as well as I do. Oh, yes, I know them all. Not one of us thinks of anything else all day but men and women, the whole day is just a process one goes through in order to be able to stop at a given moment and devote oneself to thinking about them, the whole point of stopping work or study is nothing more than being able to think about them; even when we're with them, we're thinking about them, or at least I am. They're not the parentheses; the classes and the research are, so are the reading and the writing, the lectures and the ceremonies, the suppers and the meetings, the finances and the politicking, everything in fact that passes here for activity. Productive activity, the thing that brings us money and security