Chapter Seven
Mifkin, at that moment, more or less, sat in his room, looking gloomily out the window at—nothing. Exactly nothing!
Deputy Manager, he thought. Deputy Manager! Would that be the inscription on his gravestone? Here lies Mifkin, Deputy Manager—loveless, unwed, childless, having accomplished absolutely nothing in life, and slightly less in death. Pity him—yet thank the Lord you were not he. Something along those lines, he reckoned, snarling his lip in satisfyingly morbid self-pity.
And yet: even if he had remained Manager, without the Deputy, would he have found somebody to love? Would he have ever touched Happiness, hovering tantalisingly always one arm’s length above him, a mirage? He had to admit, to himself, to the bright white perspectiveless panorama out there, that he didn’t believe, in his heart of hearts, he ever would.