But what if all that isn’t true?” the girl who was at that moment behind his back was to say to him two years later; an enormous span of time—Bruno thought—because it was not measured in months or even in years, but rather, as is peculiar to this class of beings, in spiritual catastrophes and days of utter loneliness and inexpressible sadness; days that lengthen and become distorted, like shadowy phantoms on the walls of time.