The Clockwork Testament (Or: Enderby 's End)

The work ends when the work ends,

Not before, and rarely after.

And that explains, my foes and friends,

This spiteful burst of ribald laughter.

Stop giggling will you, all of you? You are both foolish and too clever for words, Edmund, with your stupid and irreverent and meaningless doggerel improvisation. You will all smile on the other sides of your faces when I get you back to civilisation. All right, all right, I am aware that I involuntarily rhymed. Come on, out of it. Another instalment of the human condition is begi

ing. Out of it: he is well out of it, you say, Andrea? But no: he is in it, we are all and always in it. Do not think that anyone can escape it merely by-I will not utter the word: it is quite irrelevant. Out of it, indeed; he is not out of it at all.

Rome, July 1973