What We Can Know

Thomas reiterates his lament that students are dismissive of the humanities. Many refuse to believe that the people who lived before the Inundation were anything but foolish and self-destructive. Some students, however, open themselves up to studying the digital footprints of everyday people in the early 21st century. This leads Thomas to his greatest joy, which is teaching the 90-30 postgraduate program. He expresses his preference for the post-2015 period, in which rumors gained influential social power. It was also around this period that an important novelist named Mabel Fisk was born, and the first cure for Alzheimer’s was developed.

Despite Francis’s satisfaction with the poem, he remained committed to the idea that Vivien would possess the only copy of it in existence. He also accepted Harry’s withdrawal from the biography project.

After Harry died in 2016, his papers were archived, eventually ending up at the University of Ardnamurchan in Scotland, where they were spared from the Inundation. Because of the social unrest in the surrounding areas and the treacherous journey entailed, it is difficult for Thomas to examine the Kitchener archive himself. He nonetheless believes that it includes notes on “A Corona for Vivien.”

Mentioning the Lake District as part of the journey to Ardnamurchan turns Thomas sentimental about William Wordsworth’s Dove Cottage, which was submerged in the Derangement.