Good thing Amanda had me pick this up again.

He sighs. It would have been nice to be returned triumphant to humanity, the author of an eccentric little chamber opera. But that will not be. His hopes must be more temperate: that somewhere from amidst the welter of sound there will dart up, like a bird, a single authentic note of immortal longing. As for recognizing it, he will leave that to the scholars of the future, if there are still scholars by then. The proposition seems altogether dubious. In any case he does not trust he will hear the note himself, when it comes, if it comes. He knows too much about art and the ways of art to expect that. Though it would have been nice for Lucy to hear proof in her lifetime, and think a little better of him.

Why does he think Lucy would think better of him ? Stale thoughts of a stale past, a stifling way of life that has destroyed his heart, eaten his soul ; that has destroyed itself, ruined its own future, eaten itself like a mythical snake. Banishing Rosalind, putting Elaine in her place, or rather graciously allowing herself to make the first, late baby steps towards putting herself in her place, none of that is enough, not nearly enough to repay, to reconcile, to redeem, to somehow reconstruct twenty six centuries of impudent girlhood permitted, unconscionably, to run amok. The damage can not be fixed. A lone flower does not make a spring, a lone woman scattered here and there on the endless plain does not make a new world.

Poor Teresa! Poor aching girl! He has brought her back from the grave, promised her another life, and now he is failing her. He hopes she will find it in her heart to forgive him.

It was no good.