Then I lit a cigarette myself and handed it to him.
The incident, as I say, was trivial, but it had deep symbolic significance.

All symbols in their literal objectivity are trivial.
What more trivial than the eating of a bit of bread and the sipping from a cup of wine?
This trumpery business with the cigarette revolutionised my whole feelings towards Boyce.

It initiated us into a sacred brotherhood.

Hitherto, it had been his nature which had reached out towards me tentacles of despair.

My inner self, as I have tried to show you, had never responded.