And why would a beech tree send its roots elbowing up like this above the surface of the ground? And those preposterous wooden buttresses, on which the pseudobeech supported itself—where did those fit into the picture? Will remembered suddenly his favorite worst line of poetry. “Who prop, thou ask’st, in these bad days my mind?” Answer: congealed ectoplasm, Early Dalí. Which definitely ruled out the Chilterns. So did the butterflies swooping out there in the thick buttery sunshine. Why were they so large, so improbably cerulean or velvet black, so extravagantly eyed and freckled? Purple
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