What he is really tortured by, Cavell says, is this knowledge of dependence; so, in effect, he has fast-forwarded it to the catastrophe he has always feared – her abandonment – and solved the problem by killing her. And, of course, by murdering her he has indeed ensured that she will never betray him (and she has abandoned him for ever). Tragedy, Cavell writes, ‘is the place we are not allowed to escape the consequences, or price, of this cover’.
