What time can do to us

Much of “The Infatuations” by Javier Marías consists of intense and tense conversations between two people about death, murder, friendship, guilt, love (indeed, something stronger, infatuation), and betrayal. The “Guardian” voted it one of the best hundred books of the 21stcentury. The passage below describes what time can do and illustrates well the intensity and tone of the book. It is a “prudent young woman” who speaks, to an infatuated man who has engineered his best friend’s murder in order to be with his friend’s wife, the object of his infatuation. (That’s how it looks after reading 79% of the novel, but I’m expecting more twists.) The passage relates directly to a passage from a Balzac novel, which Marias quotes and I discuss below the passage on what time can do to us.. “We cannot know what time will do to us with its fine, indistinguishable layers upon layers, we cannot know what it might make of us. It advances stealthily, day by day and hour by hour and step by poisoned…