Book Four: The Trap — 6.

Colin and Arthur hike to St. Nectan’s, paying at a small hermitage before descending through a green tunnel to the secluded falls. Colin, struck by the scene’s austere beauty, takes multiple photos on his Ericsson K800i, savoring the bright, crisp images as potential keepsakes.

Arthur stands beside Colin, seemingly content to experience the moment and move on. When Colin offers to send the photos, Arthur replies, “I was here. I saw it,” signaling his indifference to souvenirs and mediated memory.

As they walk back, Colin realizes he barely looked at the waterfall except through his screen. He concludes the digital view is sharper and more vivid, like peering through the Surrealist’s Glass, and that the screen renders reality more compelling than direct experience.

Colin extends the thought to permanence: photographs, like his grandfather’s pinned butterflies, outlast life by embalming a moment. He accepts the tradeoff—that the living thing must be stilled to endure—believing preservation confers a form of eternity. This quiet scene contrasts Colin’s hunger to capture and keep with Arthur’s commitment to presence.