From time to time, Marvel enjoyed imagining himself from the vantage point of history, which stretches onward until the morality of events is winnowed until it appears to be fate—one action begetting the next and so on. Progress. This was the place where treachery and failure transformed themselves. What once seemed terrible could become courageous if given enough time. Marvel imagined that one day his sins might be tallied as virtues, that time could render him honorable, as he knew himself to be.
