yes , you 've been through these things , and you 've been used by them and battered by them , and now you stand here , by the village pub in this small , picture-postcard village , with its gently sloping stone street , and you think about all this without emotion-that you are with something that is not human , but is as intelligent as any human , and is soon to meet a female of its kind , an event of such enormous significance that no one really wants to touch upon it , perhaps only out of respect for the man who is supposed to die .