Titus Groan disturbed and uneasy about all that has happened, and disturbed about Steerpike's sudden rise. Yet neither is able to connect Steerpike as the cause of the tragic events, as he was their apparent saviour from the fire in the library. Soon afterwards, the “Earling” takes place, and young Titus is officially made Earl of Gormenghast. In a ridiculously elaborate ceremony on a nearby lake, little Titus holds aloft the sacred symbols of his status – the stone and ivy branch, and to the horror of observers, promptly drops them both into the lake. The scene is silent except for the
Titus Awakes to comment on. Watney told a slightly different tale. In 1992 Overlook Press, the American publishers of the Gormenghast series, printed at the end of "Titus Alone" the existing coherent portions of Mervyn Peake's "Titus Awakes", with a brief introduction by John Watney. They consist of three pages from which it is clear that, although Titus has left Gormenghast, the castle remains active in his memory and important in the story. Although Peake wrote further passages, the editors were unable to decipher them. This unfinished work is not well-known even among readers of Peake's other works, having been published only