John could not explain what he felt – it seemed that he and Helena had been there before, that they were enacting something, that everything they spoke had been somehow fated. He felt that if he returned to the inn the next day, it would not exist, she would not exist.
-- Narration/John (I)

Importance: The feeling that John and Helena's encounter is part of a preordained script highlights the novel's exploration of fate and the idea that significant relationships can seem to transcend ordinary time and space. John's apprehension about the inn and Helena's existence further underscores his internal conflict between the tangible and the mystical. It reflects the broader theme of how characters grapple with the intersections of fate and reality, questioning whether their experiences are genuinely real or merely echoes of a predetermined design.

He saw now what he had missed. That, in the young man’s photograph, the longing in the...
-- Narration/John (II)