The Russian poet Mayakovsky wrote about how odd it was to see trams running and day-to-day life proceeding in St Petersburg in the immediate aftermath of the Bolshevik seizure of power. Didn't people realise history was being made?
There is a similar oddness about the atmosphere at Stormont's Castle Buildings. A historic agreement, potentially altering the course of 300 years of conflict, is being negotiated, but the atmosphere is low-key, almost banal.
When the press corps covering the talks are asked by their grandchildren, "What was it like when peace was being made?", the answer may well be, "Fairly humdrum, like a wet day in Kinnegad but without the same excitement."
It was not always thus. There used to be colourful, wild days, with Gerry Adams marching his team up to gates that were barred in front of them or Ian Paisley storming out to deliver a hellfire and brimstone denunciation of latter-day Lundys who were selling Ulster down the Lagan.
But this very banality may be a cause of encouragement. The lack of theatre outside the negotiations may be a sign that real, serious work is going on around the table and that the participants are so fixated on the minutiae of the agreement they haven't got time to grandstand.
The dripfeed of information has been thin and very sporadic: another sign that the negotiations may be going well. It may also reflect the fact that the centre of gravity of the talks has been shifting between Belfast, Dublin and London.
I have written before that the talks are reminiscent of auditions for a new play, with the two governments sitting in a darkened theatre, judging the various performers as they come on to strut their stuff.
There is, in other words, a certain amount of artificiality about the negotiations. Only now has it begun to appear that real horse-trading and bargaining are getting under way. When the UUP's Dermot Nesbitt and Mark Durkan of the SDLP appeared on television together this week their demeanour was almost ministerial.
There is some tension in the air. A suggestion by political opponents that Sinn Fein were mere observers in a process where their vote was not essential to a deal set republican teeth on edge and they denied it vehemently.
Liz O'Donnell and David Trimble exchanged words, too, in a bilateral meeting. Like other Dublin politicians before her, Ms O'Donnell is no doubt learning a lot from her face-to-face encounters with representatives of the North's majority community.
At press conferences John Taylor took to the role of unionist Rottweiler with eagerness and enthusiasm. When Mr Taylor bites, you stay bitten.
Spin-doctors from the parties and the two governments cruised the crowd of reporters, picking out a reporter here, a TV presenter there, to give them the Good Word.
Messages filtered in from Dublin and London. Bertie had hardened his line, raising his voice much louder than David Andrews. Loyalist contacts expressed confusion and claimed Dublin was speaking with forked tongue.
The media were in the position of people expected to cover a wrestling match without being admitted to the hall. From stray conversations and quick phone-calls it was clear everyone was feeling under pressure. The plaintive cry from more than one party was: "We've got to sell this thing to our people, too".
It might have been better and more honest to bring the parties to Downing Street, as in 1921. Unlike then, however, it is unlikely people would have been praying on their knees outside. There were more modest expectations on all sides this time.
The anti-talks movement rumbled on with a meeting at the Ulster Hall where the dissident unionist MP Willie Thompson shared a platform with Robert McCartney and Ian Paisley jnr. These rallies are not attracting large crowds, generally speaking, but it's early days yet.
The central role of the Dublin administration has been a marked feature of the proceedings. Dublin has been more to the fore than either of the nationalist parties, but then the British Prime Minister has also been at least as prominent in these events as David Trimble.
A note to the unborn grandchild: Peace, my dear, is rather boring. Achieving it is about compromising on your ultimate goals in order to achieve more modest gains. It is about putting your passions on hold so that killing, maiming, fear and terror may cease.
If journalists are honest, they will admit that it's not much fun for them: there is little spectacle, the details are complex and difficult and the protagonists often feel obliged to tell white lies to ensure a quiet life.
But after nearly 30 years of a dirty war which ended in stalemate, people in the North were ready for peace.