`Tony Blair declares that there has been a seismic shift but the unionists say the earth didn't move for them." Humour was in short supply at Stormont last week, but this comment by Stephen Grimason, BBC Northern Ireland's political editor, drew a spontaneous round of applause from the assembled media watching TV in the press tent outside Castle Buildings.
It also said a lot about what was going on inside. The negotiations followed a well-trodden path. The British and Irish governments talked up a storm. There were excited references to staring into an abyss, crossing the Rubicon, breaking the impasse and historic opportunities. The demeanour of the main participants told a more complicated story.
A document was published, which has been greeted with superlatives at home and abroad. Now we are left with the all too familiar fallout. The two governments are spinning desperately in opposite directions to reassure their respective constituencies.
Mr Blair has told unionists that Sinn Fein will be dumped from the executive if the IRA fails to decommission and that the early release of prisoners would be reviewed.
Mr Ahern says that there is no question of Sinn Fein being excluded from the executive and that the release of prisoners will continue.
We saw all this after the signing of the Belfast Agreement and again, earlier this year, after Hillsborough. The result has been that neither side can now trust what either leader says.
This is the background of mistrust against which next week's decisions must be taken. Inevitably, it affects the way both communities see the problem. My own view is that The Way For- ward, the document produced by the two governments, is the blueprint for a solution which has enormous advantages for unionists as well as nationalists.
But unionists need time to be convinced that the republican movement's strategic shift is for real. That will take longer than the week on offer.
It cannot be emphasised enough that the timing of these talks, and the imposition of a set of deadlines, have been wholly unhelpful from Mr David Trimble's point of view. The unionist leader and his party are being asked to take perhaps the most difficult step of the whole peace process at a time when anger and resentment in the unionist community are running very high.
It now seems all too likely, following yesterday's announcement by the Orange Order of its intention to change the venue of its rally to a park close to the Ormeau Road, that there could be serious trouble on Monday in Belfast.
As one unionist Assembly member, a staunch supporter of the agreement, put it to me on Friday, "Trimble will be denounced from every Orange platform on Monday, and is expected to sit down in government with Martin McGuinness on Thursday."
It is still extremely difficult to understand whether, and why, it had to be this way. Nobody would want to fault the great resources of time and energy which Mr Blair has devoted to the search for a solution. But the British Prime Minister's hubris, together with his apparent belief that he alone is responsible for "delivering" peace, is now a serious impediment to progress.
It is to be seen most clearly in the sidelining of Dr Mo Mowlam and the way British newspapers have been briefed to the effect that she is "a lame-duck" minister who has lost the confidence of the unionists.
If there is any truth in this, the responsibility lies squarely at Mr Blair's door since it was he who allowed Mr Trimble direct access to Downing Street over the Northern Secretary's head. It's a shabby way to treat a politician whose courage and political commitment have been indispensable in bringing peace to Northern Ireland.
Mr Blair has put much emphasis on appealing to "civil society" in Northern Ireland over the heads of its politicians. It's a tactic which has worked in the past and could again in the future but not, alas, just now. Civil society - the moderate, comfortably off majority in both communities - has largely decamped to the Dordogne in France and Donegal to avoid the marching season.
Earlier this week there were rumours that Mr Trimble was trying to postpone a meeting of his party's governing body as the only members left in Northern Ireland are members of the Orange Order.
The pity of all this is that the Ulster Unionist Party might summon the courage to grasp the deal on offer if it had more time.
Despite the cloudiness of the republican movement's language, it is clear to most people that a historic shift has taken place. Mr Gerry Adams and his colleagues have won the argument. Sinn Fein now sees the way to win its objectives, including a united Ireland, as being through politics.
The recent local council results in the Republic have raised hopes that Sinn Fein could win four Dail seats in the next election. It could be in a position to enter government with Fianna Fail provided it has put its paramilitary history firmly behind it.
In the North, the tide is running strongly in its favour. The nationalist vote is rising and Sinn Fein believes it is only a matter of time until there is a majority for a united Ireland. Senior strategists like Mr Mitchel McLaughlin have already considered the dangers that could be presented by a disaffected and hostile unionist minority emerging in the future. The task, they argue, is to manage this transitional period, through the cross-Border bodies and other institutions, so that change can be effected relatively painlessly.
This is not inevitable. Moderate unionists argue that the new political structures, envisaged in the Belfast Agreement, offer them an equal opportunity to convince many nationalists of the benefits of remaining within the United Kingdom.
One thing is certain. If the aspirations contained in The Way Forward are achieved, Northern Ireland could be transformed into a place where both communities feel at ease and at home.
The task of laying to rest 500 years of history was always going to be a lengthy process. The Irish Government is concerned that the republican movement's truly dramatic shift - tantamount to the winding up of the IRA - could be withdrawn if there is serious violence over the summer. However, the offer is now out in the public arena and cannot be withdrawn without attracting massive public odium.
If the deadline for setting up the executive is not met next week, that is not the end of the road. We must try to stop talking about staring into the abyss. The politics of this island has changed utterly, but the unionists may need more time before they can accept that the earth has moved.