Action, reaction, counter-reaction. The weary cycle of violence in the North was given fresh impetus by the murder of Billy Wright. At time of writing two people have died in revenge, although the wonder is that there have not been more.
Wright was a very big fish in a small pond. Observers here are dismayed but not at all surprised at the revenge killings. But if the fallout from the Wright shooting upends the peace process, the killing will be on a much larger scale and we will be back to the bad old days with much greater viciousness and far less hope.
Nobody said it was going to be easy. The talks resume on January 12th and the ship may have stabilised somewhat by then. It will be an added incentive to the bombers and gunmen on both sides if the talks participants become unnerved by the violence.
The INLA let the genie out of the bottle when it decided to take out Billy Wright. Despite the LVF's admission of responsibility for the New Year's Eve revenge attack on the Clifton Tavern, suspicions persist that members of the so-called mainstream paramilitary organisations were involved.
The disease is spreading to country areas with an apparently sectarian attack on a Protestant farmhouse at Newtownbutler; Catholic families in Co Fermanagh have had dead rats nailed to their doors and some have received chicken heads through the post.
There is both sadness and consolation in the fact that we have been here before. Despite all that has happened and the fear that there is more to come, the situation may yet settle down. The peace process has been bedevilled by crisis from the first day but the show is still on the road, more or less.
Genuine concerns have been raised about the potential for the corruption of democracy if parties aligned to paramilitary groups are given concessions because of fears of offstage violence.
The process will become discredited if bullyboy tactics are seen to be working.
The IRA was reborn in this generation when it came to be seen as the last-ditch defender of nationalist ghettoes against loyalist pogroms. Inevitably, attacks on Catholic pubs put the Provisionals under pressure to resume that role and suspend their ceasefire.
Apart from the revenge motive, it may well be that loyalists are trying to provoke the IRA into a renewal of its campaign. This would suit elements in the unionist camp who would prefer coping with the proverbial "acceptable level of violence" to a scenario in which political and constitutional concessions were being made to republicanism.
The Arms Trial defendant John Kelly, whose republican credentials can hardly be in doubt, last month told an interviewer in The Irish News: "One thing that has to be said is unionism cannot handle republicans in a peace mode. They like to see them behind the ditch with Armalites - they can handle that, that is easy and it is what they are used to."
One does not have to be gifted with special insight to conclude that there are internal difficulties in the loyalist organisations at present. Hardliners are apparently asking, in connection with the peace process, "What's in it for us?"
Under the rules of sufficient consensus, at least one of the loyalist fringe parties is required for the making of decisions within the talks. So if they both walk out permanently, the process collapses.
The UUP's guerrilla campaign against Dr Mo Mowlam continues with a further call from Mr Ken Maginnis for her resignation. The party clearly regards Mr Blair as a safer bet.
Talks insiders suspect that the Prime Minister may be somewhat more attached to the Union in its present form than is his Secretary of State, and that he might also be more tempted if there were the possibility of a straight deal between the UUP and the SDLP which left Sinn Fein out in the cold.
Given the political strength of the Hume-Adams relationship, such a deal would have difficulty getting off the ground.
There is said to be a view in some sectors of the British establishment that the ceasefires have weakened the IRA and that a renewed campaign would be "manageable". But this is a naive view, given that a definitive collapse of the peace process would almost inevitably see the replacement of the present leadership by out-and-out militarists.
If the peace process can weather the current storm and move ahead, keeping the larger loyalist groups on board without unwarranted concessions, the LVF challenge could evaporate.
Perhaps more alarming in the long run is the possibility of armed actions by breakaway republican elements. Strong nerves will be needed all round in the coming year.