Brick by brick, the edifice of Northern Ireland's new democracy is put in place. Less than a week after the Assembly elections, Mr David Trimble and Mr Seamus Mallon have been ratified as the First Minister-designate and Deputy First Minister-designate of the new executive. The shape of an administration will begin to emerge over coming weeks. There will be ministerial hopefuls, would-be junior ministers and ambitious men and women seeking places of influence. The paraphernalia of a functioning parliament and bureaucracy is materialising in front of the eyes of a still somewhat disbelieving world.
Already the emerging political landscape has yielded a number of surprises. Mr Seamus Mallon, rather than Mr John Hume, has stepped forward to be the senior nationalist member of the executive. There are few who will grudge Seamus Mallon his hour in the sun. He has stood for long behind John Hume's giant presence, often bearing the heat of the political day. It was John Hume who brought Gerry Adams and Sinn Fein into the political process but it was Seamus Mallon who drove the negotiating which yielded the agreement of Good Friday last.
There must have been times over the weekend when Mr Trimble himself doubted that he could be nominated as First Minister. The fissuring of the unionist vote has left him with a wafer-thin majority among his own community. In consequence, he has to move forward towards the nomination of a shadow cabinet - to say nothing of a fully-fledged executive - with great care and political skill. It is certain, unless he is to lose a further and potentially fatal wedge of unionist support, that there will have to be real progress on decommissioning and on Sinn Fein's exclusive commitment to peaceful methods. Sinn Fein should well empathise with Mr Trimble's difficulties. On many an occasion, over the years of stumbling towards the political path, they needed - and were given - a helping hand by others. It will be revealing to see if they possess the generosity - or even the enlightened self-interest - to give David Trimble what he needs to convince his people that he is leading them in the right direction.
It is a cruel paradox that even as the shape of a new political partnership begins to emerge in Stormont, ancient enmities are yet again being mobilised against each other over the Garvaghy Road issue. With four days to go to the march from Drumcree, there are few signs of any compromise emerging. At this writing it appears that the issue may be determined on the judgment of the Chief Constable of the RUC and the strength of his officers' lines.
There have been calls for the residents of the Garvaghy Road to make a magnanimous gesture by allowing the Orangemen to walk through. Last July similar calls were made for the Orangemen to waive their plans to march - at least for that year. It would indeed be wonderful if one side or the other were prepared to yield the few hundred yards of roadway and to claim the high moral ground instead. Perhaps it could yet happen, if politicians on both sides of the divide were willing to act in concert. But the cruel forces of the North's history have always succeeded up to now in perverting good intentions. Generosity has been seen as weakness, flexibility as surrender, the recognition of common humanity as a betrayal of one's own side. It would take extraordinary courage to lead towards such generosity, to urge such flexibility or to step forward for common humanity in the face of Drumcree's bitterness and hatreds. The coming days will tell if it is there.