V-2nd - Conclusion - questions

[kelber at mindspring.com]

Plot-related, not thematic:

1.    "He [Stencil the elder] found himself hoping there was indeed adultery between his old 'love' [V.] and the shipfitter [Fausto's father]; if only to complete a circle begun in England eighteen years ago, a beginning kept forcibly from his thoughts for the same period of time.
    Herbert would be eighteen.  And probably helling it all about the dear old isles.  What would he think of his father ...
    His father, ha." 

V. is Herbert Stencil's mother, no?  But who is his father?  It's implied here that it's not Sydney Stencil.  Was Maijstral Senior present in Florence?

2.  Is the epilogue "real," i.e. told from the viewpoint of the omniscient Narrator, as opposed to being one of Herbert Stencil's thought experiments?
A clue that it's not real is that there's a reference to 1956.  But why does Herbert then imagine that the elder Stencil isn't his real father/

3.  At the end, what does Stencil drop into the water?  It can't be the eye, because that's removed from the Bad Priest later on.

Laura