'You don't have to make fun of me,' I said. 'I have a right to ask a few questions from time to time.'

'I ask myself a few, too, you know,' Robert said.

Yes, he does ask himself questions, and graver ones than I do. Personally, I rarely act on my beliefs; that's why I so easily become unhappy. I realize I'm wrong being that way, but with Robert it costs so little to be wrong.

'But you only ask yourself those questions you're able to answer,' I said.

He laughed again. 'Preferably, yes. The others don't serve much purpose.'

'That's no reason not to ask them,' I said. My voice was rising, but I wasn't angry with Robert. I was angry with myself, with my blindness during these past weeks. 'I'd still like to have some idea of what's going to happen to us,' I persisted.

'Don't you think it's rather late?' Robert asked. 'We've both had a lot of punch to drink, and our minds will be a lot clearer tomorrow morning.'

Tomorrow morning the walls will stop spinning, the furniture and books will be in their proper places, always the same places. And my ideas, too, will fall back into place, and I'll begin to live, again from day to day, without turning my head, looking just so far and no farther into the future. I'll stop paying attention to that discordant clatter in my heart. I'm tired of that diet. I looked at the cushion by the fireplace on which Diego used to sit. .'A Nazi victory doesn't enter into my plans,' he had said. And then they had killed him.