V showed me a couple of American short stories he likes: Irwin Shaw, ‘The Girls in Their Summer Dresses’ and ‘Mixed Doubles’ and then one by Cheever, ‘The Enormous Radio’. They brought me up once more against the hopelessness of men and women, the vast chasms between them—the death of sexual love, wandering attention, physical degeneration, men’s wide-ranging sexual fantasies and greed. At the market we had a stupid quarrel about a melon. In the car he wouldn’t meet my eye, and down I plummeted. I longed to say, ‘What happened? What’s gone wrong?’ but I was scared he’d say, ‘Nothing! You’re neurotic! You’re imagining it!’