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Robert nodded. 'You're right: something doesn't ring true. And I'll tell you what it is: I'm too old.'
'What's your age got to do with it?'
'I realize only too well that many of the things I once set store by are no longer important; I'm being led to want a future very different from the one I used to imagine. Only I can't change myself, and therefore I see no place for myself in that future.'
'In other words, you're hoping for the triumph of Communism, knowing that you'd never be able to live in a Communist world. Is that it?'
'Yes, that's about it. I'll talk to you of it again,' he added. 'Now I'm going to write about it. It will be the ending of my book.'
'And when the book is finished, what are you going to do then?' I asked.
‘I’ll do the same as everybody else. There are two and a half billion men who don't write.'
:(
She threw herself full length on the couch with such violence that the petals of one of the roses on the mantel dropped off. 'I don't understand,' she moaned. 'I don't understand anything any more." She was sobbing, her face hidden in the cushions, and I began saying meaningless words to her, for no other reason than to hear the purr of my voice. 'You'll get well, you've got to get well. Love isn't everything ...' And I knew very well that in her place I would never want to get well and bury my love with my own hands.
The next morning, Paula went quietly to the hospital with me, and Mardrus promised me she'd be cured — a matter of a few weeks or a few months. She'd be cured, but once in the street again I asked myself anxiously, 'What exactly are they going to cure her of? And afterwards, who will she be?' Oh, after all, it wasn't difficult to foresee. She'd be like myself, like millions of others: a woman waiting to die, no longer knowing why she's living.
To think I never believed in all that,' he said.
'All what?'
'Loving and being loved.'
'What did you believe in?'
'Having a roof over my head, eating regularly, bringing home a girl now and then - security. I didn't think you had any right to ask for more. I thought that everyone was alone, always. And here you are!'
Anguished, I said, 'Lewis, we'll never be enemies, will we?'
'Enemies? How could anyone ever be your enemy?'
He looked frankly bewildered; those words I had spoken so thoughtlessly had, of course, been silly. He was smiling at me; I smiled at him. But suddenly I was afraid; would I be punished some day for having dared to love without giving my whole life?
probably :/
'If you love me the way I love you, why waste three-fourths of our lives waiting?' Lewis said.
I hesitated. 'Because love isn't everything,' I said. 'You ought to understand me; it isn't everything for you, either.'
My voice was trembling, and my eyes were pleading with Lewis to understand, to go on loving me with that love which wasn't everything, but without which I would be nothing.
'No, love isn't everything,' Lewis said.
He looked at me with a hesitant air, and I said fervently, 'I don't love you any less because other things mean something to me. You mustn't love me any less for it.'
Lewis touched my hair. 'I guess if love were everything for you, I wouldn't love you as much. You wouldn't be you any more.
It was no answer, but for the time being I decided to be satisfied with it. 'Why didn't you tell me you had enough of Mexico? Why the manoeuvring?' I asked.
'You wouldn't have let me come here; you'd have forced me to stay there,' Lewis replied.
I was as shaken as if he had slapped me. What resentment there was in his voice!
'Do you really believe what you're saying?'
'Yes,' Lewis replied.
ahhh you cant talk like that
We took a cab. I recalled what Lewis had said to me the year before: that he was constitutionally unable to get along with anyone. It was true then! He was on good terms with Teddy, Felton, Murray, because he saw them only rarely. But he would never be able to stand living together with someone for very long. He had loved me impetuously, and even now that love seemed to him a restraint. Again, a feeling of anger gripped my throat; in a way, it was comforting. 'He should have foreseen what was happening to him,' I thought. 'He shouldn't have let me get involved body and soul in this affair. And he has no right to act- the way he's acting. If I'm a burden to him, let him say so. I can go back to Paris; I'm ready to go back now.'
'You once explained to me that love isn't everything for you,' Lewis said in a sudden burst of volubility. 'All right. But then why do you insist on its being everything for me. If I feel like coming to New York, like seeing some friends, it makes you angry. You aren't satisfied unless you are all that matters, unless nothing else exists for me but you, unless I devote my whole life to you while you sacrifice nothing of yours. It isn't fair!'
I remained silent. There was. a good deal of distortion in his reproaches, and a good deal of incoherence as well. But that wasn't the question. For the first time that evening I saw a ray of light; it wasn't at all reassuring.
i get it
'I know. You looked terrified. And that, too, kept me from talking,' Lewis said. Bitterly, he added, 'How relieved you were when you knew I'd do everything you wanted! Nothing else mattered to you.'
I bit my lip; this time, at any cost, I had to keep myself from crying. And yet, what was happening to me was horrible. The flames, the rugs, the rain against the windows, Lewis in his white bathrobe - all those memories were false. I saw myself crying on his shoulder; we were united forever. But I was united alone. He was right: I should have tried to find out what was going on inside his head instead of contenting myself with words I forced out of him. I had been cowardly, selfish and cowardly. And I was being well punished for it. I gathered together all my courage; now, I could no longer escape.
i guess they were both cowardly