Tender Is The Night
“Why did you lose control of yourself like that?”
“You know very well why.”
“No, I don’t.”
“That’s just preposterous — let me loose — that’s an insult to my intelligence. Don’t you think I saw that girl look at you — that little dark girl. Oh, this is farcical — a child, not more than fifteen. Don’t you think I saw?”
“Stop here a minute and quiet down.”
They sat at a table, her eyes the profundity of suspicion, her hand moving across her line of sight as if it were obstructed. “I want a drink — I want a brandy.”
“You can’t have a brandy — you can have a bock if you want it.”
“Why can’t I have a brandy?”
“We won’t go into that. Listen to me — this business about a girl is a delusion, do you understand that word?”
“It’s always a delusion when I see what you don’t want me to see.”
He felt a sense of guilt as in one of those nightmares where we are accused of a crime which we recognize as something undeniably experienced, but which upon waking we realize we have not committed.
