laboriously to make myself one. I can take nothing for granted,
I can enjoy nothing as it comes along. Beauty, pleasure, art,
women--I have to invent an excuse, a justification for everything
that's delightful. Otherwise I can't enjoy it with an easy
conscience. I make up a little story about beauty and pretend
that it has something to do with truth and goodness. I have to
say that art is the process by which one reconstructs the divine
reality out of chaos. Pleasure is one of the mystical roads to
union with the infinite--the ecstasies of drinking, dancing,
love-making. As for women, I am perpetually assuring myself that
they're the broad highway to divinity. And to think that I'm
only just beginning to see through the silliness of the whole
thing! It's incredible to me that anyone should have escaped
these horrors."

"It's still more incredible to me," said Anne, "that anyone
should have been a victim to them. I should like to see myself
believing that men are the highway to divinity." The amused
malice of her smile planted two little folds on either side of
her mouth, and through their half-closed lids her eyes shone with
laughter. "What you need, Denis, is a nice plump young wife, a
fixed income, and a little congenial but regular work."

"What I need is you." That was what he ought to have retorted,
that was what he wanted passionately to say. He could not say
it. His desire fought against his shyness. "What I need is
you." Mentally he shouted the words, but not a sound issued from
his lips. He looked at her despairingly. Couldn't she see what
was going on inside him? Couldn't she understand? "What I need
is you." He would say it, he would--he would.