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’But you’re not now,’ she said. ‘You’re not that now: a bro-
ken-backed snake that’s been trodden on.’
’I don’t know what I am. There’s black days ahead.’
’No!’ she protested, clinging to him. ‘Why? Why?’
’There’s black days coming for us all and for everybody,’
he repeated with a prophetic gloom.
’No! You’re not to say it!’
He was silent. But she could feel the black void of despair
inside him. That was the death of all desire, the death of all
love: this despair that was like the dark cave inside the men,
in which their spirit was lost.
’And you talk so coldly about sex,’ she said. ‘You talk as if
you had only wanted your own pleasure and satisfaction.’
She was protesting nervously against him.
’Nay!’ he said. ‘I wanted to have my pleasure and satisfac-
tion of a woman, and I never got it: because I could never get
my pleasure and satisfaction of HER unless she got hers of
me at the same time. And it never happened. It takes two.’
’But you never believed in your women. You don’t even
believe really in me,’ she said.
’I don’t know what believing in a woman means.’
’That’s it, you see!’
She still was curled on his lap. But his spirit was grey and
absent, he was not there for her. And everything she said
drove him further.
’But what DO you believe in?’ she insisted.
’I don’t know.’
’Nothing, like all the men I’ve ever known,’ she said.
They were both silent. Then he roused himself and said:

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