20.1.09

如果電影選了這段來演,我一定一定會看到流淚。

"Actually, one of the reasons I've been hoping we could get together again is because there's something I'd like to tell you about: something kind of-- well, kind of neurotic and irrational that happened to me a few weeks ago."

And almost, if not quite, before he knew what his voice was up to, he was telling her about Maureen Grube. He did it with automatic artfulness, identifying her only as "a girl in New York, a girl I hardly even know," rather than as a typist at the office, careful to stress that there had been no emotional involvement on his part while managing to imply that her need for him had been deep and ungovernable. His voice, soft and strong with an occasional husky falter or hesitation that only enhanced its rhythm, combined the power of confession with the narrative grace of romantic storytelling.

"And I think the main thing was simply a case of feeling that my-- well, that my masculinity'd been threatened somehow by all that abortion business; wanting to prove something; I don't know. Anyway, I broke it off last week; the whole stupid business. It's over now; really over. If I weren't sure of that I guess I could never've brought myself to tell you about it."

For half a minute, the only sound in the room was the music on the radio.

"Why did you?" she asked.

He shook his head, still looking out the window. "Baby, I don't know. I've tried to explain it to you; I'm still trying to explain it to myself. That's what I meant about it being a neurotic, irrational kind of thing. I--"

"No," she said. "I don't mean why did you have the girl; I mean why did you tell me about it? What's the point? Is it supposed to make me jealous, or something? Is it supposed to make me fall in love with you, or back into bed with you, or what? I mean what am I supposed to say?"

He looked at her, feeling his face blush and twitch into an embarrassed simper that he tried, unsuccessfully, to make over into the psychiatric smile. "Why don't you say what you feel?"

She seemed to think this over a few seconds and then she shrugged. "I have. I don't feel anything."

"In other words you don't care what I do or who I go to bed with or anything. Right?"

"No, I guess that's right. I don't."

"But I want you to care!"

"I know you do. And I suppose I would if I loved you; but you see I don't. I don't love you and I never really have, and I never really figured it out until this week, and that's why I'd just as soon not do any talking right now. Do you see?"

~ Revolutionary Road, by Richard Yates