“One should never drink wine with strangers,” he said. “You see, it is so degrading to be stripped bare. And that is just what happens.”
“You say that as if it meant getting drunk.”
He paid no attention to her words, but went on:
“One unbuttons one’s self, one reveals one’s self. Look at your eyes and your smile. I have felt it in my own eyes: hundreds of times, I have suddenly seen them all naked together round the table.”
“In good company, Cordt?”
“Where else?”
“I don’t understand that,” she said.
“I do not know the people whom you speak of.”
“You will be with them this evening, Adelheid.”
She shrugged her shoulders discontentedly and tapped her foot on the carpet.