"I do. Is this how you love me, too?"
"What is my love to you? Why do you ask? Do you want to deceive me?"
"No. Even if I wanted to I could not: we know all about each other."
"Do we? There is no getting to the bottom of the soul—it is too deep."
"At the bottom of the soul is love; one who loves knows everything. Are you very unhappy?"
"And are you very sorry for me? It is a bad sign: if a woman pities a man she doesn't love him."
There was a silence. Then he spoke again in a changed voice, without looking at her.
"I have had another dream about you, a bad one. Only I don't know if it was a dream. Perhaps you know what it was—a dream or not?"
She lowered her eyes, feeling that he was looking at her: it was like spiders running over her naked body; she was ashamed and frightened as in that dream.
"No, Dio, I do not love you. To love a woman one must despise her just a little. I might love you when you are asleep or dead—as you were in that dream. You said then 'it is sweet to be weak, sweet to be only a woman.' But you wouldn't say that awake, would you? Why do you lie then? You are a woman after all: moths nest in clothes and slyness in woman. If you had only said to me then 'go away' I would have gone. And I will go now—you have only to tell me...."