"How can one make one's inner life understood? Words are so uncertain, so obscure, botched! The soul . . . It is ridiculous to speak of the soul! What does it mean? I can't explain what it is. But it is. It is what I am, Roger, the truest and deepest."
"Don't you give me what is truest and deepest?"
"I can't give all," she said.
"Then you don't love me."
"Yes, Roger, I love you. But no one can give all."
"You are not enough in love. When one is in love, one doesn't think of holding back any part of oneself. Love . . . love . . . love . . ."
And he soared off into one of his great speeches. Annette heard him celebrate, in moving terms, the whole gift of self, the joy of sacrificing for the happiness of the beloved. And she thought:
(My dear, why do you say all that? Do you think I don't know it? Do you think that I couldn't sacrifice myself for you, if it were necessary, and find my joy in it? But on one condition: that you don't demand it. . . . Why do you demand it? . . . Why do you seem to expect it as your right? Why haven't you confidence in me, in my love?)
After he had finished, she said:
"That is very beautiful. . . . I wouldn't be capable, you know, of expressing these things as well as you. But perhaps, on occasion, I wouldn't be incapable of feeling them. . . ."