I think now that if I had had any intimation that the self I was going to find would turn out to be only the same self from which I had spent so much time in flight, I would have stayed at home.

And these nights were being acted out under a foreign sky, with no one to watch, no penalties attached—it was this last fact which was our undoing, for nothing is more unbearable, once one has it, than freedom. I suppose this was why I asked her to marry me: to give myself something to be moored to. Perhaps this was why, in Spain, she decided that she wanted to marry me. But people can’t, unhappily, invent their mooring posts, their lovers and their friends, anymore than they can invent their parents. Life gives these and also takes them away and the great difficulty is to say Yes to life.

People who believe that they are strong-willed and the masters of their destiny can only continue to believe this by becoming specialists in self-deception. Their decisions are not really decisions at all—a real decision makes one humble, one knows that it is at the mercy of more things than can be named—but elaborate systems of evasion, of illusion, designed to make themselves and the world appear to be what they and the world are not.

When Giovanni wanted me to know that he was displeased with me, he said I was a “vrai américain”; conversely, when delighted, he said that I was not an American at all; and on both occasions he was striking, deep in me, a nerve which did not throb in him. And I resented this: resented being called an American (and resented resenting it) because it seemed to make me nothing more than that, whatever that was; and I resented being called not an American because it seemed to make me nothing.

“But I am going to the United States,” I said, quickly. And he looked at me. “I mean, I’m certainly going to go back there one of these days.” “One of these days,” he said. “Everything bad will happen—one of these days.” “Why is it bad?” He smiled, “Why, you will go home and then you will find that home is not home anymore. Then you will really be in trouble. As long as you stay here, you can always think: One day I will go home.” He played with my thumb and grinned. “N’est-ce pas?”

“But what I mean about being a woman is, we might get married now and stay married for fifty years and I might be a stranger to you every instant of that time and you might never know it.” “But if I were a stranger—you would know it?” “For a woman,” she said, “I think a man is always a stranger. And there’s something awful about being at the mercy of a stranger.”

“Why,” she said, “I’m talking about my life. I’ve got you to take care of and feed and torment and trick and love—I’ve got you to put up with. From now on, I can have a wonderful time complaining about being a woman. But I won’t be terrified that I’m not one.” She looked at my face, and laughed. “Oh, I’ll be doing other things,” she cried. “I won’t stop being intelligent. I’ll read and argue and think and all that—and I’ll make a great point of not thinking your thoughts—and you’ll be pleased because I’m sure the resulting confusion will cause you to see that I’ve only got a finite woman’s mind, after all. And, if God is good, you’ll love me more and more and we’ll be quite happy.” She laughed again. “Don’t bother your head about it, sweetheart. Leave it to me.”

He was sobbing, it would have been said, as though his heart would break. But I felt that it was my heart which was broken. Something had broken in me to make me so cold and so perfectly still and far away.