“But you never believed in your women. You don’t even believe really in me,” she said.

“I don’t know what believing in a woman means.”

“That’s it, you see!”

She still was curled on his lap. But his spirit was grey and absent, he was not there for her. And everything she said drove him further.

“But what do you believe in?” she insisted.

“I don’t know.”

“Nothing, like all the men I’ve ever known,” she said.

They were both silent. Then he roused himself and said: