Sylvia: A Novel (FSG Classics)

by Leonard Michaels

I showed love, but it felt like a self-accusation, or an apology. That was my apology—very sincere—but it was for nothing specific. Like a religious convulsion. You apologize for being alive, for not being sick, for not being physically deformed, for not being as bad off as other people. I don’t know what I apologized for. Maybe for the love I desecrated by not believing in Sylvia’s pain. I felt utterly sincere, apologizing, kissing her. It was too delicious, I think.