After all, my imagination, too, has played fantastically with both Henry and June, with this difference: I have a great need of truth, and I succumb to pity. Truth makes it impossible for me to distort, because I understand. As soon as I understand Henry, I cease to make a “character” of him (the underworld brute of my second conception of him, inflated by his books). My first conception is invariably true: my first description of Henry in the journal fits him today, and my first description of June is truer than my literary composition. I begin to love as a human being, and the game ceases.
