The Death of the Heart

by Elizabeth Bowen

It’s not just that we are incurious; we completely lack any sense of each other’s existences.

Contempt for married people, keeping on playing up. Contempt for unmarried people, looking cautious and touchy. Frantic, frantic desire to be handled with feeling, and, at the same time, to be let alone. Wish to be asked how I felt, great wish to be taken for granted—” “This is all quite new, Anna. How much is the diary, how much is you?”

You said, if I were Portia. Naturally, that’s impossible: she and I are hardly the same sex. Though she and I may wish to make a new start, we hardly shall, I’m afraid. I shall always insult her; she will always persecute me….Well