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She should not start what she could not sustain, but pleasing him in any way she could was helpful: it made her feel less than entirely useless.
She needed to feel close to him in order to hold down the demon of panic she knew was ready to overwhelm her.
He was discovering that being in love was not a steady state, but a matter of fresh surges or waves, and he was experiencing one now.
Even in their happiest moments, there was always the accusing shadow, the barely hidden gloom of his unfulfillment, looming like an alp, a form of perpetual sorrow which had been accepted by them both as her responsibility. She wanted to be in love and be herself. But to be herself, she had to say no all the time. And then she was no longer herself.
His anger stirred her own and she suddenly thought she understood their problem: they were too polite, too constrained, too timorous, they went around each other on tiptoes, murmuring, whispering, deferring, agreeing. They barely knew each other, and never could because of the blanket of companionable near-silence that smothered their differences and blinded them as much as it bound them.
At last he could admit to himself that he had never met anyone he loved as much, that he had never found anyone, man or woman, who matched her seriousness.
Love and patience—if only he had had them both at once—would surely have seen them both through.
This is how the entire course of a life can be changed—by doing nothing.
