But is he truly the lover Monica Vitti seeks? Will he be any better than the men in her films at stilling her anguish? He is not sure. Even if he found a room for the two of them, a secret retreat in some quiet, fogbound quarter of London, he suspects she would still, at three in the morning, slip out the bed and sit at the table under the glare of a single lamp, brooding, prey to anguish.
J. M. Coetzee, Youth: Scenes from Provincial Life II, Secker and Warburg, 2002.
