“What did I say? I thought that was your favorite drink.”

“Now and then,” he said. He gestured to the waiter. “Sometimes it’s a bit too serious.” He asked for a single malt if they had it. They didn’t. Chivas Regal would be fine. “Thank you for indulging me. I like it here. I like the quiet commotion. I like the open air.”

Even his voice sounded tired; it lacked some bright spark. This was hardly the time to suggest a trip to Rio de Janeiro, obviously. And it was all my fault.

“Anything you wish,” I said.

“Now, tell me what happened,” he said, solicitously. “I can see it’s weighing on your soul.”

And then I realized how much I wanted to tell him about Gretchen, that indeed, this is why I’d rushed here as much as any concern I felt for him. I was ashamed, and yet I couldn’t prevent myself from telling him. I turned towards the beach, my elbow on the table, and my eyes sort of misted so that the colors of the evening world became muted and more luminescent than before. I told him that I’d gone to Gretchen because I’d promised to do it, though deep within myself, I was hoping and praying to take her into my world with me. And then I explained about the hospital, the pure strangeness of it—the similarity of the doctor to the one of centuries ago, and the little ward itself, and that mad, crazy notion that Claudia was there.

“It was baffling,” I whispered. “I never dreamed that Gretchen would turn me away. You know what I thought? It sounds so foolish now. I thought she would find me irresistible! I thought it couldn’t possibly be any other way. I thought when she looked into my eyes—my eyes now, not those mortal eyes!—she’d see the true soul which she’d loved! I never imagined that there would be revulsion, or that it could be so total—both moral and physical—and that in the very moment of understanding what we are, she would recoil completely and turn away. I can’t understand how I could have been foolish, how I persist in my illusions! Is it vanity? Or am I simply mad? You’ve never found me repellent, have you, David? Or am I deluded on that score as well?”

“You are beautiful,” he whispered, the words softened with feeling. “But you are unnatural, and that is what this woman saw.” How deeply distressed he seemed. He had never sounded more solicitous in all his patient talks with me. Indeed, he looked as if he felt the pain I felt—acutely and totally. “She was no fit companion for you, don’t you see?” he said kindly.

“Yes, I see. I see.” I rested my forehead against my hand. I wished we were in the quiet of my rooms, but I didn’t push the matter. He was being my friend again, as no other being on earth had ever been, really, and I would do as he wished. “You know you are the only one,” I said suddenly, my own voice sounding ragged and tired. “The only one who will let me be my defeated self without turning away.”