Otto, expressing rare sincerity and thoughtfulness, to Esther, pp 621–22:
If I didn't trust you then, I mean mistrust you, then, I wouldn't have learned to mistrust myself and everything else now. And this, this mess, ransacking this mess looking for your own feelings and trying to rescue them but it's too late, you can't even recognize them when they come to the surface because they've been spent everywhere and, vulgarized and exploited and wasted and spent wherever we could, they keep demanding and you keep paying and can't … and then all of a sudden somebody asks you to pay in gold and you can't. Yes, you can't, you haven't got it, and you can't.
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