murakami, haruki - Norwegian wood

Nobody gets hurt," said Nagasawa.
"I get hurt," said Hatsumi. "Why am I not enough for you?"
Nagasawa kept silent for a moment and swirled the whisky in his
glass. "It's not that you're not enough for me. That's another phase,
another question. It's just a hunger I have inside me. If I've hurt you,
I'm sorry. But it's not a question of whether or not you're enough for
me. I can only live with that hunger. That's the kind of man I am.
That's what makes me me. There's nothing I can do about it, don't you
see?"
At last Hatsumi picked up her silverware and started eating her fish.
"At least you shouldn't drag Toru into your "games'."
"We're a lot alike, though, Watanabe and me," said Nagasawa.
"Neither of us is interested, essentially, in anything but ourselves. OK,
so I'm arrogant and he's not, but neither of us is able to feel any
interest in anything other than what we ourselves think or feel or do.
That's why we can think about things in a way that's totally divorced
from anybody else. That's what I like about him. The only difference
is that he hasn't realized this about himself, and so he hesitates and
feels hurt."
"What human being doesn't hesitate and feel hurt?" Hatsumi
demanded. "Are you trying to say that you have never felt those
things?"
"Of course I have, but I've disciplined myself to where I can minimize
them. Even a rat will choose the least painful route if you shock him
enough."
"But rats don't fall in love."
""Rats don't fall in love'." Nagasawa looked at me. "That's great. We
should have background music for this - a full orchestra with two
harps and - "
"Don't make fun of me. I'm serious."
-We're eating," said Nagasawa. "And Watanabe's here. It ,night be
more civil for us to confine 'serious' talk to another occasion."
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