History of a Disturbance

You said, "Do you love me?" Your voice was flirtatious, easy--you weren't asking me to put a doubt to rest. ... I said nothing. ... What was wrong with me? Did I love you? Of course I loved you. But to ask me just then, as I was taking in the night... Besides, what did the words mean?

     And if I hesitated, it was also because of you. There you were in the house. Already we existed in a courteous dark silence trembling with your crushed-down rage. How could I explain to you that words no longer meant what they once had meant, that they no longer meant anything at all?

--From Steven Millhauser's "Dangerous Laughter"

So here the healthy and successful forty-three-year-old man tries to tell Elena that words became meaningless to him. But how does he explain to his wife in words when the very act requires enough words to understand? She is undeniably confused, angry, stressed, in denial. And I don't believe he actually tells her, or even writes a letter. Perhaps he is talking in his mind, for words formed in that sacred space remains in that sacred space unless told or written. And so Elena never really gets to understand her husband's sudden loss of words.