...of reticence

‘Sometimes I think that you don’t say what you think, Sara,’ he said softly.
‘I don’t think anything,’ said Sara. ‘Sometimes it even seems to me that I don’t even know what it is to think.’
‘Everyone is a little bit like that,’ said Ludi. ‘But that;s not what I mean. You know very well what I mean. Why do you act as if you didn’t understand?
‘I don’t think about it anymore,’ said Sara.
‘It hurts to keep things to yourself. I don’t want you to suppress what you feel against me.’
‘Since I understand you were right to say it, it’s not worth talking about.’
‘Oh, what a bother,’ said Ludi plaintively, ‘I knew very well that you still had it in for me.’
‘I don’t have it in for you at all, Ludi.’
‘I know very well you do. Try and understand me. I agree that people should keep quiet - up to the very point where keeping quiet is going to be misleading - but only up that point and no farther than that. Even then, I like those who force themselves to speak rather than those who force themselves to be silent. Yes, all in all, I like them better. Right now, you have been holding back things you wanted to say to against me for at least four days. I don’t like that. And those words you’re holding back are hurting you, I’m sure of it.’
‘Maybe you can do something else but talk,’ said Sara, ‘maybe you can do something else which does the same for you that talking does, that frees you in the same way.’
‘Sometimes I like how stupid you are,’ said Ludi.
They were beneath the lighted windows of a large villa and they looked at one another.

[The Little Horses of Tarquinia, Duras, M.]