Excerpt from the novel Naomi by Junichirō Tanizaki

     “Hey! Naomi!” I said one night, shaking her. (I wasn’t speaking to her as though she were a child any more.) She was feigning sleep and had a particularly cold expression on her face. “What’re you doing, pretending to be asleep? Do you hate me that much?”
     “I’m not pretending to be asleep. I just wanted to go to sleep, so I closed my eyes.”
     “Then open them. You have no business keeping your eyes closed when I talk to you.”
     Reluctantly, she opened her eyes slightly. The narrow line of her eyes, peering at me through her lashes, made her face look all the more cold and cruel.
     “Well? Do you hate me? If you do, say so.”
     “Why do you ask such a thing?”
     “I can tell by the way you act. We don’t quarrel any more, but we’re lashing out at each other in our hearts. Can we still call ourselves man and wife?”
     “You’re the one who’s lashing out. I’m not.”
     “I think it’s mutual. Your attitude keeps me on edge. I start getting suspicious, and…”
     Naomi interrupted with her sarcastic, nasal laugh. “Let me ask you, then. Is there something suspicious about my attitude? If there is, let’s see some evidence.”
     “I don’t have any evidence, but…”
     “Isn’t it unreasonable to suspect me without any evidence? You can’t expect us to live like man and wife when you won’t trust me or let me have any freedom and my rights as your wife. Do you think I don’t know anything? I know you’ve been reading my mail and following me around like a detective.”
     “That was wrong of me, but I’m all raw nerves because of what happened before. You’ve got to understand that.”
     “What do you want me to do? Didn’t we promise not to talk about the past?”
     “I want you to open your heart to me. I want you to love me so that my nerves will settle.”
     “I can’t, if you don’t trust me.”
     “I’ll trust you. From now on I’ll trust you.”
     Here I have to acknowledge how base males are. Whatever transpired in the daytime, I always gave in to her at night. Or, rather than “gave in,” I should say that the animal in me was subdued by her. The truth is that I still didn’t trust her at all, but the animal in me forced me to submit blindly to her; it led me to abandon everything and surrender. Naomi wasn’t a priceless treasure or a cherished idol any more; she’d become a harlot. Neither lovers’ innocence nor conjugal affection survived between us. Such feelings had faded away like an old dream. Why did I still feel anything for this faithless, defiled woman? Because I was being dragged along by her physical attractions. This degraded me at the same time it degraded Naomi, because it meant that I’d abandoned my integrity, fastidiousness, and sincerity as a man, flung away my pride, and bent down before a whore, and I no longer felt any shame for doing so. Indeed, there were times when I worshipped the figure of this despicable slut as though I were revering a goddess.