The sunrise is a fraud.

Yvonne sits across from the man, at a table in a small restaurant, holding onto the tablecloth with one hand, below the table where he can't see it. She's listening to him with her customary interest, head tilted. She misses him intensely; or rather, she misses, not him, but the sensations he used to be able to arouse in her. The light has gone out of him and now she can see him clearly. She finds this objectivity of hers, this clarity, almost more depressing than she can bear, not because there is anything hideous or repellent about this man, but because he has now returned to the ordinary level, the level of things she can see, in all their amazing and complex particularity, but cannot touch.

He's come to the end of what he's been saying, which had to do with politics. Now it's time for Yvonne to tell him a joke.

"Why is pubic hair curly?" she says.

"Why" he says; as usual, he attempts to conceal the shock he feels at hearing her say words like pubic. Nice men are more difficult for Yvonne than pigs. If a man is piggish enough, she's glad to see him go.

"So you won't poke your eyes out," says Yvonne, clutching the tablecloth.

Instead of laughing he smiles at her, a little sadly.