On Snoops

The morning light seemed refracted through her: as she pulled the bed covers up to my chin she gleamed like a transparent child; then she lay down beside me. “Do you mind? I only want to rest a moment. So let’s don’t say another word. Go to sleep.”

I pretended to, I made my breathing heavy and regular. Bells in the tower of the nest-door church rang the half-hour, the hour. It was six when she put her hand on my arm, a fragile touch careful not to waken. “Poor Fred,” she whispered, and it seemed she was speaking to me, but she was not. “Where are you, Fred? Because it’s cold. There’s snow in the wind.” Her cheek came to rest against my shoulder, a warm damp weight.

“Why are you crying?”

She sprang back, sat up, “Oh, for God’s sake,” she said, starting for the window and the fire escape, “I hate snoops.”

(Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s)