His doubts pained her profoundly / Why wouldn't he believe in her words? Quarantined alone at home, with only her enchanting descriptions of the world outside to raise his spirts, but still he wouldn't / Instead he compelled her, insisting she repeat after him, repeat his darkest thoughts repeat sorrows and banalities / Why are you doing this? She cried / Can you really no longer perceive beauty? She whimpered / Sprites, she promised him - are dancing with fallen leaves in the wind, and pixies - are prancing daintily across the puddles / But he would have none of it / Nonsense, he said / Now, read: [She shuddered but attempted to oblige him] All is cold, all is dead, and the world has become sheer hell frozen, unfurled, where fantasies, so naïve, once had twirled, there is now / Her graceful body heaved as she retched his horrid…