If anything might hurt her, silence would; and I wanted to hurt her. - John Fowles

To my horror I began to cry...a great cloud of black guilt, knowledge of my atrocious selfishness, settled on me. One day she had said “when you love me (and she had not meant ‘make love to me’) it’s as if God forgave me for being the mess I am”; and I took it as chicanery, another emotional blackmail, to make me feel essential and give me a sense of responsibility towards her...My monstrous crime was Adam’s, the oldest and most vicious of all – male selfishness...Something far worse than lèse majesté. Lèse-humanité.

Stop thinking about class, she'd say. Like a rich man telling a poor man to stop thinking about money.

We are all in flight from the real reality. That is the basic definition of Homo Sapiens.