Jasper’s Confession of Love to Voda

Jasper’s confession to Voda is a decisive reversal in their relationship: the man who had never fallen in love with the women who loved him discovers that his own feelings are real, while the woman he loves refuses to return them. The scene makes honesty possible without making love reciprocal, and shows how unfamiliar emotional sensations have begun to change Jasper’s sense of himself.

The Unequal Arrangement

During a period of relative freedom, Jasper had time to reflect on the peculiar terms of his life with Voda. She was the richest woman he had ever met, but he neither felt able to swindle her nor wanted to. Voda knew a great deal about him, including that sex with her involved his visualizing a dolphin. She could enjoy their sexual relationship while otherwise attending to work, exercise, reading, or watching something, without seeming concerned about how he spent his time.

That arrangement did not resemble the romances Jasper had known before. Women had fallen in love with him, but he had never come close to loving any of them. Voda, by contrast, was not falling in love with him. The difference between her apparent ease and his untested capacity for attachment forms the emotional background to his confession.

The Confession

Jasper approached the subject cautiously because he understood that his moral instincts were still unsteady. He began by observing that Voda did not love him, making her lack of feeling the subject before he could name his own. When she asked whether he was saying that he loved her, and how certain he was, he answered, “Totally certain.” He told her that he thought about her constantly, hated being apart from her, and had never felt that way about anyone before.

The admission surprised him. In his former way of thinking, loving someone who might not love him would have felt like defeat; so would openly acknowledging the feeling. Instead, saying it brought relief. Because many women had loved him, he could still hope that the one woman he loved might feel the same. His confession is therefore both a declaration and a test of whether his newly discovered feeling can be met in kind.

Voda’s Answer and the Shift in Jasper

Voda’s answer leaves no uncertainty about the mismatch. She acknowledges his youth and attractiveness, then states, “But you’re right; I don’t love you.” Her posture—leaning back with her legs extended from beneath her white lab coat—underscores her composure, while the contrast with Jasper’s cracking voice marks how exposed he has become. The lab coat also belongs to the ordinary pattern of their intimacy: when they went to bed, she changed into a nightgown that closely resembled it, fastening with a magnetic strip instead of buttons.

Jasper asks whether she might ever grow to love him. He hears his voice crack and recognizes that he sounds like his father, but the resemblance no longer devastates him as it once would have. Voda tells him not to worry: she has no time for dating, and he is in no danger of being replaced. Her assurance concerns the continuation of their arrangement, not a promise of future love. The confession thus changes Jasper even without changing Voda’s answer: he speaks honestly about an attachment he has never experienced before, and can endure the rejection without returning to his former sense of defeat.