in the impregnable metabunker of the heart

He comes to believe that The Italian has “possessed” him, that she is a succubus depleting his life force. Michael is correct about one thing: her psychosis seems to be contagious. Her mental instability is apparent from the outset just through its physical manifestations — drooling, jumping, shaking, twitching — while his is only unleashed through his increasing sexual liaisons with her. But she cannot create psychosis in him; it's already there. We rein these things in because the world doesn't allow them — but she allows it, nurtures it, shares in it. He goes crazy with her, and this compromise of his mental integrity causes him to be crippled by guilt and shame. He doesn't want to know why, he just knows that it didn't happen until he met her, that she is the problem. But again, he is being self-centred; he does not take into account that the obsession goes both ways, that the lack of control that accompanies this intense human connection unravels them both equally. He panics and tries to leave her. She is confused: ‘You bewitch me, and then just make off? I love you. Why?” He shrugs: “You are like death.” She has no choice but to prove him right.