"Oh, the stage! That's false if you like! And the novel. If you wrote a novel in which life was shown as it really is, every one would cry 'How unnatural!' I do wish I could write!—could describe life as I understand it, as it truly is, with its great littlenesses and its mean greatness! I'd write a book or a play which would astonish Europe!"
He looked at her, pretending to be so overwhelmed that he had no words, and again she felt irritated.
"You don't understand anything! You laugh at me! Yet if I could——"
In spite of himself Antonio became serious.
"Well, why can't you?"
"Because first I should have to——No, I won't tell you. You can't understand! Besides, I can't write; I don't know how to express myself. My thoughts are fine, but I haven't the words. That's the way with so many! What do you suppose great men, the so-called great thinkers, are? Fortunate folk who know how to express themselves! Nietzsche, for instance. Don't you think I and a hundred others have all Nietzsche's ideas, without ever having read them? Only he knew how to set them down, and we don't. I say Nietzsche, but I might just as well say the author of the Imitation."
"You should have married an author," said Antonio, secretly jealous of the man whom Regina had perhaps dreamed of but never met.
Again she felt vexed. "It's quite useless! You don't understand me. I can't get on with authors a bit. Let me alone now. I told you not to fiddle with my hair!"
"Stop! Don't go away! Let's talk more of your great thoughts. You think me an idiot. But listen, I want to say one thing; don't laugh. You want to do something wonderful. Well, an American author—Emerson, I think—said to his wife, that the greatest miracle a woman could perform is——"