She looked at me with those huge blue eyes of hers, which were dilated, one would have said, by the effort of understanding me. 'But how do other writers manage?' she asked.
'I don't know how they manage. . But I imagine that they lead chaste lives, at any rate while they're working.'
'But D'Annunzio,' she said, 'I've heard that he had such a number of mistresses. .how did he manage?'
'I don't know,' I answered, 'whether he had such a great number of mistresses. What he had was a few celebrated mistresses, about whom everybody talked, he himself most of all. . but in my opinion, he arranged his life very well. . Now Baudelaire's chastity, for instance, is well known.'
She said nothing. I felt that all my reasoning came painfully close to the ridiculous, but I had begun now and I had to go on. I resumed, in a gentle, caressing tone of voice: 'Look, I'm not really set on writing this story nor, in general, on becoming a writer. I'll give it up with the greatest ease. . The important thing, for me, is our love.'
She answered at once, with a frown: 'But I want you to write it. I want you to become a writer.'
'Why?'
'Because you're a writer already,' she said rather confusedly and almost with irritation.' I feel that you've got a great deal to say. . Besides, you ought to work, like everyone else. You can't just lead an idle life and be content merely with making love to me. You've got to become somebody.' She stumbled over her words, and it was clear that she did not know how to express that stubborn desire of hers to see me do what she wanted me to do.
'There's no need for me to become a writer,' I answered, though this time I felt I was telling anyhow a partial lie; 'I can perfectly well not do anything… or rather, I can go on doing what I've done hitherto — read, appreciate, understand, admire the works of others. . and love you. Or again, so as not to be idle, as you say, I could perhaps take up some other profession, some other occupation. . '
'No, no, no,' she said hastily, shaking not only her head but her body too, as though she wanted to express this refusal with her whole self, 'you've got to write — you've got to become a writer.'