only half there.... You will have to add to it."
"I see you quite well when I keep my eyes shut. If I open them the room sways and you are not there. Why should I write your life? I am no historian, only a novelist."
"I know, but you are on the spot, with all the material and local colour. You know Gabriel too; we used to speak about you."
"He is no admirer of mine."
"No. He is a great stylist, and you have no sense of style."
"Nor you of anything else," I put in rudely, hastily.
"A harsh judgment, characteristic. You are a blunt realist, I should say, hard and a little unwomanly, calling a spade by its ugliest name; but sentimental with pen in hand you really do write abominably sometimes. But you will remind the world of me again. I don't want to be forgotten. I would rather be misrepresented than forgotten. There are so few geniuses! Keats and I... Don't go to sleep."
I could not help it, however. Several times after that, whenever I remembered something I wished to ask her, and opened dulled eyes, she was not there at all. The chair where she had sat was empty, and the fire had died down to dull ash. I drowsed and dreamed. In my dreams I achieved
