‘I’m not mad at you.’ He walked to the window and stood there, looking out. With his back to Vivaldo, he said, ‘You didn’t really like my book much, did you?’
‘So that’s it.’
‘What?’ Richard turned, the sunlight full on his face, revealing the lines in his forehead, around and under his eyes, and around his mouth and chin. The face was full of lines; it was a tough face, a good face, and Vivaldo had loved it for a long time. Yet, the face lacked something, he could not have said what the something was, and he knew his helpless judgment was unjust.
He felt tears spring to his eyes. ‘Richard, we talked about the book and I told you what I thought, I told you that it was a brilliant idea and wonderfully organised and beautifully written and –’ He stopped. He had not liked the book. He could not take it seriously. It was an able, intelligent, mildly perceptive tour de force and it would never mean anything to anyone. In the place in Vivaldo’s mind in which books lived, whether they were great, mangled, mutilated, or mad, Richard’s book did not exist.