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‘I remember your talking about a first love, but these things are imaginary, they are fables. You’re just suffering from the shock of seeing her, give it a fortnight. And she’s got a bourgeois marriage and a son, and, Charles, she’s ordinary, you can’t do it to an ordinary woman just because you fa…

‘I am writing my memoirs.’

‘Theatre chat? Anecdotes about actresses?’

‘Certainly not! I want to do the deep thing, real analysis, real autobiography—’

‘Not easy to do.’

‘I know it’s not easy to do!’

‘We are such inward secret creatures, that inwardness is the most amazing thing about…

‘The trouble with you, Charles, is that basically you despise women, whereas I, in spite of some appearances to the contrary, do not.’

‘I don’t despise women. I was in love with all Shakespeare’s heroines before I was twelve.’

‘But they don’t exist, dear man, that’s the point. They live in th…

‘Nor have I, but every time I turn on the television there she is, that’s a bloody curse. I suppose I loved her once. Or it was just that she made me feel like Mark Antony. Penché sur elle l’ardent impérator … All I saw in Rosina’s eyes was a reflection of myself. Then I saw the divorce court. The …

I reviewed the evidence and I had very little doubt about what it pointed to. Hartley loved me and had long regretted losing me. How could she not? She did not love her husband. How could she? He was mentally undistinguished; there was no wit or spiritual sweetness in that man. He was physically un…