“It’s a book that’s inspired discussion, it’s selling well.”

“So good, no?”

“Yes, but not for you. What is it that doesn’t work?”

He compressed his lips again, and made up his mind: “There’s not much depth, Elena. Behind the petty love affairs and the desire for social ascent you hide precisely what it would be valuable to tell.”

“What?”

“Forget it, it’s late, we should go to sleep.” And he tried to assume an expression of benevolent irony, but in reality he had that new tone of someone who has an important task to complete and gives only sparingly to all the rest: “You did everything possible, right? But this, objectively, is not the moment for writing novels.”