I was angry of course, and of course she knew I was going to be.

‘You’re suggesting I should write of our experience? How? If I set down every word of the exchange between us during an hour, it would be unintelligible unless I wrote the story of my life to explain it.’

‘And so?’

‘It would be a record of how I saw myself at a certain point. Because the record of an hour in the first week, let’s say, of my seeing you, and an hour now, would be so different that …’

‘And so?’

‘And besides, there are literary problems, problems of taste you never seem to think of. What you and I have done together is essentially to break down shame. In the first week of knowing you I wouldn’t have been able to say: I remember the feeling of violent repulsion and shame and curiosity I felt when I saw my father naked. It took me months to break down barriers in myself so I could say something like that. But now I can say something like: … because I wanted my father to die and — but the person reading it, without the subjective experience, the breaking down, would be shocked, as by the sight of blood or a word that has associations of shame, and the shock would swallow everything else.’

She said drily: ‘My dear Anna, you are using our experience together to re-enforce your rationalizations for not writing.’

‘Oh, my God, no, that is not all I’m saying.’

‘Or are you saying that some books are for a minority of people?’

‘My dear Mrs Marks, you know quite well it would be against my principles to admit any such idea, even if I had it.’

‘Very well then, if you had it, tell me why some books are for the minority.’

I thought, and then said: ‘It’s a question of form.’

‘Form? What about the content of yours? I understand that you people insist on separating form and content?’

‘My people may separate them, I don’t. At least, not till this moment. But now I’ll say it’s a question of form. People don’t mind immoral messages. They don’t mind art which says that murder is good, cruelty is good, sex for sex’s sake is good. They like it, provided the message is wrapped up a little. And they like messages saying that murder is bad, cruelty is bad, and love is love is love is love. What they can’t stand is to be told it all doesn’t matter, they can’t stand formlessness.’

‘So it is formless works of art, if such a thing were possible, that are for the minority?’

‘But I don’t hold the belief that some books are for the minority. You know I don’t. I don’t hold the aristocratic view of art.’

‘My dear Anna, your attitude to art is so aristocratic that you write, when you do, for yourself only.’