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He came in, dressing-gowned, bespectacled. He waved to her as she lay in bed. Then he went to a wall and began stripping off the bits of newsprint. ‘A small service,’ he said, ‘but one I feel that is overdue already.’ Anna heard the small tearing of newsprint, a small tapping, as drawing-pins scattered to the floor. She lay, arms under her head, listening. She felt protected and cared for. She lifted her head every few minutes to see how he was progressing. White walls slowly became revealed. The job took a long time, over an hour.
At last he said: ‘Well, that’s fixed. Another soul for sanity.’ He then stretched out his arms to gather in acres of soiled newsprint, heaping newspapers under the trestle table.
‘What are those books? Another novel?’
‘No. I wrote a novel once though.’
‘I read it.’
‘Did you like it?’
‘No.’
‘No?’ Anna was excited. ‘Oh, good.’
‘Meretricious. That’s the word I’d use, if asked.’
‘I’m going to ask you to stay on the second morning, I can feel it coming on.’
‘But what are these salutarily-bound books?’ He began turning the covers back.
‘I don’t want you to read them.’
‘Why not?’ he said, reading them.
‘Only one person read them. He tried to kill himself, failed, blinded himself, and has now turned into what he tried to kill himself to prevent.’
‘Sad.’
Anna lifted her head to see him. He had on his face a deliberately owlish smile.
‘You mean, it’s all your fault?’
‘Not necessarily.’
‘Well I’m not a potential suicide. I would say I’m more of a feeder on women, a sucker of other people’s vitality, but I’m not a suicide.’
‘There’s no need to boast about it.’
A pause. Then he said: ‘Well yes, as it happens, and having thought out the thing from all angles, I’d say it was something to state. Which I’m doing. I’m not boasting. I’m stating. I’m defining. At least I know it. That means I can beat it. You’d be surprised the number of people I know who are killing themselves, or who feed off other people, but they don’t know it.’
‘No, I wouldn’t be surprised.’
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About
The Golden Notebook is a collaboration between if:book London and Apt.
Principal funding by Arts Council England.
HarperCollins, the publisher of The Golden Notebook, digitized the book for us and generously gave permission to reproduce it here in its entirety at no cost.
Additional support from The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and New York University
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