“I don’t understand.”
“Do you think I would have come here if it were a light matter? No, I tell you, it is a matter of life and death to you, at least as an artist.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Have you done a stroke of work since I last saw you?”
“Yes, let me see, surely, magazine articles and a poem.”
“That is not what I want to know. Have you accomplished anything big? Have you grown since this summer? How about your novel?”
“I — I have almost finished it in my mind, but I have found no chance to begin with the actual writing. I was sick of late, very sick.”