The Present

“I write stories about love that is, by itself, the final reward—if it isn’t sick, isn’t frantic, and doesn’t drain the soul. Sometimes I invent beautiful scenery for it—houses, cars, lawns; and sometimes I invent no scenery at all. There are plenty of stories where the heroes live in apartment blocks and work, say, in a hospital… You think, in a rush, that they’re all about Cinderella. Nothing of the sort.”