But no matter how much she enjoyed making fun of authors behind their backs, she never let them discover how unimpressed she was with their vague, unnecessary flourishes. She wasn’t just polite on the phone: she was enthusiastic, genuinely so. She really seemed happy whenever an author called, even a nagging author—only after hanging up would she look at the ceiling and swear. What relationship was there between her warmth on the phone with the author and the weariness that seeped through her immediately afterward? It didn’t seem like hypocrisy, more like a profound dialectic, evincing some general truth about all human relations.

After reading until midnight and feeling—like so many of us who’ve chosen to work in publishing—overwhelmed by contemporary books, which didn’t always meet her rigorous standards, she’d put off sleeping and end her day with a great classic novel. But she didn’t boast about this, that would be pretentious—and she considered pretension a widespread crime in the literary world. I only knew she did this because I was fortunate enough to spend a few nights a month with her, in her room, in her bed, where we worked, after hours, for the same publishing house, and, also, made love. Since I needed at least eight hours of sleep per night, I’d accept the humiliation of wearing a sleep mask so I wouldn’t be disturbed by her pleasure reading.

Yeah, she was great, truly inspired: I’ve never said this before, and it’s liberating to set it down. [This attempt to clarify my thoughts and feelings for the women in my life began with the next chapter. I didn’t have the courage at first to write about Eleonora, how much I like her, how impressive I find her. Now that I’ve gotten up the nerve, I’d rather just start here.

Perhaps I couldn’t begin here initially because it’s easy to forget how much you respect someone, how much you appreciate someone’s sensitivity and intelligence, when you can only glimpse those virtues at a distance. A person’s mind and what reveals it—laughter, syntax, running commentary—these are mainly what keep you company. When the people who’ve kept me company with their minds are no longer nearby, I force myself to forget what being near them felt like. I go out of my way not to preserve their memory and just turn them into bland copies instead.]