The Story of the Lost Child (The Neapolitan Novels, #4)

by Elena Ferrante

In those days in Argentario I had the impression that I had now definitively expanded my capacity to feel, to understand, to express myself, something that—I thought with pride—was confirmed by the modest welcome that the book I had written goaded by him, to please him, had received outside Italy. I had everything, at that moment. Only Dede and Elsa were left in the margins.

When I went to my room I had trouble falling asleep. What was bad for my children, what was their good? And bad for me, and my good, what did those consist of, and did they correspond to or diverge from what was bad and good for the children?