You’ve come about your manuscript? It’s with the reader…

““You’ve come about your manuscript? It’s with the reader; no, I’m getting that wrong, it’s been read, very interesting, of course, now I remember! Remarkable sense of language, heartfelt denunciation, didn’t you receive our letter? We’re very sorry to have to tell you, in the letter it’s all explained, we sent it some time ago, the mail is so slow these days, you’ll receive it of course, our list is overloaded, unfavorable economic situation. Ah, you see? You’ve received it. And what else did it say? Thanking you for having allowed us to read it, we will return it promptly. Ah, you’ve come to collect the manuscript? No, we haven’t found it, do just be patient a little longer, it’ll turn up, nothing is ever lost here, only today we found a manuscript we’d been looking or these past ten years, oh, not another ten years, we’ll find yours sooner, at least let’s hope so, we have so many manuscripts, piles this high, if you like we’ll show them to you, of course you want your own, not somebody else’s, that’s obvious, I mean we preserve so many manuscripts we don’t care a fig about, we’d hardly throw away yours which means so much to us, no, not to publish it, it means so much for us to give it back to you.””

— Italo Calvino