[ If Bastien notices the distraction, the only sign is that he’s a slower talker than normal, trying to keep a pace that even divided attention can match. But the question makes him pause entirely, for a moment, smiling in a thoughtful sort of way.

The easy answer is no people is a monolith. The pointed answer is what’s troubling you. Instead of either: ]

There was a poet in the Blessed Age—Lord Crépin Volant. He published forty-six sonnets. Beautiful, intricate things. They outlined the shape of the woman he was in love with in such careful detail, without ever naming her, that everyone knew it must be the Vicomtesse Mesmin. It could be no one else.

[ The impending tragedy is obvious. He pauses for a drink to let it loom. ]

But it was. It was the Lady Bonaventure, who had been keeping other suitors at bay and waiting for him to say something to her. When she was told of his sonnets for Mesmin, she married one of her other prospects within the fortnight.

Somehow he convinced someone to publish his next work—it was just her name, over and over again for fifty pages. It is probably the rarest book I have ever owned. His family destroyed as many as they could and found pressing responsibilities for him in the country.

—so yes. Sometimes they find it exhausting.