The text of "Romance" itself sometimes reflects the reactions of Conrad to the proposal to collaborate on the novel. When Tomas Castro berates Kemp for failing to take advantage of opportunities to kill their enemies, his reproaches echo Conrad's strong reaction to Ford's rather delicate early draft of the novel. Any writer, Conrad said, "who could take hold of such a theme and not, gripping it by the throat, extract from it every drop of blood and glamour" can only be a "criminal." On hearing Ford read aloud from his [Ford's] first draft, Conrad, who "began to groan and writhe in his chair", felt that Ford had failed to extract the maximum effect from the potential of the story outline.