90
PARTISAN REVIEW
opened his eyes only once and looked at his doctor who had called
him by name. At 4: 15 a.m. on August 22, 1978, his heart stopped
beating. Faithful to a promise made many years earlier, I stood by
his lifeless body and recited the Lord's Prayer.
'"
'"
To his publishers, to me, to any friend who visited him in the
summer of 1978, he said the same thing: that
Severina
was almost
finished. Everyone was convinced of it, some more than others (my
doubts kept increasing), because he himself was convinced. He
could relate or discuss the novel but could not write it down . The
mounting pile of manuscripts on his table contained the early
chapters, other long passages, the ending, notes of various kinds, all
written before April 27, 1978. Everything written after that date was
indecipherable.
I quote from a medical dictionary:
"Agraphia:
incapacity to ex–
press thoughts in writing due to a lesion of the cerebral cortex. Even
if the patient retains or retrieves the ability to form single letters and
words, he will be unaware that their combination is meaningless."
When, long afterwards, I found the courage to look at the
pages he had written in such haste, with a beatific expression, that
last afternoon, I saw that he had at last regained his normal hand–
writing and that all the words were legible. They seemed to express a
feeling of joy. One could understand their meaning - almost.
