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PARTISAN REVIEW
told me so. And if I had been able to talk and tell you that instead of
feeling it as I do , I already knew what you would have answered:
Don't say that. You're going to live many years yet. That's what is
said in circumstances like this. But supposing I am going to live a
few more years, since our relationship is measured in years and
events very far apart in time, since it's necessary for so many years to
go by for me to see you, it is fair to think now that this is the last
time. Even you would admit it has been so many years since we've
seen one another and that time it wasn't a visit, we were together
hardly fifteen minutes because you were very busy with an immi–
nentjourney. It is a way of reasoning very much yours, a product of
your great intelligence , capable of demonstrating anything. Yet we
must have laughed with your mother at that ability you've had since
you were a child. But this time I have a very sure proof against your
possible arguments , which demonstrates that we haven't seen one
another for a long time and are almost two strangers: just now , in–
voluntarily, I made the necessary sign with my eyes for dona Dora
or Luisito to change my position in the chair. I have different
gestures for them to set a pillow behind my head or put me to bed.
They know each one . It went unnoticed by you, and that shows you
haven't seen me in many years.
But this is not a reproach . I feel very happy at this moment.
Now I know it's true that you have a little love for your father , and
that it could not be otherwise. Dona Dora doesn't know what she
says. She doesn't love you. She's half crazy. You mustn't pay any at–
tention to what she says. But I love her very much because she is a
companion to me and because she brought me here after they retired
me. I don't know what would have become of me if she hadn't taken
me to the pensione , because I went more than a year without draw–
ing a cent.
But neither the years gone by nor what can be said or thought
matters any longer. In the first moments of contemplation, I a lready
felt everything had gone back in some way to the beginning because
\'
your face is as familiar as if I saw it every day; for you, my son, are
I
the same as always, always staunch in life and ready to change the
world. I am the only novelty here , with this illness of which you
alone were made aware by letter. I was a little ashamed, for an in-
stant, for you to see me in this state, but now this too seems a
familiar and long-known thing.
I should have liked meeting you - wholly, as now , and on your
own initiative - in earlier years, when my heart was still strong and
