412
PARTISAN REVI EW
relied on your approval. Then she came back and, tossing the cards
onto the table, said, "Come on, don Bias, you're too old and too in–
telligent besides to believe such things." Bermudez made a grimace
of disgust and shuffled the cards.
The woman's attitude left me upset, doubting. All through the
game I was thinking you really despised me, you didn't love me , you
felt ashamed of me. I had never felt anything so terrible. I was used
to losing things in life, but I was not resigned to losing the only thing
I had left. I remembered many of your attitudes, judging them
wrongly, apart from their circumstances, and I realized that in each
of them the woman was right when she said - not in words, but yes
in gestures, and at times in meaningful monosyllables - not only
nothing about me mattered to you, but there was even something
else. That something was contempt. "But, come, Don Bias , we
haven't got all night ," the lead drummer said, raising my spirits.
That night he made a lot of signs to his wife, as if telling her that she
was to blame for my frame of mind and she shouldn't say another
word about those things.
I went to bed uneasy, certain that the woman was right. For
many years I hadn't minded being alone, living alone, but that night
I realized the house had always been deserted and I was alone. I
couldn't sleep. At a single glance I could see all the events that had
taken place from the time my son was born till that moment; but run
together that way they told me nothing, so I began
to
analyze them
one by one, discovering details long since forgotten.
That night was very important for me. I discovered that the
woman was right , that I'd always known it, but that I'd hidden it
from myself, perhaps to insist it wasn't true . What she had wrong
was the word, because it was not contempt you felt for me (of that
you gave me several proofs), but shame. Since you were a child
you've been ashamed of your father. You had begun to live in
another world , you had other friendships, different tastes , and that
,
made me glad because it meant you would have a great future. For
me it was important that you have it because from the time you were
very small you were timid , you had a terrible fear of the world and
things . To assure your future beforehand was the best way of doing
\
away with those fears which made you a child silent and set apart,
with no friends and no love. That's why the fact that you were
ashamed of your father never offended me. That's how you saved
yourself from the precariousness of the small world I could offer you.
And even admitting that my son despised me , as I said to the
