"I can assure that she hasn't, no. Besides, Dato has been present at all our meetings. You can ask him."
"I see! That man Dato has gone too far!" exclaimed Manur. And his cognac-colored eyes, and with them all his plebeian features — that is, his expression (that of an actor and a pretender) — underwent an instantaneous transformation and became as grave as those of an animal. Then he went on: "Right then, I'd better explain it to you myself."
"You've spilled a drop of coffee on your tie."
MANUR STARED IN BEWILDERMENT at the tiny drop I was pointing at, my index finger just touching his green tie: the drop was exactly the same color as his coffee-colored suit.
"Do you mind if I use your bathroom?" he asked.
I used the few seconds that Manur remained in my bathroom (he did not even close the door, I could hear the hot water running) to push my chair right back in order to take fullest advantage of the backlighting and to cast a rapid glance at myself in the full-length mirror opposite the beds. Despite my half-shaven chin, I no longer felt quite as dirty or nervous. I saw too that I was not so very badly dressed, and this comforted me.
When Manur came back, he sat down again as if nothing had happened (nothing had happened, but now there was on his tie a stain left by the water, considerably larger than the drop of coffee) and he began to talk. Everything that he said I heard in this morning's dream exactly as it was spoken then, but, on the other hand, I do not think I could repeat it with the same exactitude, at least not this evening when I am tired and hungry (it's getting dark outside and I still haven't had any lunch and will not have any lunch, but will probably wait until suppertime before I decide whether or not to go out). I can only reproduce fragments of what Manur said, but with the exception of myself shortly afterwards (except I cannot make an exception of myself), I have never seen anyone with such a will to persevere in his choice and in his love. More than that, I now know that it was Manur who infected me, or, rather, that I was the one who exposed myself to contamination or chose to imitate him. For until then, there had been only my desire to go on seeing Natalia Manur every day, my physical desire for Natalia Manur and my desire to destroy Manur. And it was from then on that I began to understand better, in the same way that a man writing can begin to understand what he is writing from one chance phrase that tells him — not suddenly, but slowly — why all the other phrases were as they were, why they were written in that way (which he will see now as having nothing to do with either intention or chance), when he thought he was just feeling his way forward, merely playing with paper and ink to pass the time, because he has been asked to do so or out of the sense of duty felt by all those who have no duty. Have you never discovered in the attitudes or words or gestures of other people what you had never previously been able to put your finger on? Have you never seen in them the brilliance that we ourselves lack, the inconceivable clarity, the firm hand and the assured touch that we will never have, what once was known as "grace." Have you never aspired to be them, precisely because of that transcendent quality, because of their sheer infectiousness, their natural annihilating radiance? Have you never felt the temptation, or more than that, the need scrupulously to copy someone else's being in order to take it from them and appropriate it for yourself? Have you never experienced an uncontrollable desire for usurpation? An unbearable envy at their cheerfulness or their suffering, at their stamina or their will power? At the jealousy felt by another, at their fatalism, their determination or their doom? Who has not wanted to be doomed once and for all and to enjoy the fixity of death in life? Who has not longed to be the object of a curse? Who has not yearned to remain very still and simply to persevere? I am Léon de Nápoles, the Lion of Naples, and my face is still flushed with triumph: I want to continue being what I am. But I know that it was not always so and that I did not always have that name. Manur, by his unexpected example, taught me to persevere: Manur persevered in his love. And now, when hunger is gnawing at me, and now that, even though it is spring time, I have had to turn on the light, I see again, as I did four years ago and as I did this morning, his suddenly grave, animal eyes (he said: "I have waited fifteen years to be loved by Natalia Monte, my wife; you, sir, are a mere upstart"), which incomprehensibly did not turn away from the merciless morning light of Madrid pouring in through the window onto his face, lighting it up ("It was purely a business transaction, Natalia's father was facing absolute ruin after years of mismanagement and waste, and his children, Natalia and her brother, Roberto, came to fear that their father might put an end to his depression and his irritability by either shooting himself or shooting his wife, their mother, if his business fortunes did not revive and allow him to return to full activity. He was one of those men for whom activity is everything") and filling his eyes with metallic reflections that made them harder still, although, at one moment, there was just a flicker of grief in them ("It was Roberto's idea, he was the one who persuaded his sister to accept me, and to see that our marriage was an urgent necessity, that an immediate alliance with my family's powerful bank was the only solution; and he personally brought her to Brussels, where, appropriately enough, he was best man at our wedding, since he was, in fact, the one who was giving her away to me. But that was years ago now, far too many years") and that made him look suddenly like his wife, as if not even Natalia and Manur, despite what he was saying, had been able to free themselves entirely from those alarming similarities that time prides itself on developing between those non-blood relatives who are brave enough to see each other every day ("I had met her three months before, when I was on holiday here in Madrid, through her brother, who had done some business courses with me in Brussels; and not only did I court her diligently, I also proposed marriage to her in a last act of desperation dictated by the old-fashioned idea— I had a very conventional upbringing — that her rejections and refusals might be due to the lack of a formal proposal. I have been in love with Natalia Monte, sir, almost since the first moment I saw her"). Those eyes, apparently translucent in the sunlight, cast occasional rapid glances at my unmade bed: there, in desolation, lay my hand mirror and my electric shaver ("I have waited fifteen years for her to love me. And as long as there is no one else, as long as she harbors no hopes and does not love anyone else, I know that I can go on waiting, or at least, year after year, keep to my old plan of spending the rest of my life with her. That is why I will not permit, in anyone, the excessive and irregular interest that you have now begun to show. Most women— and some rather odd men too — love by reflection or, if you prefer, by imitation: they love and desire the other person's love, as has often been shown to be the case and as you yourself will know. That is why I married Natalia Monte and saved her father from absolute ruin and destruction even though I knew this was the only reason she was marrying me, or, rather, because this was the plan of salvation that her brother Roberto had decided upon. And that is also why I have always prevented her from having any other model to inspire her or for her to imitate, any 'other person's love' that might tempt her, and whose existence would constitute — believe me, I'm not lying when I say this— the greatest possible danger for me"); and then invariably, as they had done the first time, his eyes shifted to my chin, reminding me of my abandoned beard and the fact that tonight was the first night of Verdi's