himself portrayed in the portraits I paint of others, would I like to see myself in this manuscript, an alternative portrait in which I have ended up portraying myself rather than someone else? Does this mean that I get closer to myself by means of writing rather than through painting? And this raises another question: will this manuscript go on even after I assume it to be finished? If the straits of the Tagus are located where I hoped to find India, will I be obliged to relinquish the name Vasco and call myself Ferdinand? Heaven forbid that I should die en route, as always happens to the man who fails to find what he is searching for in life. The man who took the wrong route and chose the wrong name.
O NE OFTEN MISTAKENLY describes oneself as a friend, or the name itself is misleading, and in this way and no other the word came into being. I am not criticizing my friends but the role we tacitly accept of looking after each other, of showing a solicitude the other person may not need yet expects to be shown, of exploiting presence and absence and complaining or not complaining of both according to our own best interests, which ignore those of our friends. Because of this bad conscience (remorse, moral disquiet or gentle rebuke from our so-called conscience), a planned reunion of friends is rather like a meeting of twin souls: everyone has abandoned whatever cannot be shared among those present, everyone becomes impoverished and diminished (for better or for worse) in order to become what is expected of them. For this reason, anyone who is anxious to keep up friendships lives in constant fear of losing them and is forever adapting to them just as the pupil of the eye responds to the light it receives. But the efforts made by groups of friends to adapt to each other (how would the pupil of the eye adapt to simultaneous lights of varying intensity if it could separate them and react to them one by one?) cannot last for any longer than the ability of each guest to raise or lower his or her own personality to a level agreed by all. It is always advisable, therefore, to curtail reunions before they reach breaking point and each of those tiny planets feels an irresistible urge to form another constellation elsewhere or simply to drop from sheer exhaustion into black, empty space.
Besides Adelina, who acted as hostess, eight friends of both sexes gathered in my flat. There were several steady couples among them, although I had my doubts about one couple (they were not together last time) and they had the same casual look Adelina and I were beginning to take on. But while they are still glowing (a banal expression which aptly conveys that aura of intense passion invisibly surrounding recent couples), we move about in a gentle glow and know it. Who are these friends of mine and what do they do? Several of them work in advertising, one is an architect, there is a doctor with his wife, an interior decorator who is really Adelina’s friend, a publisher, widowed and older than me (nice to know I am not the oldest person here), who is infatuated with the interior decorator but resigns himself to looking on as she flirts right and left. What distinguishes this group, apart from its ability to smoke, chat and drink at the same time (just like any other group), is their friendship toward me, which I reciprocate as best I can, know how to (or choose). If we were to try to find an explanation for this relationship, I am sure we would not find one; nevertheless we go on being friends because of our inertia, nourished by fear of that momentary solitude which we selfishly shun. What finally keeps us in that group is knowing that it will continue even after we have withdrawn. By continuing to take part, we can go on believing we are indispensable. It is a question of pride.
The same pride or fear of being inferior when compared with others provokes unspoken resentments and conflicts under the supreme justification of
O NE OFTEN MISTAKENLY describes oneself as a friend, or the name itself is misleading, and in this way and no other the word came into being. I am not criticizing my friends but the role we tacitly accept of looking after each other, of showing a solicitude the other person may not need yet expects to be shown, of exploiting presence and absence and complaining or not complaining of both according to our own best interests, which ignore those of our friends. Because of this bad conscience (remorse, moral disquiet or gentle rebuke from our so-called conscience), a planned reunion of friends is rather like a meeting of twin souls: everyone has abandoned whatever cannot be shared among those present, everyone becomes impoverished and diminished (for better or for worse) in order to become what is expected of them. For this reason, anyone who is anxious to keep up friendships lives in constant fear of losing them and is forever adapting to them just as the pupil of the eye responds to the light it receives. But the efforts made by groups of friends to adapt to each other (how would the pupil of the eye adapt to simultaneous lights of varying intensity if it could separate them and react to them one by one?) cannot last for any longer than the ability of each guest to raise or lower his or her own personality to a level agreed by all. It is always advisable, therefore, to curtail reunions before they reach breaking point and each of those tiny planets feels an irresistible urge to form another constellation elsewhere or simply to drop from sheer exhaustion into black, empty space.
Besides Adelina, who acted as hostess, eight friends of both sexes gathered in my flat. There were several steady couples among them, although I had my doubts about one couple (they were not together last time) and they had the same casual look Adelina and I were beginning to take on. But while they are still glowing (a banal expression which aptly conveys that aura of intense passion invisibly surrounding recent couples), we move about in a gentle glow and know it. Who are these friends of mine and what do they do? Several of them work in advertising, one is an architect, there is a doctor with his wife, an interior decorator who is really Adelina’s friend, a publisher, widowed and older than me (nice to know I am not the oldest person here), who is infatuated with the interior decorator but resigns himself to looking on as she flirts right and left. What distinguishes this group, apart from its ability to smoke, chat and drink at the same time (just like any other group), is their friendship toward me, which I reciprocate as best I can, know how to (or choose). If we were to try to find an explanation for this relationship, I am sure we would not find one; nevertheless we go on being friends because of our inertia, nourished by fear of that momentary solitude which we selfishly shun. What finally keeps us in that group is knowing that it will continue even after we have withdrawn. By continuing to take part, we can go on believing we are indispensable. It is a question of pride.
The same pride or fear of being inferior when compared with others provokes unspoken resentments and conflicts under the supreme justification of
Similar Books
