Vicente stood and walked to the window. What was he waiting for anyway? for her to come. She’d disappeared several days ago without warning and that was somehow irritating and was bothering him; she was making herself remembered — and that was new. He was worn out, he thought while stroking like a blind man the cold marble windowsill. He had worked a lot and grown tired, he completed while blinking his eyes in understanding. He had a long and elastic movement with his body, felt comfortable, almost consoled for the day he’d spent working alone. He saw reborn that intimate satisfaction that was the irresistible desire to be amidst others, to talk, to say goodbye with a laugh, a desire to hear the latest political news and to have lunch with a friend afterwards talking about fast women, to get a message to rush to meet in some place, a pleasure to walk while moving his legs and read the newspapers awaiting events — and at the same time that comfort that many people were awaiting events. Above all he’d organized deep within himself a strong and severe feeling, a permanent and not excessive concern for his health, a certain upright approach that would reemerge at the necessary moments. He looked for his cigarettes tapping his hands on his pockets, fumbling. He remembered Vera in white and he furrowed his thick eyebrows — yes, he saw her again while hoping to find his cigarettes as he himself then and now was repeating with pleasure that familiar gesture. He was clasping her arm squeezing her, bruising her: you’re so skinny! he was saying with raving and contented eyes. He surprised himself a little when he realized how he’d been livelier and more boyish then, felt a quick disgust that his concern with lighting the cigarette interrupted. Her well-made skinniness seemed to him like a stubborn malevolence and he was taking it like a loving offense. Whose punishment was love — he smiled with mischief and disguised his slightly queasy smile. You’re so skinny! he was saying angry and the two secretly, with a touch of hate and of awe, were understanding each other. The first time he’d talked, talked, she was listening, smiling, agreeing but not looking at him head-on perhaps uncomfortable? distraught? what was actually wrong? he wondered and again all his uneasiness was summed up in a blinking behind his glasses: could I have been too intelligent? Every time he’d slept with women they resurfaced in his mind gathered into one single spot beating with quick open life, a watchful, curious, mischievous, amusing, extremely tired, and hopeful spot. He wanted to hold on to the sensation but saw himself in the void, sitting in the armchair, his long legs spread, his feet, his hands, the living room, some flies. Vaguely what had been left over was the room with the flies and him almost waiting for Virgínia. He confusedly asked himself if he’d been tactful with all of them, thought with quick irony about how really they were the ones who would often hurt him, even Virgínia with certain . . . One day he’d said to her shy but irresistible: don’t pinch me. He blushed a little. As for Irene, he hadn’t been able to stand her anymore, connected her to her smiling and distraught husband once and for all, was nauseated with himself, feeling sorry for her and hating to run into the child, that uneasy and elegant family. How rude they were, how they cheated, how they burned, yes, how they burned and they wore themselves out. There was some thing in women that bothered him. Except Maria Clara. They end up wearing me out, they like me so much, he thought smiling at the anecdote. The courtesy, the strength with which I embrace them, the little prostitutes, simply delights them, he concluded curious and fatigued. His own acrid sensuality brought him a movement of dense drive inside his chest and a sharp repulsion. And that gesture of rejection wasn’t coming from his vigilance over himself but was his sensuality itself. He stood, the palm of his hand smoothed the rough skin just shaved, he glanced at himself quickly in the mirror — the sly gaze he had when he was alone; he almost grimaced with disgust at himself so sudden was the lack of relation between the face and the thought, he once more felt extremely annoyed at being alone. He went to the small terrace, leaned on the parapet looking at the distant street, the calm sea, the little people walking and stopping to look at the sea, the cars rushing by. Three girls were walking and stopping, laughing. He lingered fixedly upon them, his twisted face seeking the laughter from far off. To see so many girls so cheerful; if he fell in love with one of them, he’d detach her from the others and greet her as something odd and offended. Because more than seeing joyful girls joy itself was too much. That was annoying him. How well I know life, he thought with an avid satisfaction. He smiled. You
