Eventually we arrived at the gates of a country residence or farmhouse, and the owner met us at the door. He was an old man with the definite look of a local big shot, tyrant, or mafia boss. During the journey, the city of Colonia had been specifically discussed.

In the street, a few women were setting up long tables for a banquet in the evening light. We went into the house, which was big, old, and complicated to navigate. I soon lost sight of the group of men. And of Cristina. I walked around some more, and at last I found the men in a room that looked like a radio station or recording studio. They were all behind the glass making a news bulletin about Jorge, who seemed to be the “star” of the gathering. Cristina turned up outside the room and knocked very loudly on the glass of the outer door. I signaled to her not to make any noise because of the recording and then left, and the two of us went for a walk.

The Discourse

January 6

There are some pointless things the soul can’t do without. I could go further: it’s only pointless things that the soul can’t do without (though not all pointless things). But I won’t go that far, because I don’t want to make an extreme claim that I’ll later regret. These extreme claims are the product of my circumstances, of my rebellion against my circumstances. Since my life is shaped by ideas of what’s functional, I become too impassioned in my defense of pointless things. I lose my sense of balance and good judgment.

These reflections of mine must have been prompted by the fact that I’m home alone again (and it’s a Sunday). I love these weekends when I can be by myself, though I deplore how short-lived my solitude always is. It’s not that I’d like to live alone; what I really want is to live among people who respect my solitude and need for silence and digressions. Alicia is learning to do this, but it’s not enough; I wish she could accept this world ideologically, as it were, and eventually come to enjoy peace and silence the way I do.

When I woke up by myself in the house this morning, surrounded by immense silence, immense peace, I found myself thinking about a whole assortment of pointless things—the sort the soul appreciates. Over breakfast, I read a few of Dylan Thomas’s letters. In one of them, written when he was a young man, he said that nothing ephemeral could ever be beautiful to him, that beauty is about eternity. I disagreed, since I can’t think of anything that isn’t ephemeral. Even pure forms need an ephemeral mind in order to exist. Beauty is in the mind, not in things, and pure forms exist only in the mind.