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looking at shop windows and buildings), which is the most tiring part of all. What was traditionally my rest period has become the worst time and the worst journey of the year."
    Dato finished his second glass of whisky and asked for a single. The suppressed agitation with which he had been speaking seemed to have caused his voluminous, curly hair to fill out or rise. There was still no one else in the hotel bar, just him and me sitting before the invisible presence of the barman. Dato pointed towards the door with one of his small, eighteenth-century hands.
    "In a few moments, she'll appear at that door and she won't let me go to bed or continue my conversation with you. No, she'll ask me or, rather, order me to go for a last walk around the block with her, because it's such a fine evening, or she'll want to have a drink with me somewhere so that she can tell me what a terrible time she's had over supper (tonight Señor Manur has taken her to a supper for wives and husbands, part business engagement, part formal supper). And meanwhile he, Señor Manur, will go off to bed so that he can rise refreshed in the morning and dedicate himself busily to his many tasks and occupations. And since I'm no use to him whatsoever (for that's the truth of the matter), he can manage perfectly well without my purely theoretical services; Manur can do everything without my help and I serve a far more useful purpose, a far more valuable role, keeping Natalia company and making sure she doesn't get bored and doesn't suffer and isn't entirely miserable. Do you understand? Do you see? I am a companion, nothing more, and both of them, Natalia and Manur, know that that is what I'm paid to do, and they make that quite clear. And I know it too. So you see, you complain about being too alone; I, on the other hand, complain about having too much company. You complain that your life is too scattered and diverse; I, on the other hand, complain that my life is too concentrated and monotonous. Keeping Natalia Manur company, that is what my life has been these last few years, that is the actual content of my present existence. She's a lovely person, of course, if somewhat on the melancholy side, but only a husband or a lover or possibly a brother can keep a woman company indefinitely and unconditionally, don't you think? And I am not her husband or her lover or her brother. Señor Manur is her husband and Monte is her brother, and she, incredible though it may seem, has no lovers. It's completely illogical in her situation, but that, alas, is how it is."
    Dato had spoken these last words with utter conviction, as if—as I think now—he were using them to provoke my incredulity.
    "How can you be so sure? Does she really tell you everything?" I asked with due incredulity.
    "Well, I don't know if she tells me everything, but, in a way, anything she doesn't tell me doesn't really exist. If it doesn't exist for me, then it doesn't exist for Señor Manur either, and if it doesn't exist for him, then it doesn't exist for me. Do you see what I mean?"
    "Not really."
    Dato did not seem to have any sense at all that he might be talking too much. In this morning's dream, throughout this repeated conversation, he struck me as a patient and determined man. Determined to tell me, patiently and all in good time, anything I did not know.
    "Señor Manur is the one who pays my salary, and, as you can imagine, he expects me to pass on to him any important news regarding his wife. He takes it for granted that if anyone knows what does or does not happen to Natalia Manur, that person is me (since I have been her almost constant companion and probably her only confidant for several years now, he has absolutely no doubt that that person is me). At the same time, Natalia knows what my obligations and loyalties, both theoretical and official, entail, and you will say to me (quite rightly) that she won't tell me anything that she doesn't want Señor Manur to know. Looked at from the