SOURCE: "Psychopathic Point of View: Juan Carlos Onetti's Los adioses," in Latin American Literary Review, Vol. II, No. 3, Fall-Winter, 1973, pp. 19-29.

In the now classic article "Point of View in Fiction" [PMLA 70 (1955)], Norman Friedman codifies four basic questions in his attempt to define the various modes a narrator has for transmitting his story to the reader: 1) who talks to the reader; 2) from what position regarding the story does he tell it; 3) what channels of information does the narrator use to convey the story to the reader; and, 4) at what distance does he place the reader from the story. These considerations are not only significant, but vital and essential to the appreciation of Juan Carlos Onetti's enigmatic novel, Los adioses [The Goodbyes] (1954), which is told from a seemingly traditional first person or "I"-as-witness vantage point. The point of view of this work must be studied with special care and attention, for only through a close analysis of this technique does the reader become aware of the narrator's psychopathic mental condition and its effect on the narration. The reader is faced with the challenge of trying to determine the actual facts and events of a story related by a deranged person. A serious examination of the psychopathic point of view and its many implications offers different impressions and, as a result, the possibility of new interpretations to the novel.

Certainly Onetti is not unique in employing the point of view of a mentally disturbed person. A noteworthy precedent in Spanish American literature is Ernesto Sábato's El túnel [The Tunnel] (1951) in which the narrator-protagonist is afflicted with a condition very similar to that of the narrator of Los adioses. There is an important difference, however, in the reader's reaction to the narration and his awareness of the narrator's problem. In El túnel, the mental problems of Juan Pablo Castel are apparent from the outset. In Los adioses, on the other hand, only the extremely perceptive reader is able to guard himself against the detail of distorted observations which pretend to be logical and accurate.

Critical appraisal of Los adioses is scarce; what is available is uneven and contradictory. Concerned primarily with presenting an overview of Onetti's total production, critics such as Mario Benedetti [Literatura uruguaya del sigh XX, 1963] and Luis Harss [Los nuestros, 1968] offer plot summaries and concentrate on relating Onetti's various works to each other, and thus their discussion of Los adioses is cursory and does not focus on the crucial elements. [In Literatura uruguaya del medio siglo] Emir Rodríguez Monegal also surveys themes and techniques in Onetti's works. Of particular interest, however, is his explicit identification of the narrator of Los adioses as a sick man: "Enfermo él también, y no sólo de los pulmones. . . ." ["Himself sick also, and not only of the lungs "].

The most comprehensive study of Los adioses is Wolfgang Luchting's excellent investigation of "reader participation" generated by the use of a special point of view ["El lector como protagonista de la novela: Onetti y Los adioses," Nueva Narrativa Hispanoamericana, I, No. 2 (Septiembre 1971)]. Luchting attempts to establish which events actually took place; he does not analyze precisely why the point of view leads to such interpretational chaos (I shall comment on some of the interesting theories postulated in Luchting's article later).

The complexity and confusion of Los adioses lies not in the story itself, but in the manner in which the events are seen and interpreted by the narrator, the nameless owner of an almacén [general store] which serves as a gathering place for local townspeople. The novel opens with the arrival of a one-time basketball star who has come to the town to be treated for tuberculosis. As the ex-athlete steps into the store, the almacenero [storekeeper]—the narrator of the story—immediately expresses interest in the life of the newly arrived man and proceeds to describe, in great detail, what he knows and surmises about him. A reserved and standoffish person, the man—referred to as el hombre or el tipo—does not mix with his fellow patients or, for that matter, anyone else in the community. He lives for the delivery of the mail, specifically letters from two different sources. The correspondents turn out to be two women who come to the town to visit el hombre: la mujer [the woman], mother of a young son; and la muchacha [the girl]. The man appears to be cheered by the various visits of the two women. After la mujer and her child depart, the ex-athlete stays on with the younger girl, moving first into a chalet and later to the sanitarium for a more intensive treatment of his disease. The novel ends with the man's death.

These are, in outline, the factual details of the novel. Interpreted by the narrator's sick mind, however, the story is erotically intensified. The almacenero imagines the man has rejected his wife and child so he can involve himself in a lustful and illicit relationship with the younger girl. The narrator's anger and disgust are contagious, and soon everyone is criticizing el hombre for his "immorality." Toward the end of the novel, the truth of the situation is established. In the almacenero's possession is a letter revealing that the younger girl is the man's daughter; la mujer is, in fact, the "other woman."

How, precisely, is the narrator psychopathic? Suffering from a severe functional psychosis, an extreme case of paranoia, he is dominated by an idée fixe which on the surface seems very reasonable. The narrator is a megalomaniac, deluded with the grandiose idea—one which consumes a great deal of his emotional life and interest—that he has the power to predict, even control, people's lives. The moment he sees el hombre, the narrator feels compelled to make a judgment and boast: "Me hubieran bastado aquellos movimientos sobre la madera llena de tajos rellenados con grasa y mugre para saber que no iba a curarse. . . . En general, me basta verlos y no recuerdo haberme equivocado." ["Those movements on the wooden floor full of cracks packed with grease and grime would have been enough for me to know he would not be cured. .. . In general, I only have to see them, and I do not remember ever making a mistake."]

Once the prophecy is expressed and the man's fate mapped out, the almacenero is obsessed with the notion that it be fulfilled or executed. Indeed, all the storekeeper's time is devoted to speculation about el hombre, conjuring up visions of his every thought and move. His conjectures—cloaked in terminology such as "es posible" [it is possible], "tal vez" [perhaps], "lo supuse" [I supposed], or utilizing verbs in the conditional tense denoting "he might have"—soon become visions. He imagines and reconstructs the man's habits and activities. The reader must be aware of the storekeeper's pastime, and must constantly question whether the statements are really correct or mere suppositions. Because of the detail and elaborateness of the descriptions, it is easy to lose sight of what is fact or fancy. The reader is soon convinced of the validity of the thoughts or events, forgetting it is all material from the almacenero's imagination, even when incidents presented directly in dialogue contradict the narrators assessment of situations. At one point, for example, the storekeeper is informed that el hombre is happy and well on his way to recovery. To this the narrator responds: "El enfermero tenía razón y no me era posible decirle nada en contra; y, sin embargo, no llegaba a creer y ni siquiera sabía qué clase de creencia estaba en juego, qué artificio agregaba yo a lo que veía, qué absurda, desagradable esperanza me impedía conmoverme." ["The nurse was right and it wasn't possible for me to tell him anything against it; and, nevertheless, I did not quite believe it, nor did I even know what kind of belief was at stake, what contrivance I added to what I saw, what absurd unpleasant hope kept me from being moved."] He intends to abide by his earlier prediction, and most readers do not doubt him.

The almacenero's paranoid obsession with the life of the former basketball player becomes first a game and then a battle. This relationship, defined by the storekeeper, is warlike in nature; it is, specifically, a duel: "el habitual duelo nunca declarado: luchando él por hacerme desaparecer, por borrar el testimonio de fracaso y desgracia que yo me emperraba en dar; luchando yo por la dudosa victoria de convencerlo de que todo esto era cierto, enfermedad, separación, acabamiento." ["The never declared, habitual duel: he, fighting to make me disappear, to erase the testimony of failure and disgrace which I was determined to give; I, fighting for the dubious victory of convincing him that all this was true, sickness, separation, death."]

This competition, however, is unrecognized by el hombre, a fact which the storekeeper chooses to ignore. On the contrary, the narrator reads defiance into the man's words and gestures, and to emerge victor in the imagined war, he carefully plans his strategies. The storekeeper's most common tactics is to distort and fabricate evidence which will support his confabulations about the man's life. Occasionally, though, the almacenero breaks down and admits to distorting the information: "Porque, además, es cierto que yo estuve buscando modificaciones, fisuras y agregados, y es cierto que llegué a inventarlos." ["Because, also, it is true I was looking for modifications, fissures and additions, and it is true I went so far as to invent them."] Ironically, because he is aware of his own propensity to alter facts, the almacenero is suspicious of what others tell him. In his typical fashion he conjectures about Andrade, the town real estate agent: "Andrade montaba en la bicicleta y regresaba vibroreando hasta su oficina o continuaba recorriendo las casas de la sierra que administraba, pensando en lo que había visto, en lo que era admisible deducir, en lo que podía mentir y contar." ["Andrade would ride his bicycle and wind back like a snake to his office or he would continue on to the houses on the hills which he administered, thinking about what he had seen, about what was admissible to deduce, about what he could lie or tell."] This description, intended to report the thoughts of another person, is, in fact, an exposé of the narrator himself.

The insistence on attributing to another person the thoughts belonging to himself is practiced frequently by the storekeeper. Projection, the transferring of one's own ideas to another, plays an important role in this thinking. Once we have identified it as a habit to which the narrator often resorts, we are provided with clearer insights into his personality and therefore the likelihood of new interpretations to the novel. When the almacenero discusses a person, or people in general, chances are he is defining himself. As he muses, for example, about the humdrum daily functions of certain people, the reader should recognize that the narrator is describing his own behavior: "Siempre habría casas y caminos, autos y surtidores de nafta, otra gente que está y respira, presiente, imagina, hace comida, se contempla tediosa y reflexiva, disimula y hace cálculos." ["There would always be houses and roads, cars and gasoline pumps, other people who are around and breathe, have premonitions, imagine, fix food, who are tedious and reflective in contemplation of themselves, who pretend and calculate."]

It is important to always be aware that the information and evaluation of el hombre is largely the storekeeper's projection. The entire speculation about the torrid affair between the younger girl and the ex-athlete, perhaps the basic subject of the book, could very well have resulted from the storekeeper's own sexual fantasies. He thinks of la muchacha in sexual terms the moment he first sees her, before he discovers why she has come to the town. Focusing first on her legs, then her skirt, she soon becomes a sexual object: "Pensé en la cara, excitada, alerta, hambrienta, asimilando, mientras ella apartaba las rodillas para cada amor definitivo y para parir." ["I thought of her face, excited, alert, hungry, assimilating, while she spread her knees for each definitive love and to give birth."] Once he learns the reason for her visit, he immediately envisions a carnal relationship between el hombre and the girl. Now the storekeeper is free with his descriptive labels; he uses strong adjectives which mirror his mind. He intimates that the girl behaves obscenely while the man, on the other hand, is immoral. But obscenity is in the mind of the storekeeper as he conjures wild visions of boudoir scenes: "Imaginaba la lujuria furtiva, los reclamos del hombre, las negativas, los compromisos y las furias despiadadas de la muchacha, sus posturas empeñosas, masculinas." ["I imagined the furtive lustfulness, the demands of the man, the rejections, the compromises and the merciless furies of the girl, her insistent, masculine postures."]

This almacenero is using the couple as a scapegoat, accusing them of imagined activities which he actually desires for himself. There are many incidents in the novel indicating that sexual matters weigh heavily on the storekeeper's mind. As he considers hosting holiday parties at the almacén, he thinks of the sexual frenzy in people's behavior during such festivities, equating it with insanity. While working at his New Year's party, he stares at a blonde woman and has lustful thoughts about her. When the older woman comes to town, much detail is imagined during alleged intimate moments with el hombre. His description is cushioned in sensational terminology:

Y él golpeó, largo y sinuoso contra la puerta, avergonzado en la claridad estrecha del corredor que transitaban mucamas y las viejas señoritas que volvían del paseo digestivo por el parque; y estuvo, mientras esperaba, evocando nombres antiguos, de desteñida obscenidad, nombres que había inventado mucho tiempo atrás para una mujer que ya no existía. Hasta que ella vino y descorrió la llave, semidesnuda, exagerando el pudor y el sueño, sin anteojos ahora, y se alejó para volver a tirarse a la cama. El pudo ver la forma de los muslos, los pies descalzos, arrastrados, la boca abierta del niño dormido. Antes de avanzar pensó, volvió a descubrir, que el pasado no vale más que un sueño ajeno. [And he knocked, tall and sinuous against the door, ashamed in the narrow brightness of the hallway used by aides and old maids returning from their digestive walk through the park; and, as he waited, he evoked old names, of faded obscenity, names he had invented a long time ago for a woman who no longer existed. Finally she came and removed the latch, half naked, exaggerating her modesty and sleepiness, without her glasses now, and she turned away to stretch out again on the bed. He could see the shape of her thighs, her bare feet, dangling, the open mouth of the sleeping child. Before going on he thought, he discovered once again, that the past is worth no more than someone else's dream.]

It is logical to conclude that the narrator is ridding himself of his own lustful cravings by projecting them on other people, as he admits in the final sentence of this thought.

The almacenero's projections are a revelation of his own mental state. Thus, the storekeeper's analysis of el hombre is often a disguised self-disclosure. The rancor he attributes to the man, for example, is a part of his own being: "Yo insistía en examinarle los ojos, en estimar la calidad y la potencia del rencor que podía descubrírsele en el fondo: un rencor domesticado, hecho a la paciencia, definitivamente añadido." ["I insisted on examining his eyes, on estimating the nature and capacity of the rancor which could be discovered deep inside him: a domesticated rancor, developed through patience, definitely added."] So, too, when he interprets the male nurse's dislike of the ex-athlete, he is in reality defining his own hatred for the man: "Se me ocurrió que el odio del enfermero, apenas tibio, empecinado, no podía haber nacido de la negativa del otro a las inyecciones propuestas por Gunz; que había en su origen una incomprensible humillación, una ofensa secreta." ["It occurred to me that the nurse's hatred, barely warm, unrelenting, could not have been caused by the refusal of the other to the injections prescribed by Gunz; that its origin was due to an incomprehensible humiliation, a secret offense."]

One of the most significant acts of projection, possibly a key to the storekeeper's personality and existence, can be observed in a remark he makes about other people. If interpreted as a self-revealing statement, we have a succinct description of the almacenero's thinking and behavior throughout the novel. It is a confession of his fabrication of stories about the consumptive and how everyone is convinced of their authenticity: "Estaba solo, y cuando la soledad nos importa somos capaces de cumplir todas las vilezas adecuadas para asegurarnos compañía, oídos y ojos que nos atiendan. Hablo de ellos, de los demás, no de mí." ["I was alone, and when loneliness is important to us we are capable of carrying out all the base deeds necessary to ensure us company, ears and eyes to attend to us. I'm talking about them, about the others, not myself."] But he protests too much in the last sentence, for at a later moment, comparing himself to the younger girl, he identifies the loneliness discussed above as being integral to his own personality: "Yo era el más débil de los dos, el equivocado; yo estaba descubriendo la invariada desdicha de mis quince años en el pueblo, el arrepentimiento de haber pagado como precio la soledad, el almacén, esta manera de no ser nada. Yo era minúsculo, sin significado, muerto." ["I was the weaker of the two, the mistaken one; I was discovering the constant unhappiness of my fifteen years in the town, the repentance of having paid as price the loneliness, the store, this way of not being anything. I was small, meaningless, dead."]

This declaration is shocking in its candor as well as its implications. The almacenero confesses to a depressing, negative situation: he is weak, unhappy, insignificant; he is devoid of life. The power he pretends to exert over people's destinies is a delusion. A possible explanation for his attitude and behavior toward the man can be inferred: despairing of his own condition, he projects it on el hombre and will have everyone believe the latter is small, meaningless, dead.

At times the storekeeper analyzes his own circumstance and occasionally advises himself to take a certain course of action. These brief moments of lucidity furnish the reader with important clues which might provide insight into determining what is fact and what is fiction. Is the almacenero's portrait of the ex-athlete fairly accurate? Or does it remain a mystery: the picture painted being that of the narrator himself? The preceding discussion, I feel, would support the second assumption.

A study of the narrator's relations with the people around him offers another means for exploring his psychopathic nature and his peculiar view of the ex-athlete. It is significant to note that only on very rare occasions is the storekeeper physically present in the man's environment—the hotel, the chalet, or the hospital. The data we receive is derived either from the narrator's fertile imagination or from accounts supplied by outsiders. The principal contributor is the enfermero, the male nurse of the hospital who spends his leisure moments at the store. For reasons unknown to the reader, the nurse, aware of the death wish, feeds the storekeeper with biased information that adds fuel to the hatred. In the following bit of gossip, for example, the enfermero hints that the man has a drinking problem—a rumor accepted later by all as a fact—and concludes his observations baiting the storekeeper with a pointed declaration: "El otro día compró media docena de botellas en el hotel y se las hizo llevar al chalet. Ahora sabemos para qué se encierra. Además, podía habérselas comprado a usted." ["The other day he bought half a dozen bottles at the hotel and had them delivered to the chalet. Now we know why he locks himself up. Anyway, he could have bought them from you."] The almacenero offers positive feedback to the nurse's dislike and ridicule of the sick man, and seems to encourage the practice: "Me reí un poco, para contentarlo, para demostrar que lo estaba escuchando." ["I laughed a little, to cheer him up, to show him I was listening."] And when the narrator takes a turn at derision, there is a reversal of roles in the reaction, corroborating our idea of the possibility of collusion: "El enfermero se puso a reír como si yo me hubiera burlado de alguien." ["The nurse started laughing as if I had made fun of someone."]

The conversations engaged in by the narrator also help us to discern what actually goes on in his mind. Mysterious and morbid topics are interspersed among the common and ordinary themes of a casual chat. In the following lines, for example, the storekeeper lists the subjects touched upon in a conversation with the nurse: "El enfermero y yo hablamos del granizo, de un misterio que podía sospecharse en la vida del dueño de El Pedregal, del envejecimiento y su fatalidad; hablamos de precios, de transportes, de aspectos de cadáveres, de mejorías engañosas, de los consuelos que acerca el dinero, de la inseguridad considerada como inseparable de la condición humana, de los cálculos que hicieron los Barroso sentados una tarde frente a un campo de trigo." ["The nurse and I talked about the hail-storm, about a mystery that could be suspected in the life of the owner of El Pedregal, about old age and its fatality; we talked about prices, transportation, the appearance of cadavers, deceiving improvements, the comforts money brings, insecurity considered as inseparable from the human condition, the calculations made by the Barrosos while sitting one day in front of a wheat field."] Hidden in this discussion are obvious references to el hombre, allusions which express the narrator's prejudices.

The storekeeper's use of language likewise reflects the mechanisms of his mind at work. Death and violence, for instance, are at times associated with elements of nature. Of particular interest are the descriptions of the ex-athlete. The narrator will frequently utilize strange but singularly expressive images in his portrayals. In the following passage, one of the last in the novel, the man is depicted with great detail: "Estaba envejecido y muerto, destruido, vaciándose; pero sin embargo, más joven que cualquier otra vez anterior, reproduciendo la cabeza que había enderezado en la almohada, en la adolescencia, al salir de la primera congestión. Convirtió en ruido su sonrisa y me tendió la mano; lo vi cruzar la puerta, atrevido, marcial, metiendo a empujones en el viento el sobretodo flotante que alguna vez le había ajustado en el pecho; lo vi arrastrar, ascendiendo, la luz de la linterna." ["He was aged and dead, destroyed, draining himself; but, nonetheless, younger than ever before, reproducing the head that he straightened out on the pillow, during adolescence, as he got over his first congestion. He turned his smile into noise and gave me his hand; I saw him crossing the doorway, daring, martial, pushing into the wind the floating overcoat that once was tight across the chest; I saw him drag, raising, the light of the lantern."]

Our attention immediately focuses on the antithetical concepts present in this visual description. We are informed the man is aged, but looking younger than ever; he is empty and destroyed, yet manages to smile and be cordial; he is brave and daring, but not strong enough to carry the lantern. Though this drawing may confuse the reader insofar as its contradictions, it is, however, the vision of a floating skeleton: the spectre of death. In summary, we are presented with the almacenero's death wish for the man, conveyed in vivid pictorial terms.

The narrator's relations with other characters in the novel are governed by his basically misanthropic nature. He mistrusts and despises everyone including the nurse and other members of the hospital staff. The younger girl, for example, is often a target of his merciless attacks. This hatred for her is equalled only by his feelings of hostility toward the ex-athlete. As already suggested, the almacenero resents her relationship with the man, and convinces himself and others of her immorality. Admitting, too, that his notions are gratuitous inventions, the narrator nonetheless fabricates a story about her and delineates her destiny: her life is to consist of a series of short-lived love affairs. For the time being, however, he is intent on seeing her defeated at this particular time, and the death of the man will insure it.

The almacenero's hatred of people is probably rooted in his fear of them. One expression of paranoia is apparent in his delusions of persecution. He suspects everyone of harming or trying to take advantage of him. If anyone is respectful or attentive, he supposes it is flattery: "También hablaba el enfermero, porque necesitaba adularme y había comprendido que el hombre me interesaba." ["The nurse was also talking, because he needed to flatter me, and he had understood that the man interested me."] If not adulation, he considers it mockery, and to this he is also very sensitive. He infers ridicule from words, looks, or actions. When the nurse suggests celebrating Christmas and New Year's holidays at the store, the almacenero suspects it was intended as a slight to him and his place. Once he sees the validity of the idea, he changes his mind and reflects that it was partially his notion too: "La idea fue del enfermero, aunque no del todo; y pienso, además, que él no creía en ella y que la propuso burlándose, no de mí ni del almacén, sino de la idea misma." ["It was the nurse's idea, though not entirely; and I also think that he didn't believe in it, but proposed it making fun, not of me or the store, but of the idea itself."] More serious is the occasion he thinks the ex-athlete intends to jeer him, for this is dangerous: "Apareció en la escalera, flaco, insomne, en camisa, con una peligrosa inclinación a la burla." ["He appeared at the stairs, skinny, sleepless, in shirt-sleeves, with a dangerous inclination toward mockery."]

Everyone, from anonymous customers to more important characters in the novel, seems to prey on the narrator. As he sees it, people are spying on his every move; customers are constantly fixing their states on him; certain stances or smiles are a challenge. The most extraordinary example of his persecutory paranoia is seen in his view of nature: "Salí al frío azul y gris, al viento que parecía no bajar de la sierra, sino formarse en las copas de los árboles del camino y atacarme desde allí, una vez y otra, casi a cada paso, enconado y jubiloso." ["I went out into the blue and gray cold, into the wind that seemed not to come down from the mountains, but appeared to gather in the branches of the trees along the road and attack me from there, once and again, almost at every step, frenzied and jubilant."]

This interpretation of nature—as joyful in its attempt to massacre the narrator—is another clear illustration of his mental state. The almacenero is a very sick man. He is convinced of his power to predict a person's fate, and seeing the fulfillment of his prophecy obsesses and controls him. Though rational and logical in appearance, his unbalanced intellect distorts reality. And just as the deranged mind perceives, so does it communicate with the same distortion. The reader of Los adioses should bear in mind this consideration as he attempts to analyze and interpret the novel.

At this point I would like to propose my own explanation of the outcome of the novel. In the previously cited article by Wolfgang Luchting, the critic paves the way for debate on possibilities of interpreting certain details found in the story. The suggestion—which he calls the "turn of the screw"—consists of speculating that the younger girl is not the ex-athlete's daughter after all. The man, proposes Luchting, lied to la mujer in order to maintain his relationship with both women. The first to respond to the idea was Onetti himself [in "Media vuelta de tuerca," in Los adioses, 1970]. Praising Luchting's discussion of "reader participation," the novelist nonetheless states that the article represents only "half a turn of the screw"—words which serve as the title to his remarks. To make matters more intriguing, Onetti adds that the "definitive interpretation"—and it is not his responsibility to present it—is still missing. The screw is still available for tightening.

My hypothesis is rooted in the psychopathic nature and behavior of the narrator as already described in this paper. The almacenero, feeling persecuted or threatened by others, is very capable of retaliating against his imagined offenders. He is calculating, cruel, and oriented in his thoughts toward violence. It is very likely that the storekeeper killed the ex-athlete. The contention that it was murder can be supported with evidence found in the novel itself. The man's death is attributed to suicide, but there is nothing in the text which conclusively proves this idea. On the other hand, there are facts pointing to the possibility of a homicide. Early in the novel the narrator implies he will see to it that his prophecy is fulfilled, resorting, if need, be, to violence: "Me sentía responsable del cumplimiento de su destino, obligado a la crueldad necesaria para evitar que se modificara la profecía, seguro de que bastaba recordarlo y recordar mi espontánea maldición para que él continuara acercándose a la catástrofe." ["I felt responsible for the fulfillment of his destiny, obligated to the cruelty necessary to avoid a modification of the prophecy, certain that it was enough to remember him and recall my spontaneous curse so he would continue getting closer to the catastrophe."]

The idea of homicide recurs at a later moment in the novel. Conversing with the nurse and the hospital aide, his faithful suppliers of gossip, the narrator is given the details of the first reunion of the man, the younger girl, and the mature woman—a meeting they call an "epilogue." The narrator muses on what the true epilogue may be like: "'Un epílogo,' pensaba yo, defendiéndome, 'un final para la discutible historia, tal como estos dos son capaces de imaginarlo'". ['"An epilogue,' I thought, defending myself, 'an ending to the debatable story, such as these two are capable of imagining it.'"] Moments later the aide voices the ending: "Habría que matarlo—decía la mucama—. Matarlo a él." ["He ought to be killed, the aide was saying. He should be killed."] After the nurse confirms the thought, the narrator confesses he cannot resist the idea either: "—Un hijo de por medio—confirmaba el enfermero; pero me sonreía dichoso, vengativo, seguro de mi imposibilidad de disentir." ["There's a child at stake, confirmed the nurse; but he smiled at me happy, vindictive, certain of the impossibility of my dissenting."]

There are sufficient motives to impel the storekeeper to the crime. The prophecy is not becoming a reality; the man has moved to the sanitarium and expects to be cured within six months. And when the almacenero discovers in the letters the true relationship of the man and the two women, proving him wrong again, he becomes enraged: "Sentí vergüenza y rabia, mi piel fue vergënza durante muchos minutos y dentro de ella crecían la rabia, la humillación, el viboreo de un orgullo atormentado." ["I felt shame and anger, my skin was shame for many minutes and inside it grew the anger, the humiliation, the crawling of a tormented pride."] Such a fury could have led the disturbed narrator to violence.

It is also interesting to observe the almacenero at the scene of the death. He is a renewed man, and he experiences the feeling of power once again: "Me sentía lleno de poder, como si el hombre y la muchacha, y también la mujer grande y el nino, hubieran nacido de mi voluntad para vivir lo que yo había determinado." ["I felt full of power, as if the man and the girl, and the older woman and the child also, had been born from my will in order to live what I had determined."] Shaken by the impact of the occurrence, he is, nonetheless, finally at peace: "Me senté en el diván, estremecido y en paz." ["I sat on the divan, shaken and in peace."]

Thus, the key to this reading lies in the psychopathic mind and behavior of the narrator. A close study of his point of view is essential for a clear understanding of Los adioses. The reader must maintain a proper perspective of the story, being always aware of the narrator's mental problems and consequent distortion of views. It should be remembered that he is rarely present at the scene of action; the account is the product of gossip sifted through an obsessed mind.