2 ?b90

241
that he must reject this life-style as out of the question. He does so
gently, in one of the finest speeches in the novel. Lezama's first publi-
shed poem was entitled "Muerte de Narciso" (I, 652-8)f - Cemi's speech he-
ralds that death of Foci6n in his psyche. Within the context of the plot,
it is only Fronesis' absence which makes this direct address by Cemi possi-
ble; on the level of the allegory, the wise man and the poet have become
one in order to deal effectively with the threat from Foci6n. It seems
from the positioning of the speech that Cemi has been in command of the
situation from the first moment of meeting and is forearmed against his
wiles. He commences by drawing the distinction between ser and estar, or
"el ser esencial o el ser sustancial" (1,370), insisting that "hay una
categoria superior al sexo, que recuerda los mitos androginales o al que
se proyecta sobre los misterios complementarios" (1.370). So much has
Foci6n admitted, with less emphasis on eternal life, but this is Cemi's
chief concern and his starting point. The poet allows that there has been
a mistake in our sexual conduct, not in the relationship with women as
Foci6n suggested, but in the willingness of some to yield to the fall with-
in the Fall which is a trap for the unwary: "el hombre va a la mujer con
concupiscencia, pero el hombre vuelve al hombre por falsa inocencia
...
11
(1,372). Foci6nIs argument is turned inside out and further squashed by
careful selection of some short passages from St. Augustine and St. Thomas
Aquinas, both of whom see the return of man to man as the chief symptom of
"un amor desordenado de la muerte, un apetito fruitivo que excluye la par-
ticipaci6n en el misterio de la Suprema Forma" (1,373). These words of
St. Thomas seem to me to be an expression on another plane of the idea that
the soul which is determined to remain introverted and enveloped in the
maternal ouroboros instead of growing to maturity and dying to live again,
is lost in a death of its own creation. St. Augustine may be referring
to the same phenomenon when he says that "el alma se enferma cuando pierde