2 ?b90

312
Un ni'go puede tener a su lado el tao, sin saberlo,
pero si al paso de los aTios, durante toda su vida lo
busca, s61o comprueba que se ha evaporado, que el tao
no lo acompaha. Tal vez en su agonia lo pueda recuperar
y entonces percibe que penetrard en lo invisible
con tao, con germen y imagen, su espera fue un
acto creador. Su espera cred una iniagen y esa ima-
gen va a resultar sorprendentemente creadora en la
muerte (11,891).
I submit that it is this process which Lezama dramatizes in the story of
the child and the vase when comibined with that of the night wanderer.
Contemplation of the empty patio calls the man to dress and go out to
wander about the streets in the middle of the night. The laughter which
he hears could be a reminder of the emptiness felt by Cemif when all he has
left is Fronesis' laughter: "ahora, en la medianoche, el recuerdo de aquella
carcajada, de aquella dnica respuesta, lo entristecia hasta la misma deses-
peraci6n" (1,506). It is the challenge of the invisible, which is also
expressed by the patio: "El vacio del patio de una casa es su fragmento mAs
hablador" (1,531). Fazzolari thinks that "el desvelado nocturno puede
ser identificable con Cemi, el hombre de nuestra 6poca que se pasea por las
calles de la Habana descubriendo im6genes, el poeta que ha de vencer el
tiempo. "
10
Throughout this section there is a complicated blending of
first and second person narrators which tends to combine Lezama, Cemi and
the wanderer. During his walk through various Havana streets, two protec-
tors seem to attend him; one is his mother, whom the reader will tend to
identify with Rialta as the poetic Muse; the other is more mysterious as
"una divinidad propicia, un geniecillo parecia que guiaba su camino, ilumi-
nAndolo con chispas, con una claridad que giraba como una rueda" (1,532).
It appears in "Genios" street and I take it to be the dawning of the man's
poetic insight into the invisible, with its unusual qualities of light de-
noting its alliance with Oppiano Licario and the lighted house of the four-
teenth
chapter.
The night wanderer proceeds through a symbolic landscape which is quite