191
Historia de una pasión argentina, p. 43. In the same work, Mallea tells of the desire for faith and for God awakened in him by reading Saint Augustine, but also of his failure in this respect (p. 38). He declares (p. 54): «Como a Jacques Rivière, lo que me apartaba entonces del cristianismo era no tanto el sentimiento de la realidad de la nada como el valor que adjudicaba a mi desesperación».
192
El sayal y la púrpura, p. 129.
193
We can see this in the frustration of Tregua after the death of Gloria Bambil, in La bahía de silencio, p. 548, and in the fruitless efforts of the narrator to console his brother Germán, in Rodeada está de sueño, p. 148.
194
Rodeada está de sueño, p. 19.
195
Historia de una pasión argentina, pp, 47-48; El sayal y la púrpura, p. 187.
196
La bahía de silencio, p. 383.
197
El sayal y la púrpura, p. 182. The emphasis here is on the need for one's actual presence, the risking of one's body. The thought is reminiscent of Sartre's ideas on «committing» oneself.
198
Meditación en la costa, p. 32.
199
This, we are told, is what Tregua, Anselmi, and Jiménez do in La bahía de silencio, p. 134. The truth of the statement, somewhat open to question, hinges perhaps on the interpretation of words. It might be argued that, in their search for the substance of Argentina, these characters increasingly deal with abstractions: nation, authenticity, and so on.
200
Nocturno europeo, p. 201.