The years pass and the children grow up, becoming more and more inseparable. One day the millionairess falls ill, with whatever, a deadly virus, cancer, and after a purely symbolic struggle, gives in and prepares to die. She's still young, forty-two. Her only heirs are the two clones and she leaves everything ready for them to inherit part of her immense fortune the moment they're married. Then she dies and her lawyers and scientists weep bitterly for her.

The story ends with a meeting of her staff after the reading of the will. Some, the most innocent and farthest from the millionairess's inner circle, ask the questions that Sturgeon guesses readers might ask themselves. What if the clones refuse to marry? What if the boy and girl love each other, as seems indisputable, but their love never goes beyond the strictly fraternal? Will their lives be ruined? Will they be condemned to live together like two prisoners serving life sentences?

Arguments and debates break out. Moral and ethical questions are raised. The oldest lawyer and scientist, however, soon take it upon themselves to clear up all doubts. Even if the boy and girl don't agree to marry, even if they don't fall in love, they'll still be given the money they're due and they'll be free to do as they like. No matter how the relationship between them develops, within a year the scientists will implant a new clone of the tramp in the body of a surrogate, and five years later they'll repeat the operation with a new clone of the millionairess. And when these new clones are twenty-three and eighteen, no matter what their interpersonal relationship might be-in other words, whether they love each other like brother and sister or like lovers-the scientists or the scientists' successors will implant two more clones, and so on until the end of time or until the millionairess's immense fortune is exhausted.

This is where the story ends, with the faces of the millionairess and the tramp silhouetted against the sunset, and then the stars, and then infinite space. A little creepy, isn't it? Sublime, in a way, but creepy too. Like all crazy loves, don't you think? If you add infinity to infinity, you get infinity. If you mix the sublime and the creepy, what you end up with is creepy. Right?

20

Xosé Lendoiro, Terme di Traiano, Rome, October 1992. I was no ordinary lawyer. Lupo ovem commisisti or Alter remus aquas, alter tibi radat harenas: either could be said of me with equal justice. And yet I've preferred to adhere to the Catullian noli pugnare duobus. Someday my merits will be recognized.

In those days I was traveling and conducting experiments. My practice as a lawyer or jurist afforded me sufficient income so that I could devote ample time to the noble art of poetry. Unde habeas quaerit nemo, sed oportet habere, which, simply put, means that no one inquires as to the source of one's possessions, but possessions are necessary. An essential truth if one wants to devote oneself to one's most secret calling: poets are dazzled by the spectacle of wealth.

But let us return to my experiments. At first, these consisted solely of traveling and observing, although I was soon given to know that my unconscious intention was the attainment of the ideal map of Spain. Hoc erat in votis, such were my desires, as the immortal Horace says. Naturally, I had a magazine. I was, if I may say so, the funder and editor, the publisher and star poet. In petris, herbis vis est, sed maxima verbis: stones and grass have many virtues, but words have more.

My publication was tax-deductible too, which meant that it was little burden. But why bore you? Details have no place in poetry. That's always been my maxim, along with Paulo maiora canamus: let us sing of greater things, as Virgil says. One has to get to the marrow, the pith, the essence. I had a magazine and I headed a firm of lawyers, ambulance chasers and sharks, a firm of not undeserved renown, and during the summers I traveled. Life was good. And yet one day I said to myself, Xosé, you've been all over the world: incipit vita nova. It's time for you to tread the pathways of Spain, though you be no Dante, time for you to tread the roads of this country of ours, so battered and long-suffering and yet still so little known.

I'm a man of action. What's said is done: I bought myself a roulotte and off I went. Vive valeque. I traveled through Andalusia. Granada is so pretty, Seville so lovely, Cordoba so severe. But I needed to go deeper, get to the source. Doctor of law and criminal lawyer that I was, I couldn't rest until I'd found the right path: the ius est ars boni et aequi, the libertas est potestas faciendi id quod facere iure licet, the root of the apparition. It was a summer of initiation. I kept repeating to myself, after sweet Horace: nescit vox missa reverti, the word, once spoken, cannot be withdrawn. From the legal point of view, the statement has its loopholes. But not for a poet. By the time I returned from that first trip, I was in a state of excitement, and also somewhat confused.

Before long, I separated from my wife. There were no scenes and no one was hurt, since fortunately our daughters were already grown and had the sufficient discernment to understand me, especially the older one. Keep the apartment and the house in Tossa, I said, and let that be the end of it. My wife accepted, surprisingly enough. We put the rest in the hands of a few lawyers she trusted. In publicis nihil est lege gravius: in privatis firmissimum est testamentum. Although why I say that I don't know. What do wills have to do with divorce? My nightmares are getting the better of me. In any case, legum omnes servi sumus, ut liberi esse possimus, which means that in order to be free, which is our most precious desire, we are all slaves before the law.

Suddenly, I was overflowing with energy. I felt rejuvenated: I stopped smoking, I went running every morning, I participated diligently in three law conferences, two of them held in old European capitals. My magazine didn't go under; on the contrary, the poets who drew sustenance from my largesse closed ranks in manifest sympathy. Verae amicitiae sempieternae sunt, I thought, along with the learned Cicero. Then, in a clear instance of overconfidence, I decided to publish a book of my poetry. The printing was expensive and of the four reviews it received, all but one were negative. I blamed everything on Spain and my optimism and the unchanging laws of envy. Invidia ceu fulmine summa vaporant.

When summer came I got in the roulotte and set out to roam the lands of my elders, or in other words verdant, primeval Galicia. I left in good spirits, at four in the morning, muttering sonnets by the immortal and prickly Quevedo. Once in Galicia I traveled its rías and tried its mostos and talked to its sailors, since natura maxime miranda in minimis. Then I headed for the mountains, for the land of meigas, my soul fortified and my senses alert. I slept at campgrounds, because a Guardia Civil sergeant warned me that it was dangerous to camp along back roads or country highways, especially in the summer, because of lowlifes, traveling singers, and partygoers who wandered from one club to another along the foggy night roads. Qui amat periculum in illo peribit. The campgrounds weren't bad either, and I was soon calculating the wealth of emotions and passions that I might discover and observe and even catalog in such places, with an eye to my map.

So it was while I was at one of these establishments that what I now regard as the central part of my story took place. Or at least the only part that still preserves intact the happiness and mystery of my whole sad, futile tale. Mortalium nemo est felix, says Pliny. And also: felicitas cui praecipua fuerit homini, non est humani iudici. But to get to the point. I was at a campground, as I've said, near Castroverde, in the province of Lugo, in a mountainous spot abounding in thickets and shrubs of every sort. I was reading and taking notes and amassing knowledge. Otium sine litteris mors est et homini vivi sepultura. Although that may be an exaggeration. In short (and to be honest): I was dying of boredom.