The book my father wrote originally is in Spanish. Only the foreword below is in English, but the rest of the book is in Spanish (here is the link)
F O R E W O R D
I felt a great need to write the remembrances about my life. I consider that life represents at the same time a great problem and a great mystery – the latter seems unsoundable to me, just because we haven’t received the opportunity and the capacity to understand the main causes about the reasons of things. As to the problem – I believe each one, is obliged to solve it as best as possible.
I am sure, that each one of us carries a divine particle, and that this particle allows us to solve the problem of our existence. Love and Ethics are not words without a meaning, moreover Reason. Whenever we recall the different stages of our existence, it may seem we are mentioning different persons, but otherwise throughout our life always is observed the same personality.
It is extraordinarily useful to analyze our acts, our life, our passions, our learning ; to compare and to observe our intellectual and moral development, meditate about our changes of attitudes. All this, according to my humble thoughts, help us to obtain a knowledge about ourselves and to solve the very complex problem of our existence; as Someone brought us to life, as Personal Destiny offers to us certain possibilities and, as undoubtedly our Reasoning and Willingness may interfere in order to allow us a better understanding about all this (for us) Chaos – that I believe compounds a Divine Symphony, whose tunes unfortunately we are not allowed to interpret throughout our earthly existence.
I hope to have the opportunity of reading again what I wrote, and may be, to correct a few chapters. I found out whilst writing, that the panoramic view of our ongoing existence can be appreciated when is crossed the line of the fifties. The different stages: childhood, adolescence, youth ,etc., in theory so rich in details and clearly chained, give way at the present time, to a pale panoramic view with a limited number of visions, ciphers, deeds, dates, barely united – but this is an unavoidable fact, we can’t go against the essence of our own nature.
I have been gifted with an invaluable ability – good memory – being able to see, by reading about what I am writing, a lot of things details. On the other hand, many events I have registered, and these notes have been of great value to me, particularly my diaries since the end of 1916 until 1921. My memory is one of a “photographic type”, bringing up the corresponding images. It is enough to think about some event and I see the scene, I can observe before my cerebral eyes, almost colors and even listen the conversations. This circumstance has helped tremendously in the elaboration of my “Remembrances”.
The second most important purpose of this enterprise is represented by my children. Partly, they constitute my “alter ego”, in some way my continuity, once I pass away, through them I will get on living, and so on with the grandchildren, great-grand children, etc., although we dilute, as undoubtedly my children are a part of my wife as well, obeying to another natural law.
I wanted that my children knew through these pages, how did I live, that they could accompany step by step, my intellectual development, and that they could even evaluate my behaviour observing all my shortcomings and qualities in order to learn something about what is the essence of life, and then by themselves, choose in a better way their targets, trying always to reach higher intellectual and ethical levels. It may happen also that writing these texts I could help them to solve in an improved way the sequential stages of their lives . I would consider myself completely accomplished and the thousands hours spent writing these pages should represent a whole zero.
I must express herein that I am conscious of my pale”message”, pale in expressions, – I am neither a talent nor a writer; pale in the knowledge of the language – Spanish is not my mother tongue. I have not been able to learn deeply any language – due to racial problems, emigrations and so on; so I learnt several languages and “what you win in surface you lose in deepness” – and notwithstanding it was not my election. social cataclisms forced the circumstances.
So, I know there are many errors – of expression, phrase structures, even orthographic mistakes, or lack of accents – but my children will pardon me, and they will not hold on to details, considering just my purpose that has been the best possible.
I was frequently stopped by the presence of some patient, a phone call or any other professional detail while I tried to write a page. I used to write while I was working as a physician – I did not have the pleasure to have days or months at my disposal in order to write at ease all these remembrances. I superposed my writings without abandoning my jobs – the Hospital, sick people, my readings, the daily life and so on, so I found myself very tired and frequently wrote with little concentration, without the necessary calm that such a work required.
Buenos Aires, December 1953