Francisco Rico, the immortal good friend who didn't even smoke | EUROtoday

The final thing I ever considered was that in the future I might write the obituary of Francisco Rico, Paco Rico. Because Paco was immortal.

More than forty years of being associates and retaining guard in higher I don't say what guardhouses. Twenty in the past we crossed an issue in The vanguard on account of Don Quixote and the printing presses of the seventeenth century, chibaletes, punches, varieties (critical matter). Very humorous. I win. Of course Paco checked out me from the summit of Everest: “You didn't even last me one round”. Print these throws, Cervantine bizarras, in a non-venal version of 76 copies, very beautiful, and he despatched each to his instructor (and mine) Martín de Riquer, as a referee. His letter is a revelry of grace, humor and impartiality; I left it to a desk.

Time handed and I started to translate the Quixote to present Spanish. The final particular person I might have instructed would have been him. However he wanted it. I wanted recommendation and a sponsor. 2014 coincided with the final replace of its monumental version. We exchanged at the very least two or 300 emails that yr relating to his notes and different philological issues. In order to not make myself suspicious, I instructed him that I used to be rereading it rigorously, for pleasure. And on daily basis I despatched him an statement, the correction of some error, questions on sure notes, refutations of uncovered attributions… After, after, after, the emails flew in each instructions, from Madrid to Barcelona and from Barcelona to Madrid, like missiles. Of my observations and corrections I accepted some (let's see, Rico model, “it could be”, “I had already seen it”), though one of the best findings (or what appeared prefer it to me), I stored to myself (as a result of Although one doesn’t belong to the tutorial world, I’ve seen that these methods stick simply).

When the factor was prepared, we met and I steered that he put the prologue to that translation… He instructed me: “I have been asked many times to translate it…”. I didn't wish to go into that, and I insisted within the prologue. It couldn't be (once I instructed him at one other lunch that it will be from Vargas Llosa, I don't know, it appeared to me that he did have some fluff), and we touched noses for a few years. Then it handed, and every little thing was the identical as earlier than.

A number of weeks in the past we talked for some time on the cellphone. He known as me. He requested me to ship him a ebook of mine that has simply been republished. He promised her, and I forgot (I simply remembered now, and the way that ebook hurts now). That afternoon he was gloomy. “This is over,” he introduced to me. I inspired him (with out success). He requested me concerning the new quantity of Out of misplaced steps, the way it was going, when it will be printed. He comes out so much there. It doesn't all the time end up nicely, however he was excited to seem, and if it was unhealthy, higher, the identical as he appreciated the mistreatment of Javier Maras in his novels. He jokingly maintained: “I have already won glory, I don't need you.” He claimed that he made photocopies of these malicious pages and despatched them to his colleagues, who had been many (he was a part of some thirty or forty academies and cloisters all over the world, probably the most prestigious in his discipline). He all the time believed that he did it.

I inform all these items now to neglect that I’m writing his obituary, and to present myself the phantasm that I’m telling them to him.

We have laughed, we now have traveled collectively, I printed a ebook for him, he gave me a job, we argued about every little thing and nothing (he instructed me that I had a Luciferian delight, and it’s not true, as is clear), we now have additionally talked about girls. sufficient (he infinitely extra), of books (much less), of associates (in any respect hours, nice sport), of politics (currently little), of the Academy (that, above all, him, his anger, his peace), of the Quixote (for every of us a unique ebook)…

I write every little thing usually now to get out of the shock. You managed, good good friend, to piss me off many occasions, however by no means make me unhappy, as unhappy as I’m now. I don't consider you died. If you had been immortal… And you didn't even smoke.