My old friend and mentor Pío Baroja, who was not awarded the Nobel Prize, for the flame of fame does not always light up the right man's head, had a clock whose face displayed some wise words, a frightening maxim that referred to the passing of the hours: They all hurt, the last kills. Well, those hands that move only ahead have marked the tolling of many hours in my heart and soul, and today, with one foot in the considerable life I have left behind and the other in hope, I come before you to speak of words and, in good faith and perhaps with good luck, to discuss freedom and literature. I am not sure where the border checkpoint of old age is, but just in case I have already passed through, I will take refuge in something Francisco de Quevedo once said: we all want to live to a ripe old age, but we all deny we have gotten there. Since I am very well aware that we cannot ignore the evidence, and since I am also not unaware that the calendar is a relentless tool, I am ready to say all that I should without leaving anything up to inspiration or improvisation, two notions I despise.