By Night in Chile

Sebastián Urrutia Lacroix, a Jesuit priest, is on his deathbed in Santiago, Chile. Once at peace with himself, Urrutia is troubled by a “wizened youth” (3) who, Urrutia claims, accosted him on his doorstep one night, accusing him of complicity in Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship. At the end of the novella, it’s suggested that the wizened youth is, at least in part, a personification of Urrutia’s conscience. Propping himself up, Urrutia begins his feverish apologia. He doesn’t want to fight with the wizened youth; he simply wants to dispel the rumors he spread and take responsibility before God for his actions, words, and silences.

Urrutia is Chilean, but his parents come from France and the Basque region of Spain. At 14, Urrutia enters a seminary against the wishes of his father, whom Urrutia remembers as a shadowy, animal-like presence in his childhood home. The only other childhood image Urrutia recalls is of his own smile—and trembling—amid the gloom of his house.

After graduating from the seminary, Urrutia dreams of becoming a poet and critic. He meets Chile’s foremost literary critic, González Lamarca, known primarily by his pen name, “Farewell.” Farewell is an imposing, debonair figure with a falcon-like