Unsent letter from a son to his father, who had a curved and pain ridden spine, who was a judge during a trying time in history, and who committed suicide to end all these struggles:
"I start trembling at the very thought of the unplanned and unknown, but inevitable and unstoppable force with which parents leave traces in their children that, like traces of branding, can never be erased. The outlines of parental will and fear are written with a white-hot stylus in the souls of the children who are helpless and ignorant of what is happening to them. We need a whole life to find and decipher the branded text and we can never be sure we have understood it.
And you see, papa, that's also what happened to me with you. Not long ago it finally dawned on me that there is a powerful text in me that has dominated everything I have felt af done so far, a hidden white-hot text [...].
Mama as the interpreter, who had to translate your reticence to us. Why didn't you learn to talk about yourself and your feelings? I want to tell you why: it was too comfortable to you [...]. You were arrogant: others were left to guess how much you were suffering. [...]
Did you never think, papa, how much of a burden it was for us that you didn't talk about your pain and humiliation? That your mute, heroic endurance, which was not without vanity, could be more oppressive for us than if you had sometimes cursed and shed tears of self-pity? For that meant that we children, and mainly I, the son, imprisoned by your imposed bravery, we had no right to complain."
Unsent letter from this father to his son:
"My esteemed, dear son,
Can you imagine what it is like to have a son blessed with so many talents? A son powerful with words who gives his father the feeling that all he has left is silence if he is not to soud like a bungler? [...]
A radiant intelligence filled the room and I still recall that I thought: How little the naïveté of the sentences suits him! Later, when I was alone again, pride gave way to anther thought: from now on, his mind will be like a dazzling spotlight that mercilessly illuminates all of my weaknesses. I believe that was the beginning of my fear for you. For yes, I was afraid of you. [...]
You have the soul of a rebel and rebels don't become priests. So where would your ardor finally lead you, what outlet would it seek? That it possesses an explosive force, this ardor, that was palpable. I was afraid of the explosions it could produce.
[...] As I watched you grow up, I was amazed at the breadth of your mind [...] And I was proud! And jealous! Jealous of the independent thought and of the morality that spoke through every one of your lines. They were like a shining horizon I would have liked to have reached, but never could; the leaden gravity of my upbringing was too great for that. How could I have explained my proud jealousy for you? Without making myself feel small, even smaller and more dejected that I already was?"
