— Yes, said Ulisses. But you’re wrong. I don’t give you advice. I just — I—I think that what I’m really doing is waiting. Waiting perhaps for you to give yourself advice, I don’t know, Lóri, I swear I don’t know, sometimes it seems like I’m wasting my time, sometimes it seems that on the contrary, there’s no more perfect, though worrisome, way to use time: the time of waiting for you. Do you know how to pray?

— What? she asked with a start.

— Not pray the Lord’s Prayer, but ask something of yourself, ask the maximum of yourself?

— I don’t know if I know, I’ve never tried. Is that a piece of advice? she asked with irony.

He looked flustered:

— I think it was. Forget what I said.