Dream brother

"Me llamo Ernesto, porque cuando nací, el 24 de junio de 1911, día del nacimiento de san Juan Bautista, acababa de morir el otro Ernesto, al que, aún en su vejez, mi madre siguió llamando Ernestito, porque murió siendo una criatura. "Aquel niño no era para este mundo", decía. Creo que nunca la vi llorar -tan estoica y valiente fue a lo largo de su vida- pero, seguramente, lo haya hecho a solas.
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Aquel nombre, aquella tumba, siempre tuvieron para mí algo de nocturno, y tal vez haya sido la causa de mi existencia tan dificultosa, al haber sido marcado por esa tragedia, ya que entonces estaba en el vientre de mi madre; y motivó, quizá, los misteriosísimos pavores que sufrí de chico, las alucinaciones en las que de pronto alguien se me aproximaba con una linterna, un hombre a quien me era imposible evitar, aunque me escondiera temblando debajo de las cobijas. O aquella otra pesadilla en la que me sentía solo en una cósmica bóveda, tiritando ante algo o alguien - no lo puedo precisar- que vagamente me recordaba mi padre. Durante muchos años padecí sonambulismo."

"My name is Ernesto, because when I was born, on June 24, 1911, day of the birth of saint John Baptiste, had just died the another Ernesto, whom, still in her oldness, my mother continued calling "little Ernest", because he died being a creature. "That boy was not for this world ", she said. I believe that I never saw her crying - as stoic and brave as she was along her life - but, surely, she has done it being alone.
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That name, that grave, always they had for me something of nocturne, and maybe it has been the reason of my so difficult existence, for had been marked by this tragedy, since I was in the belly of my mother; and it motivated, probably, the most mysterious fears that I suffered since my childhood, the hallucinations in which suddenly someone was coming closer me with a lantern, a man who was impossible to avoid, though I was hiding trembling under the sheets. Or that another nightmare in which I was feeling alone in a cosmic vault, shivering before something or someone - I cannot precise it - that barely reminded my father to me. During many years, I was a sleepwalker"