One of the reasons why human beings produce literature is to know why they live, why they are here, suffering and crying, in this valley of tears. This matter is not trivial; such questions require a strong philosophical, existential effort if preferred. Seeking a justification for life, or at least an outline of an answer, is a task that extends into infinity. Tragedy is served: we will never get a satisfactory answer. Or we will find many, which is no consolation either. The soldier Alejandro tells us about his life. He writes about the tragedy of being born, growing up and living in post-war Spain. He tries to justify his decisions, his character, his thinking. He tries to show us that he is not to blame for anything; maybe he's just guilty of wanting to survive without a father or mother. It's his way of apologizing for living. His mere existence is a crime. This had been done before by the anonymous Lazarillo de Tormes or, more recently, the Pascual Duarte by Camilo José de Cela. At the age of sixty-five, the soldier Alejandro throws up all the pain in this novel; he calmly reviews the thunderous past in order to «remove as much darkness as possible from my inside and leave space for some light to enter my being ». As Mario Vargas Llosa says: writing is exorcising our demons. Alejandro's novel is, therefore, his last act of salvation, his redemption on the verge of death. Let’s not forget that Alejandro will always be a soldier. He, like Don Quijote, will go out to fight his last battle in an attempt not to change the world, but his own. He doesn't mind being sixty-five years old; he knows he is alive and wants to give himself one last chance, to love: « But above all, I want to find the woman of my life and pour into her all the love I feel in my heart, with which I would make her happy for the rest of our days » Who knows, maybe the real answer to all our questions and prayers lies in unconditional love. Behind it, the pain of all that we have suffered will disappear. And we will no longer have to ask for forgiveness for living. Luis Solis. Professor and literary critic.