In the spring of 1949, I met Luis Cernuda at Mount Holyoke College where he taught Spanish literature since 1947, the year when he left England for good. At that time, José Lezama Lima and I were the editors of Orígenes, a periodical where the most prominent exiled Spanish poets published their work. But I had never asked Cernuda for a poem for the periodical. One day, talking about this with Pedro Salinas, he asked me why I had not done it. I explained that it was because Cernuda had a reputation of being very difficult, and he said, “Rubbish! I'm going to write to him and give you a letter of introduction right now." I was studying at Princeton and the next weekend I went to Mount Holyoke.

I remember that I got off the train very worried about whether Cernuda had received the telegram announcing my visit. Although I had never seen him, not even in a photo, I expected to easily recognize an Andalusian man among a group of Americans, and I began to look closely at people who had come to meet the passengers.

However, I did not see anyone who looked like the poet. After a while, the platform was deserted, but when I went a bit perplexed to the taxi stand, I caught a glimpse of an individual who was the spitting image of an English gentleman. When he seemed convinced that I was the visitor he expected, he walked towards me and said staring at me: "You must be the Cuban." He was Cernuda, a gentleman of distinguished bearing, rather thin, short, with slightly gray hair and a small mustache. His angular face seemed carved by a Phoenician ancestor. He spoke with pauses, as it is often the case with people who are afraid of being tactless. When I mentioned that Salinas encouraged me to write, he smiled for the first time and told me that Salinas had been his teacher in Seville and he owed to him for introducing him to the works of Mallarmé, Rimbaud, Proust, and Gide.

Cernuda had a reputation of being reserved and harsh, and although he was very cordial with me, I understood that he felt uncomfortable with my jovial and warm ways. Before dinner, we went into his room and I was impressed by its simplicity. There were no paintings, carpets or curtains. It looked like a monk's cell. I saw just one book on a white metal table. I was so surprised that there was not even a bookshelf that I mentioned it on our way to the town’s tavern in.

Over dinner we talked a lot about literature and his favorite authors. I finally found the courage to ask him for an essay for Orígenes. But he replied that he had not written anything lately. He seemed tired and did not utter a single word on the way to the station. Fortunately, when we arrived, I saw in the distance the lights of the train approaching. Then something unexpected happened: when I extended my hand to say goodbye, he smiled and told me not to worry, that he will send me an essay he was working on. But it was not until the following year that I received his text on Vicente Aleixandre.

In December 1951, I invited him to spend a few days in Havana on his way back from Mexico. Cuba really dazzled him and often said it reminded him a lot of Cadiz. When we went throughout the streets of Old Havana, he felt he was in Andalusia by Cubans’ way of walking and talking. I introduced him to Lezama Lima and other poets of the group Orígenes. During the time that he spent among us, he seemed like another person: talkative, happy and less reserved than the man at Mount Holyoke. Before his departure, he confessed that he had never missed Spain so much that during his stay in Cuba.

The letter he wrote to Lezama Lima on his return to the United States best expresses the profound impression his visit to Cuba had on him. "Aire de la Habana” is one of the most beautiful descriptions of our city and its sky, and closes with a mysterious poignant question that reflects the anguish felt by every person uprooted from his homeland.

La Gaceta de Cuba, Havana, October 1987.