I am working from the standard translation by J. M. Cohen written in the year of my birth. In many ways the 1960s represents the end of Western Culture, and in terms of our literary tradition it is firmly so. At no time in human history has the past been more discounted and held in lower regard than in the United States of America of the Post World War II Period, the first nation on earth to hold the power in its collective hands to extinguish the human habitat.

To the extent that ancient works such as Bernal Diaz’s The Conquest of New Spain were of any relevance it was as the study of a narrative, of the plot of human kind, like some vast soap opera, perhaps as a cautionary tale.

Cohen deleted most passages from Diaz’s account in which he takes issue with other historians. This is irritating but not hampering for the purpose of retelling this true adventure story.

What has become stifling is the translator’s habit of discounting the importance of military details. On page 55 he discusses his omission of Diaz’s account of the 16 horses taken on Cortez’s entrada. This would be like omitting the inventory of helicopters from an account of the Vietnam War!

Thankfully, a cute senorita with a masters’ degree in English moved in down the street. So, if sometime in November or December there is a lull in the installments of A Sickness of the Heart, forgive me, for I shall be hard at work learning Spanish—Castilian dialect, I think.

In the mean time I have four more installments outlined, and hope the reader shall be patient with this adaptation of one man’s personal account of one of the greatest military adventures in the life of Man.