ABSTRACT

Dr. Levy said that Felix might live a year or die any minute. It was difficult to determine the exact amount of brain damage, as Felix could not speak and could not, or would not, respond to questions by moving his head or his hands, but it seemed fairly sure that there was little comprehension left. For all essential purposes, Felix Leitner was dead. The increase of candor in modern speaking, matched with the decline of reticence and discretion, should go far to ease the task of the biographer. People tend today to be generous and frank with their reminiscences. But he who ventures into the field must always remember that his principal enemy is still the same who afflicted the chroniclers of old: the so-called witness who is really a would-be biographer himself, the person who is giving not so much a memory as a creation, the man who has his own obsession, loving or hateful, about the subject.