Julian Visits Daniel in the Hospital and Takes His Pen

Julián Carax’s hospital visit joins Daniel Sempere’s recovery to Carax’s disappearance, turning a missing fountain pen into the sole tangible trace of an encounter others insist never happened. The scene offers no confirmation of whether Carax returned in person or appeared to Daniel in a dream, but Daniel’s appeal that he write again gives the farewell a clear emotional consequence.

The Visit

Daniel is resting in hospital after being shot when he wakes to footsteps at his door, expecting either his father or Dr Mendoza. Instead, Carax comes around the bed and sits in Daniel’s father’s chair. Daniel’s mouth is dry; Carax gives him water and supports his head while he drinks. The exchange is quiet, and Daniel understands Carax’s eyes as expressing farewell.

Daniel cannot recall Carax’s exact words or voice. What remains definite to him is the gesture of Carax holding his hand and the impression that Carax is asking him to live in his place, while making clear they will not meet again. The narration gives this understanding without reconstructing dialogue, preserving the scene’s emphasis on what Daniel feels and remembers rather than on a verifiable conversation.

The Pen and the Request to Write

Before the visit, Daniel’s father had brought him a notebook and Victor Hugo fountain pen in case he wanted to write. After Carax’s appearance, Daniel tells him to take the pen, which Daniel regards as having always belonged to Carax, and to write again. The request answers the apparent farewell with an appeal to return to writing: Daniel cannot keep Carax from leaving, but he can urge him toward the work associated with his identity.

The pen links the hospital encounter to its aftermath. When Daniel wakes again, Bea is cooling his forehead and he immediately asks where Carax has gone. She is confused and says Carax disappeared in the storm eight days earlier, leaving a trail of blood on the snow, and has been given up for dead. The nurse, who says she remained at the desk by the door throughout Daniel’s six-hour sleep, confirms that nobody entered the room. Yet that night Daniel notices the pen case is open and the pen is gone. The missing object does not prove what happened, but it gives the disputed encounter a material remainder.

Uncertainty and Significance

The scene is structured around a sharp contrast between Daniel’s intimate certainty and the witnesses’ denial. He remembers Carax bringing him water, holding his hand, and receiving the pen; Bea and the nurse maintain that no visitor came. Daniel had been asleep for six hours, a circumstance consistent with a dream, while the opened case and vanished pen resist a simple dismissal of the experience as purely imagined. The episode leaves that tension unresolved.

Carax’s presumed death makes the encounter read as a farewell, while Daniel’s request that he write again turns it into an act of encouragement as well. The pen’s disappearance carries the scene beyond Daniel’s waking account: whether taken by Carax or lost within the uncertain logic of the episode, it connects the author’s absence to the possibility of renewed work. The visit therefore functions as both a private exchange between the two men and a threshold between presumed death and the persistence of Carax’s writing.