Jorge Luis Borges - Collected Fictions Part 29

He missed the snow, but I've noticed that northerners are taught to take measures against the cold the way we are against the heat. The hazy image that remains to me is that of a man on the tall side, with gray hair, less spry than strong. My recollection of his colleague Herbert Locke is clearer; Locke gave me a copy of his bookToward a History of the Kenning, which declares that the Saxons soon put aside those somewhat mechanical metaphors they used (the sea as "whale-road," the eagle as "battle-falcon"), while the Scandinavian poets were combining and intermingling them al- most to the point of inextricability. I mention Herbert Locke because he is an integral part of my story.

I come now to the Icelander Eric Einarsson, perhaps the true protago- nist. I never saw him. He had come to Texas in 1969, when I was in Cam- bridge, but letters from a mutual friend,Ramon Martinez Lopez,have left me with the conviction that I knew him intimately. I know that he is im- petuous, energetic, and cold; in a land of tall men he is tall. Given his red hair, it was inevitable that students should start calling him Eric the Red. It was his view that the use of an inevitably error-ridden slang makes the for- eigner an interloper, and so he never condescended to use the ubiquitous "O.K." A fine scholar ofEnglish, Latin, the Scandinavian languages, and (though he wouldn't admit it) German, he easily made a way for himself in American universities. His first article was a monograph on the four articlesde Quinceyhad written on the influence of the Danes on the lake region of Westmoreland. This was followed by a second, on the dialect of the Yorks.h.i.+re peasant. Both studies were well received, but Einarsson thought his ca- reer needed something a bit more "astonis.h.i.+ng." In 1970, Yale published his copiously annotated critical edition of the ballad of the Battle of Maldon. The scholars.h.i.+p of the notes was undeniable, but certain hypotheses in the introduction aroused some controversy in the virtually hermetic spheres of academe. Einarsson claimed, for example, that the style of the ballad is similar, though admittedly in a distant sort of way, to the epic fragmentFinnsburh, rather than to the measured rhetoric ofBeowulf, and that the poem's employment of moving circ.u.mstantial details oddly prefigures the methods that we admire, not without good reason, in the Icelandic sagas. He also proposed emendations for several readings in Elphinston's edition. In 1969 he had been given an appointment at the University of Texas. As we all know, American universities are forever sponsoring conferences of Germanists. Dr. Winthrop had chaired the previous conference, in East Lans- ing. The head of his department, who was preparing to go abroad on his sabbatical, asked Winthrop to suggest a person to chair the next one, in Wis- consin. There were really only two candidates to choose between-Herbert Locke and Eric Einarsson.

Winthrop, like Carlyle, had renounced the Puritan faith of his fore- bears, but not their sense of right and wrong. He did not decline to offer his opinion; his duty was clear. Since 1954 Herbert Locke had been of ines- timable help in the preparation of a certain annotated edition ofBeowulf which, at certain inst.i.tutions of higher learning, had replaced that of Klaeber; he was now compiling a work that would be of great usefulness to Germanists: an English/Anglo-Saxon dictionary that was certain to save readers hours of often fruitless searching through etymological dictionaries. Einarssonwas much the younger. His sharpness and impertinence had won him gen- eral dislike, including Winthrop's, but his critical edition of Finnsburh had contributed not a little to building a reputation. And he was disputatious; at the conference he would be a better moderator than the shy and taciturn Locke. That was the state of Winthrop's deliberations when the incident occurred.

From the Yale press there appeared a long article on the teaching of Anglo-Saxon language and literature in universities. At the end of the last page appeared the transparent initialsE.E. and, to dispel any doubt as to the authors.h.i.+p, the words"University of Texas." The article, written in the cor- rect English ofa nonnativespeaker, never stooped to incivility, yet it did have a certain belligerence about it. It argued that beginning the study of Anglo-Saxon withBeowulf, a work of ancient date but a rhetorical, pseudo-Virgilian style, was no less arbitrary than beginning the study of English with the intricate verses of Milton. It advised that chronological order be inverted: begin with the eleventh-century poem "The Grave," through which something of the modern-day language might be glimpsed, and then work backward to the beginnings. As forBeowulf, some fragment excerpted from the tedious 3OOO-line amalgam would suffice-the funerary rites of the Scyld, for example, who returned to the sea as they had come from the sea. Not once was Winthrop's name mentioned, but Winthrop felt persistently attacked. The attack, if there was one, mattered less to him than the fact that his pedagogical methods were being impugned.

There were but a few days left. Winthrop wanted to be fair, and he could not allow Einarsson's article (already being reread and talked about by many people) to influence his decision. But the decision was not easy. One morning Winthrop spoke with his director; that same afternoon, Einarsson received official word that he would be going to Wisconsin to chair the conference.

On the day before the nineteenth of March, the day of his departure, Einarsson appeared in Ezra Winthrop's office. He had come to say good-bye and to thank him. One of the windows overlooked a diagonal, tree-lined walk, and the office was lined with books. Einarsson immediately recog- nized the parchment-bound first edition of theEdda Islandorum.Winthrop replied that he knew Einarsson would carry out his mission well, and that he had nothing to thank him for. The conversation was, unless I am mis- taken, a long one.

"Let's speak frankly," Einarsson said. "There's not a soul in this university that doesn't know that it is onyour recommendation that Dr. LeeRosenthal,our director, has honored me with the mission of representing our university. I will try not to disappoint him. I am a goodGermanist;the language of the sagas is the language of my childhood, and I speak Anglo-Saxon better than my British colleagues. My students saycyning, notcun- ning. They also know that they are absolutely forbidden to smoke in cla.s.s and that they cannot come in dressed like hippies. As for my frustrated ri- val, it would be the worst of bad taste for me to criticize him; theKenning book clearly shows that he has looked into not only the primary sources but the pertinent articles by Meissner and Marquardt as well. But let us not pur- sue those trivialities.

"I owe you an explanation, Dr. Winthrop. I left my homeland in late 1967. When a man decides to leave his country and go to a distant land, he inevitably a.s.sumes the burden of'getting ahead' in that new place.

My first two little articles, which were strictly philological, were written for reasons other than to prove my ability. That, clearly, would not be enough. I had al- ways been interested in 'Maldon,' which except for an occasional stumble I can recite from memory. I managed to persuade Yale to publish my critical edition. The ballad, as you know, records a Scandinavian victory, but as to my claim that it influenced the later Icelandic sagas, I believe that to be an absurd and even unthinkable idea. I included it in order to flatter English readers.

"I come now to the essential point-my controversial note in theYale Monthly. As you must surely be aware, it presents, or attempts to present, the case for my approach to the subject, but it deliberately exaggerates the shortcomings in yours, which, in exchange for subjecting students to the te- dium of three thousand consecutive complex verses that narrate a confused story, provides them with a large vocabulary that will allow them to enjoy- if by then they have not abandoned it-the entire corpus of Anglo-Saxon literature. Going to Wisconsin was my real goal. You and I, my dear friend, know that conferences are silly, that they require pointless expenditures, but that they are invaluable to one's curriculumvit."

Winthrop looked at him quizzically. He was intelligent, but he tended to take things seriously, including conferences and the universe, which could well be a cosmic joke.

"Perhaps you recall our first conversation," Einarsson went on. "I had just arrived from New York. It was a Sunday; the university dining hall was closed so we went over to the Nighthawk to have lunch. I learned manythings that day. Like all good Europeans, I had always a.s.sumed that the Civil War was a crusade against slavery; you argued that the South had had a right to secede from the Union and maintain its own inst.i.tutions. To make your arguments all the more forceful, you told me that you yourself were from the North and that one of your forebears had fought in the ranks with Henry Halleck. But you also praised the bravery of the Confederate troops. Unlike most men, I can grasp almost immediately what sort of person the other person is. That lunch was all I needed. I realized, my dear Winthrop, that you are ruled by that curious American pa.s.sion for impartiality. You wish above all else to be 'fair-minded.' Precisely because you are from the North, you tried to understand and defend the South's cause. The moment I discovered that my trip to Wisconsin depended upon your recommenda- tion toRosenthal,I decided to take advantage of my little discovery. I real- ized that calling into question the methodology that you always use in your cla.s.ses was the most effective way of winning your support. I wrote my arti- cle that very day. The submissions criteria for the journal specify that arti- cles may be signed only with initials, but I did everything within my power to remove any doubt as to the author's ident.i.ty. I even told many colleagues that I had written it."

There was a long silence. Winthrop was the first to break it.

"Now I see," he said. "I'm an old friend of Herbert's, whose work I ad- mire; you attacked me, directly or indirectly. Refusing to recommend you would have been a kind of reprisal. I compared the merits of the two of you and the result was ... well, we both know what the result was, don't we?"

He then added, as though thinking out loud: "I may have given in to the vanity of not being vengeful. As you see, your stratagem worked."

" 'Stratagem' is the proper word for it," replied Einarsson, "but I do not apologize for what I did. I acted in the best interests of our inst.i.tution. I had decided to go to Wisconsin come what might."

"My first Viking," said Winthrop, looking him in the eye."Another romantic superst.i.tion. It isn't Scandinavian blood that makes a man a Viking. My forebears were good ministers of the evangelical church; at the beginning of the tenth century, my ancestors were perhaps good solid priests ofThor. Inmy family, so far as I know, there has never been a man of the sea."

"In mine there have been many," Winthrop replied. "Yet perhaps we aren't so different, you and I. We share one sin, at least-vanity. You'vecome to my office to throw in my face your ingenious stratagem; I gave you my support so I could boast of my integrity."

"But there is something else," Einarsson responded. "Our nationality. I am an American citizen. My destiny lies here, not in Ultima Thule. You will no doubt contend that a pa.s.sport does not change a man's nature."

They shook hands and said good-bye.

Avelino Arredondo

The incident occurred inMontevideoin 1897.

Every Sat.u.r.day the friends took the same table, off to one side, in theCafedelGlobo,like the poor honest men they were, knowing they cannot invite their friends home, or perhaps escaping it. They were all from Monte- video; at first it had been hard to make friends withArredondo,a man from the interior who didn't allow confidences or ask questions. He was hardly more than twenty, a lean, dark-skinned young man, a bit on the short side, and perhaps a little clumsy. His face would have been anonymous had it not been rescued by his eyes, which were both sleepy and full of energy. He was a clerk in a dry goods store onCalleBuenos Aires, and he studied law in his spare time. When the others condemned the war that was ravaging the coun- try* and that the president (so general opinion believed) was waging for reprehensible reasons,Arredondoremained silent. He also remained silent when the others laughed at him and called him a tightwad.

A short time after the Battle ofCerros Blancos,* Arredondotold his friends that they wouldn't be seeing him for a while; he had to go to Mer- cedes. The news disturbed no one. Someone told him to watch out forApari- cioSaravia's gang ofgauchos*; Arredondosmiled and said he wasn't afraid of the Whites. His interlocutor, who had joined the party, said nothing.

It was harder to say good-bye to Clara, his sweetheart. He did it with al- most the same words. He told her not to expect a letter, since he was going to be very, very busy. Clara, who was not in the habit of writing, accepted the condition without protest. The two young people loved each other very much.

Arredondolived on the outskirts. He had a black servant woman with the same last name as his; her forebears had been slaves of the family backin the time of the Great War. She was a woman of absolute trustworthiness;Arredondoinstructed her to tell anyone asking for him that he was away in the country.

He had picked up his last wages at the dry goods store.

He moved into a room at the back of the house, the room that opened onto the patio of packed earth.

The step was pointless, but it helped him be- gin thatreclusionthat his will imposed on him.

From the narrow iron bed in which he gradually recovered his habit of taking an afternoon siesta, he looked with some sadness upon an empty bookcase. He had sold all his books, even the volumes of the Introduction to Law. All he had kept was a Bible, which he had never read and never managed to finish.

He went through it page by page, sometimes with interest and some- times with boredom, and he set himself the task of memorizing an occa- sional chapter of Exodus and the last of Ecclesiastes. He did not try to understand what he was reading. He was a freethinker, but he let not a night go by without repeating the Lord's Prayer, as he'd promised his mother when he came to Montevideo-breaking that filial promise might bring bad luck.

He knew that his goal was the morning of August 25. He knew exactly how many days he had to get through. Once he'd reached his goal, time would cease, or rather nothing that happened afterward would matter. He awaited the day like a man waiting for his joy and his liberation. He had stopped his watch so he wouldn't always be looking at it, but every night, when he heard the dark, far-off sound of the twelve chimes, he would pull a page off the calendar and thinkOne day less.At first he tried to construct a routine. Drink somemate, smoke the black cigarettes he rolled, read and review a certain number of pages, try to chat a bit with Clementina when she brought his dinner on a tray, repeat and embellish a certain speech before he blew out the lamp. Talking with Clementina, a woman along in years, was not easy, because her memory had halted far from the city, back in the mundane life of the country.

Arredondoalso had a chessboard on which he would play chaotic games that never managed to come to any end. A rook was missing; he would use a bullet or a coin in its place.

To pa.s.s the time, every morningArredondowould clean his room with a rag and a big broom, even chasing down spiderwebs. The black woman didn't like him to lower himself to such ch.o.r.es-not only because they fell within her purview but also becauseArredondodidn't really do them very well.

He would have liked to wake up when the sun was high, but the habit of getting up with the dawn was stronger than his mere will. He missed his friends terribly, though he knew without bitterness that they didn't miss him, given his impregnable reserve. One afternoon, one of them came around to ask after him but was met in the vestibule and turned away. The black woman didn't know him;Arredondonever learned who it had been. An avid reader of the news,Arredondofound it hard to renounce those museums of ephemera. He was not a thinking man, or one much given to meditation.

His days and his nights were the same, but Sundays weighed on him.

In mid-July he surmised he'd been mistaken in parceling out his time, which bears us along one way or another anyway. At that point he allowed his imagination to wander through the wide countryside of his homeland, now b.l.o.o.d.y, through the rough fields of Santa Irene where he had once flown kites, to a certain stocky little piebald horse, surely dead by now, through the dust raised by the cattle when the drovers herded them in, to the exhausted stagecoach that arrived every month with its load of trinkets from FrayBentos,through the bay of LaAgraciadawhere the Thirty-three came ash.o.r.e, to theHervidero,through ragged mountains, wildernesses, and rivers, through theCerrohe had scaled to the lighthouse, thinking that on the two banks of the River Plate there was not another like it. From theCerroon the bay he traveled once to the peak on the Uruguayan coat of arms,* and he fell asleep.

Each night the sea breeze was cool, and good for sleeping. He never spent a sleepless night.

He loved his sweetheart with all his soul, but he'd been told that a man shouldn't think about women, especially when there were none to be had. Being in the country had accustomed him to chast.i.ty. As for the other mat- ter... he tried to think as little as possible of the man he hated.

The sound of the rain on the roof was company for him.

For the man in prison, or the blind man, time flows downstream as though down a slight decline. As he reached the midpoint of hisreclusion, Arredondomore than once achieved that virtually timeless time. In the first patio there was a wellhead, and at the bottom, a cistern where a toad lived; it never occurred toArredondothat it was the toad's time, bordering on eter- nity, that he sought.

As the day grew near he began to be impatient again. One night he couldn't bear it anymore, and he went out for a walk. Everything seemed different, bigger. As he turned a corner, he saw a light and went into thegeneral store, where there was a bar. In order to justify being there, he called for a shot of cane brandy. Sitting and talking, their elbows on the wooden bar, were some soldiers. One of them said: "All of you know that it's strictly outlawed to give out any news about battles-formal orders against it.

Well, yesterday afternoon something hap- pened to us that you boys are going to like. Some barracks-mates of mine and I were walking along in front of the newspaper over there,La Razon.And we heard a voice inside that was breaking that order. We didn't waste a second going in there, either.

The city room was as dark as pitch, but we gunned down that loose-lipped traitor that was talking.

When he finally shut up, we hunted around for him to drag him out by the heels, but we saw it was a machine!-aphonograph they call it, and it talks all by itself!"

Everyone laughed.

Arredondohad been listening intently.

"What do you think-pretty disappointing, eh, buddy?"

Arredondosaid nothing. The uniformed man put his face very near Arredondo's.

"I want to hear how loud you can yellViva the President of our Country, Juan IdiarteBorda!"*Arredondodid not disobey. Amid jeers and clapping he gained the door; in the street, he was. .h.i.t by one last insult: "n.o.body ever said cowards were stupid-or had much temper, either!"

He had behaved like a coward, but he knew he wasn't one. He returned slowly and deliberately to his house.

On August 25,Avelino Arredondowoke up at a little past nine. He thought first of Clara, and only later of what day it was.Good-bye to all this work of waiting -I've made it,he said to himself in relief.

He shaved slowly, taking his time, and in the mirror he met the same face as always. He picked out a red tie and his best clothes. He had a late lunch. The gray sky threatened drizzle; he'd always pictured this day as radi- ant. He felt a touch of bitterness at leaving his damp room forever. In the vestibule he met the black woman, and he gave her the last pesos that were left. On the sign at the hardware store he saw some colored diamond shapes, and he realized it had been more than two months since he'd thought of them. He headed towardCalle Sarandi.It was a holiday, and very few people were about.

It was not yet three o'clock when he reached the PlazaMatriz.TheTeDeumhad been sung; a group of well-dressed men, military officers, and prelates was coming down the slow steps of the church. At first glance, thetop hats (some still in their hands), the uniforms, the gold braid, the weap- ons, and the tunics might create the illusion that there were many of them; the truth was, there were no more than about thirty. ThoughArredondofelt no fear, he did feel a kind of respect. He asked which of the men was the president.

"The one there walking beside the archbishop with the miter and staff," he was told.

He took out his pistol and fired.

IdiarteBordatook a few steps, fell forward to the ground, and said very clearly, "I've been killed."

Arredondogave himself up to the authorities.

"I am a Red and I'm proud to say so. I have killed the president, who betrayed and sullied our party. I left my friends and my sweetheart so they would not be dragged into this; I didn't read the newspapers so that no one could say the newspapers incited me to do this. I alone am responsible for this act of justice. Now try me."

This is how the events* might have taken place, though perhaps in a more complex way; this is how I can dream they happened.

The Disk

I am a woodcutter. My name doesn't matter. The hut I was born in, and where I'm soon to die, sits at the edge of the woods. They say these woods go on and on, right to the ocean that surrounds the entire world; they say that wooden houses like mine travel on that ocean. I wouldn't know; I've never seen it.

I've not seen theother side of the woods, either. My older brother, when we were boys he made me swear that between the two of us we'd hack away at this woods till there wasn't a tree left standing. My brother is dead now, and now it's something else I'm after, and always will be. Over in the direction where the sun goes down there's a creek I fish in with my hands. There are wolves in the woods, but the wolves don't scare me, and my ax has never failed me. I've not kept track of how old I am, but I know I'm old-my eyes don't see anymore. Down in the village, which I don't venture into anymore because I'd lose my way, everyone says I'm a miser, but how much could a woodcutter have saved up?

I keep the door of my house shut with a rock so the snow won't get in. One evening I heard heavy, dragging footsteps and then a knock. I opened the door and a stranger came in. He was a tall, elderly man all wrapped up in a worn-out old blanket. A scar sliced across his face. The years looked to have given him more authority than frailty, but even so I saw it was hard for him to walk without leaning on his stick. We exchanged a few words I don't recall now. Then finally the man said: "I am without a home, and I sleep wherever I can. I have wandered all across Saxony."

His words befitted his age. My father always talked about "Saxony"; now people call it England.

There was bread and some fish in the house. While we ate, we didn'ttalk. It started raining. I took some skins and made him a pallet on the dirt floor where my brother had died. When night came we slept.It was toward dawn when we left the house. The rain had stopped and the ground was covered with new snow. The man dropped his stick and he ordered me to pick it up.

"Why should I do what you tell me to?" I said to him.

"Because I am a king," he answered.

I thought he was mad. I picked up the stick and gave it to him.

With his next words, his voice was changed.

"I am the king of the Secgens. Many times did I lead them to victory in hard combat, but at the hour that fate decreed, I lost my kingdom. My name is Isern and I am of the line of Odin."

"I do not wors.h.i.+p Odin," I answered. "I wors.h.i.+p Christ."

He went on as though he'd not heard me.

"I wander the paths of exile, but still I am king, for I have the disk. Do you want to see it?"

He opened his hand and showed me his bony palm. There was nothing in it. His hand was empty. It was only then that I realized he'd always kept it shut tight.

He looked me in the eye.

"You may touch it."

I had my doubts, but I reached out and with my fingertips I touched his palm. I felt something cold, and I saw a quick gleam. His hand snapped shut. I said nothing.

"It is the disk of Odin," the old man said in a patient voice, as though he were speaking to a child. "It has but one side. There is not another thing on earth that has but one side. So long as I hold it in my hand I shall be king."

"Is it gold?"I said.

"I know not. It is the disk of Odin and it has but one side."

It was then I felt a gnawing to own the disk myself. If it were mine, I could sell it for a bar of gold and then /would be a king.

"In my hut I've got a chest full of money hidden away. Gold coins, and they s.h.i.+ne like my ax," I told the wanderer, whom I hate to this day. "If you give the disk of Odin to me, I will give you the chest."

"I will not," he said gruffly.

"Then you can continue on your way," I said.

He turned away. One ax blow to the back of his head was all it took; he wavered and fell, but as he fell he opened his hand, and I saw the gleam ofthe disk in the air. I marked the place with my ax and I dragged the body down to the creek bed, where I knew the creek was swollen. There I dumped bis body.

When I got back to my house I looked for the disk. But I couldn't find it. I have been looking for it for years.

The Book of Sand

... thy rope of sands...

George Herbert (1593-1623)

The line consists of aninfinitenumber of points; the plane, of an infinite number of lines; the volume, of an infinite number of planes; the hypervolume, of an infinite number of volumes... No-this, moregeometrico,is de- cidedly not the best way to begin my tale. To say that the story is true is by now a convention of every fantastic tale; mine, nevertheless,is true.