Jorge Luis Borges - Collected Fictions Part 27

Divine mercy, to which I myself owe so many blessings, has allowed me to discover the true and secret reason for the Sect's name. In Kerioth, where it is plausibly reputed to have arisen, there has survived aconventicle known as the Thirty Pieces of Silver. That was the Sect's original name, and it provides us with the key. In the tragedy of the Cross (and I write this with all the reverence which is its due) there were those who acted knowingly and those who acted unknowingly; all were essential, all inevitable. Un - knowing were the priests who delivered the pieces of silver; unknowing, too, was the mob that chose Barabbas; unknowing the Judean judge, the Romans who erected the Cross on which He was martyred and who drove the nails and cast the lots. Of knowing actors, there were but two: Judas and the Redeemer. Judas cast away the thirty coins that were the price of our souls' salvation and immediately hanged himself. At that moment he was thirty-three years old, the age of the Son of Man. The Sect venerates the two equally, and absolves the others.

There is not one lone guilty man; there is no man that does not carry out, wittingly or not, the plan traced by the All-Wise. All mankind now shares in Glory.

My hand fails when I will it to write a further abomination. The initi- ates of the Sect, upon reaching a certain age, are mocked and crucified on the peak of a mountain, to follow the example of their masters.

This crimi- nal violation of the Fifth Commandment should be met with the severity that human and divine laws have ever demanded. May the curses of the Fir- mament, may the hatred of angels ...

The end of the ma.n.u.script has not been discovered.

The Night of the Gifts

It was in the oldCafe aguila,onCalleFlorida near the intersection ofPiedad,*that we heard the story.

We were debating the problem of knowledge. Someone invoked the Platonic idea that we have already seen all things in some former world, so that "knowing" is in fact "recognizing"; my father, I think it was, said that Bacon had written that if learning was remembering, then not knowing a thing was in fact having forgotten it. Another member of the group, an el- derly gentleman, who was no doubt a bit lost in all that metaphysics, de- cided to put in his two cents' worth. He spoke with slow a.s.surance.

I've never been able to understand that business about Platonic archetypes. n.o.body remembers the first time they saw yellow or black, or the first time they tasted some fruit-most likely because they were little and had no way of knowing they were at the beginning of a long, long series. There are other first times, of course, that n.o.body forgets. I could tell you fellows the memory of a certain night I often cast my mind back to-April 30, of '74.

Summers were longer in the old days, but I don't know why we'd stayed till such a late date at the place that some cousins of ours owned a few leagues fromLobos-Dorna,their name was. That was the summer that one of the laborers, a fellow namedRufino,initiated me into the customs of the country life. I was about to turn thirteen; he was a good bit older, and he had a reputa- tion for being hot-tempered. He was quite a hand with a knife; when they practiced with burned sticks, the one that invariably wound up with a black smear across his face was the other fellow. One Friday he suggested that he and I might go to town on Sat.u.r.day night for some fun. I jumped at thechance, of course, though I had no very clear idea of what fun he might be re- ferring to. I warned him I didn't know how to dance; he said dancing was easy tolearn. After dinner, must have been about seven-thirty, we headed out.Rufinohad spruced himself up like a fellow on his way to a party, and he was (porting a knife with a silver handle; I left my little hatpin of a knife at home, for fear of being joshed some about it. It didn't take us long to come in sight of the first houses. Have any of you fellows ever been toLobos?Just as well; there's not a town in the provinces that's not just like all the others-even to the point of thinking it's different. The same dirt streets with the same holes n them, the same squat houses-as though to make a man on horseback feel all the taller. We pulled up at this one corner in front of a house painted light blue or pink, with the nameLa Estrellapainted on it. There were horses tied to the hitching post, with nice saddles, all of them.

The front door was open a bit, and I could see a crack of light. Off the back of the vestibule there was a long room with plank benches all along the walls and between one bench and another all these dark doorways that led who knew where. An ugly little yel- low dog scurried out yapping to make us feelwelcome. There were quite a few people; half a dozen women wearing flowered housecoats were wandering around. A respectable-looking woman, dressed in black from head to toe, looked to me to be the owner of the house.Rufinowalked up and said h.e.l.lo to her, then gestured toward me.

"I've brought you a new friend," he said, "but he's not much of a rider yet."

"He'll learn, don't worry your head about it," the lady replied.

That abashed me, of course. To cover my embarra.s.sment, or maybe to make them see I was just a boy, I sat down on the end of a bench and started playing with the dog. On the kitchen table they had lit some tallow candles stuck in bottles, and I also remember the little wood stove in one corner of the room, at the back. On the whitewashed wall in front of me was a figure of theVirgen de laMerced.

There was a good bit of joking, and somebody was strumming at a guitar-not that it did him much good. Out of sheer timidity, I didn't say no to the gin somebody offered me, which burned my mouth like red-hot coals. Among the women there was one that seemed different to me from the others. They called her the Captive. There was something kind of Indian-featured about her, but she was as pretty as a picture-that sad-eyed look, you know. Her hair was in a braid that reached all the way to her waist.Rufinosaw that I was looking at her.

"Tell us that story about the Indian raid again, to freshen up our memories some," he said to her.

The way the girl talked, there mightn't have been another soul in the room, and somehow I got the feeling there was nothing else she could think about, that this was the only thing that had happened to her in her whole life. She told the story this way- "When they brought me from Catamarca I was just a little girl. What could I know about Indian raids?

On the ranch they were so afraid of them they wouldn't even mention them. Gradually I learned about the raids, al- most like they were a secret that n.o.body was supposed to tell-how Indians might swarm down like a thundercloud and kill people and steal the ani- mals. Women, they carried off to the interior, and did terrible things to them. I tried as hard as I could not to believe it. Lucas, my brother, who later got speared, swore it was all lies, but when something's true, you know it the first time you hear it. The government sends them things-tobacco,mate, liquor,hierba-to keep them quiet, but they have crafty leaders-spirit men-that warn them off it. If a chief of theirs orders it, they think noth- ing of storming down on a fort. The forts are scattered.... From thinking about it so much, I almost wished they'd come, and I would sit and look out in the direction where the sun goes down. I never learned about keeping track of time, but I do know there came frosts and summers and branding seasons and the death of the foreman's son, and then they did come. It was like the very wind off the pampas brought them. I saw a thistle flower in a ravine and I dreamed of the Indians. The next morning it happened. Like in an earthquake, the animals knew it before we did. The whole herd was skit- tish, and birds were flying through the air every which way. We ran to look out in the direction I always looked in ..."

"Who brought you the warning?" somebody asked.

The girl still seemed far away. She just repeated her last words.

"We ran to look out in the direction I always looked in. It was like the whole desert had up and started moving. Through those thick rods of the wrought-iron fence we saw the dust clouds before we saw the Indians. They were on a raid. They were slapping their mouths with their hands and yelp- ing. There were rifles in Santa Irene, but all they were good for was stunning them and making them all the madder."

The Captive's way of speaking was like a person saying a prayer, from memory; but out in the street I could hear the Indians coming across the plain, and their yelping. Then a door banged open, and they were in the room-you'd have thought they'd ridden their horses inside, into the roomsof a dream. It was a bunch of drunken brawlers from the docks. Now, in my memory's eye, they look very tall. The one in the lead gaveRufino,who was by the door, an elbow for his trouble.Rufinoturned pale, said not a word, andstepped off to one side. The lady, who'd not moved from her place, stood up.

"It's JuanMoreira,*"she announced.

Here, tonight, after so many years, I'm not sure anymore whether I re- member the man that was actually there that night or whether it's the man I was to see so many times afterward around the slaughterhouses.

I think aboutPodesta'slong hair and black beard,* but there's also a blondish sort offace theresomewhere, with smallpox scars. Anyway, that ugly dog skit- tered out yapping to greet the newcomers.

With one crack of his bullwhip,Moreiralaid it out dead on the floor. It fell over on its back and died waving its paws in the air....

Now then, this is where the story really starts- Without making a sound I crept over to one of the doors, which opened into a narrow hallway and a flight of stairs. Upstairs, I hid in a dark bedroom. Except for the bed, which was a low, squat affair, I couldn't say what sort of furniture there might have been. I was shaking all over. Down- stairs there was yelling and shrieking, and then the sound of breaking gla.s.s. I heard a woman's footsteps coming up the stairs, and then I saw a slice of light. Then the voice of the Captive called me, almost in a whisper.

"I'm here to be of service, but only to peaceable folk. Come over here, I won't hurt you."

She had taken off her housecoat. I lay down beside her and took her face in my hands. I don't know how much time pa.s.sed. There was not a word or a kiss between us. I undid her braid and played with her hair, which was long and straight, and then with her. We never saw each other again, and I never learned her name.

A gunshot stunned us.

"You can get out by the other staircase," the Captive told me.

Which is what I did, and I found myself out in the dirt street. There was a big moon that night. A police sergeant, carrying a rifle with fixed bayonet, was watching that side of the house. He laughed when he saw me.

"From all appearances," he said to me, "you like to get an early start in the morning."

I must have said something in return, but he paid me no further mind. A man was letting himself down the wall. In one movement, the sergeant ran him through with the bayonet. The man fell to the ground, where he layon his back, whimpering and bleeding. That dog came to my mind. The sergeant stabbed the man good with the bayonet again, to finish him off once and for all.

With a happy kind of grin he said to the man,"Moreira,this time you might as well have saved your powder."

The uniformed men who'd been surrounding the house appeared from everywhere, and then came the neighbors.Andres Chirinohad to wrestle the gun out of his hand. Everybody wanted to congratulate him.

Laughing,Rufinosaid, "I guess that'll be this hoodlum's last dance!"

I went from group to group, telling people what I had seen. Suddenly I was very tired; it may be I had a fever. I slipped away, foundRufino,and we started back home. From the horse we could see the white light of the dawn. More than tired, I felt dazed-as though I'd been caught up in a rapids.

"In the river of the eventsofthatnight," mused my father.

The other man nodded.

"That's it exactly. Within the s.p.a.ce of a few hours I'd learned how to make love and I'd seen death at first hand. To all men all things are revealed-or at least all those things that a man's fated to know; but from sundown of one day to sunup of the next, those two central things were re- vealed to me. The years go by, and I've told the story so many times that I'm not sure anymore whether I actually remember it or whether I just remem- ber the words I tell it with. Maybe that's how it was with the Captive, with her Indian raid. At this point what difference does it make whether it was me or some other man that sawMoreirakilled."

The Mirror and the Mask

When the armies clashed at the Battle of Clontarf, in which the Norwegian was brought low, the king spoke to his poet and said: "The brightest deeds lose their l.u.s.ter if they are not minted in words. I desire you to sing my victory andmy praises. I shall be AEneas; you shall be my Virgil. Do you believe you have the gifts worthy of this task I ask of you, which shall make us both immortal?"

"Yes, great king, I do," answered the poet. "I amOian.For twelve win- ters I have honed my skills at meter. I know by heart the three hundred sixty fables which are the foundation of all true poetry. The Ulster cycle and theMunstercycle lie within my harp strings. I am licensed by law to employ the most archaic words of the language, and its most complex metaphors. I have mastered the secret script which guards our art from the prying eyes of the common folk. I can sing of love, of cattle theft, of sailing s.h.i.+ps, of war. I know the mythological lineage of all the royal houses of Ireland. I possess the secret knowledge of herbs, astrology, mathematics, and canon law. I have defeated my rivals in public contest.

I have trained myself in satire, which causes diseases of the skin, including leprosy. And I also wield the sword, as I have proven in your battle. There is but one thing that I do not know: how to express my thanks for this gift you make me."

The high king, who was easily wearied by other men's long speeches, said to the poet with relief: "All these things I know full well. I have just been told that the nightin- gale has now sung in England.

When the rains and snow have pa.s.sed, when the nightingale has returned from its journey to the lands of the south, you shall recite your verses before the court and the Guild of Poets a.s.sembled. I give you one full year. Every letter and every word, you shall burnish to afinegleam. The recompense, as you know, shall not be unworthy of my royal wont, nor of the hours you spend in sleepless inspiration."

"My lord, my greatest recompense is the sight of your face," said the poet, who was something of a courtier as well.

He bowed and retired, a verse or two already beginning to creep into his head.

When the allotted period had pa.s.sed, a time filled with plague and re- bellion, the panegyric was sung.

The poet declaimed his verses with slow as- surance, and without a glance at his ma.n.u.script. In the course of it, the king often nodded approvingly. Everyone imitated his gesture, even those who, crowding in at the doors, could not make out a word of it.

At last the king spoke.

"I accept this labor. It is another victory. You have given to each word its true meaning, to each noun the epithet bestowed upon it by the first poets. In all the work there is not an image which the cla.s.sics did not employ. War is 'the fair cloth wov'n of men' and blood is 'sword-drink.' The sea has its G.o.d and the clouds foretell the future. You have marshaled rhyme, alliteration, a.s.sonance, scansion, the artifices of erudite rhetoric, the wise alternation of meters, and all with greatest skillfulness. If the whole of the literature of Ireland should-omen absit-be lost, well might it all be recon- structed, without loss, from your cla.s.sic ode. Thirty scribes shall transcribe it, twelve times each."

There was a silence. Then the king went on: "All that is well, and yet nothing has happened. In our veins the blood has beat no faster. Our hands have not gone for our bows. No one's cheeks have paled. No one has bellowed out a battle cry, no one has stood to meet the Viking attack. In one year, poet, we shall gather to applaud another poem. As a sign of our thanks, take this mirror, which is of silver."

"I thank you," said the poet, "and I understand and obey."

The stars of the sky once more journeyed their bright course. Once more sang the nightingale in the Saxon forests, and the poet returned with his scroll-shorter this time than before. He did not recite it from memory; he read it, visibly unsure, omitting certain pa.s.sages, as though he himself did not entirely understand them, or did not wish to profane them. The verses were strange. They were not a description of the battle, they were the battle. In the warlike chaos of the lines there stirred the G.o.d Who Is Three Yet One, the pagan noumena of Ireland, and those who would war, cen- turies after, at the beginning of the ElderEdda.The poem's form was no less strange. A singular noun might govern a plural verb. The prepositions wereforeign to common usage. Harshness vied with sweetness. The metaphors were arbitrary, or so they seemed.

The king exchanged a few words with the men of letters a.s.sembled about him, and he spoke in this way: "Of your first hymn I was able to say that it was a happy summation of all that has been written in Ireland.

This poem surpa.s.ses all that has gone before, and obliterates it. It holds one in thrall, it thrills, it dazzles.It will pa.s.s over the heads of the ignorant, and their praises will not be yours, but the praises of the few, the learned-ah! An ivory chest shall hold the only copy. From the pen that has penned such a lofty work, we may expect one that is more elevated yet...."

Then he added, smiling: "We are figures in a fable, and it is only right that we recall that in fa- bles, the number three is first above all others."

"The three gifts of the wizard, the triads, and the indubitable Trinity," was all that the poet dared allow himself to murmur.

The king went on: "As a token of our thanks, take this mask. It is of gold."

"I thank you, and I understand and obey," the poet said.

The anniversary returned. The palace sentinels noticed that this time the poet did not bring a ma.n.u.script.

Not without dismay did the king look upon the poet: he was greatly changed. Something, which was not simply time, had furrowed and transformed his features. His eyes seemed to stare far into the distance, or to have been rendered blind. The poet begged to be allowed to speak to the king. The slaves cleared the hall.

"Have you not composed the ode?" asked the king.

"I have," said the poet sadly. "Would that Christ our Lord had for- bade it."

"Can you recite it?"

"I dare not."

"I charge you with the courage that you need," the king declared.

The poet spoke the poem. It was a single line.

Unable to summon the courage to speak it again aloud, the poet and his king mouthed the poem, as though it were a secret supplication, or a blas- phemy. The king was no less astounded and cowed than the poet. The two men, very pale, looked at each other.

"In the years of my youth," said the king, "I sailed toward the setting sun. On an island there, I saw silver greyhounds that hunted golden boars to their death. On another we were feted with the fragrance of magic apples.

On yet another I saw walls of fire. On the most remote of all, there was a vaulted river that hung from the sky, and in its waters swam fish and sailing s.h.i.+ps. Those were marvels, but they do not compare with your poem, which somehow contains them all. What sorcery has given you this?"

"At dawn," said this poet, "I awoke speaking words that at first I did not understand. Those words are the poem. I felt I had committed some sin, perhaps that sin which the Holy Spirit cannot pardon."

"The sin the two of us now share," mused the king. "The sin of having known Beauty, which is a gift forbidden mankind. Now we must atone for it. I gave you a mirror and a golden mask; here is the third gift, which shall be the last."

He laid in the poet's right hand a dagger.

Of the poet, we know that he killed himself when he left the palace; of the king, that he is a beggar who wanders the roads of Ireland, which once was his kingdom, and that he has never spoken the poem again.

"Undr"

I must inform the reader that the pages I translate and publish here will be sought in vain in theLibellus (1615) of Adam of Bremen, who, as we all know, was born and died in the eleventh century.Lappenbergfound the text within a ma.n.u.script in the Bodleian, at Oxford; given its wealth of cir- c.u.mstantial detail, he judged it to be a late interpolation, but he did publish it as a curiosity in his AnakctaGermanica(Leipzig, 1894). The opinion of a mere Argentineamateur is worth very little; readers may judge these pages as they will. My translation is not literal, but it is faithful. Thus writesAdam of Bremen: ... Of the several nations that border the wide desert which lies on the far sh.o.r.e of the Gulf, beyond the lands where the wild horse mates, that one most worthy of mention is the nation of the Urns. The imprecise or fabu- lous reports of merchants, the difficulty of the road, and the depredations of nomads prevented me from ever reaching its borders. I know, however, that its precarious and remote villages lie within the lowlands of theWislaRiver. Unlike the Swedes, the Urns profess the true faith in Christ, unsullied by the Arianism and b.l.o.o.d.y wors.h.i.+p of devils from which the royal houses of England and the other nations of the North draw their lineage. They are shepherds, ferrymen, sorcerers, swordsmiths, and ropemakers. The se- verity of their wars almost entirely prevents them from tilling their lands. The plains and the tribes that roam them have made the Urns skillful with horse and bow. In time, one inevitably comes to resemble one's enemies. Their lances are longer than ours, for theirs are made for hors.e.m.e.n, not for infantry.

As one might imagine, the use of pen, inkhorn, and parchment isunknown to them. They carve their characters in stone, as our forebears carved the runes revealed to them by Odin, after having hung from the ash tree-Odin sacrificed to Odin-for nine long nights.

To these general bits of knowledge I will add the story of my conversa- tion with the IcelanderUlfSigurdarson, a man of grave and measured speech. We had met in Uppsala, near the temple. The wood fire had died; the cold and the dawn light were seeping in through the uneven c.h.i.n.ks in the walls. Outside, the gray wolves that devour the flesh of pagans sacrificed to the three G.o.ds were leaving their cautious spoor upon the snow. Our talk had begun in Latin, as is the habit between members of the clergy, but soon we had pa.s.sed into the language of the North, known from Ultima Thule to the markets of Asia. This is what the man told me: "I am of the line ofskalds; the moment I learned that the poetry of the Urns is a poetry of a single word, I went in quest of them, in quest of the route that would lead me to their land. Not without weariness and labor did I reach it, one year later. It was night; I noticed that the men I met along my way regarded me curiously, and I could not fail to note that I was struck by an occasional stone. I saw the glow of a smith's forge, and I entered.

"The smith offered me shelter for the night. His name, he said, was Orm, and his language was more or less our own. We exchanged a few words. It was from his lips that I first heard the name of the king who then ruled over them-Gunnlaug. I learned that he had fought in their last war, that he looked with suspicion upon foreigners, and that it was his custom to crucify them. In order to avoid that fate, which was more fitting for a G.o.d than for a man, I undertook to writeadrapa,a laudatory composition-zsort of eulogy praising the king's victories, his fame, and his mercy. No sooner had I com- mitted the poem to memory than two men came for me. I refused to relin- quish my sword, but I allowed myself to be led away.

"The stars were still in the sky. We traveled through a stretch of land with huts scattered here and there along the way. I had heard tales of pyra- mids; what I saw in the first square we came to was a stake of yellow wood. On its sharp point I could make out the black figure of a fish. Orm, who had accompanied us, told me that the fish was the Word. In the next square I saw a red stake, with a disk. Orm said once more that this was the Word. I asked him to tell me what word it was; he replied that he was but a simple artisan, and did not know.

"In the third square, which was the last, I saw a stake painted black, bearing a design I no longer remember. On the far side of the square there was a long straight wall, whose ends I could not see. I later found that it wascircular,roofed with clay, without interior doors, and that it girded the en- tire city.

The horses tied to a wooden post were compact and thick-maned.

"The smith was not allowed to enter. There were armed men inside, all standing. Gunnlaug, the king, who was suffering under some great afflic- tion, was lying with half-closed eyes upon a kind of dais; his pallet was of camel skins. He was a worn, yellow man, a sacred and almost forgotten ob- ject; long, time-blurred scars made a tracery across his chest. One of the sol- diers made way for me. Someone had brought a harp. I knelt and softly intoned thedrapa.It was adorned with the tropes, alliterations, and accents required by the genre. I am not certain that the king understood it, but he gave me a silver ring,which I still possess. Under his pillow I glimpsed the blade of a dagger. To his right there was a chessboard of a hundred or more squares and several scattered pieces.

"The king's guards pushed me back. A man took my place, but he stood as he offered his own poem.

He plucked at the harp's strings as though tun- ing them, and then very softly repeated the word that I wish I might have caught, but did not. Someone reverently saidNow, meaningless.

"I saw tears here and there. The man would raise his voice or it would grow distant; the nearly identical chords were monotonous, or, more pre- cisely, infinite. I wished the chant could go on forever, I wished it were my life. Suddenly, it ended. I heard the sound of the harp when the singer, no doubt exhausted, cast it to the floor. We made our way in disorder from the room. I was one of the last. I saw with astonishment that the light was fading.

"I walked a few steps. A hand upon my shoulder detained me. A voice said to me: " 'The king's ring was a talisman bestowed upon you, yet soon your death shall come, for you have heard the Word. I, Bjarni Thorkelsson, will save you. I am of the lineage of theskalds. In your dithyramb you called blood "sword-drink" and battle "man-battle." I remember hearing those tropes from my father's father. You and I are poets; I shall save you. Now we do not name every thing or event that fires our song; we encode it in a sin- gle word, which is the Word.'

" 'I could not hear it,' I replied to him. 'I beg you to tell me what word it is.'"