I the Supreme

by Augusto Roa Bastos

  Bolívar, Sucre, Santander then write to me. I neither read nor answer letters full of black threats from blackguards. I am not at all worried by big-headed bigwigs of any latitude on this earth.

  But what a difference, above all, between Bolívar and San Martín! The latter is the only one who refuses to go along with the absurd undertaking of subjugating Paraguay. His cause was not that of bringing free peoples beneath his yoke but that of liberating the American nation. “My country is all of America,” San Martín and Monteagudo proclaim as one. Their battle begins with the revolution in October, 1812. The only one that legitimately deserves the name in the Río de la Plata, it was inspired by these two men whose method and thought entitle them to be called Paraguayans; San Martín, moreover, was born in the land of the Guaranís. It matters little that it seems to them that they have put their plow to the sea, steered a perilous course between cordilleras and volcanos. San Martín, thwarted by Bolívar in Guayaquil. Bernardo de Monteagudo, his minister of internal affairs, deposed by a reactionary uprising, then later assassinated in Lima. The downfall of Simón Bolívar himself, whom Monteagudo supported in his supreme attempt to form an American Confederation, the plan for which I outlined to the Junta of Buenos Aires three years before him.

  Someday, the obsessive idea of America as a single Fatherland, one and united, which could have been born only in Paraguay, the most hemmed-in, the most hounded country on this Continent, will explode like an immense volcano and correct the “counsels” of geography corrupted by cunning people-eaters. Let time take its course. For now no new invasions threaten.

  Naturally these facts, or better put these malefacts, are known to some of you only through hearsay; others of you have no doubt forgotten them, and the rest of you do not appreciate their real meaning. For the simple reason that you have not had to face them squarely and resolve them at the opportune moment, as I have been obliged to do. Amid the fat benefits reaped by the Supreme Chief for all, his subordinates forget the lean days he has been obliged to live through. In times of good fortune few remember the contretemps of misfortune. But a minimum of memory is needed to live; if not merely to subsist: to complain at leisure, which appears to have become your natural state, of the sufferings endured in order to arrive at your present state of well-being. Everything, even the smallest good, has its value and its price. Do not underestimate, my esteemed chiefs and functionaries, the price that it has cost us to make of our country, in the words of one of our worst enemies, the richest prize today in all of America.

  (In the private notebook)

  Paraguay is a real Utopia and His Excellency the Solon of modern times, the brothers Robertson said in praise of me in the bad days at the beginning. As yet I have been unable to read the book of these ambitious young men, who must be old men by now and, naturally, worse blackguards than before. To judge from the title, I cannot hope that their letters on my Reign of Terror (I do not know if there are two volumes of them or only one) are an improvement on the picture maliciously painted ten years before by that Rengger and Longchamp pair. Doubtless a new batch of lies and infamies seasoned to please the palates of Europeans who can’t get enough of these barbarous realms. The barbarism of sophisticated, surfeited spirits. They take their pleasure flagellating themselves with the misfortunes of inferior races, ever seeking new erections. The sufferings of others are an excellent aphrodisiac that travelers grind out for stay-at-homes. Ah ah ah! Blind, deaf, mute, they fail to realize that the only thing they can transcribe is the sound of their resentments and their lapses of memory. What else can one expect of these errant adventurers, these predacious, rapacious globetrotters? Where and how do they fish up the material for such memoirs? If my own manuscripts aren’t safe in my box with seven keys, those of these migratory traffickers, whose one thought is hunting down doubloons, could well be lost seven times over down who knows what latrines.

  The Letters and The Reign of Terror appeared in print only after long delay, owing to the loss of the originals that El Supremo appeared to have foreseen and predicted: “On one of those nights of January last,” the Robertsons say, “when all the inanimate things of nature had frozen solid, when the roads were covered with snow and the sidewalks treacherously slippery, one of the authors of these Letters on Paraguay was traveling in an omnibus from London to Kensington. He was carrying the manuscript of the work under his arm. On descending from the conveyance, an almost spectral black, hidden beneath a large cape and tricorne, suddenly materialized, blocking the traveler’s path and staring at him intently. The latter slipped and fell on the ice. The strange apparition became more spectral still in the feeble glow of the gaslight. Suddenly it vanished. For a moment his head was in a daze from the concussion and the fright he had experienced. As soon as he was able, he struggled to his feet and limped away in great pain. He had hobbled along for only a few moments when he felt that his two arms had gone numb, in addition to his painful lameness. At that very moment, his errant consciousness had the sudden revelation that he had lost the manuscript. He returned to the ill-fated site of the fall. He searched about and brushed away the snow, trembling the while with the vague fear that he might find himself face to face once more with the phantasmal figure looming before his mind. This figure did not reappear; nor did the manuscript turn up again. The following day notice of the loss was posted on placards and in the newspapers. Rewards were offered. But we were never to lay eyes again on the lost pages. Several days later we received an anonymous note that said: Go back to Paraguay. You will find the manuscript there. We thought it a joke in bad taste perpetrated by certain of our friends. We did not return to Paraguay, naturally. It was easier to rewrite the Letters, which enjoyed a most flattering success. In three months the edition had sold out, even before the troublesome lameness and the pins and needles in our arms had completely disappeared. There were nonetheless a number of objections and criticisms raised. Thomas Carlyle, for one, dealt severely with us. He for his part saw in El Supremo of Paraguay the most remarkable man in that part of America. His spirit gave off a most sulfurous and somber light—the worshiper of Heroes maintains—yet with that light it illuminated Paraguay as best it could. In the last analysis, instead of discrediting our work, adverse opinions such as those of the great Carlyle added to its prestige, in view of the fact that men of his stature had taken note of it, thereby greatly contributing to its promotion and diffusion.”

  On the other hand, a number of contemporary authors maintain that the Letters are more or less apocryphal; that is to say, that the Robertsons attributed to themselves, at least partially, the paternity of material gleaned from the many libels against El Supremo circulating at the time in the Río de la Plata. If one keeps in mind the “taking ways” that constituted the fortune, and in the end the ruin, of the Robertsons in the course of their South American adventures, the statement doubtless contains a modicum of truth. The “stylistic unity” of these ex merchants transformed into memorialists or novelists, their talent for “painting superlative portraits,” and other literary virtues are indeed evident in the volumes of the Letters and in The Reign of Terror, but they do not exclude the probability of an imposture. The loss of the “mad” manuscript, confessed to or invented by the authors, betrays this possibility. It is further corroborated by the episode, no doubt no less fraudulent, of the phantasmagoric encounter in a back street of London with the dark specter, very much in the taste of the mystery literature popular in that day. The authors appear to be trying to suggest that El Supremo appeared from the beyond in order to steal from them the manuscript which, according to them, would be his tombstone. Surely the authors thought of their former amphitryon as already “dead and buried” and believed that they could take double revenge with impunity by passing him off as the author of this “ladronicide” under the cloak of an incident straight out of a puerile mystery story. But El Supremo was still alive in Asunción, waiting to be able to read the announced works which finally app
eared in 1838 and 1839, shortly before his death. (Compiler’s Note.)

  Anxious to sell their memories, the soul they no longer possess, to the devil of an imaginary reader, the most nefarious species I know, they invent for his afro-disiac delight travelers’ tales, calumnies, imaginary facts. They relate their own perversities as being those of others.

  Not so much to please these fawning censer-bearers worshiping money and power as to use them in the service of the country that they were using to make fat profits, I had the idea of naming them my representatives to Great Britain, that is to say England, since they were its subjects. They had been coming round for some time to pester me to appoint them to this office. For them, a distinction having no peer, as well as a new means of increasing and multiplying their fortune as traffickers and smugglers enjoying diplomatic immunity. I was not unaware, naturally, of the fact that the aim of these greedy merchants was not to offer their faithful collaboration in the development of the economic prosperity of our Nation but to line their own pockets. They were being underhanded, but I knew it, and hence it was I who had the upper hand without their knowing it.

  So I sent for Juan Parish Robertson, the older brother, and put the matter to him with my customary frankness.

  In his Letters on Paraguay J. P. Robertson gives the following account of the interview:

  “An officer of the palace guard arrived last night with the peremptory message:—El Supremo orders that you come to see him immediately.

  “I left with the aide, a black sublieutenant who reeked of rancid cooking fat and soot. It was well known what the visits of these nebulous ‘officers’ of the escort regiment meant. He walked ahead of me, invisible except for his white lancer’s jacket, so that I hastened to this meeting, which augured ill for our fate, with the sensation that I was accompanying a fetid uniformed shadow, who made no sound save for the rubbing of his dress sword against his leg.

  “When I arrived at the palace I was nonetheless received by The Supreme with more kindliness and affability than usual. His face lighted up with an expression almost bordering on joviality. His mordoré cape hung from his shoulders in graceful folds. He appeared to be smoking his cigar with more than usual pleasure, and contrary to his custom of having just one light burning in his humble little reception room, two tall candles of the best-quality tallow stood lit on the little round single-footed table, at which no more than three people could be seated: the dining table of the Absolute Lord and Master of that part of the world. He held his hand out to me very cordially:—Sit down, Señor Don Juan. He pulled his chair over next to mine and expressed his wish that I listen to him very attentively.

  “—You know what my policy has been with regard to Paraguay. You know that they have tried to yoke me to the other provinces where the evil germ of anarchy and corruption reigns. Paraguay is enjoying greater prosperity than any other country; we are living off the fat of the land. Here all is order, subordination, tranquillity. But the moment one goes beyond its borders, as you yourself have been able to verify, the cannon’s roar and the sound of discord assail one’s ears. There all is ruin and desolation; here all is luxury, calm, and order. And what is the reason for all of this? The fact that there is no man in South America, outside of the one addressing you, who understands the nature of the people and is capable of governing it in accordance with its necessities and aspirations. Is that true or not?—he asked me. I nodded. I could not tell him no, since The Supreme does not permit himself to be contradicted.

  “—The Porteños are the most capricious, vain, voluble, and libertine of all those who were under the domination of the Spaniards in this hemisphere. They cry out for free institutions, but the only ends they pursue are spoliation and the expansion of their interests. As a consequence, I have resolved to having nothing whatsoever to do with them. My desire is to establish relations directly with England, government to government. Ships of Great Britain, triumphantly traversing the Atlantic, will enter Paraguay, and together with our fleet will challenge any interruption of trade, from the mouth of the Plata to the lagoon of Xarayes, five hundred leagues north of Asunción. Your government will have a minister here, and I will have mine at the Court of Saint James’s. Your compatriots will deal in manufactured goods and war munitions, and will receive in exchange the noble products of this country.

  “At this point in his speech he rose from his chair in great agitation, and calling to the sentry, ordered the sergeant of the guard to be sent for. The moment the latter appeared, he peremptorily ordered him to bring ‘the thing.’ The sergeant went off and in less than three minutes’ time came back with four grenadiers carrying a great leather pouch of tobacco weighing two hundred pounds, a bale of maté of equal size and weight, a demijohn of Paraguayan cane brandy, a huge sugar loaf, and a great number of packets of cigars tied and decorated with multicolored ribbons. Finally there came an aged black woman with samples of cotton fabrics in the form of doilies, serviettes, and cloths of every sort. I thought it must be a present that The Supreme wanted to give me on the eve of my departure for Buenos Aires. You may well imagine my surprise then when I suddenly heard him say to me:

  “—Señor Don Juan, these are only a few of the rich products of this soil and of the industry and talent of its inhabitants. I have gone to some trouble to furnish you with the best samples of various categories of goods that this country produces. You know to what an unlimited extent these products can be obtained in what I may safely call this Paradise of the world. And now, without entering into a discussion as to whether this continent is ripe for liberal and bourgeois institutions (I think that it is not), there is no denying that in an old and civilized country such as Great Britain these institutions have gradually, and for all practical purposes, done away with old forms of government, generally feudal, constituting at the same time the foundation of a nation possessed of stability and grandeur, which is today the greatest power on earth. It is my desire, then, that you continue on to your country, and that as soon as you arrive in London you appear before the House of Commons. Here, take these samples with you. Ask to be heard from the bar and announce that you are the deputy from Paraguay, the First Republic of the South, and present to that House the products of this rich, free, and prosperous country. Tell them that I have authorized you to invite England to cultivate political and commercial relations with me, and that I am ready and most willing to receive a minister of the Court of Saint James’s in my capital, with all due deference to the relations between civilized nations. Once this minister arrives here with the formal recognition of our Independence, I will name my envoy to that court.

  “Such were almost word for word the terms in which The Supreme delivered his harangue to me. I was left speechless at the idea of being named minister plenipotentiary, not to the Court of Saint James’s, but to the House of Commons. He especially enjoined me not to meet personally with the chief executive, ‘because —The Supreme affirmed— I know very well how inclined the great men of England are to deal with such important questions as this only when the House of Commons has debated them and rendered its affirmative.’

  “Never in my life have I been at such a loss as to how to act or what to say. To refuse this quixotic mission was to bring immediate ruin down upon my unfortunate head and that of my poor brother, if we didn’t lose them first beneath the executioner’s axe. There was nothing to do but accept. And that is what I did, despite the suffocating feeling of ridiculousness that overcame me when I envisioned myself forcing my way to the bar of the House of Commons, overpowering the usher of Parliament with half a dozen porters, and delivering, despite opposition and resistance, both the leather pouches filled with Paraguayan products and the Supreme’s speech, verbatim. But Asunción was a long way away from Saint James’s. Hence I agreed to the mission, if not the proposal, and trusted that chance would turn up some remote possibility of an excuse that would acceptably discharge me of guilt for not having been
able to pass, with such an unprecedented honor and the leather pouches, through the door on the other side of the ocean toward which I had been pointed.”

  Look, Don Juan, I said to him, let us speak quite frankly. I am prepared to grant you the honor that you have long been seeking. I will make you the trade representative of Paraguay accredited to the government of your empire. It is my desire to promote direct relations with England, something I consider to be of mutual advantage for the two countries: yours, the major power of the contemporary world; mine, the most prosperous and stable Republic of these new worlds. Does this sinecure suit you? He outdid himself in praise and expressions of gratitude. But at that very moment, as always happens to me whenever I am confronted with swindlers out to gull me, I knew that this bowing and scraping Englishman was not going to do any of the things that he himself hastened to promise. What was more, from the very sound of his flattery I knew that he was going to play me false. Nonetheless it was a card I was obliged to play. The Robertson mission was a way of sounding out, under cover of the British flag, the possibility of breaking the shipping blockade by forcing the hand of the successive scoundrels governing the Río de la Plata, who had already become vassals of the British Crown beneath the cloak of a supposed “protectorate.” It seemed to me rather a clever trick to try to use English hands to pull coconuts out of the fire. The rascals deserved no better.

  I want you, Don Juan, I said to him, burying my fingernails in his ticker, to arrange for the reestablishment of the freedom of commerce and navigation of which, contrary to all rights of men and nations, Paraguay has been deprived by Buenos Aires. I am in an excellent position to do so, Most Excellent Sire, the trader assured me. I am a close friend of the Protector and commandant of the British squadron in the Río de la Plata. As soon as I speak with him, Paraguayan ships will enter and leave with no difficulty, protected by the warships of Captain Percy. We agree then, Don Juan. It is my desire, however, that your functions not be limited solely to the realm of commerce. This will not be possible without prior recognition by Great Britain of the Independence and sovereignty of Paraguay. It will be an honor for me, the merchant replied, to arrange for this just recognition, and I am certain that my country will be proud to establish relations with a free, independent, and sovereign nation such as Paraguay, which the entire universe already rightly calls the Paradise of the World. Big words rip pockets, Don Juan. Don’t get lost in pipe dreams: Paraguay is not the Utopia you say it is, but a very real reality. Its products are forthcoming in unlimited quantities and can meet all the needs of the Old World. According to my information, the situation is this: The downfall of Napoleon and the restoration of Ferdinand VII have thrown the minds of the men in Buenos Aires into utter confusion. Alvear is now Supreme Director. Artigas badly beat the partisans of the directorals at Guayabos; they have been left without direction, drifting with events with no one at the helm, after their expulsion from the Banda Oriental. This is the opportune moment for you to try what I propose. I will fit out a fleet of boats loaded to the gunwales. I will put you in command and you will not stop till you reach the White House, or rather the House of Commons, to present these products, your credentials, and my demands that the independence and sovereignty of the Republic be recognized. Are we agreed? Inspired idea, Excellency!