Short Stories of Jorge Luis Borges - The Giovanni Translations

by Jorge Luis Borges (trans. by N. T. di Giovanni)

  Heaven is less dearly drawn:

  Its darkness is never-ending, there are fountains and pools made of stone, and the happiness of this Heaven is the happiness of leave-taking, of self-denial, and of those who know they are asleep.

  The Face

  In the year 163 of the Flight (and fifth year of the Shining Face), Hakim was besieged at Sanam by the Caliph’s army. There was no lack of provisions or martyrs, and the arrival of a host of golden angels was imminent. It was at this point that an alarming rumour made its way through the fortress. An adultress in the harem, as she was strangled by the eunuchs, had cried out that the ring finger of the Prophet’s right hand was missing and that all his other fingers lacked nails. This rumour spread among the faithful. From the top of a terrace, in the midst of his people, Hakim was praying to the Lord for a victory or for a special sign. Two captains, their heads bowed down, slavish as if beating into a driving rain tore away the Veil.

  At first, there was a shudder. The Apostle’s promised face, the face that had been to the heavens, was indeed white but with that whiteness peculiar to spotted leprosy. It was so bloated and unbelievable that to the mass of onlookers it seemed a mask. There were no brows; the lower lid of the right eye hung over the shriveled cheek; a heavy cluster of tubercles ate away the lips; the flattened, inhuman nose was like a lion’s.

  Hakim’s voice attempted one final stratagem. ‘Your unforgivable sins do not allow you to see my splendour—’ it began to say.

  Paying no heed, the captains ran him through with spears.

  ETCETERA

  To Néstor Ibarra

  A Theologian in Death

  The angels told me that when Melancthon died he was provided with a house deceptively like the one in which he lived in this world. (This happens to most newcomers in eternity upon their first arrival it is why they are ignorant of their death, and think they are still in the natural world.) All the things in his room were similar to those he had had before the table, the desk with its drawers, the shelves of books. As soon as Melancthon awoke in this new abode, he sat at his table, took up his literary work, and spent several days writing as usual on justification by faith alone, without so much as a single word on charity. This omission being remarked by the angels, they sent messengers to question him. ‘I have proved beyond refutation,’ Melancthon replied to them, ‘that there is nothing in charity essential to the soul, and that to gain salvation faith is enough.’ He spoke with great assurance, unsuspecting that he was dead and that his lot lay outside Heaven. When the angels heard him say these things, they departed.

  After a few weeks, the furnishings in his room began to fade away and disappear, until at last there was nothing left but the armchair, the table, the paper, and his inkstand. What is more, the walls of the room became encrusted with lime, and the floor with a yellow glaze. Melancthon’s own clothes were now much coarser. He wondered at these changes, but he went on writing about faith while denying charity, and was so persistent in this exclusion that he was suddenly transported underground to a kind of workhouse, where there were other theologians like him. Locked up for a few days, Melancthon fell to doubting his doctrine, and was allowed to return to his former room. He was now clad in a hairy skin, but he tried hard to convince himself that what had just happened to him was no more than a hallucination, and he went back to extolling faith and belittling charity.

  One evening, Melancthon felt cold. He began examining the house, and soon discovered that the other rooms no longer matched those of his old house in the natural world. One was cluttered with instruments whose use he did not understand; another had shrunk so small that entrance was impossible; a third had not changed, but its doors and windows opened onto vast sandbanks. One of the rooms at the back of the house was full of people who worshipped him and who kept telling him that no theologian was ever as wise as he. These praises pleased him, but since some of the visitors were faceless and others seemed dead he ended up hating and distrusting them. It was at this point that he decided to write something concerning charity. The only difficulty was that what he wrote one day he could not see the next. This was because the pages had been written without conviction.

  Melancthon received many visits from persons newly dead, but he felt shame at being found in so rundown a lodging. In order to have them believe he was in Heaven, he hired a neighbouring magician, who tricked the company with appearances of peace and splendour. The moment his visitors had gone and sometimes a little before these adornments vanished, leaving the former plaster and draughtiness.

  The last I heard of Melancthon was that the magician and one of the faceless men had taken him away into the sand hills, where he is now a kind of servant of demons.

  From the Arcana Coelestia (1749-1756) by Emanuel Swedenborg

  The Chamber of Statues

  This tale, taken from an Arab source, is of uncertain authorship. From internal evidence, we may infer that the writer was a Spanish Muslim:

  In ages long gone, in the kingdom of the Andalusians, there was a city, whose name was Lebtit or Ceuta or Jaén, where the kings had their dwelling place. In this city stood a strong castle with leafed gates meant neither for going in nor for coming out but only to be kept locked. Whenever a king died and another king took the high throne after him, he set with his own hands a new lock to the gates, until these locks numbered twenty-four one for each of the kings.

  After this time, it befell the kingdom that an evil man, who was not of the royal house, usurped the throne and rather than add a new lock, had a mind to open the twenty-four old locks so that he might see what lay within the castle. The vizier and the emirs beseeched him not to do this, and they hid the iron key ring from him and told him it was easier to add one lock than to force twenty-four. But the king persisted with wondrous craft, saying, ‘I want to look upon the contents of this castle.’ They then offered him all the wealth their hands could gather in flocks, in Christian idols, in silver and gold. Still he would not be denied, and, with his own right hand (may it bum forever!), he prized off the locks.

  Inside the castle, they found figures of Arabs in metalwork and in wood mounted on their swift camels and horses, with turbans hanging down over their shoulders and scimitars dangling from their belts and bearing long lances in their hands. All these figures were sculptured, and they threw shadows over the floor. The forelegs of the horses, as if they were rearing up, did not touch the ground, and yet the mighty steeds did not topple or fall. Great fear was implanted in the king by these skilful figures, the more so for their discipline and perfect silence, since they all faced the same way which was toward the west and not a word or a trumpet blast could be heard from them. This was in the first chamber.

  In the second, they found the table set for Solomon, son of David peace be on them both! It was carved from a single emerald, whose colour, as everyone knows, is green, and whose hidden virtues are real yet indescribable, for they quiet tempests, protect the chastity of the owner, dispel dysentery and evil spirits, assure a favourable outcome in litigations, and bring great relief in childbearing.

  In the third chamber, two books were found. One was black, and it set forth the properties of metals, the use of talismans, and the planetary laws of the days, as well as the preparation of poisons and antidotes. The other book was white, and although its letters were quite clear, no one could decipher its teaching.

  In the fourth chamber, they found a map of the world, figuring all its kingdoms and cities and seas and castles and perils each one with its true name and exact shape.

  In the fifth chamber, they came upon a circular mirror, made for Solomon, son of David peace be on the twain! whose worth was priceless, for it was of mixed metals, and he who looked into it could see the faces of his fathers and his sons from the first Adam down to those who shall hear the Trumpet.

  The sixth chamber was filled with an elixir, a single dram of which was enough to turn three thousand ounces of silver into three thousand ounces of fine gold.r />
  The seventh chamber appeared to be empty. It was so long that even the most skilled of archers could not have shot an arrow from the entrance and hit the opposite wall. On that wall, they found carved a dire inscription. The king read it and understood it, and its words were these: ‘If any hand dare open the door of this castle, living warriors after the likeness of the figures here depicted will conquer the kingdom.’

  These things came to pass in the year 89 of the Hegira. Before this twelve-month was out, Tariq ibn-Ziyad overpowered the fortress, defeated the king, sold his women and children into slavery, and laid waste the land. So it was that the Arabs spread over the kingdom of Andalusia, with its fig trees and watered meadows in which no thirst is suffered. As to the treasures, it is widely known that Tariq, son of Ziyad, sent them to his lord the caliph, who hoarded them in the heart of a pyramid.

  From the Thousand and One Nights, Nos. 271 & 272

  Tale of the Two Dreamers

  The Arabic historian al-Ishaqi tells this story in the reign of the caliph al-Ma’mun ( a . d . 786-83):

  Men worthy of trust have recorded (but Allah alone is All-Knowing and All-Powerful and All-Merciful and does not sleep) that there once lived in Cairo a man who possessed great wealth, but so freehanded and liberal was he that he lost all he had, save his father’s house, and in time was forced to earn his living by his own hands. He worked so hard that one night sleep overcame him at the foot of a fig tree in his garden, and in a dream he was visited by a man, drenched through and through, who took a gold coin out of his mouth and said to him, ‘Your fortune lies in Persia, in Isfahan; go thither and seek it.’

  Early the next morning, the man awoke and set out on the long journey, facing the dangers of desert wastes, of ships, of pirates, of idolaters, of rivers, of wild beasts, and of men. At last, he found his way to Isfahan, but within the gates of that city night overtook him, and he lay down to sleep in the courtyard of a mosque. Close by the mosque there was a house, and, by decree of Allah Almighty, a band of robbers entered the mosque and made its way thence to the adjoining house. But the owners of the house, aroused by the noise of the thieves, awoke and cried out for help. The neighbours, too, shouted for help, until the captain of the police arrived with his officers, and the robbers fled over the rooftops. The captain ordered a search of the mosque, and, finding there the man from Cairo, dealt him such a whipping with bamboo lashes that he was well-nigh dead.

  Two days later, he came to his senses in jail. The captain sent for him and asked, ‘Who are you, and where are you from?’

  The man said, ‘I am from the famed city of Cairo, and my name is Mohammed al-Maghribi.’ The captain asked him, ‘And what brought you to Isfahan?’ The man chose the truth, and he said to the captain, ‘I was ordered by one in a dream to go to Isfahan, for my fortune awaited me there. But when I came to Isfahan, the fortune he promised me proved to be the lashing that you so generously dealt me.’

  Hearing this, the captain laughed until he showed his wisdom teeth, and at last he said, ‘O man of little wit, thrice have I dreamed of a house in Cairo in whose yard is a garden, at the lower end of which is a sundial and beyond the sundial a fig tree and beyond the fig tree a fountain and beneath the fountain a great sum of money. Yet I have not paid the least heed to this lie; but you, offspring of a mule and a devil, have journeyed from place to place on the faith of a dream. Don’t show your face again in Isfahan. Take these coins and leave.’

  The man took the money and set out upon his homeward march. Beneath the fountain in his garden (which was the one in the captain’s dream), he dug up a great treasure. And thus Allah brought abundant blessing upon him and rewarded him and exalted him. Allah is the Beneficent, the Unseen.

  From the Thousand and One Nights, No. 351

  The Wizard Postponed

  In the city of Santiago, there was a dean who had a burning desire to learn the art of magic. Hearing that don Illán of Toledo knew more about magic than anyone else, the dean went to Toledo in search of him.

  The very morning he arrived, he went straight to don Illán’s and found him reading in a room at the back of his house. Don Illán received the dean cordially and asked him to postpone telling him the object of his visit until after they had eaten. Showing his guest into pleasant quarters, don Illán said he felt very happy about the dean’s visit. After their meal, the dean told don Illán why he had come, and he begged to be taught the craft of magic. Don Illán said that he already knew that his guest was a dean, a man of good standing and of good prospects, but that were he to teach him all his knowledge, the day might come when the dean would fail to repay his services as men in high places are often wont to do. The dean swore that he would never forget Don Illán’s bounty and that he would always be at his call. Once they came to an agreement, don Illán explained that the magic arts could not be learned save in a place of deep seclusion, and, taking the dean by the hand, he led him to the next room, in whose floor there was a large iron ring. Before this, however, he told the serving maid to prepare partridges for supper but not to put them on to roast until he so ordered.

  Don Illán and his guest lifted the ring and went down a well-worn, winding stairway until it seemed to the dean they had gone down so far that the bed of the Tagus must now be above them. At the foot of the staircase was a cell, and in it were a library of books and a kind of cabinet with magic instruments. They were leafing through the books, when suddenly two men appeared bearing a letter for the dean, written by the bishop, his uncle, in which the bishop informed him that he was gravely ill, and that if the dean wanted to find him alive he should not tarry. The news was very upsetting to the dean for one thing, because of his uncle’s illness; for another, because he would be forced to interrupt his studies. In the end, choosing to stay, he wrote an apology and sent it to the bishop. Three days passed, and there arrived several men in mourning bearing further letters for the dean, in which he read that the bishop had died, that a successor was being chosen, and that they hoped by the grace of God that the dean would be elected. The letters advised him to remain where he was, it seeming better that he be absent during his election.

  Ten days elapsed, and two finely dressed squires came, throwing themselves down at the dean’s feet and kissing his hands and greeting him as bishop. When don Illán saw these things, he turned to the new prelate with great joy and said that he thanked the Lord that such good news should have come to his house. He then asked for the now vacant deanery for his son. The bishop answered that he had already set aside the deanery for his own brother but that he would find the son some post in the Church, and he begged that they all three leave together for Santiago.

  They made their way to the city of Santiago, where they were received with honours. Six months passed, and messengers from the pope came to the bishop, offering him the archbishopric of Toulouse and leaving in his hands the naming of a successor. When don Illán heard this, he reminded the archbishop of his old promise and asked for the vacated title for his son. The archbishop told him that he had already set aside the bishopric for his own uncle, his father’s brother, but that as he had given his word to shed favour on don Illán, they should, together with the son, all leave for Toulouse. Don Illán had no recourse but to agree .The three set out for Toulouse, where they were received with honours and Masses. Two years passed, and messengers from the pope came to the archbishop, elevating him to the cardinalate and leaving in his hands the naming of a successor. When don Illán learned this, he reminded the cardinal of his old promise and asked for the vacant title for his son. The cardinal told him that he had already set aside the archbishopric for his own uncle, his mother’s brother a good old man but that if don Illán and his son were to accompany him to Rome, surely some favourable opportunity would present itself. Don Illán protested, but in the end he was forced to agree.

  The three then set out for Rome, where they were received with honours, Masses, and processions. Four years elapsed, and the pope died, and our
cardinal was elected to the papacy by all the other cardinals. Learning of this, don Illán kissed His Holiness’s feet, reminded him of his old promise, and asked for the vacant cardinal’s office for his son. The pope told don Illán that by now he was weary of his continued requests and that if he persisted in importuning him he would clap him in gaol, since he knew full well that don Illán was no more than a wizard and that in Toledo he had been a teacher of the arts of magic.

  Poor don Illán could only answer that he was going back to Spain, and he asked the pope for something to eat during the long sea journey. Once more the pope refused him, whereupon don Illán (whose face had changed in a strange fashion) said in an unwavering voice, ‘In that case, I shall have to eat the partridges that I ordered for tonight.’

  The serving maid came forward, and don Illán ordered the partridges roasted. Immediately the pope found himself in the underground cell in Toledo, no more than dean of Santiago, and so taken aback with shame that he did not know what to say. Don Illán said that this test was sufficient, refused the dean his share of the partridges, and saw him to the door, where, taking leave of him with great courtesy, he wished him a safe journey home.

  From the Libro de los enxiemplos del Conde Lucanor et de Patronio (1335) by Juan Manuel

  The Mirror of Ink

  All history knows that the cruelest of the rulers of the Sudan was Yaqub the Ailing, who delivered his country to the rapacity of Egyptian tax collectors and died in a palace chamber on the fourteenth day of the moon of Barmahat, in the year 1842. There are those who hold that the wizard Abd-er-Rahman al-Masmudi (whose name may be translated as the ‘Servant of the All-Merciful) slew him by means of a dagger or poison. That he died a natural death is more likely, however, since he was called the Ailing. Captain Richard F. Burton spoke to the wizard in 1853, and recounts the tale I quote here: