Labyrinths

by Jorge Luis Borges

  During that time outside of time, in that perplexing disorder of disconnected and atrocious sensations, did Emma Zunz think once about the dead man who motivated the sacrifice? It is my belief that she did think once, and in that moment she endangered her desperate undertaking. She thought (she was unable not to think) that her father had done to her mother the hideous thing that was being done to her now. She thought of it with weak amazement and took refuge, quickly, in vertigo. The man, a Swede or Finn, did not speak Spanish. He was a tool for Emma, as she was for him, but she served him for pleasure whereas he served her for justice.

  When she was alone, Emma did not open her eyes immediately. On the little night table was the money that the man had left: Emma sat up and tore it to pieces as before she had torn the letter. Tearing money is an impiety, like throwing away bread; Emma repented the moment after she did it. An act of pride and on that day . . . Her fear was lost in the grief of her body, in her disgust. The grief and the nausea were chaining her, but Emma got up slowly and proceeded to dress herself. In the room there were no longer any bright colors; the last light of dusk was weakening. Emma was able to leave without anyone seeing her; at the corner she got on a Lacroze streetcar heading west. She selected, in keeping with her plan, the seat farthest toward the front, so that her face would not be seen. Perhaps it comforted her to verify in the insipid movement along the streets that what had happened had not contaminated things. She rode through the diminishing opaque suburbs, seeing them and forgetting them at the same instant, and got off on one of the side streets of Warnes. Paradoxically her fatigue was turning out to be a strength, since it obligated her to concentrate on the details of the adventure and concealed from her the background and the objective.

  Aaron Loewenthal was to all persons a serious man, to his intimate friends a miser. He lived above the factory, alone. Situated in the barren outskirts of the town, he feared thieves; in the patio of the factory there was a large dog and in the drawer of his desk, everyone knew, a revolver. He had mourned with gravity, the year before, the unexpected death of his wife—a Gauss who had brought him a fine dowry—but money was his real passion. With intimate embarrassment, he knew himself to be less apt at earning it than at saving it. He was very religious; he believed he had a secret pact with God which exempted him from doing good in exchange for prayers and piety. Bald, fat, wearing the band of mourning, with smoked glasses and blond beard, he was standing next to the window awaiting the confidential report of worker Zunz.

  He saw her push the iron gate (which he had left open for her) and cross the gloomy patio. He saw her make a little detour when the chained dog barked. Emma’s lips were moving rapidly, like those of someone praying in a low voice; weary, they were repeating the sentence which Mr. Loewenthal would hear before dying.

  Things did not happen as Emma Zunz had anticipated. Ever since the morning before she had imagined herself wielding the firm revolver, forcing the wretched creature to confess his wretched guilt and exposing the daring stratagem which would permit the Justice of God to triumph over human justice. (Not out of fear but because of being an instrument of Justice she did not want to be punished.) Then, one single shot in the center of his chest would seal Loewenthal’s fate. But things did not happen that way.

  In Aaron Loewenthal’s presence, more than the urgency of avenging her father, Emma felt the need of inflicting punishment for the outrage she had suffered. She was unable not to kill him after that thorough dishonor. Nor did she have time for theatrics. Seated, timid, she made excuses to Loewenthal, she invoked (as a privilege of the informer) the obligation of loyalty, uttered a few names, inferred others and broke off as if fear had conquered her. She managed to have Loewenthal leave to get a glass of water for her. When the former, unconvinced by such a fuss but indulgent, returned from the dining room, Emma had already taken the heavy revolver out of the drawer. She squeezed the trigger twice. The large body collapsed as if the reports and the smoke had shattered it, the glass of water smashed, the face looked at her with amazement and anger, the mouth of the face swore at her in Spanish and Yiddish. The evil words did not slacken; Emma had to fire again. In the patio the chained dog broke out barking, and a gush of rude blood flowed from the obscene lips and soiled the beard and the clothing. Emma began the accusation she had prepared (“I have avenged my father and they will not be able to punish me . . .”), but she did not finish it, because Mr. Loewenthal had already died. She never knew if he managed to understand.

  The straining barks reminded her that she could not, yet, rest. She disarranged the divan, unbuttoned the dead man’s jacket, took off the bespattered glasses and left them on the filing cabinet. Then she picked up the telephone and repeated what she would repeat so many times again, with these and with other words: Something incredible has happened . . . Mr. Loewenthal had me come over on the pretext of the strike . . . He abused me, I killed him . . .

  Actually, the story was incredible, but it impressed everyone because substantially it was true. True was Emma Zunz’ tone, true was her shame, true was her hate. True also was the outrage she had suffered: only the circumstances were false, the time, and one or two proper names.

  Translated by D. A. Y.

  The House of

  Asterion

  And the queen gave birth to a child who was called Asterion.

  Apollodorus: Bibliotheca, III, I

  I know they accuse me of arrogance, and perhaps of misanthropy, and perhaps of madness. Such accusations (for which I shall extract punishment in due time) are derisory. It is true that I never leave my house, but it is also true that its doors (whose number is infinite)1 are open day and night to men and to animals as well. Anyone may enter. He will find here no female pomp nor gallant court formality, but he will find quiet and solitude. And he will also find a house like no other on the face of the earth. (There are those who declare there is a similar one in Egypt, but they lie.) Even my detractors admit there is not one single piece of furniture in the house. Another ridiculous falsehood has it that I, Asterion, am a prisoner. Shall I repeat that there are no locked doors, shall I add that there are no locks? Besides, one afternoon I did step into the street; if I returned before night, I did so because of the fear that the faces of the common people inspired in me, faces as discolored and flat as the palm of one’s hand. The sun had already set, but the helpless crying of a child and the rude supplications of the faithful told me I had been recognized. The people prayed, fled, prostrated themselves; some climbed onto the stylobate of the temple of the Axes, others gathered stones. One of them, I believe, hid himself beneath the sea. Not for nothing was my mother a queen; I cannot be confused with the populace, though my modesty might so desire.

  The fact is that I am unique. I am not interested in what one man may transmit to other men; like the philosopher, I think that nothing is communicable by the art of writing. Bothersome and trivial details have no place in my spirit, which is prepared for all that is vast and grand; I have never retained the difference between one letter and another. A certain generous impatience has not permitted that I learn to read. Sometimes I deplore this, for the nights and days are long.

  Of course, I am not without distractions. Like the ram about to charge, I run through the stone galleries until I fall dizzy to the floor. I crouch in the shadow of a pool or around a corner and pretend I am being followed. There are roofs from which I let myself fall until I am bloody. At any time I can pretend to be asleep, with my eyes closed and my breathing heavy. (Sometimes I really sleep, sometimes the color of day has changed when I open my eyes.) But of all the games, I prefer the one about the other Asterion. I pretend that he comes to visit me and that I show him my house. With great obeisance I say to him: Now we shall return to the first intersection or Now we shall come out into another courtyard or I knew you would like the drain or Now you will see a pool that was filled with sand or You will soon see how the cellar branches out. Sometimes I make a mistake and the two of us laugh heartily.


  Not only have I imagined these games, I have also meditated on the house. All the parts of the house are repeated many times, any place is another place. There is no one pool, courtyard, drinking trough, manger; the mangers, drinking troughs, courtyards, pools are fourteen (infinite) in number. The house is the same size as the world; or rather, it is the world. However, by dint of exhausting the courtyards with pools and dusty gray stone galleries I have reached the street and seen the temple of the Axes and the sea. I did not understand this until a night vision revealed to me that the seas and temples are also fourteen (infinite) in number. Everything is repeated many times, fourteen times, but two things in the world seem to be only once: above, the intricate sun; below, Asterion. Perhaps I have created the stars and the sun and this enormous house, but I no longer remember.

  Every nine years nine men enter the house so that I may deliver them from all evil. I hear their steps or their voices in the depths of the stone galleries and I run joyfully to find them. The ceremony lasts a few minutes. They fall one after another without my having to bloody my hands. They remain where they fell and their bodies help distinguish one gallery from another. I do not know who they are, but I know that one of them prophesied, at the moment of his death, that some day my redeemer would come. Since then my loneliness does not pain me, because I know my redeemer lives and he will finally rise above the dust. If my ear could capture all the sounds of the world, I should hear his steps. I hope he will take me to a place with fewer galleries and fewer doors. What will my redeemer be like?, I ask myself. Will he be a bull or a man? Will he perhaps be a bull with the face of a man? Or will he be like me?

  The morning sun reverberated from the bronze sword. There was no longer even a vestige of blood.

  “Would you believe it, Ariadne?” said Theseus. “The Minotaur scarcely defended himself.”

  For Marta Mosquera Eastman

  Translated by J. E. I.

  * * *

  1 The original says fourteen, but there is ample reason to infer that, as used by Asterion, this numeral stands for infinite.

  Deutsches Requiem

  Though he slay me, yet will

  I trust in him.

  Job 13:15

  My name is Otto Dietrich zur Linde. One of my ancestors, Christoph zur Linde, died in the cavalry charge which decided the victory of Zorndorf. My maternal great-grandfather, Ulrich Forkel, was shot in the forest of Marchenoir by franc-tireurs, late in the year 1870; my father, Captain Dietrich zur Linde, distinguished himself in the siege of Namur in 1914, and, two years later, in the crossing of the Danube.1 As for me, I will be executed as a torturer and murderer. The tribunal acted justly; from the start I declared myself guilty. Tomorrow, when the prison clock strikes nine, I will have entered into death’s realm; it is natural that I think now of my forebears, since I am so close to their shadow, since, after a fashion, I am already my ancestors.

  I kept silent during the trial, which fortunately was brief; to try to justify myself at that time would have obstructed the verdict and would have seemed an act of cowardice. Now things have changed; on the eve of the execution I can speak without fear. I do not seek pardon, because I feel no guilt; but I would like to be understood. Those who care to listen to me will understand the history of Germany and the future history of the world. I know that cases like mine, which are now exceptional and astonishing, will shortly be commonplace. Tomorrow I will die, but I am a symbol of future generations.

  I was born in Marienburg in 1908. Two passions, which now are almost forgotten, allowed me to bear with valor and even happiness the weight of many unhappy years: music and metaphysics. I cannot mention all my benefactors, but there are two names which I may not omit, those of Brahms and Schopenhauer. I also studied poetry; to these last I would add another immense Germanic name, William Shakespeare. Formerly I was interested in theology, but from this fantastic discipline (and from the Christian faith) I was led away by Schopenhauer, with his direct arguments; and by Shakespeare and Brahms, with the infinite variety of their worlds. He who pauses in wonder, moved with tenderness and gratitude, before any facet of the work of these auspicious creators, let him know that I also paused there, I, the abominable.

  Nietzsche and Spengler entered my life about 1927. An eighteenth-century author has observed that no one wants to owe anything to his contemporaries. I, in order to free myself from an influence which I felt to be oppressive, wrote an article titled Abrechnung mit Spengler, in which I noted that the most unequivocal monument to those traits which the author calls Faust-like is not the miscellaneous drama of Goethe2 but a poem written twenty centuries ago, the De rerum natura. I paid homage, however, to the sincerity of the philosopher of history, to his essentially German (kerndeutsch) and military spirit. In 1929 I entered the Party.

  I will say little of my years of apprenticeship. They were more difficult for me than for others, since, although I do not lack courage, I am repelled by violence. I understood, however, that we were on the verge of a new era, and that this era, comparable to the initial epochs of Islam and Christianity, demanded a new kind of man. Individually my comrades were disgusting to me; in vain did I try to reason that we had to suppress our individuality for the lofty purpose which brought us together.

  The theologians maintain that if God’s attention were to wander for a single second from my right hand which traces these words, that hand would plunge into nothingness, as if fulminated by a lightless fire. No one, I say, can exist, no one can taste a glass of water or break a piece of bread, without justification. For each man that justification must be different; I awaited the inexorable war that would prove our faith. It was enough for me to know that I would be a soldier in its battles. At times I feared that English and Russian cowardice would betray us. But chance, or destiny, decided my future differently. On March first, 1939, at nightfall, there was a disturbance in Tilsit which was not mentioned in the newspapers; in the street behind the synagogue, my leg was pierced by two bullets and it was necessary to amputate.3 A few days later our armies entered Bohemia. As the sirens announced their entry, I was in a quiet hospital, trying to lose and forget myself in Schopenhauer. An enormous and flaccid cat, symbol of my vain destiny, was sleeping on the window sill.

  In the first volume of Parerga und Paralipomena I read again that everything which can happen to a man, from the instant of his birth until his death, has been preordained by him. Thus, every negligence is deliberate, every chance encounter an appointment, every humiliation a penitence, every failure a mysterious victory, every death a suicide. There is no more skillful consolation than the idea that we have chosen our own misfortunes; this individual teleology reveals a secret order and prodigiously confounds us with the divinity. What unknown intention (I questioned vainly) made me seek, that afternoon, those bullets and that mutilation? Surely not fear of war, I knew; something more profound. Finally I hit upon it. To die for a religion is easier than to live it absolutely; to battle in Ephesus against the wild beasts is not so trying (thousands of obscure martyrs did it) as to be Paul, servant of Jesus; one act is less than a man’s entire life. War and glory are facilities; more arduous than the undertaking of Napoleon was that of Raskolnikov. On the seventh of February, 1941, I was named subdirector of the concentration camp at Tarnowitz.

  The carrying out of this task was not pleasant, but I was never negligent. The coward proves his mettle under fire; the merciful, the pious, seeks his trial in jails and in the suffering of others. Essentially, Nazism is an act of morality, a purging of corrupted humanity, to dress him anew. This transformation is common in battle, amidst the clamor of the captains and the shouting; such is not the case in a wretched cell, where insidious deceitful mercy tempts us with ancient tenderness. Not in vain do I pen this word: for the superior man of Zarathustra, mercy is the greatest of sins. I almost committed it (I confess) when they sent us the eminent poet David Jerusalem from Breslau.

  He was about fifty years old. Poor in the goods of this wo
rld, persecuted, denied, vituperated, he had dedicated his genius to the praise of Happiness. I recall that Albert Soergel, in his work Dichtung der Zeit, compared him with Whitman. The comparison is not exact. Whitman celebrates the universe in a preliminary, abstract, almost indifferent manner; Jerusalem takes joy in each thing, with a scrupulous and exact love. He never falls into the error of enumerations and catalogues. I can still repeat from memory many hexameters from that superb poem, Tse Yang, Painter of Tigers, which is, as it were, streaked with tigers, overburdened and criss-crossed with transversal and silent tigers. Nor will I ever forget the soliloquy called Rosencrantz Speaks with the Angel, in which a sixteenth-century London moneylender vainly tries on his deathbed to vindicate his crimes, without suspecting that the secret justification of his life is that of having inspired in one of his clients (whom he has seen but once and does not remember) the character of Shylock. A man of memorable eyes, jaundiced complexion, with an almost black beard, David Jerusalem was the prototype of the Sephardic Jew, although, in fact, he belonged to the depraved and hated Ashkenazim. I was severe with him; I permitted neither my compassion nor his glory to make me relent. I had come to understand many years before that there is nothing on earth that does not contain the seed of a possible Hell; a face, a word, a compass, a cigarette advertisement, are capable of driving a person mad if he is unable to forget them. Would not a man who continually imagined the map of Hungary be mad? I decided to apply this principle to the disciplinary regimen of our camp, and . . .4 By the end of 1942, Jerusalem had lost his reason; on March first, 1943, he managed to kill himself.5