As time went on, the unease as yet unaware of its name became more concrete, its nature clearer to me, until it attained a lucidity no less painful: I began to feel that the earth was neither solid nor durable under my feet. And it was not long before the shifting sands of reality, the constant changes I saw in the men, animals, and things of the prairie, induced in me an extraordinary degree of anxiety for such a young child. The strange and disquieting way things had of coming into being, then decaying, manifesting in days and nights, springtimes and falls, births and deaths, joys and misfortunes, whose mysterious ups and downs I shared with my prairie tribe, inclined me toward two movements of the spirit that I still haven’t abandoned: a tendency to doubt, which made me wary of anything that bears too visible a sign of transition, the colour of finitude; and a deep yearning for what is permanent, a desire cherished to the point of tears for a world in whose stability Time slept and Space foundered.
The devastation of Time was what first struck my childish eyes. So deeply did I come to feel the corrosive passage of the hours that I came to imagine Time as an invisible river whose mordant waters, tumbling over things, gnawed at everything, dwellings and their inhabitants, the prairie and its beasts. That materialization of time made such an impression on me that during my sleepless nights I could feel it moving the tiny wheels in clocks, or opening up rooftops to make them leak and drip, or biting the walls like a stealthy rodent. Ah, I remember a wedding party in the big house at Maipú! The night of cheer had the body of a god who danced among a hundred living mirrors and a hundred iridescent lamps, to the music of wild strings and impassioned brass. The children’s wonderment, the men’s high spirits, the flashy swirls of the women – ah, it all had me completely enraptured in the moment! And just when Grandfather Sebastián, drink in hand and tottering like Silenus, ventured to dance a mazurka amid laughter and shouts of encouragement; in a rare moment when the lined foreheads of regretful aunts were smoothed beneath their big black shawls; at that very instant, I heard an admonitory voice resonate in my being, and felt a glacial wind suddenly whisk me away from the party and its rhythm, devouring lights and sweeping away sounds. And before my eyes an incredible transmutation took place: I seemed to see time racing ahead in those women and men entwined in dance; I saw time working on them, making faces wrinkle, eyes grow sunken, gums deteriorate; I saw all of them twitching and curling like leaves in a burning tree; and I saw as well how the walls cracked, how the rooftops blackened, how the house in Maipú crumbled to dust. Then I wanted to cry out, but the cry of alarm died on my lips. And I fled headlong into the night, far from the house that was crashing down on all those heads. And indelibly etched in my memory is the image of that little boy, clinging to his watchful horse and sobbing in the middle of a wedding night, in front of the house full of music.
In parallel, the notion of Space, too, took on the aspect of a sorrow, a perception enhanced by the prairie, whose expanse is measured in the lather of horses, and where east and west, north and south were roads sliding away to absence, points where eyes searched longingly for someone’s return. But on new-moon nights my sense of Space acquired the dimensions of terror: lying in the grass, my eyes gazed into the sky, where the constellations of the South seemed to hang over me like the thickly clustered grapes of a heavenly vine. And I tell myself now that Don Bruno, the rural schoolmaster, should not perhaps have suggested in class the notion of appalling distances mediating between those worlds and ourselves; nor should he have calculated the thousands of years it would take for a railway train to get to the star Betelgeuse. Because I remember that, as I gazed at those stellar dust clouds, my soul collapsed in abysmal vertigo, entirely overcome by the brutality bearing down from above, crushing it to dust as if in a mortar. And I sobbed quietly, like a child lost in a wood, not yet knowing that the whole swarm of those worlds could fit into the tiny space of human understanding, since the intellect is essentially non-spatial, free of the three dimensions of Space. Recalling those childish tears, it occurs to me now that many children must still weep on the prairie, beneath the oppressive weight of southern nights, in order that joyous ascending pathways might be opened up in the pure sky of the Argentine fatherland.
Little by little the winds of anguish holding sway over my spirit began to grant me expansive hours of respite. And, little by little, prevailing over its continual devastation, the world of forms and colours started to reveal its secrets when I was in a happily contemplative state, a state whose virtue I did not then understand, but which freed me from myself and my terrors, lifting me up into sweet spiritual climes never before enjoyed. The splendour of those forms (spikes of wheat, horses, flowers) did not die on the prairie, for even though they defected at each material sunset, they were reincarnated, their beauty undiminished, according to the rhythm of the seasons; their splendour thus not only offered me a simulacrum of the stability I dreamed of but also awoke in my being deep resonances I didn’t understand, as though my mind and worldly objects had struck up an intimate dialogue in which the objects spoke and my mind vaguely responded. Only later did I understand the rapturous language of beauty. And I knew that my destiny was to pursue beauty according to the movement of love. Meanwhile, I clung to the security and delight graciously confirmed by the forms of creatures: in the springtime I witnessed their birth, and my heart rejoiced; I watched them die, and my heart became wintry. So it was that for some years my soul, the soul of a child, seemed to revolve around the very poles of the earth. Thanks to a floral aunt (if not a garden angel), I tended a miniature paradise behind the house, where carefully groomed trees perfected the miracle of fruit, a garden in whose shade flourished legions of flowers not normally found in the sunburnt and windswept prairie. Adam in my garden or Robinson on my island, I roamed there at all hours: amid its beauty my mind drifted about, buzzing, probing into the intelligible nectary of things, like a bumblebee seeking some suspected honey. I presided over the birth of forms: I watched them grow until they achieved a splendour that overcame the limits of matter, a splendour painful by virtue of its very intensity. And those colours, odours, and flavours would accumulate until I would sob softly, as if in nostalgia for the taste of some lost Eden, retrieved perhaps by my savouring those forms, bursting at the seams in their desire to tell me something. Then would come the autumn and twilight of the same cherished forms I’d seen arise in the garden, their decline now casting the sweet pall of death over my spirit. And just as the earth disrobed and put her treasures away, all of her seeming to curl up on the threshold of sleep, so my heart folded inward, entered its winter, growing outwardly drowsy but inwardly alert to the process of its deliberations. Winter days and nights went filing by: on the horizon a storm growled like a dog, approached, withdrew, and suddenly charged over the prairie with its squadron of clouds and lashing wind; rain fell, tapped against roof tiles and windowpanes, laid seige to the residence at Maipú with floodwaters, made windows blind. It was pleasant to wander through the darkened bedrooms, or seek out homey smells in clothing, or read forgotten sheets of old paper, or remember the delight of a flower or butterfly I’d embalmed between the pages of a book. And later a vague restlessness would lead to a premature, delightful espionage on spring’s arrival: keeping close watch over the trees in the garden, I measured the depth of their slumber, pored over their naked branches for an emergent sprout or bud. My yearning disappointed, I would root around in the soil and exhume hyacinth bulbs to see if they were still asleep or if their first tender shoots were out yet. In vain! The great revelation would come suddenly, one morning, after a night of warm rain. It only remained to go out to the garden and linger there, enchanted by a wild display of wisterias coming back to life.
At the same time, those emotions were gradually awakening a lively urge to express myself, an irrepressible desire to speak the same creaturely language with which I was becoming enamoured. Already, in the garden and orchard of Maipú, I had noticed that beauty inspired two phases of inspiration, and I obser
ved their unfolding within me: a euphoria melting into tears, and the birth of a musical idea striving to emerge from within and become manifest. Since I at first had no art whatsoever at my disposal, I resorted to incoherent words or free-form phrases, not for what they meant in themselves, naturally, but rather for the intentional value I assigned them, according to the case. Thus a single phrase, solely for its musical power of suggestion, might translate the most conflicting emotions of my spirit. For example, “the rose, the pure rose, the emaciated rose” was a phrase I used to utter in all the nuances of grief or jubilation. Later, art succeeded chaos, and musical order replaced incoherence. I won’t enumerate here the many hardships and sleepless nights that the practice of song cost me. I’ll recall only that one morning, reading my composition in class, Don Bruno exclaimed to the children: “Adam Buenosayres is a poet.” The pupils stared at me without understanding. But I knew very well what those grave words meant and I blushed with embarrassment, as if stripped naked in public. I was fourteen years old.
III
Anecdotes of the usual sort will not abound in this Notebook, for its purpose has been to trace the story not of a man, but of his soul. And if the previous paragraph was illustrated by a few childhood episodes, it is because they reveal the two or three movements of my soul which, from an early age, become reiterated with varying intensity throughout the history of that soul. The depiction of these movements will henceforth demand, then, the idiom of geometry, or the imprecision of the symbol, or the colours of visions and dreams. All of which means my work will resemble the development of a theorem or the consideration of an enigma.
I said at the outset that my soul, as soon as she found her first solitude, went motionless at the centre of the wheel. And since from there she observed all creatures moving gracefully and obeying an exact rhythm, my soul began to wonder what would be her own movement, her natural rhythm, given that movement and rhythm was in all things, from the round animals of the sky that I saw moving at night to the tiniest creatures whose movements I studied in the orchard at Maipú. Nevertheless, whether because no one was guiding her or because she had not yet reached maturity, my soul had no answer and no way to ask for one. And the uncertainty of her destiny then began to afflict her in such a way that finally, in looking at herself, her eyes filled with tears; which occasioned both astonishment and the dawn of wisdom, as if the thread of her lament and that of her meditation started at the same time and thenceforth were as one; for, in weeping, the soul discovered she had not been born to weep and, in suffering, attained suddenly her vocation for joy. True, she was unaware of the origin and purpose of that vocation, for no one had told her; her misery wanted her to discover it for herself, by falling and getting back up, a thousand times in the darkest of labyrinths.
For the time being, though at the price of her lament, the soul knew her natural vocation. And knowing it, she not surprisingly wondered about the cause of a heartache such as hers, which was so contrary to the instinct for happiness tugging at her incessantly. Thus, contemplating her sorrow and regarding herself one day in the bitter mirror of her tears, she saw herself alone and immobile; and as her lament intensified at the sight of such solitude and repose, the soul clearly understood she had not been born to be alone or to live motionless, and this gave her a new subject to consider. For, if solitude was not for her, then this was proof that she had a companion, in the person of either a loved one or a friend; and if sadness was countering her vocation for delight, it was but a short step to understand that the terminus of her search for happiness was in that Friend for whom her solitude clamoured. At this point, she was beset by new doubts, as she wondered whether it was up to her to seek out the unknown Friend, or whether it was the Friend who ought to come to the soul in solitude. But right away she noticed that her repose was as painful as her solitude; when she rejected the stillness in which she found herself, she not only discovered she was destined to travel but also saw the figure of the Friend as the end and goal of her possible movement.
Much had my soul gained by thus beginning her meditation, and much yarn remained to be unwound from the skein. Now, certainly, she understood the possibility in her movement; but she was still ignorant of her natural means of transport, since in looking at herself again and again, she found in herself neither wing nor foot nor wheel with which to move. On the other hand, even if she had found the means of mobility she needed, she would not have known which direction to take, since she knew nothing at all about the Friend – neither his name, nor his form, nor his virtue, nor his abode. Henceforth the soul wandered as if lost between two unknowns: that of her own movement and that of the intuited Friend. But she could see no solution either within herself or without; which was why she embarked upon a long and studious vigil, always alone in the group of gathered beings, always immobile in the circle of those who moved. And so I wish to paint her, with a finger on her temple and her eyes moist, faithful to herself like the rose amid its thorns. For thus she was, on that beautiful and terrible day of her springtime, when she looked at herself and saw the wing of a dove being born.
A dove’s wing sprouted from her shoulder, I say, and the novelty of her feathers amazed the soul at first and stimulated the exercise of her mind, as she reflected now on the sign of the wing, now on the number of the dove. And if the nascent wing spoke to her of the potential for flight, the number of the dove announced she was destined to love. So it was that she at last discovered the nature of her movement in the loving transports so clearly being promised her. But she was not long in noticing that the loving transport requires not only a moveable Lover but also an immobile Beloved; nor did she take long to observe that, if the capacity of the Lover was in all certainty within her, the figure of the Beloved remained hidden from her, as though the wing’s moment were still far away.
IV
Henceforth my soul lived in a twilight state that might equally have been the prelude to a night or the dawn of a morning. While her understanding had enlightened her will, pointing out to it not only a means of transport but also the necessary existence of a Beloved toward whom she ought to move, the will was nevertheless unable to emerge from its immobility; for, even though it knew of him, it did not yet know the flavour of the Beloved; and since it was missing the flavour, its appetite was as if vacant; and when the appetite is vacant, the will does not stir itself; above all when its wing is that of a dove. I say, then, that her will remained motionless. At the same time, she held her peace, and her mind was falling asleep for lack of any new subject on which to place its attention. For this reason, the soul found herself doubly immobile, with no other action than that of her wakeful eyes and no other life than her impatience. She clearly divined, however, that if the Beloved existed (as her understanding let her know), he would not fail to show himself at some point, nor to call her name. Now, the soul did not know her true name; nor was she acquainted with the voice of the Beloved who would pronounce that name; and yet she was quite sure she would recognize the name and the voice as soon as they made themselves heard. As she waited for that to come to pass, she revolved around herself, listening closely to the murmurs of the earth; and as she revolved, she extended her wing of love, like one who lets a feather flutter in the air so as to find out from what quarter the wind may come. But everything around her was mute; no calls came from the earth, and the soul had no invitations.
Around that time, as I recall, my heart (due to its vigilance or the tension of waiting and hoping) was so full it would dissolve in tears at the slightest brush, like a moist little leaf at the lightest breeze. A mere look from man or woman, the timbre of a voice passing by, a colour or a gesture were enough to set off a sweet flood of tears in my heart. And it was because, by coming out of herself now and contemplating the world with eyes of love, the soul not only suffered but also came to suffer with, as though she were suddenly finding in the countenance of the other creatures something reflecting, resembling, or corresponding to her own enigma. And, I
recall, it was around then that I had an extraordinary dream, whose exact meaning I grasped only later:
I found myself in an immense wasteland and in the middle of a night so deep that not a vestige of form or colour could be distinguished in either earth or sky. And as I tried to advance through the desolate place, it seemed to me huge columns of darkness were plummeting noiselessly down upon my head, and I could not lift my feet free of the sandy ground I was walking on; all of which plunged me, struggling, into a desperation as limitless as the nocturnal wasteland holding me prisoner. Thus lost in that clime of terror, I seemed to see a marvellous human figure suddenly rise up beside me and begin to look at me in a way no earthly eye had ever done. The face of that admirable gentleman was resplendent with so much light, so much power was in his beauty, and so much glory in his majesty, that my whole being was moved and began to forget its terrors, converted entirely to the grace in that vision. And I felt, in my dream, that in the presence of this Man there awoke in my memory the notion of I know not what lost flavours, what faraway music. And I felt, upon recognizing him, that my mind knew itself for the first time in the Man, and my will wanted to surrender, offer itself to him as a banner of love. Then, it seemed, he spoke to me in a fiery idiom, and since I did not understand the words of fire issuing from his mouth, the Man began to walk in the blackness, and I followed him, afraid of losing him. Then I seemed to see a miracle unfold: no sooner had the Man stopped walking than burning suns, pink moons, and golden comets took shape behind him, in the pure sky, until the night was transformed into a splendid noontide; and the wasteland, at the mere touch of his feet, turned into a most pleasant garden where, amid the flowers, thronged bright and nimble beings who, seeking one another, joined to dance in a thousand rounds. And it seemed that my eyes, upon seeing such beauty as was manifest in the garden, began to wander away from the Man leading me, and that my heels began to tarry near the circles of dance; until I felt as though I were caught up in the whirlwind of the fiesta and completely given over to its magic and madness. But, at the peak of my rapture, a chill wind seemed to blow over the garden, and forms, colours, and sounds all grew suddenly old; and the earth withered like the leaf of a tree; and suns, comets, and moons were going out like lamps at the end of a party. It happened then that, finding myself again in the night and on the barren plain, I looked for the Man who had previously appeared before my eyes. And as I did not find him, I wept, in my dream, with so much sorrow that at last I awoke and saw the reality of my lament.
Adam Buenosayres: A Novel Page 45