The Book of Fantasy

by Jorge Luis Borges

  ‘I was to say that Maw and Meggins disclaim all responsibility,’ continued the other. ‘They admit no liability at all, but in consideration of your son’s services, they wish to present you with a certain sum as compensation.’

  Mr White dropped his wife’s hand, and rising to his feet, gazed with a look of horror at his visitor. His dry lips shaped the words, ‘How much?’

  ‘Two hundred pounds,’ was the answer.

  Unconscious of his wife’s shriek, the old man smiled faintly, put out his hands like a sightless man, and dropped, a senseless heap to the floor.

  III

  In the huge new cemetery, some two miles distant, the old people buried their dead, and came back to the house steeped in shadow and silence. It was all over so quickly that at first they could hardly realize it, and remained in a state of expectation as though of something else to happen—something else which was to lighten this load, too heavy for old hearts to bear.

  But the days passed, and expectation gave place to resignation—the hopeless resignation of the old, sometimes miscalled apathy. Sometimes they hardly exchanged a word, for now they had nothing to talk about, and their days were long to weariness.

  It was about a week after that the old man, waking suddenly in the night, stretched out his hand and found himself alone. The room was in darkness, and the sound of subdued weeping came from the window. He raised himself in bed and listened.

  ‘Come back,’ he said tenderly. ‘You will be cold.’

  ‘It is colder for my son,’ said the old woman, and wept afresh.

  The sound of her sobs died away on his ears. The bed was warm, and his eyes heavy with sleep. He dozed fitfully, and then slept until a sudden wild cry from his wife awoke him with a start.

  ‘The paw!’ she cried wildly. ‘The monkey’s paw!’

  He started up in alarm. ‘Where? Where is it? What’s the matter?’

  She came stumbling across the room toward him. ‘I want it,’ she said quietly. ‘You’ve not destroyed it?’

  ‘It’s in the parlour, on the bracket,’ he replied, marvelling. ‘Why?’

  She cried and laughed together, and bending over, kissed his cheek.

  ‘I only just thought of it,’ she said hysterically. ‘Why didn’t I think of it before? Why didn’t you think of it?’

  ‘Think of what?’ he questioned.

  ‘The other two wishes,’ she replied rapidly. ‘We’ve only had one.’

  ‘Was not that enough?’ he demanded fiercely.

  ‘No,’ she cried triumphantly; ‘We’ll have one more. Go down and get it quickly, and wish our boy alive again.’

  The man sat up in bed and flung the bedclothes from his quaking limbs. ‘Good God, you are mad!’ he cried, aghast.

  ‘Get it,’ she panted; ‘get it quickly, and wish—Oh, my boy, my boy!’

  Her husband struck a match and lit the candle. ‘Get back to bed,’ he said unsteadily. ‘You don’t know what you are saying.’

  ‘We had the first wish granted,’ said the old woman feverishly; ‘why not the second?’

  ‘A coincidence,’ stammered the old man.

  ‘Go and get it and wish,’ cried his wife, quivering with excitement.

  The old man turned and regarded her, and his voice shook. ‘He has been dead ten days, and besides he—I would not tell you else, but—I could only recognize him by his clothing. If he was too terrible for you to see then, how now?’

  ‘Bring him back,’ cried the old woman, and dragged him towards the door. ‘Do you think I fear the child I have nursed?’

  He went down in the darkness, and felt his way to the parlour, and then to the mantelpiece. The talisman was in its place, and a horrible fear that the unspoken wish might bring his mutilated son before him ere he could escape from the room seized upon him, and he caught his breath as he found that he had lost the direction of the door. His brow cold with sweat, he felt his way round the table, and groped along the wall until he found himself in the small passage with the unwholesome thing in his hand.

  Even his wife’s face seemed changed as he entered the room. It was white and expectant, and to his fears seemed to have an unnatural look upon it. He was afraid of her.

  ‘Wish!’ she cried, in a strong voice.

  ‘It is foolish and wicked,’ he faltered.

  ‘Wish!’ repeated his wife.

  He raised his hand. ‘I wish my son alive again.’

  The talisman fell to the floor, and he regarded it fearfully. Then he sank trembling into a chair as the old woman, with burning eyes, walked to the window and raised the blind.

  He sat until he was chilled with the cold, glancing occasionally at the figure of the old woman peering through the window. The candle-end, which had burned below the rim of the china candle-stick, was throwing pulsating shadows on the ceiling and walls, until, with a flicker larger than the rest, it expired. The old man, with an unspeakable sense of relief at the failure of the talisman, crept back to his bed, and a minute or two afterward the old woman came silently and apathetically beside him.

  Neither spoke, but lay silently listening to the ticking of the clock. A stair creaked, and a squeaky mouse scurried noisily through the wall. The darkness was oppressive, and after lying for some time screwing up his courage, he took the box of matches, and striking one, went downstairs for a candle.

  At the foot of the stairs the match went out, and he paused to strike another; and at the same moment a knock, so quiet and stealthy as to be scarcely audible, sounded on the front door.

  The matches fell from his hand and spilled in the passage. He stood motionless, his breath suspended until the knock was repeated. Then he turned and fled swiftly back to his room, and closed the door behind him. A third knock sounded through the house.

  ‘What’s that?’ cried the old woman, starting up.

  ‘A rat,’ said the old man in shaking tones—‘a rat. It passed me on the stairs.’

  His wife sat up in bed listening. A loud knock resounded through the house. ‘It’s Herbert!’ she screamed.‘It’s Herbert!’

  She ran to the door, but her husband was before her, and catching her by the arm, held her tightly.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ he whispered hoarsely.

  ‘It’s my boy; it’s Herbert!’ she cried, struggling mechanically. ‘I forgot it was two miles away. What are you holding me for? Let go. I must open the door.’

  ‘For God’s sake don’t let it in,’ cried the old man, trembling.

  ‘You’re afraid of your own son,’ she cried, struggling. ‘Let me go. I’m coming Herbert; I’m coming.’

  There was another knock, and another. The old woman with a sudden wrench broke free and ran from the room. Her husband followed to the landing, and called after her appealingly as she hurried downstairs. He heard the chain rattle back and the bottom bolt drawn slowly and stiffly from the socket. Then the old woman’s voice, strained and panting.

  ‘The bolt,’ she cried loudly. ‘Come down. I can’t reach it.’

  But her husband was on his hands and knees groping wildly on the floor in search of the paw. If he could only find it before the thing outside got in. A perfect fusillade of knocks reverberated through the house, and he heard the scraping of a chair as his wife found the monkey’s paw, and frantically breathed his third and last wish.

  The knocking ceased suddenly, although the echoes of it were still in the house. He heard the chair drawn back, and the door opened. A cold wind rushed up the staircase, and a loud loud wail of disappointment and misery from his wife gave him courage to run down to her side, and then to the gate beyond. The street lamp flickering opposite shone on a quiet and deserted road.

  What is a Ghost?

  James Joyce, Irish author, born in Dublin in 1882, died in Zurich in 1941. He was a brilliant technician, particularly with words. He published Chamber Music (1907), Dubliners (1914), Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), Exiles (1918), Ulysses (1921) and Finnegans Wake (193
9).

  ‘What is a ghost?’ Stephen said with tingling energy. ‘One who has faded into impalpability through death, through absence, through change of manners.’

  May Goulding

  SIMON

  Think of your mother’s people!

  STEPHEN

  Dance of death.

  (Bang fresh barang bang of lacquey’s bell, horse, nag, steer, piglings, Conmee on Christass, lame crutch and leg sailor in cock boat armfolded ropepulling hitching stamp hornpipe through and through. Baraabum! On nags hogs bellhorses Gadarene swine Corny in coffin steel shark stone onehandled Nelson two trickies Frauenzimmer plumstained from pram falling bawling. Gum he’s a champion. Fuseblue peer from barrel rev. evensong Love on hackney jaunt Blazes blind coddoubled bicyclers Dilly with snowcake no fancy clothes. Then in last switchback lumbering up and down bump mashtub sort of viceroy and reine relish for tublumber bumpshire rose. Baraabum!

  The couples fall aside. Stephen whirls giddily. Room whirls back. Eyes closed he totters. Red rails fly spacewards. Stars all around suns turn roundabout. Bright midges dance on walls. He stops dead.)

  STEPHEN

  Ho!

  Stephen’s mother, emaciated, rises stark through the floor, in leper grey with a wreath of faded orange blossoms and a torn bridal veil, her face worn and noseless, green with gravemould. Her hair is scant and lank. She fixes her bluecircled hollow eyesockets on Stephen and opens her toothless mouth uttering a silent word. A choir of virgins and confessors sing voicelessly.

  THE CHOIR

  Liliata rutilantium te confessorum . . .

  Iubilantium te virginum . . .

  (From the top of a tower Buck Mulligan, in particoloured jester’s dress of puce and yellow and clown’s cap with curling bell, stands gaping at her, a smoking buttered split scone in his hand.)

  BUCK MULLIGAN

  She’s beastly dead. The pity of it! Mulligan meets the afflicted mother. (he upturns his eyes) Mercurial Malachi!

  THE MOTHER

  (with the subtle smile of death’s madness) I was once the beautiful May Goulding. I am dead.

  The Wizard Passed Over

  Infante Don Juan Manuel, Spanish prince, born in Escalona in 1282, died in Penafiel in 1349. He was the nephew of Alfonso X of Castile. A man of Latin culture and Islamic erudition, he is one of the fathers of Spanish prose. He wrote the Libro de Patronio (1128-35, translated into English by J. B. Trend in 1924).

  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.

  Josephine the Singer

  or the Mouse Folk

  Franz Kafka, Austrian writer, born in Prague in 1883, died in Vienna in 1924. In all his book
s loneliness is a recurring theme; in almost all of them he dwells on the process of infinite and excruciating delay. His works include Der Prozess (1925; translated into English as The Trial, 1933), Der Schloss (1926; translated into English as The Castle, 1953), Amerika (1927) and many short stories, including the famous Die Verwandlung (1912; translated into English as Metamorphosis (1961).

  Our singer is called Josephine. Anyone who has not heard her does not know the power of song. There is no one but is carried away by her singing, a tribute all the greater as we are not in general a music-loving race. Tranquil peace is the music we love best; our life is hard, we are no longer able, even on occasions when we have tried to shake off the cares of daily life, to rise to anything so high and remote from our usual routine as music. But we do not much lament that; we do not get even so far; a certain practical cunning, which admittedly we stand greatly in need of, we hold to be our greatest distinction, and with a smile born of such cunning we are wont to console ourselves for all shortcomings, even supposing—only it does not happen—that we were to yearn once in a way for the kind of bliss which music may provide. Josephine is the sole exception; she has a love for music and knows too how to transmit it; she is the only one; when she dies, music—who knows for how long—will vanish from our lives.

  I have often thought about what this music of hers really means. For we are quite unmusical; how is it that we understand Josephine’s singing or, since Josephine denies that, at least think we can understand it. The simplest answer would be that the beauty of her singing is so great that even the most insensitive cannot be deaf to it, but this answer is not satisfactory. If it were really so, her singing would have to give one an immediate and lasting feeling of being something out of the ordinary, a feeling that from her throat something is sounding which we have never heard before and which we are not even capable of hearing, something that Josephine alone and no one else can enable us to hear. But in my opinion that is just what does not happen, I do not feel this and have never observed that others feel anything of the kind. Among intimates we admit freely to one another that Josephine’s singing, as singing, is nothing out of the ordinary.