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by Jorge Luis Borges


  I must have been there for more than an hour when I heard the sound of footsteps—light, slow footsteps—coming from somewhere in the gallery. I nearly jumped up and ran out in the street but, bracing myself, I called out once again, and I saw a light appear in an adjoining room.

  ‘Who’s there?’ asked a voice.

  I replied: ‘A customer.’

  The answer came back: ‘It’s very late for you to be coming into a shop, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’ve been waiting for more than an hour,’ I rejoined.

  ‘You could come back tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow I shall have left Rouen.’

  I simply dared not go towards him—and he was not coming out to me. The bright glow was still coming from his lamp and lighting up a tapestry which depicted two angels hovering over the corpses on a battle-field. This item, too, belonged to me.

  I called out: ‘Well, then? Are you coming?’

  He replied: ‘I’m waiting for you.’

  I got up and went towards him.

  In the middle of a large room there stood a little man, very short and very fat, phenomenally fat, like some hideous freak.

  He had a thin, straggling beard, which was patchy and yellowish—and there was not a hair on his head! Not a hair! As he lifted up his candle at arm’s length in order to see me better, his skull looked just like a little, round moon in this enormous room cluttered with old furniture. His face was wrinkled and bloated; his eyes were so sunken they could hardly be seen.

  I bargained with him for three chairs which belonged to me, and paid him a large sum for them in cash, giving him only the number of my room and the name of the hotel. The chairs were to be delivered the following morning by nine o’clock.

  Then I left. He saw me to the door, behaving very courteously.

  I then went to the local superintendent of police and told him about how my furniture had been stolen and what I had just discovered.

  He immediately sent a telegram to the department which had been investigating the burglary, and asked me to wait until he received the information he required. An hour later the reply came, confirming my story.

  ‘I’m going to have this man arrested and questioned,’ said the superintendent. ‘And it must be done straight away because he might have got suspicious and had your belongings removed . . . If you can go and have a meal and come back in a couple of hours, I’ll have him here by then, and I can question him again in your presence.’

  ‘I can certainly do that, monsieur. I am extremely grateful to you.’

  I went to my hotel and dined with a heartier appetite than I could have believed possible. I suppose I was feeling rather pleased about the way things had worked out. At last we had him.

  Two hours later I went back to the police officer, who was waiting for me.

  ‘Well, now, monsieur!’ he said as soon as he saw me. ‘We’ve not found this thief of yours. My men haven’t been able to get their hands on him at all.’

  ‘Ah!’ I gasped, and suddenly felt as though I was going to faint.

  ‘But,’ I asked him, ‘surely you’ve managed to find his house?’

  ‘Yes, indeed. And I’m going to have it kept under surveillance until he gets back. But as for the man himself . . . disappeared!’

  ‘Disappeared?’

  ‘Yes, disappeared. He usually spends his evenings at the house of a neighbour, a woman who is a second-hand dealer, like himself- a queer old witch of a woman, a widow by the name of Bidoin. She hasn’t seen him tonight, and she can’t tell us where he is. We shall have to wait until tomorrow.’

  I left the police station. Ah, those ancient streets of Rouen, how sinister, how disturbing, how haunted they now seemed to me!

  I slept very badly that night, with a nightmare at the end of each brief interval of sleep.

  The next day I waited until ten o’clock before going to the police. I didn’t want to give them the impression that I was too anxious or in too much of a hurry.

  The dealer had not turned up. His shop was still closed.

  The superintendent said to me: ‘I’ve taken all the necessary steps. I’ve been in touch with headquarters. I want you to come with us to this shop. I’ll have it forced open, and then you can show me what belongs to you.’

  We drove there in a carriage. Policemen were standing in front of the shop, and with them there was a locksmith—who soon opened it up for us.

  When I went in I could see neither my cupboard, nor my armchairs, nor my tables, nor anything at all that had once furnished my house—nothing whatever, and yet the night before I could hardly move a step without coming across something of mine.

  The superintendent was surprised, and at first he looked at me rather suspiciously.

  I said: ‘My word, monsieur, it’s a remarkable coincidence that the furniture has disappeared at the same time as the dealer.’

  ‘That’s certainly true,’ he said with a smile. ‘You know, you were wrong to buy those things of yours yesterday—and pay for them as well. It’ll have aroused his suspicions.’

  ‘What I simply can’t understand,’ I said, ‘is that every single space that was occupied by my furniture has now been filled by other articles.’

  ‘Oh,’ replied the superintendent, ‘he’s had all night—and probably been helped by accomplices as well. And I dare say this house communicates with the ones on each side . . . Don’t worry, monsieur. I’m going to give this case my personal attention. Now we know his hide-out it won’t be long before we get our hands on this villain.’

  Ah, my heart, my heart, my poor heart, how madly it was beating!

  I stayed in Rouen for a fortnight. The man never came back.

  My God! My God! Who could ever have been any problem to a man like that, or caught him off his guard?

  Now, when I had been in Rouen exactly a fortnight, on the morning of the fifteenth day, I received from the gardener who had been left in charge of my locked and empty house the following strange letter:

  Dear Sir,

  I beg to inform you that last night something happened which none of us can understand, not even the police. All the furniture has come back—all of it, with not a single thing missing. It’s all here, down to the tiniest little things. The house is now exactly the same as it was on the night of the burglary. It’s enough to drive you out of your mind. It happened in the middle of the night—between Friday and Saturday. The whole drive has got deep ruts in it, and it looks as though they’d dragged everything from the gate right up to the front-door. It was just like that the day everything disappeared.

  We’re waiting for you to come back, monsieur, and I remain,

  Your obedient servant,

  Raudin, Philippe

  Oh no! Oh no! No! No! No! I shall never go back!

  I took this letter to the Rouen superintendent.

  ‘It’s a very clever piece of restitution,’ he said. ‘We’d better lie low for the time being. Don’t worry; we’ll nab this fellow one of these days.’

  But they haven’t nabbed him. Oh, no. They haven’t nabbed him—and I’m as scared of him now as if he were a ferocious beast about to spring on me from behind my back.

  Untraceable! That’s what he is—untraceable. Nobody can possibly find him, this monster with the moon-like skull. They’ll never catch him. He’ll never go back to his shop. What does he care? I am the only person who could possibly confront him—and I don’t want to!

  No, I don’t want to! I don’t want to! I don’t want to!

  And, anyway, what if he does come back, what if he does return to his shop, who will be able to prove that my furniture was on his premises? Mine is the only evidence against him, and I’m well aware that the police are beginning to treat it with suspicion.

  Oh, no! I couldn’t go on living that kind of life. And yet I couldn’t keep quiet about what I have seen. I couldn’t go on living a normal life so long as I dreaded the possibility of this business starting all over again.

 
; So I came to see the doctor who runs this private mental hospital, and I told him everything.

  After he had spent a long time asking me questions, he said: ‘Monsieur, would you be willing to stay here for a while?’

  ‘Yes, monsieur. I’d be glad to.’

  ‘Have you sufficient money?’

  ‘Yes, monsieur.’

  ‘Would you like any of your friends to come and visit you?’

  ‘No, monsieur! No! I don’t want anybody! The man from Rouen might try to get at me here—out of revenge.’

  And I have been alone, all alone, for three months. My nerves are more or less calm now. I have only one fear . . . Suppose the antique-dealer went mad . . . and suppose they brought him into this place . . . Even the prisons are not safe . . .

  The Shadow of the Players

  In one of the tales which make up the series of the Mabinogion, two enemy kings play chess while in a nearby valley their respective armies battle and destroy each other. Messengers arrive with reports of the battle; the kings do not seem to hear them and, bent over the silver chessboard, they move the gold pieces. Gradually it becomes apparent that the vicissitudes of the battle follow the vicissitudes of the game. Toward dusk, one of the kings overturns the board because he has been checkmated, and presently a blood-spattered horseman comes to tell him: ‘Your army is in flight. You have lost the kingdom.’

  —EDWIN MORGAN

  The Cat

  H. A. Murena (pseudonym of Hector Alberto Alvarez, 1923-), born in Buenos Aires. He has published Primer Testamento (short stories, 1946), La Vida Nueva (poetry, 1951), El juez (play, 1953), El Pecado Original de America (essays, 1954), La Fatalidad de los Cuerpos (novel, 1955), El Centro del Infierno (short stories, 1956), Las Leyes de la Noche (short story, 1958), El Circulo de los Paraisos (poetry, 1958), El Escanalo y el Fuego (poetry, 1959), Homo Atomicus (essays, 1961), Relampago de la Duracion (poetry, 1962), Ensayos Sohre Subversion (essays, 1963), El Demonio de la Armonia (poetry, 1964).

  How long had he been shut away?

  The May morning on which it took place, veiled by the mist, seemed as unreal to him as the day he was born, an event perhaps truer than any other, but which we only manage to think of as an incredible idea. When he suddenly discovered the secret and impressive control the other one had over her, he decided to do it. He told himself that perhaps he would operate for her sake, to free her from a useless, degrading seduction. However, he was thinking of himself, he was following a road first taken long ago. And that morning, leaving the house, after it had all happened, he saw that the wind had driven away the mist, and on raising his eyes before the blinding clarity, he saw in the sky a black cloud which looked like a huge spider fleeing across a field of snow. But what he would never forget was that from that moment on, the other man’s cat, the cat whose owner had boasted that he would never abandon him, began to follow him, with a certain indifference, almost with patience at his initial attempts to scare him off, until he became his shadow.

  He found the boarding house, not too dirty or uncomfortable, for he still bothered about that. The cat was large and muscular, grey-haired, a dirty white in parts. He gave the impression of an old and degraded god who had not yet lost all his power to harm men. They didn’t like him; they looked at him with fear and disgust; and with permission from his temporary owner, they threw him out. The next day, when he returned to his room, he found the cat installed there; sitting in the armchair, he barely raised his head, peered at him, and carried on dozing. They threw him out a second time, and he got back into the house, into the room, without anyone knowing how. So he won, because from then on the owner of the boarding house and her acolytes gave up the fight.

  Can one conceive of a cat influencing the life of a man to the extent of altering its course?

  At first he went out a lot; the habits of an easy life made that room, with its little lamp glowing a weak yellow, leaving many corners in shadow, with its surprisingly ugly and rickety furniture if you looked closely, purple forests, the sound of waves against the rocks. Without knowing why, he began to be able to contemplate pleasant images: the light of the lamp—for ever on—waned until it vanished, and, floating in the air, women covered in long clothes appeared, their faces the colour of blood or pale green, horses of an intense sky-blue . . .

  The cat, meanwhile, remained undisturbed in his armchair.

  One day he heard women’s voices at his door. Although he tried, he couldn’t make out what they were saying, but their tones were sufficient. It was as though he had an enormous flabby belly and they were driving a stake into it and he could feel the stimulus, but it was so distant, despite being extremely intense, that he realized it would be several hours before he could react. For one of the voices belonged to the owner of the boarding house, but the other one was hers: she must have finally discovered where he was.

  He sat on the bed. He wanted to do something, and couldn’t.

  He watched the cat: he had also got up and was looking towards the shutters, but was very calm. That increased his feeling of impotence.

  His whole body pulsated, and the voices didn’t cease. He wanted to do something. Suddenly he felt such tension in his head that it seemed as though when it stopped he would disintegrate, dissolve.

  Then he opened his mouth, not knowing for a moment why he did so, and finally he miaowed; shrilly, with infinite despair, he miaowed.

  The Story of the Foxes

  Niu Chiao, ninth-century Chinese poet and savant. He wrote more than thirty books.

  Wang saw two Foxes standing on their hind legs and leaning against a tree. One of them held a sheet of paper in its hand, and they laughed together as though they were sharing a joke. Wang tried to frighten them off but they stood their ground, and finally he shot at the one holding the page. The Fox was hit in the eye and Wang took away the piece of paper. At the inn Wang told the story to the other guests. While he spoke a gentleman having a bandaged eye came in. He listened to Wang’s story with interest and asked if he might not be shown the paper. Wang was just about to produce it when the innkeeper noticed that the the newcomer had a tail. ‘He’s a Fox!’ he shouted, and on the spot the gentleman turned into a Fox and fled. The Foxes tried time after time to recover the paper, which was filled with indecipherable writing, but were repeatedly set back. Wang decided at last to return home. On the road he met his whole family, who were on their way to the capital. They said that he had ordered them to undertake the journey, and his mother showed him the letter in which he asked them to sell off all their property and join him in the city. Wang, studying the letter, saw that the page was blank. Although they no longer had a roof over their heads, he ordered, ‘Let’s go back.’

  One day a younger brother appeared whom everyone had given up for dead. He asked about the family’s misfortunes and Wang told him the whole story. ‘Ah,’ said the brother when Wang came to the part about the Foxes, ‘there lies the root of all the evil.’ Wang showed him the page in question. Tearing it from Wang’s hand, the brother stuffed the sheet into his pocket and said, ‘At last I have back what I wanted.’ Then, changing himself into a Fox, he made his escape.

  The Atonement

  Silvina Ocampo, Argentinian writer born in Buenos Aires. Author of: The Forgotten Journey (1937); Inventory of the Motherland (1942); Metric Spaces (1945); Garden Sonnets (1948); The Autobiography of Irene (1948); The Poems of Love in Despair (1949); The Names (1953); The Fury (1960); The Guests (1961); The Bitter for the Sweet (1962).

  Antonio summoned Ruperto and I to the room at the back of the house. Imperiously, he told us to sit down. The bed was made. He went out to the patio and opened the door of the birdcage, then came back and lay down on the bed.

  ‘I’m going to show you a trick’, he said.

  ‘Are you going to be hired by the circus?’ I asked.

  He whistled two or three times and Favorita, Maria Callas and Mandarin, who was red, all flew into the room. Staring at the ceiling, he again gave a wh
istle, more high pitched and tremulous this time. Was this the trick? Why had he summoned us, Ruperto and I? Why had he not waited for Cleobula to arrive? I thought that the whole purpose of this show was to demonstrate that Ruperto was not blind, but mad, and that he would prove it in a moment of emotion, in the face of Antonio’s distress. The canaries flying around made me feel tired. My memories flew around my mind with the same insistence. They say that at the moment of death one reviews one’s whole life—I relived mine that afternoon with a remote feeling of sadness.

  I could see, as clearly as if the image were painted on the wall, my wedding to Antonio at five in the afternoon, in the month of December.

  It was already hot and when we arrived at our house, to my surprise, from the window in the bedroom where I took off my wedding dress and veil, I saw a canary.

  Now I realize that it was, in fact, Mandarin pecking at the only remaining orange on the tree in the patio.

  Antonio didn’t stop kissing me when he saw me so engrossed in the spectacle. The bird’s merciless pecking of the orange fascinated me. I contemplated the scene until Antonio dragged me trembling to the bed, which, surrounded with wedding presents, had been a source of pleasure to him and of terror to me on the eve of our wedding. The dark-red velvet bedspread had a stagecoach journey embroidered on it. I shut my eyes and hardly knew what happened afterwards. Love is also a journey; for many days after that, I learnt its lessons, without seeing or understanding the pleasure and the pain that it causes. At the beginning, I think that Antonio and I loved each other equally, with no difficulty other than that which my conscience and his timidity created.

  The tiny house with its equally tiny garden is situated at the entrance to the village. The fresh mountain air surrounds us and we can see the nearby countryside when we open the windows.

  We already had a radio and a fridge. Numerous friends would come to our house on days when there was a holiday or to celebrate some event in the family. What more could we ask for? Cleobula and Ruperto would visit us more often because they had been friends of ours since childhood. Antonio had fallen in love with me, they had known this. He hadn’t looked for me, he hadn’t chose me, rather I had chosen him. His only ambition was to be loved by his wife and that she should remain faithful to him. He attached little importance to money.

 

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