Short Stories of Jorge Luis Borges - the Giovanni Translations (And Others)

by Jorge Luis Borges

  It is true that as a consequence of the conspiracy woven by my brother Ibrahim, with the treacherous and useless support of the black chiefs of Kordofan, who betrayed him, I suffered captivity in the castle of Yaqub the Ailing. My brother perished by the sword, on the blood-red skin of Justice, but I flung myself at the hated feet of the Ailing, telling him that I was a wizard, and that if he spared my life I would show him shapes and appearances still more wonderful than those of the magic lantern. The tyrant demanded an immediate proof. I asked for a reed pen, a pair of scissors, a large leaf of Venetian paper, an inkhorn, a chafing dish with some live coals in it, some coriander seeds, and an ounce of benzoin. I cut up the paper into six strips, wrote charms and invocation on the first five, and on the remaining one wrote the following words, taken from the glorious Koran: ‘And we have removed from thee thy veil; and thy sight today is piercing.’ Then I drew a magic square in the palm of Yaqub’s right hand, told him to make a hollow of it, and into the centre I poured a pool of ink. I asked him if he saw himself clearly reflected in it, and he answered that he did. I told him not to raise his head. I dropped the benzoin and coriander seeds into the chafing dish, and I burned the invocations upon the glowing coals. I next asked him to name the image he desired to see.

  He thought a moment and said, ‘A wild horse, the finest of those that graze along the borders of the desert.’ Looking, he saw a quiet, green pasture, and a minute later a horse drawing near, lithe as a leopard, with a white spot on its face. He asked me for a drove of horses as handsome as the first one, and on the horizon he saw a cloud of dust, and then the drove. It was at this point that I knew my life was spared.

  From that day on, with the first streak of light in the eastern sky, two soldiers would enter my cell and lead me to the Ailing’s bedchamber, where the incense, the chafing dish, and the ink were already laid out. So it was that he demanded of me, and I showed him, all the visible things of this world. This man, whom I still hate, had in his palm everything seen by men now dead and everything seen by the living: the cities, the climates, the kingdoms into which the earth is divided; the treasures hidden in its bowels; the ships that ply its seas; the many instruments of war, of music, of surgery; fair women; the fixed stars and the planets; the colours used by the ungodly to paint their odious pictures; minerals and plants, with the secrets and properties they hold locked up in them; the silvery angels, whose only food is the praise and worship of the Lord; the awarding of prizes in schools; the idols of birds and kings buried in the heart of the pyramids; the shadow cast by the bull that holds up the world and by the fish that lies under the bull; the sandy wastes of Allah the All-Merciful. He saw things impossible to tell, like gaslit streets and the whale that dies on hearing the cry of a man. Once, he ordered me to show him the city called Europe. I let him see its main thoroughfare, and it was there, I believe, in that great stream of men all wearing black and many using spectacles that he first set eyes on the Man with the Mask.

  This figure, at times in Sudanese garments and at times in uniform, but always with a veil over his face, from then on haunted the things we saw. He was never absent, and we dared not divine who he was. The images in the mirror of ink, at first fleeting or fixed, were more intricate now; they obeyed my commands without delay, and the tyrant saw them quite plainly. Of course, the growing cruelty of the scenes left us both in a state of exhaustion. We witnessed nothing but punishments, garrottings, mutilations, the pleasures of the executioner and of the merciless.

  In this way, we came to the dawn of the fourteenth day of the moon of Barmahat. The circle of ink had been poured into the tyrant’s hand, the benzoin and coriander cast into the chafing dish, the invocations burned. The two of us were alone. The Ailing ordered me to show him a punishment both lawful and unappealable, for that day his heart hungered to view an execution. I let him see the soldiers with their drums, the spread calfskin, the persons lucky enough to be onlookers, the executioner wielding the sword of Justice. Marveling at the sight of him, Yaqub told me, ‘That’s Abu Kir, he who dealt justice to your brother Ibrahim, he who will seal your fate when it’s given me to know the science of bringing together these images without your aid.’

  He asked me to have the doomed man brought forward. When this was done, seeing that the man to be executed was the mysterious man of the veil, the tyrant paled. I was ordered to have the veil removed before justice was carried out. At this, I threw myself at his feet, beseeching, ‘O king of time and sum and substance of the age, this figure is not like any of the others, for we do not know his name or the name of his fathers or the name of the city where he was born. I dare not tamper with the image, for fear of incurring a sin for which I shall be held to account.’

  The Ailing laughed, and when he finished he swore that he would take the guilt on his own head if guilt there were. He swore this by his sword and by the Koran. I then commanded that the prisoner be stripped and that he be bound on the calfskin, and that the mask be torn from his face. These things were done. At last, Yaqub’s stricken eyes could see the face it was his own. He was filled with fear and madness. I gripped his trembling hand in mine, which was steady, and I ordered him to go on witnessing the ceremony of his death. He was possessed by the mirror, so much so that he attempted neither to avert his eyes nor to spill the ink. When in the vision the sword fell on the guilty head, Yaqub moaned with a sound that left my pity untouched, and he tumbled to the floor, dead. Glory be to Him, who endureth forever, and in whose hand are the keys of unlimited Pardon and unending Punishment.

  From The Lake Regions of Central Africa (1860)by Richard F. Burton

  A Double for Mohammed

  Since the idea of Mohammed is so closely associated with religion in the minds of Muslims, the Lord has ordained that they should be presided over in Heaven by someone impersonating Mohammed. This delegate is not always the same person. A native of Saxony who in earthly life was taken prisoner by the Algerines and became a Muslim once held this position. Having been a Christian, he was moved to speak to them of the Lord, and to say that He was not Joseph’s son but the Son of God; it was found advisable to have this man replaced. The office of the representative Mohammed is marked by a torchlike flame, visible only to Muslims.

  The real Mohammed, who wrote the Koran, is no longer visible to his followers. I have been informed that at first he presided over them, but that because he strove to rule like God he was deposed and sent away to the south. A certain community of Muslims was once instigated by evil spirits to acknowledge Mohammed as God. To allay the disturbance, Mohammed was brought up from the nether earth and shown to them, and on this occasion I also saw him. He resembled the bodily spirits who have no interior perception, and his face was very dark. I heard him utter these words:

  ‘I am your Mohammed’; and thereupon he sank down again.

  From Vera Christiana Religio (1771)by Emanuel Swedenborg

  The Generous Enemy

  In the year 1102, Magnus Barford undertook the general conquest of the Irish kingdoms; it is said that on the eve of his death he received this greeting from Muirchertach, the King of Dublin:

  May gold and the storm fight on your side, Magnus Barfod.

  May your fighting meet with good fortune, tomorrow, on the fields of my kingdom.

  May your royal hands strike awe, weaving the sword’s web.

  May those who oppose your sword be food for the red swan.

  May your many gods sate you with glory, may they sate you with blood.

  May you be victorious in the dawn, King who tread upon Ireland.

  May tomorrow shine the brightest of all your many days.

  Because it will be your last. That I swear to you, King Magnus.

  Because before its light is blotted out I will defeat you and blot you out, Magnus Barfod.

  From the Anhang zur Heimskringla (1893) by H. Gering

  [Translated by W. S. Merwin]

  Of Exactitude in Science

  In that Empire, the craft
of Cartography attained such Perfection that the Map of a Single province covered the space of an entire City, and the Map of the Empire itself an entire Province. In the course of Time, these Extensive maps were found somehow wanting, and so the College of Cartographers evolved a Map of the Empire that was of the same Scale as the Empire and that coincided with it point for point. Less attentive to the Study of Cartography, succeeding Generations came to judge a map of such Magnitude cumbersome, and, not without Irreverence, they abandoned it to the Rigours of sun and Rain. In the western Deserts, tattered Fragments of the Map are still to be found, Sheltering an occasional Beast or beggar; in the whole Nation, no other relic is left of the Discipline of Geography.

  From Travels of Praiseworthy Men (1658) by J. A. Suárez Miranda

  * * *

  The Book of Sand

  Author's Note

  The Other

  Ulrike

  The Congress

  There Are More Things

  The Sect of the Thirty

  The Night of the Gifts

  The Mirror and the Mask

  Undr

  Utopia of a Tired Man

  The Bribe

  Avelino Arredondo

  The Disk

  The Book of Sand

  Afterword

  Author's Note

  At my age (I was born in 1899), I cannot promise I cannot even promise myself more than these few variations on favourite themes. As everyone knows, this is the classic recourse of irreparable monotony. Allow me, nevertheless, to point out one or two details.

  The volume includes thirteen stories. The number is accidental, or fatal here the two words are strictly synonymous and not magical. If of all my stories I had to save one, I would probably save ‘The Congress’, which at the same time is the most autobiographical (the one richest in memories) and the most imaginative. Nor shall I hide a predilection for ‘The Book of Sand’. There is also a love story, a ‘psychological’ story, and the story of a dramatic episode in South American history.

  In these blind man’s exercises, I have tried to be faithful to the example of H. G. Wells in combining a plain and at times almost colloquial style with a fantastic plot. To Wells’ name the reader may add those of Swift and of Poe, who, around 1838, gave up a very rich style in order to bequeath us the admirable final chapters of his Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym.

  I do not write for a select minority, which means nothing to me, nor for that adulated platonic entity known as ‘The Masses’. Both abstractions, so dear to the demagogue, I disbelieve in. I write for myself and for my friends, and I write to ease the passing of time.

  The Other

  It was in Cambridge, back in February, 1969, that the event took place. I made no attempt to record it at the time, because, fearing for my mind, my initial aim was to forget it. Now, some years later, I feel that if I commit it to paper others will read it as a story and, I hope, one day it will become a story for me as well. I know it was horrifying while it lasted and even more so during the sleepless nights that followed but this does not mean that an account of it will necessarily move anyone else.

  It was about ten o’clock in the morning. I sat on a bench facing the Charles River. Some five hundred yards distant, on my right, rose a tall building whose name I never knew. Ice floes were borne along on the grey water. Inevitably, the river made me think about time Heraclitus’ millennial image. I had slept well; my class on the previous afternoon had, I thought, managed to hold the interest of my students. Not a soul was in sight.

  All at once, I had the impression (according to psychologists, it corresponds to a state of fatigue) of having lived that moment once before. Someone had sat down at the other end of the bench. I would have preferred to be alone, but not wishing to appear unsociable I avoided getting up abruptly. The other man had begun to whistle. It was then that the first of the many disquieting things of that morning occurred. What he whistled, what he tried to whistle (I have no ear for music), was the tune of ‘La tapera’, an old milonga by Elías Regules. The melody took me back to a certain Buenos Aires patio, which has long since disappeared, and to the memory of my cousin Álvaro Melián Lafinur, who has been dead for so many years. Then came the words. They were those of the opening line. It was not Álvaro’s voice but an imitation of it. Recognizing this, I was taken aback.

  ‘Sir,’ I said, turning to the other man, ‘are you an Uruguayan or an Argentine?’

  ‘Argentine, but I’ve lived in Geneva since 1914,’ he replied.

  There was a long silence. ‘At number seventeen Malagnou across from the Orthodox church?’ I asked.

  He answered in the affirmative.

  ‘In that case,’ I said straight out, ‘your name is Jorge Luis Borges. I, too, am Jorge Luis Borges. This is 1969 and we’re in the city of Cambridge.’

  ‘No,’ he said in a voice that was mine but a bit removed.

  He paused, then became insistent. ‘I’m here in Geneva, on a bench, a few steps from the Rhone. The strange thing is that we resemble each other, but you’re much older and your hair is grey.’

  ‘I can prove I’m not lying,’ I said. ‘I’m going to tell you things a stranger couldn’t possibly know. At home we have a silver maté cup with a base in the form of entwined serpents. Our great-grandfather brought it from Peru. There’s also a silver washbasin that hung from his saddle. In the wardrobe of your room are two rows of books: the three volumes of Lane’s Thousand and One Nights, with steel engravings and with notes in small type at the end of each chapter; Quicherat’s Latin dictionary; Tacitus’ Germania in Latin and also in Gordon’s English translation; a Don Quixote published by Garnier; Rivera Indarte’s Tablas de Sangre, inscribed by the author; Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus; a biography of Amiel; and, hidden behind the other volumes, a book in paper covers about sexual customs in the Balkans. Nor have I forgotten one evening on a certain second floor of the Place Dubourg.’

  ‘Dufour,’ he corrected.

  ‘Very well Dufour. Is this enough now?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘These proofs prove nothing. If I am dreaming you, it’s natural that you know what I know. Your catalogue, for all its length, is completely worthless.’

  His objection was to the point. I said, ‘If this morning and this meeting are dreams, each of us has to believe that he is the dreamer. Perhaps we have stopped dreaming, perhaps not. Our obvious duty, meanwhile, is to accept the dream just as we accept the world and being born and seeing and breathing.’

  ‘And if the dream should go on?’ he said anxiously.

  To calm him and to calm myself, I feigned an air of assurance that I certainly did not feel. ‘My dream has lasted seventy years now,’ I said. ‘After all, there isn’t a person alive who, on waking, does not find himself with himself. It’s what is happening to us now except that we are two. Don’t you want to know something of my past, which is the future awaiting you?’

  He assented without a word. I went on, a bit lost.

  ‘Mother is healthy and well in her house on Charcas and Maipú, in Buenos Aires, but Father died some thirty years ago. He died of heart trouble. Hemiplegia finished him; his left hand, placed on his right, was like the hand of a child on a giant’s. He died impatient for death but without complaint. Our grandmother had died in the same house. A few days before the end, she called us all together and said, “I’m an old woman who is dying very, very slowly. Don’t anyone become upset about such a common, everyday thing.” Your sister, Norah, married and has two sons. By the way, how is everyone at home?’

  ‘Quite well. Father makes his same antireligious jokes. Last night he said that Jesus was like the gauchos, who don’t like to commit themselves, and that’s why he preached in parables.’ He hesitated and then said, ‘And you?’

  ‘I don’t know the number of books you’ll write, but I know they’ll be too many. You’ll write poems that will give you a pleasure that others won’t share and stories of a somewhat fantastic nature. Like your father and so many oth
ers of our family, you will teach.’

  It pleased me that he did not ask about the success or failure of his books. I changed my tone and went on.

  ‘As for history, there was another war, almost among the same antagonists. France was not long in caving in; England and America fought against a German dictator named Hitler the cyclical battle of Waterloo. Around 1946, Buenos Aires gave birth to another Rosas, who bore a fair resemblance to our kinsman. In 1955, the province of Córdoba came to our rescue, as Entre Ríos had in the last century. Now things are going badly. Russia is taking over the world; America, hampered by the superstition of democracy, can’t make up its mind to become an empire. With every day that passes, our country becomes more provincial. More provincial and more pretentious as if its eyes were closed. It wouldn’t surprise me if the teaching of Latin in our schools were replaced by that of Guaraní.’

  I could tell that he was barely paying attention. The elemental fear of what is impossible and yet what is so dismayed him. I, who have never been a father, felt for that poor boy more intimate to me even than a son of my flesh a surge of love. Seeing that he clutched a book in his hands, I asked what it was.

  ‘The Possessed, or, as I believe, The Devils, by Fëdor Dostoevski,’ he answered, not without vanity.

  ‘It has faded in my memory. What’s it like?’ As soon as I said this, I felt that the question was a blasphemy.