The Circular Ruins · Borges in 3D

The heart

Almost at once, he dreamed a heart that beat. … He did not touch it: he confined himself to bearing witness to it, to watching it, perhaps to setting it right with a look.

Casi inmediatamente, soñó con un corazón que latía. … No lo tocaba: se limitaba a atestiguarlo, a observarlo, tal vez a corregirlo con la mirada.

Jorge Luis Borges, Las ruinas circulares (1940)

The man

He recalled that, among all the creatures that compose the globe, fire alone knew that his son was a phantom.

Recordó que de todas las criaturas que componen el orbe, el fuego era la única que sabía que su hijo era un fantasma.

Jorge Luis Borges, Las ruinas circulares (1940)

The fire

He walked against the tatters of fire. They did not bite into his flesh; they stroked him and washed over him, with no heat and no burning.

Caminó contra los jirones de fuego. Éstos no mordieron su carne, éstos lo acariciaron y lo inundaron sin calor y sin combustión.

Jorge Luis Borges, Las ruinas circulares (1940)

Dreamed

With relief, with humiliation, with terror, he understood that he too was an appearance, that someone else was dreaming him.

Con alivio, con humillación, con terror, comprendió que él también era una apariencia, que otro estaba soñándolo.

Jorge Luis Borges, Las ruinas circulares (1940)

Afterwards

Not to be a man, to be the projection of another man's dream: what a humiliation, past all comparison, what vertigo!

No ser un hombre, ser la proyección del sueño de otro hombre ¡qué humillación incomparable, qué vértigo!

Jorge Luis Borges, Las ruinas circulares (1940)

You are the sorcerer. You have come downriver to the circular ruins of a burned temple to dream a man, piece by piece, and send him into the world. Here, whatever you look at steadily becomes solid, and whatever you neglect before it is finished comes apart. The story is about that work, and about what you learn when it is done.

Jorge Luis Borges, 1940

Drag to look. Keep still on a thing to make it.