Jorge Luis Borges, 1945
You are Borges. Beatriz Viterbo died in 1929; each thirtieth of April, her birthday, you have come back to her house. It is 1941; the house is coming down. Her cousin, Carlos Argentino, has sent you down to the cellar. You lie on your back on the floor, in the dark. You are about to see everything at once, and you will not be able to tell anyone what you saw.
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Our mind is porous to forgetting; I myself am falsifying and losing, under the tragic erosion of the years, the features of Beatriz.
Nuestra mente es porosa para el olvido; yo mismo estoy falseando y perdiendo, bajo la trágica erosión de los años, los rasgos de Beatriz.
Since Beatriz Viterbo's death in 1929 the narrator has called at her house on Calle Garay every thirtieth of April, her birthday. Her cousin Carlos Argentino Daneri lives there and is putting the whole planet into verse, one place after another; the column under I saw is that poem's small twin. In 1941 the house is sold to be pulled down, and Daneri, to save it, tells the narrator that the Aleph, the point that holds every other point, is in the cellar, and sends him down to lie on the floor in the dark. A postscript, written later, doubts that the Aleph on Calle Garay was the true one, and reports that forgetting, happily, went to work on him again.
The lines under I saw are Borges's own, taken from the story's one long sentence of what he saw, and translated here; the Spanish is behind the Spanish tab.
In the order the story reaches them:
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Passages are quoted from the Spanish original and translated for this page.
Beatriz Viterbo died in 1929; from then on I never let a thirtieth of April pass without going back to her house.
Beatriz Viterbo murió en 1929; desde entonces, no dejé pasar un treinta de abril sin volver a su casa.
He had set himself to put the whole roundness of the planet into verse; by 1941 he had already got through a few hectares of the state of Queensland, more than a kilometre of the course of the Ob, a gasometer north of Veracruz…
Éste se proponía versificar toda la redondez del planeta; en 1941 ya había despachado unas hectáreas del estado de Queensland, más de un kilómetro del curso del Ob, un gasómetro al norte de Veracruz…
The Aleph's diameter must have been two or three centimetres, but cosmic space was there, with no reduction in size.
El diámetro del Aleph sería de dos o tres centímetros, pero el espacio cósmico estaba ahí, sin disminución de tamaño.
What my eyes saw was simultaneous: what I am going to set down is successive, because language is. Still, I will gather up something.
Lo que vieron mis ojos fue simultáneo: lo que transcribiré, sucesivo, porque el lenguaje lo es. Algo, sin embargo, recogeré.
I saw the populous sea, I saw dawn and dusk, I saw the crowds of America… I saw my bedroom with no one in it… I saw tigers, pistons, bison, tides and armies
Vi el populoso mar, vi el alba y la tarde, vi las muchedumbres de América… vi mi dormitorio sin nadie… vi tigres, émbolos, bisontes, marejadas y ejércitos
obscene, incredible, precise letters that Beatriz had written to Carlos Argentino… I saw my face and my entrails, I saw your face
cartas obscenas, increíbles, precisas, que Beatriz había dirigido a Carlos Argentino… vi mi cara y mis vísceras, vi tu cara
In the street, on the stairs at Constitución, in the underground, every face looked familiar to me. I feared that not one thing was left that could surprise me; I feared that the impression of returning would never leave me.
En la calle, en las escaleras de Constitución, en el subterráneo, me parecieron familiares todas las caras. Temí que no quedara una sola cosa capaz de sorprenderme, temí que no me abandonara jamás la impresión de volver.
Happily, after a few sleepless nights, forgetting went to work on me again.
Felizmente, al cabo de unas noches de insomnio, me trabajó otra vez el olvido.
Does that Aleph exist in the innermost part of a stone? Did I see it when I saw all things, and have I forgotten it?
¿Existe ese Aleph en lo íntimo de una piedra? ¿Lo he visto cuando vi todas las cosas y lo he olvidado?
Our mind is porous to forgetting; I myself am falsifying and losing, under the tragic erosion of the years, the features of Beatriz.
Nuestra mente es porosa para el olvido; yo mismo estoy falseando y perdiendo, bajo la trágica erosión de los años, los rasgos de Beatriz.