Read Online Short Stories of Jorge Luis Borges - The Giovanni Translations by Jorge Luis Borges (trans. by N.T. di Giovanni) - Free Book Online Page A
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around the grounds. He went over every detail; below the level of the terrace he noticed a narrow shutter.
He pushed it open. A few marble steps went down into a cellar. Lönnrot, who by now anticipated the architect’s whims, guessed that in the opposite wall he would find a similar sets of steps. He did. Climbing them, he lifted his hands and raised a trapdoor.
A stain of light led him to a window. He opened it. A round yellow moon outlined two clogged fountains in the unkempt garden. Lönnrot explored the house. Through serving pantries and along corridors he came to identical courtyards and several times to the same courtyard. He climbed dusty stairways to circular anterooms, where he was multiplied to infinity in facing mirrors. He grew weary of opening or of peeping through windows that revealed, outside, the same desolate garden seen from various heights and various angles; and indoors he grew weary of the rooms of furniture, each draped in yellowing slipcovers, and the crystal chandeliers wrapped in tarlatan. A bedroom caught his attention—in it, a single flower in a porcelain vase. At a touch, the ancient petals crumbled to dust. On the third floor, the last floor, the house seemed endless and growing. The house is not so large, he thought. This dim light, the sameness, the mirrors, the many years, my unfamiliarity, the loneliness are what make it large.
By a winding staircase he reached the mirador. That evening’s moon streamed in through the diamond-shaped panes; they were red, green, and yellow. He was stopped by an awesome, dizzying recollection.
Two short men, brutal and stocky, threw themselves on him and disarmed him: another, very tall, greeted him solemnly and told him, “You are very kind. You’ve saved us a night and a day.”
It was Red Scharlach. The men bound Lönnrot’s wrists. After some seconds, Lönnrot at last heard himself saying, “Scharlach, are you after the Secret Name?”
Scharlach remained standing, aloof. He had taken no part in the brief struggle and had barely held out his hand for Lönnrot’s revolver. He spoke. Lönnrot heard in his voice the weariness of final triumph, a hatred the size of the universe, a sadness as great as that hatred.
“No,” said Scharlach. “I’m after something more ephemeral, more frail. I’m after Erik Lönnrot. Three years ago, in a gambling dive on the Rue de Toulon, you yourself arrested my brother and got him put away. My men managed to get me into a coupé before the shooting was over, but I had a cop’s bullet in my guts. Nine days and nine nights I went through hell, here in this deserted villa, racked with fever. The hateful two-faced Janus that looks on the sunsets and the dawns filled both my sleep and my wakefulness with its horror. I came to loathe my body, I came to feel that two eyes, two hands, two lungs, are as monstrous as two faces. An Irishman, trying to convert me to the faith of Jesus, kept repeating to me the saying of the goyim —All roads lead to Rome. At night, my fever fed on that metaphor. I felt the world was a maze from which escape was impossible since all roads, though they seemed to be leading north or south, were really leading to Rome, which at the same time was the square cell where my brother lay dying and also this villa, Triste-le-Roy. During those nights, I swore by the god who looks with two faces and by all the gods of fever and of mirrors that I would weave a maze around the man who sent my brother to prison. Well, I have woven it and it’s tight. Its materials are a dead rabbi, a compass, an eighteenth-century sect, a Greek word, a dagger, and the diamond-shaped patterns on a paint-store wall.” Lönnrot was in a chair now, with the two short men at his side.
“The first term of the series came to me by pure chance,” Scharlach went on. “With some associates of mine—among them Daniel Azevedo—I’d planned the theft of the Tetrarch’s sapphires. Azevedo betrayed us. He got drunk on the
He pushed it open. A few marble steps went down into a cellar. Lönnrot, who by now anticipated the architect’s whims, guessed that in the opposite wall he would find a similar sets of steps. He did. Climbing them, he lifted his hands and raised a trapdoor.
A stain of light led him to a window. He opened it. A round yellow moon outlined two clogged fountains in the unkempt garden. Lönnrot explored the house. Through serving pantries and along corridors he came to identical courtyards and several times to the same courtyard. He climbed dusty stairways to circular anterooms, where he was multiplied to infinity in facing mirrors. He grew weary of opening or of peeping through windows that revealed, outside, the same desolate garden seen from various heights and various angles; and indoors he grew weary of the rooms of furniture, each draped in yellowing slipcovers, and the crystal chandeliers wrapped in tarlatan. A bedroom caught his attention—in it, a single flower in a porcelain vase. At a touch, the ancient petals crumbled to dust. On the third floor, the last floor, the house seemed endless and growing. The house is not so large, he thought. This dim light, the sameness, the mirrors, the many years, my unfamiliarity, the loneliness are what make it large.
By a winding staircase he reached the mirador. That evening’s moon streamed in through the diamond-shaped panes; they were red, green, and yellow. He was stopped by an awesome, dizzying recollection.
Two short men, brutal and stocky, threw themselves on him and disarmed him: another, very tall, greeted him solemnly and told him, “You are very kind. You’ve saved us a night and a day.”
It was Red Scharlach. The men bound Lönnrot’s wrists. After some seconds, Lönnrot at last heard himself saying, “Scharlach, are you after the Secret Name?”
Scharlach remained standing, aloof. He had taken no part in the brief struggle and had barely held out his hand for Lönnrot’s revolver. He spoke. Lönnrot heard in his voice the weariness of final triumph, a hatred the size of the universe, a sadness as great as that hatred.
“No,” said Scharlach. “I’m after something more ephemeral, more frail. I’m after Erik Lönnrot. Three years ago, in a gambling dive on the Rue de Toulon, you yourself arrested my brother and got him put away. My men managed to get me into a coupé before the shooting was over, but I had a cop’s bullet in my guts. Nine days and nine nights I went through hell, here in this deserted villa, racked with fever. The hateful two-faced Janus that looks on the sunsets and the dawns filled both my sleep and my wakefulness with its horror. I came to loathe my body, I came to feel that two eyes, two hands, two lungs, are as monstrous as two faces. An Irishman, trying to convert me to the faith of Jesus, kept repeating to me the saying of the goyim —All roads lead to Rome. At night, my fever fed on that metaphor. I felt the world was a maze from which escape was impossible since all roads, though they seemed to be leading north or south, were really leading to Rome, which at the same time was the square cell where my brother lay dying and also this villa, Triste-le-Roy. During those nights, I swore by the god who looks with two faces and by all the gods of fever and of mirrors that I would weave a maze around the man who sent my brother to prison. Well, I have woven it and it’s tight. Its materials are a dead rabbi, a compass, an eighteenth-century sect, a Greek word, a dagger, and the diamond-shaped patterns on a paint-store wall.” Lönnrot was in a chair now, with the two short men at his side.
“The first term of the series came to me by pure chance,” Scharlach went on. “With some associates of mine—among them Daniel Azevedo—I’d planned the theft of the Tetrarch’s sapphires. Azevedo betrayed us. He got drunk on the
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