Read Online The Clouds by Juan José Saer - Free Book Online Page A

out the plain, creating a perfect illusion of continuity between earth and sky; pale and abundant light produced a shadow both gray and luminous and the few things set in place by human hands—a tree, a well, the horizontal logs, irregular and parallel to the corral, things that disturbed the empty space—seemed to take on a different consistency than usual in that illusion of continuity, as if the atoms that composed things, according to the illustrious Greek scholar and the meticulous Latin poet, my teacher’s teachers and therefore mine, had lost cohesion, betraying the conditional nature not only of their properties, but also of allmy notions about them and even about my own self. Sharp as their outlines might appear in the light of day, well shaped and solid in the clear air, they now became porous and unstable, disturbed by a pale, tingling unease that seemed to expose the irresistible force that dispersed substance and mixed it, reducing it to its barest expression, with that gray and intangible flux that mingled earth and sky. A commotion drew me out of my reverie: The horses were stirring in the corral, perhaps alarmed by my presence, but when I took a few steps to block the cold air blowing in their direction I saw I was of no importance to them, for the brief murmur they had made not only failed to increase, but seemed to subside as I drew closer. I remained motionless near them for a time, trying to keep silent so as not to alarm them, examining the silver shadow to which my eyes adjusted bit by bit, and I could see that what had made them shift from time to time, lightly blowing and causing a muted shuffling of indecisive hooves, was their attempt to press against one another for warmth, forming a dark and anonymous mass of breath, flesh, and heartbeat, not so different in the end from how the horsemen had massed around the brazier earlier, joined by the same injustice that forced us to exist without cause, fragile and mortal, under the icy and inexplicable moon.
    The following day at dusk, we finally arrived in the city. Not a cloud accompanied us in the sky’s pale blue on our last day of travel, but as we arrived, a few slender wisps to the east, motionless against the enormous red disc of the sun as it sunk into the horizon, began to change color: yellow at first, orange, red, violet, and blue, until, having crossed the fork where the Salado river divides and churns into the Paraná, we reached the first miserable hovels on the outskirts, and the air was black from the unrisen moon; under the eaves or within the hovels, the first lanterns began to glow. After coming along with me to the house where I would be staying, which we found without difficulty as its masters wereone of the city’s leading families, Osuna and the soldiers went off to the barracks where room and board had been arranged for them for the duration of our stay. The Parra family expected me without knowing the exact day of my arrival, and I must say that the welcome they gave me, though they knew I would remain in their house for some weeks, was of the most pleasant sort, perhaps due to the relief of knowing that I came to take their eldest child, who had fallen into a stupor months ago, for treatment at Las Tres Acacias. As it was already nighttime when I arrived, the young man was asleep, and I postponed the examination until the next day; after dinner and a thorough questioning by the others about the news I might have brought from Buenos Aires and even the Court, they took me at last to a clean, orderly room where they had prepared a comfortable bed. Before I went to sleep, I meditated on what undemanding and effusive hospitality they offered me, which was to make my entire stay most agreeable, and I realized that the tedium of life in a country house, lost at the world’s edge, must be one of the principal causes.
    The next morning, I rose quite early, happy to know that hours of riding did not await me and, as