Then he told himself he had to find out something about porcupines. He thought it absolutely necessary that a porcupine be the rival of his dog. It was more suggestive. The fact that this singular animal was armed with quills had attracted him from the very first. The porcupine shooting its quills would give him the chance to refer, as if in passing, to those human societies, happily now almost completely extinct, which for thousands of years had used arrows to wage war. Not to mention the fact that by displaying a certain cleverness he could find a way to make a veiled allusion to that magnificent response of (who was it? look it up), that arrogant response of X to his enemy’s threat that he would obscure the sun with his arrows: “Even better; then we will fight in darkness.” Besides, it was obvious that if the dog’s rival were a lion (even though this animal was richer in historico-literary allusions), the dog’s victory would be somewhat more problematical. It is true he had seen a lion at the zoo, but a lion most definitely would not do. Serpents were a possibility, but they lent themselves to too many theological reminiscences that had to be avoided in a story like the one he intended to write. He already had enough of those with the city-country problem. A spider or some other poisonous insect would be unthinkable. The unfair competition would make the reader lose interest. Clearly it had to be a porcupine. With the porcupine, the chances for defeat, not counting the “we will fight in darkness,” were greater and more manageable.
Leopoldo suffered a disappointment when he learned in the book that dogs were less intelligent than most people think. It is true their instinctual development was astonishing, almost as surprising as that of horses who are capable, with some practice, of solving mathematical problems. But intelligence, gentlemen, what we call intelligence — nothing, absolutely nothing. And so he would have to make his hero triumph in accordance with science and not according to his plans, not in the manner he would have liked. He thought sadly that the poor hounded animal could bite the neck of a wild boar but could never ever pick a stone up from the ground and throw it at his enemy’s head (he made a note). Yet the way they purge themselves when they feel sick: Didn’t that involve an act of intelligence? How many of the people he knew were capable of behaving like that? He remembered the engineer. He could write a story about him. His whole adolescence, if he viewed it carefully, was filled with excellent themes for stories.
The engineer sat at the table beside the doctor. Unlike “the lawyer,” he almost never spoke. His manner — silent, not lacking in mystery — could even be used for a good novel. The tale could begin like this, in the most natural way:
“One hot afternoon, when we were beginning our meal, we saw the engineer for the first time. On seeing him, who would have thought that a criminal lurked inside? I remember it all began when the doctor, with his usual solicitude, told the engineer that he was somewhat disturbed by the color of his eyes:
‘I don’t want to alarm you when you have honored us with your presence in this house for barely two days. Absolutely not. But as your friend and as a professional, it would weigh heavily on my conscience later if I did not warn you in time of the disease I see in your weary eyes. Allow me to say, sir, that you have problems with your liver.’”
Then leave the dialogue to recount in detail the various stages in the hatred that developed between them. For the engineer never allowed himself to be intimidated or prescribed to, and this the doctor could not forgive. If the engineer became sick he did as dogs do: He stopped eating. And if he felt worse he would go to the pharmacy himself, ask for a purge, and take it without saying anything to anybody and without anybody being aware of it except for his frequent and silent nocturnal trips down the hall. “Damn it, what a good story!” Leopoldo said to himself. And he saw, as if it had been yesterday, the doctor’s hatred for the engineer and how, with irritating frequency, he predicted his imminent death, never imagining that his own was so near.
And then tell how the engineer always stayed in his room where he was tirelessly designing (this was surely the cause of his eye irritation) a subterranean tunnel for the Canal of La Mancha and a subterranean canal for the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. To conclude, let some time pass and gather them all together in the living room for a family party. The doctor would be late. The engineer too. Then, with simplicity, describe how he was discovered in his room holding a blood-stained knife and staring fixedly (he made a note — like a hypnotized chicken) at the corpse of his enemy lying face down in a frightful pool of very red blood.
Unfortunately, Leopoldo could not resolve his story by having the dog purge himself out of pure instinct or defeat the porcupine by stabbing him. His dog enjoyed all the signs of good health. The problem lay in having him fight with no other weapons but his own, in having him fight to the death with an animal he was seeing for the first time. This produced his usual low spirits and depression. At every turn there were pitfalls that kept him from completing his story. He had gone through whole libraries searching for information about dogs. And now, when he thought everything had been well documented, he realized he hardly knew anything about porcupines. There was no end to it: today a doubt, tomorrow another hesitation. He had to undertake another extensive investigation into the habits of porcupines: their way of life, their instincts, whether they are capable of defeating a dog or if they always succumb to a canine bite, their greater or lesser degree of intelligence. He wondered in despair if this theme, as had been the case on other occasions, had already been used by other story writers, a fact that would destroy his efforts of so many years with one blow, but he consoled himself with the thought that even if the story had already been written, nothing prevented him from writing it again, like Shakespeare or León Felipe who, as everyone knows, took themes from other writers, reworked them, gave them their personal touch, and turned them into first-class tragedies. He thought that, in any event, he had gone too far to turn back now after so many years of constant labor. Not too long ago he had seen — not without bitterness — how his neighbors exchanged knowing glances each time he announced he was writing a story. They’d soon see whether or not he was writing. Could they possibly be right? He blushed. Without realizing it, step by step, he had entered a labyrinth of appearances which he knew perfectly well he must escape if he did not want to go mad. And the best way to get out was to face the problem, to write something, anything, which would justify the circles under his eyes, his pallor, and his announcements of works that were always imminent, always just about finished. Impossible, after all that, to say in the end: “Well, I’m giving it up. I’m not a writer. Furthermore, I don’t even want to be a writer.” No, he had made a commitment to himself, and now he could not put it off. He had to prove to Leopoldo Ralón that his vocation was not a mistake, that he really was a writer and really wanted to be one. That was the first time he had thought of telling how he had decided to enter the republic of letters. He had turned to his diary and read:
Tuesday the 12th
Today I got up early but nothing happened to me.
Wednesday the 13th
Last night I slept all night. When I got up it was rayning so I have no adventures to right in my dear diary. Just that around 7 there was a tremor and we all ran out to the street but being it was raining today to we got a little wet. Now dear diary I will say goodbye until tomorrow.
Friday the 15th
Yesterday I forgot to right down my adventures but being I had no adventures it does-nt matter. I hope tomorrow I get ahold of 50 cents I want to see a picture they say is very good and the bandit dies at the end.