LUCIAN, “IN PRAISE OF THE FLY”
To say to hell with everything, to turn into a cynic or proclaim oneself a cynic or a skeptic, to renounce Humanity and propose that horses are better than men. Of course, after Swift, one would not be the first to suggest this, but too much talent is needed to do so without becoming merely an embittered man. On the other hand, a writer’s problems are not always, as some people like to think, a question of the development or underdevelopment, the wealth or poverty of the country in which he lives. In rich countries or poor ones, under what conditions were written the works of Dostoevsky, Vallejo, Laxness, Quiroga, Thomas, Neruda, Joyce, Bloy, Arlt, Martí?
REGARDING ATTRIBUTIONS
These things buzz around me like flies, buzz around in my throat like flies in a bottle.
In the final analysis, behind every writer there hides a timid man. But even the most pusillanimous will invariably attempt, even by the most oblique, unexpected means, to reveal his thinking, to bequeath it to a Humanity waiting eagerly — or so he supposes — to receive it. If specific personal or social reasons keep him from stating his ideas openly, he will make use of cryptograms or pseudonyms. In any event, in some subtle way, he will leave behind the necessary clues so that sooner or later we can identify him. There are those who cast their stone and conceal their hand, like Christopher Marlowe, the English bard who wrote the works of Shakespeare; or like Shakespeare himself, who wrote the works of Bacon; or like Bacon, who wrote the works that the first two published under the name of Shakespeare.
Bacon’s timidity is understandable, of course, for he was a member of the nobility, and writing plays was (and still is) plebeian. Why Shakespeare would have calmly allowed his Essays to come down to us with Bacon’s signature on them is not as clear, unless that was part of their arrangement. As for Marlowe, wasn’t he the author of excellent tragedies? Why then did he think it necessary to attribute his sonnets to Shakespeare? But enough of the English.
Among the Spanish, an individualistic, plainspoken people who are not fond, as they themselves say, of pulling chestnuts out of the fire with somebody else’s hand, matters have taken a different course. No Spaniard believes that anyone could be named Cide Hamete Benegeli or Azorín; and they are probably the only nation whose authors choose pseudonyms and then do not have the courage to make unqualified use of them, as if fearing that through some sinister turn of events, the world would somehow fail to learn their true identities. And so we see them called Leopoldo Alas “Clarín,” or Mariano José de Larra “Figaro.” Nothing like a simple Colette or Vercors. Shortly before he died, Juan Ramón Jiménez was pursued by this doubt: “Pablo Neruda; why not Neftalí Reyes? Why Gabriela Mistral and not Lucila Godoy?” We all know who they are, from the author of Lazarillo de Tormes to the writer of the humblest anonymous letter that comes to us in the mail. And no one today believes that the author of Avellaneda’s Don Quixote is anyone other than Cervantes, who in the end could not resist the temptation of publishing the original (and equally good) version of his novel by serenely attributing it to an impostor, even claiming that the false author maligned him when he called him maimed and old, just so Cervantes would have the opportunity to remind us, with humble pride, of his participation in the Battle of Lepanto.
HOMAGE TO MASOCH
What does one propose with philosophy?
To teach the fly how to escape from the bottle.
What he did when he had just divorced for the first time and was finally alone and feeling so happy to be free again was to spend a few hours joking and laughing with his friends in the café or at a cocktail party at some opening where everybody would laugh uproariously at the things he said and then return at night to what was once again his bachelor apartment and calmly and with slow pleasure begin to move his equipment, first an easy chair that he placed between the phonograph and an end table, then a bottle of rum and a medium-sized blue Carretones glass, then a recording of Beethoven’s Third Symphony conducted by Felix Weingartner; then his thick hardcover copy of The Brothers Karamasov, Editorial Nueva España S.A., México, 1944; then he would turn on the record player, open the bottle, pour a drink, sit down and open the book to Chapter 3 of the Epilogue where he would read over and over again the part where the boy Ilucha lies dead in the blue coffin with his hands folded on his chest and his eyes closed and the boy Kolya, learning from Alyosha that his brother Mitya is innocent of their father’s death and is still going to die, exclaims passionately that he would like to die for all of humanity, to sacrifice himself for the truth even if it meant being insulted, and then move on to the discussion of where Ilucha should be buried and the words of his father who tells them that Ilucha had asked him to crumble a piece of bread on the earth that covered him so that the sparrows would fly down and he would hear them and be happy in their company and later he himself, when Ilucha is buried, crumbles and scatters a loaf of bread whispering, “Come, come here, little birds, fly here, sparrows,” and he breaks down and faints and then revives and begins to cry again and repents of not giving Ilucha’s mother a flower from his coffin and wants to run to her with one until finally Alyosha, in an ecstasy of inspiration beside the great stone where Ilucha wanted to be buried, turns to his fellow students and says the words, those encouraging words, about how they will soon separate but whatever the circumstances they must face in life they should not forget this moment when they were good and if some time when they are older they laugh at themselves for having been good and generous a voice in their hearts will say, “No, it is wrong for me to laugh, for this is no laughing matter,” and he tells them this in case they become bad but there is no reason for us to be bad, is there boys? and even in thirty years he will remember those faces turned toward him, he loves them all, and from this moment on they will all have a place in his heart, and in a final outburst of enthusiasm the boys, deeply moved, shout together “Viva Karamasov!” The passage developed with a rhythm so well calculated that the vivas for Karamasov ended at exactly the same time as the final chords of the symphony and he began it all over again as far as the rum permitted, especially as it permitted him to finally turn off the phonograph, take a last drink, and go to bed where he would carefully lower his head to the pillow and sob bitterly again for Mitya, for Ilucha, for Alyosha, for Kolya, for Mitya, for Ilucha, for Alyosha, for Kolya, for Mitya.
THE WORLD
He spent his life tossing handfuls of flies into every glass filled with the wine of praise, enthusiasm, or joy.
God has not yet created the world; he is only imagining it, as if he were half asleep. That is why the world is perfect, but confused.
THE BRAIN DRAIN
You live to the rhythm of my life.
Fly, my mistress, sated now
by your obscene couplings; on the wall now,