ve, I have said, crossing, having stood in the darkness, before the frigid, round, white moon, with the rooftops in confusion all around, the patios, floating, wandering — toward what? — giving the possibility, improbably, somewhere else, of a change of state, lightly, or gradually, even, against my cheeks, or behind, really, inside, has in fact diminished. Crossing the threshold now, and entering, so to speak, the illuminated bedroom. I am existing standing in the illuminated room, now, before the bed: and now I am taking off, carelessly, the blue wool jacket and hanging it on the back of the chair, taking off, slowly, my tie, unbuttoning the collar of my shirt. The tie, with wide diagonal stripes, gray and blue, I hang now on the back of the chair, over the blue jacket. Now I am taking off my white pullover, I am still taking off the white pullover, I am yanking the white pullover up to get it over my head, yanking it by the collar, and for a moment, now, for a moment, I see the illuminated room through the thick knit of the wool which transforms the whole space into a grid, pockmarked, really, with luminous points and black ones. And now I am putting down, after having arranged it a bit, pulling out the sleeves and folding it, the white pullover on top of the jacket and the tie, on the back of the chair. Now I am standing in shirtsleeves, fixed between the bed and the chair, in the illuminated room. There is, it seems, something that would like, so to speak, to come. It seems. Like a head of something that stretches up from below, from the bottom, really, just now: but no, nothing. Immobile, in the illuminated bedroom that is hard, inalterable, cold, guarded by the smoke, with the bed, the chair, the bookshelf — the same? always? — place. And now, still standing, I am using my heels to take off my shoes. My feet, so to speak, in blue socks, touch, now, the icy tile. My hands unfasten my belt, unbutton, unhurriedly, my fly: I am taking off, balancing first on my right leg, now on my left, lifting them to fold them over carefully, trying to match up the legs, and depositing them on top of the white pullover, on the back of the chair, still warm, my pants. I have said that I was taking off, carelessly, the blue wool jacket, and, I have said, hanging it on the back of the chair. And I have said: that I took off, slowly, my tie, that I undid the collar of my shirt, the tie with the wide diagonal stripes, gray and blue, the white shirt, hanging it on the back of the chair, on top of the blue jacket. That I yanked up, by the collar, my white pullover, to get it over my head, I have said, and that I saw for a moment, through the wool mesh that enveloped me, so to speak, I have said, the whole room transformed into a pockmarked image of luminous points and black ones. That I stood for a moment, fixed, so to speak, in the room. And I said, that there after having seemed, for a moment, that there was something that, as you might say, was trying to, or, deceptively, appearing to appear, I took off, using my heels, my shoes. I stepped onto the frozen tile in my blue socks, while my hands unfastened, unhurriedly, my belt, my fly, and I said that balancing first on my right leg, then on my left, lifting them to fold them over carefully, trying to match up the legs, and depositing them on top of the white pullover, on the back of the chair, still warm, gray flannel, my pants. And now I am unbuttoning the white shirt, shivering. My underwear, my blue socks, are now, on the yellow tile, three dark mounds. I am, for a second, immobile, completely naked, shivering: in the illuminated room, cold, between the ceiling and the yellow tile, between the yellow walls, naked, for a second, or a fraction of a second, really, sleepy, shivering. A second or a fraction of a second, adrift, inside of something sleepy, shivering. My entire skin, surrounded, entirely, by the air, squeezed by it, so to speak, and more than a moment, it is a state: or the beginning, perhaps, or the pretext, really, for a beginning, because earlier, others could: they would wet, slowly, thoroughly, bringing it afterward to their mouths, in the cup of tea, the cookie, they would let the sugared dough dissolve on the tip of their tongues, and from the contact would come, fiercely, wafting up — from what world? — memory. And now I am taking, from under the pillow, folded up, my orange frieze pajamas. And now, dressed in my pajamas, I am getting in between the frozen sheets, shivering. I am inside. And my hand, coming out from between the frozen sheets, slides along, brushing the rough surface of the yellow wall until it finds, smooth, the light switch. Now I am in the most perfect darkness. Nothing is visible, nothing, neither inside, nor outside, what is called nothing: and yet something happens, deliberately, so to speak, in the blackness, despite the apparent, not and just superficial, immobility. For a moment, as you might say, nothing happens, although I know — since when? — that something, inside, or inside of whatever, so to speak, makes the blackness flicker, is happening: in the most arduous darkness. And to see, now, it seems, yes, to see, out of this nothingness, if it is possible, like others, like before, to extract, like a dream, so to speak, a memory of something: because earlier, others could: they would wet, slowly, in the afternoon, in the kitchen, in the winter, the cookie in the cup of tea, they would bring it to their mouths and deposit it on the tip of their tongues, and from there, suddenly, or gradually, from the tongue, or from the sugared dough, from somewhere, like a vapor from the swamp, would rise, victorious, precise, memory, the memory that, not even knowing what memory is, nor if there is something, outside, to remember, could be the foundation, in the blackness, of something. To see something now: something that, while not the beginning, nevertheless, would serve to begin, or as an example of that which, having begun, would continue. To see, so to speak, to see something, I have said. To see, though your eyes might have, before them, nothing. I am, then, in the darkness, and looking, paying attention, I see rise, slowly, from the swamp, like a memory, the vapor: in a corner of the city, or of the mind, or to a corner, really, of the city, always, or of the mind, as I have said, so to speak, a moment ago, if moment can still, so to speak, mean, what comes coming — from where? — into a corner of the city, then, into the noonday sun, slowly, I float. I must be me, because I am myself, it seems, the one remembering. And the whole corner, with its sun, its crosswalks, its shop windows, the short shadows projecting onto the gray sidewalk, the cars, their chrome, fast, flashing, the houses, the bus full of students turning, slowly, from Mendoza onto San Martín, rise now from the swamp, shining, phosphorescent, wandering for a moment, and then fading. Nothing, now, and everything black again: and again, now, from below, from the bottom, if it is even conceivable that there is, so to speak, a bottom, the four corners, in the noonday sun, and the bodies that move, or are immobile, in the sun, the shop windows, the cars, the bus full of students that looks like it is from another city, inside of which one of the students, crouching, aims his camera at the sunny sidewalk toward which I am floating, slowly, toward the corner, shining, wandering, and nothing now: everything is black again. In the arduous or neutral, really, darkness, one realizes that, even so, something passes, and it seems it would be easier, if you like, to stop it than to find, in the confusion of the hours between murky visions, in the reluctance, a reason, ironclad, constant, and luminous, to want it: flowing, if you like, constantly, because, even eroding us, it can, so to speak, take nothing from us, since it would seem that there is nothing, or that we were given nothing, but nothing, to be taken. And it rises, now, tenacious, like a sun, in the sun again, the memory: the gray pavement onto which the short, passing shadows are neatly stamped, the four corners where people gather together, be they unemployed men warmed by pullovers of every color, who have been there since at least eleven watching the women who shuttle around San Martín dart again and again in and out of shops, or the store employees who have just gotten off work and who either stand idling in the sun or set out in every direction, toward Salta, in the south, toward Primera Junta, in the north, toward 25 de Mayo, in the east, toward San Jerónimo, in the west, to wait, almost certainly, for the bus, to go, almost certainly, home for lunch, the shop windows, perfectly arranged, resplendent, the shoe stores, the corner stores, the fabric shops, the candy and cigarette kiosks, the Gran Doria Bar, whose daytime darkness contrasts with the sparkling brilliance of the exterior, its clients, who drink coffee or vermouth, have seated themselves strategically so as to be able to see, through the large windows, what is happening on the street, inside the bus turning, as I am flowing onto the corner, south, toward Salta, the inside of the bus where one of the students, crouching in his seat by the window, points his camera in the direction where I, on the gray sidewalk, am heading along Mendoza, from west to east, coming upon San Martín, sheathed, deliberately, in my black overcoat, while a man, turning from San Martín onto Mendoza, a man in a gray hat and an overcoat of the same color, from whose collar peeps a yellow scarf, steps aside for me, politely, among the clamor of voices and car motors and laughter, and from the doors that close and open, and from the footsteps that scrape against the sidewalk, and the key rings men jingle in their gloved hands, if hands, if key rings, if scarf, if me, if San Martín, if west, if shop windows, if brilliance, if store, if shadows, if corner — can, now, and again, mean, as you might say, and if you would permit the expression, something. There are also, so to speak, four corners in my mind, in my memory. And from the lower right-hand corner I am coming, slowly, to San Martín, and in the other corner, on the diagonal, in the upper left-hand corner, the patrons of the Gran Doria, sitting in the daytime darkness of the café that contrasts sharply with the brilliance of the exterior, watch, smoking thoughtfully, the street; staggering by and piling up between the other two corners are pedestrians, cars, the bus full of students, the two intersecting streets, the shop windows, and above everything, the sparkling blue sky — if sparkling, if everything, if students, if café, if daytime, have, even in my memory, even in my mind, some, so to speak, meaning. And I am existing always, now, in the blackness, in the same, floating, wandering, inside of something, or in something that passes along with the mobile memory that rises, disappears and comes back, stubbornly, victorious, to rise, from the swamp, uncertain, changing and resting, shrunken, frozen, unapproachable, from within or from without, place. In the corners of my memory, mobile, confused, there are, toward the center, clearer, the stains of the morning that move, the black, green, yellow, blue, white, gray stains, stains of the luminous morning that float, changing, not simply, like living organisms, their form, but also, and always, their place: the blue sky, full of sparkling splinters, smooth, from above the gray or white houses, the cars advancing slowly along Mendoza, from west to east, red, white, green, blue, black, yellow, their motors revving in first, the shouts and the laughter, the voices, the footsteps scraping against the sidewalk, the metal grating that screech sharply closed, the key rings jingling in gloved hands, the shop windows, perfectly arranged, the horns, the daytime darkness of the Gran Doria, through whose large windows its patrons, slowly drinking vermouth or coffee, abstractly consider, smoking unhurriedly, the street, the women who pass by, their shopping done, saddled with packages under their arms, beneath the gaze of men wrapped in pullovers that are blue, green, white, maroon, lilac, red, who smoke under the sun, leaning against windows or standing, upright, on the curb, the sky-blue bus full of students that must have come, surely, to visit the city, inside of which one of the students, crouched in his seat, barely keeping his balance as the bus tilts, turning from Mendoza to San Martín, to the south, points his camera, which obscures the greater part of his face, toward the corner, the point on the gray sidewalk where I am flowing from San Martín, just about to obligate the man in the yellow scarf to step aside, yielding to me, at noon, in the sun, in the street, in the luminous winter — and the borders, crumbling, or graying, really, of the memory, move, stretch, or shrink, the memory that has been rising up, so to speak, from the black, and that flickers, patently, at the heart of the abyss, as if it were saying, or as if it were, really, trying to say, that there is something, something, from which to derive, so to speak, evidence to the contrary, the negation of the negation that there has been, at some point, noon, winter, the daytime darkness of the Gran Doria from which silent men observe, as they smoke, the street through picture windows, a bus from another city inside of which a student points his camera at the sidewalk, four corners bathed in a brilliant roar, and above all, floating from Mendoza to San Martín, the thing that would bring, like a black vessel, with its cars, its windows, its sounds, its yellow scarf, its frozen light, to this point, this memory. And as if it were possible to know, if it really is memory, of what, exactly, it is a memory: that is, what could there be in common, so to speak, between a yellow scarf, and the memory that rises — from what world? — yellow, in the form of a scarf that extends, now, from that corner into the center. It seems that there would be, or should be, really, nothing in common between those two yellow stains, the one I remember, the one I remember remembering, or the one that I believe, really, seeing it appear, that I remember, and the one that has been outside, in another place, in another time, no bridge, no, so to speak, relation. And concerning the men that, I think I have said, appear to me, in the daytime darkness of the Gran Doria, smoking, drinking coffee, I know, really, so to speak, nothing: I couldn’t say, probably, at this distance, if they are drinking, really, coffee, or if they are smoking, or if they are, really, men, unless they cling to, so to speak, in this emptiness, memories that are, ultimately, memories of nothing, of nothing in particular, and I couldn’t even say of them that they are, really, in the precise meaning of the word, if a word should have, by obligation, a precise meaning, memories. The cup, moreover, of coffee that is supposedly rising, at this very moment, to my lips, would be, in reality, in memory, not a cup, and the coffee, not coffee, no quantity of black liquid, steaming, covered in golden foam, that has not filled anything, anywhere, and has never passed to nowhere, having been swallowed by no one, bitter, lukewarm, down no throat: no, there is, in the memory of that coffee, no coffee, and the yellow scarf, which should be the source of the yellow stain that rises now, alone, from the swamp, floats, disintegrating — where is it, in what world, or in what worlds?