I do not think I would be making any great mistake or showing any lack of due respect for Borges if I say there was nothing extraordinary about his talk. Borges gave us thirty-five minutes during which he simply retold, in his habitually skilful and elegant manner, what he had already said in many other lectures. That evening at the Foundation he talked about North American narrative, Nordic swords, two or three milongas, Irish revenge; I also seem to remember there was an ironic reference to Sartre. As soon as he had finished, half the hall rushed to congratulate him, ask him to sign a book or simply touch his elbow. When I bumped into Irma Moguilevsky, she gave me a bewildered look and whispered in my ear: Did you understand any of that? Surrounded by a throng of yellow, Borges attended to everyone unhurriedly, still smiling up at the ceiling the whole time. The room gradually emptied. We saw him search out the young woman’s arm and cross the dark courtyard once again. By now, night had fallen. Outside the building, several of us who were his greatest fans suggested we invite him to dinner. Borges made his excuses, saying he was afraid of catching a cold. There were some who, for this reason, were critical of his polite refusal. But what they did not know, what almost nobody knew, was that at the end of his talk his companion had come up to me to ask if I was part of the organization. Borges wanted us to know he was deeply touched by our golden greeting, and was adamant he did not want any fee for his talk, calling on our absolute discretion.
I do not think it is unfair to suggest that the lukewarm words Borges pronounced in the Foundation will soon be forgotten. And yet I know that evening was memorable. The memorable evening in which among all of us, thanks to him, we succeeded in causing a tiger.
THE POEM-TRANSLATING MACHINE
A POET AMONG those so-called major figures receives a letter containing a poem. It is a windy morning, and the poem is by him: a magazine has translated it into a neighbouring language. His linguistic intuition suggests that it is an awful translation. Therefore, with the sincere intention of finding out if he is wrong, he decides to send this foreign version to a certain friend of his: a professor, translator, poet, and short-sighted. He accompanies it with a friendly little note begging him to translate the text into their shared mother tongue. The poet smiles, perhaps mischievously: he has of course not mentioned who the author is.
Since his friend belongs to the old postal school, not a week has gone by when in his letter box the poet finds a carefully addressed envelope containing the required response. The sender also admits he is slightly surprised, because he cannot help but feel that it must have been relatively easy to read for someone as discerning as his beloved poet, and in addition so expert in other languages; nevertheless he is happy to provide a version in their shared language which he hopes will meet with his approval, and signs off with affectionate best wishes. Without wasting a second, the poet sits down to read the translation. The result is a disaster: on a close analysis, this third poem has failed to grasp anything of the rhythm, the tone, or even what is evoked by the original. He considers himself a reader who is more tolerant than not of other people’s literary liberties. However, in this case it is not that his friend has permitted himself certain artistic licences, but seems to have taken them all at the same time. The subtleties have been lost. The diction seems unclear. Its sonority has sunk without trace.
Once he has recovered from the horror, he hastens to write to his friend, thanking him for his diligence and, above all, for the translation which he considers without a doubt to be exquisite. In spite of this, the poet does not give up, and sends this third version to another translator, who is less of a friend but has more of a reputation. He asks him if he would be so kind as to translate it into another neighbouring tongue. The excuse he gives is that a foreign magazine has asked him to translate a poem by a friend and he quite frankly feels incapable of carrying out such a delicate task. So, offering his sincerest admiration and gratitude, he signs off, promising him, wishing him, etcetera.
By this stage, the poetic result is what matters least to the disturbed poet; as soon as he receives the second translator’s reply, he dispatches it again, with an apocryphal signature, to a rigorous, bald philologist whom he has never known personally but who on one occasion penned a highly favourable review of his work. He asks him to put this text by an important foreign poet into their own language so that he can study it more closely. Several weeks later, with typical, courteous academic delay, the professor sends the rewritten poem back and suggests they meet some day to discuss the author. Although he is plainly of only minor literary interest, the philologist is amazed not to have heard of him before.
Unless the poet’s good taste is failing him, this fourth version of his poem is full of errors and is already close to unintelligible. The referents have gone out of the window, the theme has been cast to the remotest margins, the enjambments sound like saws. Devastated but at the same time amused, for a moment he imagines all his books translated into this or any other language. He sighs gloomily. No two ways about it, he thinks to himself, poetry is untranslatable. No longer caring, he gifts this distant poem to a foreign female colleague whose opinion he values: it is the work of a fraternal friend — he writes to her — and I would be very happy if you could make it known in translation in whatever magazine you consider most appropriate. I have complete faith in your judgement, and blah, blah, blah. With — underneath — best wishes, yours, and all the rest.
Suffice it to say that the poet repeats this back and forth operation several more times, with identical requests and similar pretexts. Each reply he receives upsets, outrages and fascinates him in equal measure. Sometimes his poem is praised to the skies, at others it is criticized ruthlessly. Like someone indulging in a feverish pastime, almost without glancing at the succession of translations and retranslations, he simply passes it on to another translator friend.
Time goes by, dumbly.
And so it is that one grey morning the poet opens the file with the fourteenth translation and is confronted by a familiar version. As far as he can recall it is word for word, comma for comma, his own poem, the first one of all. For a moment he is tempted to go and check. Then, calming down, he tells himself it is fine as it is, original or not. “No doubt about it, poetry is untranslatable,” he writes in his notebook, “but, sooner or later, a poem will always be translatable.”
Then, lazily, he opens a novel and starts to think of something else.
ON DESTINY
AS PRESTIGIOUS as he is chaste, a certain person called P likes abstract art, chamber music and Petrarchian poetry. He has devoted two-thirds of his life to a rigorous study of the arts; the remaining third, to dreaming about them. Scrupulousness and serenity are the hallmarks of P’s domestic existence. Very occasionally, he permits himself to send a book of verse to the printers. It might even be suggested that he is not entirely dissatisfied with his latest collection. What greater excess could there be, P argues moderately, than a touch of literary vanity?
A certain person called Q, an unbridled drinker and compulsive womanizer, has for years had a vague friendship with P. Neither of them appears to be able to adequately explain their friendship to himself. Probably Q envies his friend’s wisdom and the solemn respect he receives. On the other hand, it could be suggested that P feels an obscure admiration for Q’s licentiousness, which he sees as an art or some sort of aesthetic militancy.