Jorge Luis Borges - Collected Fictions Part 2

A MEXICAN FELLED.

History (which, like a certain motion-picture director, tells its story in dis- continuous images) now offers us the image of a hazardous bar set in the midst of the all-powerful desert as though in the midst of the sea. The time-one changeable night in the year 1873; the exact place-somewhere on the LlanoEstacado,in New Mexico. The land is almost preternaturally flat, but the sky of banked clouds, with tatters of storm and moon, is cov- ered with dry, cracked watering holes and mountains. On the ground, there are a cow skull, the howls and eyes of a coyote in the darkness, fine horses, and the longshaft of light from the bar. Inside, their elbows on the bar, tired, hard-muscled men drink a belligerent alcohol and flash stacks of sil- ver coins marked with a serpent and an eagle. A drunk sings impa.s.sively.

Some of the men speak a language with manys's -it must be Spanish, since those who speak it are held in contempt by the others. BillHarrigan,the red-haired tenement house rat, is among the drinkers. He has downed a couple of shots and is debating (perhaps because he's flat broke) whether to call for another.

The men of this desert land baffle him. To him they look huge and terrifying, tempestuous, happy, hatefully knowledgeable in their handling of wild cattle and big horses. Suddenly there is absolute silence, ignored only by the tin-eared singing of the drunk. A brawny, powerful-looking giant of a Mexican with the face of an old Indian woman has come into the bar. His enormous sombrero and the two pistols on his belt make him seem even larger than he is. In a harsh English he wishes all the gringo sons of b.i.t.c.hes drinking in the placeabuenas noches.No one takes up the gauntlet. Bill asks who the Mexican is, and someone whispers fearfully that the dago (Diego) is BelisarioVillagran,from Chihuahua. Instantly, a shot rings out. s.h.i.+elded by the ring of tall men around him, Bill has shot the in- truder. The gla.s.s falls from Villagran's hand; then, the entire man follows. There is no need for a second shot. Without another look at the sumptuous dead man, Bill picks up the conversation where he left off.

"Is that so?" he drawled. "Well, I'm BillHarrigan,from New York."

The drunk, insignificant, keeps singing.

The sequel is not hard to foresee. Bill shakes hands all around and ac- cepts flattery, cheers, and whisky.

Someone notices that there are no notches on Billy's gun, and offers to cut one to mark the killing ofVillagran.Billy the Kid keeps that someone's knife, but mutters that "Mexicans ain't worth makin'

notches for." But perhaps that is not enough. That night Billy lays his blanket out next to the dead man and sleeps-ostentatiously-until morning.

KILLING FOR THE h.e.l.l OF IT.

Out of the happy report of that gunshot (at fourteen years of age) the hero Billy the Kid was born and the s.h.i.+fty BillHarriganburied. The scrawny kid of the sewers and skullcracking had risen to the rank of frontiersman. He became a horseman; he learned to sit a horse straight, the way they did in Texas or Wyoming, not leaning back like they did in Oregon and California. He never fully measured up to the legend of himself, but he came closer and closer as time went on. Something of the New York hoodlum lived on in the cowboy; he bestowed upon the Mexicans the hatred once inspired in himby Negroes, but the last words he spoke (a string of curses) were in Spanish. He learned the vagabond art of cattle driving and the other, more difficult art of driving men; both helped him be a good cattle rustler.

Sometimes, the guitars and brothels of Mexico reached out and pulled him in. With the dreadful lucidity of insomnia, he would organize orgies that went on for four days and four nights. Finally, in revulsion, he would pay the bill in bullets. So long as his trigger finger didn't fail him, he was the most feared (and perhaps most empty and most lonely) man on that fron- tier. Pat Garrett, his friend, the sheriff who finally killed him, once re- marked: "I've practiced my aim a good deal killing buffalo." "I've practiced mine more'n you have, killing men," Billy softly replied. The details are lost forever, but we know that he was responsible for as many as twenty-one killings-"not counting Mexicans." For seven daring and dangerous years he indulged himself in that luxury called anger.

On the night of July 25,1880, Billy the Kid came galloping down the main (or only) street of Fort Sumner on his pinto. The heat was oppressive, and the lamps were not yet lighted; Sheriff Garrett, sitting on the porch in a rocking chair, pulled out his gun and shot Billy in the stomach. The horse went on; the rider toppled into the dirt street. Garrett put a second bullet in him. The town (knowing the wounded man was Billy the Kid) closed and locked its windows. Billy's dying was long and blasphemous. When the sun was high, the townspeople began to approach, and someone took his gun; the man was dead.

They noted in him that unimportant sort of look that dead men generally have.

He was shaved, sewn into tailor-made clothes, and exhibited to horror and mockery in the shopwindow of the town's best store.

Men on horses or in gigs came in from miles around. On the third day, they had to put makeup on him.

On the fourth, to great jubilation, he was buried.

The Uncivil Teacher of Court Etiquette KotsukenoSuke

The iniquitous protagonist of this chapter is the uncivil courtier KiraKotsukenoSuke,the fateful personage who brought about the degradation and death of the lord of the castle of Ako yet refused to take his own life, honorably, when fitting vengeance so demanded. He was a man who merits the grat.i.tude of all men, for he awakened priceless loyalties and provided the black yet nec- essary occasion for an immortal undertaking. A hundred or more novels, scholarly articles, doctoral theses, and operas-not to mention effusions in porcelain, veined lapis lazuli, and lacquer-commemorate the deed. Even that most versatile of media, celluloid, has served to preserve the exploit, for "Chus.h.i.+ngura, or The Doctrinal History of the Forty-seven Loyal Retainers" (such is the t.i.tle of the film) is the most oft-presented inspiration of j.a.panese filmmaking. The minutely detailed glory which those ardent tributes attest is more than justifiable -it is immediately just, in anyone's view.

I follow the story as told byA. B. Mitford,who omits those continual distractions lent by "local color,"

preferring instead to focus on the move- ment of the glorious episode. That admirable lack of "Orientalism" allows one to suspect that he has taken his version directly from the j.a.panese.

THE UNTIED RIBBON.

In the now faded spring of 1702,Asano Tak.u.mino Kami, the ill.u.s.trious lord of the castle of Ako, was obliged to receive an envoy from the emperor and offer the hospitality and entertainment of his home to him. Two thou- sand three hundred years of courtesy (some mythological) had brought the rituals of reception to a fine point of anguished complication. The amba.s.sador represented the emperor, but did so by way of allusion, orsymbolically-and this was a nuance which one emphasized too greatly or too little only at one's peril. In order to avoid errors which might all too easily prove fatal, an official of the court at Yedo was sent beforehand to teach the proper ceremonies to be observed. Far from the comforts of the court, and sentenced to this backwoodsvillegiature(which to him must have seemed more like a banishment than a holiday), KiraKotsukenoSukeimparted his instructions most ungraciously.

At times the magisterial tone of his voice bordered on the insolent. His student, the lord of the castle of Ako, affected to ignore these affronts; he could find no suitable reply, and discipline forbade the slightest violence. One morning, however, the ribbon on the courtier's sock came untied, and he requested that the lord of the castle of Ako tie it up for him again. This gentleman did so, humbly yet with inward indignation. The uncivil teacher of court etiquette told him that he was truly incorrigible-only an ill-bred country b.u.mpkin was capable of tying a knot as clumsily as that. At these words, the lord of the castle of Ako drew his sword and slashed at the uncivil courtier, who fled-the graceful flourish of a delicate thread of blood upon his forehead-----A few days later, the military court handed down its sentence against the attacker: the lord of the castle of Ako was to be allowed to commithara kiri.In the cen- tral courtyard of the castle of Ako, a dais was erected and covered in red felt, and to it the condemned man was led; he was given a short knife of gold and gems, he confessed his crime publicly, he allowed his upper garments to slip down to his girdle so that he was naked to the waist, and he cut open his abdomen with the two ritual movements of the dirk. He died like a Samu- rai; the more distant spectators saw no blood, for the felt was red. A white-haired man of great attention to detail-the councillorOis.h.i.+ Kuranosuke,his second-decapitated his lord with a saber.

THE FEIGNER OF INIQUITIES.

Tak.u.mi no Kami's castle was confiscated, his family ruined and eclipsed, his name linked to execration.

His retainers becameRonins.*One rumor has it that the same night the lord committedhara kiri, forty-seven of theseRonins meton the summit of a mountain, where in minute detail they planned the act that took place one year later. But the fact is that the retain- ers acted with well-justified delay, and at least one of their confabulations took place not on the difficult peak of a mountain, but in a chapel in a for- est, an undistinguished pavilion of white-painted wood, unadorned save for the rectangular box that held amirror.

TheRoninshungered for revenge, but revenge must have seemed unat- tainable. KiraKotsukenoSuke,the hated teacher of court etiquette, had fortified his house, and a cloud of archers and swordsmen swarmed about his palanquin. Among his retinue were incorruptible, secret spies upon whom no detail was lost, and no man did they so closely spy upon and fol- low as the councillorKuranosuke,the presumed leader of the avengingRonins. Butby chanceKuranosukediscovered the surveillance, and he based his plan for vengeance upon that knowledge.

He moved to Kioto, a city unparalleled throughout the empire for the color of its autumns. He allowed himself to descend into the depths of brothels, gambling dens, and taverns. In spite of the gray hairs of his head, he consorted with prost.i.tutes and poets, and with persons even worse. Once he was expelled from a tavern and woke up to find himself in the street, his head covered with vomit.

It happened that a Satsuma man saw this, and said, sadly yet with anger, "Is not thisOis.h.i.+ Kuranosuke,who was a councillor toAsano Tak.u.mino Kami, and who helped him to die yet not having the heart to avenge his lord, gives himself up to women and wine? Faithless beast! Fool and craven!

Unworthy the name of a Samurai!"

And he trod onKuranosuke'sface as he slept, and spat on him. WhenKotsukenoSuke'sspies reported this pa.s.sivity, the courtier felt much relieved.

But things did not stop there. The councillor sent his wife and two younger children away and bought a concubine; this iniquitous act cheered the heart and relaxed the fearful prudence of his enemy, who at last dis- missed half his guards.

On one of the bitter nights of the winter of 1703, the forty-sevenRoninsmet in an unkempt garden on the outskirts of Yedo, near a bridge and the playing card factory. They carried the pennants and banners of their lord. Before they began the a.s.sault, they informed the inhabitants of the city that they were not raiding the town but embarking on a military mission of strict justice.

THE SCAR.

Two groups attacked the palace of KiraKotsukenoSuke.The councillorKuranosukeled the first, which a.s.saulted the main gate; the second was led by the councillor's elder son, who was not yet sixteen years old and who died that night. History records the many moments of that extraordinarilylucidnightmare- the perilous,pendulardescent of the rope ladders, the drum beating the signal of attack, the defenders'

rush to defend, the archers posted on the rooftops, the unswerving path of the arrows toward vital or- gans, the porcelains dishonored by blood, the burning death that turns to ice-all the brazen and disorderly elements of death. Nine of theRoninsdied; the defenders were no less brave, and they would not surrender. Shortly after midnight, all resistance ended.

KiraKotsukenoSuke,the ignominious cause of all that loyalty, was no- where to be found. The attackers sought him through every corner of the emotion-torn palace; they were beginning to despair of finding him, when the councillor noted that his bedclothes were still warm. Again theRoninssearched, and soon they discovered a narrow window, hidden by a bronze mirror. Below, in a gloomy courtyard, a man in white looked up at them; a trembling sword was in his right hand. When they rushed down, the man gave himself up without a fight. His forehead bore a scar-the old rubric left by Tak.u.mi no Kami's blade.

Then the b.l.o.o.d.yRoninswent down on their knees to the detested n.o.ble- man and told him that they were the former retainers of the lord of the cas- tle of Ako, for whose death and perdition he was to blame, and they requested that he commit the suicide that befitted a samurai.

In vain did the retainers propose to the lord's servile spirit that act of self-respect. He was a man impervious to the pleas of honor; at sunrise, the officers had to slit his throat.

THE EVIDENCE.

Their thirst for revenge now quenched (but without wrath, or agitation, or regret), theRoninsmade their way toward the temple that sheltered the re- mains of their lord.

In a bra.s.s pail they carried the incredible head of KiraKotsukenoSuke,and they took turns watching over it. They crossed fields and provinces, in the honest light of day. Men blessed them and wept. Theprince of Sendai offered them his hospitality, but they replied that their lord had been wait- ing for them for almost two years. At last they reached the dark sepulcher, and they offered up the head of their enemy.

The Supreme Court handed down its verdict, and it was as expected: the retainers were granted the privilege of suicide. All obeyed, some with ar- dent serenity, and they lie now beside their lord. Today, men and children come to the sepulcher of those faithful men to pray.

THE SATSUMA MAN.

Among the pilgrims who come to the grave, there is one dusty, tired young man who must have come from a great distance. He prostrates himself be- fore the monument to the councillorOis.h.i.+ Kuranosukeand he says aloud: "When I saw you lying drunk by the roadside, at the doorstep of a wh.o.r.e- house in Kioto, I knew not that you were plotting to avenge your lord; and, thinking you to be a faithless man, I trampled on you and spat in your face as I pa.s.sed. I have come to offer atonement." He spoke these words and then committedhara kiri.

The priest of the temple whereKuranosuke'sbody lay was greatly moved by the Satsuma man's courage, and he buried him by the side of theRoninsand their lord.

This is the end of the story of the forty-seven loyal retainers-except that the story has no ending, because we other men, who are perhaps not loyal yet will never entirely lose the hope that we might one day be so, shall continue to honor them with our words.*

Hakim, the Masked Dyer of Merv ForAngelica Ocampo

Unless I am mistaken, the original sources of information on Al-Moqanna, the Veiled (or, more strictly, Masked) Prophet of Khorasan, are but four: (a) the excerpts from theHistory of the Caliphs preserved byBladhun; (b)theManual of the Giant, or Book of Precision and Revision, by the official histo- rian of the Abbasids, IbnAbiTahfr Tarfur; (c) the Arabic codex ent.i.tledThe Annihilation of the Rose, which refutes the abominable heresies of theRosaObscuraorRosaSecreta,which was the Prophet's holy work; and (d) several coins (without portraits) unearthed by an engineer named Andrusov on ground that had been leveled for the Trans-Caspian Railway. These coins were deposited in the Numismatic Museum in Tehran; they contain Persian distichs which summarize or correct certain pa.s.sages from theAnnihilation.

The originalRosa has apparently been lost, since the ma.n.u.script found in 1899 and published (not without haste) by theMorgenlandisches Archivwas declared by Horn, and later by Sir Percy Sykes, to be apocryphal.

The fame of the Prophet in the West is owed to Thomas Moore's garru- lous poemLolla Rookh,awork laden with the Irish conspirator's sighs and longings for the East.

THE SCARLET DYE.

In the year 120 of the Hegira, or 736 of the Christian era, there was born in Turkestan the man Hakim, whom the people of that time and that region were to call The Veiled. His birthplace was the ancient city of Merv, whose gardens and vineyards and lawns look out sadly onto the desert. Noontime there, when not obscured by choking clouds of sand that leave a film of whitish dust on the black cl.u.s.ters of the grapes, is white and dazzling.

Hakim was raised in that wearied city. We know that one of his father's brothers trained him as a dyer- the craft, known to be a refuge for infidels and impostors and inconstant men, which inspired the first anathemas of his extravagant career.My face is of gold, a famous page of theAnnihilation says,but I have steeped the purple dye and on the second night have plunged the uncarded wool into it, and on the third night have saturated the prepared wool, and the emperors of the islands still contend for that b.l.o.o.d.y cloth. Thus did I sin in the years of my youth, deforming the true colors of the creatures. The Angel would tell me that lambs were not the color of tigers, while Satan would say to me that the All-Powerful One desired that they be, and in that pursuit he employed my cunning and my dye. Now I know that neither the An- gel nor Satan spoke the truth, for I know thataucolor is abominable.In the year 146 of the Hegira, Hakim disappeared from his native city. The vats and barrels in which he had immersed the cloth were broken, as were a scimitar from s.h.i.+raz and a bra.s.s mirror.

THE BULL.

At the end of the moon of Sha'ban in the year 158, the air of the desert was very clear, and a group of men were looking toward the west in expectation of the moon of Ramadan, which inspires fasting and mortification. They were slaves, beggars, horse sellers, camel thieves, and butchers. Sitting gravely on the ground before the gate of an inn at which caravans stopped on the road to Merv, they awaited the sign. They looked at the setting sun, and the color of the setting sun was the color of the sand.

From far out on the dizzying desert (whose sun gives men fever and whose moon brings on convulsions), they saw three figures, apparently of immense height, coming toward them. The three figures were human, but the one in the center possessed the head of a bull. As these figures came closer, the man in the center was seen to be wearing a mask, while the two men that accompanied him were blind.

Someone (as in the tales of theThousand and One Nights) asked the reason for this wonder.They are blind, the masked man said,because they have looked upon my face.

THE LEOPARD.

The historian of the Abbasids relates that the man from the desert (whose voice was extraordinarily sweet, or so, in contrast to the harshness of themask, it seemed to be) told the men that though they were awaiting the sign of a month of penitence, he would be for them a greater sign: the sign of an entire life of penitence, and a calumniated death. He told them that he was Hakim, son of Ozman, and that in the year 146 of the Flight a man had en- tered his house and after purifying himself and praying had cut his, Hakim's, head off with a scimitar and taken it up to the heavens. Borne in the right hand of this visitor (who was the angel Gabriel), his head had been taken before the Almighty, who had bade him prophesy, entrusting him with words of such antiquity that speaking them burned one's mouth and endowed one with such glorious resplendence that mortal eyes could not bear to look upon it. That was the reason for his mask. When every man on earth professed the new law, the Visage would be unveiled to them, and they would be able to wors.h.i.+p it without danger-as the angels did already. His message delivered, Hakim exhorted the men tojihad -a holy war-and the martyrdom that accompanied it.

The slaves, beggars, horse sellers, camel thieves, and butchers denied him their belief-one voice cried sorcerer, another,impostor.

Someone had brought a leopard-perhaps a member of that lithe and bloodthirsty breed trained by Persian huntsmen. At any rate, it broke free of its cage. Save for the masked Prophet and his two acolytes, all the men there trampled one another in their haste to flee. When they returned, the beast was blind. In the presence of those luminous, dead eyes, the men wors.h.i.+ped Hakim and admitted his supernatural estate.

THE VEILED PROPHET.

The official historian of the Abbasids narrates with no great enthusiasm the inroads made by Hakim the Veiled in Khorasan. That province-greatly moved by the misfortune and crucifixion of its most famous leader- embraced with desperate fervor the doctrine offered by the s.h.i.+ning Visage and offered up to him its blood and gold. (Hakim by now had exchanged his harsh mask for a fourfold veil of white silk embroidered with precious stones. Black was the symbolic color of the caliphs of the House of Abbas; Hakim chose the color white-the most distant from it-for his s.h.i.+elding Veil, his banners, and his turbans.) The campaign began well. It is true that in theBook of Precision it is thecaliph's pennants that are victorious every- where, but since the most frequent result of those victories is the stripping of the generals of their rank and the abandonment of impregnable castles, it is not difficult for the sagacious reader to read between the lines. Toward theend of the moon of Rajab in the year 161, the famous city of Nishapur opened its iron gates to the Masked One; in early 162, the city of Astarabad did likewise.

Hakim's military operations (like those of another, more for- tunate Prophet) were limited to his tenorchanting of prayers offered up to the Deity from the hump of a reddish-colored camel in the chaotic heart of battle. Arrows would whistle all around him, yet he was never wounded. He seemed to seek out danger-the night a band of loathsome lepers sur- rounded his palace, he had them brought to him, he kissed them, and he made them gifts of gold and silver.

The Prophet delegated the wearying details of governing to six or seven adepts. He was a scholar of meditation and of peace-a harem of 114 blind wives attempted to satisfy the needs of his divine body.

ABOMINABLE MIRRORS.

So long as their words do not altogether contravene orthodox belief, confi- dential friends of G.o.d are tolerated by Islam, however indiscreet or threat- ening to that religion they may be. The Prophet would perhaps not have spurned the advantages of that neglect, but his followers, his victories, and the public wrath of the caliph-whose name was Muhammadal-Mahdi- forced him into heresy. It was that dissent that ruined him, though first it led him to set down the articles of a personal religion (a personal religion that bore the clear influence of gnostic forebears).

In the beginning of Hakim's cosmogony there was a spectral G.o.d, a deity as majestically devoid of origins as of name and face. This deity was an im- mutable G.o.d, but its image threw nine shadows; these, condescending to ac- tion, endowed and ruled over a first heaven. From that first demiurgic crown there came a second, with its own angels, powers, and thrones, and these in turn founded another, lower heaven, which was the symmetrical duplicate of the first. This second conclave was reproduced in a third, and the third in an- other, lower conclave, and so on, to the number of 999. The lord of the nethermost heaven-the shadow of shadows of yet other shadows-is He who reigns over us, and His fraction of divinity tends to zero.

The earth we inhabit is an error, an incompetent parody. Mirrors and paternity are abominable because they multiply and affirm it. Revulsion, disgust, is the fundamental virtue, and two rules of conduct (between which the Prophet left men free to choose) lead us to it: abstinence and ut- ter licentiousness- the indulgence of the flesh or the chastening of it.

Hakim's paradise and h.e.l.l were no less desperate.To those who deny theWord, to those who deny the Jeweled Veil and the Visage,runs an imprecation from theRosa Secreta,I vow a wondrous h.e.l.l, for each person who so denies shall reign over 999 empires of fire, and in each empire shall be 999 mountains of fire, and upon each mountain there shall be 999 towers of fire, and each tower shall have 999 stories of fire, and each story shall have 999 beds of fire, and in each bed shall that person be, and 999 kinds of fire, each with its own face and voice, shall torture that person throughout eternity.Another pa.s.sage corroborates this:Here, in this life, dost thou suffer one body; in death and Retribution, thou shalt have bodies innumerable. Paradise was less concrete:It is always night, and there are fountains of stone, and the happinessof thatparadise is the special happiness of farewells, of renunciation, and of those who know that they are sleeping.

THE VISAGE.

In the 163rd year of the Hegira, the fifth of the s.h.i.+ning Face, Hakim was sur- rounded inSanamby the Caliph's army. Great were the provisions, many the martyrs, and aid from a horde of angels of light was expected at any moment. Such was the pa.s.s to which they had come when a terrifying ru- mor spread through the castle. It was said that as an adulteress within the harem was being strangled by the eunuchs, she had screamed that the third finger was missing from the Prophet's right hand, and that his other fingers had no nails. The rumor spread like fire among the faithful. In broad day- light, standing upon a high terrace, Hakim prayed to his familiar G.o.d for victory, or for a sign. Servilely, with their heads bowed (as though they were running against the rain), two captains s.n.a.t.c.hed away the gem-embroidered veil.

First, there came a trembling. The promised face of the Apostle, the face which had journeyed to the heavens, was indeed white, but it was white with the whiteness of leprosy. It was so swollen (or so incredible) that it seemed to be a mask. It had no eyebrows; the lower eyelid of the right eye drooped upon the senile cheek; a dangling cl.u.s.ter of nodular growths was eating away its lips; the flat and inhuman nose resembled that of a lion.Hakim's voice attempted one final deception:Thy abominable sins for- bid thee to look upon my radiance..., he began.

No one was listening; he was riddled with spears.

Man on Pink Corner*

For Enrique Amorim

Imagine you bringing up Francisco Real that way, out of the clear blue sky, him dead and gone and all.

Because I met the man, even if this wa'n't ex- actly his stomping ground-his was more up in the north, up aroundGuadalupeLake andBateria.Truth is, I doubt if I crossed paths with the man more than three times, and all three were on a single night-though it's not one I'll be likely ever to forget. It was the night La Lujanera came home to sleep at my place-just like that, just up and came-and the same nightRosendo Juarezleft Maldonado* never to return. Of course you probably haven't had the experience you'd need to recognize that particular individual's name, but in his timeRosendo Juarez-the Sticker, they called him-was one of the toughest customers in Villa Santa Rita. He was fierce with a knife, wasRosendo Juarez,as you'd expect with a moniker like that, and he was one ofdon Nicolas Paredes'men-don Nicolasbeing one of Morel's men.* He'd come into the cathouse just as dandified as you can imagine, head to foot in black, with his belt buckle and studs and all of sil- ver. Men and dogs, both, had a healthy respect for him, and the wh.o.r.es did too; everybody knew two killings'd been laid to him already. He wore a tall sort of hat with a narrow brim, which sat down like this on a long mane of greasy hair.Rosendowas favored by fortune, as they say, and we boys in the neighborhood would imitate him right down to the way he spit. But then there came a night that showed usRosendoJuarez's true colors.

It's hard to believe, but the story of that night-a night as strange as any I've ever lived through-began with an insolent red-wheeled hack crammed with men, banging and rattling along those streets of hard-packed clay, past brick kilns and vacant lots. There was two men in black, strumming guitars and lost in their own thoughts, and the man on thedriver's seat using his whip on any loose dogs that took a mind to mess with the piebald in the traces, and one fellow wrapped tight in a poncho riding in the middle -which was theYardmasterthat everybody always talked about, and he was spoiling for a fight, spoiling for a kill. The night was so cool it was like a blessing from heaven; two of these fellows were riding up on the folded-back cloth top of the hack-and it was as though the loneli- ness made that rattletrap a veritable parade. That was the first event of the many that took place, but it wa'n't till a while afterward that we found out this part. Me and my friends, meantime, we'd been over at Julia's place since early that evening, Julia's place being a big old barracks-like building made out of sheets of zinc, between the Gauna road and the Maldonado. It was a place you could pick out from quite a distance off, on account of the light from a brazen big red light-and on account of the hullabaloo too. This Ju- lia, although she was a colored woman, was as reliable and honest as you could ask for, so there wa'n't ever any lack of musicians, good drinks, and girls that could dance all night if they was asked to. But this Lujanera I men- tioned, who was Rosendo's woman, she outdid 'em all, and by a good long ways. La Lujanera's dead now,senor,and I have to admit that sometimes whole years go by that I don't think about her, but you ought to have seen her in her time, with those eyes of hers.Seein' herwouldn't put a man to sleep, and that's for sure.