Collected Fictions by Luis Borges Jorge

Author:Luis Borges Jorge [Jorge, Luis Borges]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-08-27T09:23:53+00:00

awaited the conspirators if they should set him free, it was only from a madman that he might hope for

anything but a sen-tence of death. I have heard that he laughed when he was told who the judge was to

be. The trial lasted for many days and nights, because of the great number of witnesses."

He fell silent. Some concern was at work in him. To break the silence, I asked how many days it had

been.

"At least nineteen days," he replied. More people leaving the celebration interrupted him; Muslims are

forbidden wine, but the faces and voices seemed those of drunkards. One of the men shouted something

at the old man as he passed by.

"Nineteen days exactly," he emended. "The infidel dog heard the sen-tence, and the knife was drawn

across his throat."

He spoke with joyous ferocity, but it was with another voice that he ended his story.

"He died without fear. Even in the basest of men there is some virtue."

"Where did this take place that you have told me about?" I asked him. "In a farmhouse?"

For the first time he looked me in the eye. Then slowly, measuring his words, he answered.

"I said a farmhouse was his prison, not that he was tried there. He was tried in this very city, in a house

like all other houses, like this one.... One house is like another—what matters is knowing whether it is

built in heaven or in hell."

I asked him what had happened to the conspirators.

"That, I do not know," he said patiently. "These things happened many years ago and by now they have

been long forgotten. Perhaps they were con-demned by men, but not by God."

Having said this, he got up. I felt that his words dismissed me, that from that moment onward I had

ceased to exist for him. A mob of men and women of all the nations of Punjab spilled out over us,

praying and singing, and almost swept us away; I was astonished that such narrow courtyards, little more

than long entryways, could have contained such numbers of people. Others came out of neighboring

houses; no doubt they had jumped over the walls.... Pushing and shouting imprecations, I opened a way

for myself. In the farthest courtyard I met a naked man crowned with yellow flowers, whom everyone

was kissing and making obeisances to; there was a sword in his hand. The sword was bloody, for it had

murdered Glencairn, whose mutilated body I found in the stables at the rear.

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