The kimono’d philosopher glared at him.
— Are you going to let me talk? he said acrimoniously.
The visitor recovered the serious composure befitting so thorny a subject, and Samuel Tesler proceeded:
— Later I had the amazing realization that, whenever I saw her, Haydée always looked decidedly stupendous, as if she took on the fullness of her grace when she came before my eyes.
— It had to happen! Adam murmured fatalistically.
— Until one day I discovered a highly suggestive phenomenon. Every time the creature appeared to me in a happy mood, I felt terribly low. And vice versa: if I saw she was sad, I was idiotically and inexplicably thrilled.
— And you still didn’t realize? Adam asked.
Samuel Tesler smiled with pity.
— Clearly, I’m not too quick on the uptake. Once the magnitude of the phenomenon had sunk in, I took stock of my heart. I opened books, consulted authors, and got to the root of my problem. And finally in my head there was a noonday light: I was up to my balls in love!
— It was about time! laughed Adam. So then what?
— Well, the first phase of the methodology having been altered, it was only right that I proceed to the second phase: to wit, the possession of the beautiful form.
— Cynic!
— Everything was inviting me to that pleasant exercise in practical Philography: the cement angel, my condition of a bored Faust, the aromatic nights in Saavedra…
— And you haven’t yet declared yourself?
— Not yet, responded the philosopher. It seems impossible. There are days when I arrive at her house feeling like a real Trovatore, with a mouthful of phrases that would melt a heart of stone: the declaration is imminent, I can feel it coming, and my face is taking on shades of Tristan and Isolde. And then, nothing. Because that’s the day the creature’s in a good mood, nowhere near the idyllic trance I need her to be in. On the other hand, if I get to her place feeling totally vulgar, the poor woman suffers a fit of romanticism that could turn a guy’s stomach.
A dense cloud had spread across Samuel Tesler’s face as he divulged the details of his impossible entanglement. With downcast eyes, drawn mouth, and rampant nose, the philosopher looked as pathetic as a unicorn in love.
— So what do you plan to do? asked Adam, perplexed.
— I don’t know, answered the unicorn. Sometimes I try to say to hell with her, but it’s useless! By day her image possesses me, wreaks havoc in my thoughts, and drives me to the most shameful actions.
Here the unicorn lowered his voice, as though weighed down by a secret ignominy.
— Imagine this: I’ve gone so far as to write her a sonnet.
— I can’t believe it! cried Adam scandalized.
— I’m telling you: a sonnet. Me! Do you realize how ridiculous this is? I’m not going to read it to you, of course.
— I guess not. That really would be going too far!
— That’s not all, insisted Samuel. At night, I’m the one who possesses her image…
He suddenly fell silent, his jaws clenched, nostrils flaring, eyes foggy, mouth dry — a demonic mask27 reflecting the glint of flames from ancient cities condemned to perish by fire. But it was all erased in an instant, and Samuel Tesler’s eyelids lowered like two dead leaves.
— Does anybody suspect what’s going on? Adam asked.
— Anybody? groaned Samuel. Just the whole neighbourhood! The kids in Saavedra use their slingshots on me, housewives point at me, dogs follow me around nipping at my heels. And as if all that weren’t enough, the cop on the corner has decided to shadow me. I sense him right behind me at night when I take a walk along their block or stop in front the Amundsen house.
— He probably takes you for a chicken thief, laughed Adam. It’s dangerous to wander the byways of Saavedra with an undeclared love in your gullet. If I were you, I’d show up at the house as an official suitor and get it over with.
— Yes, sometimes I decide I should do it. But my well-oiled imagination gets me looking at the future consequences of such a drastic step.
— Such as?
— First of all, the scandal among my tribe — lapels being rent, weepy Hebrew elegies being intoned. Then I, Samuel Tesler, deserter of my people and my gods, see myself inside a tuxedo rented from the Casa Martínez, climbing out of a limo in front of a church that isn’t mine; I’m surrounded by a mob of dolts saying nasty things about me, and by street urchins shrieking for pennies. The bride’s mother is blubbering like a beached whale, and her relatives stare at me with stony eyes, while clutching a little steel coffer with the guarantee of the girl’s maidenhood inside, duly signed by two public notaries. Depressing, don’t you think?
— Brutal! protested Adam. When you look at it that way, poetry doesn’t stand a chance.
But Samuel Tesler wasn’t flinching.
— No, that’s not what the city expects of us. Buenos Aires is dying of vulgarity because it lacks a romantic tradition. It needs enriching with legends! I am right or am I wrong?
— It all depends.
— Wait’ll you see! exclaimed the philosopher, warming up now. I’ve got dozens of projects in my head!
— For instance?
— Among others, I’m toying with the idea of promoting lovelorn suicide. Not the bourgeois, pedestrian type, of course; I’m talking about the original, sublime suicide. Take your case, for example. If you want to help me out, you could hang yourself from an ombú28 in Saavedra, not before nailing to the tree trunk an epistle in rhyming verse (it’s gotta be a masterpiece), wherein you explain to the police the reasons for your fatal decision.
— No thanks, Adam excused himself modestly. For now, that’s not really my thing.
— Come on! What would it cost you?
— It’s just that I don’t like ombú trees. They say their shade is unwholesome.
— Slander! I’ve slept many a time in the shade of an ombú.
— Okay, an ombú then, Adam conceded. But when you get right down to it, your infatuation with Haydée Amundsen makes you just as good a candidate for the scaffold and the epistle.
— But I don’t know how to rhyme, alleged the philosopher, visibly saddened.
From this point forth, the Visited and the Visitor, having laid their arms aside, knew the taste of peace, the ease of a language without sharp edges, and the nobility of hands reaching out to one another. The dialogue deepened as Visited and Visitor penetrated further into the domain of good sense. Gently obliged to make a confession, the Visitor exposed the scant reality of his love. With a passing reference to a mysterious Blue-Bound Notebook, he confessed that his love had only the fragile essence of an ideal construct, although this was based on a flesh-and-blood woman. Upon hearing this, and after exacting from him certain bits of information with the utmost tact, the Visited asked the Visitor if he wasn’t making incursions into the realm of Celestial Aphrodite. And since the Visitor wasn’t sure about that, the Visited proceeded to convince him of his happy hypothesis by means of an eloquent display of examples he claimed to have drawn from ancient literatures, both Oriental and Occidental, wherein discourse on divine love was so frequently couched in the language of human love that it bordered on gibberish. Convinced by such solid documentation, the Visitor admitted he was fashioning a heavenly woman on the basis of an earthly woman. The Visited, attentive to the metaphysical work of the Visitor, asked if the terrestrial woman was still indispensable to his labours of sublimation. And since the Visitor answered yes, the Visited opened wide the floodgates of his discretion to announce that he bore a message from a beauty whom the angels of paradise called Solveig Amundsen, and that this same belle dame had displayed a truly otherworldly benevolence by bidding him communicate to the Visitor that his presence was greatly missed in the gardens of Saavedra. To convey the pleasure that inundated the Visitor upon hearing this gratifying news is a task beyond the style of mortal man. In spite of the caution induced by his immeasurable hopelessness, the Visitor asked the Visited if the message from the lady fair was an expression of her immense courtesy or perhaps of a deeper feeling that the Visited might have noticed. When the Visited answered that in his opinion the second hypothesis was more plausible, the Visitor felt he was blessed among the Blessed. Whereupon Visited and Visitor agreed to meet in Saavedra that very afternoon.