“The ocean”
be off, be off, far from my chapel, my cocoon, let them take everything, the palace, the servants, the land, everything except this place, my dead, my stairway, my painting, my bedchamber, my nest, my anguish, exterminate idolatry, yes, I promised that, I dictated that to Guzmán, and what is written exists, exists permanently, but how was I to know that there were still more pagans in the world? the world was closed, its frontiers circumscribed, fenced in, conquered, the heretics and idolaters known, yes, let the idolaters die by my hand and I shall be granted the pardon I bestowed upon the heretics, true pardon, not for my transitory acts on the fields of Flanders, but for my eternal words in this final cloister, who will recall even a single act that has not been recorded? will the need to exterminate idolaters in the new world be the price for pardoning heretics in the old? but that Augustinian, that man with the face like a skull, has told me just the opposite, the same law for everyone, extermination for everyone, Jews, Arabs, idolaters, heretics, and if not that, then must it be precisely the opposite? pardon for everyone, those there and those here? oh, nonono, I shall save nothing that way if the new world exists, it must be destroyed, for never have I heard of anything that so ferociously mocks my world, a world, that youth said, a world where the natural order must be recreated each day, for its life depends upon the sun and the night and sacrifice, a world that dies with each dusk and which must be re-created with each dawn, nononono, the goal of my world is to be forever fixed, that it may be forever regulated by power, crime, inheritance, my world equal to my palace, the new world the most dissimilar world possible, that world incomprehensible, proliferating, flower of a day, death every night, resurrection every morning, the very thing I saw in the mirror as I ascended the stairway, everything changing, nothing dying completely, nothing expended, everything resurrected, transformed, everything nourished from every other thing, extinction impossible, everything repeated, oh, for all my theorems, all my philosophy, I would be naked, defeated, truly defeated, for everything I offer to the world to force the world to say I cannot repay you, you have won, your obliteration is my defeat, I continue to live but you have succeeded in obliterating your presence, you have killed me, for as you die I die because of you, for as you die I can summon nothing to occupy your place, all that is nothing if now some contemptible boy offers me an entire world, a new world, oh, my God, with what can I repay such an offering? what could I give in return for such a gift? with what could I fill the space of the new world? how many crimes, loves, anxieties, battles, persecutions, dreams, and nightmares would I have to suffer before again being able to reach this trembling needle point of concentration that constitutes my entire existence? oh, Lord who hears me, tell me, finally, the truth, if I conquer the new world, will I not be the conquered, not it?
“From the other side”
“Since man has observed the order of the heavens, Toribio, when they move, where they move, to what degree, and what that movement produces, could you deny that man, if I may put it this way, that man possesses a genius comparable to that of the Creator of the heavens?” “No, Julián, I would merely say that in some manner man could fabricate heavens if he could but obtain the divine instruments and materials.” “Well, I would be content if I could fabricate a new world using human materials.” “Do not doubt it could be done, my brother, for anything is possible; nothing must be rejected; nature, and in particular human nature, encompasses each and every level of existence, from the divine to the diabolic, from the bestial to the mystic; nothing is beyond belief; nothing is beyond possibility; the only possibilities we deny are the possibilities we do not know…”
“Of the sea”
“Business dealings for whom, old man? I’ll tell you: for El Señor, for his fortune, not ours, and thus this new world, once again, will defer our bettering ourselves, and bind us even more tightly than before to seignorial power…” “Oh, Don Guzmán, do you have so little confidence in my astuteness? Look around you; look at the Princes, the monks, at the palace, look at religion itself; what is their common sign? Nonproductivity; for as the monks do not propagate sons, El Señor does not propagate riches; he cannot, it is contrary to his most profound reason for being; if what I know of him from my own account and what you have told me about him is true, then it is also true that his rank, his power, his cult, depend upon loss, not acquisition. El Señor’s dynasty confuses honor with loss, glory with loss, rank with loss, power with loss, like the magpie that to no one’s benefit steals and hides in her nest everything that glitters. Look closely, Don Guzmán. Reflect seriously upon what we have heard and what I now tell you, and you will find a frightening similarity between the motives that animate El Señor and those that govern life in the new world. Power is a challenge based upon offering something for which there is no possible counter-offering. A challenge, I say, for greatest is the power of the one who ends by having something that is nothing; in the end, loss; in the end, death; in the end, sacrifice: sacrifice, death and loss for others, as long as it is possible, and when it is no longer so, then sacrifice, death and loss for oneself. My solution is very simple; to these negative practices I oppose the very positive proposition of exchanging in order to acquire; to loss, I oppose acquisition. El Señor wished to complete his palace of death? You have seen that he had to come to me for a loan. Does he wish to send an expedition to ascertain the existence or non-existence of a new world? He will have to come to us, the outfitters, the dealers in commodities, the manufacturers of arms. Does he wish to colonize new lands? He will have to come to men like you, Don Guzmán, and to every last ordinary man in this palace, and to the rogues in the cities, and to the impoverished nobles; the new world will belong to us, we will win it with our arms and our brains, and we shall be repaid for our efforts with the gold and pearls that will flow from the hands of the natives into ours, though we will take care to reserve the royal fifth part for El Señor, and to collect payment for his debts in advance, and to make him content, and deceive him. Oh, yes!” “Bah, you’re a dreamer, too, testy old fool; it was an ill-fated day when I opened the doors of this palace to you. You’re dreaming, for whether or not that new world exists, El Señor has decreed that it does not; you heard him.” “But a piece of paper will never stay the course of history.” “El Señor believes it so; he believes only what is written.” “Then we shall win with paper; find me a pen, ink, and parchment, and this very night my letters will go out to the contractors and navigators of Genoa and Oporto, Antwerp and Danzig; the word will spread far and wide…”
“Exists”
“The Devil, yes, Azucena, Lolilla, the Devil exists, I know it, but not in the single body of the wise, nibbling, silky-haired Mus, and not in a double body, the mouse’s that assumed the flesh of Don Juan and directed his actions. No, look, my duennas: look upon my bed at that body I formed from bits and pieces of the royal cadavers, held with sap from the storax tree and gum acacia; look at it, the eyes from one body, the thighbone from another, the ears from one and hands from another, and that is what the Devil is like; I know him now; he is a soul living amid us; he must be composed as I composed this monstrous body: compose the Devil’s soul from portions of the souls of El Señor, his mother, the dwarf, Guzmán, Julián, the astronomer-priest, the Chronicler, the workmen, Don Juan, the Idiot, this pilgrim of whom you speak, the female with the tattooed lips, the blind flautist from Aragon, your own souls, and mine; mix them together and stir them in a great pot over a lighted fire, and even without adding benzoin or aloe, you shall know the soul of the Devil.” “His passion, his dream,” “Ay, my mistress, who said that?” “His fear, his anger, his mortality, his innocence.” “Ah, my bones are rattling with fear.” “His gluttony, his rebellion, his desire, his misery, his stupidity, his wisdom.” “Ay, Lolilla, the voice from beyond the tomb.” “Ah, Azucena, the sands are speaking.” “His dissatisfaction, his servitude, his grandeur.” “Listen, my scrubbing maids, he is speaking; listen, he knows.” “His longing to leave a record of his passage through the world; poor creature that he is, the Devil is all these things.” “He is speaking, my pretty maids; the radish has become a mouth; my homunculus is speaking.” “And as we, too, are all these things, he attempts to seduce us, to make a pact with us, to complete himself through us.” “Ay, I’m coming down with the ague.” “To play, to love, to weep, to laugh, to do battle, to dream, to wound, to kill, to die, and be reborn with us.” “Ay, upon my soul, the little turnip knows how to talk!” “For God is none of these things; He is eternal perfection, pure, uncontradicted essence, unopposed oneness.” “Ay, the little play toy is talking!” “And thus, loving us, He despises us.” “Ay, I’m eaten up with fear!” “And thus as He summons us to Him, He scorns us.” “Ay, upon my oath as a whore, it must be seen to be believed!” “God asks us to come to Him, but the Devil comes to us; we are like him; he is our most fervent, secret, and compassionate ally.” “Ay, Azucena!” “Ay, Lolilla!” “Ay, St. Thomas!” “I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it!”