“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Why don’t you speak?”
“Me too,” she murmured.
“Me too what?” I asked anxiously.
“I have also done nothing else but think about it.”
“But think about what?” I continued asking, insistently.
“About everything.”
“Why about everything? About what?”
“About how strange all this is… our encounter yesterday… what’s happening to day…
I don’t know…”
This sort of imprecision has always irritated me.
“Yes, but I told you that I have not stopped thinking about you” I responded. “But you
didn’t say you have thought about me.”
A moment passed. Then she responded:
“I told you I had thought about everything.”
“But you haven’t mentioned any details.”
“It’s just that this has all been so strange… I am so confused… Of course I thought
about you…”
My heart pounded. I needed details; details make me happy, not generalities.
“But how, how?…” I asked with increasing anxiety. “I have thought about each one of
your aspects, your profile when you looked at the tree, your brown hair, your stern eyes,
and how quickly they become soft, the way you walk…”
“I have to stop talking,” she interrupted suddenly. “People are coming.”
“I’ll call you the first thing tomorrow,” I managed to say with desperation.
“Good,” she answered quickly.
XI
I spent the night feeling very upset. I wasn’t able to draw or paint, though I tried many
times to begin something. I went out to take a walk, and soon I found myself on
Corrientes. Then something strange happened to me; I was looking at everyone with a
feeling of sympathy. I think I said that I was going to tell this story in a very impartial
way. Now I’ll give the first proof of that, and confess one of my worst defects: I have
almost always looked at people with antipathy, and even with disgust, especially the
people in a crowd. I have never been able to stand looking at beaches in the summer. A
few men and women were dear to me; for others I felt admiration (I’m not envious); for
some I felt real sympathy. I have always felt tenderness and compassion for children,
(especially when I tried very hard to forget that they would eventually grow up like
everyone else); but I always felt that on the whole humanity was detestable. I don’t mind
saying that sometimes, after seeing some character trait I am not able to eat all day, or
paint for a week. It is incredible how greed, envy, petulance, vulgarity, covetousness,
and all the kind of attributes that constitute the human condition, can be seen be seen in a
face, in a way of walking, or in a gaze. I feel like it is natural that after such an encounter
I have no desire to eat, or to paint, or even live. However, I want to make it clear that I’m
not proud of this attitude; I know it’s a sign of arrogance, and I also know that my own
soul has been guilty of greed, envy, petulance, vulgarity, and covetousness. But I have
said that I intend to write this story with impartiality, and that is exactly what I will do.
That night, therefore, my contempt for humanity seemed to disappear, or at least was
temporarily absent. I entered Café Marzotto. I suppose you know people go there to hear
tangos, but to hear them like a believer in God listens to the Passion of Saint Matthew.
XII
The next morning about ten o’clock I made a telephone call. The person who answered
was the same woman as the day before. When I asked to speak with Maria Iribarne, she
told me that just that morning she had left for the country. I felt distress.
“To the country?” I asked.
“Yes, sir. Are you Mr. Castel?”
“Yes, I’m Castel.”
“She left a letter for you here. I hope you will forgive me, but I didn’t have your
address.”
I had counted on seeing her today, and I had hoped for so many important things that I
heard this news it left me stunned. A number of questions occurred to me: why had she
decided to go to the country? Evidently she had made that decision following our
telephone conversation the night before, because if that was not the case she would have
told me something about her plan and, even more important, she would not have agreed
to let me call her the next morning. So then, if that decision was made after we talked on
the phone, was it also because of that conversation? And if so, why?; was she trying to
run away from me again like she did before?; was she afraid after agreeing to see me the
next day?
That unexpected trip to the country awakened the first doubt. As I always do, I started
to recall previous suspicious things that I hadn’t thought were important. Why did the
tone of her voice change when she spoke on the phone the day before? Who were the
people who were coming and going and stopped her from speaking normally? Beside the
fact that this proved that she was capable of simulating, why did that woman hesitate the
first time I asked to speak with Maria Iribarne? But there was one phrase that was stuck
in my mind like glue: “When I close the door, they know they shouldn’t bother me.” I
couldn’t help but think that around Maria there were many shadows.
I thought about all these things while I was rushing to her house. It was strange that
she didn’t know my address, since I knew her address, as well as her telephone number.
She lived on Posadas, almost at the corner of Seaver.
When I got to the fifth floor and rang the bell, I was filled with emotion. The door was
opened by a housemaid who must have been Polish, or something like that. And when I
told her my name, she asked me to enter a sitting room that was full of books. The walls
were covered with shelves all the way to the ceiling, but there were also piles of books on
top of two tables, and even on a chair. Such a large collection of books made me wonder.
When I got up to look at the library, I had the feeling there was someone watching me
from behind. I turned around and saw a man standing on the other side of the room; he
was tall and slender, and he had a pleasant face. He was smiling as he looked at me but,
as far as far as I could tell, without seeing me. In spite of the fact his eyes were open, I