before it got there. If I could pour gasoline over it first, that would certainly work, but it
made things much more complicated. Anyway, I wanted to wait until the time people got
off work and insult the pathetic imbecile.
XXXI
After waiting for an hour, I decided to leave. What would I actually gain by waiting to
to insult that imbecile? On the other hand, during that time I thought about a number of
things that helped to calm me down: the letter was just fine, and it should be sent to
Maria. (Something like this had happened to me very often; I have struggled senselessly
against some obstacle that doesn’t let me do something that I consider necessary and then
with anger I accept defeat and finally, sometime later, I realize that it was the right thing
to do after all.) In reality, when I wrote the letter, I did it without thinking about the fact
that some of the hurtful things seemed to be undeserved. But then I started to think again
about all the things that had happened before the letter, and then I remembered a dream
that I had on one of the nights when I was drinking: looking out from a hiding place I saw
myself, sitting on a chair in a dark room without furniture or decorations, and behind me
there were two people who were watching me with diabolical expressions of irony; one
was Maria, and the other Hunter.
When I remembered that dream, a heart-rending sadness took control of me. I turned
away from the door of the Post Office and began to walk slowly.
Some time later I found myself in Recoleta, seated on a bench under a gigantic tree.
The places, the trees, the paths of our best moments began to transform my ideas. What
was it, after all, that I had against Maria? The best times of our love (her face, a tender
look, the feeling of her hand brushing my hair) began to gently take control of my soul,
with the same care with which one embraces a loved-one who has had an accident and
couldn’t bear any foul treatment. Taking control of me little my little, my sadness
changed into anxiety, the feeling hate toward Marin into hate toward myself, and my
sluggishness into a need to run home to my house. On the way back to my studio I began
to realize what I needed to do: to speak with her, to call her on the telephone at the farm
right away, without wasting time. Why hadn’t I thought about that possibility earlier?
When they answered the phone, I almost didn’t have the strength to say anything. It
was the housemaid who answered it. I told her that I needed to speak with Miss Maria
right away. A little later the same voice returned and told me that the lady would call me
back in about an hour.
The wait seemed interminable.
I don’t remember very well what was said in that conversation on the phone, but I do
recall that instead of asking her for forgiveness for what I said in the letter (the reason for
which I had made the call), I actually said things that were even stronger than what I had
said in he letter. Of course that didn’t happen without reason; the truth is that I started
out speaking to her with humility and tenderness, but I began to be upset by the sorrowful
tone of her voice, and the fact that, as she often did, she wouldn’t respond to any of my
questions. The dialogue, or better, monologue, was becoming more violent, and the more
violent it was, the more sorrowful she seemed, and the more that upset me because I was
very aware of the reason, and the injustice of her pain. I ended by shouting at her that she
was killing me, (which play-acting, of course), and that I needed to meet with her
immediately in Buenos Aires.
She didn’t give a precise answer to any of my questions, but finally after my insistence
and my threats to kill myself, she promised to come to Buenos Aires the next day,
“although she didn’t know why.”
“The only thing we will achieve,” she added with a weak voice, “is to hurt each other
cruelly once again.”
“If you don’t come, I will kill myself,” I repeated. “Think about it carefully before you
make a decision.”
I hung up the phone without saying anything else, and the truth is that at that moment I
had in fact made up my mind to kill myself if she didn’t come and clarify the situation. I
was strangely satisfied when I said that. “She will see,” I thought, as though it was a way
to get revenge.
XXXII
That day was abominable. I left my studio full of anger. In spite of the fact that I was
going to see her the next day I was disconsolate, full of a suppressed and imprecise hate.
Now, I think it was myself I hated, because in my heart I knew that my cruel insults were
not justified. But it angered me that she made no effort to defend herself, and her pained
and humble voice, far from appeasing me, inflamed me even more.
I despised myself. That afternoon I drank too much, and I ended up looking for trouble
in a bar on Leandro Alem. I grabbed a woman who I thought was the most degenerate,
and I challenged a sailor who made an obscene joke about her. I don’t remember what
happened after that, except that we began to fight, and that people separated us just when
I was enjoying myself. Afterward, I remember being with that woman in the street. The
fresh air did me good. By dawn I had taken her to my studio. When we arrived she
began to laugh at a painting that was on an easel. (I don’t know if I have said that since
the scene of the window my painting was gradually changing. It was as if the people and
things of my old painting had suffered a cosmic cataclysm. I will speak more of that later
because now I want to tell what happened after those crucial days.) The woman laughed
while she looked at the painting and then looked at me as if she was asking for some
explanation. As you might guess, I didn’t give a damn about what opinion that wretched
woman had of my art. I told her she shouldn’t waste our time on trivial things like that.
We were in bed when I suddenly had a disturbing idea: the expression on the face of
that woman reminded me of one that I had observed on Maria’s face.
“Whore!” I shouted at her, separating myself from her with disgust. Of course she is a
whore!”
The woman jumped up like a snake and bit me on the arm so hard it made me bleed.
Of course she thought I was referring to her. Full of scorn and hate for all of humanity, I
kicked her out of my studio, telling her I would kill her if she didn’t leave immediately.
She left shouting insults, in spite of all the money I tossed her as she left.
For a long time I remained in the middle of my studio without knowing what to do, and
without being able to organize my feelings or my thoughts. Finally, I made a decision: I
went into the bathroom, I filled the bathtub with cold water, I took off my clothes and got