Jorge Luis Borges - Collected Fictions Part 36

Everything and Nothing p. 319: t.i.tle:In italics here because the story was tided originally in this way byJLB, in English.

Ragnarok p. 321: PedroHenriquez Urena:Henriquez Urena(1884-1946), originally from theDominican Republic, lived for years in Buenos Aires and was an early contributor toSur,the magazine dial Victoria Ocampo founded and that JLB a.s.siduously worked on. It was throughHenriquez Urena,who had lived for a time in Mexico City, dial JLB met another friend, the Mexican humanist Alfonso Reyes.Henriquez Urenaand JLB collaborated on dieAntologia de la literatura argentina(1937), and diey were very close friends.

In Memoriam, J.F.K.

p. 326:Avelino Arredondo:The a.s.sa.s.sin, as the story says, of the president of Uruguay, Juan IdiarteBorda(1844-1897).

See the story"Avelino Arredondo"in the vol- umeThe Book of Sand.

Notes toIn Praise of Darkness, pp. 329-342

Foreword.

p. 332:Ascasubi:Hilario Ascasubi(1807-1875) was a prolific, if not always success- ful, writer ofgauchopoetry and prose.

(TheDiccionarioOxfordde Literatura Espanola e Hispano-Americanagives several tides of little magazines begun by Ascasubi that didn't last beyond the first number.) He was a fervid opponent of the Rosas regime and was jailed for his opposition, escaping in 1832 to Uruguay. There and in Paris he produced most of his work.

PedroSalvadores p. 336:A dictator: Juan ManueldeRosas (1793-1877). InBorges,Rosas is variously called "the tyrant" and "the dictator"; as leader of the Federalist party he ruled Argentina under an iron hand for almost two decades, from 1835 to 1852. Thus the "vast shadow," which cast its pall especially over the mostly urban, mostly professional (and generally landowning) members of the Unitarian party, such as, here, PedroSalvadores.Rosas confiscated lands and property belonging to the Unitarians in order to finance his cam- paigns and systematically hara.s.sed and even a.s.sa.s.sinated Unitarian party members.

p. 336:Battle of MonteCaseros:At this battle, in 1852, Rosas was defeated by forces commanded byJusto Jose Urquiza,and his tyranny ended.

p. 336:Unitarian party: The Unitarian party was a Buenos Aires-based party whose leaders tended to be European-educated liberals who wished to unite Ar- gentina's several regions and economies (the Argentinian Confederation) into a single nation and wished also to unite that new Argentine economy with Europe's, through expanded exports: hence the party's name. The party's color was sky blue; thus the de- tail, later in the story, of the "sky blue china" in PedroSalvadores'house.

p. 336:They lived ... onCalle Suipacha,not far from the corner of Temple:Thus, in what was at this time a northern suburb of Buenos Aires about a mile north of the Plazade Mayo.This area, later to become the BarrioNorte,was clearly respectable but not yet fashionable (as it was to become after the yellow fever outbreak of 1871 fright- ened the uppercla.s.ses out of the area south of the Plazade Mayoup into the more northern district).

p. 336:The tyrant's posse: TheMazorca(or "corn cob," so called to stress its agrari- an rather than urban roots), Rosas'

private army, or secret police. TheMazorcawas beyond the control of the populace, the army, or any other inst.i.tution, and it system- atically terrorized Argentina during the Rosas years.

p. 337:Smashed all the sky blue china: The color of the china used in the house is the color symbolizing the Unitarian party (see above, note to p. 336) and denouncesSalvadoresas a follower.

Notes toBrodie's Report, pp. 343-408

Foreword.

p.345:"In the House ofSuddhoo":Borgesoften drops hints as to where one might look to find clues not only to the story or essay in question but also to other stories or essays; he gives signposts to his own "intertextuality." In this case, the reader who looks at this Kipling story will find that there is a character in it named Bhagwan Da.s.s; the name, and to a degree the character, reappear in "Blue Tigers," in the volumeShake- speare's Memory.

p.345:Hormiga Negra:"The Black Ant,"a gauchobandit.Borgesincludes a note onHormiga Negrain his essay on Martin Fierro:"During the last years of the nine- teenth century,Guillermo Hoyo,better known as the 'Black Ant,' a bandit from the de- partment ofSan Nicolas,fought (according to the testimony ofEduardo Gutierrez)withbolos[stones tied to the ends of rope] and knife"(Obras completas en colabo- racion[Buenos Aires: Emece,1979],p.546,trans. A.H.).

p.345:Rosas:Juan Manuel de Rosas(1793-1877), tyrannical ruler ofArgentinafrom 1835 to 1852, was in many ways a typical Latin Americancaudillo.He was the leader of the Federalist party and allied himself with thegauchosagainst the "city slickers" of Buenos Aires, whom he hara.s.sed and even murdered once he came to power. Other appearances of Rosas may be found in "PedroSalvadores"(In Praise of Darkness)and "The Elderly Lady" (in this volume).

p. 346: And I prefer...Here theObras completa.s.seems to have a textual error; the text readsapto(adjective: "germane, apt, appropriate") when logic would dictateopto(verb: "I prefer, I choose, I opt.").

p. 346: Hugo Ramirez Moroni:JLB was fond of putting real people's names into his fictions; of course, he also put "just names" into his fictions. But into his fore- words? Nevertheless, the translator has not been able to discover who this person, if person he be, was.

p. 347: The golden-pink coat of a certain horse famous in our literature:The refer- ence is to thegauchesco poem"Faus...o...b..EstanislaodelCampo,which was fiercely criticized by Paul Groussac, among others, though praised byCalixto Oyuela("never charitable withgauchescowriters," in JLB's own words) and others. The color of the hero's horse (it was anovero rosado)came in for a great deal of attack; RafaelHernan- dez,for instance, said such a color had never been found in a fast horse; it would be, he said, "like finding a three-colored cat." Lugones also said this color would be found only on a horse suited for farm work or running ch.o.r.es. (This information from JLB,"La poesia gauchesca,"Discusion[1932].)

The Interloper p. 348:2 Reyes 1:26:This citation corresponds to what in most English Bibles is the Second Book of Samuel (2 Samuel); the first chapter of the "Second Book of Kings" has only eighteen verses, as the reader will note. In theNew Catholic Bible, however,iand 2 Samuel are indexed in the Table of Contents asiand 2 Kings, with the King James'siand 2 Kings b.u.mped to 3 and 4 Kings. Though the translator's Spanish-language Bible uses the same divisions as the King James, one presumes that JLB was working from a "Catholic Bible" in Spanish. In a conversation with Norman ThomasdiGiovanni,Borgesinsisted that this was a "prettier" name than "Samuel," so this text respects that sentiment. The text in question reads: "I am distressed for thee, my brother: very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, pa.s.sing the love of women." (See Daniel Balderston, "The 'Fecal Dialectic': h.o.m.os.e.xual Panic and the Origin of Writing inBorges," inEntiendes?:Queer Readings, Hispanic Writ- ings,ed.

EmilieL. Bergmannand Paul Julian Smith [Durham: Duke University Press, 1995]. PP- 29-45, for an intriguing reading of this story and others.) p. 349: Those twocriollos:There is no good word or short phrase for the Spanish wordcriollo.It is a word that indicates race, and so cla.s.s; it always indicates a white-skinned person (and therefore presumed to be "superior") born in the New World colonies, and generally, though not always, to parents of Spanish descent (another pu- tative mark of superiority). Here, however, clearly that last characteristic does not ap- ply. JLB is saying with this word that the genetic or cultural roots of these men lie in Europe, and that their family's blood has apparently not mixed with black or Indian blood, and that they are fully naturalized as New Worlders and Argentines. The im- plicit reference to cla.s.s (which an Argentine would immediately understand) is openly ironic.

p. 349: CostaBrava:"Asmall town in the district of Ramallo, a province of Buenos Aires, not to be confused with the island of the same name in theParanaRiver, scene of various battles, including a naval defeat of Garibaldi" (Fishburn and Hughes).Bravo/a means "tough, mean, angry," etc.; in Spanish, therefore,Borgescan say the toughs gave CostaBravaitsname, while in translation one can only say they gave the town its reputation.

Unworthy p. 353: The Maldonado:The Maldonado was a stream that formed the northern boundary of the city of Buenos Aires at the turn of the century; the neighborhood around it, Palermo, was known as a rough part of town, and JLB makes reference to it repeatedly in his work. See the story "Juan Murafia," p. 370, for example. Thus, Fisch-bein and his family lived on the tough outskirts of the city. See also mention of this area on p. 359, below.p. 354:1 had started calling myself Santiago ... but there was nothing I could do about theFischbein:The terrible thing here, which most Spanish-language readers would immediately perceive, is that the little red-headed Jewish boy has given himself a saint's name: Santiago is "Saint James," andas St. James is the patron saint of Spain, SantiagoMatamoros,St. James the Moor Slayer. The boy's perhaps unwitting self-hatred and clearly conscious attempt to "fit in" are implicitly but most efficiently com- municated by JLB in these few words.

P-355-JuanMoreira:Agauchoturned outlaw (1819-1874) who was famous during his lifetime and legendary after death. Like Jesse James and Billy the Kid in the United States, he was seen as a kind of folk hero, handy with (in Moreira's case) a knife, and hunted down and killed by a corrupt police. Like the U.S. outlaws, his fictionalized life, byEduardo Gutierrez,was published serially in a widely read magazine,La PatriaArgentina,and then dramatized, most famously byJosede Podesta.See below, in note to "The Encounter," p. 368).

p.355:Little Sheeny: Fishburn and Hughes gloss this nickname (in Spanishel rusito, literally "Little Russian") as being a "slang term for Ashken.a.z.i Jews ... (as op- posed to immigrants from the Middle East, who were known asturcos, 'Turks')." An earlier English translation gave this, therefore, as "sheeny," and I follow that solution. The slang used in Buenos Aires for ethnic groups was (and is) of course different from that of the English-speaking world, which leads to a barber of Italian extraction being called, strange to our ears, a gringo in the original Spanish version of the story "JuanMurana"in this volume.

p.355:Calle Junin:In Buenos Aires, running from the Plaza del Once to the pros- perous northern district of the city; during the early years of the century, a stretch ofJuninnear the center of the city was the brothel district.

p. 356:Lunfardo:For an explanation of this supposed "thieves' jargon," see the Foreword to this volume, p. 347.

The Story fromRosendo Juarez p. 358: The corner of Bolivar and Venezuela:Now in the center of the city, near the Plazade Mayo,and about two blocks from the National Library, whereBorges wasthe director. Thus the narrator("Borges")is entering a place he would probably have been known to frequent (in "Guayaquil," the narrator says that "everyone knows" that he lives onCalleChile, which also is but a block or so distant); the impression the man gives, of having been sitting at the table a good while, reinforces the impression that he'd been waiting for"Borges."But this area, some six blocks south of Rivadavia, the street "where the Southside began," also marks more or less the northern boundary of the neighborhood known as San Telmo, whereRosendo Juarezsays he himself lives.

p. 358: His neck scarf:HereRosendo Juarezis wearing the tough guy's equivalent of a tie, thechalina,a scarf worn much like an ascot, doubled over, the jacket b.u.t.toned up tight to make a large "bloom" under the chin. This garb marks a certain "type" of character.

p.358: "You've put the story in a novel": Here "the man sitting at the table,"Rosendo Juarez,is referring to what was once perhaps JLB's most famous story, "Man on Pink Corner," inA Universal History of Iniquity, q.v., though he calls it a novel rather than a story.

p.359:Neighborhood of the Maldonado: The Maldonado was the creek marking the northern boundary of the city of Buenos Aires around the turn of the century;Rosendo Juarez"words about the creek are true and mark the story as being told many years after the fact. The neighborhood itself would have been Palermo.

p. 360:CalleCabrera:In Palermo, a street in a rough neighborhood not far from the center of the city.

p. 360: A kid in black that wrote poems:ProbablyEvaristo Carriego,JLB's neighbor in Palermo who was the first to make poetry about the "riffraff "-the knife fighters and petty toughs-of the slums. JLB wrote a volume of essays dedicated toCarriego.

p. 361:Moreira:See note to "Unworthy," p. 355.

p. 362:Chacarita:one of the city's two large cemeteries;La Recoletawas where the elite buried their dead, soChacaritawas the graveyard of the "commoners."

p. 363: San Telmo:One of the city's oldest districts, it was a famously rough neigh- borhood by the time of the story's telling. Fishburn and Hughes a.s.sociate it with apopular song that boasts of its "fighting spirit" and note that the song would have given "an ironic twist to the last sentence of the story."

The Encounter p. 365:Lunfardo:For an explanation of this supposed "thieves' jargon," see the Foreword to this volume, p. 347.

p. 365: One of those houses onCalle Junin:See note to "Unworthy," p. 355.

p. 365:Moreira:See note to "Unworthy," p. 355.

p.365:Martin Fierroand DonSegundo Sombra:Unlike the real-life JuanMoreira,Martin Fierroand DonSegundo Sombrawere fictionalgauchos. Martin Fierrois the hero of the famous poem of the same name byJose Hernandez;the poem is centrally important in Argentine literature and often figures in JLB's work, as a reference, as a subject of meditation in essays, or rewritten (in "The End," in the volumeFictions, q.v.); his headstrong bravery and antiauthoritarianism are perhaps the traits that were most approved by the "cult of thegaucho"to which JLB alludes here. DonSegundo Sombrais the protagonist of a novel byRicardo Guiraldes;for this novel, see the note, below, to "The Gospel According to Mark," p. 399. It is interesting that JLB notes that the model for thegauchoshifts from a real-life person to fictional characters, perhaps to indicate that the truegauchohas faded from the Argentine scene and that (in a com- monBorgestrope) all that's left is the memory of thegaucho.

p. 368: ThePodestasand the Gutierrezes:ThePodestafamily were circus actors; in 1884, some ten years after the outlawgaucho JuanMoreira's death, Juande Podestaput on a pantomime version of the life ofMoreira."Two years later," Fishburn and Hughes tell us, "he added extracts from the novel [byEduardoGutierrez]to his per- formance." Theplays were extraordinarily successful.Eduardo Gutierrezwas a prolific and relatively successful, if none too "literary,"

novelist whose potboilers were pub- lished serially in various Argentine magazines. HisJuanMoreira,however, brought himself andMoreiragreat fame, and (in the words of theDiccionarioOxfordde Litera- tura Espanola e Hisf ano-Americana)"created the stereotype of the heroicgaucho."The dictionary goes on to say that"Borgesclaims thatGutierrezis much superior to Fenimore Cooper."

Juan Murana p. 370:Palermo: A district in Buenos Aires, populated originally by the Italians who immigrated to Argentina in the nineteenth century. Trapani's name marks him as a "native" of that quarter, whileBorgesand his family moved there probably in search of a less expensive place to live than the central district where they had been living;Borgesalways mentioned the "shabby genteel" people who lived in that "shabby gen- teel" neighborhood (Rodriguez Monegal, pp.

48-55).

p. 371:Juan Murana:As noted in "The Encounter," at one point JuanMoreirawas the very model of thegauchoand therefore of a certain kind of swaggering masculinity;Juan Murana'sname so closely resembles Moreira's that one suspects that JLB is trading on it to create the shade that so literarily haunts this story. In the dream, especially, Muranahas the look of thegaucho:dressed all in black, with long hair and mustache, etc. Nor, one suspects, is it pure coincidence that the story"Juan Murana"immediately follows the story in which Juan Moreira's ghost plays such a large part.

p.371:Around the time of the Centennial: The Centennial of the Argentine Decla- ration of Independence, signed 1810, so the story takes place around 1910.

p.371:A man named Luchessi: Luchessi's name marks him too as a "native" of Palermo, though he has now moved into a district in southern Buenos Aires, near the bustling (if "somewhat dilapidated" [Fishburn and Hughes]) Plazade la Const.i.tucionand its railway station.

p.371:Barracas:Fishburn and Hughes gloss this as a "working-cla.s.s district in southern Buenos Aires near La Boca andConst.i.tucion[see note just above] and bor- dering theRiachuelo."

p. 371: Wop:See note to "Little Sheeny," p. 355, above. In Spanish,gringo was the word used to refer to Italian immigrants; see A Note on the Translation.

p.372:CalleThames:In Palermo.

The Elderly Lady p.375:Wars of independence: For the independence not only of Argentina but of the entire continent. During this period there were many famous generals and leaders, many named in the first pages of this story. ThusRubiois a.s.sociated with the grand forces of continental self-determination that battled in the second and third decades of the nineteenth century.

p.375:Chacabuco, Cancha Rayada, Maipu, Arequipa:Chacabuco (Chile,1817): The Army of theAndesunderGeneral Jose San Martinfought the Spanish royalist forces under GeneralMarc delPont and won.Cancha Rayada(Chile, March 1818): San Martin's army was defeated by the royalists and independence was now very un- certain.Maipu(Chile, April 1818): San Martin's army decisively defeated the royalist forces and secured the independence of Chile.Arequipa( Peru, 1825): General AntonioJose deSucre, leading Bolivar's army, accepted Spain's surrender of the city after a siege; this, after the Battle of Ayacucho (see below), meant the full independence of Peru.

p.375:He andJose de Olavarriaexchanged swords:Olavarria(1801-1845) was an Argentine military leader who fought at the battles just mentioned and perhaps at the great Battle of Ayacucho, which determined the full independence of Peru. Exchang- ing swords was a "romantic custom among generals, andBorgesrecalls that his own grandfather had exchanged swords with Gen. Mansilla on the eve of a battle" (Fish-burn and Hughes).OlavarriaandLavalle(see below) are probably the models forRubio.

p.375:The famous battle ofCerroAlto ...Cerro Bermejo:However famous this battle may be, I confess I have not been able to locate it. I hope (for the good name of the humble research that has gone into these notes) that this is an example ofBorges'famous put-ons (see A Note on the Translation). I feel that it may well be; this is the bird's-eye statement given in thePenguin History of Latin America (Edwin Williamson, New York/London: Penguin, 1992), p.

228, of the years 1823-1824 as they apply to Bolivar (who is mentioned as winning this battle): "Arriving in Peru in Sep - tember 1823, Bolivar began to prepare for the final offensive against the royalists. By the middle of 1824 he launched his campaign, winning an important battle at Junin, which opened to him the road to Lima, the ultimate prize. In December, while Boli- var was in Lima, Marshal Sucre defeated ViceroyDe laSerna's army at the battle ofAyacucho.

Spanish power in America had been decisively broken and the Indies were at last free." Thus, it appears that in April of 1823 Bolivar was planning battles, not fighting them. If it is a real battle, I ask a kind reader to inform me of the date and location so that future editions, should there be any, may profit from the knowledge.

p. 375:Ayacucho: In Peru between Lima andCuzco(1824). Here Sucre's Peruvian forces decisively defeated the Spanish royalists.

P- 375-'Ituzaingo:In the province ofCorrientes(1827). Here the Argentine and Uruguayan forces defeated the Brazilians.

p. 375:CarlosMaria Alvear:Alvear(1789-1852) had led the Argentine revolution- ary forces against the Spanish forces in Montevideo in 1814 and defeated them. When he conspired against the Unitarian government, however, he was forced into exile in Uruguay, but was recalled from exile to lead the republican army of Argentina against the Brazilians. He defeated the Brazilians at.i.tuzaingo,ending the war. He was a diplo- mat for the Rosas government.p. 375:Rosas: Juan ManueldeRosas (1793-1877), tyrannical ruler of Argentina from 1835 to 1852. See note to Foreword, p. 345.

p. 375:Rubiowasa Lavalleman:Juan GaloLavalle(1797-1841), chosen to lead the Unitarians against the Federalists under Rosas, whomLavalledefeated in 1828.Lavallewas defeated in turn by Rosas in 1829; then "after ten years in Montevideo he returned to lead the Unitarians in another attempt to oust Rosas" (Fishburn and Hughes). Thus he spent his life defending the policies and the principles of the Buenos Aires political party against those of thegauchoparty headed by Rosas.

p. 375:Themontoneroinsurgents:These weregauchoguerrillas who fought under their localcaudilloagainst the Buenos Aires-based Unitarian forces. While it is claimed that they would have had no particular political leanings, just a sense of resis- tance to the centralizing tendencies of the Unitarians, the effect would have been that they were in alliance with the Federalists, led by Rosas, etc.

p. 376:Oribe's White army: The White party, orBlancos,was "a Uruguayan political party founded by the followers ofOribe,... [consisting] of rich landowners who sup- ported the Federalist policy of Rosas in Buenos Aires___TheBlancosare now known as the Nationalists and represent the conservative cla.s.ses" (Fishburn and Hughes). ManuelOribe(1792-1856) was a hero of the Wars of Independence and fought against the Brazilian invasion of Uruguay. He served as minister of war and the navy under Rivera; then, seeking the presidency for himself, he sought the support of Rosas. To- gether they attacked Montevideo in a siege that lasted eight days. (This information, Fishburn and Hughes). See also note to p.

386, "Battle ofManantiales,"in the story "The Other Duel."

p. 375.-The tyrant: Rosas (see various notes above).

p. 376:PavonandCepeda:Cepeda(Argentina, 1859) andPavon(Argentina, 1861) were battles between the Confederation forces under Urquiza and the Buenos Aires-basedPortenoforces (basically Unitarian) under Mitre, fought to determine whether Buenos Aires would join the Argentine Confederation or would retain its autonomy.

Buenos Aires lost atCepedabut won atPavon,enabling Mitre to renegotiate the terms of a.s.sociation between the two ent.i.ties, with more favorable conditions for Buenos Aires.

p. 375.-Yellow fever epidemic: 1870-1871.

p. 375.-Married ... one Saavedra, who was a clerk in the Ministry of Finance:Fishburn and Hughes tell us that "employment in the Ministry of Finance is con- sidered prestigious, and consistent with the status of a member of an old and well-established family." They tie "Saavedra" to Corneliode Saavedra, aleader in the firstcriollogovernment of Argentina, in 1810, having deposed the Spanish viceroy. This is a name, then, that would have had resonances among the Argentines similar to a Jeffer- son, Adams, or Marshall among the Americans, even if the person were not directly mentioned as being a.s.sociated with one of the founding families. "Saavedra" will also invariably remind the Spanish-language reader of MigueldeCervantes, whose second (maternal) surname was Saavedra.

p. 377:She still abominatedArtigas,Rosas, and Urquiza:Rosas has appeared in these notes several times. Here he is the archenemy not only of the Buenos Aires Uni- tarians but of the family as well, because he has confiscated their property and con- demned them to "shabby gentility," asBorgeswould have put it.Jose Gervasio Artigas(1764-1850) fought against the Spaniards for the liberation of the Americas but was al- lied with thegauchosand the Federalist party against the Unitarians; in 1815 he de- feated the Buenos Aires forces but was later himself defeated by help from Brazil.Justo JoseUrquiza (1801-1870) was president of the Argentinian Confederation from 1854 to 1860, having long supported the Federalists (and Rosas) against the Unitarians. As a military leader he often fought against the Unitarians, and often defeated them. In ad- dition, he was governor (andcaudillo)ofEntre Riosprovince.

p. 377: Easternersinstead of Uruguayans: Before Uruguay became a country in 1828, it was a Spanish colony which, because it lay east of the Uruguay River, was called theBandaOriental ("eastern sh.o.r.e"). (The Uruguay meets theParanato create the huge estuary system called theRio de laPlata, or River Plate; Montevideo is on the eastern bank of this river, Buenos Aires on the west.)La BandaOriental is an old-fashioned name for the country, then, and orientales("Easterners") is the equally old-fashioned name for those who live or were born there. Only the truly "elderly" have a right to use this word.

p. 377:Plaza del Once: p.r.o.nouncedohn-say,notwunce. This is generally called Plaza Once, but the h.o.m.onymy of the English and Spanish words make it advisable, the translator thinks, to modify the name slightly in order to alert the English reader to the Spanish ("eleven"), rather than English ("onetime" or "past"), sense of the word. Plaza Once is one of Buenos Aires' oldest squares, "a.s.sociated in Borges's memory with horse-drawn carts" (Fishburn and Hughes), though later simply a mod- ern square.

p. 377:Barracas:Oncea district virtually in the country, inhabited by the city's elite, now a "working-cla.s.s district" in southern Buenos Aires, near the PlazaConsti- tucion(Fishburn and Hughes).

p. 379:Sra. Figueroa's car and driver. Perhaps the Clara Glencairnde Figueroaof the next story in this volume, "The Duel"; certainly the social sphere in which these two Sras. Figueroa move is the same.

p. 380:Benzoin: Probably used, much as we use aromatic preparations today, to clear the nasal pa.s.sages and give a certain air of health to the elderly. An aromatic preparation calledalcoholado(alcohol and bay leaves, basically) is much used in Latin America as a kind ofcureallfor headaches and various aches and pains and for "re- freshing" the head and skin; one presumes this "benzoin" was used similarly.

p. 380:One of Rosas' posses: TheMazorca("corncob," so called [or so folketymology has it] for the Federalist party's agrarian ties), a private secret police force-cm-army employed by Rosas to intimidate and terrorize the Unitarians after his rise to Federalist power. TheMazorcasbeat and murdered many people, and so the elderly lady is right to have been shocked and frightened. (See also the story "PedroSalvadores"inIn Praise of Darkness.) The Duel p.381: Clara Glencairnde Figueroa:Clara's name is given here as Christian name + patronymic or family (father's) name +deindicating "belonging to" or, less patri-archally, "married to" + the husband's last name. This indication of a character by full name, including married name, underscores Clara's equivocal position in life and in the world of art that she aspires to: a woman of some (limited) talent in her own right, with a "career" or at least a calling in which she is ent.i.tled topersonal respect, versus the "wife of the amba.s.sador." This tension is noted a couple of pages later, when "Mrs." Figueroa, having won a prize, now wants to return to Cartagena "in her own right," not as the amba.s.sador's wife that she had been when she had lived there be- fore. It is hard for the English reader, with our different system of naming, to perceive the subtleties of JLB's use of the conventions of naming in Hispanic cultures.

p.382: JuanCrisostomoLafinur:Lafinur (1797-1824), a great-uncle ofBorges', wasthe holder of the chair of philosophy "at the newly-formedColegio de la UniondelSud" (Fishburnand Hughes) and thus a "personage."

p.382: ColonelPascual Pringles:Pringles (1795-1831) was a distinguished Unitarian military leader from the province of San Luis. "[Rjather than surrender his sword to the enemy" in defeat, Fishburn and Hughes tell us, "he broke it and threw himself into the river."

p.382: The solid works ofcertainnineteenth-century Genoese bricklayers:This snide comment refers to the Italian immigrant laborers and construction foremen who built those "old houses of Buenos Aires" thatMartapaints; she is influenced, that is, not by an Italian school of painting (which would be acceptable, as "European" was good; see the first line of the next paragraph in the text) but by Italian immigrant (and there- fore, in Buenos Aires society hierarchy, "undesirable" or "inferior") artisans. Note in "The Elderly Lady" the narrator's mild bigotry in the statement that one of the daugh- ters married a "Sr. Molinari, who though of Italian surname was a professor of Latin and a very well-educated man." The social lines between the oldcriollofamilies (de- scendants of European, especially Spanish, colonists), the newer immigrant families, those with black or Indian blood, etc. were clear, especially in the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth.