Ghose, Lilia of the Butterflies.pdf

8/20/2019 Ghose, Lilia of the Butterflies.pdf

1/8

Latin American Literary Review is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Latin American

Literary Review.

http://www.jstor.org

Lila of the Butterflies and Her ChroniclerAuthor(s): Zulfikar GhoseSource: Latin American Literary Review, Vol. 13, No. 25, Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Jan. - Jun.,1985), pp. 151-157Published by: Latin American Literary ReviewStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20119396Accessed: 02-07-2015 16:43 UTC

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of contentin a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship.For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

This content downloaded from 170.140.26.180 on Thu, 02 Jul 2015 16:43:30 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=lalrhttp://www.jstor.org/stable/20119396http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/20119396http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=lalrhttp://www.jstor.org/


2/8

LILA

OF

THE

BUTTERFLIES

AND HER

CHRONICLER

ZULFIKAR

GHOSE

In

the central

courtyard

where

the famous

acacia

trees

grew

that

dropped

their

yellow

blossoms

only

every

twenty-one

years

there

lay

in

a

hammock

hung

from

two

of the

tallest

trees

Ang?lila

whose dark brown

skin

glowed

amber

in

the

light

that filtered

through

the clusters

of the acacia

blossoms and

who

was

known

as

Lila

of the Butterflies.

The

floor of

the

courtyard was thick with short plants that grew leaves the size of elephants'

ears,

and the four

walls

surrounding

it

were

covered

with

a

green

moss

streaked

with

purple

and

yellow.

There

was a

well

in

one

corner

that had

dried

up

during

the

year

that

Juan Flores became

the

president

of

Ecuador.

Lila

of

the Butterflies

was

believed

to

have been

in

the

central

courtyard

for

longer

than

that;

some

fanatical

old

men,

whose

eyes

never

blink

as

they

continue

to

stare

at

the fantastic

nature

of

truth,

even

claim

that Lila

of

the

Butterflies

was

there,

lying

between

the

trees,

long

before Pedro de

Alvarado marched

into

the

kingdom

of

Quito.

When

I

stood

there,

just

behind

the

trunk

of

the

acacia

from which

her

hammock

was

hung,

I

did

not

at

first believe that

the smooth dark

brown

skin,

lined here

and there

by yellow

beads

of

light,

was

that

of

a

woman

older than

twenty

years;

she

was

quite

wide

at

the

hips

and her

thighs

were

fat,

but

her

breasts,

with

the

nipples gold-colored

as

if

two

acacia

flowers

had

fallen

there,

were

that

of

an

attractive,

even

desirable,

young

woman.

But

then

something happened.

The

ghost

of

his

father

appearing

to

Hamlet

could

not

have

more

amazed

him,

Leontes

watching

the

presumed

statue

of

Hermione

come

down

from

the

pedestal

could

not

have been

more

startled

than

I

was

by

what

I

observed.

The

extraordinary

events

that

I

am

about

to

describe

took

place

on

an

afternoon

in

December

1978.1

had been invited

to

a

conference

in

Quito

the

month

before

at

which

several

Spanish-language

writers

were

to

be

present.

It

was a

memorable

week.

Borges

came

and

sat

in

the

Speaker's

chair

in

the

chamber

of

Deputies

from where he answered

questions;

Juan

Goytisolo,

Alvaro

Mutis,

Angel

Rama

. . .

the

great

international

democracy

compos

ed

of

the aristocrats

of

literature

was

well

represented.

But

Garc?a

M?rquez

did

not come.

I

do

not

believe

that

in

my

disappointment

I

consciously

went

in

search

of

him;

those

events

in

one's life that

appear

mysterious,

incom

prehensible

and fantastic

happen

in

a

very

ordinary

way:

it

is

simply

the

ac

cident

of

finding

oneself

in

some

remote

bifurcation

of

a

labyrinth

where

one

had

never

expected

to

be;

it

is

memory,

the

recording

of

past

events

with

absolute

fidelity,

that

places

us in a

retrospective

amazement and

gives

us

the

impression

that

we

have

experienced

the incredible.

When

I think of

151


http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


3/8

152

Latin

American

Literary

Review

it,

my

encounter

with

Lila

of

the

Butterflies

was

no

more

fantastic

than

another

event

of

the

previous

week

when

in

a

ship

of

the Ecuadorian

navy

that

transported

the

visiting

writers

from

one

island

to

another in

the

Gal?pagos

I sat with

Goytisolo

and

we

talked

of

the

fictions

of

Alain

Robbe-Grillet.

Someone

had said:

You

should take

a

trip

to

Otavalo.

How,

doing

so,

I

found

myself

in

southern Colombia is

a

complicated

little

history

of

errors

and

misunderstandings

that,

though

it

is

a

perfect microscopic

example

of

the

way

one's

reality

is

shaped,

is irrelevant here.

A

missed

bus,

my

less than

rudimentary

Spanish,

a

convivial officer

at

the

border

who

thought

it

very

funny

that the holder of a British

passport

should be brown-skinned and

that

absurdity

in

itself

a

sufficient

reason to

let

him

enter

as a

tourist,

for

one

joke

leads

to

another?a

mass

of

details,

each

one

bizarre, trivial,

mun

dane,

and

yet

improbable,

saw me

finally

arrive

in

the central

courtyard

and

witness the miraculous

phenomenon

of

Lila

of

the Butterflies.

The bus had

left the lower

slopes,

and the snow-covered

range

of

the

Andes that had been visible much

of

the

way

from

Quito

had

disappeared

out

of

sight.

The bus creaked

along

tracks

near

narrow,

crystalline

rivers,

wound about

in

the darkness

of

a

forest,

and

then bounced

in

a

steady

rhythm

on

a

straight

dirt

road

through

a

green

and

empty

land. There

were

half a dozen other passengers, wrinkled old Indians, one of them a fat

woman;

the

plait

of

her

grey

hair

fell

below the black felt

hat,

a

necklace

of

gold-colored

beads

clasped

her

throat,

and

a

bright pink

poncho

was

rumpl

ed around

her shoulders.

I sat

behind

her

and could

not

see

her

face,

but

her

head bobbed

with

the

motion

of

the bus and shook

vigorously

each

time she

yelled

something

to

the

driver,

who

answered

her

in

a

low,

moaning

voice,

looking

up

at

the

rearview

mirror

each time he

did

so.

Two

of

the

men

got

off

in

the middle

of

open

country

with not

a

habitation

in

sight.

The others

alighted

in

front

of

three huts

on

the

bank

of

a

river;

not

a

face

appeared

at

any

of the

open

windows but several

dogs

came

running

out,

barking

feverishly. The woman continued to scream remarks at the driver as we pro

ceeded.

We drove

through hilly

terrain and the

motion

over

the

undulating

land

must

have rocked

me to

sleep,

for

suddenly

we

had

come to

stop

outside

a

huge

wall

made

of

granite

boulders. The

driver,

no

doubt

exhausted,

was

slumped

over

the

wheel,

and

it

was

the Indian

woman,

shrieking

in

a

language

entirely

alien

to

me,

who

gestured

that

I

should

alight.

When

I

did

so,

I

turned

to

look

at

her

standing

above

the

step

at

the door

of

the

bus;

she

was

staring

down

at

me,

her

body shaking

with

laughter.

But

I

was

not

amused.

Not

because

I

did

not care

to

be

the

object

of

her

merriment;

it

was

her face that froze me for a moment and then made me want to run from

her:

she

must

have had

cheeks,

a

forehead,

a

nose,

a

chin;

but what

I

saw

was a mass

of

green

hairy

caterpillars

that formed

a

circle

from

the

curved

line

of

the forehead

to

the half-moon

line

of

the

chin,

all

in constant

mo

tion.

It

was

like

an

enlarged moving picture

of

termites,

and

my

own

skin




4/8

Lila

of the

Butterflies

and

Her Chronicler

153

itched

ferociously

for

a

second

before

I

turned

round and

saw

that I

stood

before

an enormous

open

gate.

I

supposed

that

had

I

been

awake earlier

while

the

bus

was

still

some

distance

from the

building

before

whose

entrance

I

now

stood,

I

would

have

seen

what

sort of

castle

or

fort

or

simply

a

long

wall

had

suddenly

appeared

on

the

plain.

I

have

to

confess

that

I

have

spent

so

many years

with

literature that

I

am

easily

confused

by reality

and

sometimes have

the

very

strong

suspicion

that

the

world

of

my

perception

has been transformed

to

a

fragment

in

some

familiar

epic;

it

is

a

delusion,

of

course,

of

a

mind

in

capable

of

witnessing

the

pristine

forms

of

life,

deficient

in

comprehending

that for which an

imaginative

language

has not

already

created an associa

tion. Such na?vit?

has,

I

believe,

the

advantage

of

giving

one

unexpected

courage

in

harrowing

and

oppressive

circumstances.

Well,

Childe

Roland,

I

said,

addressing

myself

with

a

jolly

nudge,

here

we

are

at

last;

and

then,

I

suppose

because

I

was

anxious

not

to

appear

too

antiquated,

although

there

was

no one

around

to

observe

my

absurd

concern

that

a

spontaneously

ex

pressed

literary

reference

might

be

too

outdated,

I

added

aloud:

Many

years

later

you

will

remember

this

distant

afternoon

when

you

face

the

firing

squad.

I

have

mentioned

the

central

courtyard

in

which

I

observed

the

miraculous phenomenon of Lila of the Butterflies. Yes, there were other

courtyards.

The

building

I

entered

was

immense,

its

long

passages

cunning

ly

lit

by high

windows

and

mirrors.

It

contained

a maze

of

apartments,

and

sometimes

I

had

the

impression

of

being

in

a

walled

city,

for

some

of the

passages

had

no

roofs and

thus seemed

to

be

streets.

Children

played

games

there,

women

sat in

doorways,

men

rode

past

on

mules

as

if

coming

back

from

a

day

in

the

fields.

There

seemed

nothing

remarkable about

these

people

until

I

came

to

one

of

the

outer

courtyards

and

saw a

group

of

women

around

a

man

who

lay

on

his

side

on

the

grass.

His shirt had been

removed,

and

the first

thing

one saw on him was the wound on his chest. Blood should have been pour

ing

out of

the

wound,

but

it

was

not.

There

was

indeed

a

stream

of

blood

on

the

ground

but

it

was

flowing

toward

the

man,

wriggling through

the

grass

like

a

snake,

gathering

itself

into

a

thick

rope,

and

entering

the wound.

Slowly

and

imperceptibly,

but

definitely entering

the

wound.

The

explana

tion

seemed

simple

to

everyone.

It

was

not

the man's

time

to

die.

Now,

I

am

not

too

easily

amazed;

I

was

raised

in

India and have

seen a

fakir?it

was

an

October

day

in 1943

in

Bombay

on

the

edge

of

the

park

where

we

played

cricket

on

Sundays?bury

himself

in

the sand

for

an

hour

and

come

out

no

different

from

someone

hopping

out of

a

hammock after

an

hour's

siesta,

and while we were waiting for him to resurrect himself another fakir

diverted

us

by thrusting

a

two-foot

sword

down

his

throat and

inviting

everyone

to

poke

his stomach

with

a

forefinger

to

feel the steel blade behind

the

skin

just

above

his navel.

So,

why

should

I

have been amazed

that

a

man's

blood

was

returning

to

him?




5/8

154

Latin American

Literary

Review

There

was

now

a

succession

of

courtyards?linked

open

spaces

that

together

formed

a

large

park

with low

stone

walls

marking

off

each

par

ticular

square

with its

own

peculiar

characteristic.

If

one

did

not

look

too

closely,

there

was

nothing

but

an

enchanting

profusion

of trees

and

flower

ing

bushes

to

be

seen,

and

if

one

happened

to

be

like

those dreamers

who

go

through gardens

with hooded

eyes

and dilated

nostrils,

receiving

sensations

of

merging, overlapping,

even

dissolving

colors,

as

in

the

paintings

of

Jules

Olitski,

and

exquisite

combinations of

perfumes,

as

one

does

when

entering

the cosmetics section

of

a

store

where

one

sees

a

beautiful

young

woman,

her

shoulder

length

blond hair

perfectly

straight,

her

large

blue

eyes

clearly

marked with flawless lines below the

pale

blue mascara

covering

the

eyelids,

her

lips

a

thrilling liquid

red

as

she works

on

the

make-up

of

an

older

woman,

applying moisturising

creams

to

her

wrinkles,

and

one

walks

past

inhaling

odors

of

an

existence

not

one's

own,

receiving

too,

in

the

linked

courtyards,

the sounds

of

birds

in the

higher

branches

of

the

trees,

like such

dreamers,

one

remained

oblivious

to

the

dramas that

were

here and there

being performed.

In

one

grove,

several

male

children,

none more

than three

or

four

years

old,

played silently. They

formed

a

circle

on

the

ground

and

crawled

on

their

hands and knees

in

an

infinite

increasing

and

diminishing

of the

great

wheel

of

solitude.

Two

or

three

raised

their

eyes

as

they

crawled, and the large, black circular eyes were expressive of an infinite sad

ness

as

they

looked

up

from

the earth.

And infinite

too

was

the

melancholy

of their silence.

They

were

naked

in

their

endless

procession

and

though

each

was

still

in

his

infancy,

the

organ

proclaiming

his

sex was

that

of

an

adult

in

that

desperately

tense state

of

erection

just

prior

to

coitus. Another

peculiarity

marked each

boy.

Sticking

up

in

a

little

curl above the

buttocks

was a

pig's

tail.

In

another

part

of

the

park,

in

an

arbor

made

by

a

thickly

intertwining

trumpet-vine

and

on a

floor covered

by marguerites

lay

the

couple

con

demned

to

join

their bodies

together

in

3,567

distinctly

different

positions,

with each inadvertant repetition of a previous performance canceling out

the

sequence

and

obliging

them

to commence

again

with

position

number

one.

Their

bodies

were

hardly

distinguishable

as

human,

and

it

was

scarcely

possible

to

tell that

the

shrunk,

flattened

slithering

mass

was

composed

of

two

persons,

and

I

was

told

by

the

man

who

had been

passing

by

and had

given

me

information

of

the

couple's

fate that

on

some

mornings

they

were

to

be

seen as

no

more

than

two

drops

of dew

on

the

edge

of

a

marguerite

petal.

One

narrow room

in

a

building

was

made

up

entirely

of

mirrors?small

squares

of

mirrors

like

tiles

on

the

floor

and similar

squares

on

the

ceiling,

with rectangular sections like window-panes on the walls. Here lived

a

pair

of

identical

twins,

Fernando and

Hernando,

and

neither could

ever

be

con

vinced that the

infinite

multiplication

of

themselves

was

an

illusion because

each

had the other

to

touch and

squeeze

to

prove

that

his

own

duplication

was

real and therefore the millions

crowding

the surface

of

the mirrors

were




6/8

Lila

of

the Butterflies

and

Her

Chronicler

155

real

too,

only

they

were

outside

the

window-panes

and could

not

be

touched.

In

another

room,

a man

spent

his

days tying

and

untying

an

end

less succession

of bow ties. The

room

was

heaped

with

two

piles

of bow

ties,

from

one

of which he

took

a

bow tie?which

was

sometimes

only

a

length

of

string

or

a

piece

of straw

that

had blown

in

through

the

window?put

it

around

his

collar,

worked the

deft

movement

that transformed

the material

to

a

perfectly

shaped

bow,

his

fingers moving

as

in the

sign language

of

the

dumb,

then

quickly

pulled

it

apart,

snapped

it

away

from

the

collar

and

discarded

it

on

the second

heap.

A

thin

long

snake had coiled

itself

in

one

of

the

heaps,

and the

man,

in the

performance

of his automatic

movements,

plucked

it

up

and

proceeded

to tie it around his throat. The snake's two

ends

hung

loosely

in

front

of the man's chest

for

a

second,

and

then

were

pulled

apart

just

as

if

it

were

one

long

silk bow

tie

and

thrown

to

the side.

I

came

to

a

room

whose

high

walls

were

covered

with

old leather-bound

volumes

and

in

which

books

were

scattered

all

over

the

floor.

A

man

sat

at

a

desk.

His

head

was

completely

hairless and he had

small black

eyes.

It

was

enough

for

me

to

use two

of

the half

a

dozen

words that

comprise

my

knowledge

of

Spanish

for

him

to

detect

not

only

that

my

accent

was

one

of

an

English-speaking

person

but

also that its

particular

nuance

had

its

origin

in

the late British

Empire.

Perhaps

to

show

off his

virtuosity,

he

answered

me in fluent English in the accent common to people from the Indian sub

continent. He

discoursed

for fifteen

minutes.

He

knew

every

language

in

the

world. The books

in

the

room

were

dictionaries

and

grammars,

and he

was

at work

on

the invention

of

the

most

complete language

known

to

man.

But

it

was

not to

be

simply

a

language

capable

of

articulating

every

knowable

fact;

it

was

to

be

a

language

of

such

purity

that

only

the noblest minds could

acquire

it,

of such

subtlety

that

only

a

Shakespeare

or

a

Goethe would

even

think

that

he

could

write

poetry

in

it,

of

such

complexity

that

the

majority

of

human

beings

would

be

obliged

to

remain

illiterate,

which,

he added

without

sarcasm,

was

the

true state of most

people

who believed

themselves

to be educated. When his invention was completed, only he would be able to

explain

its

grammar;

but he

hoped

very

much

that

the

day

his

great

work

reached

its conclusion would also

be the

day

of his

death,

for

he did

not

believe

that

humanity

was

worthy

of

the

perfection

of

his

creation,

and he

was

certainly

not

going

to

leave

any

clues behind

to

an

easy

understanding

of his

language.

When

I

was

about

to

leave

him,

he

quoted

Caliban's

famous

words,

and added

with

a

maniacal

laugh,

?That's all the

profit

I

have

to

offer

too ?

The

thought

did

cross

my

mind,

as

it

must

have the

reader's,

that

I

had

stumbled

into

a

lunatic

asylum,

but

it

was

soon

dispelled

when

I

came to an

apartment that was unmistakably a small palace of pleasure, decked out in

peacock

colors,

with

music and

laughter

coming

from its windows.

But

I

was

distracted

from it

by

a

brilliant

golden

light coming

from

the outside.

An

open

door seemed

a

solid block

of

gold.

I went

and stood

in it

and

was

for

a

moment

blinded

by

the

golden

dazzle.

I

had

arrived

at

the

central




7/8

156

Latin

American

Literary

Review

courtyard.

The late afternoon

sun was

falling

through

the

bright yellow

blossoms

of

the acacia

trees

and

it

was

not

until

I went

and stood

next to

the

trunk

of

one

that

I

came

out

of

the

slanting

rods

of

golden

light.

I

was

grateful

to

the tree's shadow

for

restoring

my

perception

although

a

pale

yellow luminosity

still

hung

about

my

eyelids.

A movement

as

of

dragonflies darting

up

from

a

dark

stream

into

the

sunlight caught

my eyes.

It

was a

concentrated

spot

of

light

on a

dark brown

background

that broke

into

a

shimmering,

seemed

to

lift

itself and

disap

pear.

It

took

me a

moment to

distinguish

the brown

background

as a

rather

massive human

thigh,

and

then

to

see

the

woman

lying

in

the hammock

whose motion had created the initial sensation. After all that I had seen dur

ing

the

previous

two

hours,

I

was

neither

surprised

nor

shocked

to see

that

the

woman

was

naked.

My only

astonishment

at

the time

was

to

observe

that

although

her

legs

were

disproportionately

large, they

did

not

violate

my

sense

of

beauty

but,

on

the

contrary,

seemed

precisely

to

be what

was re

quired

of nature

to

make her

beautiful,

and

in

that

moment I

imagined

her

with

slender

legs

and

thought

the effect

decidedly incongruous. Standing

behind

her,

I

could

not

see

her

face,

but

only

the

fine,

long

black hair that

fell from her head

to

her

shoulders,

curved

over

them and then

seemed

to

leap

over

the

sides of

the hammock from

where

it

hung

halfway

to

the

ground. Her pointed breasts, rising in front of her, were also visible from

where

I

stood,

and

that moment's

particular

coincidence

of

two

beams of

light striking

her

nipples

created the

impression

that

two

soft acacia flowers

had settled there.

I

was

about

to

leave when

a

shiver

seemed

to

run

through

her

body

and

she

slipped

lower down

in

the hammock

so as

to

be able

to

fling

her head

back,

arching

her throat. Her

forehead and

nose

appeared

to

my

vision

and

then her

mouth,

the

pink

lips

fleshy

and swollen. She held her mouth

open

for

two

or

three

long

minutes,

her

tongue

flickering

desperately,

as

if

trying

to

force

out

of

her throat

some

obstruction

that had

been

lodged

there.

Then I saw a little blob of yellow appear on her lower lip as though itwere

spittle;

but

it

moved

rapidly,

and

even as

I

was

thinking

of it

as

spittle

it

had

transformed

itself

into

a

butterfly

and

begun

its

ascent

to

the

sky.

I

had

no

opportunity

to

reflect

upon

this

event,

for

I

was

overwhelmed

by

what

suc

ceeded

it.

The

woman

kept

her mouth

open

and

breathed

heavily

and

within

a

minute

a

swarm

of

butterflies

had

risen

into

the

air,

coming

out

of her

mouth

in

a

rush

of

yellow wings.

But

this

was

not

all. Soon she seemed

to

go

into

a

swoon,

as

though

exhausted.

A

film

of

perspiration

covered her

body, tiny points

of

light

on

the dark brown

skin;

but

I

was

mistaken

to

think

it

was

perspiration,

for

the

points

of

light

rapidly began

to

enlarge

themselves and

in

another minute thousands

of

butterflies

began

to

rise

from

every pore

of

her

flesh.

A

thick

yellow

cloud

hung

in

the

air,

clamor

ing

for the

upper

light.

A

little

later,

the

acacia

blossoms

began

to

fall.

At

first

I

thought

some

of

the

butterflies,

suffocated

in

the

great

aerial

press,

were

falling

dead,

but then

saw

it

was

the little flowers

that

were

tumbling




8/8

Lila

of the

Butterflies

and

Her

Chronicler

157

down

and

in

a

few minutes

overflowed the

hammock,

having

buried

the

woman

under

their

soft,

almost

weightless

mass.

I

did

not

need

anyone

to

tell

me,

though

the

facts

were

later

related

to

me,

that

I

had

witnessed

the

miracle

of Lila

of

the

Butterflies. The acacia

blossoms that

covered her

exhausted

body,

falling

once

every

twenty-one

years,

were,

I

was

informed,

the

secret

of her

eternal

youth.

I

would certain

ly

have dismissed

this last

notion

as

a

piece

of

nonsense

but

it

occurred

to

me

that

nature

had

an

infinite

capacity

to

restore

its

living

creatures;

and

the

real

wonder

was

how

a

creater,

trapped

in

an

eternal

solitude,

could

ever

get

a

combination

of

disparate

substances

to come

together

to

form

a

new

life.

I

walked

quickly through

the

maze

of

passages

and

courtyards.

But

suddenly

I

stopped

in front of

a

doorway, seeing

the

most

startling image

of

all.

A

man

sat

at

a

small

desk,

his

right

elbow

on

some

papers

on

the

desk,

his head

of

thick black hair

resting

against

the

hand;

his

forehead,

con

tracted

in

concentration,

was

marked

by

two

or

three

wavy

lines and

a

small

strong

vertical

depression

formed

a

dent

between the

eyebrows;

his

left

forearm rested

along

the

edge

of

the

desk,

with

some

papers

in

front of him

which he

read

through

the half-moon

lenses

of his

spectacles,

his mouth

closed behind

a

rather

heavy

mustache;

the

desk's

two

legs

nearest

him

had

pieces

of

paper

folded under them

to

keep

the

desk

from

wobbling,

and

his

legs

could be seen under the

table,

the left one crossed over the

right,

the

feet

bare,

the

right

foot

resting

on

the

polished

tiled

surface

on

which

it

was

reflected;

the blue

jeans

he

wore

must

have been about six

inches

too

long

for

him,

for

they

had been

folded

up

so

that the

reverse

of the

denim

formed

a

wide

band between his

ankles and

shins;

on

the floor

to

his

right

was

a

plastic

wastepaper

basket

and

a

few

crumpled

sheets

of

paper

could

be

seen

discarded

through

the basket's

diagonal

mesh.

What

startled

me was

that

I

had

seen

the

image

before.

It

was as

if the

man were

only just

posing

for

a

photograph

that

already

existed,

and

that

I

remembered,

while

seeing

the

man

absorbed

in

his

reading,

as

the

one

ap

pearing on the back of the English translation of a book called El oto?o del

patriarca, published

by Harper

&

Row in

1976. But

no

photographer

was

in

attendance,

and

I went

on

my way,

reciting,

for

no

reason

at

all

that

I

have

since been

able

to

determine,

these lines from

The

Winter's Tale:

But

here

it

is:

prepare

To

see

the

life

as

lively

mocked,

as ever

Still

sleep

mocked

death:

behold,

and

say

'tis well....

?ends?

This content downloaded from 170.140.26.180 on Thu, 02 Jul 2015 16:43:30 UTC

Ghose, Lilia of the Butterflies.pdf

Documents

Transcript of Ghose, Lilia of the Butterflies.pdf