Jorge Luis Borges
to Margarita Bunge
A dagger rests in a drawer.
It was forged in Toledo at the end of the last
century. Luis Melián Lafur gave it to my
father, who brought it from Uruguay. Evaristo
Carriego once held it in his hand.
father, who brought it from Uruguay. Evaristo
Carriego once held it in his hand.
Whoever lays eyes on it has to pick up the dagger
and toy with it, as if he had always been on the
lookout for it. The hand is quick to grip the
waiting hilt, and the powerful obeying blade
slides in and out of the sheath with a click.
This is not what the dagger wants.
It is more than a structure of metal; men conceived it
and shaped it with a single end in mind. It is, in
and shaped it with a single end in mind. It is, in
some eternal way, the dagger that last night
knifed a man in Tacuarembó and the daggers
knifed a man in Tacuarembó and the daggers
that rained on Caesar. It wants to kill, it wants to
shed sudden blood.
In a drawer of my writing table, among draft
pages and old letters, the dagger dreams over
pages and old letters, the dagger dreams over
and over its simple tiger's dream. On wielding
it the hand comes alive because the metal comes
it the hand comes alive because the metal comes
alive, sensing itself, each time handled, in touch
with the killer for whom it was forged.
with the killer for whom it was forged.
At times I am sorry for it. Such power and single-
mindedness, so impassive or innocent in its pride,
mindedness, so impassive or innocent in its pride,
and the years slip by, unheeding.
tr. Norman Thomas di Giovanni
