Chapter 10 Scar

There was a sinister scar on his face: a pale, almost uninterrupted arc that ran from one temple to the other cheekbone.His real name didn't matter, the folks in Tacuarombo called him the Englishman from the Red Clay Farm.The owner of the land, Cardoso, was at first reluctant to sell.I heard that the Englishman had an unexpected idea: he told Cardoso the secret story of the scar.The British came from the border area of ​​Rio Grande do Sul, and many people said that he was doing smuggling in Brazil.The land of the red soil farm is overgrown with weeds and the river is bitter. In order to change this situation, the British worked together with hired workers.He was said to be harsh to the point of cruelty, but fair in his dealings.He also said that he liked to drink, and that two or three times a year he hid in the room with the oriel window, drank heavily for two or three days, and when he reappeared, he looked as if he had woken up after a battle or fainted, with a pale face and two hands. Trembling, bad mood, but still as dignified as before.I still remember his cold eyes, thin and lean body and gray mustache.He didn't hang out with anyone, and his Spanish was really bad, and he talked like a Brazilian.Except for occasional business letters or pamphlets, no one ever wrote to him.

During my recent trip to the northern provinces, the Caraguata River swelled and I had to spend the night at a red-clay farm.After staying for a few minutes, I realized that I had come at the wrong time; I wanted to please the Englishman, so I turned the conversation to a more innocuous topic--patriotism.I say that an English nation is invincible.The host agreed, but added with a smile that he was not English.He is from Dungarvan, Ireland.As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he stopped immediately, as if he felt that a secret had been revealed. After dinner, we went outside to check the sky.It has cleared up, but the sky behind the sharp mountain peaks in the south is pierced by lightning from time to time, and another storm is brewing.We went back to the humble dining-room, and the hired man who had been waiting on us brought us a bottle of rum.The two of us drank in silence for a long time.

I don't know how long it took before I found myself a little drunk; I don't know whether it was because of happiness or boredom, I suddenly had a whimsical idea and mentioned the scar on his face.The Englishman's face darkened, and for a few seconds I thought he was going to throw me out.At last, without changing his tone at all, he said to me: "I might as well tell you the origin of this scar, but there is one condition: no matter how embarrassing or disgraceful the circumstances, I must tell the truth without compromise." Of course I agree.Here's his story, told in English mixed with Spanish and even Portuguese.

I was one of many plotters for Irish independence in a town in Connacht around 1922.Some of my then companions are still alive and doing peaceful work; some, strange to say, are now fighting for the British flag at sea or in the desert; Shot by bleary-eyed soldiers; and some (not the least fortunate) found homes in the obscurity and even almost secret fighting of the Civil War.We're a republican, catholic bunch, and I think we're romantics.In our opinion, Ireland not only has an unbearable present and a utopian future, but also a poignant and lovely myth; the round tower, the red swamp, Parnell's rebellion, and the epic poem of cattle robbery , those cattle are sometimes heroes, sometimes fish and mountains... One afternoon, I remember very well, a member, a man named John Vincent Moon, came from the Province of Munster to us.

He was not more than twenty years old, thin and wimpy, and looked uncomfortable like an invertebrate.He perused a pamphlet of communism with an unknown name with dead-hearted fanaticism, and no matter what issues he talked about, he always drew conclusions with dialectical materialism.You have countless reasons to hate or like someone, but Moon boils down all history to dirty economic conflicts.He asserted that the revolution was destined to triumph.I said that people with lofty ideals should turn the tide and be on the losing side... It was late, and we were arguing from the corridors and stairs to the street.It wasn't Muth's point of view that struck me, but his tone of voice.The new comrade was not discussing matters, but giving orders with contempt and sullenness.

We had come to the end of the town, surrounded by sparsely populated houses, when we were startled by a sudden burst of gunfire (before or after we passed the walls of a factory or a barracks).We quickly turned onto a dirt road.A soldier came out of the burning hut, reflecting the firelight, his body looked particularly tall.He yelled at us to stop, and I hastened my pace, but my companion did not follow.I turned around and saw John Vincent Moon motionless, transfixed with terror.Immediately I ran back again, knocked the soldier down with my fist, and pushed Vincent Moon hard, and yelled at him, and told him to come with me.He was paralyzed with fright, and I had to grab his arm and pull him away.We fled in the dark night full of flames, and there was a burst of gunfire behind us.A bullet grazed Moon's right arm, and he was sobbing as we fled into the small pine forest.

That year, the autumn of 1922, I was stationed at General Berkeley's country estate.The General was then in some administrative position in Bengal, and I never saw him.The house had been built less than a hundred years ago, but it was dilapidated and dark, with many winding corridors and useless vestibules.Antique furnishings and a large collection of books occupy the ground floor: those books contend with a hundred schools of thought and are incompatible with each other, and in a sense just represent the history of the 19th century; the gentle arc of Nishapur’s waist knife seems to still have an ancient battlefield wind and cruelty.I remember we entered the house from the backyard.With trembling and dry lips, Mu En murmured that the experience that night was very interesting; I poured him a cup of tea, bandaged the wound, and found that the bullet he received only scratched a little skin and flesh, and did not hurt any bones.Suddenly, bewildered, he said:

"But you took a great risk." I told him not to worry (the habit of the Civil War compelled me to do that just now, and the arrest of one member might jeopardize our whole cause). The next day, Moon had regained his composure.He took a cigarette I offered him, and then rigorously questioned me about "the sources of our revolutionary party's finances."His questions were organized and I told him the truth and told him the situation was serious.Gunfire from the south was intense.I said to Moon, the companions are waiting for us.My overcoat and pistol were in my own room, and when I got them back I found Moon lying on the sofa with his eyes closed, feeling feverish and complaining of a terrible pain in his shoulder.

Knowing that he was hopelessly cowardly, I embarrassedly asked him to take care of himself and bid him farewell.The coward made me ashamed, as if I was the coward and not Vincent Moon.What one man does has something in common with all men, so it is not unfair to say that one defiance in the garden corrupted all mankind, nor that the crucification of one Jew was enough to save all mankind. Not unfair.Schopenhauer's famous saying: I am other people, and everyone is a living being, maybe it makes sense.In a sense, Shakespeare is that sad John Vincent Moon. We spent nine days in the general's mansion.I don't want to comment on the pain and hope of war, my purpose is to describe this scar that disfigures me.Those nine days seemed to be one day in my memory, except for the last day.Our men stormed a barracks that day and killed sixteen soldiers, avenging sixteen of our comrades who were machine-gunned in Alfin.I slipped out of that house when it was daylight, and returned in the evening.My partner was waiting for me on the second floor, he couldn't go down to the ground floor because of his injuries.I remember he was holding a book on strategy, Maud or Clausewitz."My favorite weapon is the cannon," he said to me one night. He asked about our plans, and he criticized or modified them with rhetoric.He also regularly lashed out at "our pathetic economic foundation", arbitrarily and somberly predicting that the end will surely be a mess."It's over," he murmured, trying to show the sharpness of his mind in order to show that he didn't mind his physical weakness.We spent nine days like this.

On the tenth day, the Royal Irish Police Auxiliary took full control of the city.Tall cavalry patrolled the street quietly, with gray smoke in the wind; from the corner of the street, I saw a dead body hanging in the middle of the square, like a limp mannequin. The soldiers used it as a target and kept practicing marksmanship ... I went out early that morning and came back before noon.Moon was talking to someone in the library, and I knew he was on the phone by the tone of his voice.I heard him mention my name, and then he said I'd be back at seven o'clock in the evening, and had an idea of ​​arresting me as I walked through the garden.My very sensible friend is betraying me very rationally.I also heard him request guarantees for his personal safety.

The thread of the story is messed up and broken here.I just remember the informer trying to escape, and I was chasing him through succubus-black corridors and long dizzying staircases.Moon is very familiar with the layout of the house, much better than me, and he almost escaped him a few times.But I cornered him before the soldiers could catch me.I took out a scimitar from the general's weapon display on the wall, and used the half-moon-shaped steel blade to leave a half-moon-shaped blood mark on his face that never fades. "Borges, although you and I are strangers, I have told you the truth of the matter. You may despise me, and I shall not suffer." He stopped here.I noticed his hands were shaking. "What happened to Moon?" I asked. "He got Judas' bounty and fled to Brazil. That afternoon, he saw some drunk soldiers shooting a mannequin at the square in the square." I waited for him to continue, but there was nothing for a while.Finally I asked him to go on. So he groaned, and pointed out to me the crooked gray-white scar pityingly. "Don't you believe it?" he murmured, "don't you see the mark of meanness on my face? I tell the story in this way so that you can hear it from beginning to end. I denounce For my patron, I am Vincent Moon. Now despise me." 1942