Chapter 44 Gospel of Mark

The story happened at the Poplar Manor in the Junin District in the south, at the end of March 1928.The protagonist is a medical student named Balthasar Espinosa.Let us consider him one of the many youths in Buenos Aires who, apart from good speeches, more than one prize at the Ramos Mejia English School, and a great kindness of heart, have little to deserve. mentioned features.Although he is eloquent, he doesn't like debates, and would rather his interlocutors be more reasonable than himself.He likes the thrill of gambling, but loses a lot because winning makes him unhappy.He was bright and enlightened, but lazy by nature; at the age of thirty-three, he had not found the most attractive major to him, so he did not graduate.His father was a free thinker like the gentlemen of his generation, and taught him in the doctrine of Herbert Spencer, but his mother made him read the Our Father every night before going to Montevideo, and put it on his body. Cross yourself.Over the years he has never broken that promise.He had no shortage of courage; one morning some of his classmates tried to force him into a strike, and he threw his fist at him, not so much out of anger, but more out of indifference.He is easy-going by nature, but he has many opinions or habits that cannot be agreed with. For example, he does not care about the country, but worries that people elsewhere think we are still wild men with feathers; he admires France, but despises the French; American, but in favor of skyscrapers in Buenos Aires; he thinks the gauchos of the plains ride better than the gauchos of the mountains.When his cousin Daniel asked him to spend his summer at Poplar Manor, he immediately agreed, not because he liked the country life, but because he didn't want to disappoint others, because he couldn't find a good reason to refuse.

The main house of the manor is large and a bit in disrepair; the side house where the manager lives is very close.The manager's surname is Guterre, a family of three: a father, a son who is particularly rude, and a daughter who doesn't look like his own.All three were lanky, stocky, heavy-boned men with reddish hair and Indian faces.They hardly speak.The steward's wife died several years ago. Espinosa gradually learned things in the countryside that he didn't understand or think about before.For example, when you are about to get home, you can't ride your horse too fast; if you have nothing to do, you don't ride a horse when you go out.After a long time, you can tell what kind of bird it is by listening to its call.

In a few days, Daniel was going to the capital to finalize a cattle deal.Transactions take up to a week.Espinosa had grown tired of his cousin's affairs and dress, and preferred to stay at the manor and read his textbooks.The weather is muggy and there is no coolness at night.Thunder woke him up at dawn.The wind whipped the casuarinas.Thankfully, Espinosa heard the rain.Cold air came suddenly.That afternoon, the Salado River flooded. The next day, Baltasar Espinosa was on the porch looking at the flooded fields, thinking that the pampa-like ocean was true at least this morning, although Hudson wrote that because of our Not sitting on horseback or standing, but looking out from the deck of a boat, so the ocean doesn't look that big.The rain never stopped; the Guterres rescued most of the herd with the help of the handicapped townsman, though several drowned.The four roads connecting the manor to the outside world were all flooded.On the third day, the roof of the house where the steward lived was in danger of collapsing; Espinosa moved them to a room at the back of the main house next to the tool shed.After the move, they were closer than before; eating together in great restaurants.Conversation was difficult; the Guterres knew a lot about country affairs, but couldn't explain them.One night, Espinosa asked them if the locals remembered Indian raids and harassment when the regional headquarters was in Junin.They said they remembered, but when asked about the execution of Charles I, they also said they remembered.Espinosa recalled what his father used to say that people who live long in the countryside almost always have bad memories or have a vague concept of dates.Gauchos often cannot remember when they were born and what their father's name was.

There were no books in the whole house, just a few copies of Le Petit Hacienda, a veterinary handbook, a hardback of Tabare, a copy of Argentine Shorthorn, a few books of pornography or detective stories, and A newly published novel, Don Segundo Sombra.The Guterres were illiterate, so Espinosa read two chapters of Sombra to them in order to pass the time after dinner and find something to do.The steward has driven cattle, but unfortunately he is not interested in other people's cattle driving experience.He said it was an easy job. He only took a pack horse when he went out, and he could pack everything needed for the journey. If he didn't drive the animals, he would never go to Lake Gomez, Bragado, and Chaca in his life. Buco's Nunes Ranch.There was a guitar in the kitchen; before the flood, the hired hands used to sit around and it was tuned but never played.This is called guitar playing.

Espinosa hadn't shaved for many days and grew a beard. He often looked at his changed face in the mirror. He thought that after returning to Buenos Aires, he would tell his friends about the flooding of the Salado River. Will make them bored, can't help laughing.Oddly enough, he missed places he had never been before and never would: the corner of a mailbox on Cabrera Street, the stone lion at the door of a house on Jujuy Street, a few blocks from Eleventh Street. Ma Lu, a shop with a tiled floor where he didn't know the exact location.As for his brother and father, they had probably heard from Daniel that he was isolated like an island because of the rising river.

The house in the manor has been surrounded by floods. He looked around and found an English "Bible".On the last few white pages, the Guthrie family—that was their real surname—recorded their family history.Originally from Inverness, England, they came to America in the early 19th century, undoubtedly worked as hired labor, and intermarried with Indians.Some years after 1870 the genealogical records ceased; by then they could no longer write.A few more generations later, they had forgotten all about English; when Espinosa knew them, they got jobs because they knew Spanish.They were irreligious, but the stubborn Calvinist fanaticism and the superstition of the Pampa still ran in their blood.When Espinosa told them what he had found, they seemed to ignore it.

He flipped through the book casually, and his fingers turned to the beginning of the Gospel of Mark.He decided to read to them after dinner, both to practice his interpretation and to see if they understood.To his amazement, they listened with rapt attention, silence, and great interest.Perhaps the gold lettering on the cover added to his authority.Religion is in their blood, he thought.He also thought that people have always repeated two things from ancient times to the present: a lost ship was looking for the desired island in the inner sea, and a god was crucified on Golgotha.He remembered the speech class at Ramos Mexici English School, standing upright and preaching the parables in the Bible.

In order not to delay listening to the gospel, the Guterre family hurriedly finished their barbecue and sardines. The steward's daughter had a lamb, which she loved so much that she tied a sky-blue ribbon on it, which was scratched by the barbed wire one day.They tried to stanch the lamb with spider webs; Espinosa cured with a few pills.He was amazed at the gratitude this event aroused in them.At first he didn't trust the Guterres very much, and put the two hundred and forty pesos he had brought with him in a book; now that the master was away, he took the place of the master, and he was a little timid to order them what to do, but his order immediately follow suit.As he roamed the rooms and corridors, the Guterres followed him like lost lambs.As he read from the Bible, he noticed how carefully they collected the crumbs of food that he had dropped on the table.He had overheard them talking about him behind his back one afternoon, not in words but with respect. After reading the Gospel of Mark, he wanted to read one of the other three Gospels from the beginning; the steward asked him to repeat what he had already read in order to deepen his understanding.Espinosa thinks they are like children who like to repeat rather than change and renovate.One night, he dreamed, not surprisingly, of the biblical flood; he was woken up by the sound of hammering as Noah's Ark was being built, thinking maybe it was thunder.Sure enough, the rain that had already weakened intensified again, and the cold air hit people.The supervisor told him that the heavy rain had destroyed the roof of the tool shed, and they would take him to see it after they repaired the girder.He is no longer an outsider, they treat him with respect and even dote on him.Neither of them liked coffee themselves, but there was always a cup for him, with plenty of sugar.

The storm started on Tuesday.On Thursday night he was awakened by a soft pecking at the door, which he kept locked out of suspicion.He got up and opened the door: it was the girl.I couldn't see clearly in the dark, but I knew from the sound of her footsteps that she was barefoot, and when I got into bed, I knew that she was running from the back room naked.She didn't hug him, she didn't say a word; she just lay next to him on the bed, shivering like chaff.It was the first time she slept with a man.She left without kissing him; she didn't even know his name, Espinosa thought.For some secret reason he didn't want to know, he swore to himself that he would never tell anyone about it when he got to Buenos Aires.

The next day began the same as the previous days, except that the girl's father took the initiative to talk to Espinosa and asked him if Jesus Christ was killed to save the world.Espinosa, who was otherwise a free thinker not bound by religious thought, felt obliged to defend the Gospel he read to them, replying: "Yes. To save the world from hell." Guterre went on to ask: "What is hell?" "A subterranean place where souls are constantly tormented." "Can the man who nailed Jesus be saved?" "Yes," Espinosa replied, unsure of his theological knowledge.

He was worried that the manager would ask him what he did with the girl last night.After lunch they asked him to read the last few chapters again. Espinosa took a long but shallow nap, awakened repeatedly by the sound of hammers and vague premonitions.In the evening he got up and went out into the corridor.He said aloud, as if talking to himself: "The water is starting to recede. It won't be long." "It won't be long," Guterre echoed. Three people followed behind him.They knelt on the stone ground and asked his blessing.Then they cursed at him, spit at him, and shoved him into the back room.The girl cried.Espinosa understood what awaited him outside the door.When they opened the door, he saw the sky.A bird chirped; he thought: That's the Suzaku.The tool shed roof was gone; they took down the girders and nailed a cross.