Jorge Luis Borges - Labyrinths

gypsies constitute a certain physical type and speak, or used to speak, a
secret language; the sectarians are confused with the rest of men and
the proof lies in that they have not suffered persecutions. The gypsies
are picturesque and inspire bad poets; ballads, cheap illustrations and
foxtrots omit the sectarians. . . Martin Buber declares that the Jews are
essentially pathetic; not all sectarians are and some deplore the
pathetic; this public and notorious truth is sufficient to refute the
common error (absurdly defended by Urmann) which sees the Phoenix
as a derivation of Israel. People more or less reason in this manner:
Urmann was a sensitive man; Urmann was a Jew; Urmann came in
frequent contact with the sectarians in the ghetto of Prague; the affinity
Urmann sensed proves the reality of the fact. In all sincerity, I cannot
concur with this dictum. That sectarians in a Jewish environment
should resemble the Jews proves nothing; the undeniable fact it that,
like Hazlitt's infinite Shakespeare, they resemble all the men in the
world. They are everything for everyone, like the Apostle; several days
ago, Dr. Juan Francisco Amaro, of Paysandú, admired the facility with
which they assimilated Creole ways.
I have said that the history of the sect records no persecutions.
This is true, but since there is no human group in which members of
the sect do not figure, it is also true that there is no persecution or rigor
they have not suffered and perpetrated. In the Occidental wars and in
the remote wars of Asia they have shed their blood secularly, under
opposing banners; it avails them very little to identify themselves with
all the nations of the world.
Without a sacred book to join them as the scriptures do for
Israel, without a common memory, without that other memory which
is a language, scattered over the face of the earth, diverse in color and
features, one thing alone -- the Secret -- unites them and will unite
them until the end of time. Once, in addition to the Secret, there was a
legend (and perhaps a cosmogonic myth), but the shallow men of the
Phoenix have forgotten it and now only retain the obscure tradition of
a punishment. Of a punishment, of a pact or of a privilege, for the
versions differ and scarcely allow us to glimpse the verdict of a God
who granted eternity to a lineage if its members, generation after
generation, would perform a rite. I have collated accounts by travelers,
I have conversed with patriarchs and theologians; I can testify that
fulfillment of the rite is the only religious practice observed by the
sectarians. The rite constitutes the Secret. This Secret, as I have
already indicated, is transmitted from generation to generation, but
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