Jorge Luis Borges - Labyrinths

arrogance. In this way, for good or for bad, nine days elapsed.
"On the tenth day the city fell definitely to the Black and Tans.
Tall, silent horsemen patrolled the roads; ashes and smoke rode on the
wind; on the corner I saw a corpse thrown to the ground, an impression
less firm in my memory than that of a dummy on which the soldiers
endlessly practiced their marksmanship, in the middle of the square. . .
I had left when dawn was in the sky; before noon I returned. Moon, in
the library, was speaking with someone; the tone of his voice told me
he was talking on the telephone. Then I heard my name; then, that I
would return at seven; then, the suggestion that they should arrest me
as I was crossing the garden. My reasonable friend was reasonably
selling me out. I heard him demand guarantees of personal safety.
"Here my story is confused and becomes lost. I know that I
pursued the informer along the black, nightmarish halls and along deep
stairways of dizzyness. Moon knew the house very well, much better
than I. One or two times I lost him. I cornered him before the soldiers
stopped me. From one of the general's collections of arms I tore a
cutlass: with that half moon I carved into his face forever a half moon
of blood. Borges, to you, a stranger, I have made this confession. Your
contempt does not grieve me so much."
Here the narrator stopped. I noticed that his hands were
shaking.
"And Moon" I asked him.
"He collected his Judas money and fled to Brazil. That
afternoon, in the square, he saw a dummy shot up by some drunken
men."
I waited in vain for the rest of the story. Finally I told him to go
on.
Then a sob went through his body; and with a weak gentleness
he pointed to the whitish curved scar.
"You don't believe me" he stammered. "Don't you see that I
carry written on my face the mark of my infamy I have told you the
story thus so that you would hear me to the end. I denounced the man
who protected me: I am Vincent Moon. Now despise me."
To E. H. M.
Translated by D. A. Y.
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