Hofstadter, Dennett - The Mind's I

21Jorge Luis BorgesThe Circular RuinsAnd if he left off dreaming about you . . .--Through the Looking lass VINo one saw him disembark in the unanimous night, no one bamboo canoe sinking intothe sacred mud, but within a few days was unaware that the silent man came from theSouth and that was one of the infinite villages upstream, on the violent moue where theZend tongue is not contaminated with Greek and w rosy is infrequent. The truth is thatthe obscure man kissed came up the bank without pushing aside (probably without fbrambles which dilacerated his flesh, and dragged himself, nauseous and bloodstained, tothe circular enclosure crowned by a stone tiger which once was the color of fire and nowwas that of ashes. was a temple, long ago devoured by fire, which the malarial jungle hadprofaned and whose god no longer received the homage of stranger stretched out beneaththe pedestal. He was awakened by high above. He evidenced without astonishment thathis wounds had closed; he shut his pale eyes and slept, not out of bodily weakness ofdetermination of will. He knew that this temple was the place, by his invincible purpose;he knew that, downstream, the incessant trees had not managed to choke the ruins ofanother propitious temple gods were also burned and dead; he knew that his immediateobligation"The Circular Ruins," translated by James E. Irby, from Labyrinths: Selected Stories and OthersWritings, edited by Donald E. Yates and James E. Irby. Copyright © 1962 by New PublishingCorporation. Reprinted by permission of New Directions, New York.