ailment that in fact signified the collapse of my corporeal defenses before a reality that held me under siege without offering a way out, a great wall of enigmas about my person, my goals, my sexuality, my family origins, who myfather and mother were, what good it did to read all the books shown me by the secondhand book dealers with whom I was friendly for a while, and knew later, thanks to Professor Filopáter.
The doctor diagnosed a crisis of nerves associated with puberty and said I had to rest for two weeks under the care of a nurse.
“I know how to take care of him,” María Egipciaca interjected with so much bitterness that the doctor cut her off abruptly and said that starting tomorrow a nurse would come to care for me.
“All right,” María Egipciaca said with resignation. “If the señor pays …”
“You know the señor pays for everything, he pays well and he pays on time,” the doctor said with severity.
That was how Elvira Ríos came into my life, the young, brown-skinned, short, affectionate nurse who immediately became the object of the concentrated hatred of Doña María Egipciaca del Río, for reasons not far removed from the similarity of their fluvial last names and in spite of the fact that my caretaker was singular and my nurse a true delta.
“Look at her, so dark and dressed all in white. She looks like a fly in a glass of milk.”
“Ay, there’s no lack of idiots!” the little nurse responded with inconsequential speed.
But now, to be more grateful than ungrateful, I should return to Father Filopáter and his teachings.
FILOPÁTER DIXIT:
The philosopher Baruch (Benoît, Benito, Benedetto) Spinoza (Amsterdam 1632–The Hague 1677) attentively observes the spiderweb spread like an invasive veil over a corner of the wall. A single spider dominates the space of the web that, if Spinoza remembers correctly, did not exist a few months ago, has existed for only a very short time, going unnoticed, and now demanding attention as a principal element in a monastic room, bare and perhaps barren for someone, like Spinoza, who does not have a vocation for superior detachment.
There is nothing but a cot, a writing table with papers, pens, andink, a washbasin, and a chair. There is no mirror, not for lack of means or an absence of vanity. Or perhaps for both reasons. Books thrown on the floor. A window opens on a stone courtyard. And the spiderweb ruled by the patient, slow, persevering insect that creates its universe without help from anyone, in an almost astral solitude that the philosopher decides to break.
He brings in from the street a spider (they abound in Holland) identical to the one in the bedroom. Identical, but an enemy. It is enough for Spinoza to place the street spider delicately on the web of the domestic spider for it to declare war on the intruder, for the stranger to let it be known that its presence is not peaceable either, and for a battle between the spiders to begin that the philosopher observes, engrossed, not really knowing which one will triumph in the war for living space and prolonged survival: The life of an arachnid is as fragile as the silk its spittle produces when it makes contact with the air, and as long as its probable patience. But the introduction of an identical insect into its territory is enough to transform the intruder into the Nemesis of the original spider and unleash the war that will end in a victory that interests no one after a war that concerns no one.
But in fact, not lacking in imagination (whoever says he is?), the philosopher adds strife to strife by tossing a fly onto the spiderweb. Immediately the spiders stop fighting each other and walk with a patient, dangerous step to the place where the immobilized fly lies captive in unfamiliar territory that imprisons its wings and lights up its greenish eyes (green like the walls of the house on Berlín), as if it wanted to send an SOS to all the flies in the world so they would save it from an
The doctor diagnosed a crisis of nerves associated with puberty and said I had to rest for two weeks under the care of a nurse.
“I know how to take care of him,” María Egipciaca interjected with so much bitterness that the doctor cut her off abruptly and said that starting tomorrow a nurse would come to care for me.
“All right,” María Egipciaca said with resignation. “If the señor pays …”
“You know the señor pays for everything, he pays well and he pays on time,” the doctor said with severity.
That was how Elvira Ríos came into my life, the young, brown-skinned, short, affectionate nurse who immediately became the object of the concentrated hatred of Doña María Egipciaca del Río, for reasons not far removed from the similarity of their fluvial last names and in spite of the fact that my caretaker was singular and my nurse a true delta.
“Look at her, so dark and dressed all in white. She looks like a fly in a glass of milk.”
“Ay, there’s no lack of idiots!” the little nurse responded with inconsequential speed.
But now, to be more grateful than ungrateful, I should return to Father Filopáter and his teachings.
FILOPÁTER DIXIT:
The philosopher Baruch (Benoît, Benito, Benedetto) Spinoza (Amsterdam 1632–The Hague 1677) attentively observes the spiderweb spread like an invasive veil over a corner of the wall. A single spider dominates the space of the web that, if Spinoza remembers correctly, did not exist a few months ago, has existed for only a very short time, going unnoticed, and now demanding attention as a principal element in a monastic room, bare and perhaps barren for someone, like Spinoza, who does not have a vocation for superior detachment.
There is nothing but a cot, a writing table with papers, pens, andink, a washbasin, and a chair. There is no mirror, not for lack of means or an absence of vanity. Or perhaps for both reasons. Books thrown on the floor. A window opens on a stone courtyard. And the spiderweb ruled by the patient, slow, persevering insect that creates its universe without help from anyone, in an almost astral solitude that the philosopher decides to break.
He brings in from the street a spider (they abound in Holland) identical to the one in the bedroom. Identical, but an enemy. It is enough for Spinoza to place the street spider delicately on the web of the domestic spider for it to declare war on the intruder, for the stranger to let it be known that its presence is not peaceable either, and for a battle between the spiders to begin that the philosopher observes, engrossed, not really knowing which one will triumph in the war for living space and prolonged survival: The life of an arachnid is as fragile as the silk its spittle produces when it makes contact with the air, and as long as its probable patience. But the introduction of an identical insect into its territory is enough to transform the intruder into the Nemesis of the original spider and unleash the war that will end in a victory that interests no one after a war that concerns no one.
But in fact, not lacking in imagination (whoever says he is?), the philosopher adds strife to strife by tossing a fly onto the spiderweb. Immediately the spiders stop fighting each other and walk with a patient, dangerous step to the place where the immobilized fly lies captive in unfamiliar territory that imprisons its wings and lights up its greenish eyes (green like the walls of the house on Berlín), as if it wanted to send an SOS to all the flies in the world so they would save it from an
Similar Books
