his habit and returned to Argentina, where heâd been born, was the young Baltasarâs mentor. The Jesuits, expelled from Spain and her colonies in 1767, left an immense void behind them. People protested the expulsion, demonstrated in the streets, wept ⦠And the Jesuits of the Americas had their revenge on Spain. They sailed to the coast of Italy and asked the Pope for asylum. The pontiff, fearful of offending the Bourbons, at first forbade them to disembark. The holy brothers remained on board for weeks, at the mercy of waves and tides, seasick, unable to sleep, unable to believe what was happening to them.
In the end, the Pope accepted some good advice. Kings might well scorn the intelligence of the Jesuits, but the Pope could take advantage of it. Often it happens the other way around; now let Rome open her arms to what Madrid and Lisbon have rejected. It was said that the ex-Jesuit Julián RÃos returned to Argentina without his priestly vestments the better to fool the colonial authorities. Like all New World Jesuits, he taught national history, national geography, the flora and fauna (and the form and fame) of the nascent nations, from New Spain to Chile, from the RÃo de la Plata to New Granada.
And, besides giving his pupils a national awareness, Don Julián, the defrocked, also gave them books banned by the Church and the authorities: The Spirit of the Laws, The Social Contract, Diderotâs The Nun, Voltaireâs Candide  ⦠That was Baltasarâs education, but not his sisterâs. She was left to the distracted instruction of her mother and the affectionate virtue of her father. But she was stubborn; she envied her brother; she read more than would be expected of one imprisoned at home. In contrast to her brother, she read breviaries, Catholic pamphlets, sermons ⦠On her own she created a counterculture the better to challenge her younger brother.
He wanted to see her a different way, prettier, tenderer, better. He wanted to be generous. She would not allow it:
âDecide: are you loyal to your family or to your revolution?â
She ceased to be the swan he wanted to find; she became once again the ugly duckling she would always be, thus giving her father the opportunity yet again to be generous and evenhanded.
âYour sister means that there may be options less brutal than this one we are living through. Try to understand her.â
[3]
Baltasar walked out into the open country to think what those options might be and how he might undo what had already occurred. He accepted the fact that history, the conglomeration of ideas, facts, and desires which he fought for or against, came to be only in the company of others, in something shared with others. It irritated him that he so often felt that the we, the others, were the excess, the superfluous. But then his reading of Jean-Jacques would come to his rescue (the same way the romances of chivalry served as models for Don Quixote, said his friends, Dorrego and I, Varela, laughing), to tell him that feeling uneasy in society, or seeing society as an excretion, an excess, was not a sin but a virtue. It showed that society was in a bad way.
Here on the pampa, he looked into the distance, toward Mendoza and the mountains: the great range seemed South Americaâs sleeping beast, a lion-panther with a vast white back and black belly, lying in wait for its ferocious chance. He accepted the fact that, though he was born here, he was returning not to stay but to rest; from this spot he would move toward those mountains, where, perhaps, history could be made so that nature and society might once again be united.
I will be free in society only when I no longer need society because I myself have transformed it.
Unfortunately, he was tied to his society. He was not its master; he was mastered by it. He had thrown himself into the Argentine revolution and carried out a daring, highly personal act of justice, as
In the end, the Pope accepted some good advice. Kings might well scorn the intelligence of the Jesuits, but the Pope could take advantage of it. Often it happens the other way around; now let Rome open her arms to what Madrid and Lisbon have rejected. It was said that the ex-Jesuit Julián RÃos returned to Argentina without his priestly vestments the better to fool the colonial authorities. Like all New World Jesuits, he taught national history, national geography, the flora and fauna (and the form and fame) of the nascent nations, from New Spain to Chile, from the RÃo de la Plata to New Granada.
And, besides giving his pupils a national awareness, Don Julián, the defrocked, also gave them books banned by the Church and the authorities: The Spirit of the Laws, The Social Contract, Diderotâs The Nun, Voltaireâs Candide  ⦠That was Baltasarâs education, but not his sisterâs. She was left to the distracted instruction of her mother and the affectionate virtue of her father. But she was stubborn; she envied her brother; she read more than would be expected of one imprisoned at home. In contrast to her brother, she read breviaries, Catholic pamphlets, sermons ⦠On her own she created a counterculture the better to challenge her younger brother.
He wanted to see her a different way, prettier, tenderer, better. He wanted to be generous. She would not allow it:
âDecide: are you loyal to your family or to your revolution?â
She ceased to be the swan he wanted to find; she became once again the ugly duckling she would always be, thus giving her father the opportunity yet again to be generous and evenhanded.
âYour sister means that there may be options less brutal than this one we are living through. Try to understand her.â
[3]
Baltasar walked out into the open country to think what those options might be and how he might undo what had already occurred. He accepted the fact that history, the conglomeration of ideas, facts, and desires which he fought for or against, came to be only in the company of others, in something shared with others. It irritated him that he so often felt that the we, the others, were the excess, the superfluous. But then his reading of Jean-Jacques would come to his rescue (the same way the romances of chivalry served as models for Don Quixote, said his friends, Dorrego and I, Varela, laughing), to tell him that feeling uneasy in society, or seeing society as an excretion, an excess, was not a sin but a virtue. It showed that society was in a bad way.
Here on the pampa, he looked into the distance, toward Mendoza and the mountains: the great range seemed South Americaâs sleeping beast, a lion-panther with a vast white back and black belly, lying in wait for its ferocious chance. He accepted the fact that, though he was born here, he was returning not to stay but to rest; from this spot he would move toward those mountains, where, perhaps, history could be made so that nature and society might once again be united.
I will be free in society only when I no longer need society because I myself have transformed it.
Unfortunately, he was tied to his society. He was not its master; he was mastered by it. He had thrown himself into the Argentine revolution and carried out a daring, highly personal act of justice, as
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