vital for him as writing a manifesto was for Mariano Moreno or dethroning a viceroy for Cornelio de Saavedra. Baltasar Bustos had traded the destinies of two children. But he wasnât fooling himself. He had only substituted one injustice for another. His most radical act, followed by his most private crisis of conscience, spoke to him thus. So, after having dinner with his father, served by his sister, he invoked the imperfect loneliness of the Argentine countryside, itself a prologue to the mountains and their pure solitude. He imagined the Andes an echo chamber for his soul, liberated and reconciled with the natural order.
Then things began to happen.
The first was the vision of Ofelia Salamanca pursuing him. The woman desired interposed herself between him and nature, occupying all physical space. She was an enchanting chimera. She always sat with her back to him, but in his vision tonight she was no longer seated but standing, a white flame, total, shimmering, bending over little by little, spreading her legs slowly to reveal, from the rear, the most irresistible vision of her sex, womankindâs genital catholicism, which is adored, imagined, and penetrated from all angles. The mountains were impenetrable: the vision of Ofelia Salamanca, naked and offering herself from the rear, wasnât. It invited, invited ⦠And then the woman whirled around and gave him, not her dreamed-of sex, but her feared face: she was a Gorgon, accusing him with eyes as white as marble, transforming him into the stone of injustice, hating him â¦
When Baltasar Bustos turned away from that vision floating between his eyes and the mountains, he felt for the first time a warning from his own soul: Ofelia Salamanca knows everything. She hates you and has sworn vengeance.
Besides, he found himself staring into eyes as wild as those of his would-be lover. There were other Medusas in the world: these gauchos who had gathered around him in the darkness, when all he wanted was to be alone with nature and the image of Ofelia. Their presence confused and bewildered him and set him up not against the mountains or the night or his desire for a woman but against other men. What were they doing? They offered him a light, but he wasnât smoking. He wished he were offering them the flame of a match like the one Xavier Dorrego elegantly carried inside a watch during their sessions at the Café de Malcos. But his hallucinated imagination only took from the sky a candle like the twenty-five around the cradle of Ofelia Salamancaâs kidnapped child. It was doubtless because of this series of hallucinations that Baltasar Bustos offered the gauchos an imaginary light, taken from the night and protected from the mild mountain wind by the cupped hands of the masterâs son, as if a flame were really burning there.
The gauchos did not laugh.
âDonât make fun of us, young master.â
âDonât call me that. Iâm just a citizen.â
Now they did laugh, and as they laughed, Baltasar smelled in their collective breath a ravenous stench, like that of young stray dogs. There were bits of food in those bushy black or copper-colored beards that began at the neck and climbed almost to the eyebrowsâan extension of the hair covering ears and cheeks, leaving open only the mouths, which were like wounds of a paradoxical abundance. Red and as bloodied as the meat they ate, they revealed the hardness of an uncertain country where the people eat everything they have, never just what they want. Today thereâs more than enough, but tomorrow we may have nothing.
He felt a profound compassion for his homeland. But one of the gauchos kept him from extending that compassion to these men. The young gaucho, who knows with what intention, took him by the hand Baltasar had used to shield the imaginary light. The young citizen tried to pull himself out of his daydream, plant his feet on the rough earth and the roughness of
Then things began to happen.
The first was the vision of Ofelia Salamanca pursuing him. The woman desired interposed herself between him and nature, occupying all physical space. She was an enchanting chimera. She always sat with her back to him, but in his vision tonight she was no longer seated but standing, a white flame, total, shimmering, bending over little by little, spreading her legs slowly to reveal, from the rear, the most irresistible vision of her sex, womankindâs genital catholicism, which is adored, imagined, and penetrated from all angles. The mountains were impenetrable: the vision of Ofelia Salamanca, naked and offering herself from the rear, wasnât. It invited, invited ⦠And then the woman whirled around and gave him, not her dreamed-of sex, but her feared face: she was a Gorgon, accusing him with eyes as white as marble, transforming him into the stone of injustice, hating him â¦
When Baltasar Bustos turned away from that vision floating between his eyes and the mountains, he felt for the first time a warning from his own soul: Ofelia Salamanca knows everything. She hates you and has sworn vengeance.
Besides, he found himself staring into eyes as wild as those of his would-be lover. There were other Medusas in the world: these gauchos who had gathered around him in the darkness, when all he wanted was to be alone with nature and the image of Ofelia. Their presence confused and bewildered him and set him up not against the mountains or the night or his desire for a woman but against other men. What were they doing? They offered him a light, but he wasnât smoking. He wished he were offering them the flame of a match like the one Xavier Dorrego elegantly carried inside a watch during their sessions at the Café de Malcos. But his hallucinated imagination only took from the sky a candle like the twenty-five around the cradle of Ofelia Salamancaâs kidnapped child. It was doubtless because of this series of hallucinations that Baltasar Bustos offered the gauchos an imaginary light, taken from the night and protected from the mild mountain wind by the cupped hands of the masterâs son, as if a flame were really burning there.
The gauchos did not laugh.
âDonât make fun of us, young master.â
âDonât call me that. Iâm just a citizen.â
Now they did laugh, and as they laughed, Baltasar smelled in their collective breath a ravenous stench, like that of young stray dogs. There were bits of food in those bushy black or copper-colored beards that began at the neck and climbed almost to the eyebrowsâan extension of the hair covering ears and cheeks, leaving open only the mouths, which were like wounds of a paradoxical abundance. Red and as bloodied as the meat they ate, they revealed the hardness of an uncertain country where the people eat everything they have, never just what they want. Today thereâs more than enough, but tomorrow we may have nothing.
He felt a profound compassion for his homeland. But one of the gauchos kept him from extending that compassion to these men. The young gaucho, who knows with what intention, took him by the hand Baltasar had used to shield the imaginary light. The young citizen tried to pull himself out of his daydream, plant his feet on the rough earth and the roughness of
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