The Campaign by Carlos Fuentes Page B

the customs of this world. What was he surprised at? It was all familiar to him. He belonged to this land of dust as much as he did to the land of ideas that was Father Julián Ríos’s or the land of smoke of the gatherings at the Café de Malcos. He raised his eyes and found neither the mountains nor the Medusa, neither nature nor that forbidden sex. What he found was a mirror. The young gaucho holding him by the hand looked like Baltasar. A filthy, bearded, hungry Baltasar, even though sated today with the flesh of a dead steer. His round face, distant gaze, his hair with its curls burnished by the same elements that frightened his sister, Sabina.
    Baltasar stared at that atrocious twin and had the presence of mind to return the squeeze, take the gaucho’s wrist, wrench back the man’s sleeve, and reveal the cruel wounds on his forearm. Baltasar’s country education, rejected and savage, came back to him, and he felt disgust at having allowed himself to be overwhelmed by his detested origins—especially because it was rural wisdom that would save the civilized presence.
    The young gaucho, so like Baltasar, emitted a suffocated grunt, wrenched back his arm, and covered it with his sleeve. First the others looked at the young gaucho with scorn, then with pity; and they bestowed the same sentiments on Baltasar Bustos, but in reverse. First pity, then scorn. He knew what he was doing. He had showed the other gauchos that this one, who dared touch him, was, if not a coward, at least an incompetent who let himself be cut easily in fights on the ranch or at the general store. Did his companions already know that, keeping what they knew to themselves, insulted because an outsider, which José Antonio Bustos’s son was by now, had come back to tell them: I know that this man has no talent for knife fighting? He’s a fool of a gaucho, the boss’s son had just said to the other gauchos. He doesn’t know how to protect himself. Didn’t you blockheads know that? What kind of joke is this?
    José Antonio Bustos appeared at the door of the house, wrapped in his yellow poncho. Who can know how much a gaucho knows. Who can know if they really were comrades. They were all tramps. Perhaps they’d just met a few hours earlier; a few hours later, they’d separate, scattered in the immensity of the pampa. Baltasar Bustos had united them in support of the young gaucho whose ineptness he’d just shown, whom he’d just humiliated, because now the man’s secret did not belong just to the gauchos. Perhaps it would end up being sung by a bard, maligning the stupid young man with the round face and the coppery curls. Could he also be a bit blind without knowing it? In the country there are no optometrists. They couldn’t resemble each other so much, Baltasar and the nameless gaucho: a pure, dissembled wound.
    The erect presence of the old man in the yellow poncho prevented any sequel to what had happened. The gauchos drifted away muttering and grumbling. They’d meet another day. Baltasar looked at his father and was amazed that the mere presence of the old man could dominate at a distance, dispersing these country toughs, even if they went reluctantly. Could what they said in Buenos Aires be true? The ranchers from the interior are as ignorant as their gauchos. Inferior people, second-class creoles. Can’t compare with the urbane city merchants. He looked at his father from a distance. José Antonio Bustos was not like that. And it was not just that Baltasar was his son and loved him as he was. José Antonio Bustos was not like that. But his authority, demonstrated just then, reminding the gauchos that he was always watching, that he was the father, that he was the only authority, could that be more than a symbol of power in a land that ignored the laws of the distant cities, a land that let itself be governed by a patriarchal figure? He looked at his approaching