The Clouds by Juan José Saer

with the combined forces of the four families, one of which was in fact a religious community, it was possible to organize a mobile hospital of which I would be a sort of director for the duration of the trip through the desert. (A relative “desert,” moreover, for a series of outposts was placed every ten to fifteen leagues or so, and though miserable at best, they alleviated the distance somewhat. Unfortunately, circumstances would deprive us of them.)
    That curious convoy we formed and the episodes that arose along our route, in my opinion, deserve a detailed retelling, and if I refrain from publishing it for now, this memoir will provide for some future reader, I hope, not only a picturesque charm, but also genuine scientific interest. Indeed, it is this scientific aspect that prevents the immediate publication of these pages, as my scrupulous preoccupation with accuracy has resulted in notes on the behavior of the deranged and of the other members of the caravan, alongside the transcription of their language, free of empty rhetoric, which might shock certain sensitive souls—but the scientific spirit will not be shocked, for it understands the reality of insanity and the true motivations of both man and beast, and how false by comparison are those notions that pass for rational and prevail in worldly assemblies. Those faithful descriptions, whose absence in a scientific tract would be reproached, might seem offensive in a memoir where personal experiences appear as well, but in this fidelity to truth, indifferent to prejudice and the disapproval of the majority, I do no more than follow the example of Dr. Weiss, who made that fidelity at all times a principle of science, and of life.
    So we left at daybreak one morning in June: our guide Osuna, two escort soldiers, and I—still entangled in an anxious night’ssleep, teeth chattering with cold as in certain mornings of my childhood—I, who could not manage to hold my horse at a steady gallop to keep pace with my traveling companions. Always riding slightly ahead of us, swathed in his red-and-green-striped poncho, rode Osuna, rigid in his saddle, maintaining his horse’s regular stride without any visible motion to denote his mastery over the animal. Of the many hardships that made up our voyage, that image, though of no particular moment, neutral, as it were, is the one that visits me most frequently thirty years later, sharp and vivid: Osuna galloping parallel to the rising sun as it rose from the riverbank, the rider’s right side haloed in red while the horse’s left profile remained ever blotted with shadow. That image is both more and less than a memory now that, without my willing, returns with its original clarity in the most unexpected moments and situations of the day, and, on certain nights, when I lie in darkness with my head resting on the pillow before sleep’s black curtain closes completely, it is the last thing I see; certain mornings, after having deserted me for so long that I have all but forgotten, it is the first thing that appears with such renewed force—I might say it draws all the universe along behind it, making it dance about day-long in the waking theater. (The persistence of this primordial image, the first thing I saw in the light of day to begin my voyage, is explained by the state of elation I found myself in, from Dr. Weiss’s trust in me, placing the patients’ fates in my hands. Later, I would learn that the doctor had done so knowingly, deliberately. The ordeals of the trip failed to diminish the elation of the departure, whereas caution frequently tempered my enthusiasm at many points during our return.)
    Sometimes, straying a little to the east, we drew near the river, and sometimes it was the river that drew near to us. The winter floods were visible in the unusual breadth of the riverbeds and the southerly current, dragging islands of lily pads and logs, branchesand drowned