Macedonio Fernández - The Museum of Eterna's Novel

ETERNA ANSWERS THAT IT'S “STILL NO" AND THE PRESIDENT LEARNS TO LOVE.

“But you led me to believe that tomorrow you were really going to put all the characters through their paces, and I've come not only to watch this training and assure myself that you are armed with the lucidity and strength necessary for undertaking this action, but also to convince you that I should ally myself with your venture and be near to care for your spirit.”

“That’s how you should think of it and that’s how it should be; I understood this when I saw you. You always think and do what each instant requires. But at the same time, seeing and hearing you close to me, I have suddenly lost confidence in my plans, even forgetting what it was that brought me to the idea of this action that now must absorb me, since I lack the talent of absorbing myself totally in the kind of passion that only you can bring me. I've suddenly forgotten why I didn’t win your love, or my own love. How did you fail to elicit in me the absolute passion that would have been absolute happiness, as everything I think and undertake is nothing more than a miserable ‘process’ of passion’s incapacity, a mimicry of thought and undertaking?”

“This does not move me, nor does it hurt you. As for what my presence here might bring you, leave it alone, think about it later. Don’t waver: perhaps after the action you will want to speak with me again and possibly with different feelings.”

“Yes, let’s dedicate ourselves to the ultimate sorrow: action without purpose, without love; I sense there’s salvation there, by which I mean I could thereby learn to love you.”

“Let’s not think about ourselves anymore. Tell me what I need to do.”

“At dawn tomorrow we’ll all go out with separate purposes to return the same day. Eterna, you will be the one who changes Thought to Love, and I will be the pause or the anticipation during which time cannot change things.”

“Goodnight.”

“Goodnight. I will give each of the others his mission.”

These are the missions the President gave each of the others, calling them separately while the rain began and a sudden wind moved in the trees surrounding the estancia, filling the house with the sounds of the foliage:

To Sweetheart, whom he called first and who, upon her arrival, looked at him with interest and melancholy: To seek out and find something “so good” that afterwards the only possible happiness and optimism is the determination to extinguish one’s life, because this aspect of life or of art was “so good” that it is followed, in this case, with a silence like suicide.

To Father: Seek out and find the injury that would kill the unjust offender, whose fault came of a justified rage but killed us with desperation or left us unhappy forever afterwards.

(Father was nearing the President’s office at just the same time as Sweetheart was leaving, after receiving her mission. They said: “What, you’re here, Father?”

“And you? Here’s where you’re hiding? I'm a friend of the President.”

“You shouldn’t have come. The moment I found out what you were thinking of doing with me, we should have each lived as if the other were dead, even though for others we are still alive.”

“How did you find out?”

“Why talk about it.”

“But I want to talk.”

“No.”

Sweetheart left, and Father went to receive his mission.)

To Maybegenius: Collect the secret that is told, but “in secret.” To the Lover: Bring back an imperturbable hope that lives in an unflagging memory.

To Simple: Find the only novel reader left who is moved when the novelist concedes that he doubts his own truthfulness or that something of what he narrates might not be possible.

So it was that the inhabitants of the estancia found out their tasks in the training maneuvers, by means of which the President invites them to change from living beings to “characters” in a novel, as if to say to them: “You can live and still be happy: I invite you to a training maneuver of ‘characters’ so that you can appear in a novel.”

The next morning they all left, with scarcely a chance to see each other. It was very dark, and the wind and rain were beating on the house. Eterna left first of all. They all had to leave, walking alone, those who had felt so happy and comfortable in the house surrounded by peaceful eucalyptus trees whose music, in the storm, was so pleasant to listen to. Even a couple traveling in the same direction could not go together, nor could they remain in the shelter of the estancia. The basic routine was this: each one separates upon leaving, even spiritual things that had been commissioned by nothing in particular and did not necessarily have to leave.

Maybegenius and Sweetheart looked for each other in the scant light. They walked together to the gate, and there each one took a separate path.

The President also left without seeing anyone, absorbed. The Lover walked with a tranquil pace, ecstatic.

Father’s pace was disheartened. He was always the only one to comment on the rain, but he did it with a certain verbal disdain: “Water is cheap.”

The little valley filled up with the river. The Watchman saw them all leave, rubbing his eyes, though this did not help him tell if he were dreaming or awake.

Each one returned that evening, breathless with fatigue and haste (because they had to hurry to get home before Sweetheart, so she wouldn’t have to be alone), soaked with rain and mud. Eterna, whom no one had yet seen, returned home first, and she said:

“It’s done. Is it for the best?”

The President got there later.

“It’s done. Will it work? I don’t know. At least it’s good for morale.”

Sweetheart and Maybegenius were reunited at the gate where they had separated that morning. Each exclaimed as they arrived:

“How wonderful, today we only saw each other in the dark!”

“Tomorrow we’ll see each other all day long,” added Maybegenius.

“After I talk to the President. But let me say this: I caught a glimpse, from a distance, of someone arriving who must now be at the estancia, a woman.”

“I don’t know who.”

The Lover came in and said:

“What a sweet old house! How I would love to do my work of remembering here!”

Father came in and said:

“The day is done. May it always be so for me, as long as I forget.” Simple came in and said:

“If the President puts me in charge of bringing mud, I’ll go and come back in five minutes, but finally I’m back in ‘La Novela’ once again, where it’s nice and warm.”

“Goodbye, then. I await your letters. I think I see it better, now.”

“Yes, I understand better than I did last night. If you don’t stay here, the happiness of today is ended. I will write to you many times, I have more hope now. Goodbye, Eterna.”

Father and Sweetheart met again.

“I’m going. So tell me, how did you find out?”

“When the President lived with us he wrote something. I found it afterwards, unexpectedly; it was called ‘Diary of Sweetheart, Writing to the President During His Residence In Her House.’ Here I read what happened at our table the day you got so angry at me, because of the terrible upset that I had caused you that morning, like so many others, with my carelessness. At the table, to placate you and to exonerate me, he said that I didn’t pay good enough attention or have a good memory. I said, “Yes, I’m not suited to jobs that demand memory, only for a continuing job or course of study.” And you looked at me so terribly, with a menace that I didn’t understand, and looking me up and down you said a few furious words. (Father remembered very well what he had told her: “I know what you’re good for.”)