by Corry Shores
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[The following is summary. Section divisions are my own as is any boldface. Proofreading is incomplete, so please forgive my errors.]
Summary of
Jorge Luis Borges
“Death and the Compass”
Translated by Donald A. Yates.
Brief summary (collecting those below):
(Section 1): Erik Lönnrot is a detective who can foresee crimes at least to a partial extent. The most recent murder was at a place called “the villa of Triste-le-Roy.” Lönnrot could not guess the identity of the assassin, but he was able to see that Red Scharlach (Scharlach the Dandy) was involved. Although Scharlach has vowed to kill Lönnrot, the detective is an adventurer and gambler (and so he sets out to solve the case despite the dangers to his life). (Section 2): On December 3rd, Doctor Marcel Yarmolinsky came to [this city] as a delegate from Podolsk to the Third Talmudic Congress, staying at the Hôtel du Nord on Floor R, across from the Tetrarch of Galilee’s room. He goes to bed, and on the fourth the editor of the Yidische Zaitung tries calling his room, but there is no answer. He is then found dead in his room. “He was lying not far from the door which opened on the hall; a deep knife wound had split his breast.” Shortly after that, Inspector Treviranus and Lönnrot come and discuss the murder. (Section 3): Inspector Treviranus notes that the Tetrarch of Galilee (who was staying across the hall) possessed the finest sapphires in the world. So a thief was trying to steal them, but went to the wrong room accidentally. He then had to kill Yarmolinsky, Treviranus thinks. Lönnrot disagrees, because Treviranus’ theory uses hypotheses that rely too much on chance. Given that Yarmolinsky is a rabbi, Lönnrot seeks “a purely rabbinical explanation, not the imaginary mischances of an imaginary robber” (77). Lönnrot notes Yarmolinsky’s books, which are occult and Hebrew themed, including a monograph on the Tetragrammaton. (Section 4): One of the police agents noticed that in a small typewriter is a paper reading “The first letter of the Name has been uttered”. Lönnrot then takes Yarmolinsky’s books home to study them. He notes three of them: one about Israel Baal Shem Tobh, one about the virtues and terrors of the Tetragrammaton (“the unutterable name of God”), and one that contains the thesis that God has a secret name that somehow contains eternity, “that is to say, the immediate knowledge of all things that will be, which are and which have been in the universe” (78). There are traditionally 99 names of God, and the 100th is this Absolute Name. The editor of the Yidische Zaitung visits Lönnrot, sees his work with the books, and misrepresents the situation in his newspapers saying Lönnrot will try to find the name of the murderer by studying the names of God. (Section 5): There was a second murder, this time outside an old paint shop in an “empty corner of the capital’s western suburbs,” and it happens on the 3rd of January. The victim is Daniel Simon Azevedo, who was a politician and then became a thief and informer. He was stabbed in the chest. Treviranus and Lönnrot come to the scene of the crime, and they see that written across yellow and red diamonds on the wall near him in chalk is: “The second letter of the Name has been uttered.” (Section 6): The third murder occurs on the 3rd of February. This time, Inspector Treviranus gets a bit of a warning. That day, someone named Ginzberg calls and says he has information for sale about the murders of Azevedo and Yarmolinsky. But then noise of whistles and horns drowns out the caller’s voice, and the connection is broken. Treviranus figures that the call came from a tavern called the Liverpool House. Treviranus goes there and learns from the owner Black Finnegan that the caller was probably a lodger named Gryphius, who had just left with friends. Gryphius had been renting a room at the tavern for eight days. He has a grey beard and dresses in black. He willingly paid a large sum for the room. He normally did not go out, but on the night of the call, there are odd circumstances. Gryphius makes his phone call from Finnegan’s office. Then a closed cab pulls up to the tavern. The driver is wearing a bear’s mask. Then two drunk harlequins wearing yellow, red, and green diamonds get out of the cab, enter the tavern and then Finnegan’s office where Gryphius is making the call. They speak in Yiddish, then go up to Gryphius’ room, and then come back down joyfully, with Gryphius drunk now too. They get in the cab and go toward the harbor. On one of the slates of the pier shed, one of the harlequins wrote, “The last of the letters of the Name has been uttered”. Treviranus then searches Gryphius’ room and discovers there the book Philologus Hebraeo-Graecus. Next, Treviranus meets with Lönnrot, who notes that the thirty-third dissertation of the Philologus book is “The Hebrew day begins at sundown and lasts until the following sundown.” Lönnrot then says that more important than this is a word that Ginzberg (Gryphius) uses, but Lönnrot does not elaborate. Dandy Red Scharlach, “the most illustrious gunman of the south”, accuses Treviranus of negligence for letting these crimes occur. (Section 7): On March first, Inspector Treviranus receives a letter signed “Baruch Spinoza.” It says there will probably not be a fourth murder, because the locations of the first three make “the perfect vertices of a mystic equilateral triangle”, as shown in red ink on an included map. Treviranus shows this to Lönnrot, who studies it at home. The three events also happened on the thirds of each month, so there was a symmetry in time as well as space. Lönnrot examines the map with calipers and compass and says the word “Tetragrammaton.” He phones Treviranus to declare that the murderers are planning a fourth murder. (Section 8): Lönnrot now goes to the abandoned villa of Triste-le-Roy, which is in an area occupied by some criminals, including Red Scharlach, “the most celebrated gunman of all.” But Lönnrot is not sure who the victim will be (he only knows the location and time), and he wonders if the victim will be Scharlach. He comes upon the villa at night. He enters by the main, iron gate. The house has odd architecture:
Viewed from anear, the house of the villa of Triste-le-Roy abounded in pointless symmetries and in maniacal repetitions: to one Diana in a murky niche corresponded a second Diana in another niche; one balcony was reflected in another balcony; double stairways led to double balustrades. A two-faced Hermes projected a monstrous shadow.
(83)
He pushes through a Venetian blind and descends into a vault. Lönnrot, seeing the symmetry to the architecture, seeks and finds a stair on the opposite end. He then ascends it through a trap door and goes to a window that he opens to see the moon illuminate two silent fountains in the garden. He next explores the house and finds it to be almost endlessly self-replicative.
Through anterooms and galleries he passed to duplicate patios, and time after time to the | same patio. He ascended the dusty stairs to circular antechambers; he was multiplied infinitely in opposing mirrors; he grew tired of opening or half-opening windows which revealed outside the same desolate garden from various heights and various angles [...]
(83-84)
Insides the rooms the furniture and chandeliers are wrapped up. He touches a flower in a bedroom and its “ancient petals fell apart.” But although the house seems infinite, he instead thinks that other factors only make it seem so large.
On the second floor, on the top floor, the house seemed infinite and expanding. The house is not this large, he thought. Other things are making it seem larger: the dim light, the symmetry, the mirrors, so many years, my unfamiliarity, the loneliness.
(74)
He then ascends a spiral staircase to an oriel window bay with yellow, red, and green diamonds, which reminds him (of the harlequin colors and the colors of the paint shop). (Section 9): Lönnrot is then overcome by two short men who disarm him and handcuff him. A third, tall man, Red Scharlach, tells Lönnrot that he saved them a night and day (it is still not yet March 3rd.) Lönnrot asks Scharlach if he is seeking the Secret Name. Scharlach replies that he is simply seeking Lönnrot out of vengeance for him arresting his brother and for Scharlach’s getting shot in the stomach in the battle with the police at that event. While recovering from the wound, he lay in agony and fever for nine days and nights “in this desolate, symmetrical villa”. In his delirium, he was troubled by the two-faced Janus statue. All the while, an Irishman tried to convert him to Christianity by repeating the phrase, “all roads lead to Rome”. This metaphor fed his delirium. “I felt that the world was a labyrinth, from which it was impossible to flee, for all roads, though they pretend to lead to the north or south, actually lead to Rome, which was also the quadrilateral jail where my brother was dying and the villa of Triste-le-Roy” (85). He then “swore by the God who sees with two faces and by all the gods of fever and of the mirrors” to “weave a labyrinth” around Lönnrot. The Labyrinth is composed of “a dead heresiologist, a compass, an eighteenth-century sect, a Greek word, a dagger, the diamonds of a paint shop”. Scharlach then explains the murders. Doctor Marcel Yarmolinsky (the “dead heresiologist”) was murdered (see sect. 2) on January 3rd by Daniel Azevedo (who was later himself murdered, see sect. 5). Azevedo was going to steal the Tetrarch of Galilee’s sapphires (see sect. 2). But Azevedo spends his advance on getting drunk and decides to do the job a day early. He stumbles accidentally into Yarmolinsky’s room. Yarmolinsky was writing notes for an article on the Name of God, having already written, “The first letter of the Name has been uttered.” Before Yarmolinsky could hit an alarm bell, Azevedo instinctively kills him by stabbing him in the chest (“a dagger”). Scharlach then reads in Yidische Zaitung about Lönnrot’s investigations into Yarmolinsky’s writings, including the book History of the Hasidic Sect (“an eighteenth-century sect”). He notes that uttering the Name of God has great occult powers and that some, in search of the Name, had committed human sacrifices. So Scharlach decided to make it seem like this is what happened to Yarmolinsky. The second murder was of Azevedo (see sect. 5), set on the third of January, and Scharlach writes “The second letter of the Name has been uttered” on the paint shop diamonds to connect it to the first murder. The third murder (see sect. 6) “was a sham” (if you recall, there was no mention of a victim’s body in that one. Perhaps there never was a murder, but then it is not clear why one was thought to have happened in the first place.) Scharlach says that he himself is Gryphius-Ginzberg-Ginsburg. His friends abducted him, and on a post they wrote “The last of the letters of the Name has been uttered.” This led the public to believe that there were only three murders planned, but Scharlach left clues to indicate to Lönnrot that there would be a fourth: the murders being committed in North, East, and West called for a fourth in the South (“a compass”); “the Tetragrammaton – the name of God, JHVH – is made up of four letters” (“a Greek word”?); “the harlequins and the paint shop sign suggested four points” (“the diamonds of a paint shop”); “Hebrews compute the day from sunset to sunset; that passage makes known that the deaths occurred on the fourth of each month” (since the murders happened after sunset, they occurred on the following day, not the third); and Scharlach sent the map with the fourth point needing to be drawn, forming a perfect rhombus. This was Scharlach’s plan to attract Lönnrot to his death trap. Lönnrot then says that there are three lines too many in his labyrinth, and he requests that next time he kill him, he place the three points all on one line, but still in a labyrinth form. The first murder would be at point A, and the second murder would then be 8 kilometers away at point B.
AXXXXXXXXXXXB
This establishes the line of the labyrinth. The third murder would be halfway between points A and B at point C.
AXXXXXCXXXXXB
And the fourth one would be at point D, halfway between A and C.
AXXDXXCXXXXXB
“In your labyrinth there are three lines too many,” he said at last. “I know of one Greek labyrinth which is a single straight line. Along that line so many philosophers have lost themselves | that a mere detective might well do so, too. Scharlach, when in some other incarnation you hunt me, pretend to commit (or do commit) a crime at A, then a second crime at B, eight kilometers from A, then a third crime at C, four kilometers from A and B, half-way between the two. Wait for me afterwards at D, two kilometers from A and C, again halfway between both. Kill me at D, as you are now going to kill me at Triste-le-Roy.”
(86-87)
(Note, this line that “so many philosophers have lost themselves” in this straight line ancient Greek labyrinth might be speaking about something like a Zeno’s paradox: the successive divisions in half suggest a pattern that could be thought to continue, further dividing the line toward A without ever reaching it.) Scharlach agrees to this and then shoots Lönnrot.
[Introducing Lönnrot the Detective and His Criminal Nemesis Red Scharlach ]
[The Murder of Yarmolinsky]
[Yarmolinsky’s Occult Hebrew Books]
[The Absolute Name of God and Its Immediate Knowledge of the Future. The First Letter from the First Murder.]
[The Second Murder and the Second Letter]
[The Third Murder and the Last of the Name Letters]
[Prefiguring the Fourth Murder]
[Exploring the House at the Villa of Triste-le-Roy]
[Lönnrot’s Capture by Scharlach. The Single-Lined Labyrinth. The Fourth Murder.]
Summary
[Introducing Lönnrot the Detective and His Criminal Nemesis Red Scharlach ]
(p.76 “Of the many problems .... a little of the gambler.”)
Erik Lönnrot is a detective who can foresee crimes at least to a partial extent. The most recent murder was at a place called “the villa of Triste-le-Roy.” Lönnrot could not guess the identity of the assassin, but he was able to see that Red Scharlach (Scharlach the Dandy) was involved. Although Scharlach has vowed to kill Lönnrot, the detective is an adventurer and gambler (and so he sets out to solve the case despite the dangers to his life).
Of the many problems which exercised the reckless discernment of Lönnrot, none was so strange – so rigorously strange, shall we say – as the periodic series of bloody events which culminated at the villa of Triste-le-Roy, amid the ceaseless aroma of the eucalypti. It is true that Erik Lönnrot failed to prevent the last murder, but that he foresaw it is indisputable. Neither did he guess the identity of Yarmolinsky’s luckless assassin, but he did succeed in divining the secret morphology behind the fiendish series as well as the participation of Red Scharlach, whose other nickname is Scharlach the Dandy. That criminal (as countless others) had sworn on his honor to kill Lönnrot, but the latter could never be intimidated. Lönnrot believed himself a pure reasoner, an Auguste Dupin, but there was something of the adventurer in him, and even a little of the gambler.
(76)
[The Murder of Yarmolinsky]
(p.76-77 “The first murder occurred in .... were calmly discussing the problem.”)
On December 3rd, Doctor Marcel Yarmolinsky came to [this city] as a delegate from Podolsk to the Third Talmudic Congress, staying at the Hôtel du Nord on Floor R, across from the Tetrarch of Galilee’s room. He goes to bed, and on the fourth the editor of the Yidische Zaitung tries calling his room, but there is no answer. He is then found dead in his room. “He was lying not far from the door which opened on the hall; a deep knife wound had split his breast.” Shortly after that, Inspector Treviranus and Lönnrot come and discuss the murder.
The first murder occurred in the Hôtel du Nord – that tall prism which dominates the estuary whose waters are the color of the desert. To that tower (which quite glaringly unites the hateful whiteness of a hospital, the numbered divisibility of a jail, and the general appearance of a bordello) there came on the third day of December the delegate from Podolsk to the Third Talmudic Congress, Doctor Marcel Yarmolinsky, a gray-bearded man with gray eyes. We shall never know whether the Hôtel du Nord pleased him; he accepted it with the ancient resignation which had allowed him to endure three years of war in the Carpathians and three thousand years of oppression and pogroms. | He was given a room on Floor R, across from the suite which was occupied – not without splendor – by the Tetrarch of Galilee. Yarmolinsky supped, postponed until the following day an inspection of the unknown city, arranged in a placard his many books and few personal possessions, and before midnight extinguished his light. (Thus declared the Tetrarch’s chauffeur who slept in the adjoining room.) On the fourth, at 11:03 A.M., the editor of the Yidische Zaitung put in a call to him; Doctor Yarmolinsky did not answer. He was found in his room, his face already a little dark, nearly nude beneath a large, anachronistic cape. He was lying not far from the door which opened on the hall; a deep knife wound had split his breast. A few hours later, in the same room amid journalists, photographers and policemen, Inspector Treviranus and Lönnrot were calmly discussing the problem.
(76-77)
[Yarmolinsky’s Occult Hebrew Books]
(p.77-78 “No need to look for a three-legged cat ... No one answered him.”)
Inspector Treviranus notes that the Tetrarch of Galilee (who was staying across the hall) possessed the finest sapphires in the world. So a thief was trying to steal them, but went to the wrong room accidentally. He then had to kill Yarmolinsky, Treviranus thinks. Lönnrot disagrees, because Treviranus’ theory uses hypotheses that rely too much on chance. Given that Yarmolinsky is a rabbi, Lönnrot seeks “a purely rabbinical explanation, not the imaginary mischances of an imaginary robber” (77). Lönnrot notes Yarmolinsky’s books, which are occult and Hebrew themed, including a monograph on the Tetragrammaton (wiki).
“No need to look for a three-legged cat here,” Treviranus was saying as he brandished an imperious cigar. “We all know that the Tetrarch of Galilee owns the finest sapphires in the world. Someone, intending to steal them, must have broken in here by mistake. Yarmolinsky got up; the robber had to kill him. How does it sound to you?”
“Possible, but not interesting,” Lönnrot answered. “You’ll reply that reality hasn’t the least obligation to be interesting. And I’ll answer you that reality may avoid that obligation but that hypotheses may not. In the hypothesis that you propose, chance intervenes copiously. Here we have a dead rabbi; I would prefer a purely rabbinical explanation, not the imaginary mischances of an imaginary robber.”
Treviranus replied ill-humoredly:
“I’m not interested in rabbinical explanations. I am interested in capturing the man who stabbed this unknown person.”
“Not so unknown,” corrected Lönnrot. “Here are his complete works.” He indicated in the wall-cupboard a row of tall books: a Vindication of the Cabala; An Examination of the Philosophy of Robert Fludd; a literal translation of the Sepher Yezirah; a Biography of the Baal Shem; a History of the Hasidic Sect; a monograph (in German) on the Tetragrammaton; another, on the divine nomenclature of the Pentateuch. The inspector re- | garded them with dread, almost with repulsion. Then he began to laugh.
“I’m a poor Christian,” he said. “Carry off those musty volumes if you want; I don’t have any time to waste on Jewish superstitions.”
“Maybe the crime belongs to the history of Jewish superstitions,” murmured Lönnrot.
“Like Christianity,” the editor of the Yidische Zaitung ventured to add. He was myopic, an atheist and very shy.
No one answered him.
(77-78)
[The Absolute Name of God and Its Immediate Knowledge of the Future. The First Letter from the First Murder.]
(p.78-79 “One of the agents had found ... of the History of the Hasidic Sect.”)
One of the police agents noticed that in a small typewriter is a paper reading “The first letter of the Name has been uttered”. Lönnrot then takes Yarmolinsky’s books home to study them. He notes three of them: one about Israel Baal Shem Tobh, one about the virtues and terrors of the Tetragrammaton (“the unutterable name of God”), and one that contains the thesis that God has a secret name that somehow contains eternity, “that is to say, the immediate knowledge of all things that will be, which are and which have been in the universe” (78). There are traditionally 99 names of God, and the 100th is this Absolute Name. The editor of the Yidische Zaitung visits Lönnrot, sees his work with the books, and misrepresents the situation in his newspapers saying Lönnrot will try to find the name of the murderer by studying the names of God.
One of the agents had found in the small typewriter a piece of paper on which was written the following unfinished sentence:
The first letter of the Name has been uttered
Lönnrot abstained from smiling. Suddenly become a bibliophile or Hebraist, he ordered a package made of the dead man’s books and carried them off to his apartment. Indifferent to the police investigation, he dedicated himself to studying them. One large octavo volume revealed to him the teachings of Israel Baal Shem Tobh, founder of the sect of the Pious; another, the virtues and terrors of the Tetragrammaton, which is the unutterable name of God; another, the thesis that God has a secret name, in which is epitomized (as in the crystal sphere which the Persians ascribe to Alexander of Macedonia) his ninth attribute, eternity – that is to say, the immediate knowledge of all things that will be, which are and which have been in the universe. Tradition numbers ninety-nine names of God; the Hebraists attribute that imperfect number to magical fear of even numbers; the Hasidim reason that that hiatus indicates a hundredth name – the Absolute Name.
From this erudition Lönnrot was distracted, a few days later, by the appearance of the editor of the Yidische Zaitung. The latter wanted to talk about the murder; Lönnrot preferred to discuss the diverse names of God; the journalist declared, in three columns, that the investigator, Erik Lönnrot, had dedicated himself to studying the names of God in order to come across the name of the murderer. Lönnrot, accustomed to the simplifica- | tions of journalism, did not become indignant. One of those enterprising shopkeepers who have discovered that any given man is resigned to buying any given book published a popular edition of the History of the Hasidic Sect.
(78-79)
[The Second Murder and the Second Letter]
(p.79 “The second murder occurred ... has been uttered.”)
There was a second murder, this time outside an old paint shop in an “empty corner of the capital’s western suburbs,” and it happens on the 3rd of January. The victim is Daniel Simon Azevedo, who was a politician and then became a thief and informer. He was stabbed in the chest with a dagger. Treviranus and Lönnrot come to the scene of the crime, and they see that written across yellow and red diamonds on the wall near him in chalk is: “The second letter of the Name has been uttered.”
The second murder occurred on the evening of the third of January, in the most deserted and empty corner of the capital’s western suburbs. Towards dawn, one of the gendarmes who patrol those solitudes on horseback saw a man in a poncho, lying prone in the shadow of an old paint shop. The harsh features seemed to be masked in blood; a deep knife wound had split his breast. On the wall, across the yellow and red diamonds, were some words written in chalk. The gendarme spelled them out ... That afternoon, Treviranus and Lönnrot headed for the remote scene of the crime. To the left and right of the automobile the city disintegrated; the firmament grew and houses were of less importance than a brick kiln or a poplar tree. They arrived at their miserable destination: an alley’s end, with rose-colored walls which somehow seemed to reflect the extravagant sunset. The dead man had already been identified. He was Daniel Simon Azevedo, an individual of some fame in the old northern suburbs, who had risen from wagon driver to political tough, then degenerated to a thief and even an informer. (The singular style of his death seemed appropriate to them: Azevedo was the last representative of a generation of bandits who knew how to manipulate a dagger, but not a revolver.) The words in chalk were the following:
The second letter of the Name has been uttered
(79)
[The Third Murder and the Last of the Name Letters]
(p.79-81 “The third murder occurred ... Treviranus of culpable negligence.”)
The third murder occurs on the 3rd of February. This time, Inspector Treviranus gets a bit of a warning. That day, someone named Ginzberg calls and says he has information for sale about the murders of Azevedo and Yarmolinsky. But then noise of whistles and horns drowns out the caller’s voice, and the connection is broken. Treviranus figures that the call came from a tavern called the Liverpool House. Treviranus goes there and learns from the owner Black Finnegan that the caller was probably a lodger named Gryphius, who had just left with friends. Gryphius had been renting a room at the tavern for eight days. He has a grey beard and dresses in black. He willingly paid a large sum for the room. He normally did not go out, but on the night of the call, there are odd circumstances. Gryphius makes his phone call from Finnegan’s office. Then a closed cab pulls up to the tavern. The driver is wearing a bear’s mask. Then two drunk harlequins wearing yellow, red, and green diamonds get out of the cab, enter the tavern and then Finnegan’s office where Gryphius is making the call. They speak in Yiddish, then go up to Gryphius’ room, and then come back down joyfully, with Gryphius drunk now too. They get in the cab and go toward the harbor. On one of the slates of the pier shed, one of the harlequins wrote, “The last of the letters of the Name has been uttered”. Treviranus then searches Gryphius’ room and discovers there the book Philologus Hebraeo-Graecus. Next, Treviranus meets with Lönnrot, who notes that the thirty-third dissertation of the Philologus book is “The Hebrew day begins at sundown and lasts until the following sundown.” Lönnrot then says that more important than this is a word that Ginzberg (Gryphius) uses, but Lönnrot does not elaborate. Dandy Red Scharlach, “the most illustrious gunman of the south”, accuses Treviranus of negligence for letting these crimes occur.
The third murder occurred on the night of the third of February. A little before one o’clock, the telephone in Inspector Treviranus’ office rang. In avid secretiveness, a man with a guttural voice spoke; he said his name was Ginzberg (or Ginsburg) and that he was prepared to communicate, for reasonable remuneration, the events surrounding the two sacrifices of Azevedo and Yarmolinsky. A discordant sound of whistles and horns drowned out the informer’s voice. Then, the connection was broken off. Without yet rejecting the possibility of a hoax (after | all, it was carnival time), Treviranus found out that he had been called from the Liverpool House, a tavern on the rue de Toulon, that dingy street where side by side exist the cosmorama and the coffee shop, the bawdy house and the bible sellers. Treviranus spoke with the owner. The latter (Black Finnegan, an old Irish criminal who was immersed in, almost overcome by, respect ability) told him that the last person to use the phone was a lodger, a certain Gryphius, who had just left with some friends. Treviranus went immediately to Liverpool House. The owner related the following. Eight days ago Gryphius had rented a room above the tavern. He was a sharp-featured man with a nebulous gray beard, and was shabbily dressed in black; Finnegan (who used the room for a purpose which Treviranus guessed) demanded a rent which was undoubtedly excessive; Gryphius paid the stipulated sum without hesitation. He almost never went out; he dined and lunched in his room; his face was scarcely known in the bar. On the night in question, he came downstairs to make a phone call from Finnegan’s office. A closed cab stopped in front of the tavern. The driver didn’t move from his seat; several patrons recalled that he was wearing a bear’s mask. Two harlequins got out of the cab; they were of short stature and no one failed to observe that they were very drunk. With a tooting of horns, they burst into Finnegan’s office; they embraced Gryphius, who appeared to recognize them but responded coldly; they exchanged a few words in Yiddish – he in a low, guttural voice, they in high-pitched, false voices-and then went up to the room. Within a quarter hour the three descended, very happy. Gryphius, staggering, seemed as drunk as the others. He walked – tall and dizzy – in the middle, between the masked harlequins. (One of the women at the bar remembered the yellow, red and green diamonds.) Twice he stumbled; twice he was caught and held by the harlequins. Moving off toward the inner harbor which enclosed a rectangular body of water, the three got into the cab and disappeared. From the footboard of the cab, the last of the harlequins scrawled an obscene figure and a sentence on one of the slates of the pier shed.
Treviranus saw the sentence. It was virtually predictable. It said:
|
The last of the letters of the Name has been uttered
Afterwards, he examined the small room of Gryphius-Ginzberg. On the floor there was a brusque star of blood, in the corners, traces of cigarettes of a Hungarian brand; in a cabinet, a book in Latin – the Philologus Hebraeo-Graecus (1739) of Leusden – with several manuscript notes. Treviranus looked it over with indignation and had Lönnrot located. The latter, without removing his hat, began to read while the inspector was interrogating the contradictory witnesses to the possible kidnap ping. At four o’clock they left. Out on the twisted rue de Toulon, as they were treading on the dead serpentines of the dawn, Treviranus said:
“And what if all this business tonight were just a mock rehearsal?”
Erik Lönnrot smiled and, with all gravity, read a passage (which was underlined) from the thirty-third dissertation of the Philologus: Dies Judacorum incipit ad solis occasu usque ad solis occasum diei sequentis.
“This means,” he added, “‘The Hebrew day begins at sundown and lasts until the following sundown.’”
The inspector attempted an irony.
“Is that fact the most valuable one you’ve come across tonight?”
“No. Even more valuable was a word that Ginzberg used.”
The afternoon papers did not overlook the periodic disappearances. La Cruz de la Espada contrasted them with the admirable discipline and order of the last Hermetical Congress; Ernst Palast, in El Martir, criticized “the intolerable delays in this clandestine and frugal pogrom, which has taken three months to murder three Jews”; the Yidische Zaitung rejected the horrible hypothesis of an anti-Semitic plot, “even though many penetrating intellects admit no other solution to the triple mystery”; the most illustrious gunman of the south, Dandy Red Scharlach, swore that in his district similar crimes could never occur, and he accused Inspector Franz Treviranus of culpable negligence.
(79-81)
[Prefiguring the Fourth Murder]
(p.81-82 “On the night of March first ... Lönnrot hung up.”)
On March first, Inspector Treviranus receives a letter signed “Baruch Spinoza.” It says there will probably not be a fourth murder, because the locations of the first three make “the perfect vertices of a mystic equilateral triangle”, as shown in red ink on an included map. Treviranus shows this to Lönnrot, who studies it at home. The three events also happened on the thirds of each month, so there was a symmetry in time as well as space. Lönnrot examines the map with calipers and compass and says the word “Tetragrammaton.” He phones Treviranus to declare that the murderers are planning a fourth murder.
On the night of March first, the inspector received an impressive-looking sealed envelope. He opened it; the envelope contained a letter signed “Baruch Spinoza” and a detailed plan of | the city, obviously torn from a Baedeker. The letter prophesied that on the third of March there would not be a fourth murder, since the paint shop in the west, the tavern on the rue de Toulon and the Hôtel du Nord were “the perfect vertices of a mystic equilateral triangle”; the map demonstrated in red ink the regularity of the triangle. Treviranus read the more geometrico argument with resignation, and sent the letter and the map to Lönnrot – who, unquestionably, was deserving of such madnesses.
Erik Lönnrot studied them. The three locations were in fact equidistant. Symmetry in time (the third of December, the third of January, the third of February); symmetry in space as well ... Suddenly, he felt as if he were on the point of solving the mystery. A set of calipers and a compass completed his quick intuition. He smiled, pronounced the word Tetragrammaton (of recent acquisition), and phoned the inspector. He said:
“Thank you for the equilateral triangle you sent me last night. It has enabled me to solve the problem. This Friday the criminals will be in jail, we may rest assured.”
“Then they’re not planning a fourth murder?”
“Precisely because they are planning a fourth murder we can rest assured.”
Lönnrot hung up.
(81-82)
[Exploring the House at the Villa of Triste-le-Roy]
(p.82-84 “One hour later he was traveling ... dizzying recollection struck him.”)
Lönnrot now goes to the abandoned villa of Triste-le-Roy, which is in an area occupied by some criminals, including Red Scharlach, “the most celebrated gunman of all.” But Lönnrot is not sure who the victim will be (he only knows the location and time), and he wonders if the victim will be Scharlach. He comes upon the villa at night. He enters by the main, iron gate. The house has odd architecture:
Viewed from anear, the house of the villa of Triste-le-Roy abounded in pointless symmetries and in maniacal repetitions: to one Diana in a murky niche corresponded a second Diana in another niche; one balcony was reflected in another balcony; double stairways led to double balustrades. A two-faced Hermes projected a monstrous shadow.
(83)
He pushes through a Venetian blind and descends into a vault. Lönnrot, seeing the symmetry to the architecture, seeks and finds a stair on the opposite end. He then ascends it through a trap door and goes to a window that he opens to see the moon illuminate two silent fountains in the garden. He next explores the house and finds it to be almost endlessly self-replicative.
Through anterooms and galleries he passed to duplicate patios, and time after time to the | same patio. He ascended the dusty stairs to circular antechambers; he was multiplied infinitely in opposing mirrors; he grew tired of opening or half-opening windows which revealed outside the same desolate garden from various heights and various angles [...]
(83-84)
Insides the rooms the furniture and chandeliers are wrapped up. He touches a flower in a bedroom and its “ancient petals fell apart.” But although the house seems infinite, he instead thinks that other factors only make it seem so large.
On the second floor, on the top floor, the house seemed infinite and expanding. The house is not this large, he thought. Other things are making it seem larger: the dim light, the symmetry, the mirrors, so many years, my unfamiliarity, the loneliness.
(74)
He then ascends a spiral staircase to an oriel window bay with yellow, red, and green diamonds, which reminds him (of the harlequin colors and the colors of the paint shop).
One hour later he was traveling on one of the Southern Railway’s trains, in the direction of the abandoned villa of Triste-le-Roy. To the south of the city of our story, flows a blind little river of muddy water, defamed by refuse and garbage. On the far side is an industrial suburb where, under the protection of a political boss from Barcelona, gunmen thrive. Lönnrot smiled at the thought that the most celebrated gunman of all – Red Scharlach – would have given a great deal to know of his clandestine visit. Azevedo had been an associate of Scharlach; Lönnrot considered the remote possibility that the fourth victim might be Scharlach himself. Then he rejected the idea ... He had very nearly deciphered the problem; mere circumstances, reality (names, prison records, faces, judicial and penal proceedings) hardly interested him now. He wanted to travel a bit, he wanted to rest from three months of sedentary investigation. He reflected that the explanation of the murders was in an anonymous triangle and a dusty Greek word. The mystery appeared almost | crystalline to him now; he was mortified to have dedicated a hundred days to it.
The train stopped at a silent loading station. Lönnrot got off. It was one of those deserted afternoons that seem like dawns. The air of the turbid, puddled plain was damp and cold. Lönnrot began walking along the countryside. He saw dogs, he saw a car on a siding, he saw the horizon, he saw a silver-colored horse drinking the crapulous water of a puddle. It was growing dark when he saw the rectangular belvedere of the villa of Triste-le Roy, almost as tall as the black eucalypti which surrounded it. He thought that scarcely one dawning and one nightfall (an ancient splendor in the east and another in the west) separated him from the moment long desired by the seekers of the Name.
A rusty wrought-iron fence defined the irregular perimeter of the villa. The main gate was closed. Lönnrot, without much hope of getting in, circled the area. Once again before the insurmountable gate, he placed his hand between the bars almost mechanically and encountered the bolt. The creaking of the iron surprised him. With a laborious passivity the whole gate swung back.
Lönnrot advanced among the eucalypti treading on confused generations of rigid, broken leaves. Viewed from anear, the house of the villa of Triste-le-Roy abounded in pointless symmetries and in maniacal repetitions: to one Diana in a murky niche corresponded a second Diana in another niche; one balcony was reflected in another balcony; double stairways led to double balustrades. A two-faced Hermes projected a monstrous shadow. Lönnrot circled the house as he had the villa. He examined every thing; beneath the level of the terrace he saw a narrow Venetian blind.
He pushed it; a few marble steps descended to a vault. Lönnrot, who had now perceived the architect’s preferences, guessed that at the opposite wall there would be another stairway. He found it, ascended, raised his hands and opened the trap door. A brilliant light led him to a window. He opened it: a yellow, rounded moon defined two silent fountains in the melancholy garden. Lönnrot explored the house. Through anterooms and galleries he passed to duplicate patios, and time after time to the | same patio. He ascended the dusty stairs to circular antechambers; he was multiplied infinitely in opposing mirrors; he grew tired of opening or half-opening windows which revealed outside the same desolate garden from various heights and various angles; inside, only pieces of furniture wrapped in yellow dust sheets and chandeliers bound up in tarlatan. A bedroom detained him; in that bedroom, one single flower in a porcelain vase; at the first touch the ancient petals fell apart. On the second floor, on the top floor, the house seemed infinite and expanding. The house is not this large, he thought. Other things are making it seem larger: the dim light, the symmetry, the mirrors, so many years, my unfamiliarity, the loneliness.
By way of a spiral staircase he arrived at the oriel. The early evening moon shone through the diamonds of the window; they were yellow, red and green. An astonishing, dizzying recollection struck him.
[Lönnrot’s Capture by Scharlach. The Single-Lined Labyrinth. The Fourth Murder.]
(p.84-87 “Two men of short stature ... very carefully, he fired.”)
Lönnrot is then overcome by two short men who disarm him and handcuff him. A third, tall man, Red Scharlach, tells Lönnrot that he saved them a night and day (it is still not yet March 3rd.) Lönnrot asks Scharlach if he is seeking the Secret Name. Scharlach replies that he is simply seeking Lönnrot out of vengeance for him arresting his brother and for Scharlach’s getting shot in the stomach in the battle with the police at that event. While recovering from the wound, he lay in agony and fever for nine days and nights “in this desolate, symmetrical villa”. In his delirium, he was troubled by the two-faced Janus statue. All the while, an Irishman tried to convert him to Christianity by repeating the phrase, “all roads lead to Rome”. This metaphor fed his delirium. “I felt that the world was a labyrinth, from which it was impossible to flee, for all roads, though they pretend to lead to the north or south, actually lead to Rome, which was also the quadrilateral jail where my brother was dying and the villa of Triste-le-Roy” (85). He then “swore by the God who sees with two faces and by all the gods of fever and of the mirrors” to “weave a labyrinth” around Lönnrot. The Labyrinth is composed of “a dead heresiologist, a compass, an eighteenth-century sect, a Greek word, a dagger, the diamonds of a paint shop”. Scharlach then explains the murders. Doctor Marcel Yarmolinsky (the “dead heresiologist”) was murdered (see sect. 2) on January 3rd by Daniel Azevedo (who was later himself murdered, see sect. 5). Azevedo was going to steal the Tetrarch of Galilee’s sapphires (see sect. 2). But Azevedo spends his advance on getting drunk and decides to do the job a day early. He stumbles accidentally into Yarmolinsky’s room. Yarmolinsky was writing notes for an article on the Name of God, having already written, “The first letter of the Name has been uttered.” Before Yarmolinsky could hit an alarm bell, Azevedo instinctively kills him by stabbing him in the chest (“a dagger”). Scharlach then reads in Yidische Zaitung about Lönnrot’s investigations into Yarmolinsky’s writings, including the book History of the Hasidic Sect (“an eighteenth-century sect”). He notes that uttering the Name of God has great occult powers and that some, in search of the Name, had committed human sacrifices. So Scharlach decided to make it seem like this is what happened to Yarmolinsky. The second murder was of Azevedo (see sect. 5), set on the third of January, and Scharlach writes “The second letter of the Name has been uttered” on the paint shop diamonds to connect it to the first murder. The third murder (see sect. 6) “was a sham” (if you recall, there was no mention of a victim’s body in that one. Perhaps there never was a murder, but then it is not clear why one was thought to have happened in the first place.) Scharlach says that he himself is Gryphius-Ginzberg-Ginsburg. His friends abducted him, and on a post they wrote “The last of the letters of the Name has been uttered.” This led the public to believe that there were only three murders planned, but Scharlach left clues to indicate to Lönnrot that there would be a fourth: the murders being committed in North, East, and West called for a fourth in the South (“a compass”); “the Tetragrammaton – the name of God, JHVH – is made up of four letters” (“a Greek word”?); “the harlequins and the paint shop sign suggested four points” (“the diamonds of a paint shop”); “Hebrews compute the day from sunset to sunset; that passage makes known that the deaths occurred on the fourth of each month” (since the murders happened after sunset, they occurred on the following day, not the third); and Scharlach sent the map with the fourth point needing to be drawn, forming a perfect rhombus. This was Scharlach’s plan to attract Lönnrot to his death trap. Lönnrot then says that there are three lines too many in his labyrinth, and he requests that next time he kill him, he place the three points all on one line, but still in a labyrinth form. The first murder would be at point A, and the second murder would then be 8 kilometers away at point B.
AXXXXXXXXXXXB
This establishes the line of the labyrinth. The third murder would be halfway between points A and B at point C.
AXXXXXCXXXXXB
And the fourth one would be at point D, halfway between A and C.
AXXDXXCXXXXXB
“In your labyrinth there are three lines too many,” he said at last. “I know of one Greek labyrinth which is a single straight line. Along that line so many philosophers have lost themselves | that a mere detective might well do so, too. Scharlach, when in some other incarnation you hunt me, pretend to commit (or do commit) a crime at A, then a second crime at B, eight kilometers from A, then a third crime at C, four kilometers from A and B, half-way between the two. Wait for me afterwards at D, two kilometers from A and C, again halfway between both. Kill me at D, as you are now going to kill me at Triste-le-Roy.”
(86-87)
(Note, this line that “so many philosophers have lost themselves” in this straight line ancient Greek labyrinth might be speaking about something like a Zeno’s paradox: the successive divisions in half suggest a pattern that could be thought to continue, further dividing the line toward A without ever reaching it.) Scharlach agrees to this and then shoots Lönnrot.
Two men of short stature, robust and ferocious, threw them selves on him and disarmed him; another, very tall, saluted him gravely and said:
“You are very kind. You have saved us a night and a day.” It was Red Scharlach. The men handcuffed Lönnrot. The latter at length recovered his voice.
“Scharlach, are you looking for the Secret Name?”
Scharlach remained standing, indifferent. He had not participated in the brief struggle, and he scarcely extended his hand to receive Lönnrot’s revolver. He spoke; Lönnrot noted in his voice a fatigued triumph, a hatred the size of the universe, a sadness not less than that hatred.
“No,” said Scharlach. “I am seeking something more ephemeral and perishable, I am seeking Erik Lönnrot. Three years ago, in a gambling house on the rue de Toulon, you arrested my brother and had him sent to jail. My men slipped me away in a coupe from the gun battle with a policeman’s bullet in my stomach. Nine days and nine nights I lay in agony in this desolate, symmetrical villa; fever was demolishing me, and the odious two-faced Janus who watches the twilights and the dawns lent horror to my dreams and to my waking. I came to abominate my body, I came to sense that two eyes, two hands, two lungs are as | monstrous as two faces. An Irishman tried to convert me to the faith of Jesus; he repeated to me the phrase of the goyim: All roads lead to Rome. At night my delirium nurtured itself on that metaphor; I felt that the world was a labyrinth, from which it was impossible to flee, for all roads, though they pretend to lead to the north or south, actually lead to Rome, which was also the quadrilateral jail where my brother was dying and the villa of Triste-le-Roy. On those nights I swore by the God who sees with two faces and by all the gods of fever and of the mirrors to weave a labyrinth around the man who had imprisoned my brother. I have woven it and it is firm: the ingredients are a dead heresiologist, a compass, an eighteenth-century sect, a Greek word, a dagger, the diamonds of a paint shop.
“The first term of the sequence was given to me by chance. I had planned with a few colleagues – among them Daniel Azevedo – the robbery of the Tetrarch’s sapphires. Azevedo betrayed us: he got drunk with the money that we had advanced him and he undertook the job a day early. He got lost in the vastness of the hotel; around two in the morning he stumbled into Yarmolinsky’s room. The latter, harassed by insomnia, had started to write. He was working on some notes, apparently, for an article on the Name of God; he had already written the words: The first letter of the Name has been uttered. Azevedo warned him to be silent; Yarmolinsky reached out his hand for the bell which would awaken the hotel’s forces; Azevedo countered with a single stab in the chest. It was almost a reflex action; half a century of violence had taught him that the easiest and surest thing is to kill ...Ten days later I learned through the Yidische Zaitung that you were seeking in Yarmolinsky’s writings the key to his death. I read the History of the Hasidic Sect; I learned that the reverent fear of uttering the Name of God had given rise to the doctrine that that Name is all powerful and recondite. I discovered that some Hasidim, in search of that secret Name, had gone so far as to perform human sacrifices . . . I knew that you would make the conjecture that the Hasidim had sacrificed the rabbi; I set myself the task of justifying that conjecture.
“Marcel Yarmolinsky died on the night of December third; for the second ‘sacrifice’ I selected the night of January third. | He died in the north; for the second ‘sacrifice’ a place in the west was suitable. Daniel Azevedo was the necessary victim. He deserved death; he was impulsive, a traitor; his apprehension could destroy the entire plan. One of us stabbed him; in order to link his corpse to the other one I wrote on the paint shop diamonds: The second letter of the Name has been uttered.
“The third murder was produced on the third of February. It was, as Treviranus guessed, a mere sham. I am Gryphius-Ginz berg-Ginsburg; I endured an interminable week (supplemented by a tenuous fake beard) in the perverse cubicle on the rue de Toulon, until my friends abducted me. From the footboard of the cab, one of them wrote on a post: The last of the letters of the Name has been uttered. That sentence revealed that the series of murders was triple. Thus the public understood it; I, nevertheless, interspersed repeated signs that would allow you, Erik Lönnrot, the reasoner, to understand that the series was quadruple. A portent in the north, others in the east and west, demand a fourth portent in the south; the Tetragrammaton – the name of God, JHVH – is made up of four letters; the harlequins and the paint shop sign suggested four points. In the manual of Leusden I underlined a certain passage: that passage manifests that Hebrews compute the day from sunset to sunset; that passage makes known that the deaths occurred on the fourth of each month. I sent the equilateral triangle to Treviranus. I foresaw that you would add the missing point. The point which would form a perfect rhomb, the point which fixes in advance where a punctual death awaits you. I have premeditated everything, Erik Lönnrot, in order to attract you to the solitudes of Triste-le Roy.”
Lönnrot avoided Scharlach’s eyes. He looked at the trees and the sky subdivided into diamonds of turbid yellow, green and red. He felt faintly cold, and he felt, too, an impersonal - almost anonymous – sadness. It was already night; from the dusty garden came the futile cry of a bird. For the last time, Lönnrot considered the problem of the symmetrical and periodic deaths.
“In your labyrinth there are three lines too many,” he said at last. “I know of one Greek labyrinth which is a single straight line. Along that line so many philosophers have lost themselves | that a mere detective might well do so, too. Scharlach, when in some other incarnation you hunt me, pretend to commit (or do commit) a crime at A, then a second crime at B, eight kilometers from A, then a third crime at C, four kilometers from A and B, half-way between the two. Wait for me afterwards at D, two kilometers from A and C, again halfway between both. Kill me at D, as you are now going to kill me at Triste-le-Roy.”
“The next time I kill you,” replied Scharlach, “I promise you that labyrinth, consisting of a single line which is invisible and unceasing.”
He moved back a few steps. Then, very carefully, he fired.
For Mandie Molina Vedia. Translated by D. A. Y.
From:
Borges, Jorge Luis. (1964). “Death and the Compass.” In Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings, edited by Donald A. Yates and James E Irby, pp.76-87. English translation by Donald A. Yates. New York: New Directions.
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