Six Problems for Don Isidro Parodi Appeared Originally Under the Pseu- Donym of H
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Jorge Luis Borges ADOLFO BIOY-CASARES *%>/#***** $11.50 01117-330 JORGE LUIS BORGES AND ADOLFO BIOY-CASARES The first fruit of the collaboration of Borges and his long-time friend Bioy- Casares, Six Problems for Don Isidro Parodi appeared originally under the pseu- donym of H. Bustos Domecq. "Bugsy s" prose style is not quite the style of either of the collaborators, but in this volume, at least, "he never got out of hand," as Borges complained he did later. In the first story, Parodi, who is him- self in jail for homicide, is visited by a young man who seeks his help in solving a particularly baffling murder. In the second story, a killing takes place aboard an express train. One of the characters is a writer named Gervasio Montenegro, whom the discerning reader will identify as author of the book's expressive fore- word. In "Tadeo Limardo's Victim," a murdered man prepares for his own death. "Tai An's Long Search" is a varia- tion on Poe's "The Purloined Letter." In "Free Will and the Commendatore," a cuckold takes elaborate and invisible revenge. The book also includes a short biogra- phy of H. Bustos Domecq by Adelma Badoglio, a provincial schoolteacher. (continued on back flap) PRINT BORGES, Jorge Luis Don F Six problems for B Isidro Parodi Copy 1 PRINT F BORGES, Jorge Luis Six problems for Don Isidro Parodi c!981 Copy 1 BY JORGE LUIS BORGES Ficciones Labyrinths Dreamtigers Other Inquisitions 1937-1952 A Personal Anthology The Book of Imaginary Beings The Aleph and Other Stories 1933-1969 Doctor Brodie's Report Selected Poems 1923-1967 A Universal History of Infamy In Praise of Darkness Chronicles of Bustos Domecq The Gold of the Tigers The Book of Sand BY ADOLFO BIOY-CASARES The Invention of Morel and Other Stories Diary of the War of the Pig A Plan for Escape Chronicles of Bustos Domecq Asleep in the Sun JORGE LUIS BORGES ADOLFO BIOY-CASARES \ a. TRANSLATED BY NORMAN THOMAS Dl GIOVANNI E. P. DUTTON NEW YORK — Certain of these stories first appeared in the following periodicals: American Poetry Review: "The God of the Bulls" Antaeus: "The Twelve Figures of The World" The Bennington Review: "Free Will and the Commendatore" Salmagundi: "The Nights of Goliadkin" The first three stories of this book have also been dramatized for radio broadcast by the BBC. Copyright © 1980, 1981 by Jorge Luis Borges, Adolfo Bioy-Casares, and Norman Thomas di Giovanni All rights reserved. Printed in the U.S.A. The original title of this book is Sets problemas para don Isidro Parodi, Copyright © 1942 by Editorial Sur, S.A., Buenos Aires No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast. Published in the United States, 1981, by Elsevier-Dutton Publishing Co., Inc., 2 Park Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10016 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Borges, Jorge Luis Six problems for Don Isidro Parodi. Translation of Seis problemas para don Isidro Parodi. CONTENTS: The twelve figures of the world.—The nights of Goliadkin. The god of the bulls.—[etc.] I. Bioy Casares, Adolfo, joint author. II. Title. pQ7797 R635s44>3 »981 863 80-20107 ISBN: 0-525-20480-6 Published simultaneously in Canada by Clarke, Irwin & Company Limited, Toronto and Vancouver. 10 98765432 1 First Edition Contents Foreword by Gervasio Montenegro 7 * The Twelve Figures of the World 17 The Nights of Goliadkin 37 The God of the Bulls 56 Free Will and the Commendatore 76 Tadeo Limardo's Victim 109 Tai An's Long Search 136 H. Bustos Domecq by Adelma Badoglio 159 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012 with funding from NationalFederation of the Blind (NFB) http://www.archive.org/details/sixproblemsfordoOOjorg Foreword Good! It shall be. Revealment of myself! But listen, for we must co-operate; I don 't drink tea: permit me the cigar! ROBERT BROWNING How fated, how interesting the idiosyncrasy of the homme de lettres! Literary Buenos Aires has probably not forgotten nor, I dare suggest, will ever forget my frank decision not to concede yet another preface to the claims—entirely legitimate, of course—of unim- peachable friendship and meritorious worth. We can- not but admit, however, that this Socratic "Bugsy"* is irresistible. What a peach of a man! With a peal of laughter that disarms me he acknowledges the perfect validity of my position; yet with an infectious chuckle, he repeats, persuasively and obstinately, that his book and our long-standing friendship demand my preface. Protestation is useless. De guerre lasse, I give in to sit- ting down at my trusty Remington, the partner and dumb confidant of so many of my flights into the blue. Present-day pressures from the bank, the stock ex- change, and the racetrack have been no impediment to my paying tribute—whether ensconced in the arm- * Affectionate nickname for H. Bustos Domecq used among his inti- mates. [Footnote by H.B.D.] chair of a Pullman car or as the skeptical patron of mud baths in more or less thermal spas—to the blood- curdling cruelties of the roman policier. Here I must risk confessing that I am no slave to fashion. Night after night in the central solitude of my bedroom the inge- nious Sherlock Holmes retreats before the ever-fresh adventures of the wandering Ulysses, son of Laertes and seed of Zeus. But the admirer of the stern Medi- terranean epic sips in many gardens. Bolstered by the French sleuth M. Lecoq, I have turned over dusty dos- siers; I have pricked up my ears in vast imaginary country houses so as to capture the muffled footsteps of the gentleman-cambrioleur; in the grim wastes of Dartmoor, enclosed in an English fog, the great lumi- nous hound has devoured me. To continue would be in bad taste. The reader knows my credentials. I too have been in Boeotia. Before embarking on a fruitful analysis of the basic elements of this recueil, I beg the reader's leave to congratulate myself that at last in the motley Musee Grevin of belles lettres . criminologiques an Argentine hero has made his appearance in a purely Argentine setting. What an uncommon pleasure it is—between puffs of the aromatic herb and with an unmistakable First Empire cognac at one's elbow—to savor a detec- tive story which does not obey the rigid rules of a foreign, Anglo-Saxon market and which I have no hes- itation in putting on the same level as those authors recommended to keen London enthusiasts by the in- corruptible Crime Club! Let me also modestly point out my satisfaction as a native of Buenos Aires in learning that our writer, although from the provinces, has proved himself deaf to the call of narrow parochi- alism and has had the sense to choose Buenos Aires as the natural frame for his etchings of local scenes. 8 Nor shall I fail to applaud the courage and good taste shown by our much-loved "Bugsy"* in turning his back on the dark and dissolute fat-man stereotype from Rosario. However, two elements are missing from this metropolitan palette, and I venture to de- mand them of future books. They are our silky, femi- nine Florida Street in sublime procession before the avid eyes of its shop windows; and the melancholy quarter of La Boca, slumbering by the docks, when the last street-corner bar has shut its metal eyelids, and an accordion, unvanquished in the dark, greets the now paling constellations. At this point let us frame the most salient and at the same time most profound feature of the author of Six Problems for Don Isidro Parodi. I have mentioned—let there be no mistake—concision, the art of bruler les etapes. H. Bustos Domecq is at all times an attentive servant of his public. In his stories there are no false trails or confusing timetables. He spares us all blind alleys. Offspring of the tradition of the tragic Edgar Allan Poe, the mandarin M. P. Shiel, and Baroness Orczy, our author concentrates on the main events in his cases—the statement of the problem and its il- luminating solution. Mere puppets of curiosity—if not under direct pressure from the police—the characters gather in a colorful flock in the now legendary cell 273. On their first visit they put forward the mystery that troubles them; on their second they hear its solu- tion, which astounds young and old alike. The author, whose skill is as compact as it is artistic, reduces ele- mentary reality and heaps all the laurels of the case on the brow of Parodi alone. The less perceptive reader will smile, suspecting the deliberate omission of some *See footnote on p. 7. [Footnote by H.B.D.] — tedious inquiry and the unintentional omission of more than one inspired insight made by a gentleman on whose identity it would be inappropriate to dwell. Let us look closely at the book. It consists of six stories. I obviously cannot hide my penchant for "Tadeo Limardo's Victim," a story of Slavonic inspira- tion, which combines a thrilling plot with a probe into more than one aspect of morbid Dostoevskian psy- chology. And it does this while still charming us with a revelation of a sui generis world that lies on the fringe of our European veneer and refined egocen tric- ky.