Hopscotch: A Novel (Pantheon Modern Writers Series) (67 page)
Read Hopscotch: A Novel (Pantheon Modern Writers Series) Online
Authors: Julio Cortazar
Touched, Traveler forgot all about the hour and how the level of the
caña
was going down. The problems came to him like caresses: Why exempt vegetables and fruit trees? Why did the word
wasp
have something diabolical about it? And that almost Edenic vision of a farm where goats were raised alongside tigers, mice, butterflies, lions, and microbes … Choking with laughter he went out into the hallway. The almost tangible aspect of a ranch where the employees-of-said-establishment were arguing as they tried to breed a whale became superimposed on the austere vision of the nighttime hallway. It was a hallucination worthy of the place and the time, it seemed perfectly foolish to wonder what Talita was doing in the pharmacy or in the courtyard, when the order of Corporations continued to offer itself as a guiding light.
(25)
NATIONAL CORPORATION OF HOSPITALS AND RELATED HOUSES
(all hospitals of all types, workshops for repairs and adjustments, houses for the curing of hides, stables for the curing of horses, dental clinics, barber shops, houses for the pruning of plants, houses for the arrangement of intricate legal forms, etc., and also all employees in general of said establishments).
“There it is,” Traveler said. “A break that proves Ceferino’s perfect central healthiness. Horacio is right, there’s no reason to accept the order of things the way daddy hands them to us. Cefe thinks that the fact that something is being repaired unites a dentist and intricate legal forms; accidents are just as valuable as essences … But it’s pure poetry, boy. Cefe is breaking the hard mental crust, as somebody or other said, and he’s beginning to see the world from a different angle. Of course this is what they call being batty.”
When Talita came in he was on the twenty-eighth Corporation:
(28)
NATIONAL CORPORATION OF SCIENTIFIC DETECTIVES-ERRANT AND THEIR HOUSES OF SCIENCE
(all places for detectives and/or investigation police, all places for explorers (travelers) and all places for scientific explorers, and all employees in general of said same
establishments). (All of the abovementioned employees must belong to a class that is to be called “
ERRANT
.”)
Talita and Traveler liked this part less, it was as if Ceferino were abandoning himself too soon to a persecutory worry. But perhaps the scientific detectives-errant were not mere investigators; the “errant” business invested them with a quixotic air that Cefe, probably taking it as understood, had not bothered to emphasize.
(29)
NATIONAL CORPORATION OF SCIENTIFIC DETECTIVES HAVING TO DO WITH PLEAS AND THEIR HOUSES OF SCIENCE
(all places for detectives and/or Investigation police, and all places for explorers, and all employees in general of said same establishments). (All of the abovementioned employees are to belong to a class that is to be called “
PLEAS
,” and the places and employees of this class are to be separate from those of other classes such as the already mentioned “
ERRANT
.”
(30)
NATIONAL CORPORATION OF SCIENTIFIC DETECTIVES HAVING TO DO WITH FINAL BOUNDARIES AND THEIR HOUSES OF SCIENCE
(all places for detectives and/or Investigation police, and all places for explorers, and all employees in general of said same establishments). (All of the abovementioned employees are to belong to a class that is to be called “
BOUNDARIES
,” and the places and employees of this class are to be separate from those of other classes such as the already mentioned “
ERRANT
” and “
PLEAS
.”)
“It’s as if he were talking about orders of chivalry,” Talita said convinced. “But the strange thing is that in these three corporations of detectives, the only thing he mentions are the places.”
“That’s one thing, and the other is the meaning of ‘final boundaries.’ ”
“He must be deriving
final
from
fine.
But that doesn’t solve anything. What’s the difference.”
“What’s the difference,” Traveler repeated. “You’re so right. The beautiful part is that there exists the possibility of a world where there will be detectives-errant, plea detectives, and final-boundary detectives. That’s why it seems quite natural to me that Cefe turns now from chivalry to religious orders, with an interlude that looks like a concession to the scientifical (you’ve got to call it something) spirit of the times. I’ll read it to you:”
(31)
NATIONAL CORPORATION OF THE LEARNED IN SUITABLE SCIENCES AND THEIR HOUSES OF SCIENCE
(all houses or communal
places for the learned in suitable sciences and all of the aforementioned learned men). (Learned men in suitable sciences: physicians, homeopaths, healers (all surgeons), midwives, technicians, mechanics (all types of technicians), engineers of the second grade or architects of every branch (all executors of plans already drawn beforehand, such as would be an engineer of the second grade), classifiers in general, astronomers, astrologers, spiritualists, full doctors in every branch of the law or laws (all experts), classifiers of generic species, accountants, translators, primary school teachers (all composers), trackers—men—of murderers, pathfinders or guides, plant grafters, barbers, etc.)
“Look at this,” Traveler said, taking a drink of
caña
at one gulp. “He’s an absolute genius!”
“It’ll be a great country for barbers,” Talita said, flopping on the bed and closing her eyes. “They come pretty high on the scale. What I don’t understand is why the trackers of murderers have to be men.”
“I’ve never heard of a female tracker,” Traveler said, “and probably Cefe didn’t find it very appropriate. You must have noticed that he’s a terrible puritan in sexual matters, it comes out all the time.”
“It’s hot, too damned hot,” Talita said. “Did you notice how he likes to include classifiers, and even repeats the name? So let’s have the mystical leap you were going to read me.”
“Get ready to catalogue,” Traveler said.
(32)
NATIONAL CORPORATION OF MONKS OF THE PRAYER OF THE SIGN OF THE CROSS AND THEIR HOUSES OF SCIENCE
(all communal houses of monks, and all monks). (Monks or men who bless, who are to remain outside all extraneous cults, uniquely and only for the world of the word and the curative mysteries of the “conquest” of the latter.) (Monks who are always to combat all spiritual ills, all harm earned or put into goods or bodies, etc.) (Penitent and anchorite monks who are to pray for and bless sometimes people, sometimes objects, sometimes sites of places, sometimes planted fields, sometimes a boyfriend badly affected by a rival, et cetera.)
(33)
NATIONAL CORPORATION OF CHURCHGOING GUARDIANS OF COLLECTIONS AND THEIR HOUSES OF COLLECTION
(all houses of collection, and
idem
, houses—deposits, warehouses, archives, museums, cemeteries, jails, asylums, homes for the blind, etc., and also all employees in general of said establishments). (Collections: example: an archive keeps files in a collection; a cemetery keeps corpses in a collection; a jail keeps prisoners in a collection, etc.)
“Even Espronceda didn’t think of the cemetery bit,” Traveler said. “You can’t deny the analogy between the Chacarita cemetery and an archive … Ceferino has an intuition for relationships, and that, basically, is true intelligence, don’t you think? After introductions like these, his final classification isn’t strange at all, quite the contrary. A world like this should be tried.”
Talita didn’t say anything, but she lifted her upper lip like a festoon and let out a sigh that had its origins in what is called the first signs of sleep. Traveler took another drink of
caña
and got into the final and definitive Corporations:
(40)
NATIONAL CORPORATION OF COMMISSION AGENTS FOR COLORED SPECIES COLORED IN RED AND HOUSES OF ACTIVE LABOR FOR THE BENEFIT OF SPECIES COLORED IN RED
(all communal houses of commission agents for generic species colored in red, or the main Offices of said agents, and also all said agents). (Generic species colored in red: animals with fur colored in red; plants with flowers colored in red, and minerals with the look of colored in red.)
(41)
NATIONAL CORPORATION OF COMMISSION AGENTS FOR SPECIES COLORED IN BLACK AND HOUSES OF ACTIVE LABOR FOR THE BENEFIT OF SPECIES COLORED BLACK
(all communal houses of commission agents for generic species in black, or the main Offices of said agents, and also all said agents). (Generic species colored in black or simply black: animals with black fur, plants with black flowers, and minerals with a black look.)
(42)
NATIONAL CORPORATION OF COMMISSION AGENTS FOR SPECIES COLORED IN BROWN AND HOUSES OF ACTIVE LABOR FOR THE BENEFIT OF BROWN SPECIES
(all communal houses of commission agents for generic species colored in brown, or the main Offices of said agents, and also all said agents). (Generic species colored in brown or simply brown: animals with brown fur, plants with brown flowers, and minerals with a brown look.)
(43)
NATIONAL CORPORATION OF COMMISSION AGENTS FOR SPECIES COLORED IN YELLOW AND HOUSES OF ACTIVE LABOR FOR THE BENEFIT OF SPECIES COLORED IN YELLOW
(all communal houses of commission agents for generic species colored in yellow, or the main Offices of said agents, and also all said agents). (Generic species colored in yellow or simply yellow: animals with yellow fur, plants with yellow flowers, and minerals with a yellow look.)
(44)
NATIONAL CORPORATION OF COMMISSION AGENTS FOR SPECIES IN WHITE AND HOUSES OF ACTIVE LABOR FOR THE BENEFIT OF SPECIES COLORED IN WHITE
(all communal houses of commission agents for generic species colored in white, or the main Offices of said agents,
and also all said agents.) (Generic species colored in white: animals with white fur, plants with white flowers, and minerals with a white look.)
(45)
NATIONAL CORPORATION OF COMMISSION AGENTS FOR SPECIES IN PAMPA AND HOUSES OF ACTIVE LABOR FOR THE BENEFIT OF SPECIES COLORED IN PAMPA
(all communal houses of commission agents for generic species colored in pampa, or the main Offices of said agents, and also all said agents). (Generic species colored in pampa or simply pampa: animals with pampa fur, vegetables with pampa flowers, and minerals with a pampa look.)
Break the hard mental crust … How did Ceferino
visualize
what he had written? What dazzling reality (or not) showing him scenes in which polar bears moved about in a vast marble backdrop, among Cape jasmines? Or crows nesting in a pile of coal with black tulips in their beaks … And why “colored in black,” “colored in white”? Shouldn’t it be “in color”? But then, why: “colored in yellow or simply yellow”? What colors were they that couldn’t be translated by Michaux’s or Huxley’s marijuana? Ceferino’s notes, useful to lose one’s self a little more (if that was useful), didn’t go very far. In any case:
Concerning the aforementioned pampa color: pampa color is all of that color which is varied, or which is formed by two or more kinds of paint.
And a highly necessary clarification:
Concerning the aforementioned or alluded agents for generic species: said agents are to be Governors, for through them none of the generic species shall disappear from the earth; the generic types, within their class, shall not cross, either one class with another, or one type with another, or one race with another, or one generic color with another generic color, etc.
Ceferino Piriz, a purist, a racist! A cosmos of pure colors, Mondrianesque to an intolerable degree! Dangerous Ceferino Piriz, always a possible candidate for Deputy, perhaps for President! On guard, Uruguay! And another
caña
before going to sleep while Cefe, drunk with colors, allows himself a last poem in which, as in a huge canvas by Ensor, everything explosive explodes into material for masks and antimasks. Militarism suddenly erupts in his system, and the treatment, somewhere between macaronic and trismegistical, that the Uruguayan philosopher reserved for it, had to be seen. Or in other words:
As for the announced work
The Light of World Peace
, the question is that it includes a rather detailed explanation of militarism, but now, in a brief summary, we shall give the following version(s) dealing with militarism:
Police
(“Metropolitan” type)
for military men born under the zodiacal sign of Aries; Syndicates of fundamental antigovernment for military men born under the zodiacal sign of Taurus; the Direction and sponsorship of public festivities and social gatherings
(dances, soirées, arrangement of betrothals: bringing fiancés together, etc.)
for military men born under the zodiacal sign of Gemini; Aviation
(military)
for military men born under the zodiacal sign of Cancer; the Pen in support of fundamental government
(military journalism, and political wizardry for the benefit of all fundamental and national Government)
for military men born under the zodiacal sign of Leo; Artillery
(heavy weapons in general and bombs)
for military men born under the zodiacal sign of Virgo; Sponsorship and practical production of public and/or national celebrations
(the use of adequate disguises on the part of military men in moments for the incorporation of either a military parade, or a festival like those called “harvest,” etc.)
for military men born under the zodiacal sign of Scorpio; Cavalry
(regular cavalry and motorized cavalry, with their respective participation, either of fusileers, or lancers, or machete bearers: typical example: “Republican Guard,” or of swordsmen, etc.)
for military men born under the zodiacal sign of Capricorn;
and
practical military Service
(couriers, orderlies, firemen, practical missionaries, servants of the practical, etc.)
for military men born under the zodiacal sign of Aquarius.
Shaking Talita, who woke up indignantly, Traveler read her the part on militarism and the two of them had to cover their heads with the pillow so they wouldn’t wake up the whole clinic. But first they came to agree that the majority of Argentine military men were born under the zodiacal sign of Taurus. Traveler was so drunk, born under the zodiacal sign of Scorpio, that he declared himself ready to appeal immediately in his status as second lieutenant in the reserves for permission to make use of adequate disguises on the part of military men.
