The Aleph

“He holds some sort of subordinate position in an illegible library in the outskirts toward the south of the city; he is authoritarian, though also ineffectual […] His mental activity is constant, passionate, versatile, and utterly insignificant. He is full of pointless analogies and scruples. He has (as Beatriz did) large, beautiful, slender hands.”

Borges introduces both the character of Argentino as well as his own misgivings about the man. Argentino is, by this description, a portrait of mediocrity, with some access to culture (the clue about some “illegible library”), and a half-hearted belief system. The term “authoritarian” suggests he might be sympathetic to the growing fascist movement in Argentina. The first note of tension between them is plucked by the description of his hands, which resemble those of Beatriz.

“So witless did these ideas strike me as being, so sweeping and pompous the way they were expressed, that I associated them immediately with literature.”

The narrator makes clear what he thinks of Argentino. More importantly, he clues readers in on his thoughts about literature. The fact that Borges (the character) is a writer adds to his complexity. He is a writer who seems not to respect literature.

“Verbal ostentation was the perverse principle that had guided his revisions: where he had formerly written ‘blue’ he had now had ‘azure,’ ‘cerulean,’ and even ‘bluish.’”

Borges shows the reader this humorous example of Argentino’s revisions matching his ostentatious way of presenting his work. Rather than revising his work to make it more clear or more precise, Argentino seeks greater pretentiousness and obscurity. His revisions illustrate the vanity that Borges sees at the center of his personality.

“It was not difficult for me to share his grief. After forty, every change becomes a hateful symbol of time’s passing.”

Borges reveals much about his frustration: he is in a battle with time and change. The sentiment is strong enough that for once he identifies and even sympathizes with Argentino. The sentence also helps identify the ages of both characters.

“Truth will not penetrate a recalcitrant understanding. If all the places of the world are within the Aleph, there too will be all stars, all lamps, all sources of light.”

Argentino answers Borges’s question about the cellar being too dark to observe the Aleph. Borges supposes Argentino is irrational, and even finds himself wondering if Beatriz had been as well. The comment inspires him to look at the Aleph for himself.

“Beside the flowerless vase atop the useless piano smiled the great faded photograph of Beatriz, not so much anachronistic as outside time.”

Borges gives the reader a sense of the passage of time. The photograph is a sharp contrast to earlier depictions of Beatriz which were identified with specific stages of her life. Additionally, Borges’s bitterness toward the passage of time is subtly shown in his descriptions of the “flowerless” vase and the “useless” piano.

“Go on down; within a very short while you will be able to begin a dialogue with all the images of Beatriz.”

Argentino knows what Borges is about to find when he looks into the Aleph. He will see Beatriz’s “obscene” letters and glimpse her rotting corpse. This comment foreshadows Argentino’s future statement to Borges about minding his own business. It also suggests that the omniscience granted by the Aleph is a curse rather than a blessing.

“I come now to the ineffable center of my tale; it is here that a writer’s hopelessness begins.”

Borges is about to recount to readers his experience with the Aleph. He expresses the futility of trying to describe infinity, the failure of words to convey the entire universe glimpsed at once. This strategy heightens the effect of the description to follow by setting readers’ expectations.

“The Aleph was probably two or three centimeters in diameter, but the universal space was contained inside it, with no diminution in size. Each thing (the glass surface of a mirror, let us say) was infinite things, because I could clearly see it from every point in the cosmos.”

The specificity of Borges’s description of the Aleph makes it more believable. The passage suggests that the Aleph is real, not a product of Borges’s (the character’s) imagination. And his assertion that he was seeing each thing from every angle (“every point in the cosmos”) further lends to the mystery of the Aleph, as such a thing is not actually possible to imagine.

“[S]aw in a desk drawer (and the handwriting made me tremble) obscene, incredible, detailed letters that Beatriz had sent Carlos Argentino, saw a beloved monument in Chacarita, saw the horrendous remains of what had once, deliciously, been Beatriz Viterbo.”

As promised, Borges views “all the images of Beatriz.” Two stand out: the letters, which show the intimate relations between the cousins, and Beatriz’s decaying corpse. The insertion of the “beloved monument” between the two details is yet another way Borges conveys space in the passage, continuing the barrage of description even as the narrator would try to focus on a key item.

“Serves you right, having your mind boggled, for sticking your nose in where you weren’t wanted.”

Argentino discloses his contempt for Borges, whereas readers had only heard Borges’s opinion about him to this point. He reveals what he had been thinking through these visits spanning over a decade. Here their rivalry is on full display.

“Instantly I conceived my revenge. In the most kindly sort of way—manifestly pitying, nervous, evasive—I thanked Carlos Argentino Daneri for the hospitality of his cellar and urged him to take advantage of the demolition of his house to remove himself from the pernicious influences of the metropolis, which no one—believe me, no one!—can be immune to.”

True to his character, Borges is up to the challenge of Argentino’s remark about minding his own business. While clearly stunned by what he witnessed in the Aleph, he recovers and, most harshly, asserts that Argentino is absurd and that the Aleph is not real. In doing so, Borges chooses his spite against Argentino (no doubt intensified by the recent revelation) over the incredible power and possibility the Aleph presents.

“Out in the street, on the steps of the subway, all the faces seemed familiar. I feared there was nothing that had the power to surprise or astonish me anymore, I feared that I would never again be without a sense of deja vu. Fortunately, after a few unsleeping nights, forgetfulness began to work in me again.”

Borges relays the aftermath of his experience with the Aleph. There can be no doubt about its effect even though Borges denied it to Argentino in the previous paragraph. The final line communicates his relief at the fallibility of memory.