My Translation of "El Libro de Arena" by Jorge Luis Borges

The Book of Sand

by Jorge Luis Borges

...thy rope of sands...

GEORGE HERBERT (1593-1623)

     The line consists of an infinite number of points; the plane, of an infinite number of lines; the volume, of an infinite number of planes; the hypervolume, of an infinite number of volumes... No, this more geometrico is clearly not the best way to begin this narrative.  To affirm this story is true is now a convention of every fantastic tale; mine, however, is true.
     I live alone, on a fourth floor off of Belgrano Street.  Some months ago in the afternoon, I heard a sound on the door.  I opened and a stranger came in.  He was a tall man with fading features.  At least my myopia saw him this way.  His whole aspect was of dignified poverty.  He wore gray and had a gray suitcase in hand.  I immediately felt he was a stranger.  At first I thought he was old; then I realized that his scarce blonde hair, in the manner of Scandinavians, had deceived me.  In the course of our conversation, which would not last an hour, I learned he came from the Orkneys.
     I pointed him to a chair.  The man took a while to speak.  He exhaled melancholy, as I do now.
     "I sell Bibles," he told me.
     Not without pedantry, I answered:
     "In this house there are some English Bibles, including the first, the one by John Wycliffe.  I also have one by Cipriano de Valera, one by Luther, which is in literary terms the worst, and one copy of the Latin Vulgate.  As you can see, I don't exactly need Bibles."
     He answered after some silence.
     "I don't just sell Bibles.  I can show you a sacred book that will perhaps interest you.  I obtained it on the outskirts of Bikaner."
     He opened the suitcase and left the book on the table.  It was a clothbound volume in octavo.  It had undoubtedly passed through many hands.  I examined it; its unfamiliar weight surprised me.  On the cover it read Holy Writ and on the bottom Bombay.
     "It's from the nineteenth century," I observed.
     "I don't know.  I have never known," was the response.
     I opened it blindly.  The characters looked strange to me.  The pages, which looked worn and of poor typography, were printed in double columns in the manner of the Bible.  The text was tight and ordered in versicles.  On the top corner of the pages there were Arabic-like scripts.  It caught my attention that the even pages had, for example, the number 40.514 and the following odd page, 999.  I turned the book; the back was numbered with eight scripts.  It had a small illustration, much in the way that dictionaries do: an anchor drawn with a pen as if by the sloppy hand of a child.
     It was then that the stranger told me:
     "Take a good look at it.  You will never see it again."
     There was a threat in the affirmation, but not in the voice.
     I marked the place and closed the volume.  I opened it immediately.  I searched in vain for the figure of the anchor, page after page.  To hide my puzzlement, I said:
     "This is some version of the Scripture in some Hindustani language, isn't that so?"
     "No," he replied.
     Then he lowered his voice as if to confirm a secret:
     "I obtained it in a town on the plain in exchange for some rupees and the Bible.  Its owner didn't know how to read.  He suspected that in the Book of Books he perceived an amulet.  He was of the lowest caste; people couldn't step on his shadow without contamination.  He told me his book was called the Book of Sand because neither the book nor sand have a beginning or end."
     He asked me to find the first page.
     I placed my left hand on the cover and with my thumb opened very near the index.  It was all useless: various pages always interposed themselves between the cover and my hand.  It was as if they grew from the book.
     "Now look for the last page."
     I failed at that too; I barely stuttered in a voice that wasn't mine:
     "This can't be."
     Still in a low voice, the Bible salesman told me:
     "It can't be, but it is.  The number of pages in this book is exactly infinite.  None is the first; none is the last.  I don't know why they're numbered in that arbitrary way.  Perhaps to give the idea that the terms in an infinite series admit any number."
     Then, as if he thought in a loud voice:
     "If space is infinite, we are at any point in space.  If time is infinite, we are at any point in time."
     His deliberations irritated me.  I asked him:
     "You are religious, undoubtedly?"
     "Yes, I'm a Presbyterian.  My conscience is clear.  I'm sure of not having deceived  the native when I gave him the Word of God in exchange for his diabolical book."
     I assured him that nothing was to be reproached, and I asked him if he was just passing by these lands.  He answered that he thought of returning to his fatherland within a few days.  It was then I discovered he was Scottish and from the Orkney islands.  I told him I personally loved Scotland for the love of Stevenson and Hume.
     "And Robbie Burns," he corrected.
     While we talked I continued exploring the infinite book.  With false indifference I asked him:
     "Are you considering offering this curious specimen to the British Museum?"
     "No. I offer it to you," he answered; and he set a large sum.
     I told him, in all truth, that the sum was inaccessible to me, and I continued thinking.  After a few minutes I had weaved my plan.
     "I propose an exchange," I said.  "You obtained this volume for some rupees and the Sacred Scriptures; I'll offer you the whole of my retirement fund, which I have just received, and the Wycliffe Bible in gothic letter.  I inherited it from my parents."
     "A blackletter Wycliffe!" he murmured.
     I went to my dormitory and brought him the money and the book.  He turned the pages and studied the cover with the fervor of a bibliophile.
     "Done deal," he said.
     I was surprised he didn't retract.  Only after did I understand that he had entered my home with the purpose of selling me the book.  He didn't count the bills; he just put them away.
     We talked of India, of the Orkneys, and of the Norwegian jarls that ruled them.  It was night when the man left.  I have not seen him since, nor do I know his name.
     I thought of hiding the Book of Sand in the space left by the Wycliffe, but I finally opted to hide it behind some shoddy volumes of the Thousand and One Nights.
     I lay on my bed and did not sleep.  At three or four in the morning I turned on the light.  I looked for the impossible book and flipped the pages.  On one of them I saw a mask reproduced.  One of the pages, I don't know which one, had a numeral elevated to the ninth power.
     I showed no one my treasure.  To the luck of possession was added the fear that it would be stolen, and then the paranoia that it was not truly infinite.  Those two suspicions aggravated my old misanthropy.  I had few friends left; I stopped seeing them.  A prisoner of the Book, I hardly went out.  I examined the worn cover and binding with a magnifying glass and rejected the possibility of deception.  I proved that the small illustrations were separated by two-thousand pages each.  I annotated these alphabetically in a notebook, which filled up in no time.  They never repeated.  At night, during the scarce intervals permitted me by insomnia, I dreamed of the book.
     Summer waned, and I understood that the book was monstrous.  It did not help me to consider that I was no less monstrous, I who perceived it with eyes and touched it with ten fingers with nails on them.  I felt it was an object of nightmare, an obscene thing that disgraced and corrupted reality.
     I thought of lighting it on fire, but feared that the flame would also be infinite and suffocate the planet in smoke.
     I remembered reading that the best place to hide a leaf is in the forest.  Before retiring I had worked at the National Library, which housed nine-thousand books; I knew that on the right hand of the entrance a staircase curved down into the basement where the periodicals and maps were kept.  I took advantage of the employees' inattention and abandoned the Book of Sand in one of the humid shelves.  I tried not to note the height or distance from the door.  I feel a bit of relief, but I don't even want to pass by Agüero Street.