In and Out of Time (Borges, Dostoevsky, Cervantes)

7/28/2019 In and Out of Time (Borges, Dostoevsky, Cervantes)

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In and Out of Time (Cervantes, Dostoevsky, Borges)Author(s): Peter G. EarleSource: Hispanic Review, Vol. 71, No. 1 (Winter, 2003), pp. 1-13Published by: University of Pennsylvania PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3246995 .

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IN AND OUT OF TIME(CERVANTES, DOSTOEVSKY, BORGES)

PETERG. EARLEUniversity of Pennsylvania"El presente es perpetuo." Octavio Paz"Time travels in divers paces with diverspersons. " Shakespeare

N the Western raditionof storytelling, ime is as2 L a much a mystery as a revelation. Willinglyor not,;1^ _ t _ authorand readerconfront t. It is the writer's, hee > 1 u artist's,and the musician's ndispensableabstrac-v d' iT5R ; * tion, a recurrent measurement or focal point int their imagination.Andthe imagination n its basic,creative function manipulates,expands, or (in theEastern tradition) eliminates time at will. In that enigmaticprocesshumandrives that are either difficultor impossible to control love,hate, dreams, hope, ecstasy, sorrow become the mind's vital ac-complices. Time, in the spirit of Borges, is inevitably our plaything.An explorationof the mysteries of clock, calendar,heritage,andfutureawait the reader n the most revealingepisodes of Don Quijote(for example, in the Cave of Montesinos and in the Duke's andDuchess's palace); in the amnesia epidemic and the extended exis-tences of people and things in Cien anos de soledad; n Dostoevsky'sdeepest thoughts on the perception of death in life in several of hisnovels; in the ambiguouscircumstances of Borges's stories;and in


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2 Peter G. Earle HR 71 (2003)H.G. Wells's The Time Machine, a fantasy in which the Time Trav-eller describes his view of the world in the year 802,701A.D.

Early in Part I of The Idiot, Prince Lev Nikolayevich Myshkincomments on the intensity and fullness of time experienced by acondemned man in Lyonwho is scheduled to die by the guillotine afew minutes later.In his story "E1milagrosecreto,"and in characteristically ircui-tous detail, Jorge Luis Borges creates a representativeyet uniqueprotagonistwho throughhis circumstances s analogous o the figurementioned by Prince Myshkin.JaromirHladik is a Jewish writer inPraguewho is arrested n his apartmentby the GermanGestapo onMarch19, 1939,and imprisoned.1Ten days later, he is executed by afiringsquad. Is Borges with Hladik aking up where Dostoevsky leftoff? Whetheror not he had the Russian's text in mind, he clearlyshared his curiosity over the mental effects of imminentdeath andcame upon the imaginary vent he needed as a literarycounteractionto one of the terrifyingrealities of Nazi power before and duringWorld War II. With Borges's timely encouragement, God grantsHladik'sspecial request: a year's writing time to complete his un-finished play, Los enemigos, before the fusillade that will wipe himout within two minutes of that psychologicallyagitatedyet intellec-tually serene prayer.Singular as it was, Hladik's experience had important antece-dents. Two of them are executions referred o in 17ze diot. As is wellknown, Fyodor Dostoyevsky then a political dissident in histwenties was escorted to a scaffold in St. Petersburg or his ownexecution on December 22, 1849;but the sentence was commutedjust before the appointedmoment and later reduced to four years ina Siberianprison. So the author knew what he and Prince Myshkinwere talking about. His reference to the execution in Lyon reflectshis commitmentto social justice. Dostoevsky's fascination with in-dividual human depravities did not deter him from denouncing in-stitutionalized apitalpunishmentas the worst of crimes. The Princedeclares:"Tokill for murder s an immeasurably reaterevil than thecrime itself. Judicialmurder s immeasurablymore horrible han onecommitted by a robber" 23).

1 World War II had not yet begun, but in March, 1939, Germany occupied Czecho-slovakia militarily, declaring it-in Adolf Hitler's euphemism-a "protectorate."


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In and Out of Tzme 3But judicial murder s also appropriate ood for narrative hought(as in three of the best known Hispanic-Americannovels: Garcia

Marquez'sEl general en su laber7nto, Carpentier'sEl recurso delmetodo, and Asturias'sEl senor Presidente); and, furtheron in ItheIdiot, Dostoevsky tells of a case in which a Borgesiankind of motifis clearly discernible.Keeping n mind JaromirHladik'spostponabledeath,we hear Myshkinagainduringhis firstvisit with the Yepanchinfamily.The episode he recalls this time that of a 27-year-old prisonerwho is reprieved minutes before his scheduled execution is theauthor'sreliving of his own traumaticexperience (and at the sameage) in St. Petersburg.Myshkin's"acquaintance," hom he has metin Switzerland, recalls that the last five minutes he had to live"seemed o him an eternity,an immense richness" 63). Of those lastfive minutes he would allot two to saying goodbye to his fellowprisoners: wo more "to reflect on himself,"and with what was left"to ook about him for the last time"(63). The reflectingand lookingin his final minute entail a strange existential awareness. Ultimately"hewould merely be something something or somebody, but who,though? And where?" (63-64). His quandary s intensified at thatpoint by the sun's gleam on the gilded roof of a church close by. "Hecouldn't drag his eyes away: t occurredto him that those rays werehis new state of being, and that in three minutes he would somehowmerge with them" 64). The sunlight mage offers him his intimationof eternity.However, there is a notable difference of emotions betweenJaromirHladikand Dostoevsky's figure, which could be taken as aclear reflection of the difference between their authors'characters.Whereas Dostoevsky's condemned man reacts temperamentally,Borges's protagonist surmounts his dread. In contrast to Hladik'srole as intellectualwinnerand his consequentfeeling of gratitude ora qualified ease on life, Myshkin's riend'sreaction as the unequivo-cal loser is one of rage and resentment. Withso little time left he isoverwhelmed by the clash between his desire for survival and thecertainty of his extinction. "What f I didn'thave to die! If life werereturnedto me what an eternity it would be! And it would be allmine! I would tutn every minute into an age"(64). These reflections,like Hladik's, pointedly separate for each character the zones ofmental life and physical existence. That is, they give us theparadox-dear to both Dostoevsky and Borgesf contradictory


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4 Peter G. Earle HR 71 (2003)spaces and times. In both "E1milagro secreto"and the condemned-man episode in 17te diot, the longer period is poetically compressedwithin the shorter one. Thus, Hladik gets his year of writing timeencapsulatedwithin two minutes, and Dostoevsky'sfigure imagineshimself turning "everyminute into an age."2The phenomenon hadcome to light before, of course, in the Montesinosepisodes in Part Iof Don Quijote, when the knight emerges from the cave:

,Cuanto ha que baJe.9 preguntodon QuUote.Poco mas de una hora respondio Sancho. (708)Here, as in The Idiot and "E1milagro secreto," contradictory

times are in play. Has a little over an hour passed, as Sancho Panzasays? Or has the hallucinatingexplorer been down there as hesteadfastlyclaims for three days and nights?In the knight'sand thesquire'sfictional realm neither testimony need be denied. Each ex-perience has been lived as described. The author was fully awarethat physical and mental times do not necessarily coincide, that ourintervals in a waking state or in a dream though often throwntogether in memory-can function independentlyof each other.Cervantes'sart, like that of his intellectualdescendant,Borges, svibrantly isual:not in a sensualityof color, texture or landscape,norin a precision of portraiture;but in the kinds of gesture andperceptionften presented in dialogue that intensify unexpectedperceptions and capitalize on frequent invasions of the real by theunreal. It is visual in what could be called a choreographyof situa-tions. Dulcinea and the same two country girls with whom the Donsaw her before (PartII, ch. 10) execute cabrzolas across the dreamstage of Montesinos. Much earlier (I, 8) Don QuiJotecollides spec-

2 Cases of a pexpetual present in "real life" are not hard to find. For example,astronauts regularly attest to a loss of sense of time caused by their altered bio-rhythms while in gravity-free space. Day and night merge, they say, and calendars andclocks are irrelevant when one is stationed or moving in orbit for an extended period.The emotions can also be decisive in the suspension of time. Anne MorrowLindbergh (1906-2001) a talented testimonial writer as well as the wife and co-pilotof a celebrity refers to the kidnapping and death of her first child in 1932 in this way:"Everything since then has been unreal. It has all vanished like smoke. Only thateternal moment [my emphasis] remains. I feel strangely a sense of peacc not peace,but an end to restlessness, a finality, as though I were sleeping in a grave." (Quoted byEric Pace in "Anne Morrow Lindbergh is Dead at 94," New York Times, February 8,2001, page A29.)


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In and Out of Tzme 5tacularlywith one of the giantsdisguisedas windmills.Later II, 41)a magicvoyage is staged(literally) n the Duke'spalace.Thenotionsof a real world and real time are displaced by the use of blindfoldsand, with Sanchoseated behindhim on Clavileno,QuiJote lies intovirtualspace, followingthe virtualrouteof Icarus,andhis squirehasno doubt that they have reached "laregion del fuego,"simulated bya groupof stage technicians with burning ufts (estopas) suspendedon poles near the travelers' aces.As for the Cave of Montesinos,the question becomes not onlyhow long Don Quijote is there, but what he sees, how extensive aspace it is, preciselywhatandwhom he finds(or thinksor dreamshefinds) in it, and beyond that the multifarioussuggestions of theknight'scontinuingwill to believe in a lost world of fantasydespitethe steadily emerging evidence throughout Part II of its non-existence. Don Quijote is seldom credited with the prudence orrationalityof planningahead,but on this occasion he has the fore-sight to buy a hundred athomsof rope,whichas a precautionwill betied aroundhis waist for the descent. The long lengthadds mysteryto the cave adventureat the beginning,an effect which is comicallydiminishedon Quijote's rip back up, when his weight is felt only asthe last 20 fathoms are being hauled in. Cervantes is discreetlyshowing us, with what seems to be only a casual detail, that theDon's subterraneanwonderland s psychologicallycloser to realityup on the surfacethanone would expect. The excited adventurer, tshould be recalled, has an energeticcollaboratoron the Montesinosproject.Theguidewho has led himand Sanchoto the cave identifieshimselfas a humanista and dedicatedresearcher(he is a cousin ofthe university tudentwho appearspreviously II, 19]).Theguide ("elprimo") s composinga book, Transformaciones,a most appropriatetitle in the context of the cave exploration to follow.3 The guiderecommendswarinessand urges Quijoteto examine "concien ojos

3This work in progress (Transformaciones), we should note, is only the tip of theprimo's bibliographical iceberg. Another of his projects is a treatise on las libreas (703of them, no less), composed to cover all the levels of servant protocol and illustrated"con sus colores, motes y cifras."Then come Metamorfoseos, subtitled Ovidio espanoland Suplemento a Virgilio Polidoro ("que trata de la invencion de las cosas").Is Cervantes, who minutely parodies the chivalric style and motifs in the Cueva deMontesinos chapters and many others, also mocking in his description of these worksthe intricacies of academic writing in his era (and many subsequent eras)?


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6 Peter G. EarV HR 71 (2003)lo que hay alla dentro" 699). Indeed, as the knight undertakeshishallucinated wloratian, there will be plenty for the hundredeyes toelaborateon.Before he could take in the anticipatedsights, Quijoterecalls, hefell into a deep sleep and later awoke (or thought he awoke) on ameadow that swpassed in beautzr nything hat nature or the imagi-nation could have created. He rubbed his eyes and pinched himselfto make sure he was who and where he seemed to be. Before himwas 4'un eal y suntuoso palacio o alcazar, cuyos muros y paredespareciande transparente claro cristal," rom which old Montesinoshimself emerges and invites him in (703).

The imagination, noted at the outset, manipulates,expands oreliminates time at will, especially when it works within the flexibledimensionsof a dream.That s, in the time-and-space scramble hatdreams set in motion, the lmagination s freer to reconstructthingsand make congruous the incongruous than it is in a state of con-scious operation.4Thus an emblem and flower of knighthood onggone Montesinos'scousin and close friend Durandarte is drama-tically present in a large dream palace within a small cave, deco-rously laid out on a sepulcher.And his figure s not of marble,stone,or bronze, "sinode pura carne y de puros huesos" (704). Moreover,since livingor dead he is there in enchantedfonn, Durandarte as noneed to eat, or to relieve himself of "escrementosmayores"(709).Neither does he have to sleep, and he can listen and talk. Lifeenhanced by death, death transfonned by life: literaryenchantmenthas given Durandarte he best of both worlds.Clearly,both Don Quijoteand Prince Myshkinare enchanters,orwould-be enchanters, in their own right; Myshkin perceives lifesporadically,as in a series of trances, the way he wants it to be. Thus,at the memorable soiree near the end of Part I, he finds in the

4 The time-and-space scramble that often prevails in Don QuiJote's mind is alsoa factor in Graham Greene's amusing reincarnation of the old knight in MonsignorQuixote.Father Quixote is a priest from E1 Toboso faithfully accompanied throughoutthe book by Enrique Zancas (alias Sancho Panza), a Communist ex-mayor of the sametown. The Monsignor's mental state evolves in the opposite direction of Don QuiJote's,i.e., from rationality toward a lucid kind of madness. He lives his final hours in adelirium of feverish gestures and words, including irreverent remarks about a few ofhis fellow clergymen, a convoluted rendering of the Mass in Latin, and the solemnconviction that "a fart can be musical" (213).


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In and Out of Wtme 7tarnished Nastasya a Dulcinea of his own: aIn you everythingisperfection,"he declares (148). Don QuUoteand the Prince are alsosimilarly subjected to frequent and diverse disillusionments,andeach is progressivelydestroyedby a singular nabilityto cope withthe less than ideal conditionsof his contemporaryworld.Or, to putit another way, each persists in living his own (impossible) timewithinanother (inevitable)time.Circumstantially nd psychologically,of course, Lev Nikolaya-vich Myshkin and the Knightof the SorrowfulCountenancehavemuch less in common. The former is generally docile and oftenchildlikein demeanor,sensing that he cannot set things right in aworldhe sees (tragically)as beyond his control; and young womenlike the volatile Nastaya Filippovna,a rich man's ex-mistress, andthe impressionableand candidAglayaYepanchinaare stronglyat-tracted to him. By contrast, Don Quijote confronts (comically)everything he believes is unJust or evil; he flaunts his chivalricbook-learning and seeks out trouble with exuberant self-cor-dence; and he appealsto no woman as a possible husbandor lover.Nevertheless, as Alan Truebloodhas pointed out in his lucidessay "Dostoevski and Cervantes," everal charactersin The Idiotdiscovera spiritualbond betweenthe Prince and Don QuUote. n thefirst chapter of Part II, Dostoevsky has Aglaya Yepanchinaleave(inadvertently) love note fromthe Prince n one of her books.Whenshe realizesa week later thatthe book is Don Quijote, she burstsoutlaughing"forno apparentreason" 198). Called "thepoor knight"byKolyaand some others furtheron (259-62, 26$65, 267, 335), thePrince is repeatedly shown as vulnerableto the selfish or deviousintentionsof others,especially those of ParfionRogozhin,his satanicmoralcountertypeand Nastasya'seventualmurderer.BothMyshkinand Don QuiJote ncite in their observersa mixtureof ridiculeandcompassion.GeorgeSteinerremindsus that the Prince is "acompo-site figurewith borrowingsfrom Cervantes,Pushkin, and Dickens.His meekness, his unwordlywisdom,his immaculatenessof heart-all of which are traits of the implicit Christ, are conveyed in thecourse of action"(293). These qualities albeit in the comic dimen-sion that Dostoevsky saw Don Quijoteand in the tragicallyflawed(yet Christ-like)role that his own protagonist s destinedto playare also what giveeach characterhis auraof a timelessbeing.Havingalmostcompleted 17wIdiot in early 1868,he wrote to his niece that


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8 Peter G. Earle HR 71 (2003)in Myshkinhe wanted "todepict the positively good man,"and "ofallthe good figures in Christian iterature, Don Quixote is the mostcomplete."5The underlyingparadoxthat unites Quijoteand Myshkincould be called a spiritualoxymoron.That s: each of them is, or feelshe is, a timeless being forced (like Christ,both as Saviorand Martyr)to live in a finite, contentious, time-infested world.One of Borges's predestined tasks may have been a creativereduction of Dostoevsky's anti-epic gloom. Whereas the Russianseems driven to existential desperation in his life-and-deaththoughts and the temperamentalperformances of several of hischaracters,Borges finds (with the assistance of the idealist philoso-phers he reads) a strange stoic (and aesthetic) consolation whenfaced with the same problems.The authorof El aleph and Ficcionesaddresses us from a vantage point in his perpetualpresent;he is themaster manipulatorof Time in a variety of abstract playhouses.Throughout is fictionsand otherprose,Borgesworkswithina kindof intellectual mmunity hat lets him reach in aestheticand philoso-phicalwayspectacularly unrealyet persuasiveconclusions.Accord-ingly, n two meticulous,mathematically ocumented ssays, "Avataresde la tortuga" nd "Laperpetuacarrerade Aquilesy la tortuga," israbbit-likeAquiles, even though he runs ten times faster than thetortoise can crawl, fails to win a handicaprace between them. Moreprecisely, he authormakes it theoretically mpossible or the race toend. In both pieces he utilizes Zeno's "SecondParadox"of infinity:"Aquiles orre diez veces mas ligeroque la tortugay le da diez metrosde ventaja" Discusion 97). Thus,while Aquilesruns those ten meters,the tortoise walks one; then, while Aquilesruns his next meter, theturtle advances a decimeter,after which Aquilesmoves a decimeter,barelycontestedby the tortoise'scentimeter, nd so on, ad infinitum.The result, then, is that there can be no result; the slowing-downprocess is unalterably rogressive,and the end-the moment of theend is perpetually ostponed.The time-suspension pattern is not limited to these two evoca-tions of Zeno'sparadox. Borges follows it in the unfinisheddenoue-ment of "E1 ur" "Dahlmann mpuna con firrnezael cuchillo, queacaso no sabra manejar,y sale a la llanura" Ficciones 195) and, as

5 Quoted by William Leatherbarrow in his Introduction to 172e diot, New York:Oxford University Press, 1992, p. xv.


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In and Out of Time 9we have seen, in the one-year writingpermit devised for "Elmilagrosecreto." It also prevails in "Lasruinas circulares," n the ongoingdreamof "another" ho, in the last sentence of the story, is found tobe directingthe narrator's xistence.Just as time is readilyexpendable, in several stories it is subjectto division or multiplication, or to strange convergences in thecharacters'experiences. Thus, in "Elsur,"Juan Dahlmann akes hisreal or virtual train trip south to the lonely place on the pampa andarrivesat the pulperia (almacen), where he is confronted by one ofthe rowdy gauchos. Borges suggests to the reader that the essentialJuan Dahlmann a hybrid of the timid, cosmopolitan reader of TheArabian Nights and the involuntaryknife-fighter is the one whoaccepts his fate as certain victim in the imminent duel with hisoffender. The essential Juan Dahlmann,of course, is literally andfigurativelya dreamer, strapped to an operating table in BuenosAires, who thinks (in the subjunctive): "hubiera sido una libera-cion . . ., una felicidady una fiesta" 195) to die heroically n the timeand style of MartinFierro. Here, as in "El milagro secreto," Borgesplaces his protagonist n two contrastingtemporal scenarios: Dahl-mann in the Buenos Aires clinic about to be anaesthetized; andDahlmannas he departswith a borrowed dagger to face his aggres-sor on the pampa. These parallel outcomes evolve convincingly inthe reader's imagination.The "closure"or how the story ends isstrongly mplied (timid and never havingbeen in a knife-fight,Dahl-mann is not likely to survive) but is unimportant n itself. Statedanotherway, the artistic and psychological mpact of the outcome isconcentrated n a tragicpresentiment,which in turn is conveyed andintensifiedby the end's indefinitepostponement.Enamored as he is of metaphysical hypotheses, the author ofFicciones further exploits the potential of time in "El ardin de lossenderos que se bifurcan"and "Tlon,UqbartOrbis Tertius." n theformer,Ts'uiPen is the authorof a mysteriousmanuscript "un ibroy un laberinto" that are one and the same. As explained by theSinologist Stephan Albert to Ts'ui Pen's great grandson, the manu-script entitledEAlardtn de los senderos que se bifurcan is a "chaoticnovel." Not only is time its central theme, the work also activatesTs'uiPen's image-"incompleta pero no falsa" of the universe. It isa metaphor of Borges's concept of multiple times, including all the"possible ones" (just as "La biblioteca de Babel" contains on itsshelves all books to be written in the future as well as those already


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10 Peter G. Earle HR 71 (2003)written).Ts'uiPen believed,we recall, "en nfinitasseries de tiempos,en una red creciente y vertiginosa de tiempos divergentes, conver-gentes y paralelos" 109)."Tlon,Uqbar,OrbisTertius" s Borges's clearest exaggerationoftime. His story is based on the assumption that a temporal planet(i.e., not spatial or physical) can acquire existence throughthe willand imaginationof a secret society of experts in the arts and sci-ences, directed in turn by "unoscuro hombre de genio" (19). Thereis an insinuation (20) that the secret society owes gratitude toGeorge Berkeley, who in 1941 may have flipped immaterially n hisgravewhen Borges carried he philosopher's dealismto the extremeof writing that on Tlon all is temporal and successive; nothing isspatial. Even the planet's languages have no nouns, and its objectsexist only as visual and auditive phenomena.Further, hose objectscan be called up and disposed of in a moment, "segun as necesida-des poeticas" (21; my emphasis) of the observer concerned.It could be said that "poeticnecessities"are the main detenninantin Cervantes'sand Dostoevsky's as well as in Borges's elaborationson time. For Cervantesand his figurative"stepson" "aunque arezeopadre, soy padrastrode Don Quijote,"he tells us in the Prologue)time is something dreamed n the foirn of adventuresthat are alsoexplorations.Were the descent (inward) in the Cave of Montesinosand the incense-laden false flight in the Palace of the Duke andDuchess gentle parodies of the expeditions (outward) and colonialoperations n the New World a regionpossibly alluded o also in thechapters on Sancho Panza's governc)rship f the Insula Barataria(i.e., a colony questionablygranted and questionablyadministeredfor what Cervantes considers a bargain price: barato)? Or is histenure in office of just ten days as he seems to suggest in his letter(a carta de relacio'n) to Don Quijote (912-14) more specificallyanother opportunityperhaps for Cervantesto criticize small-towncorruption n peninsularSpain itself?6

6 In his note in The Journal of Higher Education Scott Hellerrefers to DianadeArmasWilson'srecent book, Cervantes, the Novel, and The New World,commentingthat "Ms.Wilson is among the scholars trying to circumvent an us-versus-themscenarioby calling or a 'transatlantic'iterary tudy,readingSpanish exts in relationto the New World."I am gratefulto Carlos J. Alonso for referringme to Heller'snote and ArmasWilson'sbook.


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In and Out of Tzme llCervantes,Dostoevsky and Borges, it seems clear, had conceptsof time that illuminated a shared intuition mainly psychological,

but also intellectual and historical that led their protagoniststowards an ultimate stasis or inertia.Borges's figures are left (like Julio Cortazar'sHoracio Oliveira,poised on the upstairs windowsill of an insane asylum as Rayuelaends) suspended in fixed tableaux: Hladik stands before a firingsquad whose bullets are speeding toward him; Dahlmannclumsilywields his dagger before the imminent fight; in Carlos Argentino'sbasement the poet-narratorof "El Aleph"has a "simultaneous" i-sion (i.e., fixed, free of time) of the universe that can be transcribedonly in "successive" anguage (i.e., the prisoner of time); and thetortoise and Aquiles move slower and slower toward a standstill.For Dostoevsky the basic metaphor is pathological. The "poorknight" n The Idiot gravitateshopelessly toward his final immobili-zation. His young life has the aura of a timeless existence enclosinga series of emotional dilemmas.The authorportraysRussian societyof his time as a convergence of fatefully outspoken, self-destructiveindividuals, ubject in their dialogues and stage-like social encoun-ters to choleric excesses. Whatappearto be momentarycaprices orwhims are really symptomsof deep obsessions. Temperament s theforce behind their behavior. When Gavrila ArdalianovichIvolgin(Ganya)declares his love to Aglaya,she demandsthat he prove it byholding his finger to a candle flame (610). With Prince Myshkinwaiting nervously in church for the wedding ceremony to begin, hisfiancee, Nastasya Filippovna,catches the aristocrat Rogozhin'seyein the crowd outside and shouts "Saveme! Take me away! Whereveryou like-now!" (629). This is the same woman who, as the volatilehostess of the soiree in Part I, had placed Rogozhin's intendedengagementgift, a stack of 100,000rubles, in the fireplace and as itbegan to burn promised to marry the first man to retrieve it. Theculrninating mpulsive act, of course, will be Rogozhin'smurder ofNastasya;a short time after her rescue, her savior will be her killer.On his discovery of Nastasya's cadaver, with the glaring-eyed Ro-gozhin as his guide, Myshkinenters his final phase of helplessnessand no longer recognizes the people aroundhim. The intelligent andsensitive "poor knight"who has so lucidly seen through the blus-teringpretensions of his contemporaries nds up as the consummateidiot, a Don QuiJote n reverse, with no chance of recovering hisreason. The intensity of his vision throughmost of the novel, like the


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12 Peter G. Earle HR 71 (2003)intensity of Don QuiXiote'shivalric readings, appears to have beenthe source of his mental deterioration.

From Cervantes o Borges the process of the disappearing ero inliterature s unmistakable.Nevertheless, that decline has paradoxi-cally coincided with an increase in self-curiosity that ranges fromfascination o scorn. The preoccupationwith self has broughtauthorand characters psychologically closer together and has subtly pro-voked a sharper critical view of reality. Criticalacumen, after all, isthe foundation on which comedy is built, and Ortegay Gasset hascorrectly seen in Meditaciones del Quijote that comedy has for themost part displaced tragedy in the modern mind. "La ransferenciadel caracterheroico desde la voluntad a lapercepcio'n myemphasis]causa la involucionde la tragedia, u desmoronamiento, u comedia"(131).The perception, to be sure, is what remains with us. PrinceMyshkinhas been unceremoniously eturned o the Swiss clinic, andleft in bed with glazed eyes and mouth open. Juan Dahlmann,unfa-miliar dagger in hand, approacheshis adversary or dreams that heapproaches him) on a darkenedpampa. A sense of relative finalityprevails in Don QuiXiote'sase. The hero has died and Sanson Ca-rrasco has written his epitaph. Yet the question persists: is theKnight'sreturn and repudiationof magical adventure and his finalcalm self-recognition a spiritual triumph or a poetic loss? ShouldUnamuno, n his Vida de Don Quijote y Sancho, have used QuiXiote'sdeath as the ultimate symbol of his immortality?"La muerte esnuestra inmortilazadora"III, 253). The question itself-the fact thatit has been asked lends credence to Ortega's dea of perception: heimages of Cervantes's,Dostoevsky's, and Borges's protagonists be-long to our age as well as to their own. But the ultimatenature andsigrlificanceof that survival is something that each reader has todetermine.

WORKSCITEDBorges, Jorge Luis. Discusio'n. Madrid:Alianza Editorial,1976.. Ficciones. Buenos Aires: Emece Editores, 1956.Cervantes, Miguel de. Don Quijote de la Mancha. Ed. Martin deRiquer.New York:Las Americas, 1958.Dostoevsky,Fyodor. Ehvediot. Trans.AlanMyers.New York:OxfordUP, 1992.


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In and Out of Time 13Green,Graham.Monsignor Quixote. New York:Simonand Shuster,1981.Heller, Scott. "TheNew Geographyof Classic SpanishLiterature."Chronicle of Higher Education 2 Feb. 2001.Ortegay Gasset, Jose. Meditaciones del Quijote. Madrid:Revista deOccidente, 1960.Steiner, George. Tolstoy or Dostoevsky. New York:Vintage Books,1961.Trueblood,Alan."Dostoevskiand Cervantes."NTI 45 (1997):85-94.Unamuno,Miguelde. Vida de Don Quijote y Sancho. Vol.3 of Obrascompletas. Madrid:Escelicer, 1968.Wells, H. G. The Time Machine. New York:Lancer,1970.

In and Out of Time (Borges, Dostoevsky, Cervantes)

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