Publishing the files I found on an old hard drive together with my reflections on them—which specialists in Borges studies may find naive—I acted from an axiom obvious to me: if something seems important and beautiful to you, do not hide it. I can vouch for the documentary accuracy of what I publish only with respect to my own files. The story of the source’s appearance here is reconstructed largely from memory and the creation date of the original file—it was created on 22 February 2002 as “Borges_spain.rtf.”
In the early 2000s, when I first began using the Internet, I started searching (I no longer remember exactly for what) for information about J. L. Borges and came upon a link to a site—perhaps “Light of Truth”, or something similar—with a forum discussion of questions troubling predominantly Spanish priests. The thread was in Spanish, a language I do not know, but one reply mentioned Borges. That is why the search engine surfaced the link. I simply copied the attached texts, intending to translate them and study them later. As is often the case, later events intervened (the details of that are irrelevant here), and the existence of that file faded from my memory. Only recently, when transferring archives from an old hard drive to a new one, I rediscovered the file and, thanks to modern tools, could easily translate it into my native Russian. I cannot easily describe what I felt upon reading the translation. From the contents, it was clear the questioner was a Spanish padre, anxious about interpreting a dream of Borges. The first thing I did was search again. No trace—Google and other search engines turned up nothing. I could find no other evidence of the same material in any source. Perhaps I am mistaken, but… it is frightening even to say—I possess the sole witness record of an apocryphal dream of Joseph from Joseph and His Brothers in the last dream of my beloved writer Jorge Luis Borges.
The contents are so beautiful and plausible that one wonders: might this not be an elaborate mystification by Borges himself? He could certainly have contrived such a thing. If so, then I may have become a thinking part of an outstanding mystification.
I know what it was and I am happy to share it.
The recovered original is presented in Appendix. As I do not know Spanish at all, but as the automatic Spanish editor flagged numerous errors, in preparing the English version I faced a choice: either to reproduce the stylistic peculiarities of the original text at the expense of clarity, or to render a grammatically correct version that conveys the intended meaning. I opted for the latter, prioritizing clarity for the reader over attempts at stylistic imitation.
Diary Entry
Yesterday, after two years of absence, Conchita returned home from Geneva. And today she came to confession. Her sins are forgivable in a simple woman: at the request of her employers, she took notes of the words of a sick old man and secretly copied them. With a light heart, I granted her absolution. I asked her to bring me those notes.
Today.
Conchita brought the copies of her notes. Now I understand her confusion: in those pages there is something more than the simple words of a delirious old man. It is not easy to decide whether what is announced there belongs to the realm of dreams or a deeper feeling.
I agreed with my brother’s advice in Geneva: “Listen, but do not be hasty to judge; sometimes the voice that trembles in weakness is the one closest to the truth.” I must consider whether these pages are mere ramblings or a testimony entrusted to the innocence of a simple woman.
Today I finally understood what Conchita didn’t say at first, and what I, dull of spirit, didn’t immediately realize. Now I know: she cared for Jorge Luis Borges in his final days. And what she has brought me in her notebooks is, nothing more and nothing less, the maestro’s last dream.
I feel in my soul that the Lord is testing me with this unexpected burden. I barely dare to read it, and yet I know I must.
I had to transcribe her scrawl.
Conchita’s notes
Yesterday I started working to care for a blind old man in bed. His wife said he was a famous writer. The notary also said so, very famous, and ordered me seriously: “Write down everything he says. If anything in his voice seems special, write that too.”
The wife added that it was good I spoke Spanish, that would help. But I’m still afraid, I’ve never cared for someone so sick.
9:00 PM — The patient is calm. He said in a low voice: “A mirror I can’t break.” The voice was almost transparent, as if coming from underwater. I adjusted his pillow.
10:20 PM — A powerful eagle lifted the boy high into the sky, to the very base of the celestial stairway that leads to the Throne. There Joseph saw the heavenly servants. They were going up and down the stairway with various objects. And there was a multitude of angels praising the Creator. The angels’ chests were too prominent for young men and too flat for maidens. I wrote it down, though I myself don’t understand it: in the Church they taught that angels have no sex.
Then he exclaimed a little louder: “Divine, man!”—and immediately returned to his ordinary voice:
One of the angels, in a whisper that to a mortal would have been like a shout, was telling the others what he had overheard from the Elohims.
It troubled me, because the Most High is One; there cannot be many. But I remember the instructions: write everything down, just as I hear it—and so I did.
—At the council appeared an Elohim named Anthropia, mistress of chaos and disorder. I shuddered: I had never heard that name, and it sounded blasphemous. But he himself added: the angels were horrified, and Joseph’s heart trembled. I copied everything down as it was. Again he exclaimed a little louder: “Bravo, Thomas!”
Then his voice changed, as if it weren’t him, but someone else, with an English accent. “…ruling is not power over chaos, but an exchange of messages; order is not based on submission, but on a circular balance; the feminine principle in the world balances the masculine and cannot help but participate in both the creation and the ruling of the world.” I could barely write. The words sounded strange, like those of learned people.
It seemed to me that language had neither masculine nor feminine gender, and that’s why it was almost incorporeal.
Suddenly, mockingly, as if shouting, he said: “Know-it-all Bainer!”
Then he asked, “Why haven’t I written this?”
The pen fell from my hand with a sharp tap on the table.
He turned his head toward me and murmured, as if speaking only to me:
“Woman, all that’s left of you is disorder!”
And I, who would rather guard order?
Sometimes the phrases seem not to come from a man’s head, but from somewhere outside. He repeated several times: “The name is not the essence. The name is the net. But the net will break.” I don’t even know to whom those words were directed.
I spoke with my sister. She said: “Oh sister, how lucky you are! They pay you well, and besides, you’re going to meet a great man!” She warned me: “Make a copy of your notes before giving them to the wife or the lawyer. They’re rich, their lawyers invent things, and then they’ll blame you. This way you’ll keep the same copy.” I will do that, with God’s help.
In the morning I went to the nearest church, Notre-Dame. The hotel is very close, just a short walk, and it’s convenient: you can light a candle and pray for the sick man’s soul and for my patience. I wanted to confess, but I thought it better to leave confession for when I was home, with my own father José.
Here, with an unknown priest, I simply asked for advice.
He said: “There is a worldly duty and a duty before God. We don’t know His designs. And even less how and when the enemy of man tempts us to break the former for the latter. Your worldly duty has turned out to be greater than it seemed at first: the duty to be a maquinicha has arisen for you. Whatever you write, even if the words seem blasphemous, will ultimately be for the Glory of God. Write down everything you hear. Your faith will not be shaken, and the notes can serve for good.”
I read and reread her notes, always stumbling. Here: “At the council appeared an Elohim called Anthropia, mistress of chaos and disorder.”
The Almighty in the feminine gender and with the name Anthropia? Most likely Conchita wrote this name down in error, and Borges said either Anthropia, or Androgyne, or even Atrophy. Since he was always drawn to the dissection of heresies. All three paths have solid foundations and far-reaching consequences. My weak reason is incapable of making the right choice. I wanted to go to the diocese for advice and changed my mind: they might not be pleased with my musings about heresies there. So I remain in perplexity.
Today, after Sunday Mass, where I spoke about humility and the sin of pride, I prayed at home and sat down again with Conchita’s notes, and suddenly I was enlightened. Many things now fit together: Mr. Borges was granted in a dream an apocryphal Joseph narrated by Thomas Mann. Now I understand the error in the note—”Divino, man!”: it’s not “man,” it’s “Mann,” and the story itself is clear. I’m bewildered! What Conchita’s pure soul must have felt when such an avalanche fell upon her!
Great men, great sinners!
It’s not clear why he immediately turned so against Byron. Of course, he was a know-it-all, but on a completely different subject. And Conchita simply misspelled a name she didn’t recognize. Well, anyway, the greats have their own scores to settle.
To test my conjecture, I took the first volume of the tetralogy to the library. Exactly! In the section “The Youth of Joseph,” the exact same words appear when describing the angels and their elevation to the Throne. And a little earlier, James discusses the Elohim in the plural.
My head feels like it’s spinning with wonder and horror. I will consult with my brothers on what to do.
And since fortune has smiled upon me, I will take advantage of it and add a short comment. Conchita, a simple soul, wrote down exactly what she heard. The padre, in his notes, could discern echoes of Thomas Mann and his Joseph and His Brothers. But he was misled in some particulars—garbled names about “Bainer” and “Anthropia.” It was no Byron—it was Wiener, which points toward cybernetics rather than atrophy. The intrigue is far more sophisticated than the padre thought—clearly a cultured mind, though not on Borges’s level. Borges could not but know—and did know—of cybernetics and its conceited founder, of entropy rather than atrophy. His quip about the know-it-all confirms it. And the very appearance of Entropy among the Elohims is simply wondrous…
The irony of history is transparent here: in Calvinist Geneva, a devout Catholic woman receives an indulgence to record blasphemies. A turn that Borges—and perhaps Thomas Mann—would have appreciated. In modern speech, one might call this a lesson in multiculturalism, but in truth it is not a lesson but a living fate, in which traditions and their changes, trust and doubt, faith and irony intertwine.
Now there are two Borges—the real Borges and the possible Borges. But there is also the impossible Borges. And the paradox is that he may be the one closest to the real.
Finally I understand how it was.
Yet I do not know whether it was reality or a dream—and if the latter, whether it dreamt me or Borges.
Analysis of the Structure of “Borges’ Dream”
If one tries to view this work through the lens of classical music, its underlying structure becomes immediately apparent: Theme and Variations. Repetition through polyphony. In this light, the narrative unfolds like a Bach fugue—its depth arising not from the linear development of a theme, but from the mutual reflection of voices.
At the foundation of this composition lies, undoubtedly, the whisper of one of the angels at the foot of the throne. That whisper—perceived by mortals as a cry—resembles the lowest frequency of an organ tone, descending into infrasound: a sound which, like Borges’ word, exists on the threshold between hearing and thinking.
The apocryphal Old Testament motif of the dream as a form of communication with the Divine is the first variation—echoed in Thomas Mann’s Tetralogy of Joseph. This variation is simplified in the naive perception of the devout Catholic woman, and then repeated through a more intricate form of simplification in the thoughts of the priest. The culmination of this unfolding is the record of Borges’ own dream, whose commentary by the editor functions merely as orchestration. Perhaps, in this polyphonic composition, one more voice is present—that of the biblical Joseph himself.
Thus, the work takes on the form of a polyphonic composition in which each level of interpretation becomes a separate musical part, and the question of mystification proves not external but internal to the fugue itself.
Let us now consider the possible ways of approaching the text in light of the above.
If one accepts everything in it at face value, the text stands on its own merit.
If, however, one suspects a mystification, the question immediately arises: Whose?
The editor himself suggests it might be Borges’s own. Against such a hypothesis there are no rational objections, for the thematic, stylistic, and intellectual convergences are undeniable. Why should Borges not have wished to become his own Pierre Menard?
Nor can we entirely exclude the possibility of a different kind of mystification—conceived by an anonymous admirer and connoisseur of the great Argentinian. If this is the case, I, and almost anyone else, would lack the instruments to distinguish it from the previous hypothesis.
Finally, the boldest hypothesis: that the entire mystification is of my own making. Within the bounds of rational analysis, the probability of this is extremely low. Such a conjecture can exist only as an intellectual game, devoid of factual foundation.
And yet the mere possibility of this assumption gives the text an additional dimension: it becomes a mirror in which not only Borges is reflected, but also the act of reading itself—as a continuation of the dream.
Post scriptum
And one more thing. This text itself may be seen as one of Tlön’s hrönir—those secondary objects that arise from memory, hope, or forgetfulness.
In Tlön, the third hrönir is an archaic, less accurate duplicate of the original, while the ninth becomes its ideal double—perfected through faith and correction, surpassing the source itself.
Perhaps this text, born of a forgotten file and a recalled dream, belongs somewhere between them.
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