Jorge Luis Borges - The Last Interview

One of the many pleasures the stars (in which I don’t believe) have granted me is in literary and metaphysical dialogue. Since both these designations run the risk of seeming a bit pretentious, I should clarify that dialogue for me is not a form of polemics, of monologue or magisterial dogmatism, but of shared investigation. I can’t refer to dialogue without thinking of my father, of Rafael Cansinos-Asséns, of Macedonio Fernández, and of many others I can’t begin to mention—since the most notable names on any list will always turn out to be those omitted. In spite of my impersonal concept of dialogue, my questioners tell me (and my memory confirms) that I tend to become a bit of a missionary and to preach, not without a certain monotony, the virtues of Old English and Old Norse, of Schopenhauer and Berkeley, of Emerson and Frost. The readers of this volume will realize that. It is enough for me to say that if I am rich in anything, it is in perplexities rather than in certainties. A colleague declares from his chair that philosophy is clear and precise understanding; I would define it as that organization of the essential perplexities of man.
    I have many pleasant memories of the United States, especially of Texas and New England. In Cambridge, Massachusetts, I spent many hours in leisurely conversation with Richard Burgin. It seemed to me he had no particular axe to grind; there was no imposition in his questioning or even a demand for a reply. There was nothing didactic either. There was a sense of timelessness.
    Rereading these pages, I think I have expressed myself, in fact confessed myself, better than in those I have written in solitude with excess care and vigilance. The exchange of thoughts is a condition necessary for all love, all friendship and all real dialogue. Two men who can speak together can enrich and broaden themselves indefinitely. What comes forth from me does not surprise me as much as what I receive from the other.
    I know there are people in the world who have the curious desire to know me better. For some seventy years, without too much effort, I have been working towards the same end. Walt Whitman has already said it:
    “I think I know little or nothing of my real life.”
    Richard Burgin has helped me to know myself.
    —Jorge Luis Borges

On the day I found out that Jorge Luis Borges was coming to America, to Cambridge, I ran from Harvard Square to my room in Central Square, over a mile away, in no more than five minutes. The rest of that summer of 1967 seemed only a preparation for his arrival. Everywhere I went I spoke of Borges.
    When it was time for school again and I returned to Brandeis for my last year as an undergraduate, I met a very pretty girl from Brazil named Flo Bildner who seemed even more enthusiastic about Borges than I was. Whenever we’d run into each other, we’d talk for three or four hours at a stretch about Borges. After one such conversation, we decided we had to meet him.
    I remember the schemes we proposed, elaborate, involuted, outrageous schemes, more complicated than a Russian novel. Finally we rejected all of them. There was only one thing to do; Flo had his telephone number, she should call him up and say we wanted to see him. Strangely, miraculously, the plan worked.
    It was November 21, it was grey outside and raining slightly, it was two days before Thanksgiving. Our meeting was set for 6:30, so Flo and I split up in the afternoon, each to go out and buy him a present. Of course, there is something futile about buying a gift for Borges. He simply has no need or desire for any symbol of gratitude for his company. He always makes you feel that it is he who is the grateful one, and that your company is the only gift he needs. In any event, after wandering up and down the long streets of Boston, going through department stores, book stores, and record stores, I finally bought him a record of Bach’s Fourth and Fifth Brandenburg concertos on which my father played violin. Back in Cambridge, I met Flo holding her gift, four long-stemmed yellow roses.
    The distance from Harvard Square to Borges’s apartment on Concord Avenue was only some four or five blocks, yet to us it seemed almost as great an odyssey as the voyage of Ulysses. I think I have forgotten nothing or almost nothing of that evening. I remember the calm in the air after the rain; Flo’s eyes as wide and green as tropical limes; the mirrors in the Continental Hotel, where we stopped