Jorge Luis Borges - The Last Interview

maze you may think of Hampton Court, well, not very much of a labyrinth, a kind of toy labyrinth.
    BURGIN: What about “Emma Zunz,” a story of a living labyrinth?
    BORGES: It’s very strange, because in a story like “The Immortal” I did my best to be magnificent, while the story “Emma Zunz” is a very drab story, a very grey story, and even the name Emma was chosen because I thought it particularly ugly, but not strikingly ugly, no? And the name Zunz is a very poor name, no? I remember I had a great friend named Emma and she said to me, “But why did you give that awful girl my name?” And then, of course, I couldn’t say the truth, but the truth was that when I wrote down the name Emma with the two
m
’s and Zunz with the two
z
’s I was trying to get an ugly and at the same time a colourless name, and I had quite forgotten that one of my best friends was called Emma. The name seems so meaningless, so insignificant, doesn’t it sound that way to you?
    BURGIN: But one still feels compassion for her, I mean, she is a kind of tool of destiny.
    BORGES: Yes, she’s a tool of destiny, but I think there’s something very mean about revenge, even a just revenge, no? Something futile about it. I dislike revenge. I think that the only possible revenge is forgetfulness, oblivion. That’s the only revenue. But, of course, oblivion makes for forgiving, no?
    BURGIN: Well, I know you don’t like revenge, and I don’t think you lose your temper much either, do you?
    BORGES: I’ve been angry perhaps, well, I’m almost seventy, I feel I’ve been angry four or five times in my life, not more than that.
    BURGIN: That’s remarkable. You were angry at Perón, certainly.
    BORGES: Yes. That was different.
    BURGIN: Of course.
    BORGES: One day when I was speaking about Coleridge I remember four students walked into my class and told me that a decision had been taken by an assembly for a strike and they asked me to stop my lecturing. And then I was taken aback and suddenly I found that without knowing it I had walked from this side of the room to the other, that I was facing those four young men, telling them that a man may make a decision for himself but not for other people, and that were they crazy enough to think that I would stand that kind of nonsense. And then they stared at me because they were astounded at my taking it in that way. Of course, I realized that I was an elderly man, half blind, and they were four hefty, four husky young men, but I was so angry that I said to them, “Well, as there are many ladies here, if you have anything more to say to me, let’s go out on the street and have it out.”
    BURGIN: You said that?
    BORGES: Yes, and then, well, they walked away and then I said, “Well, after this interlude, I think we may go on.” And I was rather ashamed of having shouted, and of having felt so angry. That was one of the few times in my life that thing has happened to me.
    BURGIN: How long ago was this?
    BORGES: This must have been some five years ago. And then the same sort of thing happened twice again, and I reacted much in the same way, but afterwards I felt very, very much ashamed of it.
    BURGIN: This was a strike against the university?
    BORGES: Yes.
    BURGIN: What were they striking for?
    BORGES: They were striking because there was a strike among the labourers in the port and they thought the students had to join them. But I always think of strikes as a kind of blackmail, no? I wonder what you think about it?
    BURGIN: Students are often striking in this country.
    BORGES: In my country also. That they should do it is right, but that they should prevent other people from going to classes, I don’t understand. That they should try to bully me? And then I said, well if they knock me down, that doesn’t matter, because, after all, the issue of a fight is of no importance whatever. What is important is that a man should not let himself be bullied, don’t you think so? After all, what happens to him is not important because nobody thinks that I’m a prizefighter or that I’m any good at fighting. What is important is that I should not let myself be bullied before my students, because if I do, they won’t respect me, and I won’t respect myself.
    BURGIN: Sometimes values, then, are even more important than one’s well-being?
    BORGES: Oh yes, of course. After all, one’s well-being is physical. As I don’t think physical things are very real—of course they are real, if you fall off