Download - Ghose, Lilia of the Butterflies.pdf
-
8/20/2019 Ghose, Lilia of the Butterflies.pdf
1/8
Latin American Literary Review is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Latin American
Literary Review.
http://www.jstor.org
Lila of the Butterflies and Her ChroniclerAuthor(s): Zulfikar GhoseSource: Latin American Literary Review, Vol. 13, No. 25, Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Jan. - Jun.,1985), pp. 151-157Published by: Latin American Literary ReviewStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20119396Accessed: 02-07-2015 16:43 UTC
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of contentin a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship.For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
This content downloaded from 170.140.26.180 on Thu, 02 Jul 2015 16:43:30 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
http://www.jstor.org/http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=lalrhttp://www.jstor.org/stable/20119396http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/20119396http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=lalrhttp://www.jstor.org/
-
8/20/2019 Ghose, Lilia of the Butterflies.pdf
2/8
LILA
OF
THE
BUTTERFLIES
AND HER
CHRONICLER
ZULFIKAR
GHOSE
In
the central
courtyard
where
the famous
acacia
trees
grew
that
dropped
their
yellow
blossoms
only
every
twenty-one
years
there
lay
in
a
hammock
hung
from
two
of the
tallest
trees
Ang?lila
whose dark brown
skin
glowed
amber
in
the
light
that filtered
through
the clusters
of the acacia
blossoms and
who
was
known
as
Lila
of the Butterflies.
The
floor of
the
courtyard was thick with short plants that grew leaves the size of elephants'
ears,
and the four
walls
surrounding
it
were
covered
with
a
green
moss
streaked
with
purple
and
yellow.
There
was a
well
in
one
corner
that had
dried
up
during
the
year
that
Juan Flores became
the
president
of
Ecuador.
Lila
of
the Butterflies
was
believed
to
have been
in
the
central
courtyard
for
longer
than
that;
some
fanatical
old
men,
whose
eyes
never
blink
as
they
continue
to
stare
at
the fantastic
nature
of
truth,
even
claim
that Lila
of
the
Butterflies
was
there,
lying
between
the
trees,
long
before Pedro de
Alvarado marched
into
the
kingdom
of
Quito.
When
I
stood
there,
just
behind
the
trunk
of
the
acacia
from which
her
hammock
was
hung,
I
did
not
at
first believe that
the smooth dark
brown
skin,
lined here
and there
by yellow
beads
of
light,
was
that
of
a
woman
older than
twenty
years;
she
was
quite
wide
at
the
hips
and her
thighs
were
fat,
but
her
breasts,
with
the
nipples gold-colored
as
if
two
acacia
flowers
had
fallen
there,
were
that
of
an
attractive,
even
desirable,
young
woman.
But
then
something happened.
The
ghost
of
his
father
appearing
to
Hamlet
could
not
have
more
amazed
him,
Leontes
watching
the
presumed
statue
of
Hermione
come
down
from
the
pedestal
could
not
have been
more
startled
than
I
was
by
what
I
observed.
The
extraordinary
events
that
I
am
about
to
describe
took
place
on
an
afternoon
in
December
1978.1
had been invited
to
a
conference
in
Quito
the
month
before
at
which
several
Spanish-language
writers
were
to
be
present.
It
was a
memorable
week.
Borges
came
and
sat
in
the
Speaker's
chair
in
the
chamber
of
Deputies
from where he answered
questions;
Juan
Goytisolo,
Alvaro
Mutis,
Angel
Rama
. . .
the
great
international
democracy
compos
ed
of
the aristocrats
of
literature
was
well
represented.
But
Garc?a
M?rquez
did
not come.
I
do
not
believe
that
in
my
disappointment
I
consciously
went
in
search
of
him;
those
events
in
one's life that
appear
mysterious,
incom
prehensible
and fantastic
happen
in
a
very
ordinary
way:
it
is
simply
the
ac
cident
of
finding
oneself
in
some
remote
bifurcation
of
a
labyrinth
where
one
had
never
expected
to
be;
it
is
memory,
the
recording
of
past
events
with
absolute
fidelity,
that
places
us in a
retrospective
amazement and
gives
us
the
impression
that
we
have
experienced
the incredible.
When
I think of
151
This content downloaded from 170.140.26.180 on Thu, 02 Jul 2015 16:43:30 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
-
8/20/2019 Ghose, Lilia of the Butterflies.pdf
3/8
152
Latin
American
Literary
Review
it,
my
encounter
with
Lila
of
the
Butterflies
was
no
more
fantastic
than
another
event
of
the
previous
week
when
in
a
ship
of
the Ecuadorian
navy
that
transported
the
visiting
writers
from
one
island
to
another in
the
Gal?pagos
I sat with
Goytisolo
and
we
talked
of
the
fictions
of
Alain
Robbe-Grillet.
Someone
had said:
You
should take
a
trip
to
Otavalo.
How,
doing
so,
I
found
myself
in
southern Colombia is
a
complicated
little
history
of
errors
and
misunderstandings
that,
though
it
is
a
perfect microscopic
example
of
the
way
one's
reality
is
shaped,
is irrelevant here.
A
missed
bus,
my
less than
rudimentary
Spanish,
a
convivial officer
at
the
border
who
thought
it
very
funny
that the holder of a British
passport
should be brown-skinned and
that
absurdity
in
itself
a
sufficient
reason to
let
him
enter
as a
tourist,
for
one
joke
leads
to
another?a
mass
of
details,
each
one
bizarre, trivial,
mun
dane,
and
yet
improbable,
saw me
finally
arrive
in
the central
courtyard
and
witness the miraculous
phenomenon
of
Lila
of
the Butterflies.
The bus had
left the lower
slopes,
and the snow-covered
range
of
the
Andes that had been visible much
of
the
way
from
Quito
had
disappeared
out
of
sight.
The bus creaked
along
tracks
near
narrow,
crystalline
rivers,
wound about
in
the darkness
of
a
forest,
and
then bounced
in
a
steady
rhythm
on
a
straight
dirt
road
through
a
green
and
empty
land. There
were
half a dozen other passengers, wrinkled old Indians, one of them a fat
woman;
the
plait
of
her
grey
hair
fell
below the black felt
hat,
a
necklace
of
gold-colored
beads
clasped
her
throat,
and
a
bright pink
poncho
was
rumpl
ed around
her shoulders.
I sat
behind
her
and could
not
see
her
face,
but
her
head bobbed
with
the
motion
of
the bus and shook
vigorously
each
time she
yelled
something
to
the
driver,
who
answered
her
in
a
low,
moaning
voice,
looking
up
at
the
rearview
mirror
each time he
did
so.
Two
of
the
men
got
off
in
the middle
of
open
country
with not
a
habitation
in
sight.
The others
alighted
in
front
of
three huts
on
the
bank
of
a
river;
not
a
face
appeared
at
any
of the
open
windows but several
dogs
came
running
out,
barking
feverishly. The woman continued to scream remarks at the driver as we pro
ceeded.
We drove
through hilly
terrain and the
motion
over
the
undulating
land
must
have rocked
me to
sleep,
for
suddenly
we
had
come to
stop
outside
a
huge
wall
made
of
granite
boulders. The
driver,
no
doubt
exhausted,
was
slumped
over
the
wheel,
and
it
was
the Indian
woman,
shrieking
in
a
language
entirely
alien
to
me,
who
gestured
that
I
should
alight.
When
I
did
so,
I
turned
to
look
at
her
standing
above
the
step
at
the door
of
the
bus;
she
was
staring
down
at
me,
her
body shaking
with
laughter.
But
I
was
not
amused.
Not
because
I
did
not care
to
be
the
object
of
her
merriment;
it
was
her face that froze me for a moment and then made me want to run from
her:
she
must
have had
cheeks,
a
forehead,
a
nose,
a
chin;
but what
I
saw
was a mass
of
green
hairy
caterpillars
that formed
a
circle
from
the
curved
line
of
the forehead
to
the half-moon
line
of
the
chin,
all
in constant
mo
tion.
It
was
like
an
enlarged moving picture
of
termites,
and
my
own
skin
This content downloaded from 170.140.26.180 on Thu, 02 Jul 2015 16:43:30 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
-
8/20/2019 Ghose, Lilia of the Butterflies.pdf
4/8
Lila
of the
Butterflies
and
Her Chronicler
153
itched
ferociously
for
a
second
before
I
turned
round and
saw
that I
stood
before
an enormous
open
gate.
I
supposed
that
had
I
been
awake earlier
while
the
bus
was
still
some
distance
from the
building
before
whose
entrance
I
now
stood,
I
would
have
seen
what
sort of
castle
or
fort
or
simply
a
long
wall
had
suddenly
appeared
on
the
plain.
I
have
to
confess
that
I
have
spent
so
many years
with
literature that
I
am
easily
confused
by reality
and
sometimes have
the
very
strong
suspicion
that
the
world
of
my
perception
has been transformed
to
a
fragment
in
some
familiar
epic;
it
is
a
delusion,
of
course,
of
a
mind
in
capable
of
witnessing
the
pristine
forms
of
life,
deficient
in
comprehending
that for which an
imaginative
language
has not
already
created an associa
tion. Such na?vit?
has,
I
believe,
the
advantage
of
giving
one
unexpected
courage
in
harrowing
and
oppressive
circumstances.
Well,
Childe
Roland,
I
said,
addressing
myself
with
a
jolly
nudge,
here
we
are
at
last;
and
then,
I
suppose
because
I
was
anxious
not
to
appear
too
antiquated,
although
there
was
no one
around
to
observe
my
absurd
concern
that
a
spontaneously
ex
pressed
literary
reference
might
be
too
outdated,
I
added
aloud:
Many
years
later
you
will
remember
this
distant
afternoon
when
you
face
the
firing
squad.
I
have
mentioned
the
central
courtyard
in
which
I
observed
the
miraculous phenomenon of Lila of the Butterflies. Yes, there were other
courtyards.
The
building
I
entered
was
immense,
its
long
passages
cunning
ly
lit
by high
windows
and
mirrors.
It
contained
a maze
of
apartments,
and
sometimes
I
had
the
impression
of
being
in
a
walled
city,
for
some
of the
passages
had
no
roofs and
thus seemed
to
be
streets.
Children
played
games
there,
women
sat in
doorways,
men
rode
past
on
mules
as
if
coming
back
from
a
day
in
the
fields.
There
seemed
nothing
remarkable about
these
people
until
I
came
to
one
of
the
outer
courtyards
and
saw a
group
of
women
around
a
man
who
lay
on
his
side
on
the
grass.
His shirt had been
removed,
and
the first
thing
one saw on him was the wound on his chest. Blood should have been pour
ing
out of
the
wound,
but
it
was
not.
There
was
indeed
a
stream
of
blood
on
the
ground
but
it
was
flowing
toward
the
man,
wriggling through
the
grass
like
a
snake,
gathering
itself
into
a
thick
rope,
and
entering
the wound.
Slowly
and
imperceptibly,
but
definitely entering
the
wound.
The
explana
tion
seemed
simple
to
everyone.
It
was
not
the man's
time
to
die.
Now,
I
am
not
too
easily
amazed;
I
was
raised
in
India and have
seen a
fakir?it
was
an
October
day
in 1943
in
Bombay
on
the
edge
of
the
park
where
we
played
cricket
on
Sundays?bury
himself
in
the sand
for
an
hour
and
come
out
no
different
from
someone
hopping
out of
a
hammock after
an
hour's
siesta,
and while we were waiting for him to resurrect himself another fakir
diverted
us
by thrusting
a
two-foot
sword
down
his
throat and
inviting
everyone
to
poke
his stomach
with
a
forefinger
to
feel the steel blade behind
the
skin
just
above
his navel.
So,
why
should
I
have been amazed
that
a
man's
blood
was
returning
to
him?
This content downloaded from 170.140.26.180 on Thu, 02 Jul 2015 16:43:30 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
-
8/20/2019 Ghose, Lilia of the Butterflies.pdf
5/8
154
Latin American
Literary
Review
There
was
now
a
succession
of
courtyards?linked
open
spaces
that
together
formed
a
large
park
with low
stone
walls
marking
off
each
par
ticular
square
with its
own
peculiar
characteristic.
If
one
did
not
look
too
closely,
there
was
nothing
but
an
enchanting
profusion
of trees
and
flower
ing
bushes
to
be
seen,
and
if
one
happened
to
be
like
those dreamers
who
go
through gardens
with hooded
eyes
and dilated
nostrils,
receiving
sensations
of
merging, overlapping,
even
dissolving
colors,
as
in
the
paintings
of
Jules
Olitski,
and
exquisite
combinations of
perfumes,
as
one
does
when
entering
the cosmetics section
of
a
store
where
one
sees
a
beautiful
young
woman,
her
shoulder
length
blond hair
perfectly
straight,
her
large
blue
eyes
clearly
marked with flawless lines below the
pale
blue mascara
covering
the
eyelids,
her
lips
a
thrilling liquid
red
as
she works
on
the
make-up
of
an
older
woman,
applying moisturising
creams
to
her
wrinkles,
and
one
walks
past
inhaling
odors
of
an
existence
not
one's
own,
receiving
too,
in
the
linked
courtyards,
the sounds
of
birds
in the
higher
branches
of
the
trees,
like such
dreamers,
one
remained
oblivious
to
the
dramas that
were
here and there
being performed.
In
one
grove,
several
male
children,
none more
than three
or
four
years
old,
played silently. They
formed
a
circle
on
the
ground
and
crawled
on
their
hands and knees
in
an
infinite
increasing
and
diminishing
of the
great
wheel
of
solitude.
Two
or
three
raised
their
eyes
as
they
crawled, and the large, black circular eyes were expressive of an infinite sad
ness
as
they
looked
up
from
the earth.
And infinite
too
was
the
melancholy
of their silence.
They
were
naked
in
their
endless
procession
and
though
each
was
still
in
his
infancy,
the
organ
proclaiming
his
sex was
that
of
an
adult
in
that
desperately
tense state
of
erection
just
prior
to
coitus. Another
peculiarity
marked each
boy.
Sticking
up
in
a
little
curl above the
buttocks
was a
pig's
tail.
In
another
part
of
the
park,
in
an
arbor
made
by
a
thickly
intertwining
trumpet-vine
and
on a
floor covered
by marguerites
lay
the
couple
con
demned
to
join
their bodies
together
in
3,567
distinctly
different
positions,
with each inadvertant repetition of a previous performance canceling out
the
sequence
and
obliging
them
to commence
again
with
position
number
one.
Their
bodies
were
hardly
distinguishable
as
human,
and
it
was
scarcely
possible
to
tell that
the
shrunk,
flattened
slithering
mass
was
composed
of
two
persons,
and
I
was
told
by
the
man
who
had been
passing
by
and had
given
me
information
of
the
couple's
fate that
on
some
mornings
they
were
to
be
seen as
no
more
than
two
drops
of dew
on
the
edge
of
a
marguerite
petal.
One
narrow room
in
a
building
was
made
up
entirely
of
mirrors?small
squares
of
mirrors
like
tiles
on
the
floor
and similar
squares
on
the
ceiling,
with rectangular sections like window-panes on the walls. Here lived
a
pair
of
identical
twins,
Fernando and
Hernando,
and
neither could
ever
be
con
vinced that the
infinite
multiplication
of
themselves
was
an
illusion because
each
had the other
to
touch and
squeeze
to
prove
that
his
own
duplication
was
real and therefore the millions
crowding
the surface
of
the mirrors
were
This content downloaded from 170.140.26.180 on Thu, 02 Jul 2015 16:43:30 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
-
8/20/2019 Ghose, Lilia of the Butterflies.pdf
6/8
Lila
of
the Butterflies
and
Her
Chronicler
155
real
too,
only
they
were
outside
the
window-panes
and could
not
be
touched.
In
another
room,
a man
spent
his
days tying
and
untying
an
end
less succession
of bow ties. The
room
was
heaped
with
two
piles
of bow
ties,
from
one
of which he
took
a
bow tie?which
was
sometimes
only
a
length
of
string
or
a
piece
of straw
that
had blown
in
through
the
window?put
it
around
his
collar,
worked the
deft
movement
that transformed
the material
to
a
perfectly
shaped
bow,
his
fingers moving
as
in the
sign language
of
the
dumb,
then
quickly
pulled
it
apart,
snapped
it
away
from
the
collar
and
discarded
it
on
the second
heap.
A
thin
long
snake had coiled
itself
in
one
of
the
heaps,
and the
man,
in the
performance
of his automatic
movements,
plucked
it
up
and
proceeded
to tie it around his throat. The snake's two
ends
hung
loosely
in
front
of the man's chest
for
a
second,
and
then
were
pulled
apart
just
as
if
it
were
one
long
silk bow
tie
and
thrown
to
the side.
I
came
to
a
room
whose
high
walls
were
covered
with
old leather-bound
volumes
and
in
which
books
were
scattered
all
over
the
floor.
A
man
sat
at
a
desk.
His
head
was
completely
hairless and he had
small black
eyes.
It
was
enough
for
me
to
use two
of
the half
a
dozen
words that
comprise
my
knowledge
of
Spanish
for
him
to
detect
not
only
that
my
accent
was
one
of
an
English-speaking
person
but
also that its
particular
nuance
had
its
origin
in
the late British
Empire.
Perhaps
to
show
off his
virtuosity,
he
answered
me in fluent English in the accent common to people from the Indian sub
continent. He
discoursed
for fifteen
minutes.
He
knew
every
language
in
the
world. The books
in
the
room
were
dictionaries
and
grammars,
and he
was
at work
on
the invention
of
the
most
complete language
known
to
man.
But
it
was
not to
be
simply
a
language
capable
of
articulating
every
knowable
fact;
it
was
to
be
a
language
of
such
purity
that
only
the noblest minds could
acquire
it,
of such
subtlety
that
only
a
Shakespeare
or
a
Goethe would
even
think
that
he
could
write
poetry
in
it,
of
such
complexity
that
the
majority
of
human
beings
would
be
obliged
to
remain
illiterate,
which,
he added
without
sarcasm,
was
the
true state of most
people
who believed
themselves
to be educated. When his invention was completed, only he would be able to
explain
its
grammar;
but he
hoped
very
much
that
the
day
his
great
work
reached
its conclusion would also
be the
day
of his
death,
for
he did
not
believe
that
humanity
was
worthy
of
the
perfection
of
his
creation,
and he
was
certainly
not
going
to
leave
any
clues behind
to
an
easy
understanding
of his
language.
When
I
was
about
to
leave
him,
he
quoted
Caliban's
famous
words,
and added
with
a
maniacal
laugh,
?That's all the
profit
I
have
to
offer
too ?
The
thought
did
cross
my
mind,
as
it
must
have the
reader's,
that
I
had
stumbled
into
a
lunatic
asylum,
but
it
was
soon
dispelled
when
I
came to an
apartment that was unmistakably a small palace of pleasure, decked out in
peacock
colors,
with
music and
laughter
coming
from its windows.
But
I
was
distracted
from it
by
a
brilliant
golden
light coming
from
the outside.
An
open
door seemed
a
solid block
of
gold.
I went
and stood
in it
and
was
for
a
moment
blinded
by
the
golden
dazzle.
I
had
arrived
at
the
central
This content downloaded from 170.140.26.180 on Thu, 02 Jul 2015 16:43:30 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
-
8/20/2019 Ghose, Lilia of the Butterflies.pdf
7/8
156
Latin
American
Literary
Review
courtyard.
The late afternoon
sun was
falling
through
the
bright yellow
blossoms
of
the acacia
trees
and
it
was
not
until
I went
and stood
next to
the
trunk
of
one
that
I
came
out
of
the
slanting
rods
of
golden
light.
I
was
grateful
to
the tree's shadow
for
restoring
my
perception
although
a
pale
yellow luminosity
still
hung
about
my
eyelids.
A movement
as
of
dragonflies darting
up
from
a
dark
stream
into
the
sunlight caught
my eyes.
It
was a
concentrated
spot
of
light
on a
dark brown
background
that broke
into
a
shimmering,
seemed
to
lift
itself and
disap
pear.
It
took
me a
moment to
distinguish
the brown
background
as a
rather
massive human
thigh,
and
then
to
see
the
woman
lying
in
the hammock
whose motion had created the initial sensation. After all that I had seen dur
ing
the
previous
two
hours,
I
was
neither
surprised
nor
shocked
to see
that
the
woman
was
naked.
My only
astonishment
at
the time
was
to
observe
that
although
her
legs
were
disproportionately
large, they
did
not
violate
my
sense
of
beauty
but,
on
the
contrary,
seemed
precisely
to
be what
was re
quired
of nature
to
make her
beautiful,
and
in
that
moment I
imagined
her
with
slender
legs
and
thought
the effect
decidedly incongruous. Standing
behind
her,
I
could
not
see
her
face,
but
only
the
fine,
long
black hair that
fell from her head
to
her
shoulders,
curved
over
them and then
seemed
to
leap
over
the
sides of
the hammock from
where
it
hung
halfway
to
the
ground. Her pointed breasts, rising in front of her, were also visible from
where
I
stood,
and
that moment's
particular
coincidence
of
two
beams of
light striking
her
nipples
created the
impression
that
two
soft acacia flowers
had settled there.
I
was
about
to
leave when
a
shiver
seemed
to
run
through
her
body
and
she
slipped
lower down
in
the hammock
so as
to
be able
to
fling
her head
back,
arching
her throat. Her
forehead and
nose
appeared
to
my
vision
and
then her
mouth,
the
pink
lips
fleshy
and swollen. She held her mouth
open
for
two
or
three
long
minutes,
her
tongue
flickering
desperately,
as
if
trying
to
force
out
of
her throat
some
obstruction
that had
been
lodged
there.
Then I saw a little blob of yellow appear on her lower lip as though itwere
spittle;
but
it
moved
rapidly,
and
even as
I
was
thinking
of it
as
spittle
it
had
transformed
itself
into
a
butterfly
and
begun
its
ascent
to
the
sky.
I
had
no
opportunity
to
reflect
upon
this
event,
for
I
was
overwhelmed
by
what
suc
ceeded
it.
The
woman
kept
her mouth
open
and
breathed
heavily
and
within
a
minute
a
swarm
of
butterflies
had
risen
into
the
air,
coming
out
of her
mouth
in
a
rush
of
yellow wings.
But
this
was
not
all. Soon she seemed
to
go
into
a
swoon,
as
though
exhausted.
A
film
of
perspiration
covered her
body, tiny points
of
light
on
the dark brown
skin;
but
I
was
mistaken
to
think
it
was
perspiration,
for
the
points
of
light
rapidly began
to
enlarge
themselves and
in
another minute thousands
of
butterflies
began
to
rise
from
every pore
of
her
flesh.
A
thick
yellow
cloud
hung
in
the
air,
clamor
ing
for the
upper
light.
A
little
later,
the
acacia
blossoms
began
to
fall.
At
first
I
thought
some
of
the
butterflies,
suffocated
in
the
great
aerial
press,
were
falling
dead,
but then
saw
it
was
the little flowers
that
were
tumbling
This content downloaded from 170.140.26.180 on Thu, 02 Jul 2015 16:43:30 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
-
8/20/2019 Ghose, Lilia of the Butterflies.pdf
8/8
Lila
of the
Butterflies
and
Her
Chronicler
157
down
and
in
a
few minutes
overflowed the
hammock,
having
buried
the
woman
under
their
soft,
almost
weightless
mass.
I
did
not
need
anyone
to
tell
me,
though
the
facts
were
later
related
to
me,
that
I
had
witnessed
the
miracle
of Lila
of
the
Butterflies. The acacia
blossoms that
covered her
exhausted
body,
falling
once
every
twenty-one
years,
were,
I
was
informed,
the
secret
of her
eternal
youth.
I
would certain
ly
have dismissed
this last
notion
as
a
piece
of
nonsense
but
it
occurred
to
me
that
nature
had
an
infinite
capacity
to
restore
its
living
creatures;
and
the
real
wonder
was
how
a
creater,
trapped
in
an
eternal
solitude,
could
ever
get
a
combination
of
disparate
substances
to come
together
to
form
a
new
life.
I
walked
quickly through
the
maze
of
passages
and
courtyards.
But
suddenly
I
stopped
in front of
a
doorway, seeing
the
most
startling image
of
all.
A
man
sat
at
a
small
desk,
his
right
elbow
on
some
papers
on
the
desk,
his head
of
thick black hair
resting
against
the
hand;
his
forehead,
con
tracted
in
concentration,
was
marked
by
two
or
three
wavy
lines and
a
small
strong
vertical
depression
formed
a
dent
between the
eyebrows;
his
left
forearm rested
along
the
edge
of
the
desk,
with
some
papers
in
front of him
which he
read
through
the half-moon
lenses
of his
spectacles,
his mouth
closed behind
a
rather
heavy
mustache;
the
desk's
two
legs
nearest
him
had
pieces
of
paper
folded under them
to
keep
the
desk
from
wobbling,
and
his
legs
could be seen under the
table,
the left one crossed over the
right,
the
feet
bare,
the
right
foot
resting
on
the
polished
tiled
surface
on
which
it
was
reflected;
the blue
jeans
he
wore
must
have been about six
inches
too
long
for
him,
for
they
had been
folded
up
so
that the
reverse
of the
denim
formed
a
wide
band between his
ankles and
shins;
on
the floor
to
his
right
was
a
plastic
wastepaper
basket
and
a
few
crumpled
sheets
of
paper
could
be
seen
discarded
through
the basket's
diagonal
mesh.
What
startled
me was
that
I
had
seen
the
image
before.
It
was as
if the
man were
only just
posing
for
a
photograph
that
already
existed,
and
that
I
remembered,
while
seeing
the
man
absorbed
in
his
reading,
as
the
one
ap
pearing on the back of the English translation of a book called El oto?o del
patriarca, published
by Harper
&
Row in
1976. But
no
photographer
was
in
attendance,
and
I went
on
my way,
reciting,
for
no
reason
at
all
that
I
have
since been
able
to
determine,
these lines from
The
Winter's Tale:
But
here
it
is:
prepare
To
see
the
life
as
lively
mocked,
as ever
Still
sleep
mocked
death:
behold,
and
say
'tis well....
?ends?
This content downloaded from 170.140.26.180 on Thu, 02 Jul 2015 16:43:30 UTC