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Preface
THE SINGULAR MYSTERY OF ANTONIO PORCHIA[1]
Jorge Luis Borges
Maxims run the risk of seeming like mere verbal equations: we are tempted to see in them the work ofchance or a combinatorial art. But this is not the case for Novalis, La Rochefoucauld or Antonio Porchia. In
each maxim, the reader feels the immediate presence of a man and his destiny.
We never met in person. I first heard his name from the lips of Xul Solar, the visionary painter. It isn’t hardfor me to imagine that they were great friends: neither of them could contradict me at present. But what Ican say with certainty is that, through his Voices, Antonio Porchia is today an intimate friend of mine, even ifhe doesn’t know it.
Everyone is aware that Virgilian and biblical sayings have been consecrated throughout the generations. In a
moment of doubt, one opens the relevant volume at random—which deep down is not at random—andreceives advice from Virgil or the spirit. I myself have done this numerous times with Porchia’s text. Let usdo it now. On page 11, I find:
Whoever doesn’t fill their world with ghosts is left alone.
Happily—but also much to our regret—we are not lacking in ghosts. We believe ourselves to be Argentinian,Chilean, French, devotees of this or that faith, affiliated with this or that party, heirs of a tradition, bearers of
a name, inhabitants of a home or of a century, owners of a face amidst others. These are incessant ghosts,but it’s not impossible for them to leave us alone, atrociously alone, in the instant of death.
Let us question another page, number 46:
Not-knowing-how-to-make knew how to make God.
Here I find confirmation of an old doubt. I’ve always had the suspicion that God—the almighty God oftheologians—was the most curious invention of fantastic literature.
On page 110 we find:
Distances did nothing. It’s all here.
I remember an anecdote of Carlyle’s. A group of emigrants bound for Australia pay him a visit. Carlyle tellsthem: “Why travel? Your Australia is here and now.” We can interpret Porchia’s dictum another way. Onlythe present exists: yesterday and tomorrow are illusory.
The aphorisms in this volume go much further than the written text; they are not an end but a beginning.They don’t seek to have an effect. We may suspect that the author wrote them for himself, and didn’t knowthat he was tracing for others the image of a solitary and lucid man, conscious of the singular mystery of
each moment.
September 1978
[1] Title and English translation by Gonzalo Melchor, from the French version of Roger Munier (Antonio
Porchia, Voix, Paris: Fayard, Documents Spirituels, n. 16, 1979).
01/09/1978
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