The Gospel according to Mark - by Jorge Luis Borges

These events took place on the Los Álamos cattle ranch, towards the south of the township of Junín, during the final
days of March, 1928. The protagonist was a medical student, Baltasar Espinosa. We may describe him for now as no
different to any of the many young men of Buenos Aires, with no particular traits worthy of note other than an almost
unlimited kindness and an oratorical faculty that had earned him several prizes from the English school in Ramos Mejía.
He did not like to argue; he preferred it when his interlocutor was right and not he himself. Although the vagaries of
chance in any game fascinated him, he played them poorly because it did not please him to win. His wide intelligence
was undirected; at thirty-three years of age, the completion of one last subject stood in the way of his graduation,
despite its being his favourite. His father, who was, like all gentlemen of his day, a freethinker, had instructed him in the
doctrines of Herbert Spencer, but his mother, before setting out on a trip to Montevideo, requested of him that every
night he say the Lord’s Prayer and make the sign of the cross. Over the years, not once had he broken this promise.
He did not lack in courage; one morning he had traded, more out of indifference rather than wrath, two or three blows
with a group of fellow students who were trying to force him into taking part in a university demonstration. He
abounded in questionable opinions, or habits of mind, from a spirit of acquiescence: his country mattered less to him
than the risk that in other parts they might believe that we continue to wear feathers like the Indians; he venerated
France but despised the French; he had little respect for Americans, but he approved of there being skyscrapers in
Buenos Aires; he thought that the gauchos of the plains were better horsemen than those of the hills or mountain
ranges. When his cousin Daniel invited him to summer in Los Álamos, he accepted immediately, not so much because he
liked the country, but more out of his natural geniality and his not having found a valid reason for saying no.
The ranch’s main house was large and somewhat run-down; the foreman, who was known as Gutre, had his quarters
close by. The Gutres were three: the father, the son (who was particularly uncouth) and a girl of uncertain paternity.
They were tall, strong and bony, with Indian features about the face and hair that tinged red. They hardly spoke. The
foreman’s wife had died years ago.
In the country, Espinosa was learning things that he had not known, nor suspected. For example, one need not gallop
when approaching a house, and no one goes out riding a horse unless there is a job to be done. In time, he would come
to distinguish the birds by their calls.
Early on, Daniel had to absent himself and leave for the capital in order to close a deal involving some livestock. In all,
the business would take him about a week. Espinosa, who was already a little tired of hearing about his cousin’s good
fortune with women and his tireless interest in the variations of men’s fashion, preferred to remain on the ranch with
his textbooks. The heat was suffocating and not even the night brought relief. One morning at daybreak, thunder woke
him. The wind was rocking the casuarinas. Espinosa heard the first drops of rain and gave thanks to God. All of a sudden,
the cold air rolled in. That afternoon, the Salado overflowed.
The next day, as he was looking over the flooded fields from his porch, Baltasar Espinosa thought that the standard
metaphor which compared the pampas with the sea was not, at least that morning, completely false, even though
Hudson had noted that the sea appears to us much wider because we see it from a ship’s deck and not from horseback
or eye level. The rain did not let up; the Gutres, helped or hindered by the city dweller, saved a good part of the
livestock, though many animals drowned. The paths that led to the station were four: all were covered in water. On the
third day, a leaking roof threatened the foreman’s house and Espinosa gave them a room out back by the toolshed. The
move had brought them closer; they ate together in the large dining room. Conversation was difficult; the Gutres, who
knew so much about the country, did not know how to explain any of it. One night, Espinosa asked them if people still
retained some memory of the Indian raids from when the frontier’s military command was in Junín. They told him that
they did, but they would have answered in a similar fashion had the question been about Charles the First’s beheading.
Espinosa recalled his father’s saying that almost all the cases of longevity cited from the country are a result of poor
memory or a vague notion of dates. The gauchos tended to forget in equal measure the year of their birth and the name
of who fathered them.
No reading material was to be found in the entire house other than some issues of the magazine  The Farm, a veterinary
manual, a deluxe edition of the Uruguayan epic Tabaré, a History of Shorthorn Cattle in Argentina, the odd erotic or
detective story and a recent novel, Don Segundo Sombra. In order to liven up in some way the inevitable after-dinner
conversation, Espinosa read a couple of the novel’s chapters to the Gutres, who were all illiterate. Unfortunately the
foreman, like the book’s hero, had been a cattle drover himself and was not interested in the happenings of another. He
said the work was easy, that they took with them a pack mule which carried all that they needed, and that if he had not
been a cattle drover, he would never have seen Lake Gómez, nor would he have gotten to the town of Bragado, nor
would he have visited the Núñez ranch in Chacabuco. In the kitchen was a guitar; before the events I am narrating
happened, the labourers would sit in a circle and someone would tune the instrument without ever getting around to
playing it. This they called a guitar jam.
Espinosa, who had let his beard grow, had begun to pause before the mirror to study his changed face, and he smiled at
the thought of boring the boys in Buenos Aires with his tale of the Salado’s overflowing. Curiously, he was missing places
to which he had never been and would never go: a street corner on Cabrera where a mailbox stood; some cement lions
on a porch a few blocks from the Plaza del Once on Jujuy; a barroom with a tiled floor whose exact whereabouts he was
not sure of. As for his brothers and his father, through Daniel they would have learnt already that he was isolated — the
word, etymologically, was accurate — by the floodwaters.
Looking through the house whilst still hemmed in by the waters, he came across a Bible in English. In its final pages, the
Guthries — their original name — had left a record of their family history. They were originally from Inverness, had come
to the New World, no doubt as labourers, in the early days of the nineteenth century and had intermarried with Indians.
The chronicle broke off sometime during the eighteen-seventies when they no longer knew how to write. Within only a
few generations, they had forgotten their English; by the time Espinosa met them, even Spanish was troubling them.
They had no faith, but in their blood there endured, like a dim current, the harsh fanaticism of the Calvinists and the
superstitions of the pampas. Espinosa told them of his find and they barely acknowledged it.
Leafing through the volume, his fingers opened it at the start of the Gospel according to Mark. As an exercise in
translation and perhaps to see if the Gutres would understand any of it, he decided to read to them the text after
dinner. Their attentive listening and their mute interest surprised him. Maybe the gold letters on the the cover lent the
book more authority. ‘It’s in their blood,’ Espinosa thought. It also occurred to him that man has throughout history told
and retold two stories: that of a lost ship that searches the seas of the Mediterranean for a dearly loved island, and that
of a god who allows himself to be crucified in Golgotha. Remembering his elocution classes in Ramos Mejía, Espinosa
rose to his feet to preach the parables.
In the days that followed, the Gutres wolfed down the barbecued meat and sardines so as to arrive sooner at the
Gospel.
A little pet lamb that the girl had adorned with a sky-blue ribbon had injured itself on some barbed wire. To staunch the
bleeding, the Gutres were wanting to apply cobwebs; Espinosa treated it with some pills instead. The gratitude that this
treatment inspired took him aback. At first, he distrusted the Gutres and had hidden in one of his books the two
hundred and forty pesos that he had with him; now, with the owner away, he had taken on Daniel’s role and was giving
timid orders that were being followed immediately. The Gutres would trail him through the rooms and along the porch
as if they were lost without him. Whilst reading to them, he noticed that they would take away with them the crumbs
that he had left on the table. One evening, he caught them unawares as they were, in few words, speaking of him
respectfully.
Upon finishing the Gospel according to Mark, he wanted to read one of the three remaining gospels; the father, though,
asked him to repeat the one he had already read to them so that they could understand it better. Espinosa felt that they
were like children, who prefer repetition over variety or novelty. That night he dreamt, not altogether surprisingly, of
the Flood and was awoken by the hammering that went into the Ark’s construction, which he supposed he had confused
with the thunder. In fact, the rain, after having abated, was getting heavier. The cold was bitter. The Gutres had told him
that the storm had damaged the toolshed’s roof and that, once they had repaired the beams, they would show him
where. No longer a stranger, they treated him with special attention, almost spoiling him. Not one of them liked coffee,
but they always had a little cup for him that they heaped with sugar.
The storm hit on a Tuesday. Thursday night he was awoken by a light knock on the door, which, because of his
misgivings, he always kept locked. He got up and opened it: it was the girl. In the darkness he could not make her out,
but he could tell from her footsteps that she was barefoot, and later in bed, that she had come naked from the back of
the house. She did not embrace him, nor did she speak a single word; she lay beside him and shivered. It was the first
time she had lain with a man. When she left, she did not kiss him; Espinosa realised he did not even know her name. For
some sentimental reason that he did not attempt to understand, he swore never to tell anyone in Buenos Aires about
the incident.
The next day began like the others before, except for the father’s speaking to Espinosa and asking him if Christ had
allowed Himself to be killed in order to save all mankind. Espinosa, who was a freethinker but felt obliged to justify what
he had read to them, replied, “Yes. To save us all from hell.”
Gutre then asked, “What’s hell?”
“A place underground where souls burn and burn.”
“And those that drove in the nails were also saved?”
“Yes,” replied Espinosa, whose theology was a little shaky.
He had feared that the foreman would demand an account of what had happened the night before with his daughter.
After lunch, they asked him to read the last chapters again.
Espinosa took a long siesta, though his light sleep was interrupted by persistent hammering and vague premonitions.
Toward evening he got up and went out to the porch. He said, as if thinking out loud, “The waters are low. It won’t be
long now.” “It won’t be long now,” repeated Gutre like an echo.
The three Gutres had been following him. Kneeling on the floor, they asked for his blessing. Then they cursed him, spat
on him and shoved him to the back of the house. The girl was crying. Espinosa knew what to expect on the other side of
the door. When they opened it, he saw the heavens. A bird shrieked. ‘A goldfinch,’ he thought. The shed was without a
roof; they had torn out the beams to build the cross.
Style and Technique
In “The Gospel According to Mark”’ the author rewrites the myth of the return to the origin and, as is often the case
with Jorge Luis Borges, constructs his tale drawing on a literary model, here the Bible. At one point in the text, the
narrator refers to the climax of St. Mark’s account of the life of Christ—the Passion—as one of the two stories that men
have repeated down through time. In fact, many structural and thematic elements found in “The Gospel According to
Mark”’ especially those associated with the ranch, are of an archetypal nature: the eternal way of life at La Colorada;
Baltasar’s dreams about the Flood; the representation of the ranch as an island; the fanaticism and superstitions that the
Gutres have in their blood; their identification with a primitive race of human beings; the circle of men strumming the
guitar. Through these primordial references, Borges evokes the dark, forgotten beginnings of existence.
Another set of symbols in “The Gospel According to Mark” issues from Christian mythology and is related to Baltasar and
his influence on the Gutre family. Curiously, he is not a confirmed believer and it is ironic not only that he should
introduce to them the concept of faith in a savior but also that he himself should be the victim in the crucifixion. The
chain of events leading up to that finish is seen to be no more than a series of accidents (how he arrives at La Colorada,
Daniel’s sudden departure, the rains that lead him to explore the house and find the Bible, his decision to practice
translation by reading the Gospel, the cure of the lamb, even his casual answers to the father’s questions). Thus, his
experience becomes a nightmare based on mistaken interpretation, more akin to a trip to hell than a return to paradise.
Summary
Baltasar Espinosa, a medical student in Buenos Aires, is invited by his cousin Daniel to vacation at a ranch in the district
of Junin in the final days of March, 1928. Gutre, who is the overseer of the premises, lives there with his son and a girl of
questionable paternity. All three are notably primitive in appearance and in their ability to express themselves verbally.
In that environment, Baltasar is to learn lessons about life that he has never before suspected.
A few days after arriving, Daniel must leave for the capital, but Baltasar chooses to stay behind with his textbooks. No
sooner is Daniel gone than the stifling heat gives way to a cold rain and the river overflows its banks. Many animals are
drowned, and when the overseer’s quarters are threatened, Baltasar lodges him and his family in the main house. It is
thus that the four come into close contact with one another. They eat together, but because communication is strained,
Baltasar reads to them, first from Ricardo Guiraldes’s work Don Segundo Sombra (1926; Don Segundo Sombra: Shadows
on the Pampas, 1935) and the document of the Gutre family history, both of which they receive rather
unenthusiastically, and later from the Bible, specifically the Gospel of Mark, which conversely sparks an unexplained
interest.
In the meantime, Baltasar has become cognizant of certain changes in his own physiognomy and attitude that have
taken place during his stay at the ranch. Matters that he would formerly have considered trivial have come to acquire
significance. Furthermore, he grows nostalgic for Buenos Aires and his family, from which he feels increasingly
separated.
One day, the girl brings to Baltasar an injured lamb that he cures using medicine rather than the spiderwebs she had
intended to...