Poemas

“El alacran de fray gomez”

Palma pretende explicar la frase: “Eso vale tanto como el alacrán de fray Gómez”. Cuenta primero algunos milagros delreligioso y luego la anécdota del alacrán. Un buhonero ahogado por las deudas va a pedirle un préstamo de quinientos duros, cifra imposible de conseguirpara fray Gómez, que vivía en la pobreza. Sin embargo, el religioso le entrega un alacrán que caminaba por su ventana para que pague sus deudas.
“lamuerte y la brujula”
A mystery story in which three crimes are comitted in geometrically related places (the vertices of an equilateral triangle) and atperiodic intervals of time. The detective Erik Lonrott deduces from several clues that the murders are ritual sacrifaces by a sect that tries to find theSecret Name of God, and that a fourth crime will be comitted in the fourth vertex of a rhombus. He goes there at the exact date hoping to prevent thecrime. Unfortunately, it turns out that the series of murders is all an elaborate plan designed to atract Lonrott to that place by a gangster that wantsto take revenge on him for imprisoning his brother, all the clues having been carefully faked. In the last paragraphs, Lonrott critizes the labyrinthwoven around him as uneconomical, telling his enemy that a labyrinth form of a straight line with points at regulary decreasing distances (as in Zeno'sParadox) is more elegant. Afterwards, he is shot. This is one of Borges' most perfect stories, with a masterful command of the language at every moment.