Experimentos en psicología

Hace más de un mes, en mi entrada Sobre el razonar, afirmaba yo que en ciertos experimentos de psicología había actores encargados de fingir. Stanley Milgram, de la City University of New York, realizó hace casi cincuenta años experimentos destinados a valorar la capacidad de distintos individuos para obedecer órdenes emanadas de la autoridad. Se escogieron al azar adultos voluntarios de todo el espectro social (al principio fueron sólo estudiantes), para que participaran como ‘maestros’ en un estudio dirigido a evaluar la relevancia del castigo corporal en el aprendizaje. Los ‘alumnos’ eran hombres sanos de aspecto agradable, de unos cincuenta años. Cada maestro se encargaba de un alumno al que se colocaba en una silla especial y al que podía ver y oír desde la habitación contigua. Cuando el alumno cometía un error, el maestro aplicaba una corriente eléctrica a la silla, cuya intensidad aumentaba con el número de errores, desde 15 voltios (choque ligero) hasta 450 voltios (choque severo, ya con la advertencia escrita de peligro).

En la misma habitación del maestro estaba el experimentador real, encargado de que aquel cumpliera su cometido. Los alumnos, actores que no recibían carga eléctrica alguna —esto no lo sabían los maestros, naturalmente—, acumulaban errores y fingían dolores de gravedad relacionada con la potencia de la descarga, llegando a pedir el abandono del experimento, por no poder soportar ya la tortura. Con intensidades altas, los gritos y las angustiosas peticiones del fin de la prueba crecían, lo que llevaba a los maestros a demandar también la interrupción al experimentador. Este no accedía e insistía en la necesidad de cumplir las órdenes con rigor, según el protocolo.

Previamente, un grupo de psiquiatras independiente había estimado que la mayoría de los maestros no pasaría de la descarga de 150 voltios y sólo uno de cada mil llegaría hasta la última intensidad. Pues, como diría un castizo, que Santa Lucía les conserve la vista: el 62 % de los maestros llegó a aplicar la descarga más potente. Todos pedían al alumno que se esforzara en contestar correctamente para no sufrir el castigo y disentían abiertamente del experimentador, but they did not disobey (pero no desobedecían). Repetido el estudio en circunstancias que incrementaban el prestigio de este, en la Universidad de Princeton, el porcentaje subió hasta el 85 %.

Un experimento casi idéntico se hizo con perritos encantadores a los que se entrenaba presuntamente para aprender una cierta conducta. Las descargas eran reales, aunque de intensidad incapaz de causar lesiones, y los maestros eran de los dos sexos. El 54 % de los hombres llegaron a la intensidad máxima y el 100 % de las mujeres. Estas, para sorpresa general, llegaban a llorar en la prueba, pero ninguna desobedeció.

He acortado la descripción del experimento y dejo al lector la extracción de las pertinentes conclusiones. El seguimiento ciego de las órdenes recibidas de un superior, puede causar todo tipo de sufrimientos, especialmente en circunstancias en las que se mezclan además el miedo a desobedecer, ambiente bélico, pérdida de la imparcialidad, el propio terror del ejecutor, etc. Sin llegar a esas condiciones extremas, la capacidad de obedecer a condicionamientos externos, legales o religiosos, o internos, de conciencia, puede explicar actitudes poco empáticas frente a situaciones que suponen dolencias o padecimientos intensos de otros seres humanos. Algo de esa acentuada disposición para obedecer se pretendió estudiar en los experimentos reseñados.

Escribió Sir Bertrand Russell que respecto al conocimiento humano hay dos preguntas importantes: ¿qué conocemos? y ¿cómo lo conocemos? En cuanto al cómo, la materia prima de nuestro conocer son estados mentales en las vidas de los individuos aislados. En este terreno, el enfoque psicológico es absolutamente decisivo. Todo esto se presta a muy diferentes interpretaciones y lo dejaremos aquí.  

Huellas de Borges

En mis tres entradas anteriores, quise agradecer a mis lectores de Estados Unidos su interés en este blog. Las escribí en inglés, porque estoy seguro de que, viviendo en aquel país, manejan perfectamente el inglés, aunque me lean en español. Pensé también que muchos de los que me siguen en España podrían leer esos textos. Utilicé una traducción de un relato mío, Una noche en Nueva York.

Naturalmente, vuelvo al castellano, la lengua que hablo menos mal. Ya dije cómo me intimida Borges cuando trato de escribir, porque veo un claro ejemplo de lo para mí inalcanzable. Por la misma razón, cuando sorprendo que coincidimos en algo, me llevo una gran alegría, sin olvidar las siderales distancias. La cultura —estoy dispuesto a conceder que tal vez sesgada, orientada hacia un  esoterismo inteligente y perturbador— permea todos los escritos borgianos. Mostré hace tiempo en este blog, un párrafo suyo en el que mencionaba las cimitarras de Nishapur, “en cuyos detenidos arcos de círculo parecían perdurar el viento y la violencia de la batalla”. En otro sitio nombra a alguien que murió en esa ciudad: Farid al-Din Abú Talib Muhámmad ben Ibrahim Attar, poeta y místico persa de la segunda mitad del siglo XII, víctima, precisamente en Nishapur, de los soldados de Tule, hijo de Gengis Kan, cuando expoliaron la ciudad en el año 1221.

Y aquí se da una de esas coincidencias que me animan y exaltan. En un relato mío, El reino de Ta, me ocupo yo también del mismo poeta —de su Mantiq al Tayr (La conferencia de los pájaros), su obra más importante—, buscando indagar en la inasible naturaleza de un Dios casi siempre oculto. En ese relato sugiero una posible forma de felicidad en la vida ultraterrena, reviviendo, embellecido y múltiple, el pasado en la Tierra. Pues resulta que Borges menciona una idea del “pasado modificable” de Charles Howard Hinton, un escritor y matemático británico muy interesado en el concepto de la cuarta dimensión. No sé más de este autor, pero prometo perseguirlo con cierto ahínco. Ese es otro de los dones de Borges: su capacidad para incitarte a descubrir autores y mundos apasionantes y ubérrimos.

En otro momento habla Borges del rabino Simeón ben Azaí, que vio el paraíso y murió, y del famoso hechicero Juan de Viterbo, que enloqueció cuando pudo ver a la Trinidad. Perdóname, lector, si sucumbo a la tentación de copiarte un fragmento de otro relato mío, Viaje a Baviera, en el que el protagonista, a su regreso a España, cuenta:

 

        “No sé hasta cuándo podré soportar este sentimiento de privación y desamparo. Tras haber visto lo que he visto, no tiene sentido permanecer en el mundo. No lamento mi experiencia en Baviera y lo que me pregunto es por qué me sucedió a mí. Conozco bien la tradición mística, del antiguo Israel, de los cuatro sabios que vieron al Paraíso. El primero, Shimón ben Azai, lo contempló y murió en el acto. El segundo, Shimón ben Zoma, miró la Luz Brillante del Ha-Shem, no pudo resistirla y perdió la razón por completo. El tercero, Elisha Aher, vio la misma luz, comprendió que nada existe sino Dios, que nada vale ante Él, y abandonó para siempre el estudio de la Torah. El cuarto, el rabí Akiva ben Yosef, nombrado en el Talmud ‘cabeza de todos los sabios’, regresó esclarecido e indemne. Murió en Cesarea, mártir de los romanos, recitando la ‘shemá’, lleno de gozo y alegría. Yo también regresé, pero temo volverme loco, como Shimón ben Zoma, y anhelo con toda mi alma revivir lo que viví”.

        Estos pequeños paralelismos me hacen pensar que quizá uno no leyó del todo en vano, que algo del tiempo que dediqué al estudio no se perdió. Son como migajas del pan de Borges, como huellas suyas que encontrara en mi camino. Me reconcilian con él y me estimulan a seguir, a seguirle.

A night in New York (3)

        After the Spaniards, the most numerous readers of my blog are from USA. For this reason, I would like to write this post in English. This is the third part of my short story A night in New York, which I started in a previous post. With my best wishes to my North-American readers. 

 

  

A NIGHT IN NEW YORK (part 3 of 3)

¾ Why are you here? ¾asked abruptly the man in the blue coat¾. I have the impression that you could get out as soon as you wanted, to hold any important position¾, you said smiling.

¾ I held them for too long. They did not make me happy and I regretted many times to have remained in this city, because I thought that things could have been different in some other place. Later I have understood that everything is the same everywhere. Look, I told you earlier some reasons, the most frequent, why people come here to the Bowery. There is one more, less frequent and of a more philosophical nature. You already said that I am a little philosopher. And you guessed it right because you are sophisticated too, this can be noticed at once. I will tell you that, in a certain sense, in fact I am a philosopher. I prefer to stay here rather that in this crazy world outside. Crazy, cruel, unjust and tragic. You know the legend that Peter Stuyevsant buried heaps of gold in his farm and there are still people who expect to find them somewhere here. I can tell you that, in a way, I have found that gold since I live apart on the Bowery.

¾ I can understand you perfectly. But I tell you, however, that there was a time when I truly believed that the world could be of milk and honey. And, for whatever reasons, this happened while I was living in this city.

¾ You were happy here because you were young and you will agree that you would have been happy then in any place. If you had continued living here you would surely have a less embellished view of the city. Although I also grant you, because all my life I have tried to be fair and reasonable, that in truth this is a good place to be hopeful. Perhaps the best place in the world. And now, I will bid you farewell; it is rather late even for me.

The bum started to pick up his belongings getting ready to go to sleep. Suddenly, he spoke again to the foreigner.

¾ What I have told you about the world was very clearly stated by your admired and beloved Goethe. I will quote by heart, but I will not be too wrong: “All things of this world are finally trifles and he who, in order to please others, against his needs and likings, gets exhausted chasing after honors, fortune or anything else is always a crazy man”. It comes from Werther.

The engineer started to feel something very close to fascination towards the bum. “How do you know that I am an admirer of Goethe? Are you not a kind of a wizard too?”.

¾ Goethe is an admirable author and clearly you are a sensitive person who have to admire him immensely. And besides this night, when you set out to take a grave decision, you decided to dress up a little like Werther, who wore for that occasion a blue tailcoat and a yellow vest. You know that after the publication of the novel there was almost an epidemic of youngsters’ suicides dressed up in the same fashion.

The man in the blue coat could not help a smile. It was true that his yellow foulard was more than a last coquettishness. Since he read Werther, being a youth, he always thought that, if once life became a burden and he decided to escape, he would like to do it in an elegant manner and wearing something similar to the young and unfortunate Werther.

¾ You are right; my clothes are not entirely casual. I always dreamt of a dignified and esthetically irreproachable death, with all details well taken care of. That is why I had always thought of this city in full night. And, of course, I admire Goethe very much.

¾ It is relatively easy to prepare one’s death, from the esthetical point of view. What is really difficult is to live that way. But this is the only thing worthy. A life far from vulgarity, vain people, stupid honors, disloyal competitions, adulation, the thousands of tricks, hypocrisy, servility and so many other things. This is what you should keep trying. Especially now that, for many reasons, you can be freer than ever and nothing can be too important for you. I tell you that, not as a moralist ¾I do not like them¾ but as an esthetician. And I think that this is what you are going to do after all. Tonight you will end up in your room at the Waldorf and tomorrow you will see things in another light. There, many times though not always, they had good cuisine.

¾ Tell me, please, why do you think I will go to the hotel? I can assure you that I did not think that when I left my room many hours ago. I left a letter…

¾ I do not know exactly. Perhaps because you keep too many memories. Memories make us sometime suffer, but they help us too, because they are the best, the only proof of that we have not lived in vain. And now I leave you. Good luck.

The engineer saw how the bum walked slowly out and followed him with his eyes for a while. Then, although he saw only his back, waved to him goodbye with his hand and left the place too. He was wandering for quite some time, crossing empty streets and squares in which there were only some cars and was getting closer to the pedestrian access to Brooklyn Bridge. Finally he reached the pedestrian platform and started walking very slowly, admiring once again the imposing structure and the beauty of the design. John Roebling, who built it, was born almost 200 years ago in a small village in Germany. He had, like many others, powerful dreams and emigrated to the United States in 1831, aged 25 years. In 1852, going from Manhattan to Brooklyn on the ferry that crossed the East River, he conceived the idea of building the bridge. When he finally got his project approved, in 1869, he and his son Washington were one day inspecting the boarding pier of the ferry, looking for the place to start the construction. John did not see a boat arriving and the hull crushed his foot. The wound became seriously infected and he died a month later. During all this time, from his bed, he could see the works and tried to manage them with the help of his wife who went tirelessly between her husband and the workers carrying orders and news, with a mixture of abnegation, rage and stubbornness. It was his son Washington, already first generation American and born in Pennsylvania, who finished it. Walt Whitman had also dreamt of a bridge embracing Manhattan and Brooklyn and had baptized this future unified land with the name of Brooklyniana, in his poem Crossing the Brooklyn ferry. He had chanted the fleeting character of human lives against the tenacious and perennial Nature: Other will see the islands large and small; / [...] / a hundred years hence, or ever / so many hundred years hence, / others will see them, / will enjoy the sunset, the pouring in of the flood-tide, / the falling back to the sea of the ebb-tide.

Some other writers, like Hart Crane, Lewis Mumford or Alan Trachtenberg wrote about the bridge. Painters took it to canvases like Joseph Stella or John Marin. The bridge was a motive of pride, of confidence in the future for a nation that had been on the verge of being destroyed in a devastating and tragic civil war. They started to call it the eighth world wonder.

You, Arturo, knew details of all this ¾even some that not many people knew¾ because you had given many talks and attended conferences on the subject of New York bridges. Some of them were the work of European immigrants who looked for a country where they could fulfill their ambitions and projects. There are many things worthy to fight for, you thought. In your memory, a legion of fighters, visionaries, entrepreneurs, assembled suddenly and you understood that all the grandeur that you were contemplating and that moved you so intensely was due to them, had not sprung by some spontaneous and gratuitous blessing of nature but it was a work of men or heroes. You remembered once more John Roebling, struggling to reach his dream while he was dying. ¡This was a good and beautiful way to die! It was already almost dawn and you remembered the terrible verses from Lorca’s Poet in New York: La aurora de Nueva York gime / por las inmensas escaleras / [...] / La aurora llega y nadie la recibe en su boca, / porque allí no hay mañana ni esperanza posible*. You found them strange, impossible to share and unjust.

At that moment, a police car approached and they asked you, from inside, if you wanted or needed something. You answered that you were only looking for a cab to return to your hotel. The policemen offered to take you. “Are you sure that you are O.K.?”, they asked you again, once in the car, with a certain worry. “I am perfectly”, you answered. In your first years in America, some time the police had stopped you for some light traffic violation and when you explained or gave some excuse they had always dismissed the charge. Surely, you thought now, some form of innocence traveled then in your eyes for which everything was forgiven to you. Like now in those of the younger policeman who after arriving at the hotel got out of the car, accompanied you to the reception desk, shook your hand and finally, with his fist closed and the thumb stretched up, said «Riyal Madrid» or something similar. It is something that human beings have while they are young and then it is lost irretrievably. Except perhaps in exceptional cases.

You went to the bathroom, wetted your face with a towel soaked in warm water, put a pajama on and got to bed. You left some time to pass. At 8.20 you called the hospital and talked to Dr. Sethna. “Yes, good morning. Tell me. I am glad, Mr. Villar, I think that you have made the right decision. Come this afternoon, at 3 p. m. We have to do some more tests before starting treatment. Do not eat anything after noon; I will be here. Until later, then”. Dr. Sethna looked in his archive and got a card with the name Mr. Arturo Villar. He crossed out the notice Patient declined treatment and wrote Patient will start treatment as soon as possible.

In the hotel room a man took refuge in the sleep. At 2 p.m. he was awakened as he had ordered. He got ready fast, went to the hospital and once there was taken immediately to Dr. Sethna. They studied all the practical aspects of the treatment: the first cycle would be done in New York to study and control his response but he could continue in Madrid, without any problem. They drew blood from him to do some more tests and he had something to arrange in the Admissions office. Once everything was over, the engineer returned to the hotel and dined since he had not eaten in the whole day. Later, still in daylight, he decided to take a cab for the Bowery, to the same area where he had been the night before. He arrived at the exact spot but he did not see the bum he was looking for and only found the tall man with the black scarf. He spoke to him and asked him directly: “Have you seen the man who was with me yesterday? Do you know where he might be? He told me that he is always here…”.

The tall tramp seemed not to understand him and the man asked anew: “Do you not remember me? Last night…”.

¾ Yes, I remember you perfectly. You gave me money the past night. I have recognized you at once.

¾ Then, where can he be, the man who was with me?

The bum looked at him again surprised and bewildered and answered him: “you will excuse me, Sir. I have already told you that I have recognized you immediately. But there was no one with you last night. You arrived in a cab and then you sat here alone, in this place for a good moment. I was observing you for quite long and finally I decided to ask you for some money. You gave it to me and a little later you left. But you were all the time alone, you were never with anyone; this I can assure you. You remember wrongly or have become confused”.

The engineer did not insist more. There was still a red copper color in the horizon, at the end of the streets coursing towards the Hudson River. The Bowery looked desolate and dirty much more perceptibly in daylight. He felt uncomfortable and returned to the hotel. He was disturbed by the memory of the mysterious bum on the Bowery. It could not be a hallucination; he had to exist in reality! Probably the vagabond with the scarf had been peeping on him only part of the time and was wrong by saying that he had been always alone. At any rate, it was very reasonable what the bum had told him. He thought then that he should try simply to live, to finish sweetly what might remain of life. Instead of installing himself melancholically in the past it could be tempting to abandon oneself and to dream. And to be hopeful. He remembered these words of the Kybalion, the treaty on hermetic philosophy of Egypt and Greece dedicated to Hermes Trismegistos (Hermes, thrice Great): Everything is dual; everything has two poles; everything has a pair of opposites; similar and antagonistic are the same; the opposites are identical in nature, but of different degree; the extremes meet; all truths are half truths; all paradoxes can be reconciled.

You yourself were surprised to remember these words read so many years ago, in the past. You have never believed neither in magic nor in esoteric sciences and have always been proud of being a rational man. Imagine if at the end you are going to grasp to all that, you smiled. No, obviously not. But it is also human to cling to something, to think, when everything is over, that it is never too late for anything, that there still can be a way through, a possibility, remote but real, of still exhausting the splendid sap of life, of the happiness that exists also in life. Youth and old age, life and death. Everything is the same, everything gets fused and only remains, as a last residue, the pure and incomprehensible sum of fatuities and hazards that we call existence.

---

* Dawn in New York cries / in the immense staircases / […] / The first light of dawn arrives and no one receives it in his mouth, / because here there are neither tomorrow nor possible hope.

A night in New York (2)

After the Spaniards, the most numerous readers of my blog are from USA. For this reason, I would like to write this post in English. This is the second part of my short story A night in New York, which I started in a previous post. With my best wishes to my North-American readers.

A NIGHT IN NEW YORK (part 2 of 3)

There were in the place where he was left some men lying on cardboards, protecting themselves against the house walls and wrapped in blankets. Almost all of them were asleep. One of them, however, with a relatively trimmed beard and very long hair was sitting on the sidewalk with a big bottle of milk on the floor and, almost automatically, you walked towards him. When he saw you he could not avoid a movement of amazement and spontaneous precaution. Then he looked upon you more in detail and talked to you: “What are you looking for here, brother?”.

¾ I am not looking for anything. And you, what are you looking for?¾, you answered with a hint of irritation.

The bum drank a long sip of his bottle and his eyes tried again to fix the newcomer. He offered him to drink but the man in blue coat refused politely.

¾ You are not from here, I am ¾said he finally, answering in a certain way his question¾. Not always I have been here, but I have been for some years already and I know many things. I know that, from time to time, someone like you comes to this street, any night that surely is not just one more for him. They are not many but there are some; you must know that you are not the first one. They never come back ¾the bum stared at him¾. You are not poor, but something happens to you that is worse and more ineludible than poverty and that can easily occur without being poor, because wealth protects men only in a very deficient manner and only in case of minor calamities. You come here because you confusedly look for something, which is not easy to get, even here on the Bowery. This is miserable place but most of the times it is quiet and even peaceful. I do not know if you get me.

The man in blue coat felt obliged to concentrate his attention in the figure of the vagabond, surprised by his words and with the unpleasant feeling that he had understood too fast and too easily what had brought him there. The hobo seemed to be more or less of his same age and spoke English with a very slight accent, almost imperceptible.

¾ I understand you very well ¾answered humbly the engineer¾, and I see that you are a little philosopher and perhaps a little foreteller. Have you always been that way or is it something that develops while living on the Bowery? And you were not born in New York, where are you from?

¾ In truth, now I could only say that I am American, although I was born in a country probably not far from yours or perhaps in yours ¾answered nonchalantly the bum¾. But I chose to remain here. I will tell you that on the Bowery there are all kinds of types and one arrives here by many different ways. Human beings are extraordinarily vulnerable; I mean, there are many misfortunes, which they are continuously exposed to. One day misfortune bites you deep in the heart, grasps you really firm and you get convinced that it will never leave you off. And everything that looked solid and stable collapses in a few minutes. At the beginning, not even oneself can explain what is going on. Here there are thousands of stories. Only the recently stricken sometime tell their story. Later you learn that it is not worthwhile. Not because people do not try to listen and understand but because it is not easy to explain them, probably because one self does not comprehend the thing wholly. I am not going to tell you anything. Nor are you in condition to listen. Now you must try to solve your problem.

¾ My problem is already solved and all I need is some determination or help.

¾ The really important problems are never totally solved. On the other hand, you will not find here that kind of help. In the worst case, you only can get robbed and beaten just enough so they can steal your money if you try to resist. Even that is not easy or warranted, although some time it may happen. No, you will have to be the one to take any decision. Think it over, brother.

That very morning, in a luxurious and aseptic ambiance, an Indian physician, a famous specialist, in one of the most prestigious hospitals of New York, had urged you in the same sense. Interestingly, the message reached you now infinitely closer and warmer, more naked, more urgent and unrejectable. “I will think it over”, you answered, convinced by the tramp’s reasons, “but I assure you that it has been a long time that I have been dwelling on that. I truly think that you are right and I am not going to solve my problems among you. Can I do something for you?”.

¾ If things are as I believe, I guess that it will cost you nothing to give me fifty dollars. If it is so, please give them to me. Not every night someone like you comes to this place. Perhaps this extravagancy comes more easily to a foreigner. But if you give me the money, then you are entitled to tell me your story and I have the duty to listen to it. There are rules. Something very similar do some special doctors who treat people not completely sane; that is, all kind of people: you, everyone, and I. Besides, perhaps your story is somehow different. The vast majority is composed of variants of a few scripts that repeat themselves once and again. But as you are, after all, a foreigner, it may be that you bring something new. What intrigues me is why you have decided to solve your problem precisely here, in New York.

¾ Because I was very happy here many years ago, had many friends and never I felt as a foreigner. We were quite diverse people, some born here and some not, but all fascinated by the city without any restraint or measure. We knew it very well, not only its urban immensity and its multiple reality but also its history, from the initial foundation. We were proud of that and had promised, more or less seriously, not to accept in our group anyone who did not know without hesitation, which one was the wooden leg of Peter Stuyvesant or the name of the channel, which limits the northern part of Manhattan Island. By the way, Peter Stuyvesant lost his own leg, the one of flesh and bone, due to a canon ball wound while fighting against the Spaniards in Saint Martin Island.

¾ The wooden leg was the right one and is was so covered and embellished by silver pieces that many spoke of his silver leg. He himself said that it was his good leg and worthier than all his other extremities put together. You know that he died not far from here; on the piece of land he had bought close to a path used probably by the native Indians, where he lived happily his last years with his wife and two children. This area took the name of the Dutch word for farm (bouwerie). He is buried in the nearby St. Mark church. And Manhattan is limited on the North side by the Suiten Duyvil Creek. I tell you all that to pass tour test and by doing so you can accept me tonight as a confident.

¾ And he was in good terms with the English colonel, Richard Nicolls, to whom he had surrendered the city, in 1664. In the message that the latter sent to Massachussets informing about the victory he already named the city as New York, to honor the Duke of York, to whom his brother Charles II of England had left all the rights upon the English colonies in America. It was an interesting period of time, different and relatively distant for what it is this land’s history. There also was an ephemeral Swedish establishment in Delaware valley and, decades before, Henry Hudson explored the river, which subsequently bore his name, searching, although it may now seem incredible to us, the longed for northwestern pass from the Atlantic Ocean to China.

¾ But apart from this normal longing for your youth, what happens to you now?

¾ What happens is something very simple that, at the end, happens to everyone except to a few who have the fortune of not being aware because everything occurs in a flash, without warnings: I have a serious disease of which I will probably die. You know now the essentials and it does not matter much whether it is the lung or the pancreas that kills you. Finally, it is the same thing.

¾ ¡Ah, in no way, there are differences! The pancreas is a great bastard; I tell you that have already had two bouts of pancreatitis. It really is a very moody organ. And lacking the due respect for innocent people because it seems that these pancreatitis occur to those who abuse alcohol and I have only drunk milk all my life. And besides, for the layman it is not even clear what it is good for. On the other hand, lungs have their mission. How could we smoke if we did not have lungs? ¾finished the tramp with a great laughter¾. Well, in fact I never smoked too much and now it is twenty years that I quitted.

¾ My pancreas has been respectful to me so far. My problems do not come from there.

¾ Yeah… I am sorry pal. Most of the times the problems that anguish us have to do with disease and death; a few other, every time less, with love, and very few with wealth. I have been able to realize, beyond any reasonable doubt, that the loss of power is more unbearable than that of wealth. Coming back to your case, what I always ask myself in these cases is: what is the hurry? Is it so terrible to wait whatever time is needed? Have you severe pain or discomfort?

¾ No, not for the time being. And it is not because of the waiting either. In my case, I sincerely think that is something of an esthetic nature, as a kind of biographical reconsideration. I would like to die with the image of this city in my eyes. It would be an elegant way to pay an old debt that I have with New York, because it was propitious to me and I left it.

¾ The things that we believe to have left behind are those that accompany us more continuously. In respect to the city, it is going to be here for centuries and nothing or nobody will be able to destroy it, do you hear me? Because it has been built by men from all over the world who believed themselves to be something more than men. This is what tells you this American bum ¾continued now with irrepressible pride¾. And you will always have time to repeat this nocturnal tour, coming to the Bowery or wherever your fantasy or whims may carry you.

The man in blue coat remained silent, with his look lost in some place or time well far away. Finally, he continued:

¾ You are probably right in everything. I think I would better go now, because I still have to see what I am going to do. I will give you the money ¾said the engineer, taking a disordered bunch of bills mixed with some papers out of an inner pocket of his coat¾.

¾ Wait, I will make some light ¾said the hobo, lighting a lantern. The man put some order in his papers, found two 50-dollar bills and gave him one¾. Do you want something more? ¾ he asked him with the other 50-dollar bill in his hand.

¾No, it is enough. Thanks.

The engineer turned then his head to the left, disturbed by a light noise of steps, and found close to them another bum of high stature and with his face almost hidden by an enormous scarf wrapped many times around his neck. He had likely observed the scene and had come closer to ask for money. “Please, give something to me too”, said he with a voice not exempt of sweetness. The man in the blue coat looked at the first tramp, who seemed to make a sign of acquiescence, and gave the other bill to the newcomer, who then left immediately as if he were afraid of a sudden change of heart. There remained again the two men alone.

¾ He is a good man. I know him only two passions: alcohol and, when he is not drunk, cleanliness. Being sober, he is all the time cleaning up his room in the flophouse.

The tramp looked again at the engineer and recommended: “Do not be in a hurry, wait. Some 10-15 % possibilities of cure is something worthy to wait for and justifies an attempt to fight”.

The man did not remember having mentioned at any time these details and asked himself how the bum could know the exact percentages that the doctor had mentioned this very morning. “How do you know these figures, these percentages?”, he inquired in wonder.

¾ Do not think that I am a clairvoyant because of that. I go to doctors too and in this city they practice a modern and scientific medicine and people die very well investigated. Now all doctors, even those who take care of us, the poor, are always talking of percentages. If someone is thinking of what you are thinking tonight it is because they did not give him too a great hope. But no reasonable “doc” ¾they are very careful at that¾ would advance a too tiny percentage, less than 10 %. Given that, besides, there is always an associated degree of uncertainty, an error presumption, 10-15 % seemed to me a quite likely option. But I tell you that I am not a foreteller. Nevertheless, I will make a very specific prediction. I think that today, at the end, you will decide to wait and this night you will end up sleeping in your room at the Waldorf.

This time the man in the blue coat could not overcome his astonishment. “Who are you? How do you know that I am lodging at the Waldorf?”.

The bum broke into a loud laughter. “How do I know? Well, only because I have seen your client card among the bills that you showed before. You have some disorder there, although I understand that tonight is not just any night for you”.

 

A night in New York (1)

To the reader:

I lived some years in New York, after finishing my studies in Spain. A friend of mine, who was born and lives in that city, studied Medicine in Madrid a little later. Whenever we meet, I remember my years in New York as probably the happiest of my life and so does my friend his years in Madrid. Another friend of mine, who lives now in Canada but studied in Paris, cannot refrain from making periodic ‘pilgrimages’ to the ville lumière. In fact, we all pursue and yearn for the same: the time bygone, our youth, when the whole life lay still ahead and seemed eternal.

After the Spaniards, the most numerous readers of my blog are from USA. For this reason, I would like to write this post in English. I will resume (again from the beginning) my short story A night in New York, which I started in a previous post, and will complete in two more posts in the next days. With my best wishes to my North-American readers.

TRADUCCIÓN AL ESPAÑOL:

Al lector:

Viví algunos años en Nueva York, recién terminada mi carrera en España. Un amigo mío, que nació y vive en esa ciudad, estudió Medicina en Madrid más o menos por la misma época. Cuando nos encontramos, yo recuerdo mis años de Nueva York como quizá los más felices de mi vida y él piensa lo mismo de sus años de Madrid. Otro amigo mío que vive ahora en Canadá, estudió Medicina en París y no puede evitar periódicas peregrinaciones a esa ciudad. En el fondo, todos perseguimos y añoramos lo mismo: el tiempo que se fue, nuestra juventud, cuando toda la vida estaba aún por delante y parecía eterna.

Tras los españoles, los lectores más numerosos de mi blog son de USA. Por esta razón, querría escribir esta entrada de mi blog en inglés. Continuaré (otra vez desde el principio) mi relato Una noche en Nueva York, que empecé en otra entrada anterior y terminaré en dos entradas más en los próximos días. Con mis mejores deseos para mis lectores norteamericanos.

 

A NIGHT IN NEW YORK (part 1 of 3)

It is such an amazing fantasy of stone, glass, and

iron, a fantasy constructed by crazy giants,

monsters longing after beauty, stormy souls full of

wild energy. All these Berlins, Parises, and other

"big" cities are trifle in comparison with New York.

(of a letter from Máxim Gorki to Leonid Andreev on his

first impressions of New York, April 11, 1906)

These were already years of apathy and boredom. He had come to New York as an obliged step in his rational approach to the problem, because he wanted to have all the data and with all possible accuracy. He did not come to this city as often as before but he had always thought that, faced with a life threatening and serious disease, he would like to rely on some other medical opinion, precisely here, taking advantage of the relative ease to come and the friends and connections that he still had. Then, once in the city, he had decided not to contact anyone until knowing the definitive results of the tests and medical examinations. But this was not planned, this was a last minute decision.

And there also was that other desire, large and turbidly caressed: that of coming here to die, disturbing no one, far from his reduced family and the old friends, in the city where he was so happy and where, in a certain sense, he had achieved everything. The city that he had nevertheless abandoned later. He had always experienced his return to Spain as a sort of betrayal to this New York in which his best dreams had become true. Why had he not remained here, why had he not spent his life here? Is that we know why we do the things we do?

Many a time he had imagined himself awaiting serenely his death at night, in some quiet place, isolated in the immense city, gazing once more at the fascinating spectacle of the nocturnal town that he had seen so many times coming to Manhattan, or returning, crossing some of the bridges that he normally transited, Queensboro or Brooklyn. New York is a city of light, of activity, of night and dreams. He still remembered his first trips on board the Staten Island ferry, in working days ¾ “there are more lights then”, he had been told¾, with the skyscrapers ablaze, alone or with some other friends, other foreigners like him, taking part in the tours organized by the club in which he inscribed himself just upon his arrival, located in the very center of Manhattan, the Midtown International Center.

In these tours the guide, a volunteer, a Jew of German background but born already here, would always pose questions, happy to be able to show for the first time so intense beauty to such heterogeneous groups: “What do you think, what does it remind you, what does it suggest to you?” ¡And so many different answers! All loaded with emotion, pointing all out the glorious show of the city flooded with light, exploding in light, like some inextinguishable fireworks, sprouting unstoppable from the waters, planted there by the effort of true titans, full of energy and life. It was a magic vision that evoked hidden and powerful giants, men capable of looking face to face to gods, men who were as worthy as gods, who perhaps were real gods and had forever stolen the sacred fire from the gods.

That wonder finished slowly and not completely every night, but one had the certainty of its daily and eternal renewal. And the same thing when crossing the innumerable bridges or climbing the Empire State or going to the delightful bar at the top floor of 666 Fifth Avenue. It would truly be a privilege to have that image in front of the eyes while bidding farewell to the world, to have it in the retina when everything were over.

In the hospital they had given him definitive results that very morning and they were practically the same as those of Madrid. There was little hope and the treatment would be prolonged and hard. He refused to be treated and the doctor tried to convince him but did not insist much once he saw the patient’s determination. “If you change your mind, Mr. Villar, please, call this number. If you are going to start, it is convenient to do it at once. Think it over, you still have 10-15 % chances of recovery”, he said while writing on a card with the name Mr. Arturo Villar: Duly informed, the patient declined treatment.

He left the hospital and started walking on Fifth Avenue. He saw himself forty years back, driving a car in the same street. He was then 25 years old, had arrived to New York a few months earlier to work as a civil engineer and had adapted himself quickly. He had been born in a small village in the South of Spain and did not have a car there, although he had obtained a driving license. The car was almost new and the woman who had sold it to him, when she realized how little experience he had at driving, insisted, calling him by his first name, as almost everyone did at that time: “Arturo, be very careful, please; promise me that you’ll be very careful”. As if she were an old friend, sincerely worried about him. She was young too; all were young then.

He returned to the hotel ¾he had fancied to lodge at the Waldorf Astoria, in Park Avenue¾, had just a snack in one of the bars and went to his room for a rest. Around 6 p.m. he dressed up with a care unusual in the latter times, left a letter addressed to the Hotel Director, put on a light blue cashmere overcoat with a mild yellow foulard and took a cab to Katz’s, on Houston St. It had been a long time that he had not gone there. He saw once again at the entrance pictures of Presidents of the United States who had eaten some time at the popular and famous delicatessen. He had a pastrami sandwich on rye bread and amused himself looking at the array of clients that crowded the tables of the self-service: people of all races and conditions, some in family groups, not excessively noisy.

When he left the restaurant it was almost dark. He took another cab to Battery Park, to the terminal of the Staten Island ferry and embarked on the first one available. Most of the travelers were people returning home after a tiring workday in Manhattan. He saw again the illuminated city skyline as he had seen it so many times when he was living here, without the World Trade Center towers that were not built then and had been destroyed now. The mystery and charm of that infinite Babel flooded again his heart: “Nueva York, ¿qué ángel llevas oculto en la mejilla?”^*. Even García Lorca, who arrived at the city in 1929, tormented by a terrible personal crisis, who was utterly unhappy in this country and wrote in those months some of the saddest and most lonesome verses in the history of poetry, came at some moment to perceive this something angelic and glorious that has here the landscape. This feeling of unlimited confidence in life, of exciting harvest of hopes. “Por el East River y el Bronx / los muchachos cantaban enseñando sus cinturas”^*, chanted Federico in his Ode to Walt Whitman.

Returning to Manhattan, while he approached the multicolor mountain, to the left stood the Statue of Liberty, this gigantic and laic goddess who dazzled so many and to whom the man with the blue coat thought he had honored and offered sacrifices more than to any other. Some time ago, when an enormous blackout had extinguished the lights of the New York city, the statue had remained illuminated as a symbol of what cannot be ever destroyed: the longing for freedom. Life, you told yourself, as you looked the statue, can be happy or disgraceful, fulfilled or miserable, but if it is not free it is not properly a life. And you remembered how moved you were when you visited her, just arrived in the city and the poem inscribed on the bronze plaque of the pedestal: “Give me your tired, your poor, / your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, / the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. / Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, / I lift my lamp beside the golden door”

You learned later that these emotive verses had been written by a woman, Emma Lazarus, a Sephardic Jew belonging to one of the oldest Jewish families in town. The statue, “Freedom lighting up the world”, was erected in 1886 but did not have by her Emma’s words till 1901, when Emma had already died, aged only 38. At the inauguration in 1886, President Grover Cleveland had asked for “her light, the light of freedom, may pierce the darkness of human ignorance and oppression”.

Unfortunately, there is not any paradise on this earth of ours. The poet Leon Felipe wrote: “Sabemos que no hay tierra / ni estrellas prometidas”^**. The United States is not either. But there is something, however, derived directly from the Founding Fathers, that is pregnant of longing for freedom and justice. In spite of everything, it is beautiful to erect statues to ideas and finally there are not so many. The fact that reality always falls short of the professed ideals does not justify scorning them. America is a good country for those who come to her and bring a dream. Not everyone fulfills it, obviously, but you still think, now that you are about to leave everything, that here it is probably easier that elsewhere in the world. Although now, that you make this trip for the last time, you also understand that almost all human ambitions are mad desires. You are having the temptation of finishing your trip here, not because any circumstantial whim or sudden weakness but because you know that this city has been forged with illusions and keeps the value to which you have dedicated more vigorously your life: freedom. But for the moment you want to reach again Manhattan’s tip and ramble a last time through the old paths, when your heart took you from one place to another, fluttering and zigzagging as a young bird learning to fly.

Once landed, the man in blue coat took a cab: “I want to make a tour of about two hours, have you the time?”, he asked the driver. “Yes”, answered he, after having studied briefly the man to gauge whether he could pay for the service. “We will then go to Union Square and from there, by Broadway, to 72^nd street. Then we will drive by the West Side Highway, southbound. I want to cross the Brooklyn bridge and reach later Verrazano Bridge. We will stop somewhere”.

It was already late and there were few people in the streets. Only arriving at 42^nd street, in Times Square, there were crowds and nocturnal life. When they arrived at 72^nd street, the man asked the driver to wait and, before he said anything, gave him a 100-dollar bill. “Wait for me a moment, please”. He walked a little, looking for the number of a house. When he found it he looked at the building and was amazed to realize that he was unable to recognize anything, neither the door, nor the windows nor any other detail of the house. He had gone there so many times and now he could not remember a single feature of the building. He became sad. Why memory is also destroyed, of what fragile and poor material are made our memories? But it persists, and you can trace it, the happiness associated with remembrances, you answered yourself. Something remains forever. And you saw yourself in those eternal summer evenings, savoring deeply life with Susan and then returning to Brooklyn by the route that you were to partially take now, reaching the tip of Manhattan island, leaving always to your left that enchanted and secret forest, of changing lights, into which the city turned itself at night.

With the cab they followed now the same itinerary and they headed for Brooklyn, crossing Brooklyn Bridge. In nothing had diminished the beauty of the scenery, although he understood that now other human beings would be called to enjoy the plenitude of the days, as he and Susan had done so many years ago, and could not avoid even the feeling of being coercing almost fraudulently reality, trying to rip from it something that it did not belong to him in strict justice. He remembered, as he did so often, the companion of so many years so atrociously absent. Immersed in so much nostalgia, he, nevertheless, did not fail to perceive that life was still there, intact, powerful, inextinguishable and vibrant, albeit it was now for others. And that memories brought to him, in spite of everything, the gift of a balmy and calm happiness. After some time they crossed Brooklyn and arrived at Verrazano bridge. The bridge had been inaugurated exactly the year when the Spanish engineer arrived in America, in 1964. It was built by another engineer, born in Switzerland, Othmar H. Ammann, who emigrated to the United States at the age of 25 years, because he had the implacable dream of building bridges and thought that this country was the most appropriated to accomplish that dream. At that time it was the longest suspended bridge in the world. It took its name from the first European who explored what is today New York harbor, Giovanni da Verrazano, in 1524. The suspension towers are not exactly parallel because they must adapt to earth’s sphericity, so they are four centimeters further apart in their upper poles that in their bases. The contractions and expansions of its metallic structures cause the bridge to be four meters lower in summer than in winter. Ammann had also worked on Quennsboro Bridge as a helper of Gustav Lindenthal, an Austrian who emigrated to the United States aged 24 years, surely haunted by unpostponable designs.

It was almost 3 a.m. and he asked the driver to turn around to come back to Manhattan and leave him on Bowery Street. The driver asked him sharp but politely: “Are you sure, Sir, that you want to be left there?”, surprised by the proposed destination and the man answered without hesitation: “Yes, it is there where I want to go. Do not worry”. When they arrived, the man paid him and gave him a good tip. The driver could not help offering a last recommendation: “Take good care, Sir, you are not in the best part of New York”. “I know, thank you”, he answered. This is precisely what I am looking for, he thought.

---

* New York, what angel do you keep hidden in your chick?

* By the East River and Bronx the youths chanted showing their waists.

** We know that there are not promised land or stars.

Sobre los comentarios en los blogs

Hace poco me he metido no sé cómo en la página web de un famoso jugador de fútbol. Cuenta un largo paseo por Madrid y su encuentro con un amigo para comer en un conocido restaurante de cocina casera. Habla también de que el día siguiente ha de viajar a Inglaterra para un partido de Champions y augura el triunfo allí de su equipo.

Se trata de una amable confidencia y todo está escrito con la llaneza apropiada. Lo que no entiendo muy bien es que, en sólo veinticuatro horas, haya suscitado 295 comentarios de todo tipo. No veo la imprescindible materia para generar ese abrumador aluvión de opiniones, incluso teniendo en cuenta que muchas de ellas son charlas entre los propios comentaristas, que se recomiendan fármacos para diversas dolencias, en general de poca gravedad, y cosas parecidas.

El escritor Herbert Quain argumentaba que no hay europeo que no sea un escritor, en potencia o en acto, y pretendía que los lectores son una especie ya extinta. A la vista de lo anterior, habría que proclamar que también se han extinguido los escritores en potencia y han quedado sólo los escritores en acto. Se podría argüir en contra que los comentaristas leen el mensaje original y son también lectores. No hay razones de peso, más bien lo contrario, para sostener semejante afirmación. La experiencia demuestra que se puede comentar todo lo que se quiera, sin necesidad de enterarse del asunto que se comenta. Todo eso pertenece a un mundo ya periclitado y ajeno.

Borges ya prevenía de que por una línea razonable o una recta noticia hay leguas de insensatas cacofonías, de fárragos verbales y de incoherencias e imagina una región cerril cuyos bibliotecarios repudian la supersticiosa y vana costumbre de buscar sentido en los libros y la equiparan a la de buscarlos en los sueños o en las líneas caóticas de la mano. ¿Podríamos estar ya viviendo en ese mundo? Si cada uno de los comentarios, suscitara a su vez otros 295, en cuatro ciclos se llegaría a la cifra de 7 573 350 625 mensajes; o sea, uno por cada habitante del planeta. Pavoroso, ¿no?