Selected Writings of César Vallejo. César Vallejo
Cánepa. I just know that he’s an animal and his woman is loaded. And that Raúl Porras gave him a beating the other day at the door to Excelsior. That’s Lima for you. It’s about running around with hat in hand, looking for a way out. There is More, in La Paz, the editor in chief of the best newspaper of the city: El Fígaro. Fernán Cisneros in New York. Gibson and Rodríguez in Arequipa. Behold, the intellectual generation of the present. According to the consideration of Lima, Belaúndes, Gálvez, Miró Quesadas, Riva Agüeros, Lavalles, and Barretos have been kept out of sight for a while now, that is, as intellectuals.
Beingolea went to an unknown corner to sell jewelry, lace, and who knows what other monstrosities with a group of Turks, and nothing else is known of him.
Carlos Parra is also in La Paz; Juan is still in Buenos Aires. Rivero Falconí, Falcón, Luis Rivero, Meza, broke!
As for me … frightened; and like a bird who descends to an unknown land and hops around, flutters and perches once again, and rehearses the propitious point at which he must fold his wings and cease the flight, I keep spending my days with one, and another, and I’ve not yet made contact with anyone! I think I’ve reached a deeper understanding with the count,28 and I spend more time with him and feel better around him.
Women? There are many a beaut. Fortunately, I feel like I’m in a coffin. And perhaps …
Send my highest regards to Dr. Puga and his wife.
And my affection to Poyito and your other nieces.
What’s the word on my trip among those Trujillano fools? Good-bye. With a strong embrace and with my heart so that you never forget me.
César
[JM]
________________
TO ÓSCAR IMAÑA
Lima, August 2, 1918
Dear Óscar,
It’s two o’clock in the morning, and I’m writing to you. Could you know how I’m doing at this very moment? Can you guess what’s transpiring in my soul? Let’s see if you can.
I’m all alone. At a desk you never touched. With a light you never saw. Everything unknown. Everything for you to imagine. In front of me strange pieces of furniture await a stranger. A housefly does laps with a thick, raspy, lazy, nauseating voice. It fights another fly in the air. They emit a sound like celluloid that burns. Then I see several envelopes with the addresses of other people. Then various winter hats hanging in peeping chorus. I scratch the top of my right calf: some pesky, fleeting, nocturnal bug. A rooster crows in mathematically equal periods; the fly again swoops over my filthy hair. Explain yourself. I sigh, grow tired. The snoring of a neighbor brings me the fat heavy breathing of pork-filled slumber, and that man is far away.
A booming alert. It’s a car that passes preaching that one must take caution on the roads … Two beats of my “tell-tale heart” echo throughout the house.
I have a cold, and sometimes my nostrils wheeze and anguish. Another sigh. A slight pause, barely long enough to measure. Gone.
I don’t have any cigarettes. I’m going to smoke my recidivist butt. This humble little hick isn’t guilty of anything but having spent the night mysteriously on guard with God knows what tiny invisible sort of subhuman force. My poor friend. No one will save him. For sure … Now I’m burning it down, and, what’s worse, I’ve used my last match too.
In this house there are familiar, recognizable dreams. Poor things. Let them sleep. Men and women. Or let them make … whatever they feel like. In waking life, one suffers greatly. Poor things. And my butt has gone out.
I contemplate a calendar figure: one broad man punching another who writhes and winces on his feet. This murder lasts twenty-four hours. So strange.
Someone has vanished before my eyes. He left worried, after asking me for money. I told him no, to pull himself together, to stop worrying. Now, affected, I remember him and pray to God for his well-being. Let him sleep deeply, without being frightened.
There is a rope hanging. Hanging toward tomorrow night. And it shakes intensely.
Good-bye.
César
[JM]
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TO MANUEL NATIVIDAD VALLEJO
December 2, 1918
My dear little brother Manuel,
Santiago de Chuco.
I’ve finally had the pleasure of receiving a letter from you, after the numerous letters I’ve written you since March 1917, when I left home. I’ve taken pleasure and wept upon reading your sad, tender, and moving words. I’ve taken painful, horrible pleasure. Oh, how much I remember and how much happiness is gone forever. Oh, my dear Manuelito! What a dark fate was awaiting me; far forever from our beloved mother! Oh my dear, dear little brother. The horror!
114 days have passed since the unforgettable eighth of August, and I’ll always live in the faith of God, sure that mom is alive, over there in our house, and that tomorrow or some day when I return, she’ll be waiting for me with open arms, bawling her eyes out. Yes … I can’t accept that God has taken her so early, given the love and hope of her children who’ve fought to conquer a future that was to be placed at the feet of our blessed mother! Oh, my Manuelito, my dear brother!
So I’m writing to you with my heart torn to shreds. I hope that Néstor comes at the end of this month, and we’ll see each other then to resolve our matters for good. We’ll let you know immediately. And in the meantime, don’t lose your cool, and I beg you, in the name of our brotherly love, to have patience for a few more months. Patience, a bit of patience. Oh, my brother! I’ve fought so much, and so much have I learned never to fall into despair. And, oh, how I’ve learned to believe that there’s always a future ahead that’s not completely bleak. We’ll contact you soon. What’s important is that you don’t lose yourself to silence and that we stay in touch, to see how we should move on.
I wrote to Dad on one of the steamships I took, and to Víctor so that he’d have a letter of his own and to tell him that I’d write on the next ship.
Give my best to Augustito. How is he? And where is he? Let me know about him, since his silence makes him seem buried to me.
This month it will be a year since I’ve been in Lima.
Take good care of Dad. Needless to say, he’s the only treasure we have remaining in the world. There, the love and affection of you who live with the support of his gentle company.
Don’t lose yourself to silence. And with my best for Juanita and for you, I’ll say good-bye. Your brother, who loves and misses you dearly.
César
[JM]
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DEDICATION OF A COPY OF THE BLACK HERALDS TO FRIENDS IN TRUJILLO
[Lima, July 1919]
Brothers,
The black heralds have just arrived. And they will head to the North, their native land. Speckled, they proclaim: someone’s crossing all the himalayas and circumstantial andes. Behind such stunned panting monsters, an absolutely shrill Solo of Blades rings in the aurora’s writhing … Let our ears perk up—Confession: And on the other side: the good friendly guy, the long-suffering Korriskoso29 of yesteryear, the trembling expression at life. And if I am to make some offering out of this book with all my heart, this one’s for my brothers in Trujillo.
César
[JM]
BOOK TWO 1920–1923
FROM Trilce
I
Who’s making all that racket,1