Dr. Brodie's Report  

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Dr. Brodie's Report (1970, Spanish: El informe de Brodie) is a collection of short stories by Jorge Luis Borges.

Stories

The Intruder

The story stars Cristián and Eduardo Nilsen, two close brothers whose bond is jeopardised when the older brother, Cristián, takes his girlfriend, Juliana Burgos, to live with him. The girl is considered more like an object at his service, but soon Eduardo also begins to fall in love with her and to feel jealous of his brother. One day, Cristián offers Eduardo to "share" the girl; however, after a friend makes fun of them, they decide to sell her to a brothel. Since they are both still in love with Juliana, they secretly go to see her, and finally the older man decides to take her back with them. However, to prevent their relationship as brothers from deteriorating, Cristián finally murders her, creating another bond between them.

The Unworthy Friend

It tells the story of Santiago Fischbein, a Jewish man who, in his youth, had cultivated something close to a friendship with one of the most feared and respected young men among the neighbourhood gangs: Francisco Ferrari. One day, Ferrari and Don Eliseo Amaro, his main ally, plan a robbery of a weaving factory; Santiago is asked to go to see the factory to check its access. A few days later, he decides to go to the police to report what the gang had planned to do. The night of the robbery, the guards entered the building after the assailants, and Santiago hears four revolver shots; a moment later, the police drags Amaro and Ferrari out of the factory, dead, justifying themselves with the excuse that they had been the first to fire. Santiago, in his account, clarifies that this was a lie because they had no revolvers, and explains that he, for his part, had been imprisoned and released shortly afterwards.

Rosendo's Tale

It is a story in which an elderly man tells Borges the story of Rosendo Juárez. The protagonist of the story, a young gaucho from the neighbourhood of Maldonado, is burdened with the experience of having murdered a man named Garmendia in a knife fight. After spending some time in prison, Juárez is released to work as a bodyguard for a politician. One day at a dance, shortly after his best friend dies in a fight over a woman, a gaucho nicknamed "el Corralero" approaches him to provoke him. Juárez, feeling ashamed to see himself reflected in the Corralero, gets up from his seat and leaves the place, looking like a coward in front of everyone for not wanting to fight but clarifying, in his story, that it was not him who had killed the Corralero as everyone claimed.

The Meeting

The action takes place in the quinta of Los Laureles. Borges recalls an event that happened when he was nine or ten years old and his cousin Lafinur had taken him to an asado at the quinta. There, bored, he had sneaked into the house to explore it: what had most attracted his attention was a showcase full of weapons that the master of the mansion had shown him. In the dining room, meanwhile, a fight breaks out between two men who had been playing cards: Duncan and Maneco Uriarte. Faced with Uriarte's provocation, the men decide to fight and to do so they look for weapons from the house's display case: Uriarte chooses a U-shaped sparrowhawk weapon and Duncan a wooden knife with a tree carved on the blade. After a fight whose duration Borges cannot specify, Uriarte thrusts his weapon into Duncan's chest and, repentant, weeps over the dead man's body. Almost twenty years later, Borges tells the story to Don José Olave, a retired commissioner. Olave tells him that the daggers used in the fight had a history of their own: they had belonged to Juan Almada and Juan Almanza, two mortal enemies who had sought each other out but had never met. Borges deduces that it had been the weapons - and not the men - that had fought in the quinta de Los Laureles, which had been sought for so long without luck.

Juan Muraña

Borges begins the story with a chat with Emilio Trápani, who reveals to him that he was Juan Muraña's nephew and that his story might be interesting. Trápani recounts his childhood, when Juan Muraña had already died and only his widow, Florentina, was still alive. The woman had been disturbed after the death of her husband, and lived with her sister, Emilio's mother, and her nephew in a rented house owned by a man called Luchessi. One day, Emilio's mother is unable to raise the money to pay the rent, so the landlord threatens to force them to vacate the house. Florentina insists that Juan, who she believes is still alive, would not allow Luchessi to evict them. Shortly afterwards, Emilio's mother sends him to the landlord's house to ask for an extension of payment, but when he arrives he discovers that the man is dead: he has been stabbed to death. For months Florentina claims that Juan had protected them and had taken revenge, but one afternoon when Emilio decides to go to his aunt's room she shows him a knife belonging to her late husband and so the young man understands that she had carried out the murder, moved by hatred, by madness and, perhaps, by love. Borges closes the story by implying that, in a certain way, Muraña still lived in the knife, which would later become a simple memory and, later, oblivion.

The Elder Lady

It tells the story of María Justina Rubio de Jaúregui, an elderly woman, daughter of Mariano Rubio, a colonel who had participated in the famous battle of Cerro Alto during the war for Independence. A large part of the story is devoted to describing María Justina's house, her family and the peculiarity that the lady seemed to live in another time: for example, she did not say uruguayos but orientales, and kept ranting against characters such as Artigas, Rosas and Urquiza. One day, a meeting was held in her house with the presence of the press and various figures to honour the lady, the last of the colonel's daughters who was still alive. With all the hustle and bustle of the preparations and the event, Maria falls ill and a few days later dies. Borges concludes the story by saying that the last victim of the Cerro Alto battle had been, more than a century later, the old lady.

The Duel

It tells the story of Clara Glencairn de Figueroa, a lady of high society who had devoted herself to painting following the example of her friend Marta Pizarro. Marta and Clara, despite being friends, developed a secret duel over their works, which differed in style. On 2 February 1964, Clara died of an aneurysm and Marta, feeling useless without her friend and main rival, exhibits a portrait of Clara at the National Salon as a tribute and decides never to paint again. Borges writes, at the end of the story, that in the duel there were neither defeats nor victories; the story that moves in the shadow ends in the shadow.

The End of the Duel

Borges tells the story of two gauchos named Manuel Cardoso and Carmen Silveira, who live in neighbouring fields and have an ancient hatred for each other, whose origins are not entirely clear. One day, a mulatto Brazilian-Brazilian comes to recruit them to fight for the Whites in the Revolution of the Lances. Cardoso and Silveira continue their personal quarrels even during the war. In one battle, the Colorados, under the command of Captain Juan Patricio Nolan, defeat the Whites and take the surviving soldiers as prisoners of war. Knowing of the old conflict between the two gauchos, he decides to allow them to have a final duel. Both would have their throats slit and, once their throats were slit, they would compete in a race. When their throats are slit, they only manage to jump a few times and fall to the ground dead, with Cardoso the winner simply because he has stretched his arms forward.

Guayaquil

The story describes a meeting between the narrator and Dr Zimmermann, a historian of Jewish origin, expelled from Prague by Nazism. The talk revolves around who would have the honour and responsibility of travelling to Sulaco, a city in an undetermined country in the north of South America, to copy a letter in which Simón Bolívar had revealed the details of his conversation with General José de San Martín in Guayaquil. The narrator considers that he should carry out this task, which corresponds to him as an Argentinean, a descendant of warriors of Independence. The story, in the first person, shows a struggle between both wills, explicitly alluding to Schopenhauer and his work, in which Zimmerman triumphs, making the narrator understand that this defeat is what he has always wanted.

The Gospel According to Mark

It tells the story of Baltasar Espinosa, a medical student who decides to spend some time at his cousin Daniel's ranch in Buenos Aires. The foreman lives there with his son and daughter. One day when Daniel is absent to go to the capital, a strong storm breaks out and the house is isolated by the flood; alone, without the company of his cousin, Baltasar begins to get in touch with the Gutre family. To entertain them, he reads to them from a Bible in English (as the family was originally from Inverness), especially the Gospel according to Mark. Every day, the family gathers to listen to him speak, fascinated by his words. The day the flood begins to recede, Gutre asks Espinosa if Christ had let himself be killed to save all men; that same afternoon, after his nap, the whole family chases him around the house, until they begin to spit on him, curse him and push him, leading him towards the shed, where they have built him a cross for his crucifixion.

Doctor Brodie's Report

El informe de Brodie (cuento)

Inspired by Lemuel Gulliver's Last Voyage, in Borges' own words, Brodie's Report is the "translation" of a text written by David Brodie, a Scottish missionary who describes his experience in a fantastic and remote region, infested by "ape-men", where he lives with an unusual tribe, whom he calls "Yahoos". The chronicler is terrified by the savage customs of the tribe, whose culture has values that are the opposite of those of his own culture.