The Museum of Eterna's Novel

FREDERICO'S ENTRANCE IN THE NOVEL, AS PROLOGUE

He’s so substantial that he is what’s the matter and yet another matter entirely.

I don’t labor under the illusion of keeping the Boy with the Long Stick out of the novel forever — he’s the one you all know as a future character without a birth, yet confined in the novel as its resisted aspirant, plotting to be a part of the story — and in my squeamishness I’ve prepared titles in the eventual though undesirable case that a place must be made for him, so that although I’ve received him under duress he has not been denied all consideration in his actual reception, at least that he can discern (for all the characters of my invention — who make the plot using the combined existence that I’ve allotted each one — are beings whose births were mandatory, called to novelistic life by the lazy cravings of Fantasy, not like we who were consulted in the matter, and they nevertheless feel themselves so in possession of this casual and thin existence that they’ll yield a place to this hooligan). I’ve consented to what he’s sensibly asked of me: that I make antecedents for him, giving him access in a prologue that will ease his ingress in to the novel, when he’s able to obtain it thanks to a moment of carelessness on the part of the powerful characters who have been assured existence in the novel from the beginning; they’re like retirees from unreal existence, they have such an easy air about them, as though they’ve been accustomed to exist in this way even before they started, an ease which we the living also bring with us from birth, since none of us showed any surprise when we began living, which we wouldn’t believe if they hadn’t told us so — and I, like those who remember my birth but don’t remember their own, have opted for not believing it necessary, thus affirming our eternity—.

Although Federico may cause more ravages than a critic, the possibility of his appearance must be considered, and prepared for, so as to best ensure the peace if he does appear. Putting this boy in the novel saves the critics the trouble of destroying it.

He has titles, books, the past; he’s not a boy whom the author began writing only in the present book and edition (this popular author, recently settled in Literature, which is here inaugurated, isn’t so well-known that he demands that the sale of his book begin with the fourth edition, the way that great authors do).

God, invented so as to author our birth, was instantly worried about keeping our good graces, and so he created the World to make believe (this isn’t religious, but it’s religion’s first step) that he had been concerned with other matters before us; he called it the third, and believed that we’d ask about the others. “Yes, this one is number three, which I’ve given you in addition to the ones before.” On the contrary, when we saw the number we said, “Third and last.” If it had occurred him to leave a return address, we’d have sent it back.

The boy Federico tirelessly undertakes economic endeavors. He made a Noise Factory with all his friends. To equip the best rubble-flingers from amongst their workers they obtained metals, zinc, brass, or crystals treated with mineral agents. Easy transport and an available market assured prosperity. The financial crisis of 1921, the toppling of Stinnes, the colossal competition between Standard Oil and Dutchshell, the flood of paper German marks… all we know is that despite the great demand, there wasn’t a single noise left in the area that was ready for manufacture; Federico’s company couldn’t keep up, and had found a way to provide the public with a racket that no one would notice, without making noise, and without anyone knowing where it came from. Each father found his boy and helped him to walk at a variety of accelerated paces, two hours from the inauguration of this Establishment, which was so acclaimed by the population for its prescience and convenience. All the staff members were tucked into bed and thus avoided declaring bankruptcy, which either the Stinnes perturbations, currency instability, unlimited German marks, or the obscurity of Wilson’s 14 points would have made necessary…¹ or maybe the only coincidence was that in this city — and I congratulate them on their work in rounding up the boys — papas are larger than their sons. Before Federico could define, in his reflections, what the final mercantile determination had been, if it had been the Stinnes perturbation, the petroleum wars, et cetera, or if it were all of them, he began new individual operations as God’s secretary or official note-taker, to make note for Him of all the invocations of “God’s will” in reference to whether the patio would be cleaned “by tomorrow,” which the ladies of modest houses formulated when they were feeling mortified by their procrastination: “Tomorrow, God willing, we’ll wash the floors,” “Tomorrow, God willing, I’ll clean my room.” He kept careful observations, and calculated that each day God was forgetting to will some thirty thousand put-off floor washings worldwide. He also had to record all of the “Tomorrow, God willing, we’ll organize the closets;” another thirty thousand. All we know for sure is that Federico found himself that morning standing on the ground before the entrance of my novel, and it’s not proper to ask him if his dealings with God ended badly, thanks to boredom and bad pay. Gods are old and crafty; what’s more, God or the Devil (they’re the same) knows more because he’s old than because he’s a devil.

But there’s one more thing that we can’t put off saying for another minute: the coming and going of Federico around the world. We’ll say this at least: it was very slow. He left when it was time to shift Eterna’s lips and flutter her pale eyelids for an animated smile at the President’s ingenuity, and he returned when the smile disappeared because the President had suffered an impossibility of candor at the impossibility of sulking and he took hold of Eterna’s skirt as a signal that he wanted to “go to the wardrobe,” that is, be punished.

And with that we’ve introduced Federico into the prologues.

1 An allusion to the troubled times in the postwar period 1914–1918 (commercial and bank competition, unlimited printing of German marks, and the proposition of the North American President Wilson for a League of Nations). (Editor’s Note— Adolfo de Obieta)