Don Viscacha couldn't decide which direction to run in,
till he finally got to mount his horse, and the whip scared him so,
he crammed his hat down and made off without stopping to explain.
Maybe you'll be thinking this would have cured the old man.
Not a bit of it -- but what he did, taking more care from then on,
was hobble them in the day-time so as to cut the hair at night.
And this was the man they'd chosen to be in charge of my future state!
He was always up to something wicked, and all the people round
said he was a criminal, not to be borne on account of the damage he did.
When the Judge appointed him and gave him me as a guardian,
he told me it was a gentleman who was going to take care of me,
and teach me to earn my living and give me an education.
But what was I supposed to learn alongside that dirty old tramp
who lived like the leeches in the marsh, fierce as a tero bird,
who wouldn't work and was a petty thief, and loud-mouthed as a boar.
He didn't own any property, either, nor any goods that you could see
except for a cart that was rotting away, and the walls without a roof
of a half-ruined cabin that he used as his lair.
After being out all night it was there he'd go and rest.
I wanted to discover what he'd got hidden away,
but I'd never been able to do it -- he wouldn't let me go inside.
I had a few old blankets that had been thicker once,
and with no more than my naked skin, the old man, who was a fiend,
sent me out to sleep in the open even when it was freezing hard.
As a young man, he'd been married (although I can't believe it)
and a friend of mine told me that out of pure rage and spite
he killed his wife by beating her for serving his mate cold.*
And being widowed on account of this he never got married again.
It wasn't easy to come across any woman who'd want him –
they were all afraid of meeting the same fate as the first.
He always dreamed about her -- because of his crime, I've no doubt --
and the cursed old devil used to say, the time when he was ill,
that she was calling out for him, screaming right out of hell.
NOTES to II.14
II.14.1] Viscacha] a burrowing rodent, common on the pampa (see note at I.6.16). Viscachas were known for thieving.
II.14.3] the stirrup between his toes] a knot of leather gripped by the toes left bare by raw-hide boots (see I.11.9).
II.14.6] certificate] of ownership of a slaughtered animal.
II.14.9] cutting hair] horse-hair fetched high prices (see I.4.15).
II.14.22] serving his mate cold] a grave offence.
He was always in a bad temper, he'd never talk to anyone.
He'd amuse himself by poking the fire and drawing brand‑marks with his finger -
and as soon as he got a bit tanked up, he'd start giving me advice.
It's as if I could see him now, with his old woollen poncho round him.
After he'd taken a good swig he'd start off talking like this:
"Don't you ever stop off at a place where the dogs don't look well fed.
"The first concern a man has is taking care of his own skin.
You help yourself to my advice, pay attention to what I say --
the Devil's wise because he's a devil, but wiser still because he's old.
"Make friends with the Judge, don't give him a chance to complain of you,
and when he chooses to get annoyed what you have to do is lie low -
it's always good to have a post to go and scratch yourself on.
"Don't ever get on the wrong side of him, because he's the one drives the team.
Sitting up there on his driver' s seat none of the oxen acts wild –
he gets the nearest one with the short goad, and the leader with the goad on the beam.*
"Even the most high and mighty of men, with more prickles than a thorn-tree,
gives way when he's in trouble and is soft as a butter pat –
in a drought, even wild cattle come down to the water-hole.*
"Don't go changing your hiding-place, you be like the mice,
stay quiet in the same corner where your life began –
cows that change their pasture are late at calving-time."
And always keeping on drinking, sitting there like a rock, the old man
used to tell me, "Don' t you forget, Fierro, that a man should never trust
in the tears of a woman nor in a dog that limps.*
"You've no call to get upset even though the world falls apart.
The thing a man has most need of according to what I've worked out,
is the memory a donkey has -- it never forgets where to eat.
"You leave heating the bread-oven to the person who owns the dough.
As for me, there’s nothing worries me, I act deaf to the whole lot --
the pig lives fat as anyone and it even eats its own young.
"A fox that's already had a run can smell things out from afar.
Don't you be hurried, if you want to do what suits you best --
the cow that chews the cud longest is the one who gives the best milk.
"A person who finds his own dinner had better eat it quietly.
So don't you even as a joke call attention to what you've got –
if an animal runs on the skyline it's got no chance to escape.
"I go wherever it suits me and I never lose the track.
You take my example and you'll keep your belly filled –
take a lesson from the ants, they never go to a tub with nothing in it.
"Don't envy anyone, because envy means a lot of unhappiness.
When you see someone else make good don' t you go and get in his way --
each little pig to its own teat is the proper way to feed.
‑
"That's how a lot of people feed, while it's the poor who pay for it.
It's true there are some like young lambs who take it gently, right from the tip –
but others are greedy as yearlings and suck in the whole lot.
"If you want a quiet life make up your mind to live single.
But if you should want to get married with this warning let it be:
it's a hard job to keep a woman that others have a fancy to.
"A woman's a kind of animal that I won't start describing here.
She'll always like a strong man, but watch out how you choose -
because she's got a heart that's slippery as the belly of a toad."
And snuffling from the liquor, he'd tell me, "You're a young colt,
you're only just cutting your eyeteeth, but it's an old bull telling you this –
don't you ever let any man get his knife out before you do.*
"Weapons are things we need to have, but nobody can tell when.
So, if you're going out, and specially at night,
wear your knife so that when you want it it comes out ready to cut.
"People who don't know how to save things stay poor even though they work.
However they dodge, they'll never escape that back-lash poverty brings -
if you're born with a fat belly, you'll never change by squeezing it in.
"Wherever the winds blow me I'm easy there as in my own home.
When I happen on something sorrowful I take a swig, to cheer myself up –
it suits me to get myself wet both on the outside and in.
"You're only a chicken, and you've need of all these arguments.
Don't you ever go and forget my advice and what I've taught you:
I've learned my lesson from cockfights -- never to fight without spurs."
With these bits of advice, and others (which I've got stored in my mind
and which I won't dig up just now) he carried on with my education –
until in the end he'd fall asleep lying there in among the dogs.
NOTES to II.15
II.15.5] goad on the beam] a long beam protruding from the top of a waggon, with a goad on its end which the driver could operate with a pulley.
II.15.6] water-hole] on a ranch this could be from a well.
II.15.8] nor in a dog that limps] as an example of a proverbial saying widely diffused, see Shakespeare's Timon of Athens, Act I scene ii : Grant I may never grow so fond / To trust man on his oath or bond, / Or a harlot for her weeping, / Or a dog that seems a-sleeping...
II.15.18] get his knife out before you do] literally, "beat you to where the knife is." Gauchos' long knives were worn stuck in the sash, at the back with the handle forward towards the right hand.
When the old man fell ill and I saw he was getting worse,
and he looked as if there wasn't even a hope of him getting any better,
I brought a wise-woman* along to him to see if she could make him well.
As soon as she saw him, she said to me, "This one won't stay the course.
I don't give him much time to go -- he's going to show us something strange,
because there's a Tabernacle come out under his arm."
As the saying goes, always in any herd there's one cow with a missing horn...
Sure enough, someone standing by the door started shouting out straight away,
"Tabernacle! what a fool you are -- a tubercule you mean".
At this interruption the singer answered right back,
"If you ask me, this is not the time for outsiders to butt in.
A tabernacle, mister, was what the culandrera said."
The stranger had another go and lashed out at him again.
"There goes the second shot you've missed -- see you and I win hands down -- *
cu-ran-der-as is the proper name for women who make cures."
"Too many fingers in one pie won't work," the singer replied,
"and I'll tell this vulgar person who thinks he'll join in and interfere
that I didn't think I'd come here to talk to a learned society."
And if I'm to go on telling you the story of my guardian,
I'll ask this Professor here to let me stay ignorant -
because if you're weaving, you'll always find another weaver who’s better at it."
As I was saying ... he kept on being ill and got worse-tempered every day.
I'd lost my nerve by this time and spied on him from a way off –
the old man's mouth was like the mouth of a man who has been condemned.
There, the two of us, we went through the terrible winter nights.
He was cursing the Eternal Father and the blessed saints as well,
shouting out for the Devil to take him off to hell.
It must have been a great sin that could torment as much as that.
When he saw aholy relic it sent him all jittery
like when they throw holy water on someone who's possessed.
I never went within reach of him because he was treacherous,
and when I heard this awful blasphemy, if I gave him anything
I passed it to him from a distance off the end of a stick.
I said, it'd be better if I leave him on his own
with his cursing and blaspheming and let him go on that way
until Death comes along and carries off this heretic.
When he was past speaking I tied a bell to his hand,
and when he saw the grave so near him he scrabbled at the wall
and there he died, surrounded by the dogs -- and your humble servant.
NOTES to II.16
II.16.1] wise-woman] curandera
II.16.5] win hands down] literally, "I take the bank and win on the first card", one of many images from card games translated approximately, as at II.1.4.
II.16.6] learned society] see note at I.3.7, etc.
I was caught by a terrible fear of him after I saw him dead.
I called the Mayor, and along he came right away, accompanied
by three or four of the neighbours to take charge of the affair.
"Ah, blessed soul," said one old man with a kind of a twisted face,
"the only wish I have is that God may have pardoned him
I knew he had quite a little herd of young calves that he’d stolen."
"That's very true," the Mayor said, "that's how he first came to settle here.
As long as I live I'll never forget the tricks that he got up to -
until in the end they were obliged to forbid him slaughtering.
"As a young man he was a great rider, there wasn't a horse would throw him.
Breaking in a colt, he'd have no need of another man beside him –
he'd shut himself in the corral and mount and gallop it in there.
"He was on bad terms with everyone - it was an old habit of his
letting his sheep mix with other flocks, and when they were sorted out
he'd take the biggest share of them -- and then he'd come and complain."
"God preserve the poor soul," a third man went on at once,
"he was always stealing sheep, he was an expert at that –
he used to bury the heads of them* and afterwards sell the skins.
"And, what a way he used to behave sitting around the fire!
When all the men were there together he'd grab the mate-pot –
'I'll play this hand on my own' he'd say, and not offer it to anyone.*
"If he was putting meat on to roast (poor soul! I can see him now)
first he used to put a curse on it just before it was ready,
and after that he'd spit on it so that no one else would eat it.
"The one who cured him that habit of spitting on the meat
was a mulatto, a deserter, who went around with him as his friend.
A devil of a one for fighting -- Barullo* was what they called him.
"One evening when he did it as he was accustomed to,
up got the mulatto in a rage and shouted 'You filthy old man,
you dirty swine, I'll teach you to go spitting over the meat!'
"With his knife in his hand he leapt at him over the top of the fire.
A quick mover that darky was-- pucha! -- at the same time as he sprang
he aimed a stab of the knife at him which another man fended off.
"Barullo had got warmed up by now and wanted to go on with the fun.
The wool on his head was bristling as soon as the fight began --
the old man managed to get to the door and made good use of his shanks!
"From that time onwards, he was cured of that devil's habit of his.
He didn't come back in again -- he crawled into a hemlock clump,
he went without his supper and stayed there hiding all night."
That's how the people there were talking, and I was standing nearby,
and when I heard what I've just told you, even if he was an old rogue,
I thought, What a rosary this is they're praying for the dead!
Next, the Mayor started to make a list of all that was there,
pulling out hundreds of odds and ends and leather straps and old rags,
a terrible lot of old harness that was no good for anything.
Out came lassos, and halter-reins, plaited leathers, and tethering-ropes,
a whole lot of whip-lashes, girths, hobbles, and twisted hide,
a fair supply of head-stalls and a heap of money-belts.
There were reins for lunging and bits, and broken stirrups,
bolas, and spurs, and saddles, some kettles, some cooking-pots,
and a great bunch of fastenings from girths that he'd cut off.
Out came several cattle-bells, awls, and strips of hide, and knives,
quite a number of sheepskins, a mountain of old saddle-blankets,
a lot of boots without pairs to them and endless numbers of metal rings.
There wore cans of sardines, a few skins of deer,
some ponchos full of holes and in the middle of this terrible mess,
there even appeared an inkpot that had been missing from the Court.
The Mayor said, very solemnly, "This is beyond all words.
He must have collected things like an ant ... I must tell the Judge about this,
and then just let him come and say we're not to pursue the case!" *
I was fairly astonished to see what was going on.
Among themselves, they were saying some of the things belonged to them –
but I had a pretty good idea that these were all Alleluyas.
And when they hadn't a corner left to investigate,
and they were tired with ferreting around and working with no results,
"Come on, let's go" the Mayor said, "I'll have him buried later on".
And even though it wasn't my father who'd been the owner of that ant's heap,
he came over all kind, and told me in a very friendly way
"You shall be the inheritor and. you'll take charge of all this.
"The matter will be taken care of all in the proper manner.
I'm going to name one of these present to be Executor –
things aren't like they were in the old days without any law and order."
Blessed God! I thought – so here I am going round like a beggar,
and they appoint me to be the heir of all these old bits of junk ...
The first thing I'd like to know is what's happened to my herd of cows!
NOTES to II.17
II.17.6] bury the heads] to hide the identification marks on the ears.
II.17.7] not offer it] the mate-pot is customarily passed round the company.
II.17.9] Barullo] "rough-up".
II.17.20] not to pursue the case] Viscacha had presumably been "protected "by the Judge.