The Mad Dog · II

Before this, I had doctored myself. The bite was distinct, two violet punctures, which I pressed with all my strength, and washed with permanganate.

I believed very strictly in the animal’s rabies. Since the previous day dogs had begun to be poisoned, and something in our dog’s overwhelmed attitude warned me in favor of strychnine. There remained the mournful howl and the bite; but in any case I leaned toward the former. From this, surely, came my relative carelessness with the wound.

The day finally arrived. At eight, and four blocks from home, a passerby killed with a revolver shot the black dog that was trotting about in an unmistakable state of rabies. We knew it right away, having on my part to wage a veritable battle against Mother and my wife so as not to go down to Buenos Aires to get myself injections. The open wound had been well pressed and washed with a biting luxury of permanganate. All this, five minutes after the bite. What the deuce could I fear after that hygienic correction? At home they ended up calming down, and since the epidemic—prompted surely by a crisis of unceasing rain like never seen here—had stopped almost at once, life recovered its usual course.

But that did not stop Mother and my wife from keeping, nor do they stop keeping, an exact count of the time. The classic forty days weigh heavily, above all on Mother, and even today, with thirty-nine passed without the slightest disturbance, she awaits tomorrow to cast from her spirit, in a massive sigh, the ever-living terror she keeps from that night.

The only annoyance, perhaps, that this has held for me is remembering point by point what has happened. I trust that tomorrow night, with the quarantine, this history will conclude, which keeps the eyes of my wife and mother fixed on me, as if searching my expression for the first sign of illness.

March 10—

At last! I hope that from now on I will be able to live like any ordinary man, who does not have crowns of death suspended over his head. The famous forty days have already passed, and the anxiety, the persecution mania, and the horrible screams they expected from me have also passed forever.

My wife and mother have celebrated the auspicious event in a peculiar way: recounting to me, point by point, all the terrors they suffered without letting me see it. My most insignificant lack of appetite plunged them into mortal anguish: It’s rabies starting!—they groaned. If some morning I got up late, for hours they did not live, awaiting another symptom. The tiresome infection in a finger that kept me feverish and impatient for three days was for them absolute proof of rabies beginning, whence their dismay, made more agonizing by being furtive.

And thus the slightest change of mood, the faintest depression, provoked in them, for forty days, an equal number of hours of unease.

Despite those retrospective confessions, always unpleasant for one who has lived deceived, even with the most angelic good will, with it all I have had a good laugh.—Ah, my son! You can’t imagine how horrible it is for a mother the thought that her son might be rabid! Anything else... but rabid, rabid!...

My wife, although more sensible, has also rambled quite a bit more than she confesses. But it’s over now, luckily! This martyr situation, of a baby watched second by second against such a foolish threat of death, is not alluring, in spite of everything. At last, once again! We will live in peace, and let’s hope that tomorrow or the day after I don’t wake up with a headache, for the resurrection of the madness.

March 15—

I would have liked to be absolutely calm, but it is impossible. There is no longer, I believe, any possibility of this ending. Sideways glances all day, incessant whispering that stops abruptly the moment they hear my steps, a grating espionage of my expression when we are at the table, all this is becoming intolerable.—But what is the matter with you, please!—I ended up saying to them.—Do you find anything abnormal in me, am I not looking exactly as always? This rabid dog business is already a bit tiring!—Why, Federico!—they have replied, looking at me with surprise.—We aren’t saying anything to you, nor have we remembered that!

And yet they do nothing else, nothing else but spy on me night and day, day and night, to see if the stupid rabies of their dog has infiltrated me!

March 18—

For three days I have been living as I should and would like to do all my life. They have left me in peace, at last, at last, at last!

March 19—

Again! They have started again! They won’t take their eyes off me, as if what they seem to desire were happening: that I am rabid. How is such stupidity possible in two sensible people? Now they no longer hide it, and talk precipitately in a loud voice about me; but, I don’t know why, I cannot understand a word. As soon as I arrive they stop abruptly, and hardly do I step away when the vertiginous chatter begins anew. I couldn’t contain myself and turned around with rage:—Just talk, talk in front of me, which is less cowardly!

I didn’t want to hear what they said and I left. The life I lead is no longer life!

8 p.m.

They want to leave! They want us to go away! Ah, I know why they want to leave me!...

March 20—(6 a.m.)

Howls, howls! All night I have heard nothing but howls! I have spent the whole night waking up at every moment! Dogs, nothing but dogs were around the house last night! And my wife and mother have feigned the most perfect sleep, so that I alone would absorb through my eyes the howls of all the dogs that were watching me!...

7 a.m.

There are nothing but vipers! My house is full of vipers! When washing myself there were three coiled in the basin! In the lining of my coat there were many! And there are more! There are other things! My wife has filled my house with vipers! She has brought enormous hairy spiders that pursue me! Now I understand why she was spying on me day and night! Now I understand everything! She wanted to leave because of that!

7.15 a.m.

The patio is full of vipers! I can’t take a step! No, no!... Help!...

My wife is running away! My mother is leaving! They have murdered me!... Ah, the shotgun!... Damn it! It’s loaded with birdshot! But it doesn’t matter...

What a scream she gave! I missed... The vipers again! There, there is an enormous one!... Oh! Help, help!!

They all want to kill me! They have sent them against me, all of them! The woods are full of spiders! They have followed me from home!...

Here comes another murderer... He’s bringing them in his hand! He comes throwing vipers on the floor! He comes taking vipers out of his mouth and throws them on the floor against me! Ah! But that one won’t live long... I hit him! He died with all the vipers!... The spiders! Oh! Help!!

Here they come, they are all coming!... They are looking for me, looking for me!... They have launched a million vipers against me! They all put them on the ground! And I have no more cartridges!... They have seen me!... One is aiming at me...