I the Supreme

by Augusto Roa Bastos

  “Poor Supreme! A pity that there was not a pair of these eyes with sufficient intelligence, depth, and soul to have taken him captive permanently, turning him into a virtuous paterfamilias. Is there, moreover, any certainty that the young, dark, harebrained, vivacious young woman living a disorderly life, who twenty years later was selling flowers in the streets of Asunción, was a daughter of El Supremo? Nothing but shadows, shadows, shadows. Words, words, words!, Hamlet, the melancholy prince of Denmark, said through the mouth of our Shakespeare.” (Commentary of Thomas Carlyle.)

  * Black vulture. From Tupi uru (bird) + vú (eat).

  *4 “Parallel to the mission from Buenos Aires [the reference is not to the mission of Belgrano and Echeverría but to that of Juan García de Cossío] is the Brazilian one of Antonio Manoel Correa da Cámara. An extraordinary character. No one better suited than he, thanks to his life straight out of a novel, his taste for adventure, to write the dramatic chapter of an entry into isolated Paraguay; his journey, his stay in Asunción and Itapúa, his negotiations in the capital, make for a story of the most absorbing interest. A warrior in India, a combatant in Portugal, a traveler in Turkey, a revolutionary in Río de Janeiro, an intimate friend of José Bonifacio, a devotee of the muses, pounding on the gates of a cloistered Paraguay to reveal the Sphinx. Such was the man chosen for such a mission.” (Commentary of Julio César.)

  *5 A black, especially a Brazilian soldier in the War of the Triple Alliance.

  *6 Batuque: an African dance (Brazilian).

  *7 Capoeiras: ruffians skilled in the capoeira technique of attack, similar to jiu-jitsu (Brazilian). Cf. also Brazilian capoeiro: chicken thief.

  *8 “Correa himself requested, demanded this mission, for he was anxious to conclude a Paraguayan-Brazilian alliance in order to crush the Plata in the inevitable war that it will wage with the Empire in the Banda Oriental.” (Ibid.)

  *9 “Tall, fair-haired, piercing dark brown eyes, erect and intelligent head, slightly aquiline nose with marked indications of energy and will; in short, a fine figure of a man. Grave, circumspect, self-contained, formal gestures. Fashionably dressed, with the diplomatic elegance that he has acquired in old European courts.” (Porto Aurelio, Os Correa da Cámara, Anais, t. II. Introd.)

  *10 An indirect homage paid to Raymond Roussel (1877–1933), one of the most unusual figures in French literature, like Lautréamont a precursor of the surrealists and the Nouveau Roman, entirely unrecognized in his own lifetime. His many works include a novel entitled Locus Solus (1914).

  *11 A common nickname in the Río de la Plata region. A carpincho (capybara) is a very large rodent, principally aquatic in habit, living on the margins of lakes and rivers. It has a coarse coat, partly webbed feet, and no tail. It is hunted both for its fur and for its edible flesh.

  (Perpetual circular)

  In the meeting room the president of the Junta has no idea what to do with the empowerments and credentials of the Porteño envoys. He finally pockets them, and twirling his mustaches says to Belgrano: You may begin your peroration, señor general.

  Buenos Aires has no intention of subjugating the peoples of the viceroyalty, Belgrano begins by saying, and naturally offers the most ample satisfaction to Paraguay for having sent the military expedition to aid its cause. It feels well recompensed for its sacrifice by the revolution of the Fourteenth of May and the establishment of the new government. It is necessary now that Paraguay join and obey the central government since it is imperative to form a center of unity, without which it will be impossible to draw up and execute plans conjointly. The Portuguese threat is serious, and it is directed not only against Buenos Aires but also against Paraguay. The only means of containing the prince of Brazil within his boundaries lies in the conformity of the opinion, conduct, and action of Paraguay with that of the government of Buenos Aires. The provinces must join forces in the face of the common enemy, and the withdrawal of Paraguay would be a disastrous example for all of them. All of the interior, that is to say the provinces that constituted the former viceroyalty, is represented in the present government of Buenos Aires. Only deputies from Paraguay are missing, and their incorporation is a matter of urgency. (Applause from the pack of the Junta. I remain silent. Imperturbable silence.)

  Don Fulgencio endeavored to reply. He groped for words, leaning for support on the jingle of his spurs as he pawed the ground. I intercepted his stammerings in midair. I said: To begin with, honorable envoys, the aforementioned expedition was not to aid us but to invade us, as is recognized in the act of capitulation signed at Takuary. That is true, Belgrano granted at that point. He admitted as much again later in his Memoirs: This error could only have been the product of hotheads looking solely to their immediate interests, for whom nothing was difficult because they were incapable of reflection and acted in ignorance. Well, general, let us lay this dreary episode aside and pass on to another point, sir, the most urgent and most important one: Paraguay is no longer a province. It is an independent and sovereign Republic to which your Junta has granted full recognition. The viceroyalty is an ugly word, sirs. An immense corpse. We are not going to waste time restoring this fossil. We are in the midst of seeing our countries born of the provinces that in the Kingdoms of the Indies were reduced to mere colonies of an oppressive power. Neither oppressors nor servants there be / there where reign union and equality,*1 even schoolchildren sing here in this country. Paraguay has offered Buenos Aires the plan for a Confederation, the one form that will make this confraternity of free States viable, without union meaning annexation. The pettifogger Echevarría stuck his oar in, ad-umbrating the idea that an ad-referendum treaty providing for the incorporation of Paraguay and the sending of its deputies might well be concluded, whereupon it would be submitted to a congress for its approval. I can assure the honorable envoy that the congress will neither applaud nor approve this ad-referendum treaty. We can do nothing behind the backs of the people and their sovereign will. Less still submit to it an idea that will oblige it to submit once again to a foreign power. Do you have the instructions written in Mariano Moreno’s own hand well in mind? Clear and definite. Straight to the point. Union presupposed for him establishing perfect order in Paraguay, removing the Cabildo and the authorities, putting in their place entirely trustworthy men, and expelling suspect citizens from the country. The fiery tribune of your May, gentlemen, decreed: If there is armed resistance, the bishop, the governor, and all the principal instigators of resistance will die. No, gentlemen; these ideas of death and destruction must not be revived. We are endeavoring to put Paraguay in perfect order without all that ceremony and bloodshed, in accordance with our own ideas and needs; independently, and not in obedience to instructions or orders from outsiders.

  Echevarría pecks at the deliberation with his forked tongue. Dialogues of the deaf. Of dead men. Of half-deadmen. Speeches. Counter-speeches. Belgrano is silent now, his eyes closed to the present. He surely remembers Moreno’s impassioned instructions, point for point. It was with that man, not with that pedantic impostor Echevarría, that I would have liked to discuss at that moment the principles of the Social Contract as applied to our countries. But the spectral monarchical crown coveted by the Porteño “re-publicans” has already crushed him beneath its weight and buried him in sea-slime. For the time being I am obliged to put up with the stupidities, the shadow-plays, the absurdities, the extravagances of the Porteño pettifogger.

  For the moment, I conclude, Paraguay is entirely occupied by the organization of its public administration and its armed forces. It cannot commit them to any objective save its own defense. Threatened internally by the Spanish faction and externally by the Portuguese army, it must confront these dangers with every means and every resource it possesses. Be sufficient unto itself. Not count on foreign non-aid. The captious negotiations entered a faintly promising fourth phase, though I for my part regarded them as having been already knocked into a cocked hat. I had al
ready stored them away in the attic along with other useless junk. If they come rapping at your door with mischief in mind, I said to myself, answer them with the key. It was necessary to go on waiting awhile longer however; to see this inconsequential farce through to its ultimate consequences. October 12, the Day of the Race, was set for the final discussion and the signing of the treaty.

  * * *

  —

  The guests are the object of delicate attentions on the part of the leading families. Many fiestas in their honor. Levees, soirées, parties carrées, libations, celebrations, invitations. With the president of the Junta at the head, the Porteñistas jig for joy. They plan a great military parade, to be held on the same day as the signing of the treaty. The most conspicuous partisans of “union” visit Belgrano and Echevarría assiduously. Nothing good can come of these clandestine meetings, despite the discreet surveillance I order. The listening-flowerpots surreptitiously installed in the meeting places pick up alarming gossip. I therefore decide to accompany the guests personally, everywhere, at all times. Belgrano especially. I become his shadow, though I won’t say I follow him to the door of the toilet (every place has become suspect), or that I turn into the guardian angel of his sleep, because I must also draft the text of the treaty. Word for word. Detail for detail. The treaty is my splendid louse-cap; my head never hits the pillow. I close my eyes neither by night nor by day. Thinner than a vine shoot, in the shadow of my single leaf I can slip in anywhere. Press the juice from whatever grapes suit me. The greenest ones are quite ripe enough for me.

  * * *

  —

  The project of Buenos Aires, under pressure from the new British or French tutors to achieve the unity of its interests, will end up as no more than a rodeo, a roundup of vast Paraguayan domains, with the Porteños running the show. I address myself to the door. On the other side of it the general is making his ablutions. He doesn’t answer me. I hear the sound of water splashing in the washbowl. The meek cattle of the provinces eating the salt set out for them in the basin by the English, I say. He doesn’t hear me. The splashing grows louder. The general must think he is still crossing the Paraná and then the Takuary in flood, in a leather boat, on his expedition to Paraguay. So then, my dear general, you came to invade us mounted on a dead cow!, I venture jokingly. What dead cow?, he asks, coming out of the dingy cubicle. A smiling sheik beneath his towel-turban. You were saying something about a dead cow, my esteemed dean? Just a bit of antic salt, my dear Don Manuel; a trifling joke. As the French say, Vive la bagatelle! Vogue la galère! I was remembering your boat. Boat? The boat made of cowhide that you crossed the rivers in. The story you told me about it last night at the party was most amusing! Well, in any event that dead cow saved my life!, the general says, returning the ball to my court. Waggish familiarity. I don’t know how to swim even in sand. That boat was splendid. Imagine that, general! And it was only the hide of a Paraguayan cow! Belgrano laughed good-naturedly. If Pascal had come with you in that leather boat, he wouldn’t have said what he did: Rivers are roads that move and take you where you want to go. The turban fell off his head. As a matter of fact, Pascal never came here except in the form of a boat. What’s this story you’re telling me, my esteemed dean? You’ll remember, general, that in the middle of the last century Voltaire set himself up in business and freighted out a ship named the Pascal to make war on the Jesuits. The Pascal was then chartered by the Spanish government, which used it as a troop transport in the fight against the patriots. A somewhat cynical genius, Voltaire; a burning ambition to make money. His greed made of him an armateur-philosopher. He was taken in by the legend of El Dorado. He sent Candide to Paraguay, and I later took the latter’s manservant, the mulatto Cacambo from Tucumán, into my service, thereby freeing him from the written word. I don’t understand, he said, shaking his head. I took him out of the book, that’s all. Cacambo had a good time of it with me. He had my confidence. He betrayed it, naturally, since it’s in mulattoes’ blood to turn traitor. The general went on laughing, his funny bone tickled by my seriousness, doubtless believing that I was telling him another myth.

  Bowlegged Echevarría comes along and butts into the conversation. Look, señor dean of the Junta, Paraguay’s refusal to become part of the United Provinces of the Rio de la Plata means purely and simply the continuation of the policy of isolation that has been established here. Not at all, señor jurisconsult. Paraguay did not isolate itself of its own will. It’s as though you were to maintain that if we walled you up in this bathroom you would remain there for the sheer pleasure of it and claim that it was the best of all worlds. Come now, Doctor Echevarría! Would you allow yourself to be isolated in this way? Would you say, truthfully, that you did so of your own will and accord? It is the governments of the ex viceroyalty that have taken control of the river by barring the port, ever since the Revolution that freed our countries from the power of the oppressor. Buenos Aires now comes along offering us peace, union, and free trade. Is this offer in accord with the attitudes and the conduct of a State that arrogates to itself the role of gendarme in relation to the others, and above all to a free, independent, and sovereign State such as Paraguay? No, a thousand times no, señor jurisconsult! Didn’t the Junta of Buenos Aires send General Belgrano here with troops to subjugate this country? We have already had sufficient discussion and explanation of this error, which is not the error it appears to be. We preferred, señor dean, not to become involved in side issues. You are one of the most enlightened intellectuals of our America. Why waste time over the past? Look, doctor, here in Paraguay the most enlightened man we have is the city lamplighter. He lights and extinguishes five hundred thousand candles a year. Even he knows that the future is our past. Let us trim our candles too, and look alive. Let us speak of the future. Why, certainly. With great pleasure. With the greatest pleasure. That is precisely the point I wish to come to. I think, señor dean, that you are given to making plays on words, and we are in the midst of discussing very serious things here that pressingly demand our serious attention. We are in accord on that point, most illustrious doctor. Such is the curse of words: an accursed game that obscures what it is seeking to express. Above all, señor dean, if we do not observe the formalities of an elementary urbanity. Is the bathroom door a proper place to ensure that all our disagreements will come out in the wash? We are in accord on that point, doctor. Let us proceed to the salon d’a-grément.

  What advantages was the Porteño pettifogger trying to gain by his petulant digressions? He wanted to speak of the future. Grand, solemn words. Naturally, that unseemly go-between was interested in winding up the cloudy affairs of the mission as soon as possible so as to be able to get around to still shadier affairs. He was eager to propose the sale of the Foundling Press to the ignorant a-cephali of the Junta. Contrabanding among scoundrels.

  As for us, honorable envoys, the North Star of the Paraguayan Revolution is to cultivate the prosperity of our native soil or be buried beneath its ruins. Irrevocable decision. There is no power on earth that will make us change conviction or course. If they bar the river, we shall walk on water. You, honorable sirs, can prevent this. Among all of us we can avoid the worst and attain the good. Turn the word Confederation into a useful reality. You have already taken much land and much water away from Paraguay. You shall not take away its fire or its air. Echevarría’s greenish jawbone searched for the support of his fist. Belgrano’s white silhouette cloaked itself in shadow.

  Let us speak clearly, gentlemen. If a center of unity is to be formed, that center can be none other than Paraguay. Nucleus of the future confederation of free and independent States. Why should Buenos Aires not incorporate itself with Paraguay? Model-center of the States that are to confederate. It has been that from the beginning of colonization. With even more reason it ought to be that from the beginning of decolonization. Its driving force. Not only because it is already the First Republic of the South; but also because its merits have always entitled
it to be so. The first uprising against feudal absolutism took place in Paraguay. The hierarchies that are responsible for the events of history place Asunción above Buenos Aires: Mother of Peoples and nurse of cities, as it says in some idiotic letter-patent of the crown, which in its own way, no matter how idiotic, nonetheless expresses a truth. When Buenos Aires lay in flaming ruins, Asunción reconstructed it. And now Buenos Aires aims to deconstruct us. That merely shows what the misuse of a single letter can mean when the reality of the facts is riddled with errors! Buenos Aires, my friends, is a great error in itself. A great ruminant stomach drooping from a port. With Buenos Aires at the head we risk being swallowed alive. Fatal predestination. Brother Cayetano Rodríguez, my old professor at the University of Córdoba, writes me: You do not know, my son, that the name of Buenos Aires is reviled in all the disunited provinces of Río de la Plata!

  This is no mere happenstance. As early as the days when, in the light of new ideas, we reflected on the destiny of this part of the Continent in the underground passages of the gothic pagoda of Monserrat, we saw with noonday clarity what was going to happen. Some of my fellow students, now members of the Junta, know this as well as I do. When the city dominates the countryside, the supposed Revolution turns into a theater of discord and disturbances. That is what happened here with the disaster that befell the Comunera Revolution. The patriciate of the capital betrayed it. When the Common People, the people as a whole, regains power, Revolution takes over. It then commits the error of handing it over to “enlightened” intellectuals, to the hierarchs of the patriciate. Then the people are defeated. Its natural heads are decapitated; the liberation movement destroyed.

  Here in Paraguay the forces of Revolution lie in the free peasants, in the rural bourgeoisie aborning. A sort of “Third Estate,” albeit incapable as yet of governing directly in the form of a revolutionary parliament. Incapable as yet of following the fight for independence through to its ultimate consequences.