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THREE FABLES ABOUT VILLA OCAMPO
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Stories spring up of their own will.
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They reach our imagination,
or our memory, which is the same thing.
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The starting point is always ambiguous.
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Both vague and precise.
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Unique and repeated.
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For example: A man entering a house.
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A man spellbound by the house
he has just stepped in.
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A man spellbound by the house
he has just stepped in.
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We are reminded of Bioy Casares
"The Invention of Morel".
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A fugitive is shown an island
lost on the map.
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A forsaken island which can be
either his salvation or his doom.
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Less defiant than resigned,
the fugitive decides to reach it.
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We know what follows: He will discover
the same cyclical visitors,
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an immortality machine and a woman
of ritualistic beauty, named Faustine.
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Before all that, however,
he will have discovered a house.
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A house which, oddly enough,
he calls a museum.
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As an exercise of the mind,
let us imagine a similar fugitive,
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here, in the slopes of San Isidro.
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A fugitive who,
like the one described by Bioy,
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is the victim of a shipwreck
who manages to reach firm land
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and find his way to an impressive
building, over a hundred years old.
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While Bioy's fugitive
called the house a "museum",
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our imaginary fugitive
is uncertain
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whether he is in a museum
or in a house.
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THE FUGITIVE
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The place is uninhabited;
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but the fugitive feels it could
have been abandoned very recently.
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Or rather: The place expects someone
who has no intention of coming back.
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There is an odd mixture
of periods and styles:
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wicker chairs
next to a sumptuous mahogany table;
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great 19th century portraits
next to very modern lamps.
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The fugitive may not know the names,
or the history behind those objects,
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but something in such diversity
draws his attention.
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A piano and many photographs.
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Whether he identifies them
or not, the faces are famous:
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Rubinstein, Nehru, Chaplin,
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Virginia Woolf, Graham Greene,
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André Malraux, Paul Valéry.
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There are dedications
and signatures on the photos.
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In fact: The signatures are everywhere.
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If the fugitive were an addict
to the myths surrounding culture,
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he could read names
in every corner:
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Troubetzkoy on a sculpture,
Léger and Picasso on rugs,
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Louis XVI on a fireplace,
Man Ray on a photograph.
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Certainly, it would be
almost impossible to recognize
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names such as Dagnan-Bouveret
or Helleu on some of the paintings.
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Those portraitists, so much coveted
by the River Plate women a century ago,
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today deserve just a bare mention
in some biography of Proust.
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But it's the girl in the portraits
that attracts the fugitive's interest:
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it's always the same girl.
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A hundred years ago
this girl was young, an adolescent
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born, perhaps, at the same time
the house was born.
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The fugitive does not fail
to notice her face,
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at once melancholic and determined...
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...Vaguely, the fugitive will succeed
in defining what worries him.
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He seems to perceive a contradiction
in the landscape of the house.
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On the one hand the attitude
of the one that exposes his taste,
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the collection of files
on the person he admires,
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but at the same time these
people seem to have been present.
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These are traces of
famous people that perhaps
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one of the girls in the
portraits occasionally knew.
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Or maybe it's the scattered and
multiple version of a narcissistic family.
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People who had lived here
and who marked their passage.
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Perhaps the house was a museum.
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But for some reason
the fugitive assumes that
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whoever lived there would also
have put the same photos
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and trophies to live and admire
themselves next to them.
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Admiring themselves.
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Eden Hotel Berlin
Mars 81... 30.
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Dear daughters.
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Last night we've been
to watch a movie of Conrad Veidt.
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Pretty successful.
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I got out excited
as always when I see Conrad.
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Tonight we've gone to the theater
and we've seen him in the flesh.
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It's identical.
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It's so much more reliable
in the movie than at the theatre.
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We went back to the hostel for dinner.
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And Drieu was telling bullshit
about my enthusiasm.
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And me telling back
some bullshit as well.
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And when at the best
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Conrad Veidt appears in person
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and sits at a table
with two German-looking men.
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Too bad he sat behind me,
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for I could not see him
unless I turned around completely.
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I would have wanted to talk
to him, because I feel I know him.
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But there were too many people
and Drieu bothered me
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I feel frustrated
for not having met Conrad.
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I shall try to find a way.
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He has amazing eyes
and a somewhat sinister mouth...
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His voice is quite charming and he's
a very good actor. He intrigues me.
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This afternoon we went out with
Walter Gropius, another modern architect;
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we saw more houses,
more working-class districts, etc.
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Gropius in person is far more
interesting and nice than Mendelsohn.
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But I think Mendelsohn's houses
are more valuable,
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even though the name has less value.
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The fugitive continues to move
smoothly through the museum,
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or rather, the house.
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He will neither find
an immortality machine,
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Nor a Morel or a Faustine.
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The girl in the portraits, though,
has definitely fascinated him.
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He is thinking about her
as he goes through a vestibule,
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a hallway, a large dining room;
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he is also thinking about her
as he goes up the staircase,
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which is framed
by an improperly-hung rug.
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The rug seems to be valuable,
probably designed by a famous artist,
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that's why it has been hung:
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to spare it from its natural destiny
of foot marks and cigarette embers.
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The fugitive
is still thinking of the girl
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as he finds an impressive library
at the top of the stairs.
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There is also a desk,
and some letters lying on it.
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The signature he sees in one of them
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bears the name which may hold the clue:
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Victoria Ocampo.
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THE FETISHIST
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At this point, it may be better
to abandon the fugitive,
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overcome by the impenetrable library.
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Or rather, to transform him,
to turn him into somebody else.
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Again, the image of the beginning:
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a man entering a house.
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But now he is hunting a treasure
he believes or imagines is hidden inside.
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Let's remember the hero
of Henry James's The Aspern Papers.
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The plot: A literature
lover, a fetishist,
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moves to Venice to have access
to a famous writer's correspondence.
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Those papers are inside a house,
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and that house is guarded
by a hundred-year-old woman.
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The fetishist will pay any price
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to obtain those papers,
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including humiliating himself
or seducing the old lady.
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What is the story about?
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Perhaps it is just a study
about a strange obsession,
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the passion
for letters and manuscripts.
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What do we look for?, he wonders.
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Maybe the original's
fragile and unequivocal evidence:
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time's erosion on the material,
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the hint of a pulse in the calligraphy,
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the words meant for a single recipient.
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It is not just the original's value,
but also the presumption of intimacy.
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Can letters reveal so much of a person?
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James's fetishist believed they do.
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He believed it too passionately perhaps,
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and so he never gets to read them:
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the old lady's niece burns them,
one by one, in the stove.
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"Why should I keep them?",
the woman asks herself,
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humiliated by the fetishist's
refusal of her love.
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The Aspern Papers,
nobody's papers.
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Instead, our fetishist,
formerly the fugitive,
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could spend long hours in this house.
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Let us imagine that this man,
suffering from temporary amnesia,
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had woken up in this house
without knowing how he arrived,
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and, at first,
ignoring even where he was.
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This fetishist
would have discovered before long
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that this was
Victoria Ocampo's house.
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He does know
that the hanging carpet is Picasso's,
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that the music scores have been
written by Stravinsky or Ansermet,
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that the huge 19th Century portraits
were painted by Pridiliano Pueyrredón,
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that the sculpture is by
the Russian prince Paul Troubezkoy,
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that the lamps
were designed at the Bauhaus
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and the portrait of the lady of
the house by the sea is by Pedro Figari.
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The fetishist possesses - almost
infinitely - the proper names.
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Oddly, this stranger
is the ideal inhabitant of this house,
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an outsider and owner at the same time.
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He can, therefore, find the letters
Victoria wrote,
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and the letters Victoria received.
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He can be moved by
Borges' calligraphy:
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microscopic at first, bigger
and erratic as blindness advances.
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He can discover inscriptions
from surrealists and dadaists,
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00:13:48,579 --> 00:13:51,537
such as André Breton,
Paul Éluard and Tristan Tzara,
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00:13:51,979 --> 00:13:55,528
and others by Jacques Lacan:
young and unknown in the first ones,
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famous in the last,
stentorian always.
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He can spot the volume
where Camus kept inscribing
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the dates of his successive
encounters with Victoria,
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a list that closes
with a question mark,
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thus underlining the uncertainty
of a future meeting that never was.
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To the eyes of the fetishist
the minute sign swells like a river
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and conjures up the image
of the insurmountable Acheron.
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Shortly before, Camus had described
the house in his travelling diaries:
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"This is a big and pleasant house
in the style of "Gone with the Wind".
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00:14:32,979 --> 00:14:38,656
Great old luxury - I feel like lying
down and sleeping till the end of time".
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The portraits show Bioy Casares,
Borges or Roger Caillois,
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00:14:46,299 --> 00:14:49,530
but they also bear the signatures
of Gisèle Freund or Man Ray.
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Names and more names,
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00:14:51,699 --> 00:14:54,054
it is almost incredible
that they all fit in just one house,
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in just one life.
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Each one of them evokes a destiny
both in life and after life.
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The fetishist knows
that the whims of fame and prestige
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have favoured some of them in life
and quickly abandoned them after death.
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Conversely, to this moment,
and as he holds these papers
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and volumes in his hands, others
continue to be remembered:
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00:15:18,779 --> 00:15:20,849
Eduardo Mallea, André Malraux,
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00:15:21,299 --> 00:15:23,255
José Bianco, Indira Gandhi,
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00:15:23,579 --> 00:15:25,729
Graham Greene, Gabriela Mistral,
193
00:15:26,099 --> 00:15:28,738
Rabindranath Tagore, Walter Gropius,
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00:15:29,099 --> 00:15:31,329
María Rosa Oliver, Le Corbusier,
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00:15:31,699 --> 00:15:33,849
Aldous Huxley, Henri Michaux,
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00:15:33,979 --> 00:15:36,049
Virginia Woolf, Benito Mussolini,
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00:15:36,579 --> 00:15:39,047
T.S.Eliot, Coco Chanel,
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00:15:39,299 --> 00:15:42,132
Silvina Ocampo, Hermann Von Keyserling,
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00:15:42,299 --> 00:15:45,132
Pierre Drieu La Rochelle,
María Rosa Oliver,
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00:15:45,379 --> 00:15:47,529
Alfonso Reyes, Charles Chaplin,
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00:15:47,979 --> 00:15:52,131
Tamara Karsávina, Xul Solar,
Ernest Ansermet...
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00:15:54,699 --> 00:15:58,328
The fetishist finds not only
the correspondence, but also the library.
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A library
can be that of a person,
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00:16:02,379 --> 00:16:05,530
but this one is almost the library
of a whole era and its vicissitudes,
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00:16:05,699 --> 00:16:08,657
its fleeting trends,
its secret treasures.
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00:16:09,299 --> 00:16:12,530
The fetishist can read the whole library
without opening the volumes.
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00:16:12,699 --> 00:16:16,817
He can survey the spines of books
and guess the multiple layers they hold.
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00:16:16,979 --> 00:16:20,449
The 19th Century books that survived
fires and the passage of time,
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00:16:20,579 --> 00:16:23,013
including her father's
engineering books.
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00:16:23,179 --> 00:16:27,013
"Life of Dominguito", which Sarmiento
himself dedicated to Victoria's aunt.
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00:16:27,179 --> 00:16:31,138
Hilario Ascasubi's "Complete Works",
published in Paris in 1872.
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00:16:31,499 --> 00:16:35,014
Original editions of books by European
travellers to the River Plate.
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00:16:35,179 --> 00:16:39,218
In sum: the whole "liberal" library
inherited from parents and grandparents,
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00:16:39,379 --> 00:16:42,132
with books dating
from the 16th to the 19th century.
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00:16:42,259 --> 00:16:44,215
Then: Victoria's own books.
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00:16:44,579 --> 00:16:48,015
Children's books in French,
annotated by Victoria and Silvina.
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00:16:49,459 --> 00:16:52,531
Her first and last
fellow traveller: Dante,
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the inspiration for her first book.
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00:16:55,659 --> 00:16:57,411
Oscar Wilde, the banned writer,
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whose books are hidden
by Ramona Aguirre, her mother,
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00:17:00,859 --> 00:17:04,408
books which also guard among their pages
her future husband's love letters.
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Fashion, the prestige
of Nobel Prize winners,
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but also her own friends
such as José Bianco,
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00:17:09,859 --> 00:17:13,135
editor of Sur magazine
for more than twenty years,
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00:17:13,259 --> 00:17:17,411
or her own discoveries,
such as Borges, and the translations.
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00:17:18,259 --> 00:17:21,808
Silvina's books,
the most akin and the most secret.
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00:17:22,259 --> 00:17:24,614
Books with long-meditated
inscriptions
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00:17:24,859 --> 00:17:27,532
or inscriptions as spontaneous
as the confession of a crime,
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00:17:27,659 --> 00:17:32,813
as when Pablo Neruda, with one stroke,
puts an end to fifty years of enmity.
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Music books, design books,
books by structuralists, mathematicians;
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00:17:41,059 --> 00:17:44,415
biographies and autobiographies,
letters.
232
00:17:44,859 --> 00:17:48,613
An itinerary from Ascasubi in France
to Caillois as Borges' publisher -
233
00:17:49,059 --> 00:17:51,619
episodes of the same parable.
234
00:18:06,579 --> 00:18:09,332
As he shuffles names, titles
and dates in his memory,
235
00:18:09,579 --> 00:18:13,618
the fetishist thinks he is a voice
imitator, an unlikely impostor.
236
00:18:14,259 --> 00:18:16,727
Sometimes he remembers,
with an almost painful precision,
237
00:18:16,979 --> 00:18:19,129
moments belonging
to other lives.
238
00:18:20,659 --> 00:18:24,015
The setting for one of those
moments is this house,
239
00:18:24,259 --> 00:18:28,616
one evening towards the end
of 1931 or at the beginning of 1932,
240
00:18:29,059 --> 00:18:33,610
when destiny brought two passions
together: books and friendship.
241
00:18:33,979 --> 00:18:37,335
A boy of eighteen,
an enthusiastic and premature writer,
242
00:18:37,579 --> 00:18:41,538
chats in a corner
with a 32-year-old poet and essayist,
243
00:18:41,859 --> 00:18:44,817
already presumed to be a genius.
244
00:18:45,859 --> 00:18:48,327
They had just been introduced
at a social gathering
245
00:18:48,579 --> 00:18:51,013
in honor
of a foreign intellectual
246
00:18:51,179 --> 00:18:55,331
whose name not even our fetishist
seems to have remembered.
247
00:18:55,979 --> 00:18:59,335
Suddenly, the hostess's commanding
voice reprimands them:
248
00:18:59,979 --> 00:19:03,016
"Stop being shitty
and talk to our guest".
249
00:19:03,259 --> 00:19:05,932
The abrupt confusion
caused by the incident
250
00:19:06,379 --> 00:19:08,529
ends up bringing
those two shy men together.
251
00:19:08,979 --> 00:19:10,935
On their return trip to Buenos Aires,
252
00:19:11,179 --> 00:19:16,014
Adolfo Bioy Casares and Jorge Luis
Borges sealed their association,
253
00:19:16,259 --> 00:19:18,932
in literature and in life.
254
00:19:25,179 --> 00:19:28,137
THE DETECTIVE
255
00:19:31,179 --> 00:19:34,137
The fetishist is still immersed
in the untiring papers:
256
00:19:34,379 --> 00:19:36,529
A Narcissus in strangers' mirrors.
257
00:19:36,779 --> 00:19:39,532
It is time to give him up too.
258
00:19:40,259 --> 00:19:42,409
Or, instead of leaving him behind,
259
00:19:42,779 --> 00:19:44,735
to transform him once more.
260
00:19:49,779 --> 00:19:53,410
To turn him into someone who dislikes
papers and the prestige held by a name.
261
00:19:53,579 --> 00:19:56,013
Someone who has discovered,
in the overcrowded solitude of the house,
262
00:19:56,379 --> 00:19:58,529
a name and a face,
263
00:19:59,459 --> 00:20:01,579
that is to say, a destiny.
264
00:20:06,059 --> 00:20:09,132
It is then, the third story,
the third memory.
265
00:20:09,459 --> 00:20:11,935
A man enters a house.
266
00:20:12,059 --> 00:20:16,018
He is a detective entering
the house of a very beautiful woman,
267
00:20:16,179 --> 00:20:19,735
who has just been murdered
on her own doorway.
268
00:20:20,979 --> 00:20:25,332
In "Laura", the novel by Vera Caspary
which Otto Preminger laboriously
269
00:20:25,779 --> 00:20:28,336
turned into a memorable film,
270
00:20:28,459 --> 00:20:32,010
the detective gradually falls in love
with the woman's portrait and memory.
271
00:20:32,179 --> 00:20:36,013
In love with the portraits exuding
the mystery of her wordly existence,
272
00:20:36,179 --> 00:20:38,355
perhaps because
the threads of fascination
273
00:20:38,379 --> 00:20:41,018
allured him even more
than those of crime.
274
00:20:41,179 --> 00:20:44,332
Such subtle necrophilia
will end very soon:
275
00:20:44,659 --> 00:20:47,732
in the midst of the detective's
dream, Laura comes back:
276
00:20:48,259 --> 00:20:52,135
first, as a ghost
and soon after, as a suspect.
277
00:20:52,379 --> 00:20:54,635
She is the suspect of a death
that had been her own
278
00:20:54,659 --> 00:20:57,738
and now is just
that of an anonymous woman.
279
00:21:03,219 --> 00:21:06,370
But no one will return this time,
the house will continue to wait.
280
00:21:06,699 --> 00:21:08,451
Neither will there be anonymity:
281
00:21:08,899 --> 00:21:12,368
the name Victoria Ocampo
is inscribed in every corner.
282
00:21:12,499 --> 00:21:15,252
However, the detective
will have portraits to contemplate,
283
00:21:15,499 --> 00:21:17,654
and a myriad of stories and testimonies
284
00:21:17,899 --> 00:21:21,050
about the exceptional
destiny of this Victoria.
285
00:21:24,299 --> 00:21:28,370
The detective could uncover
many odd things about that destiny.
286
00:21:28,819 --> 00:21:32,853
First, that both the house he visits
and Victoria were born at the same time,
287
00:21:33,099 --> 00:21:35,454
more than a century ago, in 1890.
288
00:21:35,619 --> 00:21:39,059
Also, that she was the eldest of six
sisters and that Silvina, the youngest,
289
00:21:39,299 --> 00:21:42,653
born thirteen years after her,
was going to be a unique writer,
290
00:21:42,899 --> 00:21:46,851
someone to whom fame was elusive
in life and prodigal today.
291
00:21:50,019 --> 00:21:53,252
He could find out that the engineer
Manuel Ocampo and his wife Ramona Aguirre
292
00:21:53,419 --> 00:21:56,475
had met at the funeral of
Domingo Faustino Sarmiento in 1888.
293
00:21:56,499 --> 00:21:58,655
That is why she would say
that, in that house,
294
00:21:58,819 --> 00:22:02,369
Argentine history was discussed
as another family affair.
295
00:22:05,819 --> 00:22:09,054
He would know that Mr. Ocampo had built
the house for the lazy summer days,
296
00:22:09,219 --> 00:22:13,052
when the family arrived from Buenos
Aires in horse-drawn carriages,
297
00:22:13,299 --> 00:22:17,051
after a journey of several hours
along the road leading to the river.
298
00:22:17,219 --> 00:22:21,178
Also, that the house would witness
something no one had planned,
299
00:22:21,299 --> 00:22:24,457
because it can never be planned,
it just happens:
300
00:22:24,619 --> 00:22:27,176
the birth of a bond
with literature,
301
00:22:27,299 --> 00:22:29,859
established by both the eldest
and the youngest of the sisters.
302
00:22:42,819 --> 00:22:46,699
Our detective will eventually discover
that such unforeseen, unexpected drive,
303
00:22:47,019 --> 00:22:50,568
will be a central force
in the lives of the Ocampo sisters,
304
00:22:51,299 --> 00:22:53,774
an impulse which emerges
as part of a certain education,
305
00:22:53,899 --> 00:22:57,251
but which develops and asserts itself
to become the center of one's life.
306
00:22:57,419 --> 00:23:01,977
It then reflects back on such origin
and education so as to redefine them,
307
00:23:02,499 --> 00:23:03,852
to redesign them.
308
00:23:07,699 --> 00:23:09,849
What the fetishist
had observed in the library,
309
00:23:10,019 --> 00:23:12,252
now the detective tries to find in life.
310
00:23:12,819 --> 00:23:15,970
These girls, educated
by French and English governesses,
311
00:23:16,099 --> 00:23:19,054
had to make a real effort
to write in Spanish;
312
00:23:19,299 --> 00:23:23,058
their family had not foreseen
a literary career, or any artistic
313
00:23:23,219 --> 00:23:25,050
career for them,
314
00:23:25,299 --> 00:23:27,654
they were just destined to become wives.
315
00:23:34,499 --> 00:23:39,167
We were six girls, not like those
in children's stories, but pretty ones.
316
00:23:39,419 --> 00:23:41,375
Our education was home-made.
317
00:23:41,499 --> 00:23:46,176
Around that time, no one thought
of giving women a different education.
318
00:23:48,099 --> 00:23:50,977
My father (with a certain gift
for understanding things) was more aware
319
00:23:51,099 --> 00:23:54,175
of my good qualities
than of my defects
320
00:23:54,299 --> 00:23:57,450
(my laziness to do things
that demanded an effort).
321
00:23:57,619 --> 00:23:59,655
He said once, in my presence:
322
00:23:59,819 --> 00:24:03,775
"If she had been a boy she would
have studied, followed a career."
323
00:24:03,899 --> 00:24:08,172
I thought: "Thanks God
I'm not a boy. What a bargain!".
324
00:24:15,899 --> 00:24:18,652
Mademoiselle Bonnemason,
the French governess,
325
00:24:18,819 --> 00:24:21,174
would arrive in Villa Ocampo
with the one o'clock train.
326
00:24:21,299 --> 00:24:22,448
She never missed it,
327
00:24:22,619 --> 00:24:26,275
although, when the rain was heavy,
we hoped she would.
328
00:24:26,299 --> 00:24:29,655
She was never sick either,
even if her pupils
329
00:24:29,819 --> 00:24:32,572
used to wish her a mild
but prolonged illness.
330
00:24:32,699 --> 00:24:35,675
We would wait for her at the gate.
I would then run,
331
00:24:35,699 --> 00:24:37,974
climb up the side of the break
and shout to the driver,
332
00:24:38,099 --> 00:24:41,250
who wanted to hault the horses:
"Keep going! Keep going!".
333
00:24:48,019 --> 00:24:50,579
The detective will then
find out that Victoria,
334
00:24:50,739 --> 00:24:53,697
following the family mandate,
will marry someone
335
00:24:53,819 --> 00:24:56,697
only to fall suddenly in love
with that someone's cousin
336
00:24:56,819 --> 00:24:59,492
during her own honeymoon
in Paris.
337
00:25:02,819 --> 00:25:06,494
She will have an affair with
Julián Martínez, her husband's cousin;
338
00:25:06,739 --> 00:25:08,297
it will last until she is forty
339
00:25:08,419 --> 00:25:10,489
and he, who is much older,
340
00:25:10,819 --> 00:25:14,175
understands it is time
to disappear from that woman's life.
341
00:25:14,619 --> 00:25:19,170
But the Paris honeymoon in 1913
is a double revelation for Victoria:
342
00:25:19,819 --> 00:25:23,494
her love for Julián Martínez
and her love for Stravinsky's music,
343
00:25:23,819 --> 00:25:25,969
the modernity which was always
344
00:25:26,219 --> 00:25:29,495
to accompany her and for which
she would fight many a battle.
345
00:25:29,939 --> 00:25:33,898
Somehow, the romantic scandal
and the radicalism of the music
346
00:25:34,139 --> 00:25:35,891
seemed to be the two sides of a coin,
347
00:25:36,219 --> 00:25:39,768
and Victoria will parade both
provocations throughout Buenos Aires.
348
00:25:39,939 --> 00:25:42,294
Guided by the great
conductor Ernest Ansermet
349
00:25:42,419 --> 00:25:45,377
and the Castro brothers,
she will succeed in introducing
350
00:25:45,819 --> 00:25:49,289
contemporary music in the Colón
against a ferocious resistance.
351
00:25:50,339 --> 00:25:53,515
En 1936, at the Buenos Aires
premiere of Perséphone,
352
00:25:53,539 --> 00:25:56,895
with Stravinsky - the composer -
conducting, and she herself reciting,
353
00:25:57,219 --> 00:25:59,574
she was to combine several obsessions:
354
00:25:59,819 --> 00:26:02,572
the old childhood dream
of being an actress,
355
00:26:03,019 --> 00:26:06,978
the stubbornness to change the Colón's
taste and make it match her own,
356
00:26:07,739 --> 00:26:09,775
her eagerness to meet those she admired,
357
00:26:10,139 --> 00:26:13,768
in this case a Russian
of genius in perpetual exile.
358
00:26:14,499 --> 00:26:18,651
When he thought I was about to be
angry, Stravinsky used to tell me:
359
00:26:18,899 --> 00:26:21,174
"You have a temper. I like that."
360
00:26:21,499 --> 00:26:23,455
And he would laugh in my face.
361
00:26:23,819 --> 00:26:26,856
(In fact, what happens is
I have "outbursts".)
362
00:26:27,219 --> 00:26:30,848
I could have replied:
"And what about you?"
363
00:26:31,099 --> 00:26:34,171
But I gave him rights
that he did not grant me.
364
00:26:34,419 --> 00:26:37,252
There are genius's rights
just as there are author's rights.
365
00:26:37,379 --> 00:26:40,416
He was in a position to
demand them, I wasn't.
366
00:26:40,979 --> 00:26:45,530
When he disliked something or someone,
you could not change his mood.
367
00:26:45,659 --> 00:26:47,138
He became indomitable,
368
00:26:47,259 --> 00:26:51,218
and his buckings
could throw the best horseman off.
369
00:26:51,859 --> 00:26:55,408
So I would put up gently
with the free expression of his opinions
370
00:26:55,579 --> 00:26:58,537
on whatever his whim
chose to take him regarding musicians,
371
00:26:58,979 --> 00:27:01,334
even those musicians I admired.
372
00:27:01,579 --> 00:27:05,635
I would not have tolerated an iota
of such criticism by someone else,
373
00:27:05,659 --> 00:27:09,208
someone of a lesser stature.
A creative talent, I used to think,
374
00:27:09,459 --> 00:27:12,929
sometimes defends his creation
by denying somebody else's.
375
00:27:15,059 --> 00:27:18,529
Although he does not quite
understand it, the detective thinks
376
00:27:18,659 --> 00:27:21,617
that Victoria believes romantic
and other provocations mingle together,
377
00:27:21,779 --> 00:27:23,815
as if they were all the same thing.
378
00:27:28,659 --> 00:27:32,334
Precisely, to be able to live in Mar
del Plata with her lover Julián Martínez,
379
00:27:32,659 --> 00:27:36,618
Victoria commissions a cubic house
from a storehouse builder,
380
00:27:36,779 --> 00:27:39,816
as if it were necessary to spark
a double outrage in her neighbours.
381
00:27:39,979 --> 00:27:42,618
Soon after that, she will also raise
the stakes in Buenos Aires,
382
00:27:42,779 --> 00:27:45,835
by commissioning a rationalist house
from Alejandro Bustillo.
383
00:27:45,859 --> 00:27:49,408
Her neighbours also accuse her
of ruining the district.
384
00:27:52,179 --> 00:27:53,835
It started with an itch,
385
00:27:53,859 --> 00:27:57,738
a desire to get rid of the clutter
I had gathered around me.
386
00:27:58,379 --> 00:28:02,008
I had a hunger for white walls
without mouldings, without ornaments,
387
00:28:02,179 --> 00:28:04,215
either outside or inside.
388
00:28:04,659 --> 00:28:07,935
I had not been in Europe for some years
and it was only in some magazines
389
00:28:08,059 --> 00:28:10,937
that I could have a glimpse of
something matching what I liked.
390
00:28:11,979 --> 00:28:15,528
I got together with a man of good
disposition, a storehouse builder;
391
00:28:15,659 --> 00:28:19,618
we drew the plans
for a stripped house: a few cubes.
392
00:28:19,859 --> 00:28:21,755
The house was meant to stand
on a small piece of land
393
00:28:21,779 --> 00:28:24,737
I had bought in Mar del Plata,
in front of the sea.
394
00:28:24,859 --> 00:28:27,009
It was built there,
with all her windows
395
00:28:27,179 --> 00:28:30,615
letting in an unbelievable
stretch of the Atlantic Ocean.
396
00:28:30,859 --> 00:28:34,408
There was no hint
of a skyscraper project in the resort.
397
00:28:34,659 --> 00:28:37,127
It was 1927.
398
00:28:38,659 --> 00:28:41,935
To his amazement, the detective
will discover that at the age of forty
399
00:28:42,059 --> 00:28:44,595
this woman resolves to take
yet another detour on her course:
400
00:28:44,619 --> 00:28:46,177
she founds a magazine,
401
00:28:46,619 --> 00:28:50,771
probably because the craving born
of childhood reading is still alive:
402
00:28:51,099 --> 00:28:54,853
to read more, to achieve her own writing,
to lead others to share the same passion,
403
00:28:55,219 --> 00:28:59,258
to meet in the flesh the authors
of the pages that changed her life.
404
00:29:01,259 --> 00:29:04,934
One day, around October 1929,
405
00:29:05,379 --> 00:29:07,734
we were taking a walk in Palermo.
406
00:29:08,179 --> 00:29:10,739
The air had the heaviness of a storm;
407
00:29:10,859 --> 00:29:15,137
the smell of the earth and the roses
was as thick as fog;
408
00:29:15,459 --> 00:29:18,929
and we walked through that sweetness
without really noticing it.
409
00:29:21,059 --> 00:29:23,937
You strongly criticized
my passivity,
410
00:29:24,059 --> 00:29:26,812
and I would criticize,
with no less violence,
411
00:29:26,979 --> 00:29:29,812
your presumption that I was fit
for certain chores.
412
00:29:30,139 --> 00:29:33,495
And then, for the first time,
the name of this magazine -
413
00:29:33,659 --> 00:29:36,492
which had no name - was uttered.
414
00:29:40,259 --> 00:29:44,298
When I arrived in Paris, I realized
the magazine project had preceded me.
415
00:29:44,459 --> 00:29:49,214
I noticed the fantastic
and absurd turn which the scheme,
416
00:29:49,459 --> 00:29:52,690
not yet articulated in my mouth,
had taken in other people's lips.
417
00:29:53,659 --> 00:29:56,890
I knew then
that such a vulgar caricature
418
00:29:57,059 --> 00:30:00,688
would not yield
to my explanations or rectifications,
419
00:30:00,939 --> 00:30:03,407
but only before the magazine itself.
420
00:30:05,139 --> 00:30:07,209
Do you remember my arrival in New York?
421
00:30:08,059 --> 00:30:12,610
Do you remember your frustration
when, attracted by skyscrapers and jazz,
422
00:30:12,739 --> 00:30:15,617
I seemed to have forgotten the magazine?
423
00:30:16,459 --> 00:30:21,613
One night, as we were having dinner
at Child's, you admonished me.
424
00:30:22,259 --> 00:30:24,819
Your long speech ended like this:
425
00:30:25,059 --> 00:30:27,892
"If your interest in the magazine
is so superficial
426
00:30:28,059 --> 00:30:32,416
that anything can take you away
from it, then give up your project".
427
00:30:33,259 --> 00:30:36,217
You saw my eyes
fill up with tears
428
00:30:36,459 --> 00:30:39,610
(tears that fell
on the food on my plate).
429
00:30:39,859 --> 00:30:42,692
I was both annoyed and moved.
430
00:30:43,059 --> 00:30:48,497
Annoyed with my own emotionality
and moved by your friendly harshness.
431
00:30:50,739 --> 00:30:55,494
That same night, however,
once your bitterness subsided,
432
00:30:55,739 --> 00:30:59,698
you admitted you understood
quite well my greediness for New York
433
00:30:59,859 --> 00:31:01,611
and my neglect of everything else.
434
00:31:02,139 --> 00:31:04,699
Who better than you
to understand it!
435
00:31:05,659 --> 00:31:11,416
As I embarked in Brooklyn we were
both sure the magazine would exist.
436
00:31:12,059 --> 00:31:16,894
I ignore, as I write,
whether you know its name already.
437
00:31:18,139 --> 00:31:20,892
It was chosen by phone,
across the Ocean.
438
00:31:21,339 --> 00:31:25,014
A whole Atlantic seems
to have been needed for this baptism...
439
00:31:25,459 --> 00:31:29,896
We had several names in our heads
but we could not reach an agreement.
440
00:31:30,539 --> 00:31:33,497
It was then that I called
Ortega in Spain.
441
00:31:33,739 --> 00:31:36,617
Those people are used
to baptizing us...
442
00:31:36,859 --> 00:31:39,009
and so, Ortega did not hesitate
443
00:31:39,139 --> 00:31:43,291
and immediately found his favourite
among the names on the list:
444
00:31:43,459 --> 00:31:46,212
"SUR" he shouted to me from Madrid.
445
00:31:46,859 --> 00:31:50,235
That's the name I brought back
from my phone hunt,
446
00:31:50,259 --> 00:31:53,296
and which we stuck with an arrow
on the magazine cover.
447
00:31:55,339 --> 00:31:57,694
The detective will learn about
Victoria's other love affairs.
448
00:31:58,139 --> 00:32:00,494
For example,
the tragic Frenchman
449
00:32:00,739 --> 00:32:03,299
who defined the Pampa
as horizontal vertigo
450
00:32:03,459 --> 00:32:06,496
and who used to feel that he was
inhabited by Hitler's soul.
451
00:32:07,539 --> 00:32:10,497
A Frenchman who before attempting
suicide for the first time
452
00:32:10,659 --> 00:32:14,015
would write to Victoria
about how beautiful his death was,
453
00:32:14,174 --> 00:32:18,371
on a gorgeous afternoon,
with his window wide open on Paris.
454
00:32:18,659 --> 00:32:23,095
He did not succeed then and Victoria
will receive his lines many years later.
455
00:32:25,381 --> 00:32:30,309
But by that time Pierre Drieu
La Rochelle will have achieved his end,
456
00:32:30,339 --> 00:32:32,235
shortly after the first attempt.
457
00:32:32,259 --> 00:32:35,410
Paris, 20th January, 1930.
458
00:32:36,169 --> 00:32:37,593
Dear Ange:
459
00:32:38,156 --> 00:32:42,384
- You cannot imagine with how much pleasure.
- or joy- I receive your letters.
460
00:32:43,721 --> 00:32:46,064
This is a life
of Franciscan poverty
461
00:32:46,094 --> 00:32:49,290
as far as "courtesies
of the heart" is concerned,
462
00:32:49,459 --> 00:32:51,808
as the Beast
of the Apocalypse would say.
463
00:32:51,971 --> 00:32:55,429
Drieu? He was here today
and the day before yesterday.
464
00:32:55,934 --> 00:33:00,502
As I told you: he is more and more
in love with shipwrecks, defeat,
465
00:33:00,532 --> 00:33:05,000
disasters, cataclysms,
decay, ruin.
466
00:33:05,341 --> 00:33:06,854
He does not want to see anyone.
467
00:33:11,920 --> 00:33:14,338
When you order me to sing.
468
00:33:14,590 --> 00:33:18,224
It seems that my heart
must be bursting with pride.
469
00:33:18,403 --> 00:33:23,001
And I look into your face
and tears come to my eyes.
470
00:33:23,526 --> 00:33:27,135
There was the love affair with another
Frenchman, much younger than her,
471
00:33:27,299 --> 00:33:29,938
who was stranded
in this same house during the war,
472
00:33:30,099 --> 00:33:32,454
the one who discovers Borges
and shows him to the world,
473
00:33:32,579 --> 00:33:36,155
who edit, in San lsidro, the issues
of a magazine financed by Victoria,
474
00:33:36,179 --> 00:33:39,933
which the allies will drop
on the turbulent European soil.
475
00:33:41,699 --> 00:33:45,453
Probably Roger Caillois is better
remembered today for those things
476
00:33:45,579 --> 00:33:49,333
than for his prose assembled
in so many of those library volumes
477
00:33:49,579 --> 00:33:52,252
which the detective will never touch.
478
00:33:53,699 --> 00:33:56,532
The detective will find out
much more about Victoria:
479
00:33:56,699 --> 00:33:59,452
that she dined with Mussolini,
and was sent to jail by Perón,
480
00:33:59,779 --> 00:34:02,339
that she fought for the equality
of women's rights,
481
00:34:02,499 --> 00:34:05,650
and made a proposition to Eisenstein
to film a documentary on the Pampa,
482
00:34:05,779 --> 00:34:07,656
that she attended
the Nüremberg trials,
483
00:34:07,899 --> 00:34:10,049
that she anticipated the dimension
reached by Lacan and Borges,
484
00:34:10,278 --> 00:34:12,932
and overestimated
that of Tagore and Von Keyserling,
485
00:34:13,099 --> 00:34:15,659
that she received decorations
from France and England,
486
00:34:15,779 --> 00:34:18,549
that she despised
the 1978 Football Cup,
487
00:34:18,579 --> 00:34:22,254
and that she died impoverished
and very lonely in 1979,
488
00:34:22,899 --> 00:34:26,050
in the same
overcrowded solitude of this house.
489
00:34:29,707 --> 00:34:32,269
All that
will be known to the detective,
490
00:34:32,299 --> 00:34:35,166
formerly the fetishist,
formerly the fugitive.
491
00:34:35,475 --> 00:34:38,990
He cannot, however, stop thinking
that those dates and names
492
00:34:39,020 --> 00:34:43,052
do not solve the mystery of the
beautiful girl in the youthful pictures.
493
00:34:43,968 --> 00:34:47,261
Now he envies the portraitists
whose names do not mean anything to him:
494
00:34:47,291 --> 00:34:49,917
because they saw her,
because she posed for them,
495
00:34:50,214 --> 00:34:53,052
because they created these images
which are different from her
496
00:34:53,179 --> 00:34:58,048
but have become the real her
for the detective, and now for us too.
497
00:35:00,699 --> 00:35:03,930
A girl who crossed an ocean
to have her portrait painted,
498
00:35:04,179 --> 00:35:06,534
who went to France in search
of her own image.
499
00:35:06,979 --> 00:35:09,475
She found more than that
a hundred years ago.
500
00:35:09,499 --> 00:35:13,731
In a matter of hours she met both
Julián Martínez and Stravinsky's music,
501
00:35:14,522 --> 00:35:16,609
love and modernity.
502
00:35:18,523 --> 00:35:22,216
But for us,
that girl is unrecoverable.
503
00:35:23,659 --> 00:35:27,015
"When the end draws near, there
no longer remain any remembered images;
504
00:35:27,209 --> 00:35:28,766
only words remain".
505
00:35:30,211 --> 00:35:32,289
The phrase sounds familiar
to the detective,
506
00:35:32,866 --> 00:35:35,447
who, through professional bias,
507
00:35:36,017 --> 00:35:38,089
has always been suspicious of words.
508
00:35:44,195 --> 00:35:50,641
I have reached the edge of eternity
where nothing ever dissipates.
509
00:35:51,040 --> 00:35:53,532
Neither hope, nor happiness,
510
00:35:53,562 --> 00:35:57,597
nor the memory of faces
glimpsed through tears.
511
00:35:58,879 --> 00:36:02,943
O soak my glassiness
in this ocean.
512
00:36:02,973 --> 00:36:06,867
Immerse yourself into
the bosom of your complaints.
513
00:36:06,897 --> 00:36:09,577
And let me finally feel,
514
00:36:09,987 --> 00:36:15,431
this lost caress throughout
the whole of winter.