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The Secret Miracle / 129 12 The Secret Miracle From a philosophical standpoint, Borges’s “The Secret Miracle” presents us with at least two interesting questions, one has to do with the nature of time, the other with divine power and the nature of miracles. Is time relative or absolute? Are miracles produced by divine power possible? Both questions have been the subject of much discussion, and disagreements about their answers have been frequent. For Aristotle, whose view of time dominated Western thought until the eighteenth century, time is the measure of motion and therefore relative, a by-product of the substances that exist. But for Isaac Newton, whose view supplanted Aristotle’s, time was absolute, a kind of receptacle where things fit. In the twentieth century, Albert Einstein challenged this position, combining time and space in the famous theory of relativity. Miracles have also been controversial. The empiricism and rationalism of the Greeks made no room for miracles. Nature moves according to laws that determine outcomes and a divinity, such as Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover, who moves the world by being its object of desire, not by tinkering with events. The idea of a personal god who cares for the individual banalities of people was unthinkable. But the success of Christianity changed all that, opening the doors to an attempt to develop a view of miracles concordant with science. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas were instrumental in establishing this tradition until early modern skeptics, such as David Hume, challenged it. For Hume, miracles are not only impossible, they are incomprehensible. The ostensive answers to the questions of time and miracles posed by Borges’s story are, first, that time is relative and, second, that this makes miracles possible. However, if one 130 / Painting Borges focuses on the statement in the story, to the effect that unreality is essential to art, it is possible to interpret the main theme of the narrative as the divide between the real and the unreal. The story takes place in Prague during the occupation of the city by the forces of the Third Reich. It begins on March 14, 1939, the day before the invasion occurs. The protagonist is Jaromir Hladík, a Jewish playwright and author of various works including an incomplete drama entitled The Enemies. Jaromir is dreaming of a long game of chess whose players are two illustrious families, and he wakes up at the moment in which the armored cars roll into Prague. On March 19, an informer accuses him and he is arrested. He cannot deny that he comes from Jewish blood and has written on Jewish subjects. He is summarily condemned to be executed by firing squad on March 29. This terrifies him and he relives the moment of his death repeatedly, sometimes hoping that this could prevent it, and at other times thinking that his imaginings could be prophetic. As the day of his execution approaches, he impatiently begins to yearn for the shots that will kill him. But on March 28, his thought runs back to his play, The Enemies. As a writer he measures others by their work, and he regrets that he has not left any book that lives up to his expectations. This leads him to think that perhaps he could redeem himself by finishing The Enemies, but he does not have the time. The incomplete play has a convoluted plot that ends where it began, suggesting that the action in the play has not taken place. In a moment of hope, he asks God to give him one year to complete the play. That night, he dreams that he is at the Clementine Library in Prague and hears a voice that tells him, “The time for your labor has been granted.” In the morning he is taken to the front of the firing squad. A heavy drop of rain grazes his temple and rolls down his cheek. The sergeant gives the order to fire, and the universe stops. Everything is frozen, including Jaromir, with the exception of his thoughts. He wonders whether he is dead or mad, or whether time has stopped. But this last possibility could not be, since he is still able to think. In time he realizes that his prayer has been answered favorably. A miracle, secret in that it is known only to him, has occurred. He works from memory and completes the play by March 29 at 9:02 a.m., at which time he dies. He...

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