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The Gospel According to Mark / 139 13 The Gospel According to Mark Borges’s “The Gospel According to Mark” stays away from the supernatural, magical, and conceptual puzzles of which Borges is so fond. The story is quite clear and simple; it avoids references to obscure historical events, conceptual or physical labyrinths, paradoxes, and ambiguities. But when it comes to interpreting its meaning, matters are not so clear or simple. There are many ways of understanding its significance. Indeed, it is a treasure trove for the interpreter who can approach it from different interpretive perspectives. The protagonist of the story is Baltasar Espinosa, whose last name means thorny and was also the name of a most celebrated Jewish philosopher in the seventeenth century, Baruch Spinoza. Baltasar’s father is a freethinker and his mother a devout Catholic. He is characterized by a typical gift of oratory and “an almost unlimited goodness.” He is, like Christ, thirtythree years old when the events narrated in the story happen, and also like Christ, he had accomplished nothing of note to that point. He accepts an invitation from a cousin to spend the summer at a ranch in the pampas. The bailiff is named Gutre, which we are told later is a corruption of Guthrie, signaling a long forgotten family origin in Inverness. He lives with his son, who is particularly uncouth, and a girl of uncertain paternity. Their dwelling is not far from the main house. Baltasar’s cousin has to leave for Buenos Aires, but Baltasar remains at the ranch. A heat wave breaks in a colossal storm that isolates the ranch. The roof of the Gutres’s place is threatened by a leak, and Baltasar allows them to move into a room in the main house, close to the tool shed. This brings all of them together. They have common meals and Baltasar tries 140 / Painting Borges to engage them in conversation, but with limited success. To pass the time, he attempts to read them passages from a famous book about gauchos in the pampas, a copy of which he finds in the small book collection of the ranch—the Gutres can neither read nor write. The bailiff, experienced in cattle ranching, finds the romanticized narrative inauthentic. Baltasar lets his beard grow and speculates about what his city friends will think when he returns to Buenos Aires. One day, while exploring the house, he finds an old Bible, in English, with the Guthrie family history. The present Guthries had emigrated to the New World in the early nineteenth century, but had intermarried with Indians and had now forgotten both their origins and language. To try his hand at translating and to see if he could get them interested, he reads the Gutres some passages from “The Gospel According to Mark,” and is surprised to find that they are fascinated by it. From then on, the Gutres anxiously look forward to the reading after dinner. After Baltasar successfully treats the wound of a little lamb that is the girl’s pet with standard medications, the Gutres show him extraordinary gratitude. They pamper him, follow him around the house, and obey his orders immediately. One day he catches them discussing him in respectful words. After finishing with the Gospel According to Mark, Baltasar tries to read them a different Gospel, but the bailiff asks him to read Mark again, so that they can understand it better. One night Baltasar dreams of the Flood and wakes up at the sound of the hammering of the building of the Ark, but imagines it is thunder. The second storm takes place on Tuesday and, on Thursday, the girl comes into his room, naked and barefoot. She is a virgin. The following day begins as usual, but the bailiff asks Baltasar whether Christ had undergone his death to save all mankind, including those who nailed him to the cross. Baltasar answers affirmatively, although he is not quite sure of the details of the Christian doctrine. Then they ask him to read the last chapters of the Gospel after lunch. Baltasar takes a siesta, which is interrupted by insistent hammering. Toward evening, the Gutres kneel on the floor in front of him and ask his blessing. Then they curse him, spit on him, and the men drive him to the back of the house, while the girl cries. When they open the door, Baltasar sees the sky and hears the cry of a gold...

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