THE ZAHIR
147
Up till the end of June I was busy writing a tale of fantasy. This
contained two or three enigmatic circumlocutions, or "kennings":
for example, instead of
blood
it says
sword-water,
and
gold
is
the ser–
pent's bed;
the story is told in the first person. The narrator is an
ascetic who has abjured the society of men and who lives in a kind
of wilderness. (The name of this place is Gnitaheidr.) Because of the
simplicity and candor of his life there are those who consider him an
angel; but this is a pious exaggeration, for there is no man who is
free of sin.
As
a matter of fact, he has cut his own father's throat, the
old man having been a notorious wizard who by magic arts had got
possession of a limitless treasure. To guard this treasure from the
insane covetousness of human beings is the purpose to which our
ascetic has dedicated his life: day and night he keeps watch over
the hoard. Soon, perhaps too soon, this vigil of his will come to an
end : the stars have told him that the sword has already been forged
which will cut it short for ever. (Gram is the name of that sword.) In
a rhetoric increasingly more complex he contemplates the brilliance
and the flexibility of his body: in one paragraph he speaks distracted–
ly of his scales; in another he says that the treasure which he guards
is flashing gold and rings of red. In the end we understand that the
ascetic is the serpent Fafnir, that the treasure upon which he lies is
the treasure of the Niebelungs. The appearance of Sigurd brings the
story to an abrupt end.
I have said that the composition of this trifle (into which I in–
serted, in a pseudo-erudite fashion, a verse or two from the
F6,fnismal)
gave me a chance to forget the coin. There were nights when I felt
so sure of being able to forget it that I deliberately recalled it to mind.
What is certain is, that I overdid these occasions: it was easier to
start the thing than to have done with it. It was in vain that I told
myself that that abominable nickel disk was no different from others
that pass from one hand to another, alike, countless, innocuous. At–
tracted by this idea, I tried to think of other coins; but I could not.
I remember, too, a frustrated experiment I made with fifteen Chi–
lean centavos and an Uruguayan
vinten.
On the sixteenth of July I
acquired a pound sterling. I did not look at it during the day, but that
night (and other nights) I put it under a magnifying glass and studied
it by the light of a powerful electric lamp. Afterwards I traced it on
