: Ind of the flame and other stories Julio Cortazar ‘Translated from the Spanish by PAR © sanrer cxoros tors ceeaanes eee npAxototl TL. twas a time when I thought a great deal bout the axalots. I went to see them in the aquarium at the Jardin des Plantes and stayed for hours watching them, cbserving their immobiley, their falnt movements ‘Now i am an axolot T got to them by chance one spring morning when Paris ‘as spreading its peacock tall aftor a wintry Lent. I was heading down the boulevard Port-Royal, then I took Saint ‘Marcel and L'opital and saw green among all that grey land remembered the Tons. 1 was fiend of the lions an panthers, but had never gone into the dark, humid buile- {ng that was the aquarium. left my bike against the gratFULIO cORTAzAR ‘ngs and wont to look atthe tulips. The lions were sad and ‘ply and my panther was asloep. 1 decided on the aquar- jum, Jooked obliquely 2t banal fish until, unexpectediy, 1 hit it off with the axolods I stayed watching diem for an ‘hour and left, unable to chink of anything els, a the Uirary at Salnte-Ganevieve, T consulted a dle- tionary and learned that axolotl are the larval stage (pre- vidod with gills) ofa species of salamander of the genus Ambystoma, That dhey were Mexican 1 knew slzeady by looking at them and thelr lle pink Aztec faces and the placard atthe top of the tank. I read that specimens of them had heen found ia Afiica eapable of ving on dey and during the periods of drought, and continuing thete Iife under water when the rainy season came. T found their Spanish name, ajolote, and the mention that they ‘were edible, and that thei oll was used (no longer used, said) lke cod iver of didn’ care t0 look up any ofthe specialized works, but ‘the next day went back to the Jardin des Plantes. hogan 4o go every morning, moming and afternoon some days. "The aguarium guard smiled peeplexedly taking my Heke ‘would lean up against the ion bar in ront of te tanks and set to watching chem, There's nothing strange in this, Decause after the frst minute I knew chat we were linked, ‘that something infinitely lost and distant kept pulling us together. Ithad boon enough to detain me that frst morn- {ng infront ofthe sheet of glass where seme bubbles rose ‘rough the water. The axolotls huddled on the wretched narrow (only Tean know how narrow and wretched) floor ‘of moss and stone inthe tank. There were nine specimens, ‘and the majacty preseed their heads ageinst the glass, ooking with their eyes of gold ar whoever came near ‘hem, Disconcerted, almost ashamed, 1 felt ica lewdness {o be peering at these sient and immobile figures heaped atthe bottom of the tank. Mentally T isolated ane, situated . 4 Ato : «mth ight and somewhat spat fom the ober 0 study ‘Chae Ts oye by eaaucet (Uh ot hove Chinese hguanes of midy glass), looking bke a Sroalllzard about inches ong, ending in Gs tal of txtwaordinary delicacy, the most sensibve Far of ou Bory slong the back ran #tansparent fn which fined Ta to tal, but what obsesed me was the fet tthe Tandorest cory, ening nti Ser with inal hi In as And then | isevered eyes, face, ne ress featre, wih no oer tlt ave the ee, S80 nee, Uke hrochos nhl of eransparen gol, acing Shy fo but looking. iting themselves be penetrated by stot, which sees to travel pest he gon level and Tove elf in daphanovs interior mystery. A vor lendec Disk haloringed the eye an etched onto the pink lesb, nto the rosy stone ofthe head, vaguely triangular, but frth curved nd ivepular sides which geve it total He hess fo 8 statute corroded by time. The mouth was askod bythe angular plane ofthe fae, to const “Ble stze would be guessed only in prot; infront dei ate crevice burly lt the less stone. On oth sides of there whee te cr shuld Bae eon, tee three ny spige red as coal, a Vegetal cuigrovty the fils I suppose And they were the only thing quck about Prciexy ten or Aten conde te spaige picked up sy fad aga nbsidod, Onc i ale foot would barely ‘moves sav’ he dminatv toes poe milly on the moss. Tis tha no dont enjoy moving ot nd the tant =o rampedwe barely move in shy deen and wee ii fing ne of te ober wth out tll or our head-—diicale {so aie, Aight, tietnse, The te Tels ike its Less if wre stay que, Tew th quietness hat made me Fan toma dea fascinated the ist ine T saw the tcl, Obsexrly Seemed to understand et serat lt abolish space 5souio conrdzan and ime with an indiferent immobility. I knew betor later; the gil eantracion, the tentative reckoning of the elicate fot on the stones, the abrupt swimming (some of them ayrim with «simple undulaion of the body) proved fo me that they were capable of escaping that mineral lethargy in which they spent whole hours. Above all els, ‘heir eyes obsessed me. In the standing tanks on elther side of them, diferent fishes showed me the simple sta- pldity of thal handsome oyes so similar to our own. The {eo of the axelotls spoke to me of the presence ofa dilfer- {cht le, of another way of seeing, Giueing my face to the ‘lass (the guard would cough fussily once in a while), 1 tried to see better thoso diminutive golden points, that eo- lance to the infinitely slow and remote World of these soay creatures It was Useless to tap with one finger on the lace directly infront of thelr faces; hey nover gave the Teast reaction. The golden eyes continued burning with ‘oir soft, cersble light; they continued looking at me from an uafatbomable depth which made me dizzy. ‘And nevertheless they were close. I knew it before this, before being an axolotl, IJeamed it the day I came near ‘them fr the Hrs tine. The anthropomorphic features of @ ‘monkey reveal the reverse of what most people belive, the distance that is waveled fom them to us. The absolute lack of similaty between axolous and human beings ‘proved tome that my recognition was valid, chat Iwas not Dropping myself up with easy analogies. Only the litle bands. -, But an oft, dhe common newt, as such Jhands iso, and we aze not at all alike, Y thnk it was che axolotl’ heads, hat trimgular pink shape with the tiny ‘eyes of gold. That looked and knew. Tht laid the lai, ‘They were not anima, Trvould seem easy, almost obvious, to fall into mtbok og. began seeing inthe exolotls a metemorphosis which i not succeed in revoking a mysterious humanity. ¥im- a 6 Azoiot 5 agined thom aware, slaves of thelr bodies, condemned in ately to the lence of the abyss, co a hopeless medita tion, Their blind gaze, tho diminutive gold dise without ‘expression and nonetheless teribly shining, went through ‘me lke a message: “Save us, save us." I caught mye ‘mumbling words of advice, conveying childish hopes, ‘They continued to look at me, immobile; from time 10 tdme the rosy branches of the gilsstiffaned, in that in- stant I felt a muted pain; perhaps they ware seoing mo, atiracting my strength to penetrate into the impenetrable thing of thelr lives, They were not human beings, but 1 Thad found im no animal such a profound relation with myself, The axolods were like witnesses of somothing, and at mes ike Rorsibe judges. I felt fgnobie in front of ‘hem: there was such a terrifying purty in those teanspar. ‘ent eyes. They were larva, But larva means disguise and also phantom, Beliind those Aztec faces, without expees- on but of an implacable cruelty, what semblance was awaiting ts hour? 1 was afrald of them. I dink that had it not been for feeling the proximity of other visitors and the guard, 1 would not have been bold enowgh to remain alone with ‘hem, “You eat them alive with your eye, hoy.” the guard ‘sai, Iaughing; he likely dhought I fas a litle cracked, ‘What he did't notice was that it was they devouring me slowly with their eyes, in a cannibaliem of gold. At any distance from the aquarium, 1 had only to chink of tem, J was as though I were being afected fram a distance. Tt got tothe point that I was going every day, and at night 1 ‘Hhoaght of them immobile in the dasiiness, slowly puting ‘2 hand out which immediately encountered another. Per Thape thelr eyes could seen the dead of night, and for them the day continued indefinitely, The eyes of axotods ‘haven lds ‘Tknow ow that there was nothing steange, chat that 7‘und to eur, Leaning over in font of the tank each momn- Ing, the recognition was greater, They were suffering, fevery fiber of my body reached toward that stifled pain, Chat st torment at the bottom of the tank. They were Iying in wait for semething, a xemote dominion destroyed, ‘an age of liberty when the world had been that of the ‘aiolotis, Not possible that such a terrible expression ‘hich was attaining the overthrow of that forced blank ‘ness on their stone faces should carry any message other ‘han ene of pain, proof of that eternal sentence, of that liquid hell they wete undergoing. Hopslesly, 1 wanted to prove co myself that my own sonsibty was projecting Fonexistent conseiousmess upon the axolotl. They and T knew. So chore was nothing strange in what happened. My ace was pressed ageinst the glass of the aquarium, my eyes were attempting ance more to penetrate the mystery ‘of those eyes of gold without iis, widhout pupil. I saw ‘rom very cose up che face ofan axolod immobile next to the glass, No transition and no surprise, I saw my face against che glass, saw iton the autsie ofthe tank, I saw ton the other side of the glass. Then my face drew back and I understood, ‘Only one thing was strange: to go on thinking as usta, toknow, To realize that was, forthe frst moment, like the horror of a man buried alive awaking to his fate, Outside, ‘my face came close to the glass again, I saw my mouth, the lips compressed with dhe effort of understanding the ‘sxolotls. Iwas an sxolodl and now I knevr instantly that no ‘understanding was possble, He was outside the aquar- sum, his thinking was a thinking outside the tank. Recog- ‘nizing him, betng him himself, {was an axolol and in my. ‘world, The horror hogan—T larned in the same moment wer believing mysalf prlsonor in the body of an axcot ‘metamorphosed into him with my human mind intact, buried alive in an axolod, condemned to move lucidly > 8 Axoiot ‘among unconscious creatures. But that stopped winen a oot just grazed my face, when I moved just alte to one ‘side and Say an axolotl next to me who was looking at me, fand understood that be law alsa, no communication ‘posstble, Dut very cleanly. Or I was also in him, oral of us ‘ere thinking humanlike, incapable of expression, limited te the golden splendor of our eyes looking at the face of ‘he man pressed against the aquarium, ‘He retumed many times, bat he comes Jess often nov. ‘Weeks pase without his shossing up. I saw him yesterday, Ihe Jooked at me for a long time and loft briskly. I seemed ‘tome that he was not eo much interested in vs any more, that he was coming out af habit. Sine the ony thing To ‘stink, [could think about him alot. te occurs tome that at the beginning we continued to communicate, that he felt more than ever one with the mystery which was ‘laiming him. But the bridges were broken between him ‘and me, beoause what was his obsession is now an axed, ‘lien to his human life. I dhink that at the beginning J ‘was capable of returning to him in a certain way—th, ‘nly ina corain way—and af keeping awake his desires Jknow us better. Tam an axolol for good now, and i I ‘think Hike a man it only beeawse every axolotl chinks like ‘aman inside his rosy stone semblance. I believe that ll this eucoveded in communicating something to im in ‘hose fine days, when T was sil. And in eis na sli- tude to which he no longer comes, I console myscit by thinking that pechaps he fs going to Write a sory about us, that, believing he's making up @ story, Bes going to waite all this about axolotl