He remembered how he had begun to inhale ether because ether brought him peace after those attacks in which he was exhausted, humiliated, and with bristling nerves. How, later, opium saved him from the transitory lucid death of sneezing attacks. The affection, the lullaby, the consolation, and the smell of that woman— who had killed her son when he, as a teenager, began to work on a newspaper—who was now a priestess in Canudos, resembled opium and ether. They were something soft and lethargic, a welcome absence. And he wondered if ever, as a child, that mother he had never met caressed him like that and made him feel invulnerability and indifference to the dangers of the world. *
*My translation. Original text at the bottom of this post.
From “The War of the End of the World” by Mario Vargas Llosa
In one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century, Vargas LLosa demonstrates his masterful abilities as a storyteller and a writer. His significant contributions to the Spanish literature made him worthy of the Nobel Prize. Vargas LLosa enjoys the gift of visualizing the scenes as if he were witnessing them. He gets into the shoes of his fictional characters. In the above scene, a starving and almost-blind, unsightly newspaperman feels an older woman’s comforting hand when he faces death at the last throes of the war. The last sentence fascinates me:
“And he wondered if ever, as a child, that mother he had never met caressed him like that and made him feel invulnerability and indifference to the dangers of the world.”
What a fantastic way of expressing a mother’s love for her child!
Original text in Spanish:
Recordó como había comenzado a aspirar éter porque el éter le traía el sosiego después de esos ataques en que quedaba exhausto, humillado y con los nervios erizados, y cómo, luego, el opio lo salvaba de los estornudos con una muerte transitoria y lúcida. Los cariños, el arrullo, el consuelo, el olor de esa mujer que había matado a su hijo cuando él, adolescente, comenzaba a trabajar en un diario y que era ahora sacerdotisa de Canudos, se parecían al opio y al éter, eran algo suave y letárgico, una grata ausencia, y se preguntó si alguna vez, de niño, esa madre a la que él no había conocido lo acarició así y le hizo sentir invulnerabilidad e indiferencia antes los peligros del mundo.
