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El Ciego

Elías Canetti

El ciego no es ciego de nacimiento, aunque poco le costó llegar a serlo. Tiene una cámara, la lleva a todas partes y se complace en mantener los ojos cerrados. Es como en los sueños, aún no ha visto nada y ya esta fotografiándolo; pues luego, cuando tiene todas las fotos juntas, repartidas por igual en grandes y pequeñas, con epígrafe y número, siempre rectangulares, ordenadas, recortadas, cotejadas y expuestas, luego puede verlas mejor, de todas formas.

The Blind

Elías Canetti

The blind was not born blind, although it took him just a little to get to be it.  He has a camera, he takes it everywhere he goes and it pleases him on keeping his eyes shut. It is like dreaming, he has seen nothing and he is already photographing it; later, when he has all the photos together, he can separate them in big and small, with inscription and number, always rectangular, well arranged, trimmed, collated and set out, only then he can see them better, in all ways.

The blind saves the effort of having seen something before. He reunites what he could have seen, accumulates it and enjoys as if they were mail stamps. By the love to his camera he crosses the wide world; nothing is enough shining, distant or strange: he catches it for the camera. He says: I have been there and he points it, if he couldn’t, he would not know where he was; the world is rich, chaotic and exotic, who could remember everything?.

The blind does not believe in nothing that has never been photographed. No matter how hard people speak, presume and rumor, his motto is: Let me see those photos! That’s how one knows what one really has seen, holds it in one’s hand, can put a finger on it and even open the eyes calmly instead of previously lavish them without no sense. Everything in this life has its moment, excesses are excesses, let us reserve the vision for the photos.

The blind likes to project his photographs extended on the wall and entertains his friends in that way. Those celebrations usually last for two or three hours: silence, lights, references, indications, advice, and humor. What a delight when he puts some wrong sided! What entirety when he notices that the other has been projected twice! Impossible to express how nice one feels if the photos are big and the projection extends. Finally comes the reward for the imperturbable blindness of the entire trip. Open up, eyes, open up, now you can see, there it is, and you were there, now you must prove it!

The blind regrets that others can also demonstrate it, but he demonstrates it better.

The Blind. Elías Canetti. Earwitness: Fifty Characters. (traduction from spanish by A. P.). Anaya & Mario Muchnick. Madrid. 1997 (pp. 681-82)

gee i like to think of dead it means nearer because deeper
firmer since darker than little round water at one end of
the well     it's too cool to be crooked and it's too firm
to be hard but it's sharp and thick and it loves,    every
old thing falls in rosebugs and jackknives and kittens and
pennies they all sit there looking at each other having the
fastest time because they've never met before

dead's more even than how many ways of sitting on
your head your unnatural hair has in the morning

dead's clever too like POF goes the alarm off and the
little striker having the best time tickling away every-
body's brain so everybody just puts out their finger
and they stuff the poor thing all full of fingers

dead has a smile like the nicest man you've never met
who maybe winks at you in a streetcar and you pretend
you don't but really you do see and you are My how
glad he winked and hope he'll do it again

or if it talks about you somewhere behind your back it
makes your neck feel pleasant and stoopid       and if
dead says may i have this one and was never intro-
duced you say Yes because you know you want it to
dance with you and it wants to and it can dance and
Whocares

dead's fine like hands do you see that water flowerpots
in windows but they live higher in their house than
you so that's all you see but you don't want to

dead's happy like the way underclothes All so differ-
ently solemn and inti and sitting on one string

dead never says my dear,Time for your musiclesson
and you like music and to have somebody play who
can but you know you never can and why have to?

dead's nice like a dance where you danced simple hours
and you take all your prickley-clothes off and squeeze-
into-largeness without one word     and you lie still as
anything    in largeness and this largeness begins to
give you,the dance all over again and you,feel all again
all over the way men you liked made you feel when they
touched you(but that's not all)because largeness tells
you so you can feel what you made,men feel when,you
touched,them

dead's sorry like a thistlefluff-thing which goes land-
ing away all by himself on somebody's roof or some-
thing where who-ever-heard-of-growing and nobody
expects you to anyway

dead says come with me he says(andwhyevernot)into
the round well and see the kitten and the penny and
the jackknife and the rosebug
                              and you say Sure you
say (like that) sure i'll come with you you say for i
like kittens i do and jackknives i do and pennies i do
and rosebugs i do   

&, N  &: SEVEN POEMS, V

& [AND], 1925