Free The Clouds by Juan José Saer Page A

get a further explanation. Several times, according to Señor Parra, he’d searched for ragged and dirty garments, preferring those that had belonged to slaves but were in such a state that even the slaves no longer used them, and, bare-headed and barefoot, had taken to the streets to read on the corners some supposedly philosophical tract that he himself had incomprehensibly drawn up. According to Señor Parra, Prudencio’s handwriting had changed completely and his minute and firmly-applied adolescent script—unreadable even then—had transformed into a monumental, disjointed one, so loose, overblown, and shaky that no more than twenty or thirty words fit into a notebook. People generally took pity on him and brought him back to the house, but once a few ill-favored sorts, vagrants who roamed the outskirts, had taken him to amuse themselves at his expense. They abandoned him afterward in the middle of a field where he had wandered all night; the search party just managed to find him the following day. Señor Parra told me that when they found him, Prudencio hadn’t seemed at all upset by the humiliations visited upon him; rather, it was the vagabonds’ lot that troubled him, and he was insistent, excitinghimself almost to tears, about the poverty that had forced them to the margins of society. A week later, when the police captured two members of the band who had returned to the city thinking they would not be recognized by more than a few residents, they got a few good lashes and were tied to stakes in a little field near the edge of town, where Prudencio went to see them and begged the authorities to release them. With time, those fits would pass, and a sadness overtook him, heavier each time. (Señor Parra explained to me that during that period Prudencio’s handwriting would change back, shrinking once more, but so exaggeratedly that it became illegible. What’s more, from then on he left off writing altogether. So said Señor Parra.)
    He did not wash or dress, and sometimes did not even get out of bed, and a sort of apathy took hold of him; despite his peculiarities, he’d been very affectionate since boyhood, not only with family members, but also with neighbors, the slaves, and even strangers, to the point that sometimes his demonstrations proved too much and annoyed certain people who were only passing through the house—but that affection had gone, as if the real world where he had lived until that time was being replaced by another where everything was gray and strange. Troubles, illnesses, and even the deaths of those who had previously been very dear to him yielded not a single sentiment or emotion, and if from time to time his breathing and occasional moans betrayed his undeniable suffering, it was impossible to know what caused it. It became clear, though, that the causes were not external, but lay rather in a few small, painful thoughts that seemed to be unchanging and constantly pondered. Señor Parra had to begin forcing Prudencio out of bed, to dress, to eat, to take a walk, or at least go out to the gallery or the courtyard, especially when the weather was fair, and though he protested at first, in the end, meekly, he would let himself be led away. His eloquence, which he employed duringbouts of fever to try to convince his fellow men that a hazy but imminent catastrophe was brewing, began to wane, and his impassioned speeches became more incoherent and lacked conviction. Gestures and signs once accompanied them for emphasis and to suggest, especially, a secret that he tried in his passion to pass on to his fellows without revealing it completely, but little by little his rants broke down, and exclamations were replaced by halting and unfinished sentences, joining the stiffness of his expression and the feeble immobility of his limbs. In the end, he would only open his mouth to answer, and only in monosyllables, a question he had been asked. When from