A man worn down by time;
a man who doesn’t even expect death
(the proofs of death are statistics
and there is no one who doesn’t run the risk
of being the first immortal);
a man who has learned to appreciate
the day’s meagre munificence:
sleep, routine, the taste of water,
an unsuspected etymology,
a Latin or Saxon verse,
the memory of a woman who left him
so many years ago
that today he can recall her without bitterness;
a man who doesn’t ignore that the present
is already the future and oblivion;
a man who has been disloyal
and to whom others have been disloyal;
he might feel suddenly, while crossing the street,
a mysterious happiness
born not of hope
but of an ancient innocence,
of his own root or of some diffused deity.

He knows that he shouldn’t look at it closely,
for there are reasons more terrible than tigers
which will prove to him his obligation
to be miserable,
but he humbly experiences
that happiness, that impulse.

Perhaps we’ll be forever in death,
when the dust is dust,
that indecipherable root,
from which will eternally blossom,
happy or horrible,
our solitary heaven or hell.

Jorge Luis Borges, “Alguien” from El Otro, el Mismo (“Someone” from The Other, the Self)