Ulrike

By JORGE LUIS BORGES

He took the sword Gram and laid it naked between them.

--The Saga of the Volsungs, 29
y story will be true to reality or, in any case, to my personal memory of
reality, which amounts to the same thing. The events took place only a
short time ago, but I know that literary habit is also the habit of adding
circumstantial details and of underlining high points. I want to give an
account of my meeting with Ulrike (I never knew her surname and
perhaps never shall) in the city of York. The narrative will encompass
one night and a morning.
It would be easy to say that I saw her for the first time by the Five
Sisters of York Minister, those stained-glass windows which, pure of any
image, Cromwell's iconoclasts respected, but the fact is that we met in
the small lounge of The Northern Inn, which lies outside the city walls.
We were a handful, and Ulrike stood with her back to us. Someone
offered her a drink and she refused it.
"I am a feminist," she said. "I am not out to ape men. I dislike their
tobacco and their alcohol."
The remark was meant to be witty, and I guessed that this was not the
first time she had delivered it. I later found out that it was not typical of
her, but what we say is not always like us. She mentioned that she had
arrived at the museum too late, but that they let her in when they
learned she was a Norwegian.
One of those present remarked, "It's not the first time the Norwegians
have entered York."
"That's right," she said. "England was once ours and we lost it--if one
can have anything or if anything can be lost."
It was at this point that I looked at her. A line in Blake speaks of girls of
mild silver or of furious gold, but in Ulrike were both gold and mildness.
She was tall and slender, with sharp features and gray eyes. Less than
by her face, I was impressed by her air of calm mystery. She smiled
easily, and the smile seemed to withdraw her from the company. She
was dressed in black, which is strange for northern lands, which try to
liven the drab surroundings with vivid colors. She spoke a crisp, precise
English, rolling her r's slightly. I am not much of an observer; these
things I discovered bit by bit.
We were introduced. I told her that I was a professor at the University
of the Andes, in Bogotá. I explained that I was a Colombian.
She asked me in a thoughtful way, "What does it mean to be a
Colombian?"
"I don't know," I replied. "It's an act of faith."
"Like being Norwegian," she affirmed.
I can remember no more of what was said that night. The next day, I
came down to the dining room early. Through the windows I saw that it
had snowed; in the early morning light the moors faded away. We were
the only ones there. Ulrike invited me to her table. She told me that
she liked going out for solitary walks.
Recalling a joke of Schopenhauer's, I said, "So do I. The two of us could
go out together."
We walked away from the inn on the new-fallen snow. There was not a
soul about. I suggested that we go on to Thorgate, a few miles down
the river. I think that I was already in love with Ulrike; I could never
have wanted any other person by my side.
All at once, I heard the distant howling of a wolf. I had never before
heard a wolf howl, but I knew it was a wolf. Ulrike was impassive.
A while later she said, as if thinking aloud, "The few poor swords I saw
yesterday in York Minister moved me more than the great ships in the
Oslo museum."
Our paths had crossed. That evening, Ulrike would continue her
journey on to London; I to Edinburgh.
"In Oxford Street," she told me, "I shall follow De Quincey's footsteps in
search of his Ann, lost amid the crowds of London."
"De Quincey stopped looking for her," I replied. "All my life, I never
have."
"Maybe you've found her," Ulrike said, her voice low.
I realized that an unexpected thing was not forbidden me, and I kissed
her on the mouth and eyes. She drew away firmly but gently and then
declared, "I'll be yours in the inn at Thorgate. Until then, I ask you not
to touch me. It is better that way."
To a bachelor well along in years, the offer of love is a gift no longer
expected. The miracle has a right to impose conditions. I thought back
on my youth in Popayán and on a girl in Texas, as fair and slender as
Ulrike, who once denied me her love.
I did not make the mistake of asking Ulrike whether she loved me. I
realized that this was not her first time nor would it be her last. The
adventure, perhaps my last, would be one of many for that splendid,
determined follower of Ibsen. Hand in hand, we walked on.
"All this is like a dream, and I never dream," I said.
"Like that king who never dreamed until a wizard made him sleep in a
pigsty," Ulrike replied. Then she added, "Listen. A bird is about to sing."
A moment or two later we heard the song.
"In these lands," I said, "it's thought that a person about to die sees
into the future."
"And I am about to die," she said.
I looked at her in astonishment. "Let's cut through the woods," I urged.
"We'll reach Thorgate sooner."
"The woods are dangerous," she said.
We continued along the moors.
"I should like this moment to last forever," I murmured.
"`Forever' is a word forbidden to men," Ulrike said and, to soften the
force of this, she asked me to repeat my name, which she had not
caught.
"Javier Otálora," I said.
She tried to pronounce it and couldn't. I failed, equally, with the name
Ulrike.
"I shall call you Sigurd," she said with a smile.
"If I am Sigurd," I replied, "you will be Brynhild."
She had slowed her step.
"Do you know the saga?" I asked.
"Of course," she said. "The tragic story spoiled by the Germans with
their late Nibelungs."
Not wishing to argue the point, I answered, "Brynhild, you're walking as
if you wished a sword lay between us in bed."
Suddenly we stood before the inn. It did not surprise me that, like the
other one, it was called The Northern Inn.
From the top of the stairs, Ulrike called down to me, "Did you hear the
wolf? There are no longer any wolves in England. Hurry."
Climbing to the upper floor, I noticed that the walls were papered in
the style of William Morris, in a deep red, with a design of fruit and
birds intertwined. Ulrike went on ahead. The dark room was low, with a
slanted ceiling. The awaited bed was duplicated in a dim mirror, and
the polished mahogany reminded me of the looking-glass of Scriptures.
Ulrike had already undressed. She called me by my real name--Javier. I
felt that the snow was falling faster. Now there were no longer any
mirrors or furniture. There was no sword between us. Time passed like
the sands. In the darkness, centuries-old, love flowed, and for the first
and last time I possessed Ulrike's image.