SOURCE: Luchting, Wolfgang. “Esse No Longer Est Percipi? The Sad Fate of Epistemology in Los Adioses by J. C. Onetti.” Selecta (1981): 116-19.

[In the following essay, Luchting analyzes the difference between perception and knowledge in Los Adioses.]

What greater superstition is there than the mumbo-jumbo of believing in reality?

(Christopher Fry, The Lady's Not for Burning, Act II)

First the plot: “Un hombre [tuberculoso] llega a una ciudad … donde hacen su cura los tuberculosos … se niega a asimilarse. … Vive sólo para las dos cartas [de tipo diferente cada uno] que llegan regularmente. … Un día llega la mujer, autora de una serie de [las cartas]. … Otro día, distinto, llega la de [la otra serie]. … Para ella, el hombre ha alquilado un chalet. Con la primera mujer, el hombre vive en el hotel. …”¹

Primarily an almacenero, a mucama, and an enfermero, later others and, finally, the whole city, conjecture that the man and the two women constitute a ménage a trois, over which they are indignant. The real situation, however, is different.

In the subtitle I use epistemology in its pragmatic sense. The Columbia Encyclopedia (Third Edition) observes: “The methods of perceiving, of obtaining and validating data derived from sense experiences. … knowledge arises in the functional relationship of a perceiving organism and a perceived universe” (my emphasis).

Pragmatism is not a frequent term in literary analysis (except for the nouveau roman); epistemology is: literature itself is often considered one manner of “knowing the world.”

The words of the definition that are of interest in the reading of Los adioses I would like to offer here are those emphasized, particularly “to perceive,” “perceiving organism,” and “perceived universe.” The other underlined words are important, too; and I shall return to them.

“To perceive” is “To have or obtain knowledge or awareness of by the senses; to apprehend with the mind; to discover, know, understand” (The Living Webster, 1971). More importantly, among the verb's synonyms are: “observe,” “conceive,” “infer,” and above all “see.”²To see can thus legitimately operate for the theme in Los adioses on which I wish to concentrate.

And in Spanish? Percibir (a verb not occurring in the novel) is, again, among others, “observar” and “ver” (Larousse, 1968). Significantly, the work adds: “adivinar.” From Gili Gaya's Diccionario de sinónimos (1970) I pick: “percibir es un acto de la inteligencia; concebir es obra de la imaginación.”

Onetti's Los adioses opens with: “Quisiera no haber visto del hombre … nada más que las manos”³ and in its closing paragraph, referring to the percept of the opening's “visto,” we read “lo que yo había descubierto meses atrás,” (pp. 87-88; my emphasis); namely, the message those manos conveyed to the narrative “yo” (the almacenero). What is more, the last verb of the novel is “presentir” (a form of adivinar): “[the ‘hombre’ of the hands seen in the first line, was that] primera vez … en el almacén … disponiéndose ya, sin presentirlo, para cualquier noche futura y violenta” (p. 88), i.e., the noche of his suicide: the hombre (who has no name) did neither adivinar nor conjecture about his future, his death; in fact, from the very beginning he rejects “asimilarse a esa vida de sanatorio, de alentada esperanza, que contamina toda la sociedad,”⁴ for he is only interested in his glorious athletic past,⁵ which he knows. Whereas “la ciudad” knows only about his present, that he is tubercular.

“Visto” and “descubrir” refer not only to the immediate situation. In a much wider sense, they constitute the two poles between which lies the thematic field of tension in the book: it stretches from seeing someone do something, via inferring (wrongly) a state of (literally) affairs from that something, to the discovery that the “data derived from the sense experience” were “validated” erroneously.

Why erroneously? Because the “perceiving organism” was not, could not be, value-free vis-à-vis the “perceived universe.” What the narrator and his helpers saw, they did not really get to know; instead, they only thought they knew, they conceived, inferred “by the senses” (here, hearing and seeing), “with the mind” (here, imagining and conjecturing), i.e., they played adivinos, clairvoyants; but their vision was not all that claire. It was clouded with their prejudices. Their precepts muddied their percepts. It was all “in their mind.”

That is why one of the narrating “people-watchers” repeatedly (e.g., pp. 19, 37) uses the expression “es de no creer,” not as a statement but as a cry of indignation: what he (and others) have seen leads them to conclude that some persons are behaving in such immoral fashion that it is “de no creer.”

Therefore, after the documented (“scientific,” as behoves pragmatism) truth is discovered (a letter revealing the real state of affairs), the narrator says: “Sentí vergüenza y rabia … crecían la rabia, la humillación, el viboreo de un pequeño orgullo atormentado” (p. 83), and this synecdochically for all the other mirones, for “la equivocación de los demás” (p. 83), lastly for society as a whole, along with its pragmatic judgment of reality. Reality is not what it was (is) thought to be. Here: not every combination of woman-man-woman is a ménage à trois.

Ver: In view of the foregoing it is necessary to look briefly into its semantic charges, of which there are two of particular relevance. The two definitory lines in the Diccionario de la Real Academia for ver's substantive use give the meanings immediately: (I) “Sentido de la vista,” (II) “Parecer or apariencia de las cosas” (my emphasis).

Under the entries for ver's verbal use, the two dimensions of its substantive use are corroborated amply. We can also, and less pedantically, take two examples from a literary text chosen at random and let them give us the two semantic dimensions of ver in which I am interested here: the narrator (Vargas Llosa in La tía Julia y el escribidor, Seix Barral, 1977, pp. 232, 231) is approaching the office of the escribidor and reflects: “A cualguier hora del día que me acordaba de él … lo veía, como lo había visto tantas veces.” Clearly, the “lo veía” does not refer to (I) but to (II): Varguitas imagines the escribidor. But: “vi a lo lejos … la ventanita.” Here, the vi is a “sense experience,” i.e., belongs to (I).

There are, then, at least two manners of seeing: “perceiving” physically or imagining. With both we “read” and then “interpret” reality, as do the observers in Los adioses.

Reality is of course also “read” by our other senses: hearing. Though important in the novel (the narrator listens to the “mirones” tell him their observations in the “perceived universe” and what they make of them, adding to their conclusions his own speculations), hearing is not conspicuous lexically nor invoked as a “misreading” of reality. Gossiping is of course talking and listening, but the basis for both is primarily seeing something/someone and then construing something coherent with that which was seen.

As for seeing, this now leaves us with the following subdivision, which I document with our book's more frequent lexical manifestations: Vista: testimoniar, espiar, vigilar, identificar, reconocer, et al. Visión: imaginar, estimar, parecer, creer (and no creer = no saber⁶), dar (= inventarle a alguien), adjudicar (-le a uno), adivinar, occurrírsele, pensar, presentir, hacer cálculos, inventar, profetizar, sospechar, (re-) construir, “mentir y contar,” hacerse una idea, et al. Both: ver, recordar, darse cuenta, contar (= lo visto, interpretándolo), corregir (= lo visto, no creyéndolo), deducir, chismear, dar una versión, et al.

Though I believe that my case—that for Onetti, esse non est percipi in Los adioses (and many other works of his)—is sufficiently proven with the above enumeration, it can be strengthened further and the novel's reading enriched by pointing out additional indicators in the book which prove that Onetti's vision of reality is not only highly pessimistic but also mischievously aimed at tugging at the reality-rug under our feet:

(1) The whole text is inundated by that conditional which indicates possibility, conjecture, or probability; by the two past subjunctives; by “como si,” “tal vez,” “acaso,” “quizá,” etc.; by possibility combinations like “poder [ser] que” or “deber (de)”; finally, by approximations based on the use of “o … o … o.” Some examples (emphasis added): Somebody reflects that,

Tenían que hacer dos cuadras a lo largo de la cancha … después doblarían a la derecha … Marcharían del brazo. … Tal vez recordaran … tal vez llevaran con ellos (p. 50). Y acaso estuviera contenta … tal vez hubiera organizado las cosas. … El chico tendría cinco años (p. 52). Tirado en la cama … o yendo y viniendo de la ventana a la puerta … la carta aún en el bolsillo o … apretada con otra mano o con la carta sobre el secante (pp. 15-16). Deben haber subido hasta la pieza (p. 44). Me saludó … como si … considerara necesario (p. 53). Era como si todos supieran la historia, como si hubieran apostado (p. 55).

(2) Once the narrators (almacenero, mucama, enfermero) are embarked on their conjectures, even the indicative forms connote speculation. This is especially noticeable in the latter two's “interpretation” when the athlete's two women meet (pp. 65-72). The implications of the indicative-use for “events” clearly the products of conjecture appear to be Onetti's desire to show that even linguistically “hard” reality is not reliable, even though its interpretation is so passed off, as it is by mucama and enfermero. Toward both, the almacenero progressively shows disdain (as though he were a more sophisticated “inventor”): “La discutible historia, tal como estos dos son capaces de imaginar (-la)” (p. 57).

(3) Finally, if one of Onetti's themes in Los adioses is—in a Borgian sense?—the refutation of (observable) reality, two more things must be considered: (a) how can there be any discovery of a “real” state of affairs to replace the conjectural one produced by people's “minds” (“Perception, like thinking, is social.”⁷)?; (b) what about ourselves vis-à-vis Los adioses and the “truth” the narrator “discovers,” provided Onetti's view of reality (and of people) is consistent (and consistently pessimistic)?

Perception requires an object (“perceived universe”) and a subject (“perceiving organism”). The former is given by the ex-athlete and the two women; the “organism” by the “mirones.” The observers' own existence we have to accept tacitly because fiction requires this when we readers entrust ourselves to the novelist's wor(l)d. The objects of perception, however, exist doubly in the book: first, as the starting points from which the observers take off on their conjectural flights. At such points Onetti declares them several times to “exist” (esse), though not in the sense of esse est percipi; for, “La muchacha se quedó menos de una semana y en ninguno de aquellos días volví a verlos, ni nadie me dijo haberlos visto; en realidad [sic], ellos existieron para nosotros sólo en el viaje diario … del peón del hotel … con la vianda” (p. 44). It is an intermediary, then (like a novelist), who sees the two, and the community sees the intermediary, concluding that the athlete and the girl exist (analogously, the reader “sees”/reads the narrator). Second, another proof of the two objects' existence are the letters from the temporarily absent object, “la mujer ancha”: “Y existieron … en las dos cartas que llegaron” (pp. 44-45; emphasis mine in both quotations).

The answer to (a)—how can there be a “real” situation?—is now this: letters are written objects and as such for the narrator (and Onetti, a writer) a proof of the existence of their writer(s)/recipient(s); finally, opened and read, one letter becomes proof of the real circumstances of the subject trio: the letter “discovers” for the narrator that the younger woman is “el hombre's” daughter, not his (second) amante, as everyone, with varying degrees of indignation (“thinking socially”) had assumed. Lastly, therefore, the best proof of reality is one that is written. To rely on the peón would have been relying on a (non-writing) consciousness and thus on one as fallible as everybody else was. Later “discoveries” do indeed show that at least the how of the couple's existence was wrongly “perceived” by him: the athlete did not drink. Esse, then, est scribi? Perhaps. Anyway, Josefina Ludmer has observed that for Onetti “la verdad reside sólo en la escritura.”⁸

The answer to (b)—what about us readers vis-à-vis Los adioses?—is in part textually documentable (if we trust Onetti's following words); in reply to a study I did a number of years ago, Onetti wrote: “Luego de leer inevitable interpretaciones críticas y escuchar en silencio numerosas opiniones sobre Los adioses, comprendí que había omitido una vuelta de tuerca, tal vez indispensable. Para mejor comprensión o para que todo quedara flotando y dudoso” (emphasis added). Onetti then continues: “Luchting … al final del estudio aventura, sorprendentemente, una media vuelta de tuerca que nos aproxima a la verdad, a la interpretación definitiva. Pero sigue faltando una media vuelta de tuerca, en apariencia fácil pero riesgosa, y que no me corresponde hacerla girar” (my emphasis).⁹

The first “media vuelta de tuerca” was hinted at in my question at the end of my study: “Entonces, ¿todas las conjeturas sí son ciertas?”¹⁰ i.e., the ex-athlete did have two amantes? “Una mujer en primavera, la chica esta para el verano” (p. 38)? The objection to this conjecture is of course that the letter declares the chica to be the athlete's daughter. Still, it is not in vain that Onetti has often been “accused” of being tramposo: see Fernando Ainsa's Las trampas de Onetti (Montevideo: Alfa, 1970). And the victims who fall into his traps are we, the readers.

Shortly after the first publication of my text as an epilogue to a re-edition of Los adioses¹¹ (whose publisher, Oreggioni, added Onetti's letter to the epilogue), I was fortunate enough to be invited to Onetti's house one evening, in the course of which my curiosity prompted me to ask him what the final “vuelta de tuerca,” that “interpretación definitiva,” might be. His answer was short and, indeed, “riesgosa”: “Incest,” he said. Present were his wife, Jorge Ruffinelli, and Oreggioni.

What are the textually admissible elements to bear out this statement? The first requires abbreviation, since quotations would be too extensive. I refer to the persistent description of the daughter as a “sex-object”: “[su] cara iba a estar, hasta la muerte, en días luminosos y poblados, en noches semejantes a la que atravesábamos, enfrentando la segura, fatua, ilusiva aproximación de los hombres” (p. 40); or: “[su] placidez orgánica de estar viva, coincidiendo con la vida,” and “[su] cándida, obscena costumbre de asentir” (p. 41). Woman as a remedy for dying.

The second element is a short sentence which reveals itself to be quite explicit once the idea of incest has entered our mind. The almacenero, after having read the decisive letter, ruminates: “suponiendo que hubiera acertado al interpretar [sic] la carta, no importaba, en relación a lo esencial, el vínculo que unía a la muchacha con el hombre. Era una mujer, en todo caso; otra” (p. 83; my emphasis).

If we decide to accept Onetti's final “vuelta de tuerca,” excluding the possibility that his one-word statement may only have been one more trampa, the conclusion must be that our novelist has done with us what his gossipers do with their victims. The gossipers, “mirones,” are conditioned in such fashion that they cannot but “think socially,” with “dirty minds,” as it were; that they can interpret what they see of the three people only as having its roots in sex. Similarly, most of us readers of the novel are conditioned in such fashion that the idea of incest simply does not occur to us once we have read the relevant letter. We are not able to conceive of the idea, do not see, perceive it.

This is why Onetti's principal narrator, the almacenero, can say, triumphantly: “Me sentía lleno de poder, como si el hombre y la muchacha, y también la mujer grande … hubieran nacido de mi voluntad para vivir lo que yo había determinado” (p. 84).

It does not surprise, then, that Josefina Ludmer was able to say: “En la literatura de Onetti, la verdad no existe y la realidad puede adoptar muchas variantes.”¹²

Notes

1. Emir Rodríguez Monegal, Literatura uruguaya del medio siglo (Montevideo, 1966), p. 243.

2. Reference works consulted: Unabridged Random House Dictionary, 1966; Dictionary of Synonyms and Antonyms (World Publishing Co., 1944).

3. Sur (Buenos Aires), 1954, p. 9; my emphasis. All page references in the text are to this edition.

4. Monegal, p. 243.

5. See Hugo J. Verani, “En torno a Los adioses de Juan C. Onetti,” Anales de la Universidad de Chile (Santiago, 1963), pp. 35-57.

6. = indicates “in the sense of.”

7. Eva Hunt, The Transformation of the Hummingbird (Cornell University Press, 1977), p. 251.

8. “Contar el cuento,” Estudio preliminar by Josefina Ludmer, Para una tumba sin nombre, J. C. Onetti (Buenos Aires: Librería del Colegio, 1975), p. 46.

9. “Media vuelta de tuerca,” in Los adioses, 4th ed. (Montevideo: Arca Editorial, 1970), p. 91.

10. Los adioses, 4th ed., p. 90. For mysterious reasons, this reproduction of my study is signed as H. (for Herr, which the editor considered my first first name, evidently) W. L.

11. “El lector como protagonista de la novela,” in Los adioses, 4th ed., pp. 77-90.

12. Ludmer, p. 27, note 16.