You never know what lost gems you might stumble on while browsing the blogosphere, and it turns out I found a short story by the Chilean writer Baldomero Lillo that reflects how things were done, and are still done. I decided to copy it into this space and share it with those who didn’t know it, and for those who remember it, here it is:

Original source: http://www.ciudadseva.com/textos/cuentos/esp/lillo/inamible.htm

Inamible

by Baldomero Lillo

Ruperto Tapia, alias “El Guarén”, constable third class of the municipal police, on duty that morning in the neighborhood, paced back and forth in the middle of the intersection, body erect, with the grave and solemn bearing of an official steeped in the importance of the post he holds.

Thirty-five years old, of average height, thick and burly, constable Tapia enjoys great prestige among his comrades. He is considered a well of learning, for he has every police ordinance and regulation on the tip of his tongue, and even the relevant articles of the Penal Code are familiar to him. This reputation for wisdom is bolstered by his deep, booming voice, the dogmatic and sententious tone of his speeches, and the studied circumspection and seriousness of everything he does. But of all his qualities, the most original and characteristic is the astounding nerve with which he invents a term when the real one doesn’t come to his lips in time. And so euphonious and colorful do these words turn out, the ones he enriches the language with, that it isn’t easy to pry them from memory once you have heard them even a single time.As he walks, his hobnailed shoes ringing on the stones of the roadway, a shadow of discontent shows on the dark, weathered face of “El Guarén”. He has drawn a sector where vehicle and pedestrian traffic is almost nil. The streets, planted with trees at whose feet the water of the irrigation ditches slips by, were deserted, and it is going to be extremely hard to catch an infraction, however small. This vexes him, for he is bent on standing out before his chiefs as an official zealous in the fulfillment of his duties, so as to win those corporal’s stripes he has long coveted. Suddenly, sharp shrieks and bursts of ringing laughter behind him make him turn swiftly. Barely half a block away a girl of 16 or 17 is running along the sidewalk, closely pursued by a strapping lad carrying in his right hand something like a small whip. “El Guarén” knows the pair. She is a maid in the house on the corner and he is Martín, the carter, coming back from the outskirts of town, where he went in the morning to take his horses for a bit of rest in the pasture. The girl, screaming and laughing, reaches the house where she lives and runs inside. Her pursuer stops for a moment in front of the door, then walks up to the constable and says to him, smiling:

-How that little rascal screamed, and I never even got to run this critter across her neck!

And raising his hand high he showed a small snake he was holding by the tail, and added:

-It’s dead, I caught it at the foot of the hill when I went to leave the horses. If you want I’ll leave it with you so you can have fun scaring the ladies who stroll around here.

But “El Guarén”, instead of taking the reptile the other man held out to him, dropped his big hand on the carter’s shoulder and ordered:

-You’re coming with me to the station.

-Me, to the station! What? Why? You’re arresting me, then? -blurted the cheerful joker of a minute earlier, red with indignation and surprise.

And his captor, in the solemn tone and manner he adopted on great occasions, told him, pointing at the snake’s corpse he still held in his right hand:

• I’m taking you in because you’re going around with animals - here he stopped, hesitated an instant and then went on with great emphasis-: Because you’re going around with inamible animals on the public thoroughfare.

And despite the protests and pleas of the young man, who had rid himself of the corpus delicti by tossing it into the water of the ditch, the representative of authority remained unbending in his decision.

When they arrived at the station, the duty officer, who was dozing at the desk, received them in a foul mood. The night before he had attended a dinner given by a friend to celebrate a baby’s christening, and the lack of sleep and the lingering effect of the alcohol taken in over the course of the party kept his brain dulled and all his ideas in a tangle. His head, as the popular saying goes, was a pot full of crickets.

After yawning and shifting in his seat, he straightened up and, shooting furious looks at the intruders, picked up his pen and prepared to write the corresponding entry in the daybook. After setting down the details of the detainee’s marital status, age and occupation, he stopped and asked:

-Why did you arrest him, constable?

And the man addressed, with the precision and promptness of one who is sure of what he says, answered:

• For going around with inamible animals on the public thoroughfare, inspector, sir.

He bent over the book, but raised the pen again to ask Tapia what that word, which he was hearing for the first time, meant, when a thought stopped him: if the word was correctly used, his ignorance would cost him prestige before a subordinate, whom he had already once corrected on a point of language, only to have the unpleasant surprise of finding out later that he was the one in the wrong. No, a repeat of that shameful episode had to be avoided at all costs, for the basic principle of discipline would crumble if the inferior were right against the superior. Besides, since this was a carter, the word surely referred to the horses of his vehicle, which their driver was perhaps working in poor condition, who knows whether sick or injured. This reading of the matter struck him as satisfactory and, reassured now, he turned to the prisoner:

-Is that so? What do you say?

-Yes, sir; but I didn’t know it was forbidden.

This answer, which seemed to confirm that the word was properly used, put an end to the hesitation of the officer who, finishing his writing, at once ordered the constable:

-Put him in the cell.

Moments later, prisoner, captor and officer stood before the prefect of police. This official, who had just received a telephone call from the governor’s office, was impatient to leave.

-Is the report written? -he asked.

-Yes, sir -said the officer, and held out to his superior the sheet of paper he had in his right hand.

The chief read it aloud, and on stumbling over an unknown term he stopped to ask:

-What does this mean? -But he did not ask the question. The fear of appearing ignorant in front of his subordinates sealed his lips. Above all, the prestige of the hierarchy had to be looked after. Then the thought that the report was written in the hand of the duty officer, who was no novice but a man who knew his trade, reassured him. He must be quite sure the little word was properly used, to have set it down there with such confidence. This last argument seemed conclusive to him, and leaving for later a look at the Dictionary to clear the matter up, he faced the prisoner and questioned him:

-And you, what do you say? Is what they charge you with true?

-Yes, Mr. Prefect, it’s true, I don’t deny it. But I didn’t know it was forbidden.

The chief shrugged, and putting his signature on the report he handed it to the officer, ordering:

-Have him taken to the court.

In the courtroom, the judge, a beardless youngster who, owing to the illness of the sitting judge, was filling the post as a substitute, after reading the report aloud and a brief moment of meditation, questioned the prisoner:

-Is what it says here true? What do you have to say in your defense?

The detainee’s answer was the same as the earlier ones:

-Yes, Your Honor; it’s the truth, but I didn’t know it was forbidden.

The magistrate made a gesture that seemed to mean: “Yes, I know that old tune; they all say the same thing.” And, taking up his pen, he wrote two lines at the foot of the police report, which he then returned to the constable, saying, as he fixed a stern look on the prisoner:

-Twenty days in jail, commutable to a fine of twenty pesos.

At the station the duty officer was making notes in a notebook when “El Guarén” came into the room and, approaching the desk, said:

-The prisoner has gone to jail, inspector, sir.

-Did the judge convict him?

-Yes; twenty days in jail, commutable to a fine of twenty pesos; but since a spring broke on his cart and he hasn’t been able to work with it for several days, he won’t be able to pay the fine. This morning he went to leave the horses in the pasture.

Stupor and surprise spread across the officer’s face.

-But if he wasn’t driving a cart, how could he have broken the traffic regulations, then? -Traffic had nothing to do with the matter, inspector, sir. -That can’t be, constable; you spoke of animals… -Yes, but inamible animals, inspector, sir, and you know that the inamible animals are only three: the toad, the snake and the lizard. Martín brought a snake down from the hill and was going around scaring people with it on the public thoroughfare. It was my duty to arrest him, and I arrested him. Such were the officer’s stupefaction and bewilderment that, without realizing what he was saying, he stammered: -Inamible, why are they inamible? The sly, mocking face of “El Guarén” expressed the greatest astonishment. Every time he invented a word, he didn’t regard himself as its creator; he honestly believed the word had always existed in the language, and if others didn’t know it, that was out of sheer ignorance. Hence the proud self-assurance and air of superiority with which he replied: -The toad, the snake and the lizard frighten people, they leave them with no spirit, no ánimo, when you come upon them all of a sudden. That’s why they’re called inamible, inspector, sir. When the officer was left alone, he collapsed into his seat and threw up his hands in despair. He was terrified. A fine thing he had done, accepting that damned word without examination, and his dismay mounted as he took in the fatal chain of events his error had set in motion. He had noticed perfectly well that his chief, the Prefect, had been on the verge of asking him about that term; but he hadn’t, trusting, surely, in the competence of the man who wrote the report. Merciful God! What a catastrophe when the whole thing came out! And perhaps it already had. Because at the court, the judge and the clerk must have noticed that word, which no dictionary carried in its pages. But this was nothing compared with what would happen if the editor of the local paper, “El Dardo”, which was always attacking the authorities, got wind of it. What a scandal! He could already hear the mocking commentary that would bring a mountain of ridicule down on the police authority! He had risen from his seat and was pacing nervously around the room, trying to find a way to erase the blunder, for which he considered himself solely to blame. Suddenly he went to the desk, inked the pen and, on the open page of the daybook, in the last entry and on top of the word that had him so rattled, let fall a great blot of ink. He spread it carefully, and then contemplated his work with a satisfied air. Under the enormous smudge it was now impossible to make out the damned term, but that wasn’t enough; the same had to be done with the police report. Happily, luck was on his side, for the Warden’s clerk was his cousin, and since the Warden was sick, the clerk was alone in the office just then. Without losing a moment, he went over to the jail, which was a step away from the station, and the first thing he saw on the desk, in a paper clip, was the ill-fated report. Taking advantage of the momentary absence of his relative, who had gone out to give some orders to the guard, he made the term he had so carelessly put into circulation vanish under a blot of ink. A sigh of relief escaped his chest. The danger was averted, the document was harmless from now on, and no bad consequence could come of it. As he walked back to the station, the memory of the carter struck him and a shadow of displeasure veiled his face. Suddenly he stopped and muttered under his breath: -That’s what has to be done, and that settles everything. Meanwhile, the prefect had not forgotten the strange word set down in a document that bore his signature, and which he had let pass because the grave concerns weighing on him at that moment pushed into the background a matter he considered trivial and insignificant in itself. But later a vague fear took hold of him, a fear that grew considerably when he saw that the Dictionary did not list the suspect word. Without wasting time, he went to see the duty officer, determined to get to the bottom of the matter. But on reaching the door by the inner connecting passage, he saw “El Guarén” enter the room, coming from the jail to report on the errand he had been given. Without missing a syllable, he heard the conversation between the constable and the officer, and astonishment and rage left him mute and motionless, nailed to the floor. When the officer had gone out, he went in and walked to the desk to examine the Daybook. The ink blot that had made the hateful word disappear had the rare virtue of calming the agitation that possessed him. He understood at once that his subordinate must at that moment be at the jail, repeating the same operation on the damned paper he had signed in an evil hour. And as the question was extremely grave and demanded an immediate solution, he resolved to check in person whether the saving blot had already removed that sword of Damocles hanging over his head. On leaving the Warden’s office the Prefect’s face was calm and smiling. There was nothing to fear anymore; the bad spell had passed. As he crossed the vestibule he glimpsed a group of convicts behind the iron grille. His expression changed and turned grave and pensive. There is still something to settle in this unpleasant business, he thought. And perhaps the remedy was not far off, because he murmured half aloud: -That’s what has to be done; that solves everything. On arriving home, the judge, who had left the court a little earlier than usual that day, found “El Guarén” in front of the door, standing at military attention. He had been assigned the first shift of fixed guard duty at the magistrate’s house. The judge, on seeing him, remembered the strange word in the police report, whose meaning was for him an indecipherable enigma. It did not exist in the Dictionary, and however much he searched his memory he found no trace in it of any such term. As curiosity was eating him up, he decided to question the constable diplomatically, to fish indirectly for some clue about the matter. He returned the constable’s salute and said to him, affable and smiling: -I congratulate you on your zeal in going after those who mistreat animals. Some people are real savages. I mean the carter you arrested this morning, for going around, no doubt, with his horses injured or worn out. As the magistrate spoke these words, the face of “El Guarén” kept changing expression. The servile smile and respectful look disappeared and were replaced by an impertinent, scornful little air. Then, in a markedly ironic tone, he gave an exact account of the facts, repeating what he had already said, at the station, to the duty officer. The judge listened to all of it, barely keeping a straight face, and on entering the house he was about to give free rein to the laughter bubbling up inside him when the memory of the carter, whom he had sent to jail for an imaginary crime, abruptly sobered his mirth. Seated at his desk, he thought long and hard, and suddenly, as if he had found the solution to an arduous problem, he said in a low voice: -Yes, no doubt about it, it’s the best, the most practical thing that can be done in this case. On the morning of the day after his arrest, the carter was brought before the Warden of the jail, and this official showed him three letters, on whose typewritten envelopes one read: “To the Warden of the Jail of… To be delivered to Martín Escobar”. (This was the detainee’s name.) The envelopes torn open, he found that each one contained a twenty-peso bill. No note accompanied the mysterious delivery. The Warden pointed the money out to the detainee and said to him, smiling: -Take it, friend, it’s yours, it belongs to you. The prisoner took two bills and left the third on the desk, saying: -That one’s to pay the fine, Mr. Warden. An instant later, Martín the carter was out in the street, saying, as he gazed lovingly at the two bills: -When these run out, I’ll go up the hill, catch an inamible animal, bump into “El Guarén” and, bam! next day, three little slips of paper just like these in my pocket. THE END

Subsole, 1907