A Lapse of Memory

Julio Cortázar A Lapse of Memory An eminent scholar, author of a twenty-three-volume Roman history, a surefire candidate for the Nobel Prize, the pride and glory of the nation. And then — a sudden bewilderment: one fine day this bookworm produces a historical opus in which Emperor Caracalla is missing. Not the greatest of oversights, but an oversight all the same. The scholar's astonished admirers rummage through the folios: what a great artist is lost... Quintilius Varus, give me back my legions... the husband of all wives and the wife of all husbands (beware the Ides of March)... money has no smell... in this sign thou shalt conquer... There is no doubt: Caracalla is absent. Bewilderment. The telephone is disconnected, the scholar cannot receive the Swedish king Gustav, though the latter had no thought of calling him... yet someone keeps dialing and redialing the telephone number and swearing... in a dead language.