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last work of Fernández-Gómez to come to public notice (although
there is no reason to fear that it is really the
last
) was the erotic
novella
The Countess of Bracamonte
, which appeared under the Odin
imprint in the Colombian city of Cali in the year 1986. The informed reader will
have no trouble identifying the protagonist of this story as the Duchess of
Bahamontes, and her two antagonists as the inseparable Zubieta and
Fernández-Gómez. The novella is not without humor, which is remarkable, given
the place and date of its composition: Paris, 1944. Fernández-Gómez no doubt
indulged in a certain amount of embellishment. His Duchess of Bracamonte is 35
years old, not forty-something, the estimated age of the real Duchess. In
Fernández-Gómez’s novel the two young Colombians (Aguirre and Garmendia) share
the noble lady’s nights. During the day they sleep or write. The descriptions of
Andalucian gardens are meticulous and, in their way, interesting.

FORERUNNERS AND FIGURES OF THE
ANTI-ENLIGHTENMENT

M ATEO A GUIRRE B ENGOECHEA
    Buenos Aires, 1880–Comodoro Rivadavia, 1940
    O wner of a vast ranch in
the province of Chubut, which he ran himself and to which few of his friends
were granted access, Mateo Aguirre Bengoechea was a living enigma, oscillating
between two poles: bucolic contemplation and titanic activity. He collected
pistols and knives, admired Florentine but detested Venetian painting, and had
an excellent knowledge of English literature. Although he ordered books
regularly from stores in Buenos Aires and Europe, his library never held more
than a thousand titles. A confirmed bachelor, he nourished a passion for Wagner,
a few French poets (Corbière, Catulle Mendès, Laforgue, Banville) and a few
German philosophers (Fichte, August-Wilhelm Schlegel, Friedrich Schlegel,
Schelling, Schleirmacher). In the room where he wrote as well as dispatched the
business of the ranch, there were many maps and farming implements; on the walls
and shelves, dictionaries and handbooks jostled peaceably with faded photographs
of the first Aguirres and bright photographs of his prize animals.
    He wrote four well-wrought novels, spaced out over the years (
The
Storm and the Youths
, 1911;
The Devil’s River
, 1918;
Ana
and the Warriors
, 1928; and
The Soul of the Waterfall
, 1936),
as well as a brief collection of poems, in which he complained that he had been
born too soon, in a country that was too young.
    He wrote a great many detailed letters to literary figures of all
persuasions in America and Europe, whose works he read attentively, although the
tone of the correspondence always remained formal.
    He detested Alfonso Reyes with a tenacity worthy of a nobler
enterprise.
    Shortly before his death, in a letter to a friend in Buenos Aires, he
foresaw a radiant epoch for the human race, the triumphant dawn of a new golden
age, and he wondered whether the Argentinean people would rise to the
occasion.

S ILVIO S ALVÁTICO
    Buenos Aires, 1901–Buenos Aires, 1994
    A s a young man Salvático
advocated, among other things, the re-establishment of the Inquisition; corporal
punishment in public; a permanent war against the Chileans, the Paraguayans, or
the Bolivians as a kind of gymnastics for the nation; polygamy; the
extermination of the Indians to prevent further contamination of the Argentinean
race; curtailing the rights of any citizen with Jewish blood; a massive influx
of migrants from the Scandinavian countries in order to effect a progressive
lightening of the national skin color, darkened by years of promiscuity with the
indigenous population; life-long writer’s grants; the abolition of tax on
artists’ incomes; the creation of the largest air force in South America; the
colonization of Antarctica; and the building of new cities in Patagonia.
    He was a soccer player and a Futurist.
    From 1920 to 1929, in addition to frequenting the literary salons and
fashionable cafes, he wrote and published more than twelve