Because of its autobiographical appearance, critics have paid little attention to of and which is so masterfully handled that its complex and transparent texture is almost invisible. A close analysis shows, however, that, in confessional mode, two individuals—I and Borges—are true characters involved in a action that is taking place to allow implementation of vengeance. By focusing on his victim's experience, narrating I offers an attractive bait to his victimizer, Borges. Borges, writer, driven by a compulsive pattern of stealing, unsuspectingly takes over victim's grievances against him by virtue of his own writing. To unveil those basic elements of at play in this short story, participation of an active reader, as witness to process and as recipient of indicting text, is actually demanded. Thus, and may be considered a superb example of Jorge Luis Borges's art. This article is available in Studies in 20th Century Literature: http://newprairiepress.org/sttcl/vol22/iss2/8 and A Narrative Sleight of Hand Armando F. Zubizarreta Case Western Reserve University In memory of Raimundo Lida and Peter Marlay An autobiographical page? Due to its autobiographical appearance, and a brief work published in El Hacedor (1960), seems to present, under pattern of a dual personality, what a writer actually feels, or imagines he may feel, in confronting his social persona.' Because this text, usually understood as a confession, offers some aesthetic insights and succinct information about thematic changes, quotations have frequently been taken from to corroborate conclusions about author and his work. Criticism, nonetheless, has paid little attention to its quality. Can and be considered a text, a short story whose writing shows author's original technique?' In her analysis of Borges's Evaristo Carriego, Sylvia Molloy states that this biography is where the future maker of fictions, undertakes possibility of re-creating and inscribing a to add that it is also a place where he [Borges] inaugurates possibility of erasing very character he has inscribed (13-14). In her view, Borges had already anticipated basic characteristic that he assigns to short story in his conception and exercise of biography. Thus, observing that most of characters of Borges's are narrative functions, Molloy goes on to conclude that the dissolution of a forseeable character is situation in his (40-41). Once this primacy of situation over character has been accepted, isn't surprising that he who would deny personality's entity as such shows at beginning of and as split into two entities or contrary characters whose conflicting relation is described. 1 Zubizarreta: and A Narrative Sleight of Hand Published by New Prairie Press 372 STCL, Volume 22, No. 2 (Summer, 1998) Yet is neither enough to describe characters-the writer I (the intellectual) and vital I (the existential)-nor only to describe conflictive relation in which they are involved to create fiction. At first glance, seems impossible to deny that nothing happens while we are reading text and that, although abundantly provides information about events that usually happen-by using present tense-and about some events that have happened in past, no actual present action takes place in text. It is true that Borges-an author who has accustomed us to seeing him in ludic exercise of erasing limits not only between imagination and experienced realities but also between opposing concepts-finally blurs distinction between characters, writer Borges and vital I, in concluding sentence of text. This one sentence that follows text's body, an almost page-long paragraph, has an ambiguity that, in this case, seems perfectly suited to presentation of a psychological phenomenon in which those characters are poles of a divided personality. But fact that text belongs to Borges's infinite and reversible universe is not enough to justify viewing as a piece. Nor is sufficient to argue that some of author's other short stories present two opposite characters temporarily superimposed through impersonation (The Shape of Sword), or two ethically opposed qualifications competing to define a character in order to determine what he really is (Theme of Traitor and Hero) or a negative characteristic that shifts from one opposite individual personality to another (The Theologians).3 The dialectic of victim and victimizer In and vital I declares that both he and writer I share preferences: hourglasses, maps, seventeenth-century typography, taste of coffee, and Stevenson's prose. At same time is made clear that vital I is subject to exploitation by writer I, who takes over his experiences of surroundings to create literature: Yo vivo, yo me dejo vivir, para que Borges pueda tramar su 'I live, let myself go on living, so that Borges can contrive his literature' (Lab 246).4 Nonetheless, can be observed too that vital I accepts this exploitation, conceiving as an exchange, when he confesses esa literatura me justifica 'this literature justifies me' (Lab 246), that is to say, that he admits that this literature 2 Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature, Vol. 22, Iss. 2 [1998], Art. 8 http://newprairiepress.org/sttcl/vol22/iss2/8 DOI: 10.4148/2334-4415.1448