The Immortal by Jorge Luis Borges

Study Notes

Johannes Dahlmann was a pastor from Germany who arrived in Buenos Aires in 1871.
In 1939, one of Dahlmann's descendants, Juan Dahlmann, was a secretary at a municipal library in the street Cordoba.
Dahlmann's maternal grandfather had been Francisco Flores, a 2nd Lieutenant in the Argentine Army who died in the border skirmish between German and Argentinian settlers.
Dahlmann's paternal ancestors were both Romantic Germans, and so he identified with one of them, or the Romantic death of that ancestor.
Dahlmann saved the roof of his house in the Southern part of Argentina from foreclosure by his relatives by working hard and being thrifty.
Summers after summers, Dahlmann was content with the abstract idea of possessing something and with the certainty that his house was waiting for him, in a specific place on the plains.
In the last days of February 1939, something happened to Dahlmann.
Fate can be cruel with the slightest distractions. Dahlmann had just obtained a dusty old copy of Las Mil y Una Noches de Weil; eager to examine it, he did not wait for the elevator to descend and ascended quickly the stairs; something brushed his forehead in the darkness, was it a bat, a bird?
Dahlmann saw the terror in the woman's face when she opened the door to his room and saw the blood-red paint on the door frame.
As a result of this accident, Dahlmann had a bald head and so he chose the image of an unemotional, bearded man on his family's coat of arms as his personal symbol.
Dahlmann became ill with fever after reading Las Mil y Una Noches and the illustrations for the first time influenced his nightmares.
Eight days passed after the operation, and Dahlmann was able to understand that he had barely been in the hospital, until then, in the underworld.
The ice in his mouth was not enough to quench his thirst.
Dahlmann found temporary solace in talking to his friends and relatives and telling them he was doing well.
Dahlmann heard his friends and relatives with a weak smile and was amazed that they did not know he was in Hell.
One day, the hospital's regular doctor arrived with a new doctor.
The new doctor took a radiograph of Dahlmann's arm.
Dahlmann felt happy and talkative when he arrived to the hospital.
The doctor undressed Dahlmann and shaved off his head.
Dahlmann was in a dark, damp room with a well that made him feel sick.
Dahlmann was in a lot of pain but he endured it with stoicism.
Dahlmann did not think about death until the new doctor said he had a chance of surviving if he
Dahlmann arrived at the sanatorium on a plaza car.
The freshness of autumn, after the summer's oppression, was like a natural symbol of his rescued destiny.
The city at 7 a.m. looked like a old home that gives you a feeling of security at night.
Dahlmann recognized the streets, the billboards, and the small differences between Buenos Aires in the light of day.
Everything returned to him in the light of day.