The Tunnel by Ernesto Sabato

It should be sufficient to say that I am Juan Pablo Castel, the painter who killed Maria Iribarne. I imagine that the trial is still in everyone's mind and that no further information about myself is necessary.

Granted, it is true that the devil himself cannot predict what people will remember, or why they remember it. I for one have never believed there is such a thing as a collective memory - which may be one way humans protect themselves.

The phrase 'the good old days' does not mean that bad things happened less frequently in the past, only - fortunately - that people simply forget they happened. Obviously that view is not universally accepted. I, for example, would characterise myself as a person who prefers to remember the bad things. I might even argue for the past as 'the bad old days', if it were not for the fact I consider the present as horrible as the past.


I remember so many catastrophes, so many cynical and cruel faces, so many inhumane actions, that for me memory is a glaring light illuminating a sordid museum of shame.

Translated from Spanish by Margaret Sayers Peden