Borges - The Shape Of The Sword (Summary)

In this short story "The Shape Of The Sword" Borges revisits his theme of shared experience of the whole of humanity that is a recurring theme in many of his works. In this story, the narrator tells of a man called "the Englishman" who has a vengeful scar on his face. During a session of their drinking together at his place, the narrator inquires about his scar. The host agrees to tell the story under one condition - "no contempt or condemnation be withheld, no mitigation for any iniquity be pleaded." The Englishman reveals that he is in fact Irish and was a revolutionary conspiring to win Ireland's independence. During these times, he met a young man called John Vincent Moon who was also part of the struggle, though the Englishman impression of him was that he is invertebrate and full of vanity of his supposed intellect. The young man showed arrogance and contempt towards whosoever gets into a debate with him. One night, they are stopped by a soldier, John freezes because of terror, but the Englishman knocks down the soldier and they ran away. During this melee, a bullet grazes John's shoulder who is visibly shaken and they take refuse in a country home. Nine days they spent here. The Englishman leaving at dawn and returning late every night while working with other undergrounds, on the other hand John stayed at home feigning injury.

I was embarrassed by the man and his fear, shamed by him, as though I myself were the coward, not Vincent Moon. Whatsoever one man does, it is as though all men did it. That is why it is not unfair that a single act of disobedience in a garden should contaminate all humanity; that is why it is not unfair that a single Jew’s crucifixion should be enough to save it. Schopenhauer may have been right—I am other men, any man is all men, Shakespeare is somehow the wretched John Vincent Moon.

On the tenth day, he returns early and hears John talking to someone on the phone, promising to deliver him in return for guarantee of his own safety. The Englishman seizes a sword and chases him across the vast country house and leaves an unforgiving scar on his face before he is arrested. The Englishman then says to the narrator

To you alone,Borges—you who are a stranger—I have made this confession. Your contempt is perhaps not so painful. Here the narrator halted. I saw that his hands were trembling."And Moon?" I asked. "What became of Moon?""He was paid his Judas silver and he ran off to Brazil. That evening, in the city square, I saw a dummy shot by a firing squad of drunks."I waited vainly for the rest of the story. Finally, I asked him to go on.A groan made his entire body shiver; he gestured, feebly, gently, toward the curving whitish scar."Do you not believe me?" he stammered. "Do you not see set upon my face the mark of my iniquity? I have told you the story this way so that you would hear it out. It was / who betrayed the man who saved me and gave me shelter—it is /who am Vincent Moon. Now, despise me." 

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Borges again raises the idea of interdependence of all human experience, the shared experience of what one man goes through, it is as if all men go through. In this story, even though the John switches his identity and tells the story about himself and his betrayal, yet he is shamed by John's cowardice not because he is in fact John but because in some measure all men (including himself) shared the same cowardice. And to similar end, he identifies with the "Englishman" whose death he caused. The notion of "what you are" and "what you are not" is no more there. I am all men! The hero is a villain and vice-versa. The experiences are shared, the consciousness is shared. There is nothing original to it. What I have felt, would have been felt by some one before me in past and would be felt by someone after me in future. Experiences are nothing but repetitions of what has happened previously or previously experienced. The loss of originality of an experience or an emotion can be extended to the loss of individuality  or of "Being". How can I claim to be I if I am just a repetition in an endless cycles of thought! What is my claim to originality of thought? of my ego, my betrayal, my passion, my defeat.