Many of the stories in Ficciones contain representations of infinitely repeating systems or timelines, thus underlining the infinite nature of the universe. For example, the library in “The Library of Babel” is an infinite system of repeating chambers and shelves, all containing books. Though many of the scholars in the library lament the fact that it would be impossible to search through all the information of the library and discover its secrets, Borges’s narrator takes comfort in the fact that, given infinite time, an immortal voyager would eventually find all the information in the library repeated and thus see order. In this way, the library is a metaphor for the universe and the sum of all its knowledge, which can often be overwhelming to the average person because of its intangible nature. Still, Borges takes comfort in the fact that order exists within infinity, even if it is impossible for the average person to experience this order or fully grasp it on a broader scale.
Aside from the idea that the universe itself is infinite, Borges’s stories also propose the idea that time itself is infinitely repeating and limitless. At the end of “Death and the Compass,” the detective Erik Lönnrot asks his killer, Scharlach, to pursue him in a certain way when he inevitably comes after him “in some other incarnation.” Scharlach agrees to his request, and clearly both men understand that they have a similar relationship in multiple (and, presumably, infinite) timelines. Thus, in many of Borges’s stories, it is a given that both the space and the time of the universe are infinite and repeating.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Infinity ThemeTracker
Infinity Quotes in Ficciones
There is one conjecture, spoken from the mouths of masked heresiarchs, to the effect that the Company has never existed and never will. A conjecture no less vile argues that it is indifferently inconsequential to affirm or deny the reality of the shadowy corporation, because Babylon is nothing but an infinite game of chance.
Like all men of the Library, I have traveled in my youth. I have journeyed in search of a book, perhaps of the catalogue of catalogues; now that my eyes can scarcely decipher what I write, I am preparing to die a few leagues from the hexagon in which I was born.
To me it does not seem unlikely that on some shelf of the universe there lies a total book…. If honor and wisdom and happiness are not for me, let them be for others. May heaven exist, though my place be in hell. Let me be outraged and annihilated, but may Thy enormous Library be justified, for one instant, in one being.
“In all of [the infinite timelines],” I enunciated, with a tremor in my voice. “I deeply appreciate and am grateful to you for the restoration of Ts’ui Pen’s garden.”
“Not in all,” he murmured with a smile. “Time is forever dividing itself toward innumerable futures and in one of them I am your enemy.”
“The next time I kill you,” said Scharlach, “I promise you the labyrinth made of a single straight line which is invisible and everlasting.”
He stepped back a few paces. Then, very carefully, he fired.
For his sake, God projected a secret miracle: German lead would kill him, at the determined hour, but in his mind a year would elapse between the command to fire and its execution. From perplexity he passed to stupor, from stupor to resignation, from resignation to sudden gratitude.
