The Driver of the Express

by

Horacio Quiroga

Between 1905 and 1925, 108 train drivers suffering from mental illness were admitted to the Mercedes Asylum.

One morning, a gaunt man with a haggard face arrived at the asylum, barely able to stay on his feet. He was dressed in rags and articulated his words so poorly that one had to struggle to decipher what he was saying. And yet—as his wife boasted when she had him committed—this driver had been operating his engine until just a few hours earlier.

At one point during that period, a signalman and a switchman—both mentally ill—were working on the same line alongside two drivers who were also mentally ill.

Given these numerous recorded cases, it is time to reflect on the actions a mentally ill driver might take while operating a train—scenarios that are all too easy to imagine.

This is what I am reading in a journal of criminology, psychiatry, and forensic medicine as I eat my breakfast.

Perfect. I am one of those drivers. What’s more: I drive the Continental Express. Naturally, I read the aforementioned study with an intensity that is also easy to imagine.

Men, women, children, toddlers, presidents, and stable hands: beware of psychiatrists just as you would the police. They exercise mental control over humanity, and they profit from it—take note! I do not know the statistics regarding mental illness among asylum staff, but I would not trade the potential havoc my locomotive might wreak—with a madman astride it—for the havoc caused by a depressed psychiatrist running an asylum.

It is worth noting, however, that the specialist who wrote those paragraphs concludes that 108 drivers and 186 firemen suffering from mental illness over a twenty-year period represents a proportion that is, in truth, hardly alarming: just over five insane drivers per year. I use the term "drivers" deliberately to refer to both roles, for it is common knowledge that a stoker possesses the technical competence to operate the engine in the event of an unforeseen accident.

Given this, I can only hope that the percentage of madmen steering the destiny of a portion of humanity is as small in our profession as it is in theirs.

With that thought, I calmly finish my coffee, which tastes strangely salty today.

I reflected on this a fortnight ago. Today, I have lost the calm I felt then. I experience sensations that would be perfectly definable—if only I knew for certain what it was I wanted to define. Sometimes, while speaking to someone and looking them in the eye, I get the impression that both my interlocutor’s gestures and my own have frozen into an ecstatic rigidity, even though the action continues; and that an eternity of time passes between one word and the next, even though we do not stop speaking rapidly.

I snap out of it—not briskly, as one recovers from a momentary daze, but amidst deep, dizzying surges of a heart struggling to steady itself. I remember nothing of that state; yet I retain the impression and the exhaustion that follow intense emotional experiences.

At other times, I abruptly lose control of my self; from a corner of the engine—transformed into a tiny being, a concentrated mass of lines gleaming like an octagonal bolt—I watch myself operating the controls with agonizing slowness.

What is this? I do not know. I have been on the line for eighteen years. My eyesight remains normal. Unfortunately, one always knows more about pathology than is healthy, so I visit the company doctor.

"I feel nothing wrong with any organ," I tell him, "but I don't want to end up an epileptic. It does no one any good to see moving things standing still."

"Oh? And what is that?" the doctor asks, looking at me. "Who gave you that definition?"

"I read it somewhere," I reply. "Please examine me, I beg you."

—The doctor examines my stomach, liver, circulation, and eyesight, naturally.

—"I see nothing wrong," he told me, "aside from the slight depression you show upon coming here... Think as little as possible—only what is essential for your operations—and do not read anything. It does not do for drivers of express trains to see double, let alone try to explain it to themselves."

—"But wouldn't it be prudent," I insist, "to request a full examination from the company? The responsibility resting on my shoulders is too great for me to be satisfied with..."

—"...the brief examination I’ve given you—is that what you mean to say? You are right, my friend. It is not merely prudent, but essential to do so. Go to your examination with an easy mind; drivers who mix up their levers one day do not usually reason the way you do."

I shrugged behind his back and left, feeling even more depressed.

What is the point of seeing the company doctors if the only rational treatment they will prescribe is a regimen of ignorance?

When a man possesses a level of culture superior to his job, he becomes a source of suspicion to himself long before he does to his superiors. But if these suspensions of life continue, and this double and triple vision—seen through a distant transparency—intensifies, and Then I shall know perfectly well what is fitting for a train driver in such a state.

I am happy. I rose at daybreak, no longer sleepy and so keenly aware of my well-being that my little house, the streets, and the entire city seemed too small to contain the fullness of my life. I went outside, singing inwardly, my fists clenched in readiness for action and a faint smile playing on my lips—as befits a man who feels his own worth before the vast, awakening creation.

It is truly remarkable how a man can suddenly turn and realize that above, below, to the east, and to the west, there is nothing but brilliant clarity—its infinitesimal ions composed of satisfaction: a simple, noble satisfaction that fills the chest and makes one lift one’s head in blissful serenity.

Once—I know not in what distant time or place—I was depressed, so weighed down by anguish that I could not lift myself even a millimeter off the flat earth. There are gases that creep along the low ground, unable to rise, trailing along in a state of suffocation because they cannot breathe.

I was one of those gases. Now I can rise on my own, without anyone’s help, all the way to the highest clouds. And were I a man who could stretch out his hands in blessing, all things—and the very awakening of life—would continue their illuminated routine, yet be imbued with my essence: so powerful is the expansion of the mind in a true man!

From this height and this radiant perfection, I recall the miseries and collapses that once kept me close to the ground, like a gas. How could this solid flesh of mine, and this bold, all-encompassing vision, harbor such uncertainties, sordid thoughts, obsessions, and airless suffocation?

I look around and find myself alone, secure, filled with music, and laughing at my own harmonious existence. Life—that heavy engine and freight car rolled into one—offers up such phenomena: a locomotive suddenly rearing up on its rear wheels to stand bathed in sunlight.

From every side! Standing tall and proud in the sun! How little it sometimes takes to determine a destiny: to rise to the heights—swelling, calm, and efficient—or to hug the ground like a gas!

I was that gas. Now I am who I am, and I return home slowly, filled with wonder.

I drank my coffee with my daughter on my lap, in a manner that surprised my wife.

"I haven't seen you like this in a long time," she says, her voice serious and sad.

"It is life being reborn," I reply. "I am a new man, sister!"

"I hope you stay this way always," she murmurs.

"When Fermín bought his house, the company didn't say a word. There was a spare key."

"What are you saying?" my wife asks, looking up. I gaze at her—more surprised by her question than she is—and answer:

"Just what I told you: that I’ll always be this way!"

With that, I stand up and head out again.

Usually, after lunch, I stop by the office to receive orders and don't return to the station until it’s time to go on duty. There is nothing new today, aside from the heavy rains. Sometimes, setting out on that journey, I’ve left home with an inexplicable drowsiness; at other times, I’ve arrived at the engine with a strange yearning.

Today, I do everything without haste, with the clock fixed in my mind and the things I need to see radiating clearly in their exact places.

In this blissful alignment of time and destiny, we pull away. For the past half-hour, we’ve been running Train 248. My engine is the 129. As we pass, the platform pillars are reflected in the bronze of its number plate.

I have eighteen years of service—without a single infraction, a single sorrow, or a single fault. That is why the chief told me as I left:

"There have been two accidents this month already—that’s quite enough. Watch out at Junction 3, and once you’re past it, pay close attention to the 296–315 stretch. You can make up any lost time further on." I know we can rely on your composure, and that is why I am warning you. Good luck, and report your progress as soon as you arrive.

Calm! Calm! There is no need, oh chiefs, to urge calm upon my soul! I can run the train blindfolded; the ballast looks like stripes rather than dots when I focus my calm on the tip of the cowcatcher as it grazes the trackbed! Lascazes didn't have change to pay for the cigarettes he bought at the bridge...

For some time now, I’ve been watching the fireman, who is shoveling with agonizing slowness. Each of his movements seems isolated, as if made of some very hard material. What colleague entrusted me with the task of saving the junction...

"Friend!" I shout to him. "What’s with that attitude? Didn't the chief tell you to stay calm? The train is scuttling along like a cockroach."

"A cockroach?" he replies. "We've got good pressure... two pounds extra, even. This coal isn't like last month's."

"But we have to run, friend! And what about your calm? As for mine—I know exactly where it is!"

"What?" the man murmurs.

"The junction. It seems we'll have to shovel hard there. And then, from kilometer 296 to 315."

"With this rain coming down?" the timid fellow objects.

"The chief... Calm! In eighteen years of service, I had never grasped the full meaning of that word. We're going to run at 110, friend!"

"Suits me..." my man concludes, eyeing me sideways for a long moment.

I understand it! Ah, the fullness of feeling in my heart—like a universe made exclusively of light and fidelity—this calm that exalts me! What am I, after all, but a wretched, tiny being—shackled by regulations and terror—a train engineer from whom calm is demanded as he approaches a certain junction? I am not the mechanic in blue—with cap, kerchief, and paycheck—who could shout at his bosses: "I am the calm!" One must see everything at its zenith, utterly isolated in its existence! Grasp it with awestruck joy! One must possess a soul where every element holds meaning, and be the immediate agent for all that thirsts and waits for our touch to come alive! To be me!

Engineer. I glance outside. The night is pitch black. The train rushes on, dragging a ladder of reflections in its wake, and the rivets on the tender look swollen today. Ahead, the boiler’s handrail extends motionless from the cab window, then begins to undulate more and more violently, until it sweeps across the track from side to side at the front buffer.

I turn my head back inside: at this very moment, the glow from the open firebox sparkles all around the fireman’s sweater—he is motionless. He has frozen in place, shovel held back, his sweater bristling with white-hot lint.

"Wretch! He’s abandoned his post!" I roar, lunging from the sand-box.

Spectacular calm. Out in the countryside, at last—far from the railway routine!

Yesterday, my daughter was dying. My poor daughter! Today, she is clearly recovering. We are stopped by the wire fence, watching the gentle morning unfold. Standing on either side of our daughter’s small carriage—which we’ve wheeled out here—my wife and I gaze into the distance, happy.

"Papa, a train," my daughter says, extending the thin fingers her mother and I have kissed together on so many nights.

"Yes, little one," I confirm. It’s the 7:45 express.

“It’s moving so fast, Papa!” she remarks.

“Oh! There’s no danger here; it can run. But when we reach the…”

Like a silent explosion, the air around my head rushes away in lightning-fast waves, dragging part of my brain along in its suction, and I find myself back on the sand-box, driving my train.

I know I’ve done something—something whose multiplying presence besieges me—yet I cannot recall it. Little by little, my body tenses, my back arches, my fingernails dig into the lever… and I let out a long, rattling meow!

Then, suddenly—in a sharp crack and a livid flash of lightning, the tremors of which I had been sensing for weeks—I realize I am going mad.

Mad! One must feel the blow of that realization in the midst of life, and the cry of ultimate severance—a thousand times worse than death—to understand the utterly animal shriek with which the brain howls as its springs snap loose!

Mad—at this very instant, and forever! I screamed like a cat! I meowed! I screamed like a cat!

“Stay calm, my friend! That’s what I need!… Ready, chiefs!”

I throw myself back down.

“Bound-up fireman!” I shout through his gag. “Friend! Have you ever seen a man go mad? Here he is: Prrrrr!…”

“Because you’re a calm man, we’re entrusting the train to you. Keep an eye on track 4004! Cat.” That’s what the chief said.

“Fireman! Let’s shovel hard, and we’ll devour track 29000000003!”

I let go of the throttle and see myself once more—dim and insignificant—driving my train. The violent jolts of the locomotive stab at my brain: we are passing Junction 3.

Then, right before my eyes, the psychiatrist’s words come flooding back:

“…the easily imaginable attitudes a deranged engineer might adopt while driving his train…”

Oh! Being deranged is nothing. The horror lies in feeling unable to hold back—not a train, but a wretched scrap of human reason racing away at full steam, its valves overloaded! The horror lies in knowing that this last ounce of reason will vanish in turn, despite the crushing weight of responsibility straining to contain it! I ask for just one hour! Ten minutes, no more! Because in a moment... Oh, if only I still had time to untie the fireman and let him know!…

“Quick! Help me!”

And as I bend down, I see the sand-box lids fly open and a swarm of rats pour into the firebox.

Damn beasts... they’re going to put out the fires! I shovel coal into the firebox, strap the timid fellow onto one sand-box, and sit on the other myself.

“Friend!” I shout at him, one hand on the lever, the other over my eye. “When you want to slow a train down, you look for accomplices, eh? What’s the boss going to say when I tell him about your collection of rats? He’ll say: ‘Watch out for the... millionth... track gauge!’ And who takes it at 113 kilometers an hour? Yours truly. ‘Beaver-Fur.’ That’s me! I have nothing but certainty ahead of me, and the company bends over backwards for people like me. ‘What are you?’ they ask. ‘Discreet demeanor and essential dominance!’ I reply. Friend! Listen to the train shudder!… We’re crossing the gauge…”

Calm down, bosses! It won’t jump the tracks, I tell you... Jump, friend—now!

I see it! Jump...

He didn't jump! You got quite a scare, Mister! And why? I asked. Who deserves only the trust of their bosses? I asked. Ask, you madman from hell, or I’ll ram the fire-rake into your gut!

"As for this train," says the stationmaster, checking his watch, "it won't be late. It's running twelve minutes ahead of schedule."

Along the line, the express can be seen advancing like a monster lurching from side to side—advancing, arriving, roaring past, and fleeing at 110 kilometers an hour.

"There are those who know," I tell the stationmaster, strutting with my hands over my chest, "there are those who know that train's destination."

"Destination?" the stationmaster turns to the engineer. "Buenos Aires, I suppose..."

The engineer is already smiling and shaking his head gently; he winks at the stationmaster and raises his restless fingers toward the highest reaches of the atmosphere.

And I toss the fire-rake onto the tracks, bathed in sweat: the stoker has been saved.

But the train—no. I know this final respite will be even briefer than the others. If, a moment ago, I didn't have the time—not physical time, but mental time!—to untie my assistant and entrust the train to him, neither will I have the time to stop it... I place my hand on the valve to shut it—shut it—eluf eluf, my friend! Another rat!

One last flash... And what a horrible torment! God of reason and of my poor daughter! Grant me just enough time to place my hand on the lever—lever-fever-shiever, meow! The terminal stationmaster barely had time to hear the driver of the express train No. 248—who was leaning far out of the cab—shout to him in a tone he would never forget:

"Switch me to the siding!..."

But what was later lifted down from the train—which had been brought to a halt by red-hot brakes right against the siding's buffer stops—what was forcibly torn from the locomotive amidst horrible wailing and thrashing like a wild beast, was, for the rest of his days, nothing more than a wretched, raving madman. Psychiatrists maintain that the saving of the train—and its 125 lives—should be viewed merely as a case of professional automatism, a not uncommon phenomenon, and that sufferers of this type usually regain their sanity.

We, however, believe that a sense of duty, deeply rooted in a man's nature, is capable of holding back for three hours the sea of madness that is drowning him. Yet, from such mental heroism, reason does not recover.

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