The fictions of Borges are a metaphorical house of mirrors. Even as his vision was fading light was doubled and trebled and multiplied to infinity. There is even a mirror of ink. One might say that all writing is a mirror of ink and even the novel in a dark drawer is seen by God and thereby takes its place in the furniture of the world. To be then is to be perceived. No doubt this is the ontological foundation of the shy proffering of a typescript ringed with tea mug stains and embedded with crumbs of the bitter bread of futility.
The mirror of ink is developed by the poltroon brother of Ibrahim for the tyrant Yaqub the Ailing in this fashion:
"My brother perished by the sword, on the blood-red skin of Justice, but I flung myself at the hated feet of the Ailing, telling him that I was a wizard, and that if he spared my life I would show him shapes and appearances still more wonderful than those of the magic lantern. The tyrant demanded an immediate proof. I asked for a reed pen, a pair of scissors, a large leaf of Venetian paper, an inkhorn, a chafing dish with some live coals in it, some coriander seeds, and an ounce of benzoin. I cut up the paper into six strips, wrote charms and invocation on the first five, and on the remaining one wrote the following words, taken from the glorious Koran: ‘And we have removed from thee thy veil; and thy sight today is piercing.’ Then I drew a magic square in the palm of Yaqub’s right hand, told him to make a hollow of it, and into the centre I poured a pool of ink. I asked him if he saw himself clearly reflected in it, and he answered that he did. I told him not to raise his head. I dropped the benzoin and coriander seeds into the chafing dish, and I burned the invocations upon the glowing coals. I next asked him to name the image he desired to see.”
Mirrors generally are a portent of shame, infamy and undesired conclusions.
“From along the corridor the mirror spied on us. We found out (inevitably at such an hour) that there is something unnatural about mirrors. Then Bioy recalled that one of Uqbar's heresiarchs had said that mirrors and copulation are abominable because they multiply the number of men” (Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius)
Mirrors by their grasp are a danger to those with psyches in a crumbling state:
“In order to forge an intimacy with women, one often tells them about true or apocryphal things that happened in one's youth; I must have told her at some point about my horror of mirrors, and so in 1928 I must have planted the hallucination that was to flower in 1931. Now I have just learned that she has gone insane, and that in her room all the mirrors are covered, because she sees my reflection in them—usurping her own—and she trembles and cannot speak, and says that I am magically following her, watching her, stalking her.
What dreadful bondage, the bondage of my face—or one of my former faces. Its odious fate makes me odious as well, but I don't care anymore.”
Borges in an afterword offers the concept of the ‘fetch’:
"In England the double is called the fetch or, more literarily, the wraith of the living; in Germany it is known as the Doppelgänger. I suspect that one of its first aliases was the alter ego. This spectral apparition no doubt emerged from mirrors of metal or water, or simply from the memory, which makes each person both spectator and actor. “
This has its analogue in the ‘linga sarira’ (subtle body) of the Hindu which is the bridge between successive incarnations. Continuity is required for sameness or illusory sameness of the adventure of the unravelling of the veil. The Buddhist account of identity has no need of this karma janma (work/incarnation) catenary and thereby succumbs to the adventitious.
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