I remember I was once talking to an old flame of mine. She had been the most beautiful woman in Buenos Aires. I had been in love with her, but she had always rejected me. The first time she ever saw me, she made a gesture that meant “No! Don’t propose marriage to me. No!” But after all that was over, we had a kind of stock joke between us. I once said to her, “Well, we’ve known each other for such a long time, and here we are….” I was about to be sentimental. Then she said to me (she was Irish-Norwegian), “No, I’m just a bad habit.”

From N.T. Di Giovanni, D. Halpern, and F. MacShane, eds., Borges On Writing, New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1973, p. 82.

Addendum (January 28, 2000)

This was quoted with Ejti Štih in mind. In retrospect, the association is not fair. She should not be singled out in this way. In fact, I am a collector of bad habits. Every woman who has offered me some resistance has become a bad habit. Elise is probably the worst habit I had ever acquired. By comparison, Ejti is hardly a habit at all. Going all the way back, neither was Vlasta, one of my first flames. To become a bad habit, a woman has to give you all she has got, and then she has to take it back bit by bit. Bit by bit, until you are happy to die.