Poli Délano: A primera vista

Verse y amarse locamente fue una sola cosa. Ella tenía los colmillos largos y afilados. Él tenía la piel blanda y suave: estaban hechos el uno para el otro.

Italo Calvino: La gallina di reparto

Il guardiano Adalberto aveva una gallina. Egli faceva parte del corpo di guardia interno d'un grande stabilimento; e questa gallina la teneva in un cortiletto della fabbrica; il capo dei guardiani gli aveva dato il permes­so. Gli sarebbe piaciuto di arrivare a farsi, col tempo, tutto un pollaio; e aveva cominciato comprando quella gallina, che gli era stata garantita come buona ovarola e come bestia silenziosa, che non avrebbe mai osato turba­re con un suo coccodè la severa atmosfera industriale. Difatti, non poteva dirsene scontento: gli faceva almeno un uovo al giorno, e si sarebbe detta, non fosse stato per qualche sommesso ciangottio, del tutto muta. Il permes­so che Adalberto aveva avuto riguardava, a dire il vero, l'allevamento in gabbia, ma essendo il terreno del cortile - da non molti anni conquistato alla civiltà meccanica - ricco non solo di viti arrugginite ma pure ancora di lom­brichi, alla gallina s'era tacitamente concesso d'andare becchettando intorno. Così essa andava e veniva pei re­parti, riservata e discreta, ben nota agli operai, e, per la sua libertà e irresponsabilità, invidiata.

Un giorno il vecchio tornitore Pietro aveva scoperto che il suo coetaneo Tommaso, collaudatore, veniva in fabbrica con le tasche piene di granone. Non immemore delle sue origini contadine, il collaudatore aveva subito valutato le doti produttive del volatile e collegando que­st'apprezzamento a un desiderio di rivalsa dalle anghe­rie subite, aveva intrapreso una cauta manovra per ami­carsi la gallina del guardiano e indurla a deporre le sue uova in una scatola di rottami che giaceva accanto al suo banco di lavoro.

Ogni qualvolta scopriva nell'amico un'astuzia segreta, Pietro restava male, perché era sempre lontano dall'a-spettarsela, e subito cercava di non essere da meno. Da quando stavano per diventare parenti, poi (suo figlio s'era messo in testa di sposare la figlia di Tommaso), liti­gavano sempre. Si munì lui pure di granone, preparò una cassetta di tornitura di ferro e, per quel tanto che glie lo permettevano le macchine cui aveva da badare, cercava di attirare la gallina. Così questa partita, che aveva per posta non tanto un uovo quanto una rivincita morale, si giocava più tra Pietro e Tommaso che tra i due ed Adalberto, il quale, poveretto, faceva le perquisi­zioni degli operai all'entrata e all'uscita, frugava borse e flanelle e non ne sapeva niente.

Pietro stava da solo in un angolo di reparto delimitato da un pezzo di parete," e che faceva come un locale a sé o «saletta», con una porta vetrata che dava su un cortile. Fino a qualche anno prima in questa saletta ci stavano due macchine e due operai: lui e un altro. A un certo punto quest'altro s'era messo in mutua per un'ernia, e Pietro provvisoriamente ebbe da badare a tutt'e due le macchine. Imparò a regolare i suoi movimenti com'era necessario: abbassava una leva in una macchina e anda­va a togliere il pezzo finito da quell'altra. L'ernioso fu operato, tornò, ma fu assegnato a un'altra squadra. Pie­tro restò definitivo alle due macchine; anzi, per fargli ca­pir bene che non era una casuale dimenticanza, venne un cronometrista a misurare i tempi e gliene fece ag­giungere una terza: aveva calcolato che tra le operazioni dell'una e dell'altra gli restava ancora qualche secondo libero. Poi, in una revisione generale dei cottimi, gli toc­cò, per far tornare non si sa bene quale somma, di pi­gliarsene una quarta. A sessant'anni suonati aveva do­vuto imparare a fare il quadruplo del lavoro nello stesso margine di tempo, ma poiché il salario restava immuta­to, la sua vita non ne ricevette grandi contraccolpi, tran­ne lo stabilizzarsi d'un'asma bronchiale e il vizio di ca­dere addormentato appena si sedeva, in qualsiasi com­pagnia o ambiente si trovasse. Ma era un vecchio robu­sto e soprattutto pieno di vitalità nel morale, e sempre sperava d'essere alla vigilia di grandi cambiamenti.

Reginald Bretnor: Maybe Just a Little One

Maximus Everett, who taught physics at Woodrow Wilson Union High School for nearly twenty years, was the first man to accomplish nuclear fission in his basement.

It really wasn't much of a basement either. Along one side was the workbench, littered with tools and wire and dusty old books. On the other side was an empty birdcage and a utility sink with a dripping faucet. A couple of shabby trunks stood in a corner next to a broken lawnmower, and some baled magazines the Red Cross people had forgotten to call for were piled up behind the cyclotron.

The final result of his scientific labors pleased Everett. After observing it quietly for a while, he went upstairs to the kitchen, where his wife was making chopped-olive-and-egg sandwiches. He sat down on a stool, wiped his long bald forehead, and remarked that it certainly was hot in the basement. Without turning around, his wife assured him that this was not abnormal. "Here in Arizona," she observed, "right near the border, it's always hot in summer."

Everett did not dispute the point. "Oh, it's not only that," he told her. "I've just been working pretty hard. It's been a tough job." He leaned back with a little sigh of satisfaction. "I've invented atomic power, hon."

"So that's what you've been doing," said Mrs. Everett. "I thought you were still working on your perpetual motion machine." She cut the last sandwich diagonally in half, put some sliced pickle on the platter, and turned around, smoothing her ample apron. Then suddenly she looked accusingly at her husband. "Why, that's ridiculous!" she exclaimed. "What do you mean, you invented it? How about Hiroshima?"

"That was different," said Everett simply. "That was just a big bang. Anybody can invent that kind."

Alfonso Hernández Catá: La verdad del caso de Iscariote

Su sombra, curvándose en el terreno desigual, se alargaba detrás de él, y en la quietud soporífera de la tarde sólo se oían los murmullos vagamente dísonos de la ciudad, y las ráfagas caliginosas que luego de agitar los vergeles y los gallardos sicomoros erguidos a las márgenes del Cedrón, venían a estremecer el desbordamiento gris de su barba y a turbar sus meditaciones. Aquellas tibias ráfagas henchidas de aromas le recordaban los alientos capitosos de Marta y de María la de Magdal.

Había salido de Jerusalén después de la colación de mediodía por la puerta de Efraím, ansioso de expandir en la soledad la turbulencia de sus ideas. Y marchaba con lentos pasos, abatida la cabeza, que sólo de tiempo en tiempo alzaba para mirar a su diestra la mole del monte Oh- veto y la verde extensión del valle, donde, sobre el reposado ondular, las anémonas y los lirios abríanse como un florecimiento de purezas.

Su pensamiento, saltando los sucesos cercanos, iba hasta la bienhadada hora en que la luz entrando en su espíritu, antes todo tinieblas, habíale hecho abandonar el regalo familiar en su aldea de Karioth, para seguir al sublime maestro. Andaba, andaba, olvidando con sus meditaciones las fatigas de su cuerpo. Y sus pensamientos eran una bendición para los ojos de su materia que habían visto los prodigios de leprosos sanados y de muertos alzados con vidas de sus tumbas, y era un epinicio para los ojos de su alma, que habían logrado conocer en el nazareno enfermizo, de laberíntico platicar y de carácter extraño que iba desde la mansedumbre máxima hasta las iracundas violencias, al hijo de Aquel que en el Cielo todo lo creó y todo desde allí lo rige. Andaba, andaba, y cuando sus pies descalzos se hundían en las pequeñas abras del camino, la túnica, estremeciéndose, acusaba su musculatura viril, y en la bolsa cantaban argentinamente los siglos, oblaciones hechas a la divina compañía por las caritativas mujeres.

Brian Herbert: Epitaph

Epitaph: He shouldn't have fed it.

Mario Benedetti: Persecuta

Como en tantas y tantas de sus pesadillas, empezó a huir despavorido. Las botas de sus perseguidores sonaban y resonaban sobre las hojas secas. Las omnipotentes zancadas se acercaban a un ritmo enloquecido y enloquecedor.

Hasta no hace mucho, siempre que entraba en una pesadilla, su salvación había consistido en despertar, pero a esta altura los perseguidores habían aprendido esa estratagema y ya no se dejaban sorprender.

Sin embargo esta vez volvió a sorprenderlos. Precisamente en el instante en que los sabuesos creyeron que iba a despertar, él, sencillamente, soñó que se dormía.

Henry James: The third person

1

When, a few years since, two good ladies, previously not intimate nor indeed more than slightly acquainted, found themselves domiciled together in the small but ancient town of Marr, it was as a result, naturally, of special considerations. They bore the same name and were second cousins; but their paths had not hitherto crossed; there had not been coincidence of age to draw them together; and Miss Frush, the more mature, had spent much of her life abroad. She was a bland, shy, sketching person, whom fate had condemned to a monotony – triumphing over variety – of Swiss and Italian pensions; in any one of which, with her well-fastened hat, her gauntlets and her stout boots, her camp-stool, her sketch-book, her Tauchnitz novel, she would have served with peculiar propriety as a frontispiece to the natural history of the English old maid. She would have struck you indeed, poor Miss Frush, as so happy an instance of the type that you would perhaps scarce have been able to equip her with the dignity of the individual. This was what she enjoyed, however, for those brought nearer – a very insistent identity, once even of prettiness, but which now, blanched and bony, timid and inordinately queer, with its utterance all vague interjection and its aspect all eyeglass and teeth, might be acknowledged without inconvenience and deplored without reserve. Miss Amy, her kinswoman, who, ten years her junior, showed a different figure – such as, oddly enough, though formed almost wholly in English air, might have appeared much more to betray a foreign influence – Miss Amy was brown, brisk and expressive: when really young she had even been pronounced showy. She had an innocent vanity on the subject of her foot, a member which she somehow regarded as a guarantee of her wit, or at least of her good taste. Even had it not been pretty she flattered herself it would have been shod: she would never – no, never, like Susan – have given it up. Her bright brown eye was comparatively bold, and she had accepted Susan once for all as a frump. She even thought her, and silently deplored her as, a goose. But she was none the less herself a lamb.

They had benefited, this innocuous pair, under the will of an old aunt, a prodigiously ancient gentlewoman, of whom, in her later time, it had been given them, mainly by the office of others, to see almost nothing; so that the little property they came in for had the happy effect of a windfall. Each, at least, pretended to the other that she had never dreamed – as in truth there had been small encouragement for dreams in the sad character of what they now spoke of as the late lady’s ‘dreadful entourage’. Terrorised and deceived, as they considered, by her own people, Mrs Frush was scantily enough to have been counted on for an act of almost inspired justice. The good luck of her husband’s nieces was that she had really outlived, for the most part, their ill-wishers and so, at the very last, had died without the blame of diverting fine Frush property from fine Frush use. Property quite of her own she had done as she liked with; but she had pitied poor expatriated Susan and had remembered poor unhusbanded Amy, though lumping them together perhaps a little roughly in her final provision. Her will directed that, should no other arrangement be more convenient to her executors, the old house at Marr might be sold for their joint advantage. What befell, however, in the event, was that the two legatees, advised in due course, took an early occasion – and quite without concert – to judge their prospects on the spot. They arrived at Marr, each on her own side, and they were so pleased with Marr that they remained. So it was that they met: Miss Amy, accompanied by the office-boy of the local solicitor, presented herself at the door of the house to ask admittance of the caretaker. But when the door opened it offered to sight not the caretaker, but an unexpected, unexpecting lady in a very old waterproof, who held a long-handled eyeglass very much as a child holds a rattle. Miss Susan, already in the field, roaming, prying, meditating in the absence on an errand of the woman in charge, offered herself in this manner as in settled possession; and it was on that idea that, through the eyeglass, the cousins viewed each other with some penetration even before Amy came in. Then at last when Amy did come in it was not, any more than Susan, to go out again.

Marie-Luise Kaschnitz: Gespenster

Ob ich schon einmal eine Gespenstergeschichte erlebt habe? Oh ja, gewiß--ich habe sie auch noch gut im Gedächtnis und will sie Ihnen erzählen. Aber wenn ich damit zu Ende bin, dürfen Sie mich nichts fragen und keine Erklärung verlangen, denn ich weiß gerade nur so viel, wie ich Ihnen berichte und kein Wort mehr. 

Das Erlebnis, das ich im Sinn habe, begann im Theater, und zwar im Old Vic Theater in London, bei einer Aufführung Richards II. von Shakespeare. Ich war damals zum ersten Mal in London und mein Mann auch, und die Stadt machte einen gewaltigen Eindruck auf uns. Wir wohnten ja für gewöhnlich auf dem Lande, in Österreich, und natürlich kannten wir Wien und auch München und Rom, aber was eine Weltstadt war wußten wir nicht. Ich erinnere mich, daß wir schon auf dem Weg ins Theater, auf den steilen Rolltreppen der Untergrundbahn hinab- und hinaufschwebend und im eisigen Schluchtenwind der Bahnsteige den Zügen nacheilend, in eine seltsam Stimmung von Erregung und Freude gerieten, und daß wir dann vor dem noch geschlossenen Vorhang saßen, wie Kinder, die zum ersten Mal ein Weihnachtsmärchen auf der Bühne sehen. Endlich ging der Vorhang auf, und das Stück fing an, bald erschien der junge König, ein hübscher Bub, ein Play Boy, von dem wir doch wußten, was das Schicksal mit ihm vorhatte, wie es ihn beugen würde und wie er schließlich untergehen sollte, machtlos aus eigenem Entschluß. Aber während ich an der Handlung sogleich den lebhaftesten Anteil nahm und hingerissen von den glühenden Farben des Bildes und der Kostüme keinen Blick mehr von der Bühne wandte, schien Anton abgelenkt und nicht recht bei der Sache, so als ob mit einem Male etwas anderes seine Aufmerksamkeit gefangen genommen hätte. Als ich mich einmal, sein Einverständnis suchend, zu ihm wandte, bemerkt ich, daß er gar nicht auf die Bühne schaute und kaum darauf hörte, was dort gesprochen wurde, daß er vielmehr eine Frau ins Auge faßte, die in der Reihe vor uns, ein wenig weiter rechts saß und die sich auch einige Male halb nach ihm umdrehte wobei auf ihren verlorenen Profil so etwas wie ein schüchternes Lächeln erschien. 

Anton und ich waren zu jener Zeit schon sechs Jahre verheiratet, und ich hatte meine Erfahrungen und wußte, daß er hübsche Frauen und junge Mädchen gern ansah, sich ihnen auch mit Vergnügen näherte, um die Anziehugskraft seiner schönen südländisch geschnittenen Augen zu erproben. Ein Grund zu rechter Eifersucht war solches Verhalten für mich nie gewesen und eifersüchtig war ich auch jetzt nicht, nur ein wenig ärgerlich, daß Anton über diesem stärkenden Zeitvertreib versäumte, was mir so besonders erlebenswert erschien. Ich nahm darum weiter keine Notiz von der Eroberung, die zu machen er sich anschickte; selbst als er einmal, im Verlauf des ersten Aktes meinen Arm leicht berührte und mit einem Heben des Kinns und Senken der Augenlieder zu der Schönen hinüberdeutete, nickte ich nur freundlich und wandte mich wieder der Bühne zu. In der Pause gab es freilich kein Ausweichen mehr. Anton schob sich nämlich, so rasch er konnte, aus der Reihe und zog mich mit sich zum Ausgang, und ich begriff, daß er dort warten wollte, bis die Unbekannte an uns vorüberging, vorausgesetzt daß sie ihren Platz überhaupt verließ. Sie machte zunächst dazu freilich keine Anstalten. Es zeigte sich nun auch, daß sie nicht allein war, sondern in Begleitung eines jungen Mannes, der, wie sie selbst, eine zarte bleiche Gesichtsfarbe und rötlichblonde Haare hatte und einen müden, fast erloschenen Eindruck machte. Besonders hübsch ist sie nicht, dachte ich, und übermäßig elegant auch nicht, in Faltenrock und Pullover, wie zu einem Spaziergang übers Land. Und dann schlug ich vor, draußen auf und ab zu gehen und begann über das Stück zu sprechen, obwohl ich schon merkte, daß das ganz sinnlos war.

Ednodio Quintero: La muerte viaja a caballo

Al atardecer, sentado en la silla de cuero de becerro, el abuelo creyó ver una extraña figura, oscura, frágil y alada volando en dirección al sol. Aquel presagio le hizo recordar su propia muerte. Se levantó con calma y entró a la sala. Y con un gesto firme, en el que se adivinaba, sin embargo, cierta resignación, descolgó la escopeta.

A horcajadas en un caballo negro, por el estrecho camino paralelo al río, avanzaba la muerte en un frenético y casi ciego galopar. El abuelo, desde su mirador, reconoció la silueta del enemigo. Se atrincheró detrás de la ventana, aprontó el arma y clavó la mirada en el corazón de piedra del verdugo. Bestia y jinete cruzaron la línea imaginaria del patio. Y el abuelo, que había aguardado desde siempre este momento, disparó. El caballo se paró en seco, y el jinete, con el pecho agujereado, abrió los brazos, se dobló sobre sí mismo y cayó a tierra mordiendo el polvo acumulado en los ladrillos.

La detonación interrumpió nuestras tareas cotidianas, resonó en el viento cubriendo de zozobra nuestros corazones. Salimos al patio y, como si hubiéramos establecido un acuerdo previo, en semicírculo rodeamos al caído. Mi tío se desprendió del grupo, se despojó del sombrero, e inclinado sobre el cuerpo aún caliente de aquel desconocido, lo volteó de cara al cielo. Entonces vimos, alumbrado por los reflejos ceniza del atardecer, el rostro sereno y sin vida del abuelo.

Triunfo Arcienagas: Pequeños cuerpos

Los niños entraron a la casa y destrozaron las jaulas. La mujer encontró los cuerpos muertos y enloqueció. Los pájaros no regresaron.

Dino Buzzati: Il disco si posò

Era sera e la campagna già mezza addormentata, dalle vallette levandosi lanugini di nebbia e il richiamo della rana solitaria che però subito taceva (l’ora che sconfigge anche i cuori di ghiaccio, col cielo limpido, l’inspiegabile serenità del mondo, l’odor di fumo, i pipistrelli e nelle antiche case i passi felpati degli spiriti), quand’ecco il disco volante si posò sul tetto della chiesa parrocchiale, la quale sorge al sommo del paese.

All’insaputa degli uomini che erano già rientrati nelle case, l’ordigno si calò verticalmente giù dagli spazi, esitò qualche istante, mandando una specie di ronzio, poi toccò il tetto senza strepito, come colomba. Era grande, lucido, compatto, simile a una lenticchia mastodontica; e da certi sfiatatoi continuò a uscire zufolando un soffio. Poi tacque e restò fermo, come morto.

Lassù nella sua camera che dà sul tetto della chiesa, il parroco, don Pietro, stava leggendo, col suo toscano in bocca. All’udire l’insolito ronzio, si alzò dalla poltrona e andò ad affacciarsi al davanzale. Vide allora quel coso straordinario, colore azzurro chiaro, diametro circa dieci metri.

Non gli venne paura, né gridò, neppure rimase sbalordito. Si è mai meravigliato di qualcosa il fragoroso e imperterrito don Pietro? Rimase là, col toscano, ad osservare. E quando vide aprirsi uno sportello, gli bastò allungare un braccio: là al muro c’era appesa la doppietta.

Ora sui connotati dei due strani esseri che uscirono dal disco non si ha nessun affidamento. È un tale confusionario, don Pietro. Nei successivi suoi racconti ha continuato a contraddirsi. Di sicuro si sa solo questo: ch’erano smilzi e di statura piccola, un metro un metro e dieci. Però lui dice anche che si allungavano e si accorciavano come fossero di elastico. Circa la forma, non si è capito molto: «Sembravano due zampilli di fontana, più grossi in cima e stretti in basso» così don Pietro «sembravano due spiritelli, sembravano due insetti, sembravano scopette, sembravano due grandi fiammiferi.» «E avevano due occhi come noi?» «Certo, uno per parte, però piccoli.» E la bocca? e le braccia? e le gambe? Don Pietro non sapeva decidersi: «In certi momenti vedevo due gambette e un secondo dopo non le vedevo più... Insomma, che ne so io? Lasciatemi una buona volta in pace!».

Emilia Pardo Bazán: Caras

Al divisar, desde el tren, de bruces en la ventanilla, las torres barrocas de Santa María del Hinojo, bronceadas sobre el cielo de una rosa fluido, el corazón del viajero trepidó con violencia, sus manos se enfriaron. El tiempo transcurrido desapareció, y la sensibilidad juvenil resurgió impetuosa.

Eran las torres «únicas» de aquella «única» iglesia en que el sacristán la había permitido repicar las campanas, admirar los nidos de las cigüeñas emigradoras y cuya baranda había recorrido volando sobre el angosto pasamano, y mirando sin vértigo, con curiosidad agria, de mozalbete, el abismo hondo y luminoso de la plaza embaldosada, a cuarenta metros bajo sus pies.

Y también le emocionaba la plaza, con sus soportales y sus acacias de bola, y más allá, el jardín, donde era un esparcimiento arrancar plantas y robar flores, y las calles y callejas tortuosas, los esconces sombríos de las plazoletas, hasta las innobles estercoleras, secularmente deshonradoras de la tapia del Mercado, le poblaban el alma de gorjeadores recuerdos, todos dulces, porque, a distancia, contrariedades y regocijos se funden en armonías de saudades...

Seguido del granuja que llevaba la maleta, saltarineando a la coscojita los charcos menudos, el viajero apresuraba el paso, comiéndose con la vista los lugares, anticipando la impresión infinitamente más fuerte y honda de la primera cara conocida... Una de esas caras inconfundibles, distintas de las demás que andan por el mundo, ya que en ella hemos puesto lo íntimo de nuestro yo... Caras de compañeros de juegos y diabluras, caras de parientes formales y babodos que regalan juguetes y chupandinas, caras de maestros cuyas reprimendas y castigos son sonrisas para el adulto, caras de muchachas graciosas en quienes encarnaron los primeros ensueños, nada inmateriales, de la pubertad... Caras, caras... En algunas caras se resume toda vida de hombre.

Stendhal (Henri Beyle): Le Coffre et le Revenant

Stendahl by Johan Olaf Sodemark 

Par une belle matinée du mois de mai 182., don Blas Bustos y Mosquera, suivi de douze cavaliers, entrait dans le village d’Alcolote, à une lieue de Grenade. À son approche, les paysans rentraient précipitamment dans leurs maisons et fermaient leurs portes. Les femmes regardaient avec terreur par un petit coin de leurs fenêtres ce terrible directeur de la police de Grenade. Le ciel a puni sa cruauté en mettant sur sa figure l’empreinte de son âme. C’est un homme de six pieds de haut, noir, et d’une effrayante maigreur ; il n’est que directeur de la police, mais l’évêque de Grenade lui-même et le gouverneur tremblent devant lui. Durant cette guerre sublime contre Napoléon, qui, aux yeux de la postérité, placera les Espagnols du dix-neuvième siècle avant tous les autres peuples de l’Europe, et leur donnera le second rang après les Français, don Blas fut l’un des plus fameux chefs de guérillas. Quand sa troupe n’avait pas tué au moins un Français dans la journée, il ne couchait pas dans un lit : c’était un vœu.

Au retour de Ferdinand, on l’envoya aux galères de Ceuta, où il a passé huit années dans la plus horrible misère. On l’accusait d’avoir été capucin dans sa jeunesse, et d’avoir jeté le froc aux orties. Ensuite il rentra en grâce, on ne sait comment. Don Blas est célèbre maintenant par son silence ; jamais il ne parle.Autrefois les sarcasmes qu’il adressait à ses prisonniers de guerre avant de les faire pendre lui avaient acquis une sorte de réputation d’esprit : on répétait ses plaisanteries dans toutes les armées espagnoles.

Don Blas s’avançait lentement dans la rue d’Alcolote, regardantde côté et d’autre les maisons avec ses yeux de lynx. Comme ilpassait devant l’église on sonna une messe ; il se précipitade cheval plutôt qu’il n’en descendit, et on le vit s’agenouillerauprès de l’autel. Quatre de ses gendarmes se mirent à genouxautour de sa chaise ; ils le regardèrent, il n’y avait déjàplus de dévotion dans ses yeux. Son œil sinistre était fixé sur unjeune homme d’une tournure fort distinguée qui priait dévotement àquelques pas de lui.

Arthur Machen: Opening the Door

Arthur Machen by John Flanagan

The newspaper reporter, from the nature of the case, has generally to deal with the commonplaces of life. He does his best to find something singular and arresting in the spectacle of the day’s doings; but, in spite of himself, he is generally forced to confess that whatever there may be beneath the surface, the surface itself is dull enough.

I must allow, however, that during my ten years or so in Fleet Street, I came across some tracks that were not devoid of oddity. There was that business of Campo Tosto, for example. That never got into the papers. Campo Tosto, I must explain, was a Belgian, settled for many years in England, who had left all his property to the man who looked after him.

My news editor was struck by something odd in the brief story that appeared in the morning paper, and sent me down to make inquiries. I left the train at Reigate; and there I found that Mr. Campo Tosto had lived at a place called Burnt Green — which is a translation of his name into English — and that he shot at trespassers with a bow and arrows. I was driven to his house, and saw through a glass door some of the property which he had bequeathed to his servant: fifteenth-century triptychs, dim and rich and golden; carved statues of the saints; great spiked altar candlesticks; storied censers in tarnished silver; and much more of old church treasure. The legatee, whose name was Turk, would not let me enter; but, as a treat, he took my newspaper from my pocket and read it upside down with great accuracy and facility. I wrote this very queer story, but Fleet Street would not suffer it. I believe it struck them as too strange a thing for their sober columns.

And then there was the affair of the J.H.V.S. Syndicate, which dealt with a Cabalistic cipher, and the phenomenon, called in the Old Testament, “the Glory of the Lord,” and the discovery of certain objects buried under the site of the Temple at Jerusalem; that story was left half told, and I never heard the ending of it. And I never understood the affair of the hoard of coins that a storm disclosed on the Suffolk coast near Aldeburgh. From the talk of the longshoremen, who were on the look-out amongst the dunes, it appeared that a great wave came in and washed away a slice of the sand cliff just beneath them. They saw glittering objects as the sea washed back, and retrieved what they could. I viewed the treasure — it was a collection of coins; the earliest of the twelfth century, the latest, pennies, three or four of them, of Edward VII, and a bronze medal of Charles Spurgeon. There are, of course, explanations of the puzzle; but there are difficulties in the way of accepting any one of them. It is very clear, for example, that the hoard was not gathered by a collector of coins; neither the twentieth-century pennies nor the medal of the great Baptist preacher would appeal to a numismatologist.