Ambrose Bierce: A Diagnosis of Death

'I am not so superstitious as some of your physicians - men of science, as you are pleased to be called,' said Hawver, replying to an accusation that had not been made. 'Some of you - only a few, I confess - believe in the immortality of the soul, and in apparitions which you have not the honesty to call ghosts. I go no further than a conviction that the living are sometimes seen where they are not, but have been - where they have lived so long, perhaps so intensely, as to have left their impress on everything about them. I know, indeed, that one's environment may be so affected by one's personality as to yield, long afterward, an image of one's self to the eyes of another. Doubtless the impressing personality has to be the right kind of personality as the perceiving eyes have to be the right kind of eyes - mine, for example.'

'Yes, the right kind of eyes, conveying sensations to the wrong kind of brains,' said Dr. Frayley, smiling.

'Thank you; one likes to have an expectation gratified; that is about the reply that I supposed you would have the civility to make.'

'Pardon me. But you say that you know. That is a good deal to say, don't you think? Perhaps you will not mind the trouble of saying how you learned.'

'You will call it an hallucination,' Hawver said, 'but that does not matter.' And he told the story.

'Last summer I went, as you know, to pass the hot weather term in the town of Meridian. The relative at whose house I had intended to stay was ill, so I sought other quarters. After some difficulty I succeeded in renting a vacant dwelling that had been occupied by an eccentric doctor of the name of Mannering, who had gone away years before, no one knew where, not even his agent. He had built the house himself and had lived in it with an old servant for about ten years. His practice, never very extensive, had after a few years been given up entirely. Not only so, but he had withdrawn himself almost altogether from social life and become a recluse. I was told by the village doctor, about the only person with whom he held any relations, that during his retirement he had devoted himself to a single line of study, the result of which he had expounded in a book that did not commend itself to the approval of his professional brethren, who, indeed, considered him not entirely sane. I have not seen the book and cannot now recall the title of it, but I am told that it expounded a rather startling theory. He held that it was possible in the case of many a person in good health to forecast his death with precision, several months in advance of the event. The limit, I think, was eighteen months. There were local tales of his having exerted his powers of prognosis, or perhaps you would say diagnosis; and it was said that in every instance the person whose friends he had warned had died suddenly at the appointed time, and from no assignable cause. All this, however, has nothing to do with what I have to tell; I thought it might amuse a physician.

Ricardo Iribarren (Gocho Versolari): Los ojos del jardín

'What wailing wight
Calls the watchman of the night?'
William Blake

L'enfer est le regard des autres
Jean Paul Sartre

—Si puedo encerrar el jardín en una ecuación, lograré hacer lo mismo con la vida y cuando muera regresaré —repetía Jorge diariamente.

La fascinación por el olor a azufre y a cementerio que emanaba de los senderos del jardín, era lo que nos unía. Al amanecer nos despertábamos como si escucháramos el mismo reloj y subíamos a la torre desde donde divisábamos los penachos de la niebla, los caminos que emergían de la penumbra y las lejanas visiones del laberinto y la fuente.

El jardín tenía la forma de una cruz inscripta en un círculo y en el interior se abrían otros tantos senderos redondos que reproducían la configuración original. Misteriosos cambios transformaban diariamente las circunferencias en elipses; los caminos giraban en sentido contrario a las agujas del reloj y de ese modo los dibujos de la grava, la fuente y el laberinto que se encontraban al sur aparecían al este, luego al norte, al oeste, hasta que retornaban a sus posturas iniciales.

Nunca lo comenté, pero tenía la certeza que desde la tierra y los arbustos del jardín, alguien me vigilaba hora tras hora. A veces me sentía desnuda y procuraba cubrirme; en otros momentos, la mirada me halagaba y cuidaba que mi vestido, mi peinado y mi maquillaje estuvieran perfectos para aquel ser invisible.

Mi amigo Jorge acababa de terminar con excelentes notas la licenciatura en matemáticas y una de sus obsesiones en aquel otoño fue traducir a ecuaciones diferenciales el extraño comportamiento del jardín.

El viejo jardinero era el tío de Jorge y bajo el resplandor de las fogatas que encendíamos todas las noches, repetía las mismas palabras antes de empezar sus historias.

—La parcela donde está el jardín, fue durante mucho tiempo el cementerio de la zona que luego trasladaron al sur del pueblo. Mi padre y mi abuelo lo trabajaron, por eso lo conozco como a mi propia mano —levantaba su palma tosca, surcada de líneas y la exhibía a la luz cambiante del fuego. A continuación, narraba las historias; una por noche. Algunos eran relatos de los habitantes del lugar y otras fantasías del propio anciano. Casi siempre describía asesinatos por amor o por codicia. Los cadáveres seguían sepultados en el jardín, pero la policía nunca los encontraba. El viejo terminaba sus cuentos con la misma frase:

—Deben saber que el jardín está vivo y oculta un terrible secreto.

Gérard de Nerval: La Main enchantée

I — LA PLACE DAUPHINE

Rien n’est beau comme ces maisons du siècle dix-septième dont la place Royale offre une si majestueuse réunion. Quand leurs faces de briques, entremêlées et encadrées de cordons et de coins de pierre, et quand leurs fenêtres hautes sont enflammées des rayons splendides du couchant, vous vous sentez à les voir la même vénération que devant une Cour des parlements assemblée en robes rouges à revers d’hermine ; et, si ce n’était un puéril rapprochement, on pourrait dire que la longue table verte où ces redoutables magistrats sont rangés en carré figure un peu ce bandeau de tilleuls qui borde les quatre faces de la place Royale et en complète la grave harmonie.

Il est une autre place dans la ville de Paris qui ne cause pas moins de satisfaction par sa régularité et son ordonnance, et qui est, en triangle, à peu près ce que l’autre est en carré. Elle a été bâtie sous le règne de Henri le Grand, qui la nomma place Dauphine et l’on admira alors le peu de temps qu’il fallut à ses bâtiments pour couvrir tout le terrain vague de l’île de la Gourdaine. Ce fut un cruel déplaisir que l’envahissement de ce terrain, pour les clercs, qui venaient s’y ébattre à grand bruit, et pour les avocats qui venaient y méditer leurs plaidoyers : promenade si verte et si fleurie, au sortir de l’infecte cour du Palais.

À peine ces trois rangées de maisons furent-elles dressées sur leurs portiques lourds, chargés et sillonnés de bossages et de refends ; à peine furent-elles revêtues de leurs briques, percées de leurs croisées à balustres et chaperonnées de leurs combles massifs, que la nation des gens de justice envahit la place entière, chacun suivant son grade et ses moyens, c’est-à-dire en raison inverse de l’élévation des étages. Cela devint une sorte de cour des miracles au grand pied, une truanderie de larrons privilégiés, repaire de la gent chiquanouse, comme les autres de la gent argotique ; celui-ci en brique et en pierre, les autres en boue et en bois.

Dans une de ces maisons composant la place Dauphine habitait, vers les dernières années du règne de Henri le Grand, un personnage assez remarquable, ayant pour nom Godinot Chevassut, et pour titre, lieutenant civil du prévôt de Paris ; charge bien lucrative et pénible à la fois en ce siècle où les larrons étaient beaucoup plus nombreux qu’ils ne sont aujourd’hui, tant la probité a diminué depuis dans notre pays de France ! et où le nombre des filles folles de leur corps était beaucoup plus considérable, tant nos mœurs se sont dépravées ! ― L’humanité ne changeant guère, on peut dire, comme un vieil auteur, que moins il y a de fripons aux galères, plus il y en a dehors.

Il faut bien dire aussi que les larrons de ce temps-là étaient moins ignobles que ceux du nôtre, et que ce misérable métier était alors une sorte d’art que des jeunes gens de famille ne dédaignaient pas d’exercer. Bien des capacités refoulées au dehors et aux pieds d’une société de barrières et de privilèges se développaient fortement dans ce sens ; ennemis plus dangereux aux particuliers qu’à l’État, dont la machine eût peut-être éclaté sans cet échappement. Aussi sans nul doute, la Justice d’alors usait-elle de ménagements envers les larrons distingués, et personne n’exerçait plus volontiers cette tolérance que notre lieutenant civil de la place Dauphine, pour des raisons que vous connaîtrez. En revanche, nul n’était plus sévère pour les maladroits : ceux-là payaient pour les autres et garnissaient les gibets dont Paris alors était ombragé, suivant l’expression de d’Aubigné, à la grande satisfaction des bourgeois, qui n’en étaient que mieux volés, et au grand perfectionnement de l’art de la truche.

Edith Wharton: Kerfol

I

"You ought to buy it," said my host; "it's just the place for a solitary-minded devil like you. And it would be rather worth while to own the most romantic house in Brittany. The present people are dead broke, and it's going for a song -- you ought to buy it."

It was not with the least idea of living up to the character my friend Lanrivain ascribed to me (as a matter of fact, under my unsociable exterior I have always had secret yearnings for domesticity) that I took his hint one autumn afternoon and went to Kerfol. My friend was motoring over to Quimper on business: he dropped me on the way, at a cross-road on a heath, and said: "First turn to the right and second to the left. Then straight ahead till you see an avenue. If you meet any peasants, don't ask your way. They don't understand French, and they would pretend they did and mix you up. I'll be back for you here by sunset -- and don't forget the tombs in the chapel."

I followed Lanrivain's directions with the hesitation occasioned by the usual difficulty of remembering whether he had said the first turn to the right and second to the left, or the contrary. If I had met a peasant I should certainly have asked, and probably been sent astray; but I had the desert landscape to myself, and so stumbled on the right turn and walked on across the heath till I came to an avenue. It was so unlike any other avenue I have ever seen that I instantly knew it must be THE avenue. The grey-trunked trees sprang up straight to a great height and then interwove their pale-grey branches in a long tunnel through which the autumn light fell faintly. I know most trees by name, but I haven't to this day been able to decide what those trees were. They had the tall curve of elms, the tenuity of poplars, the ashen colour of olives under a rainy sky; and they stretched ahead of me for half a mile or more without a break in their arch. If ever I saw an avenue that unmistakeably led to something, it was the avenue at Kerfol. My heart beat a little as I began to walk down it.

Presently the trees ended and I came to a fortified gate in a long wall. Between me and the wall was an open space of grass, with other grey avenues radiating from it. Behind the wall were tall slate roofs mossed with silver, a chapel belfry, the top of a keep. A moat filled with wild shrubs and brambles surrounded the place; the drawbridge had been replaced by a stone arch, and the portcullis by an iron gate. I stood for a long time on the hither side of the moat, gazing about me, and letting the influence of the place sink in. I said to myself: "If I wait long enough, the guardian will turn up and show me the tombs --" and I rather hoped he wouldn't turn up too soon.

I sat down on a stone and lit a cigarette. As soon as I had done it, it struck me as a puerile and portentous thing to do, with that great blind house looking down at me, and all the empty avenues converging on me. It may have been the depth of the silence that made me so conscious of my gesture. The squeak of my match sounded as loud as the scraping of a brake, and I almost fancied I heard it fall when I tossed it onto the grass. But there was more than that: a sense of irrelevance, of littleness, of childish bravado, in sitting there puffing my cigarette-smoke into the face of such a past.

I knew nothing of the history of Kerfol -- I was new to Brittany, and Lanrivain had never mentioned the name to me till the day before -- but one couldn't as much as glance at that pile without feeling in it a long accumulation of history. What kind of history I was not prepared to guess: perhaps only the sheer weight of many associated lives and deaths which gives a kind of majesty to all old houses. But the aspect of Kerfol suggested something more -- a perspective of stern and cruel memories stretching away, like its own grey avenues, into a blur of darkness.

Certainly no house had ever more completely and finally broken with the present. As it stood there, lifting its proud roofs and gables to the sky, it might have been its own funeral monument. "Tombs in the chapel? The whole place is a tomb!" I reflected. I hoped more and more that the guardian would not come. The details of the place, however striking, would seem trivial compared with its collective impressiveness; and I wanted only to sit there and be penetrated by the weight of its silence.

Salomé Guadalupe Ingelmo: En tierra inexplorada

Sólo los separa el Leteo; casi puede tocarla. El autor se dispone a atravesar la cautivadora corriente, aun a riesgo de quedar aprisionado en el Hades. Pero entonces lee en sus ojos: ella ya no es su Virginia, ya no le reconoce. Súbitamente el grácil cuerpo se pliega. Tras el violento golpe de tos, ella observa el cándido pañuelo con resignación y tibia melancolía. Muestra al desconocido la mancha que se extiende implacable. Le ofrece un adorable mohín a modo de disculpa. Se hace tarde; debe regresar a casa.

A miles de kilómetros, las olas del mar gélido rompen contra los acantilados. Es octubre y hace frío, pero la ventana abierta aguarda el improbable regreso de Annabel.

“¡No cerréis el ataúd, ella aún vive!”. El escritor despierta sobresaltado. Las lágrimas han fluido inconscientemente mientras dormía sobre su escritorio, y ahora es su último poema el que parece llorar ríos de tinta. Sabe que regresará junto a ella, pero no puede esperar todo un día. Entonces abre el cajón que siempre permanece cerrado con llave y, fingiendo no ver los insidiosos recortes de periódico, extraer el precioso frasquito. Aprieta los labios contra la fría boca y bebe de ese beso lenitivo. Tras algunos minutos, la voz infantil acude acompañada por el lánguido lamento del arpa que ella solía tocar. Revolotea tímidamente por la habitación. Cuando está a punto de posarse en su hombro, el sombrío cuervo grazna “nevermore” y el animalito huye asustado.

Lo persigue por un Baltimore desierto, entre los glaciares y la bruma de los opiáceos y el alcohol, hasta caer exhausto. No se resiste cuando un vagabundo le propone que intercambien sus chaquetas.

Siente tanta piedad que finalmente decide entregársele. No ve esas ropas raídas que ni siquiera le pertenecen. Ella sabe quién es él realmente, no necesita leer los recortes de su cajón. Bajo el tupido velo de novia, Edgar reconoce inmediatamente el rostro pálido como la nieve: la ha cortejado desde su juventud. La enorme figura etérea avanza con los brazos abiertos, dispuesta a acogerle en su seno. Esta vez, para siempre.

Edgar Allan Poe: Ligeia

Portrait of Edgar Allan Poe by Alejandro Cabeza

AND the will therein lieth, which dieth not. Who knoweth the mysteries of the will, with its vigor? For God is but a great will pervading all things by nature of its intentness. Man doth not yield himself to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will.

Joseph Glanvill.

I CANNOT, for my soul, remember how, when, or even precisely where, I first became acquainted with the lady Ligeia. Long years have since elapsed, and my memory is feeble through much suffering. Or, perhaps, I cannot now bring these points to mind, because, in truth, the character of my beloved, her rare learning, her singular yet placid cast of beauty, and the thrilling and enthralling eloquence of her low musical language, made their way into my heart by paces so steadily and stealthily progressive that they have been unnoticed and unknown. Yet I believe that I met her first and most frequently in some large, old, decaying city near the Rhine. Of her family — I have surely heard her speak. That it is of a remotely ancient date cannot be doubted. Ligeia! Ligeia! Buried in studies of a nature more than all else adapted to deaden impressions of the outward world, it is by that sweet word alone — by Ligeia — that I bring before mine eyes in fancy the image of her who is no more. And now, while I write, a recollection flashes upon me that I have never known the paternal name of her who was my friend and my betrothed, and who became the partner of my studies, and finally the wife of my bosom. Was it a playful charge on the part of my Ligeia? or was it a test of my strength of affection, that I should institute no inquiries upon this point? or was it rather a caprice of my own — a ­[page 454:] wildly romantic offering on the shrine of the most passionate devotion? I but indistinctly recall the fact itself — what wonder that I have utterly forgotten the circumstances which originated or attended it? And, indeed, if ever that spirit which is entitled Romance — if ever she, the wan and the misty-winged Ashtophet of idolatrous Egypt, presided, as they tell, over marriages ill-omened, then most surely she presided over mine.

There is one dear topic, however, on which my memory fails me not. It is the person of Ligeia. In stature she was tall, somewhat slender, and, in her latter days, even emaciated. I would in vain attempt to portray the majesty, the quiet ease, of her demeanor, or the incomprehensible lightness and elasticity of her footfall. She came and departed as a shadow. I was never made aware of her entrance into my closed study save by the dear music of her low sweet voice, as she placed her marble hand upon my shoulder. In beauty of face no maiden ever equalled her. It was the radiance of an opium-dream — an airy and spirit-lifting vision more wildly divine than the phantasies which hovered about the slumbering souls of the daughters of Delos. Yet her features were not of that regular mould which we have been falsely taught to worship in the classical labors of the heathen. “There is no exquisite beauty,” says Bacon, Lord Verulam, speaking truly of all the forms and genera of beauty, without some strangeness in the proportion.” Yet, although I saw that the features of Ligeia were not of a classic regularity — although I perceived that her loveliness was indeed “exquisite,” and felt that there was much of “strangeness” pervading it, yet I have tried in vain to detect the irregularity and to trace home my own perception of “the strange.” I examined the contour of the lofty and pale forehead — it was faultless — how cold indeed that word when applied to a majesty so divine! — the skin rivalling the purest ivory, the commanding extent and repose, the gentle prominence of the regions above the temples; and then the raven-black, the glossy, the luxuriant and naturally-curling tresses, setting forth the full force of the Homeric epithet, “hyacinthine!” I looked at the delicate outlines of the nose — and nowhere but in the graceful medallions of the Hebrews had I beheld a similar perfection. There were the same luxurious smoothness of surface, ­[page 455:] the same scarcely perceptible tendency to the aquiline, the same harmoniously curved nostrils speaking the free spirit. I regarded the sweet mouth. Here was indeed the triumph of all things heavenly — the magnificent turn of the short upper lip — the soft, voluptuous slumber of the under — the dimples which sported, and the color which spoke — the teeth glancing back, with a brilliancy almost startling, every ray of the holy light which fell upon them in her serene and placid, yet most exultingly radiant of all smiles. I scrutinized the formation of the chin — and here, too, I found the gentleness of breadth, the softness and the majesty, the fullness and the spirituality, of the Greek — the contour which the god Apollo revealed but in a dream, to Cleomenes, the son of the Athenian. And then I peered into the large eyes of Ligeia.

Leopoldo María Panero: Presentimiento de la locura

«Yapesar de todo su corazón

no ha de confesar jamás que lo desgarra

esa oseara enfermedad que pone sitio a su vida.»

Shakespeare, All is well that welí ends

Aunque, como alguien dijo, no hay nadie que logre, a lo lar-o de su vida, saber quién es, puedo decir de mí un nombre, Arístides Briant, y mis tentativas infructuosas por hacer que este tu­viera algún sentido, dos libros de poemas enredados y amargos, ; ritos al dictado de la Philosophy of Composition de Poe, y un pequeño volumen de ensayos al que titulé Los lobos devoran al rey muerto, entendiendo que ese «rey muerto» era la cultura y también yo mismo. Ninguno de ellos recibió el favor de una crítica o de un comentario, y no conozco el rostro de aquellos que los leyeron. Aquellos escritos fueron mi único esfuerzo, porque tenía necesidad de trabajar, dado que había heredado de mi pad­re una pequeña fortuna, suficiente, sin embargo, para mantener una antigua y enorme casa también procedente de mi familia, en las afueras de la ciudad, e incluso un pequeño y gracioso automóvil Hispano-Suiza que, aunque frecuentemente averiado, como solía ocurrirles entonces a todos los automóviles, me permitía algunas pequeñas excursiones en compañía de mi mujer. Porque debo también hacer mención de otro fracaso, mi matrimonio.

Cuando una vida fracasa y el matrimonio, que se quiso la reemplazara, fracasa también, entonces se necesitan hijos. Pero lo supe tarde, cuando el alcohol un alcohol que en principio no fue desesperado, sino alegre, ni pensativo, sino sin conciencia- había vuelto aquello imposible. No fue esa naturalmente la primera ni la única catástrofe que la bebida invitó a mi existencia –porque hubo de ser lo que me hiciera perder a mi mujer. Hasta que la perdí, la amé como a la medicina de un vacío o de una falta; cuando ya la hube perdido, y dejó de amarme, y co­menzó a desear lo que no podía ofrecerle -un hijo-, entonces yo también dejé de quererla -porque el amor es un negocio, un pac­to- y comencé también a desear al hijo imposible. A no ser que como Cristina -tal era el nombre de mi esposa- me pedía, me desintoxicara en un sanatorio, posibilidad aborrecible, dejando aparte el hecho de que ahora, cuando más me lo exigían las cir­cunstancias, me sentía totalmente incapaz de dejar de beber (mi mujer decía a este propósito que el término «imposible» era siempre demasiado fácil en mi boca).

¿Por qué, y con tanto cuidado, nos destruimos? Al principio uno no se lo pregunta, pero cuando llega realmente la hora de hacerlo, es porque no hay respuesta.

Orson Scott Card: Baby’s blood

The baby’s blood type? Human, mostly.

Max Aub: La uña

El cementerio está cerca. La uña del meñique derecho de Pedro Pérez, enterrado ayer, empezó a crecer tan pronto como colocaron la losa. Como el féretro era de mala calidad (pidieron el ataúd más barato) la garfa no tuvo dificultad para despuntar deslizándose hacia la pared de la casa. Allí serpenteó hasta la ventana del dormitorio, se metió entre el montante y la peana, resbaló por el suelo escondiéndose tras la cómoda hasta el recodo de la pared para seguir tras la mesilla de noche y subir por la orilla del cabecero de la cama. Casi de un salto atravesó la garganta de Lucía, que ni ¡ay! dijo, para tirarse hacia la de Miguel, traspasándola.

Fue lo menos que pudo hacer el difunto: también es cuerno la uña.

Auguste Villiers de L'Isle-Adam: Sombre récit, conteur plus sombre

À Monsieur Coquelin cadet.

Ut declaratio fiat.

J’étais invité, ce soir-là, très officiellement, à faire partie d’un souper d’auteurs dramatiques, réunis pour fêter le succès d’un confrère. C’était chez B***, le restaurateur en vogue chez les gens de plume.

Le souper fut d’abord naturellement triste.

Toutefois, après avoir sablé quelques rasades de vieux Léoville, la conversation s’anima. D’autant mieux qu’elle roulait sur les duels incessants qui défrayaient un grand nombre de conversations parisiennes vers cette époque. Chacun se remémorait, avec la désinvolture obligée, d’avoir agité flamberge et cherchait à insinuer, négligemment, de vagues idées d’intimidation sous couleur de théories savantes et de clins d’yeux entendus au sujet de l’escrime et du tir. Le plus naïf, un peu gris, semblait s’absorber dans la combinaison d’un coup de croisé de seconde qu’il imitait, au-dessus de son assiette, avec sa fourchette et son couteau.

Tout à coup, l’un des convives, M. D*** (homme rompu aux ficelles du théâtre, une sommité quant à la charpente de toutes les situations dramatiques, celui, enfin, de tous qui a le mieux prouvé s’entendre à "enlever un succès"), s’écria :

- Ah ! que diriez-vous, messieurs, s’il vous était arrivé mon aventure de l’autre jour ?

- C’est vrai ! répondirent les convives. Tu étais le second de ce M. de Saint-Sever ?

- Voyons ! si tu nous racontais - mais là, franchement ! - comme cela s’est passé ?

- Je veux bien, répondit D***, quoique j’aie le cœur serré, encore, en y pensant.

Après quelques silencieuses bouffées de cigarette, D*** commença en ces termes (Je lui laisse, strictement, la parole) :

- La quinzaine dernière, un lundi, dès sept heures du matin, je fus réveillé par un coup de sonnette : je crus même que c’était Peragallo. On me remit une carte ; je lus : Raoul de Saint-Sever. - C’était le nom de mon meilleur camarade de collège. Nous ne nous étions pas vus depuis dix ans.

Dino Buzzati: L'assalto al grande convoglio

Arrestato in una via del paese e condannato soltanto per contrabbando - poiché non lo avevano riconosciuto - Gaspare Planetta, il capo brigante, rimase tre anni in prigione.

Ne venne fuori cambiato. La malattia lo aveva consunto, gli era cresciuta la barba, sembrava piuttosto un vecchietto che non il famoso capo brigante, il miglior schioppo conosciuto, che non sapeva sbagliare un colpo.

Allora, con le sue robe in un sacco, si mise in cammino per Monte Fumo, che era stato il suo regno, dove erano rimasti i compagni. Era una domenica di giugno quando si addentrò per la valle in fondo alla quale c'era la loro casa. I sentieri del bosco non erano mutati: qua una radice affiorante, là un caratteristico sasso ch'egli ricordava bene. Tutto come prima.

Siccome era festa, i briganti si erano riuniti alla casa. Avvicinandosi, Planetta udì voci e risate. Contrariamente all'uso dei suoi tempi, la porta era chiusa.

Batté due tre volte. Dentro si fece silenzio. Poi domandarono: «Chi è?».

«Vengo dalla città» egli rispose «vengo da parte di Planetta.»

Voleva fare una sorpresa, ma invece quando gli aprirono e gli si fecero incontro, Gaspare Planetta si accorse subito che non l'avevano riconosciuto. Solo il vecchio cane della compagnia, lo scheletrico Tromba, gli saltò addosso con guaiti di gioia.

Da principio i suoi vecchi compagni, Cosimo, Marco, Felpa ed anche tre quattro facce nuove gli si strinsero attorno, chiedendo notizie di Planetta. Lui raccontò di avere conosciuto il capo brigante in prigione; disse che Planetta sarebbe stato liberato fra un mese e intanto aveva mandato lui lassù per sapere come andavano le cose. Dopo poco però i briganti si disinteressarono del nuovo venuto e trovarono pretesti per lasciarlo. Solo Cosimo rimase a parlare con lui, pur non riconoscendolo.

«E al suo ritorno cosa intende fare?» chiedeva accennando al vecchio capo, in carcere.

«Cosa intende fare?» fece Planetta «forse che non può tornare qui?»

«Ah, sì, sì, io non dico niente. Pensavo per lui, pensavo. Le cose qui sono cambiate. E lui vorrà comandare ancora si capisce, ma non so...»

«Non sai che cosa?»

Armando José Sequera: Opus 8

Júrenos que, si despierta, no se la va a llevar —pedía de rodillas uno de los enanitos al Príncipe, mientras éste contemplaba el hermoso cuerpo en el sarcófago de cristal—. Mire que, desde que se durmió, no tenemos quién nos lave la ropa, nos la planche, nos limpie la casa y nos cocine.

Ray Bradbury: The Dead Man

'THAT'S the man, right over there,' said Mrs. Ribmoll, nodding across the street. 'See thatman perched on the tar barrel afront Mr. Jenkens's store? Well, that's him. They call him OddMartin.

''The one that says he's dead?' cried Arthur.Mrs.

Ribmoll nodded. 'Crazy as a weasel down a chimney. Carries on firm about howhe's been dead since the Flood and nobody appreciates it.

''I see him sitting there every day,' cried Arthur.

'Oh, yes, he sits there, he does. Sits there and stares at nothing. I say it's a crying shamethey don't throw him in jail!'

Arthur made a face at the man. 'Yah!'

'Never mind, he won't notice you. Most uncivil man I ever seen. Nothing pleases him.'She yanked Arthur's arm. 'Come on, sonny, we got shopping to do.'

They walked on up the street past the barber shop. In the window, after they'd gone by,stood Mr. Simpson, snipping his blue shears and chewing his tasteless gum. He squintedthoughtfully out through the fly-specked glass, looking at the man sitting over there on the tarbarrel. 'I figure the best thing could happen to Odd Martin would be to get married,' he figured. Hiseyes glinted slyly. Over his shoulder he looked at his manicurist, Miss Weldon, who was busyburnishing the scraggly fingernails of a farmer named Gilpatrick. Miss Weldon, at this suggestion,did not look up. She had heard it often. They were always ragging her about Odd Martin.

Mr. Simpson walked back and started work on Gilpatrick's dusty hair again. Gilpatrick laughed softly. 'What woman would marry Odd? Sometimes I almost believe he is dead. He's gotan awful odour to him.'

Miss Weldon looked up at Mr. Gilpatrick's face and carefully cut his finger with one of her little scalpels. 'Gol darn it!' He jumped. 'Watch what you're doin', woman!'

Miss Weldon looked at him with calm little blue eyes in a small white face. Her hair wasmouse-brown; she wore no makeup and talked to no one most of the time.

Iván Teruel: Descubrimiento

La perra se caga en el pasillo de abajo. Mi mujer grita desquiciada. Y el niño hace rato que berrea. Yo empiezo a sentir un picor agudo en el ojo izquierdo. Baja hijo de puta, baja o coge a tu hijo. El picor se intensifica. Te juro que subo a por el niño y me largo. Me rasco con insistencia. Te vas a quedar ahí pudriéndote con tus historias. El picor se expande. Oigo portazos y voces como en letanía. Comienzo a hurgar con ímpetu. Imagino mi mano como la pala de una excavadora. Las voces vuelven. Me arranco el ojo. El picor no desaparece. Percibo unos pasos subiendo las escaleras. Meto el índice y el anular en mi nueva oquedad. El niño parece que ya no llora. Tanteo con las yemas pero no sé qué busco. Los pasos ahora bajan las escaleras. El picor es terco. Una puerta se abre. Palpo una orografía de recovecos húmedos. La misma puerta se cierra. Llego a una región blanda y viscosa. Un motor arranca. Toco una pequeña protuberancia. El picor desaparece. Y por fin irrumpe el silencio. Creo que descubro algo maravilloso.