Enrique Anderson Imbert: El ganador

Bandidos asaltan la ciudad de Mexcatle y ya dueños del botín de guerra emprenden la retirada. El plan es refugiarse al otro lado de la frontera, pero mientras tanto pasan la noche en una casa en ruinas, abandonada en el camino. A la luz de las velas juegan a los naipes. Cada uno apuesta las prendas que ha saqueado. Partida tras partida, el azar favorece al Bizco, quien va apilando las ganancias debajo de la mesa: monedas, relojes, alhajas, candelabros... Temprano por la mañana el Bizco mete lo ganado en una bolsa, la carga sobre los hombros y agobiado bajo ese peso sigue a sus compañeros, que marchan cantando hacia la frontera. La atraviesan, llegan sanos y salvos a la encrucijada donde han resuelto separarse y allí matan al Bizco. Lo habían dejado ganar para que les transportase el pesado botín.

Richard Matheson: The Near Departed

The small man opened the door and stepped in out of the glaring sunlight. He was in his early fifties, a spindly, plain looking man with receding gray hair. He closed the door without a sound, then stood in the shadowy foyer, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the change in light. He was wearing a black suit, white shirt, and black tie. His face was pale and dry-skinned despite the heat of the day.

When his eyes had refocused themselves, he removed his Panama hat and moved along the hallway to the office, his black shoes soundless on the carpeting.

The mortician looked up from his desk. "Good afternoon," he said.

"Good afternoon." The small man's voice was soft.

"Can I help you?"

"Yes, you can," the small man said.

The mortician gestured to the arm chair on the other side of the desk. "Please."

The small man perched on the edge of the chair and set the Panama hat on his lap. He watched the mortician open a drawer and remove a printed form.

"Now," the mortician said. He withdrew a black pen from its onyx holder. "Who is the deceased?" he asked gently.

"My wife," the small man said.

The mortician made a sympathetic noise. "I'm sorry," he said.

"Yes." The small man gazed at him blankly.

"What is her name?" the mortician asked.

"Marie," the small man answered quietly. "Arnold."

The mortician wrote the name. "Address?" he asked.

The small man told him.

"Is she there now?" the mortician asked.

"She's there," the small man said.

The mortician nodded.

"I want everything perfect," the small man said. "I want the best you have."

"Of course," the mortician said. "Of course."

"Cost is unimportant," said the small man. His throat moved as he swallowed dryly. "Everything is unimportant now. Except for this."

Mario Lamo Jiménez: La última espera

Llevo ya diecisiete horas de muerto y nada, que no me entierran. ¡Qué aburridora es la muerte! Si por lo menos pudiera fumarme un chicote, no me molestaría tanto tener que esperar. Pude haber pasado al otro toldo con más elegancia, pero hasta mi misma muerte fue un fracaso. Al atravesar la séptima, clavo mi mirada en una morena que pasa contoneándose, me distraigo y me atropella el mensajero de la droguería con su cicla. Me doy la nuca contra la acera y ahí quedo como un pollo congelado exhibido en una vitrina, los papeles del juzgado regados por toda la calle, los ojos vidriosos y la lengua babeante. Hasta un perro que pasaba me lamió la herida. Lo espantó la sirena de la ambulancia que, como es obvio, llegó demasiado tarde. Una vez en el hospital, muerto ya, no me querían admitir por no tener la tarjeta del seguro social. Entre los curiosos me habían desvalijado la billetera y el reloj. El reloj no me importa porque ni para dar la hora servía, pero la billetera sí me duele porque era de piel de camello y me traía recuerdos de Elisa. En la funeraria me probaron seis cajones pero ninguno era de mi talla. Finalmente, para ahorrar dinero, mi mujer se decidió por uno imitación caoba y como no cabía en él, me quitaron los zapatos y me doblaron los pies. Ahora me van a enterrar con las medias rotas. ¡Yo que sólo ganaba noventa mil pesos mensuales! Mi mujer al principio se puso a llorar, pero cuando le dijeron que el seguro de vida pagaba novecientos mil pesos, lo único que dijo fue: "Entonces no ha pasado nada, es como si se fuera a morir dentro de diez meses". Aquí estoy en la sala de mi casa esperando a que me entierren. Recostada en una pared está la corona barata que me mandaron los compañeros de la oficina. Sólo Gil vino a despedirme. Le debía veinte mil pesos y ahora está consolando a mi mujer.

Nunca me gustó esta sala. Las paredes están cubiertas de cuadros descoloridos y los muebles están raídos. Jamás me imaginé que mi última espera la pasaría precisamente en este sitio. Cuando Gil y mi mujer me dejaron solo, un ratón se asomó por la tapa del ataúd y casi me mata del susto. En estos momentos me conformaría aunque fuera con un café sin azúcar, como los que me preparaba Elisa. Se ve que está haciendo frío. Ahora no puedo llamar ni siquiera a Elisa para despedirme. La conocí hace tres años cuando trabajaba en el juzgado haciendo su tesis. Ella era estudiante de derecho. Nos enamoramos ahí mismo. Consuelo nunca supo nada. No valía la pena decirle, ella era muy celosa y su reino era la cocina. ¡Quién la ve ahora! ¡Mosquita muerta! Tan arrimada a Gil y ni siquiera me llora.

Esta noche estaría yo tomando cerveza y jugando tejo como todos los domingos, en cambio me toca pasar todo el fin de semana muerto y aguardando mi propio entierro. Si por lo menos me hubiera muerto un lunes o un martes, no habría tenido que ir al trabajo y hoy estaría divirtiéndome. El colmo de la mala suerte: morirme en mi día libre.

Wilkie Collins: The Dead Hand

When this present nineteenth century was younger by a good many years than it is now, a certain friend of mine, named Arthur Holliday, happened to arrive in the town of Doncaster exactly in the middle of the race-week, or, in other words, in the middle of the month of September.

He was one of those reckless, rattlepated, openhearted, and open-mouthed young gentlemen who possess the gift of familiarity in its highest perfection, and who scramble carelessly along the journey of life, making friends, as the phrase is, wherever they go. His father was a rich manufacturer, and had bought landed, property enough in one of the midland counties to make all the born squires in his neighbourhood thoroughly envious of him. Arthur was his only son, possessor in prospect of the great estate and the great business after his father's death; well supplied with money, and not too rigidly looked after, during his father's lifetime. Report, or scandal, whichever you please, said that the old gentleman had been rather wild in his youthful days, and that, unlike most parents, he was not disposed to be violently indignant when he found that his son took after him. This may be true or not. I myself only knew the elder Mr. Holliday when he was getting on in years, and then he was as quiet and as respectable a gentleman as ever I met with.

Well, one September, as I told you, young Arthur comes to Doncaster, having suddenly decided, in his hare-brained way, that he would go to the races. He did not reach the town till towards the close of evening, and he went at once to see about his dinner and bed at the principal hotel. Dinner they were ready enough to give him; but as for a bed, they laughed when he mentioned it. In the race week at Doncaster, it is no uncommon thing for is visitors who have not bespoken apartments to pass the night in their carriages at the inn doors. As for the lower sort of strangers, I myself have often seen them, at that full time, sleeping out on the doorsteps for want of a covered place to creep under. Rich as he was, Arthur's chance of getting a night's lodging (seeing that he had not written beforehand to secure one) was more than doubtful. He tried the second hotel, and the third hotel, and two of the inferior inns after that; and was met everywhere with the same form of answer. No accommodation for the night of any sort was left. All the bright golden sovereigns in his pocket would not buy him a bed at Doncaster in the race-week.

To a young fellow of Arthur's temperament, the novelty of being turned away into the street like a penniless vagabond, at every house where he asked for a lodging, presented itself in the light of a new and highly amusing piece of experience. He went on with his carpet-bag in his hand, applying for a bed at every place of entertainment for travellers that he could find in Doncaster, until he wandered into the outskirts of the town.

By this time the last glimmer of twilight had faded out, the moon was rising dimly in a mist, the wind was getting cold, the clouds were gathering heavily, and there was every prospect that it was soon going to rain.

The look of the night had rather a lowering effect on young Holliday's good spirits. He began to con template the houseless situation in which he was placed, from the serious rather than the humorous point of view; and he looked about him for another public-house to inquire at, with something very like downright anxiety in his mind on the subject of a lodging for the night.

Álvaro Menén Desleal: La apuesta

—¿Por qué no va a ser posible tirarse por la ventana desde el décimo quinto piso de este hotel, y sobrevivir? ¡Vamos, claro que es posible!

Hacemos, pues, la apuesta, y mi amigo parece asustarse un tanto por el cariz que van tomando las cosas. Yo no espero a que se arrepienta y me lanzo por la ventana. Allá abajo, los pequeños automóviles, ocupados por hombres más pequeños, pasan sin advertir mi caída. En uno de los giros que da mi cuerpo incontrolable, veo la cara de mi amigo, pálida, desencajados los ojos.

Luego, doy de espaldas sobre las baldosas. Al ruido, tres señoras gritan y ven que me estrello; pero yo me levanto, sacudo mis ropas y con la mano saludo a mi amigo, que sigue allá, en la ventana de nuestro cuarto del décimo quinto piso.

Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: The great pine

It was in the summertime that the great pine sang his loudest song of winter, for always the voice of the tree seemed to arouse in the listener a realization of that which was past and to come, rather than of the present. In the winter the tree seemed to sing of the slumberous peace under his gently fanning boughs, and the deep swell of his aromatic breath in burning noons, and when the summer traveller up the mountain-side threw himself, spent and heated, beneath his shade, then the winter song was at its best. When the wind swelled high came the song of the ice-fields, of the frozen mountain- torrents, of the trees wearing hoary beards and bent double like old men, of the little wild things trembling in their covers when the sharp reports of the frost sounded through the rigid hush of the arctic night and death was abroad.

The man who lay beneath the tree had much uncultivated imagination, and, though hampered by exceeding ignorance, he yet saw and heard that which was beyond mere observation. When exhausted by the summer heat, he reflected upon the winter with that keen pleasure that comes from the mental grasp of contrast to discomfort. He did not know that he heard the voice of the tree and not his own thought, so did the personality of the great pine mingle with his own. He was a sailor, and had climbed different heights from mountains, even masts made from the kindred of the tree.

Presently he threw his head back, and stared up and up, and reflected what a fine mast the tree would make, if only it were not soft pine. There was a stir in a branch, and a bird which lived in the tree in summer cast a small, wary glance at him from an eye like a point of bright intelligence, but the man did not see it. He drew a long breath, and looked irresolutely at the upward slope beyond the tree. lt was time for him to be up and on if he would cross the mountain before nightfall. He was a wayfarer without resources. He was as poor as the tree, or any of the wild creatures which were in hiding around him on the mountain. He was even poorer, for he had not their feudal tenure of an abiding place for root and foot on the mountain by the inalienable right of past generations of his race. Even the little, wary-eyed, feathered thing had its small freehold in the branches of the great pine, but the man had nothing. He had returned to primitive conditions; he was portionless save for that with which he carne into the world, except for two garments that were nearly past their use as such. His skin showed through the rents; the pockets were empty. Adam expelled from Eden was not in much worse case, and this man also had at his back the flaming sword of punishment for wrong-doing. The man arose. He stood for a moment, letting the cool wind fan his forehead little longer; then he bent his shoulders doggedly and resumed his climb up the dry bed of a brook which was in winter a fierce conduit for the melting ice and snow. Presently he came to such a choke of fallen trees across the bed that he had to leave it; then there was a sheer rock ascent which he had to skirt and go lower down the mountain to avoid.

The tree was left alone. He stood quiescent with the wind in his green plumes. He belonged to that simplest form of life which cannot project itself beyond its own existence to judge of it. He did not know when presently the man returned and threw himself down with a violent thud against his trunk, though there was a slight shock to his majesty. But the man looked up at the tree and cursed it. He had lost his way through avoiding the rocky precipice, and had circled back to the tree. He remained there a few minutes to gain breath; then he rose, for the western sunlight was filtering in gold drops through the foliage be low the pine, and plodded heavily on again.

José María Merino: El desertor

El amor es algo muy especial. Por eso cuando vio la sombra junto a la puerta, a la claridad de la luna que, precisamente por su escasa luz, le daba una apariencia de gran borrón plano y ominoso, no tuvo ningún miedo. Supo que él había regresado a casa. La suavidad de la noche de San Juan, el cielo diáfano, el olor fresco de la hierba, el rumor del agua, el canto de los ruiseñores, acompasaban de pronto lo más benéfico de su naturaleza a esta presencia recobrada.

La vida conyugal había durado apenas cinco meses cuando estalló la guerra. Le reclamaron, y ella fue conociendo entre líneas, en aquellas cartas breves y llenas de tachaduras, las vicisitudes del frente. Pero las cartas, que inicialmente hacían referencia, aunque confusa, a los sucesos y a los paisajes, fueron ciñéndose cada vez más a la crónica simple de la nostalgia, de los deseos de regreso. Venían ya sin tachaduras y estaban saturadas de una añoranza tan descarnadamente relatada, que a ella le hacían llorar siempre que las leía.

Entonces no estaba tan sola. En la casa vivía todavía la madre de él; y la vieja, aunque muy enferma, le acompañaba con su simple presencia, ocupada en menudos trajines, o en las charlas cotidianas y en los comentarios sobre las cartas de él y las oscuras noticias de la guerra. Al año murió. Se quedó muerta en el mismo escaño de la cocina, con un racimo en el regazo y una uva entre los dedos de la mano derecha. Ella supo luego por otra carta de él que, cuando le llegó la noticia de la muerte de su madre, los jefes ya no consideraron procedente ningún permiso, puesto que la inhumación estaba consumada hacía tiempo.

Quedó entonces sola en casa, silenciosa la mayor parte del día (excepto cuando se acercaba a donde su hermana para alguna breve charla), en un pueblo también silencioso, del que faltaban los mozos y los casados jóvenes, y que vivía esa ausencia con ánimo pasmado.

Se absorbía en las faenas con una poderosa voluntad de olvido. Así, con minuciosa rigidez de horario, cumplía las labores cotidianas de la limpieza y la cocina, del lavadero y de las cuadras, y el calendario sucesivo de los trabajos del campo, segando y trasladando la hierba, escardando las legumbres y cavando los frutales, majando el centeno. Abstraída en la tarea del momento, que acaso le exigía, con el esfuerzo físico, un ritmo especial, llegaba a pensar la ausencia de él como una nebulosa ensoñación no del todo real, de la que saldría en algún inmediato despertar.

Pero el tiempo iba pasando y la guerra no terminaba. Ella no sabía muy bien los motivos de la guerra. Desde el púlpito, el cura les hablaba del enemigo como de un mal diabólico y temible, infeccioso como una plaga. Al cabo, ya la guerra y el enemigo dejaron de ofrecer una referencia real, y era como si el esfuerzo bélico tuviese como objeto la defensa a ultranza frente a la invasión de unos seres monstruosos, venidos de algún país lejano y ominoso. Hasta tal punto que, en cierta ocasión, cuando atravesó el pueblo en convoy con prisioneros, y los vecinos salieron a verles con acuciante curiosidad, una mujerina manifestó, en su pintoresca exclamación, la decepcionante sorpresa de comprobar que los enemigos no mostraban el aspecto que las diatribas del cura y otras noticias les habían hecho imaginar.

—¡No tienen rabo!

Fredric Brown: The end

Professor Jones had been working on time theory for many years. “And I have found the key equation,” he told his daughter one day. “Time is a field. This machine I have made can manipulate, even reverse, that field.” Pushing a button as he spoke, he said, “This should make time run backward backward run time make should this,” said he, spoke he as button a pushing. “Field that, reverse even, manipulate can made have I machine this. Field is a time.” Day one daughter his told he, “Equation key the found have I and.” Years many for theory time on working been had Jones Professor.

Raúl Brasca: La prueba

“Sólo cuando sea derribado tendrás a mi hija”, había dicho el brujo. El hachero miró el tallo fino del árbol y sonrió con suficiencia. Un primer hachazo, formidable, marcó levemente el tronco. Otro, en el mismo lugar, apenas profundizó la herida. Bien entrada la noche, el hachero cayó exhausto. Descansó hasta el amanecer y hachó toda la jornada siguiente. Así día tras día. La herida se iba profundizando pero, a la par, el tronco engrosaba. Pasó el tiempo y el árbol se volvió frondoso; la muchacha perdió juventud y belleza. El hachero, a veces, alzaba los ojos al cielo. No sabía que el brujo conjuraba los vendavales, desviaba los rayos y alejaba las plagas que carcomen la madera. La muchacha encaneció y él seguía hachando. Ya casi no pensaba en ella. Poco a poco, la olvidó del todo. El día en que la muchacha murió no le pareció distinto de los anteriores. Ahora, ya viejo, sigue su pelea contra el tronco descomunal. No se le ocurre otra cosa: el silencio del hacha le produciría terror.

Honoré de Balzac: L'Elixir de Longue Vie

Dans un somptueux palais de Ferrare, par une soirée d'hiver, don Juan Belvidéro régalait un prince de la maison d'Este. À cette époque, une fête était un merveilleux spectacle que de royales richesses ou la puissance d'un seigneur pouvaient seules ordonner. Assises autour d'une table éclairée par des bougies parfumées, sept joyeuses femmes échangeaient de doux propos, parmi d'admirables chefs-d'oeuvre dont les marbres blancs se détachaient sur des parois en stuc rouge et contrastaient avec de riches tapis de Turquie. Vêtues de satin, étincelantes d'or et chargées de pierreries qui brillaient moins que leurs yeux, toutes racontaient des passions énergiques, mais diverses comme l'étaient leurs beautés. Elles ne différaient ni par les mots ni par les idées ; l'air, un regard, quelques gestes ou l'accent servaient à leurs paroles de commentaires libertins, lascifs, mélancoliques ou goguenards.

L'une semblait dire : «Ma beauté sait réchauffer le coeur glacé des vieillards.»

L'autre : «J'aime à rester couchée sur des coussins, pour penser avec ivresse à ceux qui m'adorent.»

Une troisième, novice de ces fêtes, voulait rougir : «Au fond du coeur je sens un remords ! disait-elle. Je suis catholique et j'ai peur de l'enfer. Mais je vous aime tant, oh ! tant et tant, que je puis vous sacrifier l'éternité.»

La quatrième, vidant une coupe de vin de Chio, s'écriait : «Vive la gaieté ! Je prends une existence nouvelle à chaque aurore ! Oublieuse du passé, ivre encore des assauts de la veille, tous les soirs, j'épuise une vie de bonheur, une vie pleine d'amour»

La femme assise auprès de Belvidéro le regardait d'un oeil enflammé. Elle était silencieuse. «Je ne m'en remettrais pas à des bravi pour tuer mon amant, s'il m'abandonnait !» Puis elle avait ri, mais sa main convulsive brisait un drageoir d'or miraculeusement sculpté.

- Quand seras-tu grand-duc ? demanda la sixième au prince avec une expression de joie meurtrière dans les dents, et du délire bachique dans les yeux.

- Et toi, quand ton père mourra-t-il ? dit la septième en riant, en jetant son bouquet à don Juan par un geste enivrant de folâtrerie. C'était une innocente jeune fille accoutumée à jouer avec toutes les choses sacrées.

- Ah ! ne m'en parlez pas, s'écria le jeune et beau don Juan Belvidéro, il n'y a qu'un père éternel dans le monde, et le malheur veut que je l'aie !

Les sept courtisanes de Ferrare, les amis de don Juan et le prince lui-même jetèrent un cri d'horreur. Deux cents ans après et sous Louis XV, les gens de bon goût eussent ri de cette saillie. Mais peut-être aussi, dans le commencement d'une orgie, les âmes avaient-elles encore trop de lucidité ? Malgré le feu des bougies, le cri des passions, l'aspect des vases d'or et d'argent, la fumée des vins, malgré la contemplation des femmes les plus ravissantes, peut-être y avait-il encore, au fond des coeurs, un peu de cette vergogne pour les choses humaines et divines qui lutte jusqu'à ce que l'orgie l'ait noyée dans les derniers flots d'un vin pétillant ? Déjà néanmoins les fleurs avaient été froissées, les yeux s'hébétaient, et l'ivresse gagnait, selon l'expression de Rabelais, jusqu'aux sandales. En ce moment de silence, une porte s'ouvrit ; et, comme au festin de Balthazar, Dieu se fit reconnaître, il apparut sous les traits d'un vieux domestique en cheveux blancs, à la démarche tremblante, aux sourcils contractés ; il entra d'un air triste, flétrit d'un regard les couronnes, les coupes de vermeil, les pyramides de fruits, l'éclat de la fête, la pourpre des visages étonnés et les couleurs des coussins foulés par le bras blanc des femmes ; enfin, il mit un crêpe à cette folie en disant ces sombres paroles d'une voix creuse : «Monsieur, votre père se meurt.»

Clemente Palma: Miedos

El salón estaba obscuro, muy obscuro. Los espejos cegados por la obscuridad no reflejaban en sus colosales pupilas los buques chinos de marfil, los dorados muebles, las sedosas cortinas, ni las caprichosas licoreras y chucherías que adornaban los chineros.

En la puerta del salón, como dos hujieres medievales, estaban reflexionando, de pie sobre sus pedestales de mármol, envueltos en la gasa intangible de las tinieblas, Dante, en su actitud hierática, con el dedo sobre los labios, y Petrarca recostado sobre su lira. La araña como una inmensa plomada de cristal, se descolgaba largamente del techo, y cada vez que un carruaje estremecía el salón, con su escandaloso rodar sobre las piedras de la calle, interrumpía el silencio con el tintineo de sus prismas sonoros. El riquísimo Pleyel, abierta su bocaza de madera, reía sin ruido haciendo jugar sobre su larga hilera de dientes ese átomo de luz que siempre existe disuelto en toda obscuridad. Parecía una inmensa cabeza de hotentote risueño. Lejanos relojes daban campanadas cuyos ecos se colaban por las junturas de puertas y ventanas, y resbalando sobre la alfombra de Bruselas iban a perderse en las demás habitaciones. Luego... nuevamente el silencio.

Dieron las tres, y una de las puertas se entreabrió y penetró en el salón una sombra, lentamente, arrastrándose como un gnomo curioso que caminaba con precaución para no hacer ruido. Subió al piano, y caminando sobre el teclado, produjo una escala imperfecta. Probablemente le disgustó al gnomo su poco disposición para la música, porque inmediatamente se alejó y fue a esconderse a uno de los sillones.

Poco después se estremeció el aire encajonado del salón con unos ruidos extraños que venían del sitio en que se había ocultado el gnomo: un frou-frou constante y desesperado, sollozos ahogados, gritos de dolor que se revolvían en un gruñido sordo. Se hubiera creído que el gnomo, herido de muerte, se revolcaba sobre la seda en una agonía lenta y dolorosa.

Dante hundió su mirada de águila en la obscuridad y Petrarca levantó la cabeza; pero no se veía nada. El sillón estaba a sus espaldas, y en la imposibilidad de ver, volvieron a su actitud meditabunda.

En la habitación contigua una muchacha, rubia como los trigos, estaba en un lecho adornado con angelitos, temblando de miedo. Se despertó a los gritos del piano mortificado con las pisadas del gnomo.

—¡Oh, Dios mío! —pensó—; ladrones.

Y se quedó fría, inmóvil, conteniendo la respiración, sin atreverse a hacer el menor movimiento para no atraer la atención de los ladrones. ¡Si se movía, la matarían para que no avisase!

De pronto llegó a sus oídos un prolongado gemido, extrahumano, como los que la imaginación popular supone que salen de los labios de las almas en pena. La muchacha se estremeció, presa de indecible espanto; quiso gritar:

Philip K. Dick: Captive market

Saturday morning, about eleven o'clock, Mrs. Edna Berthelson was ready to make her little trip. Although it was a weekly affair, consuming four hours of her valuable business time, she made the profitable trip alone, preserving for herself the integrity of her find.

Because that was what it was. A find, a stroke of incredible luck. There was nothing else like it, and she had been in business fifty-three years. More, if the years in her father's store were counted—but they didn't really count. That had been for the experience (her father made that clear); no pay was involved. But it gave her the understanding of business, the feel of operating a small country store, dusting pencils and unwrapping flypaper and serving up dried beans and chasing the cat out of the cracker barrel where he liked to sleep.

Now the store was old, and so was she. The big, heavyset, black-browed man who was her father had died long ago; her own children and grandchildren had been spawned, had crept out over the world, were everywhere. One by one they had appeared, lived in Walnut Creek, sweated through the dry, sun-baked summers, and then gone on, leaving one by one as they had come. She and the store sagged and settled a little more each year, became a little more frail and stem and grim. A little more themselves.

That morning very early Jackie said: "Grandmaw, where are you going?" Although he knew, of course, where she was going. She was going out in her truck as she always did; this was the Saturday trip. But he liked to ask; he was pleased by the stability of the answer. He liked having it always the same.

To another question there was another unvarying answer, but this one didn't please him so much. It came in answer to the question. "Can I come along?"

The answer to that was always no.

Edna Berthelson laboriously carried packages and boxes from the back of the store to the rusty, upright pickup truck. Dust lay over the truck; its red-metal sides were bent and corroded. The motor was already on; it was wheezing and heating up in the midday sun. A few drab chickens pecked in the dust around its wheels. Under the porch of the store a plump white shaggy sheep squatted, its face vapid, indolent, indifferently watching the activity of the day. Cars and trucks rolled along Mount Diablo Boulevard. Along Lafayette Avenue a few shoppers strolled, farmers and their wives, petty businessmen, farmhands, some city women in their gaudy slacks and print shirts, sandals, bandannas. In the front of the store the radio tinnily played popular songs.

"I asked you a question," Jackie said righteously. "I asked you where you're going."

Mrs. Berthelson bent stiffly over to lift the last armload of boxes. Most of the loading had been done the night before by Arnie the Swede, the hulking, white-haired hired man who did the heavy work around the store. "What?" she murmured vaguely, her gray, wrinkled face twisting with concentration. "You know perfectly well where I'm going. "

Jackie trailed plaintively after her, as she reentered the store to look for her order book. "Can I come? Please, can I come along? You never let me come—you never let anybody come. "

"Of course not," Mrs. Berthelson said sharply. "It's nobody's business. "

"But I want to come along," Jackie explained.

Ángel Olgoso: Lección de música

Fue en el castillo familiar, no muy distante de la abadía cisterciense de Flavan -cierto día en que Guillaume de Langres, primogénito de doce años, recibía lecciones de clavicordio con el preceptor a su espalda y vio pasar, entre el gabinete de teca y el orbe mecánico, a un carnero completamente desollado, sangriento, escapando con terribles balidos del dormitorio de su madre parturienta a la que las matronas acababan de aplicar un cataplasma con la piel caliente del animal-, cuando Guillaume tuvo la evidencia de que el pelo se le había vuelto blanco.

Algernon Blackwood: The Willows

After leaving Vienna, and long before you come to Budapesth, the Danube enters a region of singular loneliness and desolation, where its waters spread away on all sides regardless of a main channel, and the country becomes a swamp for miles upon miles, covered by a vast sea of low willow-bushes. On the big maps this deserted area is painted in a fluffy blue, growing fainter in colour as it leaves the banks, and across it may be seen in large straggling letters the word Sumpfe, meaning marshes.

In high flood this great acreage of sand, shingle-beds, and willow-grown islands is almost topped by the water, but in normal seasons the bushes bend and rustle in the free winds, showing their silver leaves to the sunshine in an ever-moving plain of bewildering beauty. These willows never attain to the dignity of trees; they have no rigid trunks; they remain humble bushes, with rounded tops and soft outline, swaying on slender stems that answer to the least pressure of the wind; supple as grasses, and so continually shifting that they somehow give the impression that the entire plain is moving and alive. For the wind sends waves rising and falling over the whole surface, waves of leaves instead of waves of water, green swells like the sea, too, until the branches turn and lift, and then silvery white as their under-side turns to the sun.

Happy to slip beyond the control of the stern banks, the Danube here wanders about at will among the intricate network of channels intersecting the islands everywhere with broad avenues down which the waters pour with a shouting sound; making whirlpools, eddies, and foaming rapids; tearing at the sandy banks; carrying away masses of shore and willow-clumps; and forming new islands innumerably which shift daily in size and shape and possess at best an impermanent life, since the flood-time obliterates their very existence.

Properly speaking, this fascinating part of the river's life begins soon after leaving Pressburg, and we, in our Canadian canoe, with gipsy tent and frying-pan on board, reached it on the crest of a rising flood about mid-July. That very same morning, when the sky was reddening before sunrise, we had slipped swiftly through still-sleeping Vienna, leaving it a couple of hours later a mere patch of smoke against the blue hills of the Wienerwald on the horizon; we had breakfasted below Fischeramend under a grove of birch trees roaring in the wind; and had then swept on the tearing current past Orth, Hainburg, Petronell (the old Roman Carnuntum of Marcus Aurelius), and so under the frowning heights of Thelsen on a spur of the Carpathians, where the March steals in quietly from the left and the frontier is crossed between Austria and Hungary.

Racing along at twelve kilometres an hour soon took us well into Hungary, and the muddy waters -- sure sign of flood -- sent us aground on many a shingle-bed, and twisted us like a cork in many a sudden belching whirlpool before the towers of Pressburg (Hungarian, Poszony) showed against the sky; and then the canoe, leaping like a spirited horse, flew at top speed under the grey walls, negotiated safely the sunken chain of the Fliegende Brucke ferry, turned the corner sharply to the left, and plunged on yellow foam into the wilderness of islands, sand-banks, and swamp-land beyond -- the land of the willows.

The change came suddenly, as when a series of bioscope pictures snaps down on the streets of a town and shifts without warning into the scenery of lake and forest. We entered the land of desolation on wings, and in less than half an hour there was neither boat nor fishing-hut nor red roof, nor any single sign of human habitation and civilisation within sight. The sense of remoteness from the world of human kind, the utter isolation, the fascination of this singular world of willows, winds, and waters, instantly laid its spell upon us both, so that we allowed laughingly to one another that we ought by rights to have held some special kind of passport to admit us, and that we had, somewhat audaciously, come without asking leave into a separate little kingdom of wonder and magic -- a kingdom that was reserved for the use of others who had a right to it, with everywhere unwritten warnings to trespassers for those who had the imagination to discover them.