Elizabeth Gaskell: Clopton House

Elizabeth Gaskell, by George Richmond

"I wonder if you know Clopton Hall, about a mile from Stratford-on-Avon. Will you allow me to tell you of a very happy day I once spent there? I was at school in the neighbourhood, and one of my schoolfellows was the daughter of a Mr. W --, who then lived at Clopton. Mrs. W -- asked a party of the girls to go and spend a long afternoon, and we set off one beautiful autumn day, full of delight and wonder respecting the place we were going to see. We passed through desolate half-cultivated fields, till we came within sight of the house - a large, heavy, compact, square brick building, of that deep, dead red almost approaching to purple. In front was a large formal court, with the massy pillars surmounted with two grim monsters; but the walls of the court were broken down, and the grass grew as rank and wild within the enclosure as in the raised avenue walk down which we had come. The flowers were tangled with nettles, and it was only as we approached the house that we saw the single yellow rose and the Austrian briar trained into something like order round the deep-set diamond-paned windows. We trooped into the hall, with its tesselated marble floor, hung round with strange portraits of people who had been in their graves two hundred years at least; yet the colours were so fresh, and in some instances they were so life-like, that looking merely at the faces, I almost fancied the originals might be sitting in the parlour beyond. More completely to carry us back, as it were, to the days of the civil wars, there was a sort of military map hung up, well finished with pen and ink, shewing the stations of the respective armies, and with old-fashioned writing beneath, the names of the principal towns, setting forth the strength of the garrison, etc. In this hall we were met by our kind hostess, and told we might ramble where we liked, in the house or out of the house, taking care to be in the 'recessed parlour' by tea-time. I preferred to wander up the wide shelving oak staircase, with its massy balustrade all crumbling and worm-eaten. The family then residing at the hall did not occupy one-half - no, not one-third of the rooms; and the old-fashioned furniture was undisturbed in the greater part of them. In one of the bed-rooms (said to be haunted), and which, with its close pent-up atmosphere and the long-shadows of evening creeping on, gave me an 'eirie' feeling, hung a portrait so singularly beautiful! a sweet-looking girl, with paly gold hair combed back from her forehead and falling in wavy ringlets on her neck, and with eyes that 'looked like violets filled with dew,' for there was the glittering of unshed tears before their deep dark blue - and that was the likeness of Charlotte Clopton, about whom there was so fearful a legend told at Stratford church. In the time of some epidemic, the sweating-sickness or the plague, this young girl had sickened, and to all appearance died. She was buried with fearful haste in the vaults of Clopton chapel, attached to Stratford church, but the sickness was not stayed. In a few days another of the Cloptons died, and him they bore to the ancestral vault; but as they descended the gloomy stairs, they saw by the torchlight, Charlotte Clopton in her grave-clothes leaning against the wall; and when they looked nearer, she was indeed dead, but not before, in the agonies of despair and hunger, she had bitten a piece from her white round shoulder! Of course, she had walked ever since. This was 'Charlotte's chamber,' and beyond Charlotte's chamber was a state-chamber carpeted with the dust of many years, and darkened by the creepers which had covered up the windows, and even forced themselves in luxuriant daring through the broken panes. Beyond, again, there was an old Catholic chapel, with a chaplain's room, which had been walled up and forgotten till within the last few years. I went in on my hands and knees, for the entrance was very low. I recollect little in the chapel; but in the chaplain's room were old, and I should think rare, editions of many books, mostly folios. A large yellow-paper copy of Dryden's 'All for Love, or the World Well Lost,' date 1686, caught my eye, and is the only one I particularly remember. Every here and there, as I wandered, I came upon a fresh branch of a staircase, and so numerous were the crooked, half-lighted passages, that I wondered if I could find my way back again. There was a curious carved old chest in one of these passages, and with girlish curiosity I tried to open it; but the lid was too heavy, till I persuaded one of my companions to help me, and when it was opened, what do you think we saw? - BONES! - but whether human, whether the remains of the lost bride, we did not stay to see, but ran off in partly feigned, and partly real terror.

Salomé Guadalupe Ingelmo: Inmanencia / Inmanence

Nunca hubo una muerte más anunciada.
Gabriel García Márquez, Crónica de una muerte anunciada

“Será un nuevo éxito”, comenta excitado mientras lee sobre la pantalla del ordenador las palabras que los electrodos captan directamente de su cerebro.

Tardó mucho en descubrir su verdadera vocación. Por fin, a sus veinticinco años, estuvo seguro: se convertiría en escritor. Su ataúd no lograría disuadirle; se considera un hombre firme, de gran determinación. Ciertamente ninguna experiencia tiene del mundo: ha ido creciendo en su caja, ajeno a la realidad exterior. No será impedimento. ¿Acaso no describió Julio Verne lugares nunca vistos? Además los tiempos se alían con él: ahora la literatura aboga por una introspección que a menudo roza el onanismo. Y a él, en su estrecha “muerte viva”, le sobra tiempo para pensar.

El editor parece satisfecho; sus libros se venden como churros. Encontrada la fórmula, escribe uno tras otro como quien, en efecto, saca uniforme masa de una sobada manga pastelera.

Está orgulloso: ha logrado su sueño. Pero las pesadillas se repiten cada noche. El huracán arranca las paredes de su frágil casa, le arrebata sin esfuerzo el ataúd cual liviano pijama. Las páginas de sus novelas vuelan dejando un inconfundible rastro de tufo a podrido, a carne manida. Y él, desnudo e indefenso, es arrastrado por una multitud de voraces hormigas. Aunque ya no es exactamente él sino un malogrado feto con rizada cola de cerdo; un engendro fruto de demasiada consanguineidad y endogamia. Quienes antes le aclamaban huyen cubriéndose la nariz con sus pañuelos.

Debería estar satisfecho: ha alcanzado su sueño… Pero sospecha que, a diferencia de los grandes autores, a quienes sus obras sobrevivieron, él, presuntamente inmortal, habrá de asistir a la desaparición de sus propios hijos. Quizá fue una ilusión. Quizá esté definitiva y realmente muerto. Muerto del todo. Muerto como un cadáver ordinario, uno cualquiera. Quizá la fiebre tifoidea se lo llevó de verdad a los siete años. Quizá haya comenzado a corromperse ya, lenta pero inexorablemente, por dentro.

Stephen Crane: The blue hotel

I

The Palace Hotel at Fort Romper was painted a light blue, a shade that is on the legs of a kind of heron, causing the bird to declare its position against any background. The Palace Hotel, then, was always screaming and howling in a way that made the dazzling winter landscape of Nebraska seem only a gray swampish hush. It stood alone on the prairie, and when the snow was falling the town two hundred yards away was not visible. But when the traveler alighted at the railway station he was obliged to pass the Palace Hotel before he could come upon the company of low clap-board houses which composed Fort Romper, and it was not to be thought that any traveler could pass the Palace Hotel without looking at it. Pat Scully, the proprietor, had proved himself a master of strategy when he chose his paints. It is true that on clear days, when the great trans-continental expresses, long lines of swaying Pullmans, swept through Fort Romper, passengers were overcome at the sight, and the cult that knows the brown-reds and the subdivisions of the dark greens of the East expressed shame, pity, horror, in a laugh. But to the citizens of this prairie town, and to the people who would naturally stop there, Pat Scully had performed a feat. With this opulence and splendor, these creeds, classes, egotisms, that streamed through Romper on the rails day after day, they had no color in common.

As if the displayed delights of such a blue hotel were notnsufficiently enticing, it was Scully's habit to go every morning and evening to meet the leisurely trains that stopped at Romper and work his seductions upon any man that he might see wavering, gripsack in hand.

One morning, when a snow-crusted engine dragged its long string of freight cars and its one passenger coach to the station, Scully nperformed the marvel of catching three men. One was a shaky and quick-eyed Swede, with a great shining cheap valise; one was a tall bronzed cowboy, who was on his way to a ranch near the Dakota line; one was a little silent man from the East, who didn't look it, and didn't announce it. Scully practically made them prisoners. He was so nimble and merry and kindly that each probably felt it would be the height of brutality to try to escape. They trudged off over the creaking board sidewalks in the wake of the eager little Irishman. He wore a heavy fur cap squeezed tightly down on his head. It caused his two red ears to stick out stiffly, as if they were made of tin.

Gabriel García Márquez: Amargura para tres sonámbulos

Gabriel García Márquez by Alejandro Cabeza

Ahora la teníamos allí, abandonada en un rincón de la casa. Alguien nos dijo, antes de que trajéramos sus cosas —su ropa olorosa a madera reciente, sus zapatos sin peso para el barro— que no podía acostumbrarse a aquella vida lenta, sin sabores dulces, sin otro atractivo que esa dura soledad de cal y canto, siempre apretada a sus espaldas. Alguien nos dijo —y había pasado mucho tiempo antes que lo recordáramos— que ella también había tenido una infancia. Quizás no lo creímos, entonces. Pero ahora, viéndola sentada en el rincón, con los ojos asombrados, y un dedo puesto sobre los labios, tal vez aceptábamos que una vez tuvo una infancia, que alguna vez tuvo el tacto sensible a la frescura anticipada de la lluvia, y que soportó siempre de perfil a su cuerpo, una sombra inesperada.

Todo eso —y mucho más— lo habíamos creído aquella tarde en que nos dimos cuenta de que, por encima de su submundo tremendo, era completamente humana. Lo supimos, cuando de pronto, como si adentro se hubiera roto un cristal, empezó a dar gritos angustiados; empezó a llamarnos a cada uno por su nombre, hablando entre lágrimas hasta cuando nos sentamos junto a ella, nos pusimos a cantar y a batir palmas, como si nuestra gritería pudiera soldar los cristales esparcidos. Sólo entonces pudimos creer que alguna vez tuvo una infancia. Fue como si sus gritos se parecieran en algo a una revelación; como si tuvieran mucho de árbol recordado y río profundo, cuando se incorporó, se inclinó un poco hacia adelante, y todavía sin cubrirse la cara con el delantal, todavía sin sonarse la nariz y todavía con lágrimas, nos dijo:

“No volveré a sonreír”.

Salimos al patio, los tres, sin hablar, acaso creíamos llevar pensamientos comunes. Tal vez pensamos que no sería lo mejor encender las luces de la casa. Ella deseaba estar sola —quizás—, sentada en el rincón sombrío, tejiéndose la trenza final, que parecía ser lo único que sobreviviría de su tránsito hacia la bestia.

Afuera, en el patio, sumergidos en el profundo vaho de los insectos, nos sentamos a pensar en ella. Lo habíamos hecho otras veces. Podíamos haber dicho que estábamos haciendo lo que habíamos hecho todos los días de nuestras vidas.

sin embargo, aquella noche era distinto; ella había dicho que no volvería a sonreír, y nosotros que tanto la conocíamos, teníamos la certidumbre de que la pesadilla se había vuelto verdad. Sentados en un triángulo la imaginábamos allá adentro, abstracta, incapacitada, hasta para escuchar los innumerables relojes que medían el ritmo, marcado y minucioso, en que se iba, convirtiendo en polvo: “Si por lo menos tuviéramos valor para desear su muerte”, pensábamos a coro.

Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: Old Woman Magoun

The hamlet of Barry's Ford is situated in a sort of high valley among the mountains. Below it the hills lie in moveless curves like a petrified ocean; above it they rise in green-cresting waves which never break. It is Barry's Ford because at one time the Barry family was the most important in the place; and Ford because just at the beginning of the hamlet the little turbulent Barry River is fordable. There is, however, now a rude bridge across the river.

Old Woman Magoun was largely instrumental in bringing the bridge to pass. She haunted the miserable little grocery, wherein whiskey and hands of tobacco were the most salient features of the stock in trade, and she talked much. She would elbow herself into the midst of a knot of idlers and talk.

"That bridge ought to be built this very summer," said Old Woman Magoun. She spread her strong arms like wings, and sent the loafers, half laughing, half angry, flying in every direction. "If I were a man," she said, "I'd go out this very minute and lay the fust log. If I were a passel of lazy men layin' round, I'd start up for once in my life, I would." The men cowered visibly—all except Nelson Barry; he swore under his breath and strode over to the counter.

Old Woman Magoun looked after him majestically. "You can cuss all you want to, Nelson Barry," said she; "I ain't afraid of you. I don't expect you to lay ary log of the bridge, but I'm goin' to have it built this very summer." She did. The weakness of the masculine element in Barry's Ford was laid low before such strenuous feminine assertion.

Old Woman Magoun and some other women planned a treat— two sucking pigs, and pies, and sweet cake—for a reward after the bridge should be finished. They even viewed leniently the increased consumption of ardent spirits.

"It seems queer to me," Old Woman Magoun said to Sally Jinks, "that men can't do nothin' without havin' to drink and chew to keep their sperits up. Lord! I've worked all my life and never done nuther."

"Men is different," said Sally Jinks.

"Yes, they be," assented Old Woman Magoun, with open contempt.

Cristina Fernández Cubas: En el hemisferio sur

«A veces me suceden cosas raras», dijo y se acomodó en el único sillón de mi despacho.

Suspiré. Me disgustaba la desenvoltura de aquella mujer mimada por la fama. Irrumpía en la editorial a las horas más peregrinas, saludaba a unos y a otros con la irritante simpatía de quien se cree superior, y me sometía a largos y tediosos discursos sobre las esclavitudes que conlleva el éxito. Aquel día, además, su físico me resultó repelente. Tenía el rimmel corrido, el carmín concentrado en el labio inferior y a uno de sus zapatos de piel de serpiente le faltaba un tacón. Si no fuera porque conocía a Clara desde hacía muchos años la hubiera tomado por una prostituta de la más baja estofa. Dije: «Lo siento», y me disponía a enumerar con todo detalle el trabajo pendiente, cuando reparé en que una gruesa lágrima negra bailoteaba en la comisura de sus labios. Le tendí un pañuelo.

-Gracias -balbuceó-. En el fondo, eres mi mejor amigo.

Estaba acostumbrado a confesiones de este calibre. Clara acudía a mí en los momentos en que el mundo se le venía abajo, cuando se sentía sola o a los pocos minutos de sufrir una decepción amorosa. Me armé de paciencia. Sí, en el fondo, éramos buenos amigos.

-A veces me suceden cosas -repitió.

Le ofrecí un cigarrillo que ella encendió por el filtro. Rió de su propia torpeza y prosiguió:

-O, para ser exacta, me suceden sólo cuando escribo.

Corrí mi silla junto al sillón y eché una discreta mirada a su reloj de pulsera. Clara, instintivamente, se bajó las mangas del abrigo.

-A menudo, cuando escribo, me embarga una sensación difícil de definir. Tecleo a una velocidad asombrosa, me olvido de comer y de dormir, el mundo desaparece de mi vista y sólo quedamos yo, el papel, el sonido de la máquina... y ella ¿Entiendes?

Negué con la cabeza. Su tono me había parecido más cercano a un recitado que a una confesión. Preferí no interrumpirla.

-Ella es la Voz. Surge de dentro, aunque, en alguna ocasión, la he sentido cerca de mí, revoloteando por la habitación, conminándome a permanecer en la misma postura durante horas y horas. No se inmuta ante mis gestos de fatiga. Me obliga a escribir sin parar, alejando de mi pensamiento cualquier imagen que pueda entorpecer sus órdenes. Pero, en estos últimos días, me dicta muy rápido. Demasiado. Mis dedos se han revelado incapaces de seguir su ritmo. He probado con un magnetofón, pero es inútil. Ella tiene prisa, mucha prisa.

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu: Doctor Feversham’s Story

“I have made a point all my life,” said the doctor, “of believing nothing of the kind.”

Much ghost-talk by firelight had been going on in the library at Fordwick Chase, when Doctor Feversham made this remark.

“As much as to say,” observed Amy Fordwick, “that you are afraid to tackle the subject, because you pique yourself on being strong-minded, and are afraid of being convinced against your will.”

“Not precisely, young lady. A man convinced against his will is in a different state of mind from mine in matters like these. But it is true that cases in which the supernatural element appears at first sight to enter are so numerous in my profession, that I prefer accepting only the solutions of science, so far as they go, to entering on any wild speculations which it would require more time than I should care to devote to them to trace to their origin.”

“But without entering fully into the why and wherefore, how can you be sure that the proper treatment is observed in the numerous cases of mental hallucination which must come under your notice?” inquired Latimer Fordwick, who was studying for the Bar.

“I content myself, my young friend, with following the rules laid down for such cases, and I generally find them successful,” answered the old Doctor.

“Then you admit that cases have occurred within your knowledge of which the easiest apparent solution could be one which involved a belief in supernatural agencies?” persisted Latimer, who was rather prolix and pedantic in his talk.

“I did not say so,” said the Doctor.

“But of course he meant us to infer it,” said Amy. “Now, my dear old Doctor, do lay aside professional dignity, and give us one good ghost-story out of your personal experience. I believe you have been dying to tell one for the last hour, if you would only confess it.”

“I would rather not help to fill that pretty little head with idle fancies, dear child,” answered the old man, looking fondly at Amy, who was his especial pet and darling.

“Nonsense! You know I am even painfully unimaginative and matter-of-fact; and as for idle fancies, is it an idle fancy to think you like to please me?” said Amy coaxingly.

“Well, after all, you have been frightening each other with so many thrilling tales for the last hour or two, that I don’t suppose I should do much harm by telling you a circumstance which happened to me when I was a young man, and has always rather puzzled me.”

A murmur of approval ran round the party. All disposed themselves to listen; and Doctor Feversham, after a prefatory pinch of snuff, began.

José Joaquín Blanco: El otro infierno

Cuando Teresa y yo llegamos al infierno. Minos se ciñó dos veces el cuerpo con su capa y nos mandó a ese círculo que se ha hecho famoso por la historia Francesa de Rímini y Paolo Malatesta. ¡Imposible soñar paraíso semejante! Desde que llegamos se dejó sentir el impulso afrodisíaco de las llamas y nos entregamos a una lujuria insistente. No tardamos mucho en contagiar a los demás condenados y así el Segundo Círculo del infierno se convirtió de pronto en escenario de increíbles orgías. Como es de suponerse, el Señor se enteró en el acto y cambió nuestra sentencia; desde entonces estamos en el paraíso, colocados a insalvable distancia, confundidos por los coros angélicos, purificados los dos de tal manera que parecemos creaciones de Botticelli, contemplándonos, solamente, contemplándonos, mientras todo el cielo tiembla y se desbarata como flamita nerviosa de cirio pascual ante las notas triunfales del tedeum.

Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Wives of the Dead

THE following story, the simple and domestic incidents of which may be deemed scarcely worth relating, after such a lapse of time, awakened some degree of interest, a hundred years ago, in a principal seaport of the Bay Province. The rainy twilight of an autumn day; a parlor on the second floor of a small house, plainly furnished, as beseemed the middling circumstances of its inhabitants, yet decorated with little curiosities from beyond the sea, and a few delicate specimens of Indian manufacture,--these are the only particulars to be premised in regard to scene and season. Two young and comely women sat together by the fireside, nursing their mutual and peculiar sorrows. They were the recent brides of two brothers, a sailor and a landsman, and two successive days had brought tidings of the death of each, by the chances of Canadian warfare, and the tempestuous Atlantic. The universal sympathy excited by this bereavement, drew numerous condoling guests to the habitation of the widowed sisters. Several, among whom was the minister, had remained till the verge of evening; when one by one, whispering many comfortable passages of Scripture, that were answered by more abundant tears, they took their leave and departed to their own happier homes. The mourners, though not insensible to the kindness of their friends, had yearned to be left alone. United, as they had been, by the relationship of the living, and now more closely so by that of the dead, each felt as if whatever consolation her grief admitted, were to be found in the bosom of the other. They joined their hearts, and wept together silently. But after an hour of such indulgence, one of the sisters, all of whose emotions were influenced by her mild, quiet, yet not feeble character, began to recollect the precepts of resignation and endurance, which piety had taught her, when she did not think to need them. Her misfortune, besides, as earliest known, should earliest cease to interfere with her regular course of duties; accordingly, having placed the table before the fire, and arranged a frugal meal, she took the hand of her companion.

"Come, dearest sister; you have eaten not a morsel to-day," she said. "Arise, I pray you, and let us ask a blessing on that which is provided for us."

Her sister-in-law was of a lively and irritable temperament, and the first pangs of her sorrow had been expressed by shrieks and passionate lamentation. She now shrunk from Mary's words, like a wounded sufferer from a hand that revives the throb.

"There is no blessing left for me, neither will I ask it," cried Margaret, with a fresh burst of tears. "Would it were His will that I might never taste food more."

Agustín Celis Sánchez: Memoria de la Huestia

La abuela nos contaba viejas leyendas de la Santa Compaña y mamá se reía de ella y de sus historias. Papá le decía que no nos asustara con las viejas supersticiones del pueblo, que nos iba a convertir en hombres temerosos y cobardes a mis hermanos y a mí, que todo aquello eran patrañas de viejas aburridas, que lo que algunos llamaban la Huestia y otros la Compaña, no existía, y que aunque la muerte nos iba a llegar a todos algún día, no iba a venir primero a prevenirnos con campanillas y teas encendidas y toda una procesión de muertos acompañando a la Muerte.

La abuela la llamaba la Estadía, y contaba que iba envuelta en un hábito negro y no tenía cara, olía a la humedad de los sepulcros y mostraba su presencia sólo a quienes se iba a llevar, y sólo en ese instante, pero que algunas personas especialmente sensibles podían percibirla por una brisa húmeda que entraba en la habitación del moribundo unos segundos antes de morir. Sin embargo a la Huestia sí la conocían muchos, incluso la abuela la había visto, cuando joven, el día que murió su hermano Juan, y le habían hablado algunos de la procesión, y hasta le habían revelado un secreto.

Yo ya sé lo que es la Huestia, y sé el lugar que cada uno ocupa en la comitiva y sé el lugar que ocupo yo. Conozco a diario el cometido de cada noche y adónde se dirige el personaje que nos precede, y sé cómo es Ella y cuál es su olor, porque he andado a su lado demasiadas veces cada vez que he servido de aviso a uno de los míos.

La abuela vivió tantos años sólo para que supiéramos de la Huestia y nunca nos olvidáramos de su existencia. Estaba destinada a devolver el recuerdo a nuestra familia, que lo había perdido hacía tanto tiempo. Cada vez que en nuestra casa había duelo por un familiar la abuela rememoraba viejas historias de aparecidos y siempre, sin excepción, decía haber visto la noche anterior a todo el coro de sus antepasados velando en las cercanías por el alma del moribundo.

Cuando la abuela murió ya nadie habló de la Huestia, y aunque al año siguiente le siguió la Tata Mamen y después el tío Luis, nadie volvió a recordar aquel secreto que nos contó ella tantas veces, y que debía permanecer vivo en nuestra familia, y recordado por todos, y creído, para que algún día dejara de obrar la condena que rige el destino de toda mi estirpe, que cada mujer de la familia ha de penar el castigo de sobrevivir al menos a uno de sus hijos, como escarmiento por una antigua ofensa de un antepasado demasiado soberbio.

Henry Kuttner: The Shadow on the Screen

TORTURE MASTER was being given a sneak preview at a Beverly Hills theatre. Somehow, when my credit line, "Directed by Peter Haviland," was flashed on the screen, a little chill of apprehension shook me, despite the applause that came from a receptive audience. When you've been in the picture game for a long time you get these hunches; I've often spotted a dud flicker before a hundred feet have been reeled off. Yet Torture Master was no worse than a dozen similar films I'd handled in the past few years.

But it was formula, box-office formula. 1 could see that. The star was all right; the make-up department had done a good job; the dialogue was unusually smooth. Yet the film was obviously box-office, and not the sort of film I'd have liked to direct.

After watching a reel unwind amid an encouraging scattering of applause, I got up and went to the lobby. Some of the gang from Summit Pictures were lounging there, smoking and commenting on the picture, Ann Howard, who played the heroine in Torture Master, noticed my scowl and pulled me into a corner. She was that rare type, a girl who will screen well without a lot of the yellow grease-paint that makes you look like an animated corpse. She was small, and her ha,ir and eyes and skin were brown—I'd like to have seen her play Peter Pan. That type, you know.

I had occasionally proposed to her, but she never took me seriously. As a matter of fact, I myself didn't know how serious I was about it. Now she led me into the bar and ordered sidecars.

"Don't look so miserable, Pete," she said over the rim of her glass. "The picture's going over. It'll gross enough to suit the boss, and it won't hurt my reputation."

Well, that was right. Ann had a fat part, and she'd made the most of it. And the picture would be good box-office; Universal's Night Key, with Karloff, had been released a few months ago, and the audiences were ripe for another horror picture.

"I know," I told her. signaling the bartender to refill my glass. "But I get tired of these damn hokumy pics. Lord, how I'd like to do another Cabinet of Doctor Caligari!"

"Or another Ape of God," Ann suggested.

I shrugged. "Even that, maybe. There's so much chance for development of the weird on the screen, Ann—and no producer will stand for a genuinely good picture of that type. They call it arty, and say it'll flop. If I branched out on my own—well, Hecht and MacArthur tried it, and they're back on the Hollywood payroll now."

Someone Ann knew came up and engaged her in conversation. I saw a man beckoning, and with a hasty apology left Ann to join him. It was Andy Worth, Hollywood's dirtiest columnist. I knew him for a double-crosser and a skunk, but I also knew that he could get more inside information than a brace of Winchells. He was a short, fat chap with a meticulously cultivated mustache and sleeky pomaded black hair. Worth fancied himself as a ladies' man, and spent a great deal of his time trying to blackmail actresses into having affairs with him.

David Lagmanovich: Marcos

En aquel cuarto de hotel había un antiguo arcón, dentro del cual se encontró el manuscrito de un libro de relatos. En el primer cuento se hablaba de una colección formada por un relato de cada integrante de un club de narradores. El primero de ellos se refería a un antiguo arcón que se podía encontrar en un cuarto de hotel.

Algernon Blackwood: A Psychical Invasion

I

“And what is it makes you think I could be of use in this particular case?” asked Dr. John Silence, looking across somewhat sceptically at the Swedish lady in the chair facing him.

“Your sympathetic heart and your knowledge of occultism —”

“Oh, please — that dreadful word!” he interrupted, holding up a finger with a gesture of impatience.

“Well, then,” she laughed, “your wonderful clairvoyant gift and your trained psychic knowledge of the processes by which a personality may be disintegrated and destroyed — these strange studies you’ve been experimenting with all these years —”

“If it’s only a case of multiple personality I must really cry off,” interrupted the doctor again hastily, a bored expression in his eyes.

“It’s not that; now, please, be serious, for I want your help,” she said; “and if I choose my words poorly you must be patient with my ignorance. The case I know will interest you, and no one else could deal with it so well. In fact, no ordinary professional man could deal with it at all, for I know of no treatment nor medicine that can restore a lost sense of humour!”

“You begin to interest me with your ‘case,’” he replied, and made himself comfortable to listen.

Mrs. Sivendson drew a sigh of contentment as she watched him go to the tube and heard him tell the servant he was not to be disturbed.

“I believe you have read my thoughts already,” she said; “your intuitive knowledge of what goes on in other people’s minds is positively uncanny.”

Her friend shook his head and smiled as he drew his chair up to a convenient position and prepared to listen attentively to what she had to say. He closed his eyes, as he always did when he wished to absorb the real meaning of a recital that might be inadequately expressed, for by this method he found it easier to set himself in tune with the living thoughts that lay behind the broken words.

By his friends John Silence was regarded as an eccentric, because he was rich by accident, and by choice — a doctor. That a man of independent means should devote his time to doctoring, chiefly doctoring folk who could not pay, passed their comprehension entirely. The native nobility of a soul whose first desire was to help those who could not help themselves, puzzled them. After that, it irritated them, and, greatly to his own satisfaction, they left him to his own devices.

Edmundo Paz Soldán: La puerta cerrada

Acabamos de enterrar a papá. Fue una ceremonia majestuosa; bajo un cielo azul salpicado de hilos de plata, en la calurosa tarde de este verano agobiador. El cura ofició una misa conmovedora frente al lujoso ataúd de caoba y, mientras nos refrescaba a todos con agua bendita, nos convenció una vez más de que la verdadera vida recién comienza después de ésta. Personalidades del lugar dejaron guirnaldas de flores frescas a los pies del ataúd y, secándose el rostro con pañuelos perfumados, pronunciaron aburridos discursos, destacando lo bueno y desprendido que había sido papá con los vecinos, el ejemplo de amor y abnegación que había sido para su esposa y sus hijos, las incontables cosas que había hecho por el desarrollo del pueblo. Una banda tocó “La media vuelta”, el bolero favorito de papá: Te vas porque yo quiero que te vayas, / a la hora que yo quiera te detengo, / yo sé que mi cariño te hace falta, / porque quieras o no yo soy tu dueño. Mamá lloraba, los hermanos de papá lloraban. Sólo mi hermana no lloraba. Tenía un jazmín en la mano y lo olía con aire ausente. Con su vestido negro de una pieza y la larga cabellera castaña recogida en un moño, era la sobriedad encarnada.

Pero ayer por la mañana María tenía un aspecto muy diferente.

Yo la vi, por la puerta entreabierta de su cuarto, empuñar el cuchillo para destazar cerdos con la mano que ahora oprime un jazmín, e incrustarlo con saña en el estómago de papá, una y otra vez, hasta que sus entrañas comenzaron a salírsele y él se desplomó al suelo. Luego, María dio unos pasos como sonámbula, se dirigió a tientas a la cama, se echó en ella, todavía con el cuchillo en la mano, lloró como lo hacen los niños, con tanta angustia y desesperación que uno cree que acaban de ver un fantasma. Esa fue la única vez que la he visto llorar. Me acerqué a ella y la consolé diciéndole que no se preocupara, que estaría allí para protegerla. Le quité el cuchillo y fui a tirarlo al río.

María mató a papá porque él jamás respetó la puerta cerrada. Él ingresaba al cuarto de ella cuando mamá iba al mercado por la mañana, o a veces, en las tardes, cuando mamá iba a visitar a unas amigas, o, en las noches, después de asegurarse de que mamá estaba profundamente dormida. Desde mi cuarto, yo los oía. Oía que ella le decía que la puerta de su cuarto estaba cerrada para él, que le pesaría si él continuaba sin respetar esa decisión. Así sucedió lo que sucedió. María, poco a poco, se fue armando de valor, hasta que, un día, el cuchillo para destazar cerdos se convirtió en la única opción.