Carlos López Hernando: Un no tan típico cuento navideño americano

La noche era fría como sólo podía serlo en Noche Buena. Por supuesto, hablamos del hemisferio norte de nuestro planeta. Pero no dejemos que meros datos accesorios nos distraigan de la acción principal. Como todo buen cuento navideño americano, dicha acción ya ha empezado. En este momento Mary, una niña pequeña de apenas nueve años, aguarda en su camita a que venga Papá Noel a traerle sus regalos. Por supuesto, Papá Noel aparecerá en este cuento, sino no sería un típico cuento navideño americano. Por supuesto, Papá Noel tendrá algún tipo de problema por culpa de algún adulto ¡que comete la osadía de no creer en él! [léase con voz indignada]. Por supuesto, la niña tiene algún parentesco con el susodicho adulto y tendrá que salir al rescate de un desconocido de unos ochenta años vestido con un extraño traje rojo. Pero no lo hace de forma altruista, lo hace porque la religión del viejo le obliga a dejarle regalos cada año por estas fechas. Puro materialismo, aunque no nos guste reconocerlo. Por cierto, ¿sabían que el color original de Papá Noel era verde pero se cambió por el rojo como campaña publicitaria de Coca-Cola? Pero estas tres últimas frases no venían a cuento. Se alejan del típico cuento navideño americano. Así que dejemos que este humilde narrador navideño deje paso al narrador omnisciente.

Jack estaba preparado para entrar en aquella nave industrial en teoría abandonada. Bastante mala suerte había sido que le tocara trabajar en Noche Buena como para que encima hoy, justamente hoy, encontraran el taller ilegal. El teniente Murray llevaba semanas investigándolo y el cabrón tenía que descubrir su ubicación precisamente esa noche. Por supuesto, el teniente no estaba allí. Una vez lo encontró se largó con su familia a disfrutar de una buena comida navideña. Y le tocaba a Jack, como sargento de guardia, dirigir la operación. Pero lo único que él quería era volver a su casa con su mujer y su hijaa.

—Bueno, muchachos. Vamos a entrar.

La orden se cumplió con rapidez. Echaron la puerta abajo e irrumpieron en la nave industrial, desplegándose rápidamente por todo el perímetro. Los policías fueron demasiado veloces para dar tiempo a sus inquilinos a reaccionar.

—¡Que nadie se mueva! —La voz de Jack fue potente como un trueno. Casi se merece estar escrita en mayúsculas—. Muy bien, ¿quién está al mando?

Jack barrió la estancia con su mirada. Era mucho más grande de lo que le había parecido desde fuera. Y mucho más atroz. En multitud de mesas, miles de niños se apelotonaban en hileras fabricando toda suerte de juguetes. Trabajaban sin descanso y, a juzgar por su delgadez, debían de seguir una dieta muy restrictiva. Se veía que sus opresores se habían gastado el dinero de la comida en unos graciosos y verdes uniformes. Habían cuidado todos los detalles, hasta llevaban un gorro a juego con un cascabel en la punta. Jamás había contemplado unos menores de edad explotados con tanto estilo.

—He preguntado que ¿quién está...?

Daniel Defoe: The Apparition Of Mrs. Veal

This thing is so rare in all its circumstances, and on so good authority, that my reading and conversation have not given me anything like it. It is fit to gratify the most ingenious and serious inquirer. Mrs. Bargrave is the person to whom Mrs. Veal appeared after her death; she is my intimate friend, and I can avouch for her reputation for these fifteen or sixteen years, on my own knowledge; and I can confirm the good character she had from her youth to the time of my acquaintance. Though, since this relation, she is calumniated by some people that are friends to the brother of Mrs. Veal who appeared, who think the relation of this appearance to be a reflection, and endeavor what they can to blast Mrs. Bargrave's reputation and to laugh the story out of countenance. But by the circumstances thereof, and the cheerful disposition of Mrs. Bargrave, notwithstanding the ill usage of a very wicked husband, there is not yet the least sign of dejection in her face; nor did I ever hear her let fall a desponding or murmuring expression; nay, not when actually under her husband's barbarity, which I have been a witness to, and several other persons of undoubted reputation.

Now you must know Mrs. Veal was a maiden gentlewoman of about thirty years of age, and for some years past had been troubled with fits, which were perceived coming on her by her going off from her discourse very abruptly to some impertinence. She was maintained by an only brother, and kept his house in Dover. She was a very pious woman, and her brother a very sober man to all appearance; but now he does all he can to null and quash the story. Mrs. Veal was intimately acquainted with Mrs. Bargrave from her childhood. Mrs. Veal's circumstances were then mean; her father did not take care of his children as he ought, so that they were exposed to hardships. And Mrs. Bargrave in those days had as unkind a father, though she wanted neither for food nor clothing; while Mrs. Veal wanted for both, insomuch that she would often say, "Mrs. Bargrave, you are not only the best, but the only friend I have in the world; and no circumstance of life shall ever dissolve my friendship." They would often condole each other's adverse fortunes, and read together Drelincourt upon Death, and other good books; and so, like two Christian friends, they comforted each other under their sorrow.

Some time after, Mr. Veal's friends got him a place in the custom-house at Dover, which occasioned Mrs. Veal, by little and little, to fall off from her intimacy with Mrs. Bargrave, though there was never any such thing as a quarrel; but an indifferency came on by degrees, till at last Mrs. Bargrave had not seen her in two years and a half, though above a twelvemonth of the time Mrs. Bargrave hath been absent from Dover, and this last half-year has been in Canterbury about two months of the time, dwelling in a house of her own.

Santiago Roncagliolo: Papá Noel está borracho en el salón

Papá era un idiota, lo admito. Era incapaz de durar más de cinco meses en un trabajo. Nunca se acordaba de mi cumpleaños. Y mantenía en pie su viejo Chevrolet del 73 gracias a una mezcla milagrosa de repuestos robados, cinta adhesiva y buena voluntad. Inexplicablemente, todo eso me gustaba de él.

A la que no le gustaba era a Mamá. Hasta donde llegan mis recuerdos, su matrimonio fue una interminable serie de gritos y reproches, con algunas pausas para mandarme a lavar los dientes. Supongo que deben haber tenido algunos buenos momentos, pero yo no fui testigo de ninguno. A lo mejor, esos momentos ocurrían mientras yo me lavaba los dientes.

Así que no hace falta explicar cómo fue su divorcio, ni detallar la larga serie de partidas y regresos, las lágrimas de ella y los desplantes de él. No es necesario describir la caja de leche Gloria en la que Papá se llevó sus cosas de casa, ni decir que se apareció en el siguiente almuerzo familiar a devolver la caja de leche, que por cierto, con gran puntería, embocó de un tiro sobre la cabeza de mi abuelo.

Lo que voy a contar ocurrió muchos meses después, cuando Mamá empezaba a “reconstruir su vida”. O al menos ésa fue la frase que le escuché decir una vez en el teléfono, a alguna de sus amigas, mientras se pintaba las uñas de los pies. Al parecer, las uñas de los pies tenían un papel en todo aquello de “reconstruir su vida”, porque yo nunca la había visto pintárselas, y de hecho, antes de esa tarde, no habría podido asegurar que sus pies tuviesen uñas.

No tardaría en comprender que el rojo de su esmalte era una señal de alerta. Pocos días después, apareció en casa un hombre llamado Alejandro. Y volvió a aparecer. Y siguió apareciendo. Llegado cierto punto, ni siquiera necesitaba llegar de visita, porque no se iba. Pasaba los fines de semana con nosotros. Usaba los mismos cubiertos y el mismo wáter. Y me entregaba periódicamente regalos educativos, libros y juegos de preguntas y respuestas, que me volvieron definitivamente reacio a cualquier forma de cultura.

El nuevo novio me trataba bien, y hacía reír a Mamá. En cambio, Papá… bueno, seguía siendo Papá. Vivía prometiéndome que algún día volvería con mi madre, y de vez en cuando tenía detalles tiernos, como llevarle flores o regalarle un gatito. Aunque irremediablemente, esos detalles se frustraban: Mamá descubría que le había robado las flores al jardín del vecino. O le recordaba —a gritos, como siempre— que yo era alérgico al pelo de gato.

Algernon Blackwood: Ancient lights

From Southwater, where he left the train, theroad led due west. That he knew; for the rest hetrusted to luck, being one of those born walkers who dislike asking the way. He had that instinct,and as a rule it served him well. “A mile or so due west along the sandy road till you come to a stile onthe right; then across the fields. You’ll see the redhouse straight before you.” He glanced at the post-card’s instructions once again, and once again hetried to decipher the scratched-out sentence— without success. It had been so elaborately inkedover that no word was legible. Inked-out sentencesin a letter were always enticing. He wondered whatit was that had to be so very carefully obliterated.

The afternoon was boisterous, with a tearing,shouting wind that blew from the sea, across theSussex weald. Massive clouds with rounded, piled-up edges, cannoned across gaping spaces of bluesky. Far away the line of Downs swept the horizon,like an arriving wave. Chanctonbury Ring rode theircrest—a scudding ship, hull down before the wind.He took his hat off and walked rapidly, breathinggreat draughts of air with delight and exhilaration.The road was deserted; no horsemen, bicycles, ormotors; not even a tradesman’s cart; no single walker. But anyhow he would never have asked the way. Keeping a sharp eye for the stile, he poundedalong, while the wind tossed the cloak against hisface, and made waves across the blue puddles in the yellow road. The trees showed their under leaves of white. The bracken and the high new grass bent allone way. Great life was in the day, high spirits anddancing everywhere. And for a Croydon surveyor’sclerk just out of an office this was like a holiday atthe sea.

It was a day for high adventure, and his heartrose up to meet the mood of Nature. His umbrella with the silver ring ought to have been a sword, andhis brown shoes should have been top-boots withspurs upon the heels. Where hid the enchantedCastle and the princess with the hair of sunny gold?His horse...

The stile came suddenly into view and nippedadventure in the bud. Everyday clothes took himprisoner again. He was a surveyor’s clerk, middle-aged, earning three pounds a week, coming fromCroydon to see about a client’s proposed alterationsin a wood—something to ensure a better view fromthe dining-room window. Across the fields, perhapsa mile away, he saw the red house gleaming in thesunshine; and resting on the stile a moment to gethis breath he noticed a copse of oak and hornbeamon the right. “Aha,” he told himself “so that must bethe wood he wants to cut down to improve the view? I’ll ’ave a look at it.” There were boards up, of course, but there was an inviting little path as well.“I’m not a trespasser,” he said; “it’s part of my busi-ness, this is.” He scrambled awkwardly over thegate and entered the copse. A little round wouldbring him to the field again.

But the moment he passed among the trees the wind ceased shouting and a stillness dropped uponthe world. So dense was the growth that the sun-shine only came through in isolated patches. Theair was close. He mopped his forehead and put hisgreen felt hat on, but a low branch knocked it off again at once, and as he stooped an elastic twigswung back and stung his face. There were flowersalong both edges of the little path; glades openedon either side; ferns curved about in dampercorners, and the smell of earth and foliage was richand sweet. It was cooler here. What an enchantinglittle wood, he thought, turning down a small greenglade where the sunshine flickered like silver wings.How it danced and fluttered and moved about! Heput a dark blue flower in his buttonhole. Again hishat, caught by an oak branch as he rose, wasknocked from his head, falling across his eyes. Andthis time he did not put it on again. Swinging hisumbrella, he walked on with uncovered head, whistling rather loudly as he went. But the thick-ness of the trees hardly encouraged whistling, andsomething of his gaiety and high spirits seemed toleave him. He suddenly found himself treading cir-cumspectly and with caution. The stillness in the wood was so peculiar.

Ricardo Garibay: Para un álbum

Me obsesiona esto —y tanto, que con frecuencia olvido que ya lo conté, y vuelvo a contarlo—: Cuatro amigos van al mar, vacaciones, muchachos de veinte años; uno de ellos lleva cámara fotográfica; se apartan a unas peñas, lejos de la gente, y mientras los otros tres se asolean el de la cámara prepara el rollo. Mañana perfecta, limpia, ligeramente ventosa. Mar espumoso, greñudo.

—A ver —dice aquel—, párense, les tomo una foto.

Se levantan los tres, se enlazan riendo en el borde de las peñas, el artista los busca con la lente. —Ya —dice, dispara, oye un estruendo, alza la cara y de agua le bañan los pies y nunca nadie volvió a ver a los tres muchachos, no aparecieron jamás, y en la fotografía, se ve la ola enorme, cóncava, oscura, garra, cúpula espantosa.

Clark Ashton Smith: The Satyr

Raoul, Comte de la Frenaie, was by nature the most unsuspicious of husbands. His lack of suspicion, perhaps, was partly lack of imagination; and, for the rest, was doubtless due to the dulling of his observational faculties by the heavy wines of Averoigne. At any rate, he had never seen anything amiss in the friendship of his wife, Adele, with Olivier du Montoir, a young poet who might in time have rivalled Ronsard as one of the most brilliant luminaries of the Pleiade, if it had not been for an unforeseen but fatal circumstance. Indeed, M. le Comte had been rather proud than otherwise, because of the interest shown in Mme. la Comtesse by this erudite and comely youth, who had already moistened his lips at the fount of Helicon and was becoming known throughout other provinces than Averoigne for his melodious villanelles and graceful ballades. Nor was Raoul disturbed by the fact that many of these same villanelles and ballades were patently written in celebration of Adele's visible charms, and made liberal mention of her wine-dark tresses, her golden eyes, and sundry other details no less alluring, and equally essential to feminine perfection. M. le Comte did not pretend to understand poetry: like many others, he considered it something apart frorn all common sense or mundane relevancy; and his mental powers became totally paralysed whenever they were confronted by anything in rhyme and metre. In the meanwhile, the ballades and their author were gradually waxing in boldness.

That year, the snows of an austere winter had melted away in a week of halcyon warmth; and the land was filled with the tender green and chrysolite and chrysoprase of early spring. Olivier came oftener and oftener to the chateau de la Frenaie, and he and Adele were often alone, since they had so much to talk that was beyond the interests or the comprehension of M. le Comte. And now, sometimes, they walked abroad in the forest about the chateau the forest that rolled a sea of vernal verdure almost to the grey walls and barbican, and within whose sun-warm glades the perfume of the first wild flowers was tingeing delicately the quiet air. If people gossiped, they did so discreetly and beyond hearing of Raoul, or of Adele and Olivier.

Alejo Carpentier: Viaje a la semilla

I

-¿Qué quieres, viejo?...

Varias veces cayó la pregunta de lo alto de los andamios. Pero el viejo no respondía. Andaba de un lugar a otro, fisgoneando, sacándose de la garganta un largo monólogo de frases incomprensibles. Ya habían descendido las tejas, cubriendo los canteros muertos con su mosaico de barro cocido. Arriba, los picos desprendían piedras de mampostería, haciéndolas rodar por canales de madera, con gran revuelo de cales y de yesos. Y por las almenas sucesivas que iban desdentando las murallas aparecían -despojados de su secreto- cielos rasos ovales o cuadrados, cornisas, guirnaldas, dentículos, astrágalos, y papeles encolados que colgaban de los testeros como viejas pieles de serpiente en muda. Presenciando la demolición, una Ceres con la nariz rota y el peplo desvaído, veteado de negro el tocado de mieses, se erguía en el traspatio, sobre su fuente de mascarones borrosos. Visitados por el sol en horas de sombra, los peces grises del estanque bostezaban en agua musgosa y tibia, mirando con el ojo redondo aquellos obreros, negros sobre claro de cielo, que iban rebajando la altura secular de la casa. El viejo se había sentado, con el cayado apuntalándole la barba, al pie de la estatua. Miraba el subir y bajar de cubos en que viajaban restos apreciables. Oíanse, en sordina, los rumores de la calle mientras, arriba, las poleas concertaban, sobre ritmos de hierro con piedra, sus gorjeos de aves desagradables y pechugonas.

Dieron las cinco. Las cornisas y entablamentos se despoblaron. Sólo quedaron escaleras de mano, preparando el salto del día siguiente. El aire se hizo más fresco, aligerado de sudores, blasfemias, chirridos de cuerdas, ejes que pedían alcuzas y palmadas en torsos pringosos. Para la casa mondada el crepúsculo llegaba más pronto. Se vestía de sombras en horas en que su ya caída balaustrada superior solía regalar a las fachadas algún relumbre de sol. La Ceres apretaba los labios. Por primera vez las habitaciones dormirían sin persianas, abiertas sobre un paisaje de escombros.

Contrariando sus apetencias, varios capiteles yacían entre las hierbas. Las hojas de acanto descubrían su condición vegetal. Una enredadera aventuró sus tentáculos hacia la voluta jónica, atraída por un aire de familia. Cuando cayó la noche, la casa estaba más cerca de la tierra. Un marco de puerta se erguía aún, en lo alto, con tablas de sombras suspendidas de sus bisagras desorientadas.

II

Entonces el negro viejo, que no se había movido, hizo gestos extraños, volteando su cayado sobre un cementerio de baldosas.

Los cuadrados de mármol, blancos y negros, volaron a los pisos, vistiendo la tierra. Las piedras con saltos certeros, fueron a cerrar los boquetes de las murallas. Hojas de nogal claveteadas se encajaron en sus marcos, mientras los tornillos de las charnelas volvían a hundirse en sus hoyos, con rápida rotación.

Philip K. Dick: We Can Remember it For You Wholesale

He awoke and wanted Mars. The valleys, he thought. What would it be like to trudge among them? Great and greater yet: the dream grew as he became fully conscious, the dream and the yearning. He could almost feel the enveloping presence of the other world, which only Government agents and high officials had seen. A clerk like himself? Not likely.

"Are you getting up or not?" his wife Kirsten asked drowsily, with her usual hint of fierce crossness. "If you are, push the hot coffee button on the darn stove."

"Okay," Douglas Quail said, and made his way barefoot from the bedroom of their conapt to the kitchen. There, having dutifully pressed the hot coffee button, he seated himself at the kitchen table, brought out a yellow, small tin of fine Dean Swift snuff. He inhaled briskly,, and the Beau Nash mixture stung his nose, burned the roof of his mouth. But still he inhaled; it woKe him up and allowed his dreams, his nocturnal desires and random wishes, to condense into a semblance of rationality.

I will go, he said to himself. Before I die I'll see Mars.

It was, of course, impossible, and he knew this even as he dreamed. But the daylight, the mundane noise of his wife now brushing her hair before the bedroom mirror everything conspired to remind him of what he was. A miserable little salaried employee, he said to himself with bitterness. Kirsten reminded him of this at least once a day and he did not blame her; it was a wife's job to bring her husband down to Earth. Down to Earth, he thought, and laughed. The figure of speech in this was literally apt.

"What are you sniggering about?" his wife asked as she swept into the kitchen, her long busy-pink robe wagging after her. "A dream, I bet. You're always full of them."

"Yes," he said, and gazed out the kitchen window at the hovercars and traffic runnels, and all the little energetic people hurrying to work. In a little while he would be among them. As always.

"I'll bet it has to do with some woman," Kirsten said witheringly.

"No," he said. "A god. The god of war. He has wonderful craters with every kind of plant-life growing deep down in them."

Salomé Guadalupe Ingelmo: In Speculo, frater absens, idolum tuum est: Sermo septimus ad ignaros Mortuos

A ti, que estás siempre ahí, restableciendo la confianza

en lo sublime e incontestable

−¿Nos ha llamado usted?

−Sí. Mi marido, el señor Dowland… El 3-2-74 está teniendo otra crisis hipersensorial. Toma los fármacos reglamentarios. Nada más: ni supresores de la ira ni inhibidores de la ansiedad ni reguladores del sueño −las estrellas del mercado negro.

−Otro que ve a Dios en las pildoritas rosa −le susurra al compañero−. En el peor de los casos, la reacción le provocará una catatonia temporal, pero difícilmente caerá en coma. A casi ninguno le sucede –explica con una sonrisa desafiante. Todos mienten. Se aburren y además son unos viciosos, así que se hinchan a pastillas prohibidas−. Deja fluir las lágrimas, muchacho –le aconseja el policía−, y todos tus pecados serán lavados.

No se percata de los estigmas en sus palmas. Han empezado a supurar de nuevo.

La pistola de inyección libera un suspiro de alivio o de indiferencia por el padecimiento ajeno. El líquido azulado engrosa las venas. Las convulsiones huyen del cuerpo mortificado. Pero el sudor persiste como lágrimas desorientadas. Las pupilas dilatadas naufragan en unos ojos inmensos, incrédulos. Ella sabe lo que están viendo.

−No te preocupes, Jack. Ha sido sólo un sueño, una pesadilla. Ya ha pasado.

−¿Él ya no me molestará más? –pregunta turbado, al borde de las lágrimas. Con el mismo terror que arropa a los niños por las noches prendido en su voz.

−No, cariño. Te lo he explicado cientos de veces. Ese tal Dick…

Thomas Hardy: The Superstitious Man's Story

'William, as you may know, was a curious, silent man; you could feel when he came near 'ee; and if he was in the house or anywhere behind your back without your seeing him, there seemed to be something clammy in the air, as if a cellar door was opened close by your elbow. Well, one Sunday, at a time that William was in very good health to all appearance, the bell that was ringing for church went very heavy all of a sudden; the sexton, who told me o't, said he'd not known the bell to go so heavy in his hand for years – and he feared it meant a death in the parish. That was on the Sunday, as I say. During the week after, it chanced that William's wife was staying up late one night to finish her ironing, she doing the washing for Mr. and Mrs. Hardcome. Her husband had finished his supper and gone to bed as usual some hour or two before. While she ironed she heard him coming down stairs; he stopped to put on his boots at the stair-foot, where he always left them, and then came on into the living-room where she was ironing, passing through it towards the door, this being the only way from the staircase to the outside of the house. No word was said on either side, William not being a man given to much speaking, and his wife being occupied with her work. He went out and closed the door behind him. As her husband had now and then gone out in this way at night before when unwell, or unable to sleep for want of a pipe, she took no particular notice, and continued at her ironing. This she finished shortly after, and as he had not come in she waited awhile for him putting away the irons and things, and preparing the table for his breakfast in the morning. Still he did not return, and supposing him not far off, and wanting to get to bed herself, tired as she was, she left the door unbarred and went to the stairs, after writing on the back of the door with chalk: Mind and do the door (because he was a forgetful man).

'To her great surprise, and I might say alarm, on reaching the foot of the stairs his boots were standing there as they always stood when he had gone to rest; going up to their chamber she found him in bed sleeping as sound as a rock. How he could have got back again without her seeing or hearing him was beyond her comprehension. It could only have been bypassing behind her very quietly while she was bumping with the iron. But this notion did not satisfy her: it was surely impossible that she should not have seen him come in through a room so small. She could not unravel the mystery, and felt very queer and uncomfortable about it. However, she would not disturb him to question him then, and went to bed herself.

Fabián Vique: Una realidad

Me desperté a las tres de la madrugada sobresaltado, bañado en sangre, con un puñal clavado en el medio de mi pecho. «¡Menos mal!», me dije, «es sólo una realidad». Y seguí durmiendo.

Hector Hugh Munro (Saki): The soul of Laploshka

Laploshka was one of the meanest men I have ever met, and quite one of the most entertaining. He said horrid things about other people in such a charming way that one forgave him for the equally horrid things he said about oneself behind one’s back. Hating anything in the way of ill-natured gossip ourselves, we are always grateful to those who do it for us and do it well. And Laploshka did it really well.

Naturally Laploshka had a large circle of acquaintances, and as he exercised some care in their selection it followed that an appreciable proportion were men whose bank balances enabled them to acquiesce indulgently in his rather one-sided views on hospitality. Thus, although possessed of only moderate means, he was able to live comfortably within his income, and still more comfortably within those of various tolerantly disposed associates.

But towards the poor or to those of the same limited resources as himself his attitude was one of watchful anxiety; he seemed to be haunted by a besetting fear lest some fraction of a shilling or franc, or whatever the prevailing coinage might be, should be diverted from his pocket or service into that of a hard-up companion. A two-franc cigar would be cheerfully offered to a wealthy patron, on the principle of doing evil that good may come, but I have known him indulge in agonies of perjury rather than admit the incriminating possession of a copper coin when change was needed to tip a waiter. The coin would have been duly returned at the earliest opportunity–he would have taken means to insure against forgetfulness on the part of the borrower–but accidents might happen, and even the temporary estrangement from his penny or sou was a calamity to be avoided.

The knowledge of this amiable weakness offered a perpetual temptation to play upon Laploshka’s fears of involuntary generosity. To offer him a lift in a cab and pretend not to have enough money to pay the fair, to fluster him with a request for a sixpence when his hand was full of silver just received in change, these were a few of the petty torments that ingenuity prompted as occasion afforded. To do justice to Laploshka’s resourcefulness it must be admitted that he always emerged somehow or other from the most embarrassing dilemma without in any way compromising his reputation for saying “No.” But the gods send opportunities at some time to most men, and mine came one evening when Laploshka and I were supping together in a cheap boulevard restaurant. (Except when he was the bidden guest of some one with an irreproachable income, Laploshka was wont to curb his appetite for high living; on such fortunate occasions he let it go on an easy snaffle.) At the conclusion of the meal a somewhat urgent message called me away, and without heeding my companion’s agitated protest, I called back cruelly, “Pay my share; I’ll settle with you to-morrow.” Early on the morrow Laploshka hunted me down by instinct as I walked along a side street that I hardly ever frequented. He had the air of a man who had not slept.

Álex E. Peñaloza Campos: Mina

El estallido atronador lo dejó completamente sordo. De pronto sintió el frío y agreste suelo a sus espaldas. Vio algunas figuras humanas corriendo apresuradas, unas tratando de ocultarse, otras que se le acercaban diligentes. Buscó sus sentidos y percibió que, aparte de la sordera que lentamente se iba diluyendo, todo estaba bien. Sentía su cabeza, sus manos, sus pies y sus dedos: Sentía todos sus dedos. Si, los sentía. Se felicitó por su buena suerte; después de todo había salido bien parado de la explosión.

-¡Una mina! ¡Pisó una mina! – gritó un soldado.

Fue a levantarse pero no lo logró. Cuando quiso ponerse en pie notó con horror que la mina le había volado un pie y hecho trizas el otro. Entonces se desmayó.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Turned

In her soft-carpeted, thick-curtained, richly furnished chamber, Mrs Marroner lay sobbing on the wide, soft bed.

She sobbed bitterly, chokingly, despairingly; her shoulders heaved and shook convulsively; her hands were tight-clenched. She had forgotten her elaborate dress, the more elaborate bedcover; forgotten her dignity, her self-control, her pride. In her mind was an overwhelming, unbelievable horror, an immeasurable loss, a turbulent, struggling mass of emotion.

In her reserved, superior, Boston-bred life, she had never dreamed that it would be possible for her to feel so many things at once, and with such trampling intensity.

She tried to cool her feelings into thoughts; to stiffen them into words; to control herself — and could not. It brought vaguely to her mind an awful moment in the breakers at York Beach, one summer in girlhood when she had been swimming under water and could not find the top.

In her uncarpeted, thin-curtained, poorly furnished chamber on the top floor, Gerta Petersen lay sobbing on the narrow, hard bed.

She was of larger frame than her mistress, grandly built and strong; but all her proud young womanhood was prostrate now, convulsed with agony, dissolved in tears. She did not try to control herself. She wept for two.

If Mrs Marroner suffered more from the wreck and ruin of a longer love — perhaps a deeper one; if her tastes were finer, her ideals loftier; if she bore the pangs of bitter jealousy and outraged pride, Gerta had personal shame to meet, a hopeless future, and a looming present which filled her with unreasoning terror.

She had come like a meek young goddess into that perfectly ordered house, strong, beautiful, full of goodwill and eager obedience, but ignorant and childish — a girl of eighteen.

Mr Marroner had frankly admired her, and so had his wife. They discussed her visible perfections and as visible limitations with that perfect confidence which they had so long enjoyed. Mrs Marroner was not a jealous woman. She had never been jealous in her life — till now.

Gerta had stayed and learned their ways. They had both been fond of her. Even the cook was fond of her. She was what is called 'willing', was unusually teachable and plastic; and Mrs Marroner, with her early habits of giving instruction, tried to educate her somewhat.

"I never saw anyone so docile," Mrs Marroner had often commented. "It is perfection in a servant, but almost a defect in character. She is so helpless and confiding."

She was precisely that: a tall, rosy-cheeked baby; rich womanhood without, helpless infancy within. Her braided wealth of dead gold hair, her grave blue eyes, her mighty shoulders and long, firmly moulded limbs seemed those of a primal earth spirit; but she was only an ignorant child, with a child's weakness.

When Mr Marroner had to go abroad for his firm, unwillingly, hating to leave his wife, he had told her he felt quite safe to leave her in Gerta's hands — she would take care of her.