Wilkie Collins: The Lady of Glenwith Grange

I HAVE known Miss Welwyn long enough to be able to bear personal testimony to the truth of many of the particulars which I am now about to relate. I knew her father, and her younger sister Rosamond; and I was acquainted with the Frenchman who became Rosamond's husband. These are the persons of whom it will be principally necessary for me to speak. They are the only prominent characters in my story.

Miss Welwyn's father died some years since. I remember him very well--though he never excited in me, or in any one else that I ever heard of, the slightest feeling of interest. When I have said that he inherited a very large fortune, amassed during his father's time, by speculations of a very daring, very fortunate, but not always very honorable kind, and that he bought this old house with the notion of raising his social position, by making himself a member of our landed aristocracy in these parts, I have told you as much about him, I suspect, as you would care to hear. He was a thoroughly commonplace man, with no great virtues and no great vices in him. He had a little heart, a feeble mind, an amiable temper, a tall figure, and a handsome face. More than this need not, and cannot, be said on the subject of Mr. Welwyn's character.

I must have seen the late Mrs. Welwyn very often as a child; but I cannot say that I remember anything more of her than that she was tall and handsome, and very generous and sweet-tempered toward me when I was in her company. She was her husband's superior in birth, as in everything else; was a great reader of books in all languages; and possessed such admirable talents as a musician, that her wonderful playing on the organ is remembered and talked of to this day among the old people in our country houses about here. All her friends, as I have heard, were disappointed when she married Mr. Welwyn, rich as he was; and were afterward astonished to find her preserving the appearance, at least, of being perfectly happy with a husband who, neither in mind nor heart, was worthy of her.

It was generally supposed (and I have no doubt correctly) that she found her great happiness and her great consolation in her little girl Ida--now the lady from whom we have just parted. The child took after her mother from the first--inheriting her mother's fondness for books, her mother's love of music, her mother's quick sensibilities, and, more than all, her mother's quiet firmness, patience, and loving kindness of disposition. From Ida's earliest years, Mrs. Welwyn undertook the whole superintendence of her education. The two were hardly ever apart, within doors or without. Neighbors and friends said that the little girl was being brought up too fancifully, and was not enough among other children, was sadly neglected as to all reasonable and practical teaching, and was perilously encouraged in those dreamy and imaginative tendencies of which she had naturally more than her due share. There was, perhaps, some truth in this; and there might have been still more, if Ida had possessed an ordinary character, or had been reserved for an ordinary destiny. But she was a strange child from the first, and a strange future was in store for her.

Salomé Guadalupe Ingelmo: Polvo eres

Entonces Yahweh formó al hombre con polvo del suelo, e insufló en su nariz aliento de vida, y resultó el hombre un ser viviente (Génesis 2:7).

Cuando le encargaron la recogida de muestras en el viejo planeta con el propósito de descubrir una cura para el misterioso morbo, se sintió privilegiado. Los síntomas, aparecidos durante la Gran Migración, empeoraban rápidamente; quizá la expedición acabase expuesta a un virus desconocido. No obstante, cuántos pueden descubrir sus orígenes. Sus antepasados agotaron todos los recursos de la Tierra hasta conducirla a la devastación. Sin embargo en su mente, desde la partida, se han repetido imágenes idílicas de paraísos perdidos. Secretamente, espera encontrar respuestas.
“Atrapen una con el brazo articulado”, ordena. Renuncia al protocolo de seguridad: necesita tocarla con sus propias manos. “Pongo estos seis versos en mi botella al mar”, musita recordando sus estudios de Arqueoliteratura. Ante la nave, millones de botellas, todas iguales y distintas a un tiempo: un denso cinturón que gravita obstinadamente alrededor de la Tierra. Conocedor del primitivismo que caracterizó al viejo género humano, urde teorías para explicar el fascinante fenómeno: misteriosos mensajes tal vez… “Richard Prize, 2010-2065”, lee la etiqueta en voz alta con evidente desilusión. Si una vez hubo un genio en su interior, de él ya sólo quedan cenizas.

Polvo eres y al polvo… El páter titubea y después, sencillamente, efectúa el lanzamiento. Oficia esas ceremonias desde que la cremación pasó a ser el único método de inhumación legal, vano intento por ahorrar espacio en un planeta agonizante.

“Mueren consumidos”. Los párpados del apergaminado cadáver se deshacen bajo los dedos del doctor. “Quizá, una enfermedad psicosomática... Como si, en la Tierra, el hombre hubiese abandonado el deseo de vivir. Como si vagase, igual que un niño alejado de su madre, perdido y sin metas. Sin…poesía”. El gesto suspicaz de su ayudante le devuelve a la única realidad. “El cansancio me hace desvariar”, se justifica inquieto. Prudencia; por menos otros han sufrido arresto domiciliario y penas peores.

La botella flota indolente en el espacio. Tiene todo el tiempo; ante ella se extiende la eternidad.

William Faulkner: A Rose for Emily

I

WHEN Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house, which no one save an old man-servant--a combined gardener and cook--had seen in at least ten years.

It was a big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies, set on what had once been our most select street. But garages and cotton gins had encroached and obliterated even the august names of that neighborhood; only Miss Emily's house was left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps-an eyesore among eyesores. And now Miss Emily had gone to join the representatives of those august names where they lay in the cedar-bemused cemetery among the ranked and anonymous graves of Union and Confederate soldiers who fell at the battle of Jefferson.

Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town, dating from that day in 1894 when Colonel Sartoris, the mayor--he who fathered the edict that no Negro woman should appear on the streets without an apron-remitted her taxes, the dispensation dating from the death of her father on into perpetuity. Not that Miss Emily would have accepted charity. Colonel Sartoris invented an involved tale to the effect that Miss Emily's father had loaned money to the town, which the town, as a matter of business, preferred this way of repaying. Only a man of Colonel Sartoris' generation and thought could have invented it, and only a woman could have believed it.

When the next generation, with its more modern ideas, became mayors and aldermen, this arrangement created some little dissatisfaction. On the first of the year they mailed her a tax notice. February came, and there was no reply. They wrote her a formal letter, asking her to call at the sheriff's office at her convenience. A week later the mayor wrote her himself, offering to call or to send his car for her, and received in reply a note on paper of an archaic shape, in a thin, flowing calligraphy in faded ink, to the effect that she no longer went out at all. The tax notice was also enclosed, without comment.

They called a special meeting of the Board of Aldermen. A deputation waited upon her, knocked at the door through which no visitor had passed since she ceased giving china-painting lessons eight or ten years earlier. They were admitted by the old Negro into a dim hall from which a stairway mounted into still more shadow. It smelled of dust and disuse--a close, dank smell. The Negro led them into the parlor. It was furnished in heavy, leather-covered furniture. When the Negro opened the blinds of one window, they could see that the leather was cracked; and when they sat down, a faint dust rose sluggishly about their thighs, spinning with slow motes in the single sun-ray. On a tarnished gilt easel before the fireplace stood a crayon portrait of Miss Emily's father.

They rose when she entered--a small, fat woman in black, with a thin gold chain descending to her waist and vanishing into her belt, leaning on an ebony cane with a tarnished gold head. Her skeleton was small and spare; perhaps that was why what would have been merely plumpness in another was obesity in her. She looked bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that pallid hue. Her eyes, lost in the fatty ridges of her face, looked like two small pieces of coal pressed into a lump of dough as they moved from one face to another while the visitors stated their errand.

Emilio Carrere: Gil Balduquín y su ángel

En vida, Gil Balduquín había sido un pobre de espíritu. Pero, a pesar de esta cualidad, fue un deplorable funcionario público. Tenía en su alma un granito de soñador que, por lo visto, es incompatible con el tipo del perfecto fósil chupatintas vulgaris, especie muy extendida en este reino de moluscos adheridos a la roca del Estado. Gil fue oficial tercero de la Dirección de Cuentas Incobrables, covachuela de gran utilidad nacional, como su título expresa. Gozaba de cuarenta y tres duros al mes, con los que tenía que dar de comer —¡oh, qué ficción alimenticia!— a varios rapazuelos esqueléticos y a una esposa gruñona, cuyo vientre habíase inflamado mucho con los abundantes y excesivos alumbramientos. Pero Gil no era anarquista, como parece lógico después de conocer su pa raíso familiar. Gil era hombre de orden y tenía miedo a la venida del bolcheviquismo. Esta majadería se le contagió al oírsela a su jefe, que era una especie de ballenato con anteojos y gorrito, propietario y un poco prestamista y miembro de la Liga Antipornográfica, cosa razonable a su edad, ya que, como hemos dicho en otra parte, la moral es el sarampión de los viejos. A todos les da…

El pobre Gil, intoxicado por el estilo de las minutas, era infeliz, y un día tuvo la mala ocurrencia de suicidarse.

Fue a primero de mes. Después de cobrar en la oficina, al tornar a su casa se halló sorprendido con el lechero, el panadero, el tendero y el carnicero y otros más minúsculos proveedores de la familia Balduquín, que habían decidido celebrar junta general de acreedores en el rellano de su piso. El pobre Gil sintió, al verlos, la desagradable emoción de un conejo en una asamblea cinegética. Como le era imposible pagar a todos, concibió el igualatorio propósito de no pagar a nadie. Pero los honrados comerciantes le gritaron ciertas palabras que, pronunciadas en la calle, justificarían una multa de cincuenta pesetas; le agitaron por las solapas del gabán y le rompieron un ala de su hongo. Los enemigos eran gente bien alimentada y de una musculatura muy superior a la de Gil Balduquín, que sólo se nutría con chocolate crudo los más días del mes.

El pobre Gil recibió una regular somanta; pero conservó para lo que él había oído llamar el sagrado del hogar sus cuarenta y tres duros intangibles. Todas las vecindonas habían salido a sus puertas, en chanclas y con el moño al trote, a gozar del bellaco espectáculo. Gil ni siquiera intentó defenderse de los agresores. Recibió la paliza heroicamente, aunque toda la gentualla, al observar su pasividad, opinó que Gil era un cobarde. La defensa de sus cuarenta y tres duros fue magnífica y conmovedora, aunque incomprendida. Pero es que él sabía que era preciso comprar zapatos a todos los chicos…

Y no intentó pegar porque lo consideró un alarde ridículo. Tenía las manos débiles y el resuello metido dentro del cuerpo por las cotidianas griterías de su jefe. En este caso, lo heroico fue dejarse zurrar como un saco de paja y sonreír como un estoico ante las patadas en los riñones y los puñetazos en el maxilar.

Pero he aquí que en medio de la tremolina, salió su esposa. Le vio y le metió para dentro como una cosa derrumbada. A Gil le dio vergüenza que su esposa le viese así de tundido y de humillado. Fue un resabio romántico de la juventud, en la que gustamos de aparecer como Amadises ante nuestras amadas. Ella tampoco reconoció el valor heroico de su actitud, y exclamó, mirándole con desdén:

—Has debido tirarlos a todos por las escaleras. ¡Eres un pobre diablo!

Gil sorbió una lágrima. Dejó casi todo el dinero sobre la camilla —se quedó con una peseta— y se fue otra vez a la calle, recomendando al salir a su incomprensiva cónyuge, con su humildosa voz de pobre hombre:

—No dejes de comprar eso a los pequeños…

Conrad Aiken: Silent Snow, Secret Snow

Just why it should have happened, or why it should have happened ust when it did,

he could not, of course, possibly have said; nor perhaps would it even have occurred

to him to ask. The thing was above all a secret, something to be precioust concealed

from Mother and Father; and to that very fact it owed an enormous part of its deli-

ciousness. It was like a peculiarly beautiful trinket to be carried unmentioned in

one’s trouser pocket-——a rare stamp, an old coin, a few tiny gold links found trodden

out of shape on the path in the park, a pebble of carnelian, a seashell distinguishable

from all others by an unusual spot or stripe—and, as if it were any one of these, he

carried around with him everywhere a warm and persistent and increasingly beauti-

ful sense of possession. Nor was it only a sense of possession—it was also a sense of

protection. It was as if, in some delightful way, his secret gave him a fortress, a wall

behind which he could retreat into heavenly seclusion. This was almost the first

thing he had noticed about it—apart from the oddness of the thing itself—and it

was this that now again, for the fiftieth time, occurred to him, as he sat in the little

school room. It was the half-hour for geography. Miss Buell was revolving with one

finger, slowly, a huge terrestrial globe which had been placed on her desk. The green

and yellow continents passed and repassed, questions were asked and answered,

and now the little girl in front of him, Deirdre, who had a funny little constellation

of freckles on the back of her neck, exactly like the Big Dipper, was standing up

and telling Miss Buell that the equator was the line that ran round the middle.

Miss Buell’s face, which was old and grayish and kindly, with gray stiff curls

beside the cheeks, and eyes that swam very brightly, like little minnows, behind

thick glasses, wrinkled itself into a complication of amusements.

“Ah! I see. The earth is wearing a belt, or a sash. Or someone drew a line

around it!”

“Oh no—not that—I mean—”

In the general laughter, he did not share, or only a very little. He was thinking

about the Arctic and Antarctic regions, which of course, on the globe, were white.

Miss Buell was now telling them about the tropics, the jungles, the steamy heat of

equatorial swamps, where birds and butterflies, and even the snakes, were like

living jewels. As he listened to these things, he was already, with a pleasant sense of

half—effort, putting his secret between himself and the words. Was it really an effort

at all? For effort implied something voluntary, and perhaps even something one

did not especially want; whereas this was distinctly pleasant, and came almost of its

own accord. All he needed to do was to think of that morning, the first one, and

then of all the others—

But it was all so absurdly simple! It had amounted to so little. It was nothing,

just an idea—and just why it should have become so wonderful, so permanent, was

a mystery—a very pleasant one, to be sure, but also, in an amusing way, foolish.

However, without ceasing to listen to Miss Buell, who had now moved up to the

north temperate zones, he deliberately invited his memory of the first morning. It

was only a moment or two after he had waked up—or perhaps the moment itself.

But was there, to be exact, an exact moment? Was one awake all at once? or was it

gradual? Anyway, it was after he had stretched a lazy hand up toward the headrail,

and yawned, and then relaxed again among his warm covers, all the more grateful

on a December morning, that the thing had happened. Suddenly, for no reason, he

had thought of the postman, he remembered the postman. Perhaps there was

nothing so odd in that. After all, he heard the postman almost every morning of

his life—his heavy boots could be heard clumping round the corner at the top of

the little cobbled hill-street, and then, progressively nearer, progressively louder,

the double knock at each door, the crossings and re—crossings of the street, till

finally the clumsy steps came stumbling across to the very door, and the tremen—

dous knock came which shook the house itself.

Victor Hugo Pérez Gallo: La abominación de Ur

Nos conocíamos desde la infancia.

Por eso todos se sorprendieron tanto cuando lo maté.

Cuando la policía llegó, solo quedaban restos sanguinolentos y casi irreconocibles de quien en vida fue Miguel Robles, ingeniero en minas; mi amigo de siempre. Y nadie más que yo estaba cerca de tales despojos… así que el juicio fue rápido; la fiscalía lo tuvo fácil.

En realidad, me condenaron a muerte… aunque luego tuvieron la «misericordia» de cambiar mi sentencia: atribuyéndome desórdenes mentales; me enviaron al hospital psiquiátrico.

¿Loco?, ¿yo?

No.

Necios, ellos.

No saben del horror, de la podredumbre nauseabunda, del terror total del que salvé sus mediocres vidas.

Y es mejor que jamás lo sepan.

Existen en el universo fuerzas indescriptibles que dormitan en profundos abismos, esperando la señal para despertarse y diseminar el caos. Formas que existieron antes de los humanos y que sin duda alguna heredarán este planeta, que hoy llamamos nuestro dominio, porque su paciencia las hace capaces de esperar durante eones. Entes poderosísimos, más allá de nuestra comprensión y de toda nuestra orgullosa ciencia materialista.

Yo lo sé.

Yo los he visto cara a cara.

Supongo que el principio de todo podría ser Moa.

Frederick Marryat: The White Wolf of the Hartz Mountains

Frederick Marryat by John Simpson

Scarcely had the soldiers performed their task, and thrown down their shovels, when they commenced an altercation. It appeared that this money was to be again the cause of slaughter and bloodshed. Philip and Krantz determined to sail immediately in one of the peroquas, and leave them to settle their disputes as they pleased. He asked permission of the soldiers to take from the provisions and water, of which there was ample supply, a larger proportion than was their share; stating, that he and Krantz had a long voyage and would require it, and pointing out to them that there were plenty of cocoa-nuts for their support. The soldiers, who thought of nothing but their newly-acquired wealth, allowed him to do as he pleased; and, having hastily collected as many cocoa-nuts as they could, to add to their stock of provisions, before noon, Philip and Krantz had embarked and made sail in the peroqua, leaving the soldiers with their knives again drawn, and so busy in their angry altercation as to be heedless of their departure.

"There will be the same scene over again, I expect," observed Krantz, as the vessel parted swiftly from the shore.

"I have little doubt of it; observe, even now they are at blows and stabs."

"If I were to name that spot, it should be the 'Accursed Isle .'"

"Would not any other be the same, with so much to inflame the passions of men?"

"Assuredly: what a curse is gold!"

"And what a blessing!" replied Krantz. "I am sorry Pedro is left with them."

"It is their destiny," replied Philip; "so let's think no more of them. Now what do you propose? With this vessel, small as she is, we may sail over these seas in safety, and we have, I imagine, provisions sufficient for more than a month."

"My idea is, to run into the track of the vessels going to the westward, and obtain a passage to Goa."

"And if we do not meet with any, we can, at all events, proceed up the Straits, as far as Pulo Penang without risk. There we may safely remain until a vessel passes."

"I agree with you; it is our best, nay our only, place; unless, indeed, we were to proceed to Cochin, where junks are always leaving for Goa."

"But that would be out of our way, and the junks cannot well pass us in the Straits, without their being seen by us."

They had no difficulty in steering their course; the islands by day, and the clear stars by night, were their compass. It is true that they did not follow the more direct track, but they followed the more secure, working up the smooth waters, and gaining to the northward more than to the west. Many times they were chased by the Malay proas which infested the islands, but the swiftness of their little peroqua was their security; indeed, the chase was, generally speaking, abandoned as soon as the smallness of the vessel was made out by the pirates, who expected that little or no booty was to be gained.

Anatole France: La messe des ombres

Voici ce que le sacristain de l’église Sainte-Eulalie, à la Neuville-d’Aumont, m’a conté sous la treille du Cheval-Blanc, par une belle soirée d’été, en buvant une bouteille de vin vieux à la santé d’un mort très à son aise, qu’il avait le matin même porté en terre avec honneur, sous un drap semé de belles larmes d’argent.

— Feu mon pauvre père (c’est le sacristain qui parle) était de son vivant fossoyeur. Il avait l’esprit agréable, et c’était sans doute un effet de son état, car on a remarqué que les personnes qui travaillent dans les cimetières sont d’humeur joviale. La mort ne les effraie point : ils n’y pensent jamais. Moi qui vous parle, monsieur, j’entre dans un cimetière, la nuit, aussi tranquillement que sous la tonnelle du Cheval-Blanc. Et si, d’aventure, je rencontre un revenant, je ne m’en inquiète point, par cette considération qu’il peut bien aller à ses affaires comme je vais aux miennes. Je connais les habitudes des morts et leur caractère. Je sais à ce sujet des choses que les prêtres eux-mêmes ne savent pas. Et si je contais tout ce que j’ai vu, vous seriez étonné. Mais toutes les vérités ne sont pas bonnes à dire, et mon père, qui pourtant aimait à conter des histoires, n’a pas révélé la vingtième partie de ce qu’il savait. En revanche, il répétait souvent les mêmes récits, et il a bien narré cent fois, à ma connaissance, l’aventure de Catherine Fontaine.

Catherine Fontaine était une vieille demoiselle qu’il lui souvenait d’avoir vue quand il était enfant. Je ne serais point étonné qu’il y eût encore dans le pays jusqu’à trois vieillards qui se rappellent avoir ouï parler d’elle, car elle était très connue et de bon renom, quoique pauvre. Elle habitait, au coin de la rue aux Nonnes, la tourelle que vous pouvez voir encore et qui dépend d’un vieil hôtel à demi détruit qui regarde sur le jardin des Ursulines. Il y a sur cette tourelle des figures et des inscriptions a demi effacées. Le défunt curé de Sainte-Eulalie, M. Levasseur, assurait qu’il y est dit en latin que l’amour est plus fort que la mort. Ce qui s’entend, ajoutait-il, de l’amour divin.

Catherine Fontaine vivait seule dans ce petit logis. Elle était dentellière. Vous savez que les dentelles de nos pays étaient autrefois très renommées. On ne lui connaissait ni parents ni amis. On disait qu’à dix-huit ans elle avait aimé le jeune chevalier d’Aumont-Cléry, à qui elle avait été secrètement fiancée. Mais les gens de bien n’en voulaient rien croire et ils disaient que c’était un conte qui avait été imaginé parce que Catherine Fontaine avait plutôt l’air d’une dame que d’une ouvrière, qu’elle gardait sous ses cheveux blancs les restes d’une grande beauté, qu’elle avait l’air triste et qu’on lui voyait au doigt une de ces bagues sur lesquelles l’orfèvre a mis deux petites mains unies, et qu’on avait coutume, dans l’ancien temps, d’échanger pour les fiançailles. Vous saurez tout à l’heure ce qu’il en était.

José Echegaray: La lotería del diablo

El diablo es vicioso, grandemente vicioso; y dentro de su impuro ser no hay vicio que no llegue a la plenitud. Porque de no ser así, no sería el diablo un diablo completo, sino un diablo a medias.

De donde resulta, que el diablo es jugador y, por añadidura, jugador tramposo: pudiéramos decir que es el gran tahúr de los abismos.

El diablo es, además, envidioso, porque en su perverso seno se agitan todas las malas pasiones. Y en él la envidia es infinita: como que envidia al cielo y a los que en él moran. Si sus envidias fueran vulgares no pasaría de ser un pobre diablo: cualquier pobre diablo es envidioso.

Y he aquí por qué en estos días de navidad se exacerban las torturas que constantemente sufre el espíritu de las tinieblas.

Envidia las santas alegrías de la nochebuena, y hasta envidia los más vulgares regocijos y las emociones más vulgares de este día, único en el año, porque es el único en que se sabe de fijo que ha de tener una buena noche.

Y como el diablo es jugador y el diablo es envidioso, una de las cosas que más le revuelven las infernales entrañas es la lotería de navidad.

El diablo quisiera tener su lotería con su gremio gordo y hasta con sus aproximaciones.

Después de mucho pensarlo —porque el diablo no escarmienta y tiene todavía la fatal manía de pensar—, decidió que su deseo de tener una lotería propia llegase hasta el trono del Altísimo; y para ello quiso ponerse en comunicación con un ángel que allá, en tiempos mejores, cuando él era ángel todavía y de los más hermosos, había sido gran amigo suyo.

Era el amanecer de un día de otoño. La noche iba recogiendo sus velos; el oriente se teñía con las tintas rosadas de la aurora; pero el tiempo estaba revuelto; y allá, en los confines del horizonte por donde el sol asoma, oscuros nubarrones estaban en contacto casi con neblinas rosadas; la sombra y la luz se tocaban en la indecisa frontera del crepúsculo matutino.

Bien sabía el diablo dónde encontrar al ángel, y a través del firmamento, todavía oscuro, tendió su vuelo, azotando con alas de murciélago las densas nubes, que por todas partes se extendían, llegando de este modo al fin de las tinieblas.

En el borde de la última nube sombría se acurrucó, y en la primera nube de color de rosa que estaba más allá, vio al ángel, su amigo, aleteando en plena luz y bañando en oro y grana sus blanquísimas alas.

Eugene Field: The Werewolf

IN the reign of Egbert the Saxon there dwelt in Britain a maiden named Yseult, who was beloved of all, both for her goodness and for her beauty. But, though many a youth came wooing her, she loved Harold only, and to him she plighted her troth.

Among the other youth of whom Yseult was beloved was Alfred, and he was sore angered that Yseult showed favor to Harold, so that one day Alfred said to Harold: "Is it right that old Siegfried should come from his grave and have Yseult to wife?" Then added he, "Prithee, good sir, why do you turn so white when I speak your grandsire's name?"

Then Harold asked, "What know you of Siegfried that you taunt me? What memory of him should vex me now?"

"We know and we know," retorted Alfred. "There are some tales told us by our grandmas we have not forgot."

So ever after that Alfred's words and Alfred's bitter smile haunted Harold by day and night.

Harold's grandsire, Siegfried the Teuton, had been a man of cruel violence. The legend said that a curse rested upon him, and that at certain times he was possessed of an evil spirit that wreaked its fury on mankind. But Siegfried had been dead full many years, and there was naught to mind the world of him save the legend and a cunning-wrought spear which he had from Brunehilde, the witch. This spear was such a weapon that it never lost its brightness, nor had its point been blunted. It hung in Harold's chamber, and it was the marvel among weapons of that time.

Yseult knew that Alfred loved her, but she did not know of the bitter words which Alfred had spoken to Harold. Her love for Harold was perfect in its trust and gentleness. But Alfred had hit the truth: the curse of old Siegfried was upon Harold — slumbering a century, it had awakened in the blood of the grandson, and Harold knew the curse that was upon him, and it was this that seemed to stand between him and Yseult. But love is stronger than all else, and Harold loved.

Harold did not tell Yseult of the curse that was upon him, for he feared that she would not love him if she knew. Whensoever he felt the fire of the curse burning in his veins he would say to her, "To-morrow I hunt the wild boar in the uttermost forest," or, "Next week I go stag-stalking among the distant northern hills." Even so it was that he ever made good excuse for his absence, and Yseult thought no evil things, for she was trustful; ay though he went many times away and was long gone, Yseult suspected no wrong. So none beheld Harold when the curse was upon him in its violence.

Luis Taboada: El pavo de Navidad o la falta de costumbre

I

Don Silverio, el auxiliar de la clase de segundos, tiene una hermana en Crevillente, casada con un fabricante de estera de cordelillo que está muy bien, y este año la hermana quiso obsequiar a don Silverio y le envío un pavo, color de canela, que llegó, franco de porte, el día 23 por la mañana.

Don Silverio experimentó una dulce sorpresa y al ver el pavo se le humedecieron los ojos y se le cayeron las lágrimas cuando leyó la carta siguiente:

«Mi querido Silverio: te remito el adjunto pavo para que veas que te tenemos en la memoria mi marido y yo. Es muy sanito y muy manso. Podéis comerlo con toda confianza porque está criado, como quien dice, a nuestros pechos. Como no tenemos hijos, nos encariñamos con todos los animales.

»Va pagado el porte y te incluyo el talón, juntamente con el cariño de tu hermana, Dorotea».

—¡Es muy buena! —dijo don Silverio, contemplando la carta con los ojos húmedos.

—¡Gracias a Dios que se ha acordado de nosotros! —añadió la esposa de don Silverio—. Es el primer año que nos obsequia, y no será por falta de posibles, pues dicen todos los de Crevillente ¡que gasta un lujo!…

A todo esto, el pavo, rotas las ligaduras que le aprisionaban, se había arrimado a un baúl, como si le faltaran las fuerzas, y miraba dulcemente a don Silverio y a su esposa.

—¡Qué limpio es! —exclamó don Silverio—. ¡Cómo se conoce que ha sido criado en una casa decente!

El pavo levantó la cabeza en señal de gratitud y don Silverio, que es el corazón más generoso y el hombre más sensible de este mundo, sintió que se le ponía un nudo en la garganta.

—Parece que se entera de lo que estamos diciendo. ¡Animalito! — objetó la esposa.

—¿Quién sabe? — murmuró don Silverio.

La presencia del pavo había reverdecido los recuerdos de su juventud y al contemplarlo silencioso, arrimado al cofre, acudió a su mente la imagen de Dorotea, que siempre había sido muy sosa.

—¿Sabes lo que se me ocurre? —dijo don Silverio—. Que este pavo se parece a alguien de mi familia.

Frederick Marryat: The Legend Of The Bell Rock

There was a grand procession through the streets of the two towns of Perth and Dundee. The holy abbots, in their robes, walked under gilded canopies, the monks chanted, the censers were thrown, flags and banners were carried by seamen, lighted tapers by penitents; St. Antonio, the patron of those who trust to the stormy ocean, was carried in all pomp through the streets; and, as the procession passed, coins of various value were thrown down by those who watched it from the windows, and, as fast as thrown were collected by little boys dressed as angels, and holding silver vessels to receive the largesses. During the whole day did the procession continue, and large was the treasure collected in the two towns. Every one gave freely, for there were few, indeed none, who, if not in their own circle, at least among their acquaintances, had to deplore the loss of some one dear to them, or to those they visited, from the dangerous rock which lay in the very track of all the vessels entering the Firth of Tay.

These processions had been arranged, that a sufficient sum of money might be collected to enable them to put in execution a plan proposed by an adventurous and bold young seaman, in a council held for the purpose, of fixing a bell on the rock, which could be so arranged that the slightest breath of wind would cause the hammer of it to sound, and thus, by its tolling, warn the mariner of his danger; and the sums given were more than sufficient. A meeting was then held, and it was unanimously agreed that Andrew M'Clise should be charged with the commission to go over to Amsterdam, and purchase the bell of a merchant residing there, whom Andrew stated to have one in his possession, which, from its fine tone and size, was exactly calculated for the purport to which it was to be appropriated.

Andrew M'Clise embarked with the money, and made a prosperous voyage. He had often been at Amsterdam, and had lived with the merchant, whose name was Vandermaclin; and the attention to his affairs, the dexterity and the rapidity of the movements of Andrew M'Clise, had often elicited the warmest encomiums of Mynheer Vandermaclin; and many evenings had Andrew M'Clise passed with him, drinking in moderation their favourite scheedam, and indulging in the meditative merschaum. Vandermaclin had often wished that he had a son like Andrew M'Clise, to whom he could leave his property, with the full assurance that the heap would not be scattered, but greatly added to.

Vandermaclin was a widower. He had but one daughter, who was now just arrived at an age to return from the pension to her father's house, and take upon herself the domestic duties. M'Clise had never yet seen the beautiful Katerina.

Jorge Luis Borges: El Libro de Arena

La línea consta de un número infinito de puntos; el plano, de un número infinito de líneas; el volumen, de un número infinito de planos; el hipervolumen, de un número infinito de volúmenes... No, decididamente no es éste, more geométrico, el mejor modo de iniciar mi relato. Afirmar que es verídico es ahora una convención de todo relato fantástico; el mío, sin embargo, es verídico.

Yo vivo solo, en un cuarto piso de la calle Belgrano. Hará unos meses, al atardecer, oí un golpe en la puerta. Abrí y entró un desconocido. Era un hombre alto, de rasgos desdibujados. Acaso mi miopía los vio así. Todo su aspecto era de pobreza decente. Estaba de gris y traía una valija gris en la mano. En seguida sentí que era extranjero. Al principio lo creí viejo; luego advertí que me había engañado su escaso pelo rubio, casi blanco, a la manera escandinava. En el curso de nuestra conversación, que no duraría una hora, supe que procedía de las Orcadas.

Le señalé una silla. El hombre tardó un rato en hablar. Exhalaba melancolía, como yo ahora.

- Vendo biblias - me dijo.

No sin pedantería le contesté:

- En esta casa hay algunas biblias inglesas, incluso la primera, la de John Wiclif. Tengo asimismo la de Cipriano de Valera, la de Lutero, que literariamente es la peor, y un ejemplar latino de la Vulgata. Como usted ve, no son precisamente biblias lo que me falta.

Al cabo de un silencio me contestó:

- No sólo vendo biblias. Puedo mostrarle un libro sagrado que tal vez le interese. Lo adquirí en los confines de Bikanir.

Abrió la valija y lo dejó sobre la mesa. Era un volumen en octavo, encuadernado en tela. Sin duda había pasado por muchas manos. Lo examiné; su inusitado peso me sorprendió. En el lomo decía Holy Writ y abajo Bombay.

- Será del siglo diecinueve - observé.

- No sé. No lo he sabido nunca - fue la respuesta.

Lo abrí al azar. Los caracteres me eran extraños. Las páginas, que me parecieron gastadas y de pobre tipografía, estaban impresas a dos columnas a la manera de una biblia. El texto era apretado y estaba ordenado en versículos. En el ángulo superior de las páginas había cifras arábigas. Me llamó la atención que la página par llevara el número (digamos) 40.514 y la impar, la siguiente, 999. La volví; el dorso estaba numerado con ocho cifras. Llevaba una pequeña ilustración, como es de uso en los diccionarios: un ancla dibujada a la pluma, como por la torpe mano de un niño.

Fue entonces que el desconocido me dijo:

Conrad Aiken: Strange Moonlight

It had been a tremendous week—colossal. Its reverberations around him hardly yet slept—his slightest motion or thought made a vast symphony of them, like a breeze in a forest of bells. In the first place, he had filched a volume of Poe’s tales from his mother's bookcase, and had had in consequence a delirious night in inferno. Down, down he had gone with heavy clangs about him, coiling spouts of fire licking dryly at an iron sky, and a strange companion, of protean shape and size, walking and talking beside him. For the most part, this companion seemed to be nothing but a voice and a wingnan enormous jagged black wing, soft and drooping like a bat's; he had noticed veins in it. As for the voice, it had been singularly gentle. If it was mysterious, that was no doubt because he himself was stupid. Certainly it had sounded placid and reasonahle, exactly, in fact, like his father’s explainifig a problem in mathematics; but, though he had noticed the orderly and logical structure, and felt the inevitable approach toward a vast and beautiful or terrible conclusion, the nature and meaning of the conclusion itself always escaped him. It was as

if, always, he had come just too late. When, for example, he had come at last to the black wall that inclosed the infernal city, and seen the arched gate, the voice had certainly said that if he hurried he would see, through the arch, a far, low landscape of extraordinary'wonder. He had hurried, but it haéi been in vain. He had reached the gate, and for the tiniest fraction of an instant he had even glimpsed the wide green of fields and trees, a winding blue ribbon of water, and a gleam of intense light touching to brilliance some far object. But then, before he had time to notice more than that every detail in this fairy landscape seemed to lead toward a single shining solution, a dazzling significance, suddenly the internal rain, streaked fire and rolling smoke, had swept it away. Then the voice had seemed to become ironic. He had failed, and he felt like crying.

He had still, the next morning, felt that he might, if the opportunity offered, see that vision. It was always just round the corner, just at the head of the stairs, just over the next page. But other adventures had intervened. Prize-day, at school, had come upon him as suddenly as a thunderstorm—the ominous hushed gathering of the entire school into one large room, the tense air of expectancy, the solemn speeches, all had reduced him to a state of acute terror. There was something unintelligible and sinister about it. He had, from first to last, a peculiar

physical sensation that something threatened him, and here and there, in the interminable vague speeches, a word seemed to have eyes and to stare at him. His prescience had'been correct—abruptly his name had been called, he had walked unsteadily amid applause to the teacher's desk, had received a small black pasteboard box; and then had cowered in his chair again, with the blood in his temples beating like gongs. When items over, he had literallyr run away—he didn’t stop till he reached the park. There, among the tombstones (the park had once been a graveyard) and trumpet-vines, he sat on the grass and opened the box. He was dazzled. The medal was of gold, and rested on a tiny blue satin cushion. His name was engraved on it—yes, actually cut into thegold; he felt the incisions with his fingernail. It was an experience not wholly to he comprehended. He put the box down in the grass and detached himself from it, lay full length, resting his chin on his wrist, and stared first at a tombstone and then at the small gold object, as if to discover the relation between them. Humming-birds, tombstones, trumpet-vines, and a gold medal. Amazing. He unpinned the medal from its cushion, put the box in his pocket, and walked slowly homeward, carrying the small, live, gleaming thing between fingers and thumb as if it were a bee. This was an experience to be carefully concealed from mother and father. Possibly he would tell Mary and John. . . . Unfortunately, he met his father as he was going in the door, and was thereafter drowned, for a day, in a glory without significance. He felt ashamed, and put the medal away in a drawer, sternly forbidding Mary and John to look at it. Even so, he was horribly conscious of it—its presence there burned him unceasingly. Nothing afforded escape from it, not even sitting under the peach tree and whittling a boat.