Amado Nervo: El diablo desinteresado

- I -

Cipriano de Urquijo, muchacho hispanoamericano, llegó a París hace pocos años, con el propósito de ser el pintor 10.801° de los que albergaba la Ciudad-Luz, donde, según las estadísticas, había la sazón diez mil ochocientos (número cerrado).

Buscó en el barrio de Montparnasse uno de esos modestos «estudios», a los que da acceso un patinillo con toldo rústico de trepadoras.

El estudio estaba dividido en dos compartimientos por una cortina de cretona. Detrás de la cortina, sobre una especie de andamio, al que se subía por una escalerilla de madera, se hallaba el dormitorio, compuesto de un catre-jaula, un lavabo comprado por cinco francos en el bazar de la Gaîté, y una mesa de noche, de pino, sin pintar; sobre la cual se posaba majestuosamente la lámpara.

En la parte anterior de la habitación estaba el estudio propiamente dicho, ¿Describirlo? ¡Para qué!, o a quoi bon!, si le place más al lector, quien, sin duda, habrá conocido diez mil ochocientos estudios de este género, o si la cifra le parece exagerada, cinco mil cuatrocientos, dos mil setecientos, mil trescientos cincuenta...

Baste decir que había un biombo, fabricado y pintado por Cipriano; algunos lienzos del joven artista; estampas viejas, persas, japonesas; tres o cuatro chucherías sobre mesitas y repisas; un viejo diván con su corte de sillas, adquiridas en diversas subastas, con lo cual dicho está que cada una acusaba una «fisonomía propia», etc., etc., etc.

Por lo demás, yo no sé con qué objeto estoy describiendo el estudio de Cipriano de Urquijo, puesto que en el instante en el lector va a trabar conocimiento con el artista, éste ha salido...

Sí, ha salido; por lo que no le haremos una visita en la rue Campagne-Prémiére, donde vive, sino que le encontraremos en el Bulevar Malesherbes, tan distante de aquélla.

Es una tarde otoñal y nubilosa; una de esas tardes envueltas en cendales tenues, que tanto enmisterian (perdón por el verbo) y envaguecen las deliciosas perspectivas de París.

Cipriano de Urquijo pasea por el ancho bulevar silencioso.

Vamos a decirlo de una vez: Cipriano de Urquijo está enamorado, está bestialmente enamorado (lo de bestial es sólo ponderar).

Algernon Blackwood: The olive

He laughed involuntarily as the olive rolled towards his chair across the shiny parquet floor of the hotel dining-room.

His table in the cavernous _salle à manger_ was apart: he sat alone, a solitary guest; the table from which the olive fell and rolled towards him was some distance away. The angle, however, made him an unlikely objective. Yet the lob-sided, juicy thing, after hesitating once or twice _en route_ as it plopped along, came to rest finally against his feet.

It settled with an inviting, almost an aggressive air. And he stooped and picked it up, putting it rather self-consciously, because of the girl from whose table it had come, on the white tablecloth beside his plate.

Then, looking up, he caught her eye, and saw that she too was laughing, though not a bit self-consciously. As she helped herself to the _hors d'oeuvres_ a false move had sent it flying. She watched him pick the olive up and set it beside his plate. Her eyes then suddenly looked away again--at her mother--questioningly.

The incident was closed. But the little oblong, succulent olive lay beside his plate, so that his fingers played with it. He fingered it automatically from time to time until his lonely meal was finished.

When no one was looking he slipped it into his pocket, as though, having taken the trouble to pick it up, this was the very least he could do with it. Heaven alone knows why, but he then took it upstairs with him, setting it on the marble mantelpiece among his field glasses, tobacco tins, ink-bottles, pipes and candlestick. At any rate, he kept it--the moist, shiny, lob-sided, juicy little oblong olive. The hotel lounge wearied him; he came to his room after dinner to smoke at his ease, his coat off and his feet on a chair; to read another chapter of Freud, to write a letter or two he didn't in the least want to write, and then go to bed at ten o'clock. But this evening the olive kept rolling between him and the thing he read; it rolled between the paragraphs, between the lines; the olive was more vital than the interest of these eternal "complexes" and "suppressed desires."

The truth was that he kept seeing the eyes of the laughing girl beyond the bouncing olive. She had smiled at him in such a natural, spontaneous, friendly way before her mother's glance had checked her--a smile, he felt, that might lead to acquaintance on the morrow.

He wondered! A thrill of possible adventure ran through him.

She was a merry-looking sort of girl, with a happy, half-roguish face that seemed on the lookout for somebody to play with. Her mother, like most of the people in the big hotel, was an invalid; the girl, a

dutiful and patient daughter. They had arrived that very day apparently. A laugh is a revealing thing, he thought as he fell asleep to dream of a lob-sided olive rolling consciously towards him, and of a

girl's eyes that watched its awkward movements, then looked up into his own and laughed. In his dream the olive had been deliberately and cleverly dispatched upon its uncertain journey. It was a message.

Ricardo Palma: Don Dimas de la Tijereta

Cuento de viejas que trata de cómo un escribano le ganó un pleito al diablo

I

Érase que se era y el mal que se vaya y el bien se nos venga, que allá por los primeros años del pasado siglo existía, en pleno portal de Escribanos de las tres veces coronada ciudad de los Reyes del Perú, un cartulario de antiparras cabalgadas sobre nariz ciceroniana, pluma de ganso u otra ave de rapiña, tintero de cuerno, gregüescos de paño azul a media pierna, jubón de tiritaña, y capa española de color parecido a Dios en lo incomprensible, y que le había llegado por legítima herencia pasando de padres a hijos durante tres generaciones.

Conocíale el pueblo por tocayo del buen ladrón a quien don Jesucristo dio pasaporte para entrar en la gloria; pues nombrábase don Dimas de la Tijereta, escribano de número de la Real Audiencia y hombre que, a fuerza de dar fe, se había quedado sin pizca de fe, porque en el oficio gastó en breve la poca que trajo al mundo.

Decíase de él que tenía más trastienda que un bodegón, más camándulas que el rosario de Jerusalén que cargaba al cuello, y más doblas de a ocho, fruto de sus triquiñuelas, embustes y trocatintas, que las que cabían en el último galeón que zarpó para Cádiz y de que daba cuenta la Gaceta. Acaso fue por él por quien dijo un caquiversista lo de

Un escribano y un gato

en un pozo se cayeron;

como los dos tenían uñas

por la pared se subieron.

Fama es que a tal punto habíase apoderado del escribano los tres enemigos del alma, que la suya estaba tal de zurcidos y remiendos que no la reconociera su Divina Majestad, con ser quien es y con haberla creado. Y tengo para mis adentros que si le hubiera venido en antojo al Ser Supremo llamarla a juicio, habría exclamado con sorpresa: -Dimas, ¡qué has hecho del alma que te di?

Ello es que el escribano, en punto a picardías era la flor y nata de la gente del oficio, y que si no tenía el malo por donde desecharlo, tampoco el ángel de la guarda hallaría asidero a su espíritu para transportarlo al cielo cuando le llegara el lance de las postrimerías.

Cuentan de su merced que siendo mayordomo del gremio, en una fiesta costeada por los escribanos, a la mitad del sermón acertó a caer un gato desde la cornisa del templo, lo que perturbó al predicador y arremolinó al auditorio. Pero don Dimas restableció al punto la tranquilidad, gritando: -No hay motivo para barullo, caballeros. Adviertan que el que ha caído es un cofrade de esta ilustre congregación, que ciertamente ha delinquido en venir un poco tarde a la fiesta. Siga ahora su reverencia con el sermón.

Todos los gremios tienen por patrono a un santo que ejerció sobre la tierra el mismo oficio o profesión; pero ni en el martirologio romano existe santo que hubiera sido escribano, pues si lo fue o no lo fue San Apronianos está todavía en veremos y proveeremos. Los pobrecitos no tienen en el cielo camarada que por ellos interceda.

Sir Edmund C. Cox: The Rajapur case

WHEN I look back on my thirty years of Police work in India, one of the points which impresses itself most forcibly upon my memory is the extraordinary absence of regard for the value of human life displayed by the natives of that country. Murders are of the commonest occurrence; and in the generality of cases the motives are of an utterly trivial nature. A woman complains to her husband that a neighbour has annoyed her when she was drawing water from village well. The husband promptly shoulders an axe, and puts an end to the offender. A man kills his wife because she does not cook his food to his liking. A woman on bad terms with her husband throws her child into a well, and reports to the police that her man is the murderer. The divorce laws are seldom appealed to — a stab in the back being a simpler remedy for any infringement of the marriage bond than that afforded by the law. I remember scores of cases in which children were murdered for their ornaments — worth, possibly, two or three rupees. A girl jealous of her lover will kill the whole family, either of her lover or of her rival, reckless of the consequent deaths of persons against whom she has no grudge. Most of these cases are uninteresting, and sordid in their details; but there are some I find recorded in my note-book which possess features that make them worthy of narration. Such a case was the murder Damodhar.

  It was the beginning of the cold weather. The roasting that we had endured in the hot season, and the boiling and the stewing that we had undergone in the monsoon, were forgotten, for were there not before us four months of delightful climate and enjoyable life? The tents are brought out, pitched, and inspected; and the damage caused by the wear and tear of the last camping season investigated. The amount of repairs needed each year is indeed wonderful. Down come the tents again; and an army of durzies and moochies (leather workers) takes charge of them for a week or more, until the last tent is repaired and the final patch sewn on. Guns and rifles are cleaned, and cartridges loaded for the destruction of game, both big and small. Boxes of stores, books, clothing, glass, crockery, and kit of the most miscellaneous description are packed; and great is the satisfaction of all when the preparations are complete, and boxes and tents are loaded on a train of creaking bullock carts. Off they go at last. It is ten o'clock at night, and they will trundle on at the rate of a little more than two miles an hour until they arrive at the first camp by four in the morning, when, after a short rest, the orderlies, servants, and cartmen will use their best efforts to have the camp ready for the Sahib by the time he comes. The Sahib and the Mem-sahib, if there be one, are up betimes, and in the saddle without delay, for the sun is still hot after nine or ten o'clock, and an early arrival is advisable. Oh the joy of those early morning rides in the fresh, keen November air! Never mind how many years one has served, and how disappointing the result, one felt young and light-hearted as ever, cantering along past many topes and palm trees, now and then starting a jackal or fox from his lair.

  It was my first Sunday in camp, and I had promised myself a shoot over a fine jheel a few miles off. There was excellent khubber of duck, and snipe were said to abound in the neighbouring rice-fields. But before I could start on my excursion I was told that a constable had arrived on urgent business from the Police post at Deoghar. I at once sent for him and told him to report what had happened. He informed me that a dacoity had been committed in the preceding night at Rajapur, a large village but two miles from the Police post, and five from my camp. One man, he said, had been killed by the dacoity, two of whom had been arrested and had confessed their guilt. The Head Constable of the outpost was at the scene of the crime making further investigations. More than this he did not know.

Shailesh Matiyani ( शैलेश मटियानी ): Exorcism ( प्रेत-मुक्ति )

केवल पांडे आधी नदी पार कर चुके थे। घाट के ऊपर के पाट में अब, उतरते चातुर्मासा में सिर्फ घुटनों तक पानी है, हालाँकि फिर भी अच्छा खासा वेग है धारा में। एकाएक ही मन में आया कि संध्याकाल के सूर्य देवता को नमस्कार करें। जलांजलि छोड़ने के लिए पूर्वाभिमुख होते ही, सूर्य और आँखों के मध्य कुछ धूमकेतु-सा विद्यमान दिखाई दे गया। ध्यान देने पर देखा, उत्तर की ओर जो शूद्रों का श्मशान है, बौंड़सी, वहीं से धुआँ ऊपर उठ रहा है और, हवा के प्रवाह की दिशा में धनुषाकार झुककर, छिदिर-मंदिर बादलों का सा गुच्छा बनाता, सूर्य के समानांतर धूमकेतु की तरह लटक गया है!

ओम् विष्णुविष्णुविष्णु...

केवल पांडे के घुटने पानी के अंदर ही आपस में टकरा गए और अंजलि में भरा जल ढीली पड़ी उँगलियों में से रीत कर, नदी में ही विलीन हो गया। उनके अर्द्धचेतन में कही से एक आशंका तेजी से उठी - 'बेचारा किसनराम ही तो नहीं मर गया?'

किसनराम की स्मृति में होते ही अपने घुटने नदी के जलप्रवाह में प्रकंपित होते-से मालूम पड़े। पुरोहित पं. केवलानंद पांडे को लगा कि उनके और सूर्य के बीच में धूमकेतु नहीं, बल्कि उनके हलिया किसनराम की आत्मा प्रेत की तरह लटकी हुई है। कुछ क्षण सुँयाल नदी के जल से अधिक अपने ही में डूबे रह गए। किसनराम के मरे होने का अनुमान जाने कैसे अपना पूरा वितान गढ़ता गया। गले में झूलता यज्ञोपवीत, माथे में चंदन-तिलक और रक्त में घुला-सा जातीय संस्कार। बार-बार अनुभव हो रहा था कि ऊपर श्मशान में अछूत के शव की अस्थि-मज्जा को बहाकर लाती सुँयाल नदी का निषिद्ध जल उनके पाँवों से टकरा रहा है। हो सकता है, ऊपर से अधजला मुर्दा ही नीचे को बहा दिया जाए और वहीं पाँवों से टकरा जाए? ...नदी के तेज प्रवाह में लकड़ी के स्लीपर की तरह घूमते और बहते जाते शव उन्होंने कई बार देखे हैं। विशेषकर बनारस में संस्कृत पढ़ने के दिनों में।

हालाँकि इधर से सुँयाल पार करते ही, गाँव से लगा अरण्य, प्रारंभ हो जाता है। अब सूर्यास्त के आस-पास के समय, ऊँचे-ऊँचे चीड़-वृक्षों की छायाएँ पूर्व की ओर प्रतिच्छायित हो रही थीं। दूर ढलानों पर गाय-बकरियों के झुंड चरते दिखाई पड़ रहे थे। कुछ देर योंही दूर तक देखते, आखिर नदी पार करके अपने गाँव की ओर बढ़ने की जगह, केवल पांडे तेजी से इस पार ही लौट आए।

Horacio Quiroga: El perro rabioso

Horacio Quiroga por Juan Carlos Soto

El 20 de marzo de este año, los vecinos de un pueblo del Chaco santafecino persiguieron a un hombre rabioso que en pos de descargar su escopeta contra su mujer, mató de un tiro a un peón que cruzaba delante de él. Los vecinos, armados, lo rastrearon en el monte como a una fiera, hallándolo por fin trepado en un árbol, con su escopeta aún, y aullando de un modo horrible. Viéronse en la necesidad de matarlo de un tiro.

* * * * *

Marzo 9

Hoy hace treinta y nueve días, hora por hora, que el perro rabioso entró de noche en nuestro cuarto. Si un recuerdo ha de perdurar en mi memoria, es el de las dos horas que siguieron a aquel momento.

La casa no tenía puertas sino en la pieza que habitaba mamá, pues como había dado desde el principio en tener miedo, no hice otra cosa, en los primeros días de urgente instalación, que aserrar tablas para las puertas y ventanas de su cuarto. En el nuestro, y a la espera de mayor desahogo de trabajo, mi mujer se había contentado -verdad que bajo un poco de presión por mi parte- con magníficas puertas de arpillera. Como estábamos en verano, este detalle de riguroso ornamento no dañaba nuestra salud ni nuestro miedo. Por una de estas arpilleras, la que da al corredor central, fue por donde entró y me mordió el perro rabioso.

Yo no sé si el alarido de un epiléptico da a los demás la sensación de clamor bestial y fuera de toda humanidad que me produce a mí. Pero estoy seguro de que el aullido de un perro rabioso, que se obstina de noche alrededor de nuestra casa, provocará en todos la misma fúnebre angustia. Es un grito corto, metálico, de agonía, como si el animal boqueara ya, y todo él empapado en cuanto de lúgubre sugiere un animal rabioso.

Era un perro negro, grande, con las orejas cortadas. Y para mayor contrariedad, desde que llegáramos no había hecho más que llover. El monte cerrado por el agua, las tardes rápidas y tristísimas; apenas salíamos de casa, mientras la desolación del campo, en un temporal sin tregua, había ensombrecido al exceso el espíritu de mamá.

Fernando Iwasaki: Las reliquias

Cuando la madre Angelines murió, las campanas del convento doblaron mientras un delicado perfume se esparcía por todo el claustro desde su celda. «Son las señales de su santidad», proclamó sobrecogida la madre superiora.«Nuestro tesoro será descubierto y ahora el populacho vendrá en busca de reliquias y el arzobispo nos quitará su divino cuerpo». Después del santo rosario nos arrodillamos  junto a ella. Hasta sus huesos eran dulces.

Rudyard Kipling: The City of Dreadful Night

THE DENSE wet heat that hung over the face of land, like a blanket, prevented all hope of sleep in the first instance. The cicalas helped the heat, and the yelling jackals the cicalas. It was impossible to sit still in the dark, empty, echoing house and watch the punkah beat the dead air. So, at ten o’clock of the night, I set my walking-stick on end in the middle of the garden, and waited to see how it would fall. It pointed directly down the moonlit road that leads to the City of Dreadful Night. The sound of its fall disturbed a hare. She limped from her form and ran across to a disused Mahomedan burial-ground, where the jawless skulls and rough-butted shank-bones, heartlessly exposed by the July rains, glimmered like mother o’ pearl on the rain-channelled soil. The heated air and the heavy earth had driven the very dead upward for coolness’ sake. The hare limped on; snuffed curiously at a fragment of a smoke-stained lamp-shard, and died out, in the shadow of a clump of tamarisk trees.

The mat-weaver’s hut under the lee of the Hindu temple was full of sleeping men who lay like sheeted corpses. Overhead blazed the unwinking eye of the Moon. Darkness gives at least a false impression of coolness. It was hard not to believe that the flood of light from above was warm. Not so hot as the Sun, but still sickly warm, and heating the heavy air beyond what was our due. Straight as a bar of polished steel ran the road to the City of Dreadful Night; and on either side of the road lay corpses disposed on beds in fantastic attitudes—one hundred and seventy bodies of men. Some shrouded all in white with bound-up mouths; some naked and black as ebony in the strong light; and one—that lay face upwards with dropped jaw, far away from the others—silvery white and ashen gray.

‘A leper asleep; and the remainder wearied coolies, servants, small shopkeepers, and drivers from the hack-stand hard by. The scene—a main approach to Lahore city, and the night a warm one in August.’ This was all that there was to be seen; but by no means all that one could see. The witchery of the moonlight was everywhere; and the world was horribly changed. The long line of the naked dead, flanked by the rigid silver statue, was not pleasant to look upon. It was made up of men alone. Were the women-kind, then, forced to sleep in the shelter of the stifling mud-huts as best they might? The fretful wail of a child from a low mud-roof answered the question. Where the children are the mothers must be also to look after them. They need care on these sweltering nights. A black little bullet-head peeped over the coping, and a thin—a painfully thin—brown leg was slid over on to the gutter pipe. There was a sharp clink of glass bracelets; a woman’s arm showed for an instant above the parapet, twined itself round the lean little neck, and the child was dragged back, protesting, to the shelter of the bedstead. His thin, high-pitched shriek died out in the thick air almost as soon as it was raised; for even the children of the soil found it too hot to weep.

Antonio Rodríguez Almodóvar: La princesa mona

Había una vez... un rey que tenía tres hijos. Un día, cuando ya era viejo, muy viejo, los convocó a los tres y les dijo:

- Quiero que os marchéis por el mundo y el que me traiga la cosa más hermosa... que yo os diré, ése heredará mi corona.

- ¿Y qué quiere usted que le traigamos? - preguntaron los hijos.

- A ver quién me trae la toalla más preciosa - dijo el rey.

Y se marcharon los tres, cada cual en un caballo y por caminos distintos. Los dos mayores encontraron pronto lo que buscaban, pero al más pequeño se le hizo de noche y, a fuerza de andar, vio una luz a lo lejos. Era un caserío donde vivían muchas monas. Se acercó el príncipe y llamó a la puerta. Le abrió una mona muy vieja y le preguntó que qué quería.

- ¿Puedo pasar aquí esta noche? - preguntó el muchacho.

La mona entró a consultar y, al momento, salieron otras cuantas monas diciendo: “¡Qué pase! ¡Qué pase”. Una de ellas se dirigió a las demás ordenándoles que recogieran el caballo del príncipe y que prepararan la cena.

Pusieron una rica mesa, elegantemente vestida, con muy buenos manjares, y todas las monas comieron con el príncipe. Luego estuvieron jugaron a las cartas y todo eso. Y, cuando terminaron de jugar, la que mandaba dijo que lo llevaran a su habitación.

A la mañana siguiente, muy temprano, el príncipe ya se disponía a marcharse, cuando la mona vieja le preguntó que por qué se iba tan pronto. Salieron las demás y él les contó que tenía que seguir buscando un encargo para su padre, el rey.

- ¿Y qué encargo es ése? - preguntaron las monas.

Entonces el príncipe les contó lo que había dicho su padre a los tres hermanos y que tenía que llevar la toalla más preciosa. En seguida, la mona que mandaba dijo que le trajeran al príncipe el trapo de la cocina. Una mona muy fea, requetefea, cumplió la orden y trajo el trapo, que estaba todo manchado de grasa de las sartenes, lo que envolvió en otros trapos, todavía más sucios y asquerosos, y se lo entregó al príncipe.

El príncipe no dijo nada. Cogió aquel lío y se marchó muy preocupado. Cuando llegó al palacio, ya sus hermanos habían vuelto y le habían presentado al rey unas toallas muy bonitas. Conque el rey le dijo:

- Bueno, a ver qué has traído tú.

Richard Le Gallienne: The Haunted Orchard

Spring was once more in the world. As she sang to herself in the faraway woodlands her voice reached even the ears of the city, weary with the long winter. Daffodils flowered at the entrances to the Subway, furniture removing vans blocked the side streets, children clustered like blossoms on the doorsteps, the open cars were running, and the cry of the "cash clo'" man was once more heard in the land.

Yes, it was the spring, and the city dreamed wistfully of lilacs and the dewy piping of birds in gnarled old apple-trees, of dogwood lighting up with sudden silver the thickening woods, of water-plants unfolding their glossy scrolls in pools of morning freshness.

On Sunday mornings, the outbound trains were thronged with eager pilgrims, hastening out of the city, to behold once more the ancient marvel of the spring; and, on Sunday evenings, the railway termini were aflower with banners of blossom from rifled woodland and orchard carried in the hands of the returning pilgrims, whose eyes still shone with the spring magic, in whose ears still sang the fairy music.

And as I beheld these signs of the vernal equinox I knew that I, too, must follow the music, forsake awhile the beautiful siren we call the city, and in the green silences meet once more my sweetheart Solitude.

As the train drew out of the Grand Central, I hummed to myself,

"I've a neater, sweeter maiden, in a greener, cleaner land"

and so I said good-by to the city, and went forth with beating heart to meet the spring.

I had been told of an almost forgotten corner on the south coast of Connecticut, where the spring and I could live in an inviolate loneliness—a place uninhabited save by birds and blossoms, woods and thick grass, and an occasional silent farmer, and pervaded by the breath and shimmer of the Sound.

Nor had rumor lied, for when the train set me down at my destination I stepped out into the most wonderful green hush, a leafy Sabbath silence through which the very train, as it went farther on its way, seemed to steal as noiselessly as possible for fear of breaking the spell.

Ramón Gómez de la Serna: El negro condenado a muerte

Aquel negro había tenido la avilantez de amar a una blanca y eso, en la pulcra Yanquilandia, no se perdona.

Los jueces, que por algo se lavaban los dientes cuatro veces al día, pronunciaron una terrible sentencia condenatoria. El negro sería ejecutado por tres veces con macabra saña.

La noche de capilla fue aterradora para el pobre hombre empavonado, tan terrible que, cuando le llevaron a matar en la madrugada de ojos pitañosos, se había vuelto blanco.

Así como en la noche de la capilla última ha habido condenados que han encanecido por completo aun habiendo entrado pelijóvenes, el negro se había convertido en blanco.

En vista de eso, los jueces se reunieron en consejo urgente y como, al perder el color, el delito se había convertido en falta, optaron por casar a la pareja de blancos.

Tammy Ho Lai-ming ( 何丽明 ): Eyes

This morning, we eat cow eyes in the dark. They are stewed, served on plates, and have a strong ginger flavour. Last week we had chicken eyes in steamed rice rolls. They looked like oversized sesame seeds. When she feeds us, Mama reminds us that she was blind too, once, when she was young. But after eating a regular diet of animal eyes, her blindness disappeared. She often assures us that the same will happen to us.

I see better than other kids, because I have one good eye. My right eye has a dark brown pupil and the white is white like a showered rabbit. But my left eye is a lake of confused mist. At least that is what Mama says. It can only see very bright lights and swift-moving objects. But otherwise it is useless – it cannot even wink.

The rest of them do not see at all. Put a rock in front of them and they will trip on it. As I am older and can see with one eye, I have much authority in the bathing hall and the courtyard. I give directions to other kids: where to get the water buckets, how to pick corn. When Mama quits the house for chores, sometimes for days, I am the one in charge.

Mama is not our real mother. How could she give birth to so many kids? But she makes us call her Mama so that we will be loyal to her. Also there is her nurse friend who visits us every week. We call her Auntie Flower. She turns our heads, waves her hands before us, and presses her palm on our hearts to see if they are beating well.

Three days ago, we got another litter. There was nothing special about this. During my ten years' stay, I have seen hundreds of kids come and go. Most of them cry in the first few days. It is always worst in the evening when their cries mix with the sounds of the night: leaves rustling, wind whispering, furniture stretching its muscles. The weaker ones don't last long. They are led, or even dragged, out of the gate by Auntie Flower in a week or so. Wherever they go, it is not home.

The day before I came here, I was collecting firewood outside our house. I saw this woman, dressed in colours I had never seen before in our village, knocking on the neighbours' doors. She did not have much luck with them, and so I was surprised that my Mom admitted her into our house. Excited, I ran back home, eager to see who she was. I handed the tree branches to Grandma, who would burn them in the stove to make us mung-bean congee for breakfast.

The woman smiled at me, and I smiled back. Grandma wanted me to help her in the kitchen. Although reluctant, I obeyed. I sat on the kitchen floor, arranging the firewood into piles of varying sizes, while eavesdropping on the conversation in the next room. I used to remember much of that conversation, but now I can only remember one word: blind.

Charles Baudelaire: Portraits de maîtresses

Dans un boudoir d'hommes, c'est-à-dire dans un fumoir attenant à un élégant tripot, quatre hommes fumaient et buvaient. Ils n'étaient précisément ni jeunes ni vieux, ni beaux ni laids; mais vieux ou jeunes, ils portaient cette distinction non méconnaissable des vétérans de la joie, cet indescriptible je ne sais quoi, cette tristesse froide et railleuse qui dit clairement: "Nous avons fortement vécu, et nous cherchons ce que nous pourrions aimer et estimer."

L'un d'eux jeta la causerie sur le sujet des femmes. Il eût été plus philosophique de n'en pas parler du tout; mais il y a des gens d'esprit qui, après boire, ne méprisent pas les conversations banales. On écoute alors celui qui parle, comme on écouterait de la musique de danse.

"Tous les hommes, disait celui-ci, ont eu l'âge de Chérubin: c'est l'époque où, faute de dryades, on embrasse, sans dégoût, le tronc des chênes. C'est le premier degré de l'amour. Au second degré, on commence à choisir. Pouvoir délibérer, c'est déjà une décadence. C'est alors qu'on recherche décidément la beauté. Pour moi, messieurs, je me fais gloire d'être arrivé, depuis longtemps, à l'époque climatérique du troisième degré où la beauté elle-même ne suffit plus, si elle n'est assaisonnée par le parfum, la parure, et caetera. J'avouerai même que j'aspire quelquefois, comme à un bonheur inconnu, à un certain quatrième degré qui doit marquer le calme absolu. Mais, durant toute ma vie, excepté à l'âge de Chérubin, j'ai été plus sensible que tout autre à l'énervante sottise, à l'irritante médiocrité des femmes. Ce que j'aime surtout dans les animaux, c'est leur candeur. Jugez donc combien j'ai dû souffrir par ma dernière maîtresse.

"C'était la bâtarde d'un prince. Belle, cela va sans dire; sans cela, pourquoi l'aurais-je prise? Mais elle gâtait cette grande qualité par une ambition malséante et difforme. C'était une femme qui voulait toujours faire l'homme. " Vous n'êtes pas un homme! Ah! si j'étais un homme! De nous deux, c'est moi qui suis l'homme! " Tels étaient les insupportables refrains qui sortaient de cette bouche d'où je n'aurais voulu voir s'envoler que des chansons. A propos d'un livre, d'un poème, d'un opéra pour lequel le laissais échapper mon admiration: "Vous croyez peut-être que cela est très fort? disait-elle aussitôt; est-ce que vous vous connaissez en force?" et elle argumentait.

"Un beau jour elle s'est mise à la chimie; de sorte qu'entre ma bouche et la sienne je trouvai désormais un masque de verre. Avec tout cela, fort bégueule. Si parfois je la bousculais par un geste un peu trop amoureux, elle se convulsait comme une sensitive violée...

John Kendrick Bangs: The Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall

The trouble with Harrowby Hall was that it was haunted, what was worse, the ghost did not content itself with merely appearing at the bedside of the afflicted person who saw it, but persisted in remaining there for one mortal hour before it would disappear.

It never appeared except on Christmas eve, and then as the clock was striking twelve, in which respect alone was it lacking in that originality which in these days is a sine qua non of success in spectral life. The owners of Harrowby Hall had done their utmost to rid themselves of the damp and dewy lady who rose up out of the best bedroom floor at midnight, but without avail. They had tried stopping the clock, so that the ghost would not know when it was midnight; but she made her appearance just the same, with that fearful miasmatic personality of hers, and there she would stand until everything about her was thoroughly saturated.

Then the owners of Harrowby Hall calked up every crack in the floor with the very best quality of hemp, and over this were placed layers of tar and canvas; the walls were made waterproof, and the doors and windows likewise, the proprietors having conceived the notion that the unexorcised lady would find it difficult to leak into the room after these precautions had been taken; but even this did not suffice. The following Christmas eve she appeared as promptly as before, and frightened the occupant of the room quite out of his senses by sitting down alongside of him and gazing with her cavernous blue eyes into his; and he noticed, too, that in her long, aqueously bony fingers bits of dripping seaweed were entwined, the ends hanging down, and these ends she drew across his forehead until he became like one insane. And then he swooned away, and was found unconscious in his bed the next morning by his host, simply saturated with seawater and fright, from the combined effects of which he never recovered, dying four years later of pneumonia and nervous prostration at the age of seventy-eight.

The next year the master of Harrowby Hall decided not to have the best spare bedroom opened at all, thinking that perhaps the ghost's thirst for making herself disagreeable would be satisfied by haunting the furniture, but the plan was as unavailing as the many that had preceded it.

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The ghost appeared as usual in the room -- that is, it was supposed she did, for the hangings were dripping wet the next morning, and in the parlor below the haunted room a great damp spot appeared on the ceiling. Finding no one there, she immediately set out to learn the reason why, and she chose none other to haunt than the owner of the Harrowby himself. She found him in his own cozy room drinking whiskey -- whiskey undiluted -- and felicitating himself upon having foiled her ghostship, when all of a sudden the curl went out of his hair, his whiskey bottle filled and overflowed, and he was himself in a condition similar to that of a man who has fallen into a water-butt. When he recovered from the shock, which was a painful one, he saw before him the lady of the cavernous eyes and seaweed fingers. The sight was so unexpected and so terrifying that he fainted, but immediately came to, because of the vast amount of water in his hair, which, trickling down over his face, restored his consciousness.