Salomé Guadalupe Ingelmo: Levántate y anda

Lázarus 17 se pregunta cuánto tiempo logrará sobrevivir, cuánto se prolongará esa partida. Sabe que no existen demasiadas posibilidades de que dure mucho más que sus dieciséis predecesores. Pero él dispone de algo que ellos no tenían, él tiene fe. Él tiene una tarjeta de memoria con los recuerdos de una familia, una esposa y unos hijos que quizá no sean suyos, en el bolsillo. Y cada día, al insertarla en su nuca, el pequeño objeto le devuelve un poco de la vida perdida.

Se dispone a pasar la noche una vez más en ese paisaje decadente que se ha convertido en su hogar: estaciones de metro abandonadas, viejas casas en ruinas, alcantarillas…Se conforma con cualquier lugar donde pueda descansar unas pocas horas, en el que resguardarse de las insidias que le acechan.

Escruta el callejón en penumbra y le parece advertir que está despejado. El cansancio es tanto que ni siquiera repara en el bulto recostado contra los contenedores. Para cuando su implante de visión nocturna advierte la figura del vagabundo, ya es demasiado tarde. De debajo de la manta raída, el soldado disfrazado extrae un arma automática. Afortunadamente aún tiene el tiempo suficiente para lanzarse a tierra y esquivar las ráfagas. El único disparo de su vieja Mágnum le alcanza de lleno en el pecho y el cuerpo imponente se desintegra, estalla en una multitud de chispas fosforescentes espectaculares pero fugaces.

Lázarus 17 se pregunta cuándo se cansará Él de jugar, y si un día le permitirá regresar a casa. Porque Lázarus 17 no ha dejado nunca de creer que en efecto tiene un pasado y un hogar y una familia y un futuro que le espera en algún lugar, aunque parezca lejano e incierto. Porque Lázarus 17 tiene algo que sus dieciséis predecesores no tenían: él tiene fe y un improbable retrato de familia en el bolsillo.

Philip K. Dick: Paychek

ALL AT ONCE he was in motion. Around him smooth jets hummed. He was on a small private rocket cruiser, moving leisurely across the afternoon sky, between cities.
"Ugh!" he said, sitting up in his seat and rubbing his head. Beside him Earl Rethrick was staring keenly at him, his eyes bright.
"Coming around?"
"Where are we?" Jennings shook his head, trying to clear the dull ache. "Or maybe I should ask that a different way." Already, he could see that it was not late fall. It was spring. Below the cruiser the fields were green. The last thing he remembered was stepping into an elevator with Rethrick. And it was late fall. And in New York.
"Yes," Rethrick said. "It's almost two years later. You'll find a lot of things have changed. The Government fell a few months ago. The new Government is even stronger. The SP, Security Police, have almost unlimited power. They're teaching the schoolchildren to inform, now. But we all saw that coming. Let's see, what else? New York is larger. I understand they've finished filling in San Francisco Bay."
"What I want to know is what the hell I've been doing the last two years!" Jennings lit a cigarette nervously, pressing the strike end. "Will you tell me that?"
"No. Of course I won't tell you that."
"Where are we going?"
"Back to the New York Office. Where you first met me. Remember? You probably remember it better than I. After all, it was just a day or so ago for you."
Jennings nodded. Two years! Two years out of his life, gone forever. It didn't seem possible. He had still been considering, debating, when he stepped into the elevator. Should he change his mind? Even if he were getting that much money - and it was a lot, even for him - it didn't really seem worth it. He would always wonder what work he had been doing. Was it legal? Was it - But that was past speculation, now. Even while he was trying to make up his mind the curtain had fallen. He looked ruefully out the window at the afternoon sky. Below, the earth was moist and alive. Spring, spring two years later. And what did he have to show for the two years?
"Have I been paid?" he asked. He slipped his wallet out and glanced into it. "Apparently not."
"No. You'll be paid at the Office. Kelly will pay you."
"The whole works at once?"
"Fifty thousand credits."
Jennings smiled. He felt a little better, now that the sum had been spoken aloud. Maybe it wasn't so bad, after all. Almost like being paid to sleep. But he was two years older; he had just that much less to live. It was like selling part of himself, part of his life. And life was worth plenty, these days. He shrugged. Anyhow, it was in the past.

Horacio Quiroga: La insolación

Horacio Quiroga por Gustavo López

El cachorro Old salió por la puerta y atravesó el patio con paso recto y perezoso. Se detuvo en la linde del pasto, estiró al monte, entrecerrando los ojos, la nariz vibrátil, y se sentó tranquilo. Veía la monótona llanura del Chaco, con sus alternativas de campo y monte, monte y campo, sin más color que el crema del pasto y el negro del monte. Éste cerraba el horizonte, a doscientos metros, por tres lados de la chacra. Hacia el Oeste el campo se ensanchaba y extendía en abra, pero que la ineludible línea sombría enmarcaba a lo lejos.

A esa hora temprana, el confín, ofuscante de luz a mediodía, adquiría reposada nitidez. No había una nube ni un soplo de viento. Bajo la calma del cielo plateado el campo emanaba tónica frescura que traía al alma pensativa, ante la certeza de otro día de seca, melancolías de mejor compensado trabajo.

Milk, el padre del cachorro, cruzó a la vez el patio y se sentó al lado de aquél, con perezoso quejido de bienestar. Ambos permanecían inmóviles, pues aún no había moscas.

Old, que miraba hacía rato a la vera del monte, observó:

-La mañana es fresca.

Milk siguió la mirada del cachorro y quedó con la vista fija, parpadeando distraído. Después de un rato dijo:

-En aquel árbol hay dos halcones.

Volvieron la vista indiferente a un buey que pasaba y continuaron mirando por costumbre las cosas.

Entretanto, el Oriente comenzaba a empurpurarse en abanico, y el horizonte había perdido ya su matinal precisión. Milk cruzó las patas delanteras y al hacerlo sintió un leve dolor. Miró sus dedos sin moverse, decidiéndose por fin a olfatearlos. El día anterior se había sacado un pique, y en recuerdo de lo que había sufrido lamió extensamente el dedo enfermo.

-No podía caminar -exclamó en conclusión.

Old no comprendió a qué se refería. Milk agregó:

-Hay muchos piques.

Esta vez el cachorro comprendió. Y repuso por su cuenta, después de largo rato:

-Hay muchos piques.

Uno y otro callaron de nuevo, convencidos.

Charles Baudelaire: Le galant tireur

Comme la voiture traversait le bois, il la fit arrêter dans le voisinage d'un tir, disant qu'il lui serait agréable de tirer quelques balles pour tuer le Temps. Tuer ce monstre-là, n'est-ce pas l'occupation la plus ordinaire et la plus légitime de chacun? - Et il offrit galamment la main à sa chère, délicieuse et exécrable femme, à cette mystérieuse femme à laquelle il doit tant de plaisirs, tant de douleurs, et peut-être aussi une grande partie de son génie.

Plusieurs balles frappèrent loin du but proposé l'une d'elles s'enfonça même dans le plafond; et comme la charmante créature riait follement, se moquant de la maladresse de son époux, celui-ci se tourna brusquement vers elle, et lui dit: "Observez cette poupée, là-bas, à droite, qui porte le nez en l'air et qui a la mine si hautaine. Eh bien! cher ange, je me figure que c'est vous." Et il ferma les yeux et il lâcha la détente. La poupée fut nettement décapitée.

Alors s'inclinant vers sa chère, sa délicieuse, son exécrable femme, son inévitable et impitoyable Muse, et lui baisant respectueusement la main, il ajouta: "Ah! mon cher ange, combien je vous remercie de mon adresse!"

Mónica Lavín: Despistada

Tardaban en abrir la puerta. Verificó que el número del departamento fuera el correcto. Tantas veces había estado frente a una casa equivocada o acudido a una cita el día después que más le valía confirmar.

Sonrió acordándose de los tropiezos de su mente. De niña olvidaba los suéteres en la banca del colegio, de jovencita las gafas, los nombres de los maestros y los cumpleaños de los novios. El despiste había crecido con la edad. Un día regresó a casa en autobús, su marido sorprendido por la tardanza le preguntó por el auto: lo había dejado estacionado frente al trabajo. Repetidas veces trató de subirse a un coche ajeno y forcejeó con la cerradura hasta que el dueño la sorprendió.

Nadie abría la puerta. Se asomó por las ventanas.

Las persianas cerradas sólo enseñaban la capa de polvo sobre el esmalte.

Se hizo de noche. Las campanadas de la iglesia a los lejos la aclararon. Había olvidado su propia muerte.

Ambrose Bierce: Present at a Hanging

An old man named Daniel Baker, living near Lebanon, Iowa, was suspected by his neighbors of having murdered a peddler who had obtained permission to pass the night at his house. This was in 1853, when peddling was more common in the Western country than it is now, and was attended with considerable danger. The peddler with his pack traversed the country by all manner of lonely roads, and was compelled to rely upon the country people for hospitality. This brought him into relation with queer characters, some of whom were not altogether scrupulous in their methods of making a living, murder being an acceptable means to that end. It occasionally occurred that a peddler with diminished pack and swollen purse would be traced to the lonely dwelling of some rough character and never could be traced beyond. This was so in the case of “old man Baker,” as he was always called. (Such names are given in the western “settlements” only to elderly persons who are not esteemed; to the general disrepute of social unworth is affixed the special reproach of age.) A peddler came to his house and none went away - that is all that anybody knew.

Seven years later the Rev. Mr. Cummings, a Baptist minister well known in that part of the country, was driving by Baker’s farm one night. It was not very dark: there was a bit of moon somewhere above the light veil of mist that lay along the earth. Mr. Cummings, who was at all times a cheerful person, was whistling a tune, which he would occasionally interrupt to speak a word of friendly encouragement to his horse. As he came to a little bridge across a dry ravine he saw the figure of a man standing upon it, clearly outlined against the gray background of a misty forest. The man had something strapped on his back and carried a heavy stick - obviously an itinerant peddler. His attitude had in it a suggestion of abstraction, like that of a sleepwalker. Mr. Cummings reined in his horse when he arrived in front of him, gave him a pleasant salutation and invited him to a seat in the vehicle - “if you are going my way,” he added. The man raised his head, looked him full in the face, but neither answered nor made any further movement. The minister, with good-natured persistence, repeated his invitation. At this the man threw his right hand forward from his side and pointed downward as he stood on the extreme edge of the bridge. Mr. Cummings looked past him, over into the ravine, saw nothing unusual and withdrew his eyes to address the man again. He had disappeared. The horse, which all this time had been uncommonly restless, gave at the same moment a snort of terror and started to run away. Before he had regained control of the animal the minister was at the crest of the hill a hundred yards along. He looked back and saw the figure again, at the same place and in the same attitude as when he had first observed it. Then for the first time he was conscious of a sense of the supernatural and drove home as rapidly as his willing horse would go.

Sebastià Alzamora: La visión interior

Las primeras veces no le dio demasiada importancia. Le había sucedido que, en lugar de apearse en Fontana como de costumbre, lo había hecho una estación antes (en Diagonal) o una o dos después (en Lesseps o en Vallcarca). Entonces se recriminaba andar siempre tan distraído. Tan absorto, tan enfrascado, como le había dicho mil veces Muriel.

Empezó a preocuparse el día en que, al levantar la mirada de unos papeles que llevaba consigo, descubrió que había llegado a la estación de Poble Sec. Así pues, ¡había cogido la línea 3 en sentido contrario! Se trataba, sin duda, de una distracción de gran calibre, porque requería situarse en el andén equivocado. Descendió del vagón, pasó al otro lado y se puso a esperar el metro siguiente, mientras se hacía el firme propósito de prestar un poco más de atención a sus acciones.

Pero solo un día más tarde, al abrir los ojos (insólitamente había encontrado un asiento libre y se había entredormido, mecido por las sacudidas del tren) y hallarse en la parada de Urquinaona, se asustó de verdad. ¿Línea 4? Esta vez ya era demasiado, ¿dónde había ido a coger el metro? Se angustió al constatar hasta qué punto iba despistado por la vida, y se prometió que no le volvería a ocurrir. Pero la situación se fue repitiendo, y en días sucesivos apareció en estaciones de la línea 2 (Sant Antoni: tuvo que salir a la calle y tomarse un café en Els Tres Tombs para reponerse), de la misma línea 4 (una vez llegó hasta Joanic, y una señora le miró con malos ojos cuando le preguntó si no era Fontana) e incluso de la 5, una línea que creía que ya estaba fuera de servicio. Nunca lograba llegar a su destino a una hora razonable y ya había notado inequívocas miradas de desaprobación.

Le daba cierta vergüenza hablar de su problema, pero al final se decidió a comentarlo con su amigo Albert, el nihilista.

–Parece un caso de desubicación –opinó Albert–. Seguro que se relaciona con lo de tus ojos.

–¿Los ojos? –preguntó–. ¿Qué les pasa a mis ojos?

Albert le miró con gesto de sorpresa y extendiendo las palmas de las manos, como diciendo: “Pero, hombre…”

Neil Gaiman: Down to a Sunless Sea

The Thames is a filthy beast: it winds through London like a snake, or a sea serpent. All the rivers flow into it, the Fleet and the Tyburn and the Neckinger, carrying all the filth and scum and waste, the bodies of cats and dogs and the bones of sheep and pigs down into the brown water of the Thames, which carries them east into the estuary and from there into the North Sea and oblivion.

It is raining in London. The rain washes the dirt into the gutters, and it swells streams into rivers, rivers into powerful things. The rain is a noisy thing, splashing and pattering and rattling the rooftops. If it is clean water as it falls from the skies it only needs to touch London to become dirt, to stir dust and make it mud.

Nobody drinks it, neither the rain water nor the river water. They make jokes about Thames water killing you instantly, and it is not true. There are mudlarks who will dive deep for thrown pennies then come up again, spout the river water, shiver and hold up their coins. They do not die, of course, or not of that, although there are no mudlarks over fifteen years of age.

The woman does not appear to care about the rain.

She walks the Rotherhithe docks, as she has done for years, for decades: nobody knows how many years, because nobody cares. She walks the docks, or she stares out to sea. She examines the ships, as they bob at anchor. She must do something, to keep body and soul from dissolving their partnership, but none of the folk of the dock have the foggiest idea what this could be.

You take refuge from the deluge beneath a canvas awning put up by a sailmaker. You believe yourself to be alone under there, at first, for she is statue-still and staring out across the water, even though there is nothing to be seen through the curtain of rain. The far side of the Thames has vanished.

And then she sees you. She sees you and she begins to talk, not to you, oh no, but to the grey water that falls from the grey sky into the grey river. She says, "My son wanted to be a sailor," and you do not know what to reply, or how to reply. You would have to shout to make yourself heard over the roar of the rain, but she talks, and you listen. You discover yourself craning and straining to catch her words.

"My son wanted to be a sailor.

Joaquín Pasos: El ángel pobre

Tenía una expresión serenísima en su cara sucia. En cambio, una mirada muy atormentada en sus ojos limpios. La barba crecida de varios días. El cabello arreglado solamente con los dedos.

Cuando caminaba, con su paso cansado, las puntas de sus alas arrastraban de vez en cuando en el suelo. Jaime quería recortárselas un poco para que no se ensuciaran tanto en las últimas plumas, que ya estaban lastimosamente quebradas. Pero temía. Temía como se puede temer de tocar un ángel. Bañarlo, peinarlo, arreglarle las plumas, vestirlo con un hermoso camisón de seda blanca en vez del viejo overol que lo cubría, eso deseaba el niño. Ponerle, además, en lugar de los gruesos y sucios zapatones oscuros, unas sandalias de raso claro.

Una vez se atrevió a proponérselo.

El pobre ángel no respondió nada, sino que miró fijamente a Jaime y luego bajó al jardín a regar sus pequeños rosales japoneses.

Siempre que hacía esta tarea se echaba ambas alas hacia atrás y las entrelazaba en sus puntas. Había en este gesto del ángel algo de la remangada de fustanes de la criada fregona.

En realidad, muy poco le servían las alas en la vida doméstica. Atizaba el fuego de la cocina con ellas algunas veces. Otras, las agitaba con rapidez extraordinaria para refrescar las casa durante los días de calor. El ángel sonreía extrañamente cuando había esto. Casi tristemente.

Es lógico que los ángeles denoten su edad por sus alas, como los árboles por sus cortezas. No obstante, nadie podía decir qué edad tenía aquel ángel. Desde que llegó al hogar de don José Ortiz Esmondeo – hace dos años más o menos – tenía la misma cara, el mismo traje, la misma edad inapreciable.

Nunca salía, ni siquiera para ir a misa los domingos. La gente del pueblo ya se había acostumbrado a considerarlo como un extraño pájaro celestial que permanecía a toda hora en la casa de Ortiz Esmondeo, enjaulado como une un nicho de una iglesia pajaril.

Los muchachos del pueblo que jugaban en el puente fueron los primeros que vieron al ángel cuando llegó. Al principio le arrojaron piedras y luego se atrevieron a tirarle de las alas. El ángel sonrió y los muchachos comprendieron en su sonrisa que era un ángel de verdad. Siguieron callados y miedosos su paso reposado, triste, casi cojo.

Así entró a la ciudad, con el mismo overol, con los mismos zapatos y con una gorrita a la cabeza. Con su mismo aspecto de ángel laborioso y pobre, con su misma sonrisa misteriosa.

Saludó con gesto de sus manos sucias a los zapateros, a los sastres, a los carpinteros, a todos los artesanos que suspendían asombrados sus trabajos al verlo pasar.

Y llegó así a la casa acomodada de don José Ortiz Esmondeo, rodeado por las gentes curiosas del barrio.

Doña Alba, la señora, abrió la puerta.

- “Soy un ángel pobre” – dijo el ángel.

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu: Laura Silver Bell

In the five Northumbrian counties you will scarcely find so bleak, ugly, and yet, in a savage way, so picturesque a moor as Dardale Moss. The moor itself spreads north, south, east, and west, a great undulating sea of black peat and heath.

What we may term its shores are wooded wildly with birch, hazel, and dwarf-oak. No towering mountains surround it, but here and there you have a rocky knoll rising among the trees, and many a wooded promontory of the same pretty, because utterly wild, forest, running out into its dark level.

Habitations are thinly scattered in this barren territory, and a full mile away from the meanest was the stone cottage of Mother Carke.

Let not my southern reader who associates ideas of comfort with the term "cottage" mistake. This thing is built of shingle, with low walls. Its thatch is hollow; the peat-smoke curls stingily from its stunted chimney. It is worthy of its savage surroundings.

The primitive neighbours remark that no rowan-tree grows near, nor holly, nor bracken, and no horseshoe is nailed on the door.

Not far from the birches and hazels that straggle about the rude wall of the little enclosure, on the contrary, they say, you may discover the broom and the rag-wort, in which witches mysteriously delight. But this is perhaps a scandal.

Mall Carke was for many a year the sage femme of this wild domain. She has renounced practice, however, for some years; and now, under the rose, she dabbles, it is thought, in the black art, in which she has always been secretly skilled, tells fortunes, practises charms, and in popular esteem is little better than a witch.

Mother Carke has been away to the town of Willarden, to sell knit stockings, and is returning to her rude dwelling by Dardale Moss. To her right, as far away as the eye can reach, the moor stretches. The narrow track she has followed here tops a gentle upland, and at her left a sort of jungle of dwarf-oak and brushwood approaches its edge. The sun is sinking blood-red in the west. His disk has touched the broad black level of the moor, and his parting beams glare athwart the gaunt figure of the old beldame, as she strides homeward stick in hand, and bring into relief the folds of her mantle, which gleam like the draperies of a bronze image in the light of a fire. For a few moments this light floods the air--tree, gorse, rock, and bracken glare; and then it is out, and gray twilight over everything.

All is still and sombre. At this hour the simple traffic of the thinly-peopled country is over, and nothing can be more solitary.

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.