Violet Page (Vernon Lee): Dionea

Vernon Lee by John Singer Sargent

From the Letters of Doctor Alessandro De Rosis to the Lady Evelyn

Savelli, Princess of Sabina.

Montemiro Ligure, June 29, 1873.

I take immediate advantage of the generous offer of your Excellency (allow an old Republican who has held you on his knees to address you by that title sometimes, 'tis so appropriate) to help our poor people. I never expected to come a-begging so soon. For the olive crop has been unusually plenteous. We semi-Genoese don't pick the olives unripe, like our Tuscan neighbors, but let them grow big and black, when the young fellows go into the trees with long reeds and shake them down on the grass for the women to collect—a pretty sight which your Excellency must see some day: the grey trees with the brown, barefoot lads craning, balanced in the branches, and the turquoise sea as background just beneath…. That sea of ours—it is all along of it that I wish to ask for money. Looking up from my desk, I see the sea through the window, deep below and beyond the olive woods, bluish-green in the sunshine and veined with violet under the cloud-bars, like one of your Ravenna mosaics spread out as pavement for the world: a wicked sea, wicked in its loveliness, wickeder than your grey northern ones, and from which must have arisen in times gone by (when Phoenicians or Greeks built the temples at Lerici and Porto Venere) a baleful goddess of beauty, a Venus Verticordia, but in the bad sense of the word, overwhelming men's lives in sudden darkness like that squall of last week.

To come to the point. I want you, dear Lady Evelyn, to promise me some money, a great deal of money, as much as would buy you a little mannish cloth frock—for the complete bringing-up, until years of discretion, of a young stranger whom the sea has laid upon our shore. Our people, kind as they are, are very poor, and overburdened with children; besides, they have got a certain repugnance for this poor little waif, cast up by that dreadful storm, and who is doubtless a heathen, for she had no little crosses or scapulars on, like proper Christian children. So, being unable to get any of our women to adopt the child, and having an old bachelor's terror of my housekeeper, I have bethought me of certain nuns, holy women, who teach little girls to say their prayers and make lace close by here; and of your dear Excellency to pay for the whole business.

Poor little brown mite! She was picked up after the storm (such a set-out of ship-models and votive candles as that storm must have brought the Madonna at Porto Venere!) on a strip of sand between the rocks of our castle: the thing was really miraculous, for this coast is like a shark's jaw, and the bits of sand are tiny and far between. She was lashed to a plank, swaddled up close in outlandish garments; and when they brought her to me they thought she must certainly be dead: a little girl of four or five, decidedly pretty, and as brown as a berry, who, when she came to, shook her head to show she understood no kind of Italian, and jabbered some half-intelligible Eastern jabber, a few Greek words embedded in I know not what; the Superior of the College De Propagandâ Fide would be puzzled to know. The child appears to be the only survivor from a ship which must have gone down in the great squall, and whose timbers have been strewing the bay for some days past; no one at Spezia or in any of our ports knows anything about her, but she was seen, apparently making for Porto Venere, by some of our sardine-fishers: a big, lumbering craft, with eyes painted on each side of the prow, which, as you know, is a peculiarity of Greek boats. She was sighted for the last time off the island of Palmaria, entering, with all sails spread, right into the thick of the storm-darkness. No bodies, strangely enough, have been washed ashore.

Azorín: El fin de un mundo

Retrato de Azorín por Alejandro Cabeza

La especie humana perecía. Miles de siglos antes de que extinto el Sol, congelado el planeta, fuese la Tierra inhabitable, ya el hombre, nostálgico de reposo perenne in este perenne flujo y reflujo de la substancia universal, luí na acabado. La Tierra estaba desierta.

Los hombres eran muertos. Poco a poco los mató el hastío de las bienandanzas que la ciencia, la industria y el arte realizaron al trocar en realidad presente el ensueño de pensadores prehistóricos.

Poco a poco, predicado y afirmado el generoso altruismo, fueron desapareciendo del trato humano la ambición, la envidia, la crueldad, la ira, los celos, la codicia. Y los hombres, sojuzgadas las fuerzas de la Naturaleza, dueños del complicado tecnicismo del arte, amándose lodos, trabajadores todos y fuertes todos, vivían, sin odios y sin pasiones, sin el ensueño de la esperanza y sin la voluptuosidad del desconsuelo, dichosos en la Naturaleza y en el arte. De este modo, transcurrieron cuatro, seis, diez siglos. Inactivos, quieto el pensamiento y sosegados los músculos, fiado todo el trabajo terrestre a la maquinaria triunfadora, paseábanse los felices humanos hora tras hora, día tras día, año tras año, siempre igual, sin esperanzas de mudación, por sus ciudades y por sus campos. Ni la Naturaleza en sus paisajes, de todos conocidos, ni el arte en sus obras maestras, por todos admiradas, lograban despertar en nadie un nuevo estremecimiento estético.

La vida se había simplificado. No había derecho porque no había deber, no había deber porque no había coacción, no había justicia porque no había iniquidad, no había verdad porque no había error, no había belleza porque no había fealdad...

Desaparecidos los irreductibles antagonismos que en las viejas sociedades dieron nacimiento a las ideas absolutas, las ideas absolutas —Verdad, Belleza, Justicia-— eran desconocidas de las nuevas generaciones. ¿Cómo pudiera conocer la luz quien nunca hubiese conocido las sombras? ¿Cómo pudiera conocer el movimiento quien nunca hubiese conocido el reposo? ¿Cómo pudiera conocer el placer quien nunca hubiese conocido el dolor?

Así, mientras el dolor —que es error, que es fealdad, que es injusticia— se desintegraba de la vida, la vida se reducía de sus antiguos grandiosos límites: y así —por paradoja extraordinaria— la amplia y fecundadora ley del progreso tornábase en deprimente ley de ruina y acabamiento. La tierra se despoblaba. Cansada e inactiva, la especie humana desaparecía de siglo en siglo.

Y llegó un momento supremo en que solo un hombre sobrevivió a la humanidad muerta.

Arthur Conan Doyle: Lot No. 249

Of the dealings of Edward Bellingham with William Monkhouse Lee, and of the cause of the great terror of Abercrombie Smith, it may be that no absolute and final judgment will ever be delivered. It is true that we have the full and clear narrative of Smith himself, and such corroboration as he could look for from Thomas Styles the servant, from the Reverend Plumptree Peterson, Fellow of Old’s, and from such other people as chanced to gain some passing glance at this or that incident in a singular chain of events. Yet, in the main, the story must rest upon Smith alone, and the most will think that it is more likely that one brain, however outwardly sane, has some subtle warp in its texture, some strange flaw in its workings, than that the path of nature has been overstepped in open day in so famed a centre of learning and light as the University of Oxford. Yet when we think how narrow and how devious this path of Nature is, how dimly we can trace it, for all our lamps of science, and how from the darkness which girds it round great and terrible possibilities loom ever shadowly upwards, it is a bold and confident man who will put a limit to the strange by-paths into which the human spirit may wander.

In a certain wing of what we will call Old College in Oxford there is a corner turret of an exceeding great age. The heavy arch which spans the open door has bent downwards in the centre under the weight of its years, and the grey, lichen-blotched blocks of stone are bound and knitted together with withes and strands of ivy, as though the old mother had set herself to brace them up against wind and weather. From the door a stone stair curves upward spirally, passing two landings, and terminating in a third one, its steps all shapeless and hollowed by the tread of so many generations of the seekers after knowledge. Life has flowed like water down this winding stair, and, waterlike, has left these smooth-worn grooves behind it. From the long-gowned, pedantic scholars of Plantagenet days down to the young bloods of a later age, how full and strong had been that tide of young English life. And what was left now of all those hopes, those strivings, those fiery energies, save here and there in some old-world churchyard a few scratches upon a stone, and perchance a handful of dust in a mouldering coffin? Yet here were the silent stair and the grey old wall, with bend and saltire and many another heraldic device still to be read upon its surface, like grotesque shadows thrown back from the days that had passed.

In the month of May, in the year 1884, three young men occupied the sets of rooms which opened on to the separate landings of the old stair. Each set consisted simply of a sitting-room and of a bedroom, while the two corresponding rooms upon the ground-floor were used, the one as a coal-cellar, and the other as the living-room of the servant, or scout, Thomas Styles, whose duty it was to wait upon the three men above him. To right and to left was a line of lecture-rooms and of offices, so that the dwellers in the old turret enjoyed a certain seclusion, which made the chambers popular among the more studious undergraduates. Such were the three who occupied them now ––Abercrombie Smith above, Edward Bellingham beneath him, and William Monkhouse Lee upon the lowest storey.

Salomé Guadalupe Ingelmo: Oigo los cascos de mi caliente muerte que me busca

Era una mañana, 26 de octubre, no se me olvida. Yo iba con prisa. Apenas divisé el taxi, levanté el brazo. Los caballos del motor frenaron en seco. Subí raudo, pero para mi sorpresa constaté que un desconocido había entrado al tiempo por la otra puerta. Ahora los dos compartíamos vehículo. “Yo lo vi primero”, protesté indignado. “Eso no lo niego”, respondió con sorna el Otro, que —finalmente advertí yo— era ciego. “No obstante me corresponde llegar antes al destino: la antigüedad ha de contar algo, señor mío; desde el 86 vengo realizando este trayecto”. De buena gana le hubiese bajado los humos, pero el taxista se volvió a reprendernos: “No dispongo de todo el día. Tengo una cita en Mendoza; unos caballeros me esperan desde el 29”. Arrancó como si conociese la dirección y partimos los tres. Fue en 2010, y desde entonces otros han ido subiendo.

Ambrose Bierce: Bottomless Grave

My name is John Brenwalter. My father, a drunkard, had a patent for an invention, for making coffee-berries out of clay; but he was an honest man and would not himself engage in the manufacture. He was, therefore, only moderately wealthy, his royalties from his really valuable invention bringing him hardly enough to pay his expenses of litigation with rogues guilty of infringement. So I lacked many advantages enjoyed by the children of unscrupulous and dishonorable parents, and had it not been for a noble and devoted mother, who neglected all my brothers and sisters and personally supervised my education, should have grown up in ignorance and been compelled to teach school. To be the favorite child of a good woman is better than gold.

When I was nineteen years of age my father had the misfortune to die. He had always had perfect health, and his death, which occurred at the dinner table without a moment's warning, surprised no one more than himself. He had that very morning been notified that a patent had been granted him for a device to burst open safes by hydraulic pressure, without noise. The Commissioner of Patents had pronounced it the most ingenious, effective and generally meritorious invention that had ever been submitted to him, and my father had naturally looked forward to an old age of prosperity and honor. His sudden death was, therefore, a deep disappointment to him; but my mother, whose piety and resignation to the will of Heaven were conspicuous virtues of her character, was apparently less affected. At the close of the meal, when my poor father's body had been removed from the floor, she called us all into an adjoining room and addressed us as follows:

"My children, the uncommon occurrence that you have just witnessed is one of the most disagreeable incidents in a good man's life, and one in which I take little pleasure, I assure you. I beg you to believe that I had no hand in bringing it about. Of course," she added, after a pause, during which her eyes were cast down in deep thought, "of course it is better that he is dead."

She uttered this with so evident a sense of its obviousness as a self-evident truth that none of us had the courage to brave her surprise by asking an explanation. My mother's air of surprise when any of us went wrong in any way was very terrible to us. One day, when in a fit of peevish temper, I had taken the liberty to cut off the baby's ear, her simple words, "John, you surprise me!" appeared to me so sharp a reproof that after a sleepless night I went to her in tears, and throwing myself at her feet, exclaimed: "Mother, forgive me for surprising you." So now we all—including the one-eared baby—felt that it would keep matters smoother to accept without question the statement that it was better, somehow, for our dear father to be dead. My mother continued:

Emilia Pardo Bazán: El comadrón

Era la noche más espantosa de todo el invierno. Silbaba el viento huracanado, tronchando el seco ramaje; desatábase la lluvia, y el granizo bombardeaba los vidrios. Así es que el comadrón, hundiéndose con delicia en la mullida cama, dijo confidencialmente a su esposa:

-Hoy me dejarán en paz. Dormiré sosegado hasta las nueve. ¿A qué loca se le va a ocurrir dar a luz con este tiempo tan fatal?

Desmintiendo los augurios del facultativo, hacia las cinco el viento amainó, se interrumpió el eterno «flac» de la lluvia, y un aura serena y dulce pareció entrar al través de los vidrios, con las primeras azuladas claridades del amanecer. Al mismo tiempo retumbaron en la puerta apresurados aldabonazos, los perros ladraron con frenesí, y el comadrón, refunfuñando se incorporó en el lecho aquel, tan caliente y tan fofo. ¡Vamos, milagro que un día le permitiesen vivir tranquilo! Y de seguro el lance ocurriría en el campo, lejos; habría que pisar barro y marcar niebla... A ver, medidas de abrigo, botas fuertes... ¡Condenada especie humana, y qué manía de no acabarse, qué tenacidad en reproducirse!

La criada, que subía anhelosa, dio las señas del cliente; un caballero respetable, muy embozado en capa oscura, chorreando agua y dando prisa. ¡Sin duda el padre de la parturienta! La mujer del comadrón, alma compasiva murmuró frases de lástima, y apuró a su marido. Este despachó el café, frío como hielo, se arrolló el tapabocas, se enfundó en el impermeable, agarró la caja de los instrumentos y bajó gruñendo y tiritando. El cliente esperaba ya, montado en blanca yegua. Cabalgó el comadrón su jacucho y emprendieron la caminata.

Apenas el sol alumbró claramente, el comadrón miró al desconocido y quedó subyugado por su aspecto de majestad. Una frente ancha, unos ojos ardientes e imperiosos, una barba gris que ondeaba sobre el pecho, un aire indefinible de dignidad y tristeza, hacían imponente a aquel hombre. Con humildad involuntaria se decidió el comadrón a preguntar lo de costumbre: si la casa donde iban estaba próxima y si era primeriza la paciente. En pocas y bien medidas palabras respondió el desconocido que el castillo distaba mucho; que la mujer era primeriza, y el trance tan duro y difícil, que no creía posible salir de él. «Sólo nos importa la criatura», añadió con energía, como el que da una orden para que se obedezca sin réplica. Pero el comadrón, persona compasiva y piadosa, formó el propósito de salvar a la madre, y picó al rocín, deseoso de llegar más pronto.

Anduvieron y anduvieron, patrullando las monturas en el barro pegajoso, cruzando bosques sin hoja, vadeando un río, salvando una montañita y no parando hasta un valle, donde los grisáceos torreones del castillo se destacaban con vigoroso y escueto dibujo. El comadrón, poseído de respeto inexplicable se apeó en el ancho patio de honor, y, guiado, por el desconocido, entró por una puertecilla lateral, directamente, a una cámara baja de la torre de Levante, donde, sobre una cama antigua, rica, yacía una bellísima mujer, descolorida e inmóvil. Al acercarse, observó el facultativo que aquella desdichada estaba muerta; y, sin conocerla se entristeció. ¡Es que era tan hermosa! Las hebras del pelo, tendido y ondeante, parecían marco dorado alrededor de una efigie de marfil; los labios color de violeta, flores marchitas; y los ojos entreabiertos y azules, dos piedras preciosas engastadas en el cerco de oro de las pestañas densas. La voz del desconocido resonó, firme y categórica:

-No haga usted caso de ese cadáver. Es preciso salvar a la criatura.

Bram Stoker: The Man From Shorrox

Throth, yer ’ann’rs, I’ll tell ye wid pleasure; though, trooth to tell, it’s only poor wurrk telling the same shtory over an’ over agin. But I niver object to tell it to rale gintlemin, like yer ’ann’rs, what don’t forget that a poor man has a mouth on to him as much as Creeshus himself has.

The place was a market town in Kilkenny—or maybe King’s County or Queen’s County. At all evints, it was wan of them counties what Cromwell—bad cess to him!—gev his name to. An’ the house was called after him that was the Lord Liftinint an’ invinted the polis—God forgive him! It was kep’ be a man iv the name iv Misther Mickey Byrne an’ his good lady—at laste it was till wan dark night whin the bhoys mistuk him for another gindeman, an unknown man, what had bought a contagious property—mind ye the impidence iv him. Mickey was comin’ back from the Curragh Races wid his skin that tight wid the full of the whiskey inside of him that he couldn’t open his eyes to see what was goin’ on, or his mouth to set the bhoys right afther he had got the first tap on the head wid wan of the blackthorns what they done such jobs wid. The poor bhoys was that full of sorra for their

mishap whin they brung him home to his widdy that the crather hadn’t the hearrt to be too sevare on thim. At the first iv course she was wroth, bein’ only a woman afther all, an’ weemun not bein’ gave to rayson like nun is. Millia murdher! but for a bit she was like a madwoman, and was nigh to have cut the heads from affav thim wid the mate chopper, till, seein’ thim so white and quite, she all at wance flung down the chopper an’ knelt down be the corp.

‘Lave me to me dead,’ she sez. ‘Oh mm! it’s no use more people nor is needful bein’ made unhappy over this night’s terrible wurrk. Mick Byrne would have no man worse for him whin he was living, and he’ll have harm to none for his death! Now go; an’, oh bhoys, be dacent and quite, an’ don’t thry a poor widdied sowl too hard!’

Well, afther that she made no change in things ginerally, but kep’ on the hotel jist the same; an’ whin some iv her friends wanted her to get help, she only sez: ‘Mick an’ me run this house well enough; an’ whin I’m thinkin’ of takun’ help I’ll tell yez. I’ll go on be meself, as I mane to, till Mick an’ me comes together agun.’

An’, sure enough, the ould place wint on jist the same, though, more betoken, there wasn’t Mick wid his shillelagh to kape the pace whin things got pretty hot on fair nights, an’ in the gran’ ould election times, when heads was bruk like eggs—glory be to God!

Joaquim Ruyra i Oms: La Vetlla dels Morts

Ja s'han plegat les ballades de Tots-Sants. La cobla és a l'hostal. A la cuinassa, davant de la llar, asseguts a l'escon uns, i en tamborets i cadires altres, els musics s'escalfen les cames; s'escalfen les cames i amoroseixen amb una suca-mulla de vi calent llurs gorges seques i cansades. Cada un d'ells aguanta amb la mà esquerra, damunt del genoll, un fondo plat de terrissa, on van estufant-se i envermellint-se els trossos de pa que suren en el líquid fumós. Els dits pelluquen, xarrupen les boques, i els semblants van animant-se a influències del sanitós refrigeri.

Mentrestant l'avi de la casa fa becaines en un recó, a frec dels tions ablamats. Ara aixeca a poc a poc el cap fins a posar en descobert les pelleringues pansides de sa barballera; ara el tomba pesadament damunt del pit.

Mitja dotzena de pagesos joves, ben vestits i afaitats, amb les barretines estudiadament encrestades al cap i lluint a tall de joiell un brotet d'alfàbrega a les orelles, conversen a peu dret, enrotllats darrera dels musics. Encara estan roigs de l'acalorament del ball, i amb llurs mocadors virolats s'eixuguen de tant en tant la suor, que els arrosa la cara i el clatell.

L'hostalera i les minyones van i vénen de la llar als fogons i dels fogons a l'armari.

Un xaval aclofat dintre un cove d'userda ho espia tot amb ulls esparvillats.

El llum de ganxo penjat al vogi dels fogons, tot just deixa veure sa flameta groga entremig de la fumerada que s'enlaira de les paelles i cassoles. En canvi, les resplendors roges i bellugoses de la llar vagaregen per l'àmbit ombradís. Tot oneja en un tràngol de llum i ombres.

A toc d'oració alguns pagesos se posen a parlar de la nit dels Morts, de la nit que entra. Se conten casos d'aparicions sobrenaturals. Qui no en sap un ne sap un altre, i cada u procura explicar-se d'una manera interessant. Un dels musics, un home alt, magre, espatllut, carallarg, de frontalera calba i patilles blanques, després de xarrupar les solies del seu plat, pren part en la conversa i diu així:

-No se si haureu conegut an en Refila de Navata: jo sí. Era la primera tenora de l'Empordà, un gran music, un compositor sardanista dels que no en corren gaires. Ses sardanes… ja ho crec!… encara es toquen i es ballen amb devoció: aquesta és la paraula. Se ballen amb devoció perquè la seva musica té quelcom de religiós, de sant, de… no es pot dir, vaja. Fou el meu mestre de tenora. En aquells temps era ja vellet, però xamós, fresc… un home baixó… (me sembla que el veig)… rodó de cara, molsut de clatell… Duia les calces amb devantal, a l'estil d'abans, i el gec guarnit amb una vistosa botonada de llautó. Ara no penseu que fos presumit: res d'això. Deixava caure a la bona de Déu sa barretina musca, que li penjava com un sac buit per sobre l'esquena. Solia anar amb les mitges a garró i ni tan sols se n'adonava. Era un home que sempre estava somniant solfes. Ah! no esmento aquestes coses perquè rigueu, no… que el cas no és de riure… sinó que les dic perquè vegeu si el tinc ben present, aquell home, i perquè entengueu que lo que ara vaig a contar no és pas cap rondalla.

Ricardo Güiraldes: El pozo

Sobre el brocal desdentado del viejo pozo, una cruz de palo roída por la carcoma miraba en el fondo su imagen simple. Toda una historia trágica.

Hacía mucho tiempo, cuando fue recién herida la tierra y pura el agua como sangre cristalina, un caminante sudoroso se sentó en el borde de la piedra para descansar su cuerpo y refrescar la frente con el aliento que subía del tranquilo redondel. Allí le sorprendieron el cansancio, la noche y el sueno; su espalda resbaló al apoyo y el hombre se hundió golpeando blandamente en las paredes hasta romper la quietud del disco puro.

Ni tiempo para dar un grito o retenerse en las salientes, que le rechazaban brutalmente después del choque. Había rodado llevando consigo algunos pelmazos de tierra pegajosa. Aturdido por el golpe, se debatió sin rumbo en el estrecho cilindro líquido hasta encontrar la superficie. Sus dedos espasmódicos, en el ansia agónica de sostenerse, horadaron el barro rojizo. Luego quedó exánime, solo emergida la cabeza, todo el esfuerzo de su ser concentrado en recuperar el ritmo perdido de su respiración.

Con su mano libre tante el cuerpo, en que el dolor nacía con la vida. Miró hacia arriba: el mismo redondel de antes, más lejano, sin embargo, y en cuyo centro la noche hacía nacer una estrella tímidamente.

Los ojos se hipnotizaron en la contemplación del astro pequeño, que dejaba, hasta el fondo, caer su punto de luz. Unas voces pasaron no lejos, desfiguradas, tenues; un frío le mordió del agua y gritó un grito que, a fuerza de terror, se le quedó en la boca. Hizo un movimiento y el líquido onduló en torno, denso como mercurio. Un pavor místico contrajo sus músculos, e impelido por esa nueva y angustiosa fuerza, comenzó el ascenso, arrastrándose a lo largo del estrecho tubo húmedo; unos dolores punzantes abriéndole las carnes, mirando el fin siempre lejano como en las pesadillas.

Más de una vez, la tierra insegura cedió su peso, crepitando abajo en lluvia fina; entonces suspendía su acción tendido de terror, vacío el pecho, y esperaba inmóvil la vuelta de sus fuerzas.

Sin embargo un mundo insospechado de energías nacía en cada paso; y como por impulso adquirido maquinalmente, mientras se sucedían las impresiones de esperanza y desaliento, llegó al brocal, exhausto, incapaz de saborear el fin de sus martirios. Allí quedaba, medio cuerpo de fuera, anulada la voluntad por el cansancio, viendo delante suyo la forma de un aguaribay como cosa irreal…

Clifford Donald Simak: Retrograde Evolution

THE trader had saved some space in the cargo hold for the babu root which, ounce for ounce, represented a better profit than all the other stuff he carried from the dozen planets the ship had visited.

But something had happened to the Google villages on the plant Zan. There was no babu root waiting for the ship and the trader had raged up and down, calling forth upon all Googles dire maledictions combed from a score of languages and cultures.

High in his cubbyhole, one level down from the control room and the captain's quarters, Steve Sheldon, the space ship's assigned co-ordinator, went through reel after reel of records pertaining to the planet and studied once again the bible of his trade, Dennison's Key to Sentient Races. He searched for a hidden clue, clawing through his close-packed memory for some forgotten fact which might apply.

But the records were very little help.

Zan, one of the planets by-passed on the first wave of exploration, had been discovered five centuries before. Since that time traders had made regular visits there to pick up babu root. In due time the traders had reported it to Culture. But Culture, being busy with more important things than a backwoods planet, had done no more than file the report for future action and then, of course, had forgotten all about it.

No survey, therefore, had ever been made of Zan, and the record reels held little more than copies of trading contracts, trading licenses, applications for monopolies and hundreds of sales invoices covering the five hundred years of trade. Interspersed here and there were letters and reports on the culture of the Googles and descriptions of the planet, but since the reports were by obscure planet-hoppers and not by trained observers they were of little value.

Sheldon found one fairly learned dissertation upon the babu root. From that paper he learned that the plant grew nowhere else but on Zan and was valuable as the only known cure for a certain disease peculiar to a certain sector of the galaxy. At first the plant had grown wild and had been gathered by the Googles as an article of commerce, but in more recent years, the article said, some attempts had been made to cultivate it since the wild supply was waning.

Sheldon could pronounce neither the root's drug derivative nor the disease it cured, but he shrugged that off as of no consequence.

Dennison devoted less than a dozen lines to Zan and from them Sheldon learned no more than he already knew: Googles were humanoid, after a fashion, and with Type 10 culture, varying from Type 10-A to Type 10-H; they were a peaceful race and led a pastoral existence; there were thirty-seven known tribal villages, one of which exercised benevolent dictatorship over the other thirty-six. The top-dog village, however, changed from time to time, apparently according to some peaceful rotational system based upon a weird brand of politics. Googles were gentle people and did not resort to war.

Luis Mateo Díez: El puñal Florentino

A mí me mataban en el primer acto.

Había acudido a aquella taberna toscana, sin que las ropas de labriego de mi disfraz lograran disimular del todo mi condición nobiliaria, y allí aguardaba a un criado de mi amigo el Conde Ricci que me conduciría a algún lugar seguro.

Eran los últimos cinco minutos del primer acto, la escena decimoquinta de un atropellado drama en el que andaban los Médicis por medio y en el que, entre lances de capa y espada, venenos e intrigas cortesanas, se iba tejiendo un indescifrable galimatías derivado de la propia adaptación de la obra que, como era habitual en la Galería Salesiana, estaba arreglada para que la interpretasen exclusivamente actores masculinos. .

Las transferencias de amores en amistades, de pasión en idealismo, y el trastorno de los parentescos, además del exceso de viudos y solteros impenitentes, hacían que la trama navegara, con frecuencia, entre ambiguas declaraciones fraternales y sospechosos rencores nacidos de inexplicables despechos. Era muy dura de entender la desavenencia de dos primos con un pasado que más parecía amoroso que otra cosa, o la rara filiación de un vástago cuyo tío era como su madre, en aquel raro mundo de exclusivos varones en el que hasta las teóricas nodrizas parecían barbudos aldeanos.

Sentado en un taburete, al pie del proscenio, con la jarra de vino en la mano y el codo apoyado .en la mesa, aguardaba con cierto aire de disimulada despreocupación, al dichoso criado del Conde Ricci, que entraría por el foro, tembloroso y con cara de traidor subvencionado, para indicarle al sicario que le seguía que aquel desamparado parroquiano, tan sospechosamente disfrazado, no era otro que el Marqués del Arno, al que había que dar el trágico pasaporte previsto en la terrible conspiración. Ni que decir tiene que mi amigo el Conde estaba metido hasta las cachas en el asunto y que yo pecaba de ingenuo esperando su amparo.

El tabernero, después de servirme, había hecho un discreto mutis y todo estaba dispuesto para la celada.

Entraría el criado, me señalaría con el dedo e irrumpiría, blandiendo ya el puñal, el voluntarioso sicario que se abalanzaría sobre mí sin apenas darme tiempo a desenfundar la espada. Tras las arteras cuchilladas yo haría un rápido movimiento hacia el cercano lateral, donde el padre Corsino, director de la función, me vaciaría, con muy ensayada y veloz medida, un tintero de tinta china roja que, al volverme, mostraría al respetable la condición mortal de mis heridas.

Edward Frederic Benson: At Abdul Ali’s Grave

Luxor, as most of those who have been there will allow, is a place of notable charm, and boasts many attractions for the traveller, chief among which he will reckon an excellent hotel containing a billiard-room, a garden fit for the gods to sit in, any quantity of visitors, at least a weekly dance on board a tourist steamer, quail shooting, a climate as of Avilion, and a number of stupendously ancient monuments for those archeologically inclined. But to certain others, few indeed in number, but almost fanatically convinced of their own orthodoxy, the charm of Luxor, like some sleeping beauty, only wakes when these things cease, when the hotel has grown empty and the billiard-marker “has gone for a long rest” to Cairo, when the decimated quail and the decimating tourist have fled northwards, and the Theban plain, Dana to a tropical sun, is a gridiron across which no man would willingly make a journey by day, not even if Queen Hatasoo herself should signify that she would give him audience on the terraces of Deir-el-Bahari.

A suspicion however that the fanatic few were right, for in other respects they were men of estimable opinions, induced me to examine their convictions for myself, and thus it came about that two years ago, certain days toward the beginning of June saw me still there, a confirmed convert.

Much tobacco and the length of summer days had assisted us to the analysis of the charm of which summer in the south is possessed, and Weston — one of the earliest of the elect — and myself had discussed it at some length, and though we reserved as the principal ingredient a nameless something which baffled the chemist, and must be felt to be understood, we were easily able to detect certain other drugs of sight and sound, which we were agreed contributed to the whole. A few of them are here sub joined.

The waking in the warm darkness just before dawn to find that the desire for stopping in bed fails with the awakening.

The silent start across the Nile in the still air with our horses, who, like us, stand and sniff at the incredible sweetness of the coming morning without apparently finding it less wonderful in repetition.

The moment infinitesimal in duration but infinite in sensation, just before the sun rises, when the grey shrouded river is struck suddenly out of darkness, and becomes a sheet of green bronze.

The rose flush, rapid as a change of colour in some chemical combination, which shoots across the sky from east to west, followed immediately by the sunlight which catches the peaks of the western hills, and flows down like some luminous liquid.

The stir and whisper which goes through the world: a breeze springs up; a lark soars, and sings; the boatman shouts “Yallah, Yallah”; the horses toss their heads.

The subsequent ride.

The subsequent breakfast on our return.

The subsequent absence of anything to do.

At sunset the ride into the desert thick with the scent of warm barren sand, which smells like nothing else in the world, for it smells of nothing at all.

The blaze of the tropical night.

Cristina Fernández Cubas: La noche de Jezabel

Los hechos, según Arganza, ocurrieron hace unos veinte años en una poblacióndel interior de no más de mil almas. Era su primer destino, y mi buen amigo, recién salido de una universidad en la que no había destacado precisamente por su amor al estudio, sentía auténticos accesos de terror cuando, fuera de las horas de consulta, alguien golpeaba la puerta de la casa y voceaba su nombre. En aquellos momentos Arganza palidecía, se ponía a temblar como una hoja, y pronunciaba en voz alta las únicas palabras capaces de devolverle la fe en sí mismo: «Ojalá no sea nada». Luego, un tanto más calmado, bajaba las escaleras y abría la puerta de la calle. Pero seguardaba muy bien de dejar traslucir la segunda parte de su inconfesable deseo: «...O todo lo contrario. Ojalá esté muerto». La suerte, desde los primeros días, se le mostró propicia. En seis meses de ejercicio tan sólo se vio obligado a atender algunas amigdalitis sin importancia, un ictus apoplético y un par de fracturas que resolvió con éxito. Arganza empezó a cobrar confianza, no tanto en sus conocimientos como en la férrea salud de los hombres del campo, se felicitó por haber escogido un destino tan apacible y dejó, paulatinamente, de emplear sus noches en devorar con avidez revistas de actualización médica y olvidados libros de textos. Una madrugada, sin embargo, volvió a sentir el inconfundible cosquilleo del miedo. Habían golpeado a la puerta con impertinente impaciencia, con una rudeza impropia de un campesino. Desde la ventana distinguióla silueta de un guardia civil iluminada por la luna, y un estremecimiento recorrió sucuerpo.

—¿Es grave? —preguntó. El civil enarcó las cejas:

—¡Como que está muerto! 

Mi amigo respiró hondo. Avanzaron por la calle principal, cruzaron la Plaza y se detuvieron por fin frente a un cobertizo iluminado. En el interior un hombre yacía en el suelo empapado de sangre. Una de sus manos sostenía sin fuerzas un puñal teñido de rojo. La otra reposaba inerte sobre un papel arrugado en el que Arganza, con sólo inclinarse, pudo leer con claridad:

«Que a nadie se culpe de...».

El resto se hallaba sumergido en el charco púrpura.Cumpliendo con las inevitables formalidades, el médico rodeó la muñeca del difunto, colocó los dedos bajo la mandíbula, constató la inexistencia de reflejo pupilar y, tal vez para convencerse a sí mismo de la importancia de sus conocimientos, confirmó lo que todos sabían con un tajante: «Está muerto». Después miró a la pareja de civiles, volvió sobre el difunto e, impresionado por la sangrienta inmolación, decidió tomarse un respiro y darse una vuelta por la Plaza. No habrían pasado más de diez minutos cuando regresó al tétrico cobertizo. Uno de los guardias se hallaba en pie, con la carta arrugada temblando entre sus manos y una mezcla de sorpresa y terror dibujada en el rostro. Pero sobre el charco de sangreno había cadáver alguno.

Edgar Allan Poe: The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Phall

Edgar Allan Poe portrait attributed to William Huddy

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With a heart of furious fancies,
Whereof I am commander,
With a burning spear and a horse of air,
To the wilderness I wander.
Tom O’Bedlam’s Song.

BY late accounts from Rotterdam, that city seems to be in a high state of philosophical excitement. Indeed, phenomena have there occurred of a nature so completely unexpected — so entirely novel — so utterly at variance with preconceived opinions — as to leave no doubt on my mind that long ere this all Europe is in an uproar, all physics in a ferment, all reason and astronomy together by the ears.

It appears that on the ——— day of ———, (I am not positive about the date,) a vast crowd of people, for purposes not specifically mentioned, were assembled in the great square of the Exchange in the well-conditioned city of Rotterdam. The day was warm — unusually so for the season — there was hardly a breath of air stirring; and the multitude were in no bad humor at being now and then besprinkled with friendly showers of momentary duration, that fell from large white masses of cloud profusely distributed about the blue vault of the firmament. Nevertheless, about noon, a slight but remarkable agitation became apparent in the assembly; the clattering of ten thousand tongues succeeded; and, in an instant afterwards, ten thousand faces were upturned towards the heavens, ten thousand pipes descended simultaneously from the corners of ten thousand mouths, and a [page 2:] shout, which could be compared to nothing but the roaring of Niagara, resounded long, loudly and furiously, through all the city and through all the environs of Rotterdam.

The origin of this hubbub soon became sufficiently evident. From behind the huge bulk of one of those sharply defined masses of cloud already mentioned, was seen slowly to emerge into an open area of blue space, a queer, heterogeneous, but apparently solid substance, so oddly shaped, so whimsically put together, as not to be in any manner comprehended, and never to be sufficiently admired, by the host of sturdy burghers who stood open-mouthed below. What could it be? In the name of all the devils in Rotterdam, what could it possibly portend? No one knew; no one could imagine; no one — not even the burgomaster Mynheer Superbus Von Underduk — had the slightest clew by which to unravel the mystery; so, as nothing more reasonable could be done, every one to a man replaced his pipe carefully in the corner of his mouth, and maintaining an eye steadily upon the phenomenon, puffed, paused, waddled about, and grunted significantly — then waddled back, grunted, paused, and finally — puffed again.

In the meantime, however, lower and still lower towards the goodly city, came the object of so much curiosity, and the cause of so much smoke. In a very few minutes it arrived near enough to be accurately discerned. It appeared to be — yes! it was undoubtedly a species of balloon; but surely no such balloon had ever been seen in Rotterdam before. For who, let me ask, ever heard of a balloon manufactured entirely of dirty newspapers? No man in Holland certainly; yet here, under the very noses of the people, or rather at some distance above their noses, was the identical thing in question, and composed, I have it on the best authority, of the precise material which no one had ever before known to be used for a similar purpose. — It was an egregious insult to the good sense of the burghers of Rotterdam. As to the shape of the phenomenon, it was even still more reprehensible. Being little or nothing better than a huge fool’s-cap turned upside down. And this similitude was regarded as by no means lessened, when upon nearer inspection, the crowd saw a large tassel depending from its apex, and, around the upper rim or base of the cone, a [page 3:] circle of little instruments, resembling sheep-bells, which kept up a continual tinkling to the tune of Betty Martin. But still worse. — Suspended by blue ribbons to the end of this fantastic machine, there hung, by way of car, an enormous drab beaver hat, with a brim superlatively broad, and a hemispherical crown with a black band and a silver buckle. It is, however, somewhat remarkable that many citizens of Rotterdam swore to having seen the same hat repeatedly before; and indeed the whole assembly seemed to regard it with eyes of familiarity; while the vrow Grettel Pfaall, upon sight of it, uttered an exclamation of joyful surprise, and declared it to be the identical hat of her good man himself. Now this was a circumstance the more to be observed, as Pfaall, with three companions, had actually disappeared from Rotterdam about five years before, in a very sudden and unaccountable manner, and up to the date of this narrative all attempts at obtaining intelligence concerning them had failed. To be sure, some bones which were thought to be human, mixed up with a quantity of odd-looking rubbish, had been lately discovered in a retired situation to the east of the city; and some people went so far as to imagine that in this spot a foul murder had been committed, and that the sufferers were in all probability Hans Pfaall and his associates. — But to return.