Norman Partridge: The Hollow Man

Four. Yes, that’s how many there were. Come to my home. Come to my home in the hills. Come in the middle of feast, when the skin had been peeled back and I was ready to sup. Interrupting, disrupting. Stealing the comfortable bloat of a full belly, the black scent of clean bones burning dry on glowing embers. Four.

Yes. That’s how many there were. I watched them through the stretched-skin window, saw them standing cold in the snow with their guns at their sides.

The hollow man saw them too. He heard the ice dogs bark and raised his sunken face, peering at the men through the blue-veined window. He gasped, expectant, and I had to draw my claws from their fleshy sheaths and jab deep into his blackened muscles to keep him from saying words that weren’t mine. Outside, they shouted, Hullo! Hullo in the cabin! and the hollow man sprang for the door. I jumped on his back and tugged the metal rings pinned into his neck. He jerked and whirled away from the latch, but I was left with the sickening sound of his hopeful moans.

Once again, control was mine, but not like before. The hollow man was full of strength that he hadn’t possessed in weeks, and the feast was ruined.

They had ruined it.

“Hullo! We’re tired and need food!”

The hollow man strained forward, his fingers groping for the door latch. My scaled legs flexed hard around his middle. His sweaty stomach sizzled and he cried at the heat of me. A rib snapped. Another. He sank backward and, with a dry flutter of wings, I pulled him away from the window, back into the dark.

“Could we share your fire? It’s so damn cold!”

“We’d give you money, but we ain’t got any. There ain’t a nickel in a thousand miles of here . . .”

Small screams tore the hollow man’s beaten lips. There was blood. I cursed the waste and twisted a handful of metal rings. He sank to his knees and quieted.

“We’ll leave our guns. We don’t mean no harm!”

I jerked one ring, then another. I cooed against the hollow man’s skinless shoulder and made him pick up his rifle. When he had it loaded, cocked, and aimed through a slot in the door, I whispered in his ear and made him laugh.

And then I screamed out at them, “You dirty bastards! You stay away! You ain’t comin’ in here!”

Gunshots exploded. We only got one of them, not clean but bad enough. The others pulled him into the forest, where the dense trees muffled his screams and kept us from getting another clear shot.

The rifle clattered to the floor, smoking faintly, smelling good. We walked to the window. I jingled his neck rings and the hollow man squinted through the tangle of veins, to the spot where a red streak was freezing in the snow.

I made the hollow man smile.

Salomé Guadalupe Ingelmo: Nuptiae Sabbati

Si uno es escritor, escribe siempre, aunque no quiera hacerlo, aunque trate de escapar a esa dudosa gloria y a ese sufrimiento real que se merece por seguir una vocación.

                 Carmen Laforet

Apenas recibida la noticia hicieron el equipaje. No había tiempo que perder; la enfermedad avanzaba. En las ruinas célticas y romanas de los frondosos bosques de Gwent, en las prácticas populares y paganas, buscó remedio. En vano.

Aunque atraído por las más ocultas ramas del saber desde joven, fue Amy quien le presentó algunos escritores versados en el esoterismo. Poco después apareció Ella, que descorrió definitivamente el velo. Estaba seguro de no conocerla, pero su rostro le pareció familiar. Como esos seres fantasmales de nuestros sueños. Mientras relee La luz interior, contempla la joya en la que le ayudó a introducir el alma de su primera esposa.

 “Tu medicina, querido”. Ella, bellísima estatua griega ‒enajenada bacante cuando se enfurece‒, le ofrece el inocente polvo blanco que toma tras comida y cena. Su melancolía se va mitigando. Podría recuperar el gusto por los placeres mundanos.

“Esta noche vendrán unas amigas. Iremos a bailar al bosque. Tendremos una de nuestras habituales... reuniones”.

Sólo ha atisbado el secreto insondable y, a pesar del horror, no renuncia a ahondar en su espantoso conocimiento. Ha sido distinguido con el privilegio o la maldición de la literatura, esa puerta que le permite descender a las profundidades de todo ser: a la hirviente corrupción y la sórdida podredumbre que nos habita. No puede resistirse a la llamada de lo arcano. Ni a ese matrimonio sacro con las letras, aunque acabe en locura. Está dispuesto a convertirse en sacerdote del “Dios de los Abismos” a cualquier precio. Ningún ojo humano puede presenciar el misterio desnudo y salir ileso.

Se estremecerá convertido en una obscena mancha húmeda, oscura como la tinta, un charco irreconocible sobre las inmaculadas sábanas del tálamo nupcial. Piel, carne y huesos, todo su cuerpo derretido, consumido por ese fuego que lo devora y al tiempo le da vida. De él quedarán dos puntos llameantes entre los cuales algún alma pía, quizá la de un crítico, golpeará una y otra vez. Hasta que finalmente reine el silencio.

Arthur Machen: Out of the Earth

There was some sort of confused complaint during last August of the ill behaviour of the children at certain Welsh watering-places. Such reports and vague rumours are most difficult to trace to their heads and fountains; none has better reason to know that than myself. I need not go over the old ground here, but I am afraid that many people are wishing by this time that they had never heard my name; again, a considerable number of estimable persons are concerning themselves gloomily enough, from my point of view, with my everlasting welfare. They write me letters, some in kindly remonstrance, begging me not to deprive poor, sick-hearted souls of what little comfort they possess amidst their sorrows. Others send me tracts and pink leaflets with allusions to "the daughter of a well-known canon"; others again are violently and anonymously abusive. And then in open print, in fair book form, Mr. Begbie has dealt with me righteously but harshly, as I cannot but think.

Yet, it was all so entirely innocent, nay casual, on my part. A poor linnet of prose, I did but perform my indifferent piping in the Evening News because I wanted to do so, because I felt that the story of "The Bowmen" ought to be told. An inventor of fantasies is a poor creature, heaven knows, when all the world is at war; but I thought that no harm would be done, at any rate, if I bore witness, after the fashion of the fantastic craft, to my belief in the heroic glory of the English host who went back from Mons fighting and triumphing.

And then, somehow or other, it was as if I had touched a button and set in action a terrific, complicated mechanism of rumours that pretended to be sworn truth, of gossip that posed as evidence, of wild tarradiddles that good men most firmly believed. The supposed testimony of that "daughter of a well-known canon" took parish magazines by storm, and equally enjoyed the faith of dissenting divines. The "daughter" denied all knowledge of the matter, but people still quoted her supposed sure word; and the issues were confused with tales, probably true, of painful hallucinations and deliriums of our retreating soldiers, men fatigued and shattered to the very verge of death. It all became worse than the Russian myths, and as in the fable of the Russians, it seemed impossible to follow the streams of delusion to their fountain-head—or heads. Who was it who said that "Miss M. knew two officers who, etc., etc."? I suppose we shall never know his lying, deluding name.

And so, I dare say, it will be with this strange affair of the troublesome children of the Welsh seaside town, or rather of a group of small towns and villages lying within a certain section or zone, which I am not going to indicate more precisely than I can help, since I love that country, and my recent experience with "The Bowmen" have taught me that no tale is too idle to be believed. And, of course, to begin with, nobody knew how this odd and malicious piece of gossip originated. So far as I know, it was more akin to the Russian myth than to the tale of "The Angels of Mons." That is, rumour preceded print; the thing was talked of here and there and passed from letter to letter long before the papers were aware of its existence. And—here it resembles rather the Mons affair—London and Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham were muttering vague unpleasant things while the little villages concerned basked innocently in the sunshine of an unusual prosperity.

In this last circumstance, as some believe, is to be sought the root of the whole matter. It is well known that certain east coast towns suffered from the dread of air-raids, and that a good many of their usual visitors went westward for the first time. So there is a theory that the east coast was mean enough to circulate reports against the west coast out of pure malice and envy. It may be so; I do not pretend to know. But here is a personal experience, such as it is, which illustrated the way in which the rumour was circulated. I was lunching one day at my Fleet Street tavern—this was early in July—and a friend of mine, a solicitor, of Serjeants' Inn, came in and sat at the same table. We began to talk of holidays and my friend Eddis asked me where I was going. "To the same old place," I said. "Manavon. You know we always go there." "Are you really?" said the lawyer; "I thought that coast had gone off a lot. My wife has a friend who's heard that it's not at all that it was."

Guadalupe Dueñas: Historia de Mariquita

Nunca supe por qué nos mudábamos de casa con tanta frecuencia. Siempre nuestra mayor preocupación era establecer a Mariquita. A mi madre la desazonaba tenerla en su pieza; ponerla en el comedor tampoco convenía; dejarla en el sótano suponía molestar los sentimientos de mi padre; y exhibirla en la sala era imposible. Las visitas nos habrían enloquecido a preguntas. Así que, invariablemente, después de pensarlo demasiado, la instalaban en nuestra habitación. Digo “nuestra” porque era de todas. Con Mariquita, allí, dormíamos siete.

Mi papá siempre fue un hombre práctico; había viajado mucho y conocía los camarotes. En ellos se inspiró para idear aquél sistema de literas que economizaba espacio y facilitaba que cada una durmiera en su cama.

Como explico, lo importante era descubrir el lugar para Mariquita. En ocasiones quedaba debajo de una cama, otras en un rincón estratégico; pero la mayoría de las veces la localizábamos arriba del ropero.

Esta situación sólo nos interesaba a las dos mayores; las demás, aún pequeñas, no se preocupaban.

Para mí, disfrutar de su compañía me pareció muy divertido; pero mi hermana Carmelita vivió bajo el terror de esta existencia. Nunca entró sola a la pieza y estoy segura de que fue Mariquita quien la sostuvo tan amarilla; pues, aunque solamente la vio una ocasión, asegura que la perseguía por toda la casa.

Mariquita nació primero; fue nuestra hermana mayor. Yo la conocí cuando llevaba diez años en el agua y me dio mucho trabajo averiguar su historia.

Su pasado es corto, y muy triste: Llegó una mañana con el pulso trémulo y antes de tiempo. Como nadie la esperaba, la cuna estaba fría y hubo que calentarla con botellas calientes; trajeron mantas y cuidaron que la pieza estuviera bien cerrada. Isabel, la que iba a ser su madrina en el bautizo, la vio como una almendra descolorida sobre el tul de sus almohadas. La sintió tan desvalida en aquél cañón de vidrios que sólo por ternura se la escondió en los brazos. Le pronosticó rizos rubios y ojos más azules que la flor del helitropo. Pero la niña era tan sensible y delicada que empezó a morir.

Dicen que mi padre la bautizó rápidamente y que estuvo horas enteras frente a su cunita sin aceptar su muerte. Nadie pudo convencerlo de que debía enterrarla. Llevó su empeño insensato hasta esconderla en aquel pomo de chiles que yo descubrí un día en el ropero, el cual estaba protegido por un envase carmesí de forma tan extraña que el más indiferente se sentía obligado a preguntar de qué se trataba.

Clifford Donald Simak: Project Mastodon

The chief of protocol said, "Mr. Hudson of—ah—Mastodonia."

The secretary of state held out his hand. "I'm glad to see you, Mr. Hudson. I understand you've been here several times."

"That's right," said Hudson. "I had a hard time making your people believe I was in earnest."

"And are you, Mr. Hudson?"

"Believe me, sir, I would not try to fool you."

"And this Mastodonia," said the secretary, reaching down to tap the document upon the desk. "You will pardon me, but I've never heard of it."

"It's a new nation," Hudson explained, "but quite legitimate. We have a constitution, a democratic form of government, duly elected officials, and a code of laws. We are a free, peace-loving people and we are possessed of a vast amount of natural resources and—"

"Please tell me, sir," interrupted the secretary, "just where are you located?"

"Technically, you are our nearest neighbors."

"But that is ridiculous!" exploded Protocol.

"Not at all," insisted Hudson. "If you will give me a moment, Mr. Secretary, I have considerable evidence."

He brushed the fingers of Protocol off his sleeve and stepped forward to the desk, laying down the portfolio he carried.

"Go ahead, Mr. Hudson," said the secretary. "Why don't we all sit down and be comfortable while we talk this over?"

"You have my credentials, I see. Now here is a propos—"

"I have a document signed by a certain Wesley Adams."

"He's our first president," said Hudson. "Our George Washington, you might say."

"What is the purpose of this visit, Mr. Hudson?"

"We'd like to establish diplomatic relations. We think it would be to our mutual benefit. After all, we are a sister republic in perfect sympathy with your policies and aims. We'd like to negotiate trade agreements and we'd be grateful for some Point Four aid."

The secretary smiled. "Naturally. Who doesn't?"

"We're prepared to offer something in return," Hudson told him stiffly. "For one thing, we could offer sanctuary."

"Sanctuary!"

Carlos Sáiz Cidoncha: La caverna del sueño

Han pasado exactamente siete años desde el día que el célebre arqueólogo español Gil Gámez Montalbán, el mejor amigo que yo haya tenido nunca, dejó para siempre este mundo.

Cualquiera pudo leer en la Prensa de la época la noticia de su muerte. Durante unas excavaciones en la región mesopotámica, mi amigo, poco aficionado al trabajo en grupo, abandonó un día el campamento llevándose consigo una buena cantidad de dinamita y algún material espeológico. Algunos naturales de la región oyeron la noche siguiente el estruendo de una gran explosión y Gil no volvió nunca más al campamento. Fue al día siguiente cuando se descubrió lo que había sido la boca de una caverna completamente obstruida por miles y miles de toneladas de piedra, fruto de un apocalíptico derrumbamiento. No había posibilidad alguna de desescombro, pese a intentarse una y otra vez, siempre sin el menor resultado.

Una lápida existe hoy en día en el lugar del accidente, de cuyo origen no cabe la más mínima duda. Gil, amigo de los procedimientos rápidos, debió provocar el alud al intentar abrirse paso con dinamita por el interior de la caverna, en busca de algo que nunca se sabrá. Su cuerpo debió quedar enterrado por el aluvión de rocas, o quizá emparedado vivo en el interior de la caverna.

Esta es la explicación oficial de la desaparición de mi amigo. Existe otra, tan fantástica que el único hombre capaz de exponerla prefiere callar, temeroso de ser tomado por loco o, lo que es peor, incluso acusado del asesinato de Gil. Ya que hubo un testigo de los últimos momentos del arqueólogo, un testigo que puede relatar segundo a segundo los extraños sucesos que se desarrollaron en el interior de la caverna.

Ese testigo soy yo, el mismo que escribe ahora estas líneas, siete años después de aquellos inexplicables acontecimientos. Unas líneas increíbles que me guardaré mucho de divulgar en el tiempo que me quede de vida, pero que quizá después de mi muerte sean leídas por alguna persona que las podrá tomar por ciertas o no. A beneficio de ese posible lector, nada puedo hacer sino asegurar con toda mi buena fe que en nada me he apartado de la verdad, por fantástica e inconcebible que dicha verdad pueda ser.

He aquí, pues, la historia:

Lisa Goldstein: The Game This Year

It is a little before midnight, and three old people, two women and a man, are laboriously climbing the stairs in a ramshackle old office building.

Lily, the youngest-looking of the three, carries a box-shaped package. She looks like a woman you might see in a shopping mall or a church though a little over-dressed and behind the times. The other woman, Grace, is wearing a long coat patched together out of sky-blue velvet and emerald silk and ivory lace and embroidered upholstery fabric. Her gray hair is tied back in a bun, and a tabby cat, the same color as her hair, rides across her shoulders. Collier, the man, is using a stout staff to pull himself up the stairs. All the bulbs have burned out; the only light, a soft golden illumination, comes from the top of his staff. He is bald except for a few tufts of white hair, like sheep's wool, that surround his head. He stops, panting, and pushes up his round gold spectacles.

They come to the third floor and head toward the office at the end of the hall. Lily is moving too quickly; she steps on the train of Grace's coat. There is a tearing sound and the cat turns and mews softly. When they reach the office Lily opens her purse, takes out a heavy old-fashioned key, and unlocks the door.

She switches on the light and they stand clustered together in the doorway for a moment. There is an old battered desk and chair in the office and nothing else. Dust is everywhere; it covers the furniture and is strewn across the floor. In the breeze from the open door it spins and coalesces in the corners the way stars are said to do out in space. The cat sneezes.

Lily sets down her bundle and flings open the window. The window does not look out on more office buildings but on a small park, the only patch of green in this city's downtown. She says a few words and the dust vanishes out the window.

"They're late," Lily says.

"We're early, more like," Collier says. He shakes his watch and holds it to his ear. "This hasn't worked very well, these last few decades."

"At least we're not late," Lily says. "We never heard the end of it, that last time--"

"Oh, don't worry about that," Grace says. "Come on, let's play. They'll be here soon enough."

Lily arranges herself carefully on the floor, folding her skirt neatly beneath her. She takes the Risk game out of her sack and begins setting up. Grace lets the cat jump down from her shoulders and gathers her coat around her as she sits. "Oh, dear," she says, holding up the torn edge of her coat. "When did this happen?"

The other two study the board intently. Collier rolls the dice.

"Went to a singles bar last night," Grace says.

Pere Gimferrer: En el jardín

Terrible en el crepúsculo, el granadero permanecía en posición de firmes sobre la verja. A contraluz, su casco de kaiser horadaba las nubes. Una ojeada circular al jardín, silencioso y ya en penumbra, le reveló a un hombre que se mantenía insólitamente de pie en el tercer parterre. Sorteando barrotes y alambradas, el granadero llegó adonde se hallaba el desconocido. Éste tendría cuarenta años; una trinchera color beige le resguardaba del relente; sobre su labio superior, bajo la chispa de los ojos azules, se insinuaba un bigote estilizado y señoril. Nada justificaba su presencia allí, aunque tampoco contravenía con ella disposición alguna, por cuanto ciertamente no se había destinado al granadero para ahuyentar a inesperados paseantes. Miráronse de hito en hito, y ninguno de los dos rompió el silencio. En los días sucesivos una suerte de amistad terminó por desplazar la irritación del uno y el estupor del otro ante aquella poco frecuente convivencia. Se cambiaban impresiones sobre los trastornos atmosféricos, se discutía de arte y aun de filosofía, se contrapesaban los platos preferidos de la copiosa cocina regional. Con el tiempo se fue relajando la disciplina, y era el desconocido -ya conocido- quien a ratos montaba la guardia. Entre los dos construyeron un pabellón con muros de adobe para los días lluviosos. Aún hoy se mantiene en pie, agrietado y cubierto por la hiedra. Pues al terminar con el estado de excepción la necesidad estratégica que aconsejaba situar al granadero en la verja, se le relevó y el jardín quedó nuevamente abandonado. No compadezcáis al desconocido: todas las circunstancias sugieren su permanencia en el lugar por un lapso de tiempo muy anterior a la llegada del granadero. Y ganó algo en aquella pasajera alteración de sus costumbres: un refugio, aunque hoy ya ruinoso, como inevitablemente tenía que terminar una madriguera construida por manos inexpertas. En los jardines se cometen muchas irregularidades, y a menudo quien más debería saberlo no tiene de todo ello la menor noticia.

Robert E. Howard: Red Nails

1. The Skull on the Crag

The woman on the horse reined in her weary steed. It stood with its legs wide-braced, its head drooping, as if it found even the weight of the gold-tassled, red-leather bridle too heavy. The woman drew a booted foot out of the silver stirrup and swung down from the gilt-worked saddle. She made the reins fast to the fork of a sapling, and turned about, hands on her hips, to survey her surroundings.

They were not inviting. Giant trees hemmed in the small pool where her horse had just drunk. Clumps of undergrowth limited the vision that quested under the somber twilight of the lofty arches formed by intertwining branches. The woman shivered with a twitch of her magnificent shoulders, and then cursed.

She was tall, full-bosomed, and large-limbed, with compact shoulders. Her whole figure reflected an unusual strength, without detracting from the femininity of her appearance. She was all woman, in spite of her bearing and her garments. The latter were incongruous, in view of her present environs. Instead of a skirt she wore short, wide-legged silk breeches, which ceased a hand's breadth short of her knees, and were upheld by a wide silken sash worn as a girdle. Flaring-topped boots of soft leather came almost to her knees, and a low-necked, wide-collared, wide-sleeved silk shirt completed her costume. One one shapely hip she wore a straight double-edged sword, and on the other a long dirk. Her unruly golden hair, cut square at her shoulders, was confined by a band of crimson satin.

Against the background of somber, primitive forest she posed with an unconscious picturesqueness, bizarre and out of place. She should have been posed against a background of sea clouds, painted masts, and wheeling gulls. There was the color of the sea in her wide eyes. And that was at it should have been, because this was Valeria of the Red Brotherhood, whose deeds are celebrated in song and ballad wherever seafarers gather.

She strove to pierce the sullen green roof of the arched branches and see the sky which presumably lay above it, but presently gave it up with a muttered oath.

Leaving her horse tied, she strode off toward the east, glancing back toward the pool from time to time in order to fix her route in her mind. The silence of the forest depressed her. No birds sang in the lofty boughs, nor did any rustling in the bushes indicate the presence of small animals. For leagues she had traveled in a realm of brooding stillness, broken only by the sounds of her own flight.

She had slaked her thirst at the pool, but now felt the gnawing of hunger and began looking about for some of the fruit on which she had sustained herself since exhausting the food originally in her saddlebags.

Ahead of her, presently, she saw an outcropping of dark, flint-like rock that sloped upward into what looked like a rugged crag rising among the trees. Its summit was lost to view amidst a cloud of encircling leaves. Perhaps its peak rose above the treetops, and from it she could see what lay beyond—if, indeed, anything lay beyond but more of this apparently illimitable forest through which she had ridden for so many days.

A narrow ridge formed a natural ramp that led up the steep face of the crag. After she had ascended some fifty feet, she came to the belt of leaves that surrounded the rock. The trunks of the trees did not crowd close to the crag, but the ends of their lower branches extended about it, veiling it with their foliage. She groped on in leafy obscurity, not able to see either above or below her; but presently she glimpsed blue sky, and a moment later came out in the clear, hot sunlight and saw the forest roof stretching away under her feet.

Ricardo Acevedo Esplugas: Astolfo, de lo que este vio en la luna y de lo que no contó

En un profundo valle, situado entre montes altísimos, había un inmenso tesoro, compuesto con todo lo que en la Tierra se había desperdiciado.

Astolfo sulla luna (1532), Ludovico Ariosto.

El hipogrifo descendió suavemente entre los valles de la luna. Sin perder su dignidad permitió que Astolfo le acariciara bajo su cuello emplumado, para luego devorar con prontitud su ración de gemas.

Sin comprender por qué, Astolfo sabía de la utilidad y el nombre de todos los objetos presentes y futuros que allí se apilaban: un gran rompeolas hecho de chalecos salvavidas; balas perdidas que revolotean como moscas buscando un blanco invisible; la yerba facturada con discursos llenos de promesas incumplidas; y junto al viento desclasificaban todos los documentos secretos del mundo.

A lo lejos, Astolfo pudo otear una figura vestida de blanco de cómico andar, su voz le llegó llena de interferencias:

“Este es un pequeño paso para el hombre…”

Wilkie Collins: The Ghost in the Cupboard Room

 Mr. Beaver, on being “spoke” (as his friend and ally, Jack Governor, called it), turned out of an imaginary hammock with the greatest promptitude, and went straight on duty. “As it’s Nat Beaver’s watch,” said he, “there shall be no skulking.” Jack looked at me, with an expectant and admiring turn of his eye on Mr. Beaver, full of complimentary implication. I noticed, by the way, that Jack, in a naval absence of mind with which he is greatly troubled at times, had his arm round my sister’s waist. Perhaps this complaint originates in an old nautical requirement of having something to hold on by.
These were the terms of Mr. Beaver’s revelation to us:
What I have got to put forward, will not take very long; and I shall beg leave to begin by going back to last night — just about the time when we all parted from one another to go to bed.
The members of this good company did a very necessary and customary thing, last night — they each took a bedroom candlestick, and lit the candle before they went up-stairs. I wonder whether any one of them noticed that I left my candlestick untouched, and my candle unlighted; and went to bed, in a Haunted House, of all the places in the world, in the dark? I don’t think any one of them did.
That is, perhaps, rather curious to begin with. It is likewise curious, and just as true, that the bare sight of those candlesticks in the hands of this good company set me in a tremble, and made last night, a night’s bad dream instead of a night’s good sleep. The fact of the matter is — and I give you leave, ladies and gentlemen, to laugh at it as much as you please — that the ghost which haunted me last night, which has haunted me off and on for many years past, and which will go on haunting me till I am a ghost myself (and consequently spirit-proof in all respects), is, nothing more or less than — a bedroom candlestick.
Yes, a bedroom candlestick and candle, or a flat candlestick and candle — put it which way you like — that is what haunts me. I wish it was something pleasanter and more out of the common way; a beautiful lady, or a mine of gold and silver, or a cellar of wine and a coach and horses, and such-like. But, being what it is, I must take it for what it is, and make the best of it — and I shall thank you all kindly if you will help me out by doing the same.
I am not a scholar myself; but I make bold to believe that the haunting of any man, with anything under the sun, begins with the frightening of him. At any rate, the haunting of me with a bedroom candlestick and candle began with the frightening of me with a bedroom candlestick and candle — the frightening of me half out of my life, ladies and gentlemen; and, for the time being, the frightening of me altogether out of my wits. That is not a very pleasant thing to confess to you all, before stating the particulars; but perhaps you will be the readier to believe that I am not a downright coward, because you find me bold enough to make a clean breast of it already, to my own great disadvantage, so far.
These are the particulars, as well as I can put them.

Juan Eduardo Zúñiga: La prisionera

Estoy en el jardín de un antiguo palacio que no sé de quién fue ni cuál es hoy su dueño. La tarde es húmeda, y otoñal el ocaso; en el blando suelo las hojas mueren adheridas al barro. No hace viento, no oigo ningún ruido entre los árboles que forman paseos en los que mudas estatuas, sobre pedestales de hiedra, alzan su desnudez.

Quisiera recorrer este extraño jardín, pero estoy quieto. Nadie lo visita, nadie hace crujir el puentecillo de madera sobre el constante arroyo. Nadie se apoya en las balaustradas del parterre ante la fila de bustos que la intemperie enmascaró con manchas verdinegras.

Estoy ante la gran fachada cubierta de ventanas que termina en altas chimeneas sobre el oscuro alero del tejado. Todo en ella muestra haber sufrido los ataques del tiempo pero estos rigores no dañaron a la única ventana que yo miro. Cada día, tras los cristales, aparece ella, su delicada silueta, y aparta la cortina de tul y largamente pasea su mirada por los senderos que se alejan hacia el río. Vestida de color violeta, siempre seria, eternamente bella, conserva su rostro juvenil, su gesto de candor, atenta a la llegada de alguien que ella espera. Inmóvil, tras el cristal, no habla, no muestra si acepta mi presencia, acaso no me ve. Resignada se dobla mi cabeza sobre el hombro mordido por las lluvias; desearía que sus dedos me rozasen antes de que su mano se haga transparencia. Desfallece mi cabeza enamorada; tras mis ojos vacíos atesoré palabras y palabras de amor dedicadas a ella. Acaso un día logren mover mis labios de durísima piedra.

Ursula K. Le Guin: The Day Before the Revolution

In memoriam Paul Goodman, 1911-1972

The speaker's voice was as loud as empty beer-trucks in a stone street, and the people at the meeting were jammed up close, cobblestones, that great voice booming over them. Taviri was somewhere on the other side of the hall. She had to get to him. She wormed and pushed her way among the dark-clothed, close-packed people. She did not hear the words, nor see the faces: only the booming, and the bodies pressed one behind the other. She could not see Taviri, she was too short. A broad black-vested belly and chest loomed up, blocking her way. She must get through to Taviri. Sweating, she jabbed fiercely with her fist. It was like hitting stone, he did not move at all, but the huge lungs let out right over her head a prodigious noise, a bellow.. She cowered. Then she understood that the bellow had not been at her. Others were shouting. The speaker had said something, something fine about taxes or shadows. Thrilled, she joined the shouting--"Yes! Yes!" --and shoving on, came out easily into the open expanse of the Regimental Drill Field in Parheo. Overhead the evening sky lay deep and colorless, and all around her nodded the tall weeds with dry, white, close-floreted heads. She had never known what they were called. The flowers nodded above her head, swaying in the wind that always blew across the fields in the dusk. She ran among them, and they whipped lithe aside and stood up again swaying, silent. Taviri stood among the tall weeds in his good suit, the dark grey one that made him look like a professor or a play-actor, harshly elegant. He did not look happy, but he was laughing, and saying something to her. The sound of his voice made her cry, and she reached out to catch hold of his hand, but she did not stop, quite. She could not stop. "Oh, Taviri," she said, It's just on there!" The queer sweet smell of the white weeds was heavy as she went on. There were thorns. tangles underfoot, there were slopes, pits. She feared to fall, to fall, she stopped.

Sun, bright morning-glare, straight in the eyes, relentless. She had forgotten to pull the blind last night. She turned her back on the sun, but the right side wasn't comfortable. No use. Day. She sighed twice, sat up, got her legs over the edge of the bed, and sat hunched in her nightdress looking down at her feet.

The toes, compressed by a lifetime of cheap shoes, were almost square where they touched each other, and bulged out above in corns; the nails were discolored and shapeless. Between the knob-like anklebones ran fine, dry wrinkles. The brief little plain at the base of the toes had kept its delicacy, but the skin was the color of mud, and knotted veins crossed the instep. Disgusting. Sad, depressing. Mean. Pitiful. She tried on all the words, and they all fit, like hideous little hats. Hideous: yes, that one too. To look at oneself and find it hideous, what a job! But then, when she hadn't been hideous, had she sat around and stared at herself like this? Not much! A proper body's not an object, not an implement, not a belonging to be admired, it's just you, yourself. Only when it's no longer you. but yours, a thing owned, do you worry about it-- Is it in good shape? Will it do? Will it last?

"Who cares" said Laia fiercely, and stood up.

It made her giddy to stand up suddenly. She had to put out her hand to the bed-table, for she dreaded falling. At that she thought of reaching out to Taviri in the dream.

What had he said? She could not remember. She was not sure if she had even touched his hand. She frowned, trying to force memory. It had been so long since she had dreamed about Taviri; and now not even to remember what he had said!

It was gone, it was gone. She stood there hunched in her nightdress, frowning, one hand on the bed-table. How long was it since she had thought of him--let alone dreamed of him--even thought of him, as "Taviri?" How long since she had said his name?

Asieo said. When Asieo and I were in prison in the North. Before I met Asieo. Asieo's theory of reciprocity. Oh yes, she talked about him, talked about him too much no doubt, maundered, dragged him in. But as "Asieo," the last name, the public man. The private man was gone, utterly gone. There were so few left who had even known him. They had all used to be in jail. One laughed about it in those days, all the friends in all the jails. But they weren't even there, these days. They were in the prison cemeteries. Or in the common graves. 

Pere Calders: Invasió subtil

A l'Hostal Punta Marina, de Tossa, vaig conèixer un japonès desconcertant, que no s'assemblava en cap aspecte a la idea que jo tenia formada d'aquesta mena d'orientals.

A l'hora de sopar, va asseure's a la meva taula, després de demanar-me permís sense gaire cerimònia. Em va cridar l'atenció el fet que no tenia els ulls oblics ni la pell groguenca. Al contrari: en qüestió de color tirava a galtes rosades i a cabell rossenc.

Jo estava encuriosit per veure quins plats demanaria. Confesso que era una actitud pueril, esperant que encarregués plats poc corrents o combinacions exòtiques. El cas és que em va sorprendre fent-se servir amanida -"amb força ceba", digué-, cap i pota, molls a la brasa i ametlles torrades. Al final, cafè, una copa de conyac i una breva.

M'havia imaginat que el japonè menjaria amb una pulcritud exagerada, irritant i tot, pinçant els aliments com si fossin peces de rellotgeria. Però no fou pas així: l'home se servia del ganivet i la forquilla amb una gran desimboltura, i mastegava a boca plena sense complicacions estètiques. A mi, la veritat, em feia trontollar els partits presos.

D'altra banda, parlava català com qualsevol de nosaltres, sense ni una ombra de cap accent foraster. Això no era tan estrany, si es considera que aquesta gent és molt estudiosa i llesta en gran manera. Però a mi em feia sentir inferior, perquè no sé ni un borrall de japonès. És curiós de constatar que, el toc estranger a l'entrevista, l'hi posava jo, condicionant tota la meva actuació -gestos, paraules, entrades de conversa-, al fet que el meu interlocutor era japonès. Ell, en canvi, estava fresc com una rosa.

Jo creia que aquell home devia ésser representant o venedor d'aparells fotogràfics, o de transistors. Qui sap si de perles cultivades... Vaig provar tots aquells temes i ell els apartà amb un ample moviment del braç. "Venc sants d'Olot, jo", digué. "Encara hi ha mercat?", vaig preguntar-li. I em va dir que sí, que anava de baixa però que ell es defensava. Feia la zona sud de la Península, i va afirmar que, així que tenia un descans o venien dues festes seguides, cap a casa falta gent...