Felisberto Hernández: Acunamiento

Prólogo

Todos los sabios estaban de acuerdo en que el fin del mundo se aproximaba. Hasta habían fijado fecha. Todos los países se llenaron de espanto. Todos los hombres con el espíritu impreciso, no podían pensar en otra cosa que en hacerse los gustos. Y se precipitaban. Y no se preocupaban de que los póstumos placeres fueran a expensas del dolor de los demás. Hubo un país que reaccionó rápidamente de la fantástica noticia. Nadie sabía si ese estado de coraje era por ignorancia, por sabiduría, por demasiado dolor o por demasiado cinismo. Pero ellos fueron los únicos asombrosamente capaces de resolver el problema de precaverse: construyeron seis planetitas de cemento armado incluyendo las leyes físicas que los sostuvieran en el espacio.

I

Por más grande que fuera el esfuerzo humano, resultaba ridículo y pequeño al querer suplir a la Tierra. Se calculaba que ese país tenía diez veces más habitantes de los que cabían en los planetitas. Entonces decidieron algo atroz: debían salvarse los hombres perfectos. Vino el juicio final y unos cuantos hombres juzgaron a los demás hombres. En el primer momento todos se manifestaron capaces de esta tarea. Sin embargo, hubo un hombre extrañamente loco, que dijo lo contrario. Además propuso al pueblo que todos los hombres que se eligieran para juzgar a los demás, debían aceptar esta tarea a condición de ser fusilados.

II

El pueblo aceptó esta última proposición. Se disolvieron las aptitudes para la tarea de selección: nadie amaba la justicia al extremo de dar la vida por ella. Hubo sin embargo un hombre de experiencia concreta que aceptó. Indignado porque un grupo de inteligentes se burló de su experiencia, prefirió juzgar al grupo de inteligentes, y morir fusilado con una sonrisa trágica de ironía y de veneno de rabia. Gracias a los sacrificados por la justicia a ellos mismos, se juzgó a los hombres y los perfectos ocuparon sus respectivos puestos en los planetitas de cemento armado.

Neil Gaiman: A Study in Emerald

I. The New Friend

F RESH FROM THEIR STUPENDOUS EUROPEAN TOUR, WHERE THEY PERFORMED BEFORE SEVERAL OF THE CROWNED HEADS OF EUROPE, GARNERING THEIR PLAUDITS AND PRAISE WITH MAGNIFICENT DRAMATIC PERFORMANCES, COMBINING BOTH COMEDY AND TRAGEDY, THE STRAND PLAYERS WISH TO MAKE IT KNOWN THAT THEY SHALL BE APPEARING AT THE ROYAL COURT THEATRE, DRURY LANE, FOR A LIMITED ENGAGEMENT IN APRIL, AT WHICH THEY WILL PRESENT MY LOOK-ALIKE BROTHER TOM!, THE LITTLEST VIOLET-SELLER AND THE GREAT OLD ONES COME (THIS LAST AN HISTORICAL EPIC OF PAGEANTRY AND DELIGHT); EACH AN ENTIRE PLAY IN ONE ACT! TICKETS ARE AVAILABLE NOW FROM THE BOX OFFICE.

It is the immensity, I believe. The hugeness of things below. The darkness of dreams.

But I am woolgathering. Forgive me. I am not a literary man.

I had been in need of lodgings. That was how I met him. I wanted someone to share the cost of rooms with me. We were introduced by a mutual acquaintance, in the chemical laboratories of St. Bart’s. “You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive,” that was what he said to me, and my mouth fell open and my eyes opened very wide.

“Astonishing,” I said.

“Not really,” said the stranger in the white lab-coat, who was to become my friend. “From the way you hold your arm, I see you have been wounded, and in a particular way. You have a deep tan. You also have a military bearing, and there are few enough places in the Empire that a military man can be both tanned and, given the nature of the injury to your shoulder and the traditions of the Afghan cave-folk, tortured.”

Put like that, of course, it was absurdly simple. But then, it always was. I had been tanned nut-brown. And I had indeed, as he had observed, been tortured.

The gods and men of Afghanistan were savages, unwilling to be ruled from Whitehall or from Berlin or even from Moscow, and unprepared to see reason. I had been sent into those hills, attached to the-th Regiment. As long as the fighting remained in the hills and mountains, we fought on an equal footing. When the skirmishesdescended into the caves and the darkness then we found ourselves, as it were, out of our depth and in over our heads.

Salomé Guadalupe Ingelmo: No haré nada por lo que el dios de la biomecánica me impida entrar en su cielo / Nothing the god of bio-mechanics wouldn't let you in heaven for

Antes eran hombres, hombres como nosotros…

                    La isla del doctor Moreau, H. G. Wells

“Procread y multiplicaos, y henchid la tierra; sometedla y dominad sobre los peces del mar, sobre las aves del cielo…”. Acostumbra a repetir ese paso de la Biblia mientras el heterogéneo material genético se funde en las probetas.

Pero ese laboratorio no es un templo. Y de serlo, se habría erigido en honor a un dios cruel, preocupado únicamente por sus mezquinos intereses, siempre ávido de nuevos sacrificios. En las paredes, en nichos excavados sobre el pretendido blanco, tarros con fetos de rasgos zoomorfos que antaño se habrían considerado monstruos. Un macabro homenaje a los orígenes del mayor programa de ingeniería genética y social.

“Sobrevive el que se adapta al cambio”, afirma el director del proyecto. Quizá esté jugando con él. Puede que lo hayan descubierto. Disponen de tantos informantes…

De regreso a casa, en los sórdidos suburbios que se extienden más allá del perímetro de seguridad, compra bajo la lluvia ácida, en uno de tantos puestos ambulantes, tallarines. No tiene tiempo que perder; le espera una larga noche de trabajo.

En su pasillo hace cola una variopinta multitud: humanos mejorados para la gloria del Estado y el óptimo funcionamiento del sistema. Branquias para los operarios de las plataformas petrolíferas; alas para los albañiles asignados a la construcción de los rascacielos desde donde la élite dirige sus destinos; enormes y sensibles pabellones auditivos para los zapadores ‒ciegos‒ encargados de excavar el laberinto subterráneo que alberga los niveles más desfavorecidos del desgarrado tejido social...

Aunque no podrá revertir la manipulación genética que les dio vida, procurará paliar sus secuelas con cirugía y tratamientos farmacológicos. 

Philip K. Dick: The Skull

"What is this opportunity?" Conger asked. "Go on. I'm interested."

The room was silent; all faces were fixed on Conger—still in the drab prison uniform. The Speaker leaned forward slowly.

"Before you went to prison your trading business was paying well—all illegal—all very profitable. Now you have nothing, except the prospect of another six years in a cell."

Conger scowled.

"There is a certain situation, very important to this Council, that requires your peculiar abilities. Also, it is a situation you might find interesting. You were a hunter, were you not? You've done a great deal of trapping, hiding in the bushes, waiting at night for the game? I imagine hunting must be a source of satisfaction to you, the chase, the stalking—"

Conger sighed. His lips twisted. "All right," he said. "Leave that out. Get to the point. Who do you want me to kill?"

The Speaker smiled. "All in proper sequence," he said softly.

The car slid to a stop. It was night; there was no light anywhere along the street. Conger looked out. "Where are we? What is this place?"

The hand of the guard pressed into his arm. "Come. Through that door."

Conger stepped down, onto the damp sidewalk. The guard came swiftly after him, and then the Speaker. Conger took a deep breath of the cold air. He studied the dim outline of the building rising up before them.

"I know this place. I've seen it before." He squinted, his eyes growing accustomed to the dark. Suddenly he became alert. "This is—"

"Yes. The First Church." The Speaker walked toward the steps. "We're expected."

"Expected? Here?"

"Yes." The Speaker mounted the stairs. "You know we're not allowed in their Churches, especially with guns!" He stopped. Two armed soldiers loomed up ahead, one on each side.

"All right?" The Speaker looked up at them. They nodded. The door of the Church was open. Conger could see other soldiers inside, standing about, young soldiers with large eyes, gazing at the ikons and holy images.

"I see," he said.

"It was necessary," the Speaker said. "As you know, we have been singularly unfortunate in the past in our relations with the First Church."

"This won't help."

"But it's worth it. You will see."

They passed through the hall and into the main chamber where the altar piece was, and the kneeling places. The Speaker scarcely glanced at the altar as they passed by. He pushed open a small side door and beckoned Conger through.

"In here. We have to hurry. The faithful will be flocking in soon."

Conger entered, blinking. They were in a small chamber, low-ceilinged, with dark panels of old wood. There was a smell of ashes and smoldering spices in the room. He sniffed. "What's that? The smell."

Bertalicia Peralta: El retrato del abuelo

Abuelo murió hace años. A su muerte hubo que ir deshaciéndose de sus pertenencias, poco a poco. Un día fue el bastón. Otro, los dos pares de zapatos que usaba cuando salía a misa los domingos. Otro, las camisas blancas, bien planchadas, con su olor a bolitas de alcanfor. Las prendas íntimas se usaron, cortadas en pedazos del mismo tamaño, como trapos para la limpieza del piso, de los muebles, hasta que se volvieron hilachas.

Llegó el momento en que sólo quedó de su vivir entre la casa una foto magnífica, que lo mostraba aún de carnes vivas, ojos intensos, boca firme. La fotografía, más que impresión de un instante, semejaba la conciencia del futuro vigilando uno a uno los movimientos familiares.

Un día fue el nieto de veinte meses quien descubrió la clave. A su paso desenfadado y vacilante por toda la casa, el marco de la fotografía se estrelló contra el suelo y la presión desparramó las astillas de vidrios alrededor. Un olorcillo penetrante inundó la atmósfera. Una tela grisácea, sedosa y repugnante quedó pegada como goma de mascar sobre el linóleo amarillento que recubría el piso, y las carnes vivas del abuelo que habían estado enmarcadas por tanto tiempo, se ennegrecieron rápidamente para siempre.

Vincent O'Sullivan: The Business of Madame Jahn

How we all stared, how frightened we all were, how we passed opinions, on that morning when Gustave Herbout was found swinging by the neck from the ceiling of his bedroom. The whole Faubourg, even the ancient folk who had not felt a street under them for years, turned out and stood gaping at the house with amazement and loud conjecture. For why should Gustave Herbout, of all men, take to the rope? Only last week he had inherited all the money of his aunt, Madame Jahn, together with her house and the shop with the five assistants, and life looked fair enough for him. No; clearly it was not wise of Gustave to hang himself!

Besides, his aunt's death had happened at a time when Gustave was in sore straits for money. To be sure, he had his salary from the bank in which he worked; but what is a mere salary to one who (like Gustave) threw off the clerkly habit when working hours were over to assume the dress and lounge of the accustomed boulevardier: while he would relate to obsequious friends vague but satisfactory stories of a Russian Prince who was his uncle, and of an extremely rich English lady to whose death he looked forward with hope. Alas! with a clerk's salary one cannot make much of a figure in Paris. It took all of that, and more, to maintain the renown he had gained among his acquaintance of having to his own a certain little lady with yellow hair who danced divinely. So he was forced to depend on the presents which Madame Jahn gave him from time to time; and for those presents he had to pay his aunt a most sedulous and irksome attention. At times, when he was almost sick from his craving for the boulevard, the café, the theatre, he would have to repair as the day grew to an end, to our Faubourg, and the house behind the shop, where he would sit to an old-fashioned supper with his aunt, and listen With a sort of dull impatience while she asked him when he had last been at Confession, and told him long dreary stories of his dead father and mother. Punctually at nine o'clock the deaf servant, who was the only person besides Madame Jahn that lived in the house, would let in the fat old priest, who came for his game of dominoes, and betake herself to bed. Then the dominoes would begin, and with them the old man's prattle which Gustave knew so well: about his daily work, about the uselessness of all things here on earth, and the happiness and glory of the Kingdom of Heaven; and, of course, our boulevardier noticed, with the usual cheap sneer of the modern, that whilst the priest talked of the Kingdom of Heaven he yet showed the greatest anxiety if he had symptoms of a cold, or any other petty malady. However, Gustave would sit there with a hypocrite's grin and inwardly raging, till the clock chimed eleven. At that hour Madame Jahn would rise, and, if she was pleased with her nephew, would go over to her writing-desk and give him, with a rather pretty air of concealment from the priest, perhaps fifty or a hundred francs. Whereupon Gustave would bid her a manifestly affectionate good-night! and depart in the company of the priest. As soon as he could get rid of the priest, he would hasten to his favourite cafés, to discover that all the people worth seeing had long since grown tired of waiting and had departed on their own affairs. The money, indeed, was a kind of consolation; but then there were nights when he did not get a sou. Ah! they amuse themselves in Paris, but not in this way — this is not amusing.

One cannot live a proper life upon a salary and an occasional gift of fifty or a hundred francs. And it is not entertaining to tell men that your uncle, the Prince at Moscow, is in a sorry case, and even now lies a-dying, or that the rich English lady is in the grip of a vile consumption and is momently expected to succumb, if these men only shove up their shoulders, wink at one another, and continue to present their bills. Further, the little Mademoiselle with yellow hair had lately shown signs of a very pretty temper, because her usual flowers and bon-bons were not apparent. So, since things were come to this dismal pass, Gustave fell to attending the race-meetings at Chantilly. During the first week Gustave won largely, for that is sometimes the way with ignorant men: during that week, too, the little Mademoiselle was charming, for she had her bouquets and boxes of bon-bons. But the next week Gustave lost heavily, for that is also very often the way with ignorant men: and he was thrown into the blackest despair, when one night at a place where he used to sup, Mademoiselle took the arm of a great fellow whom he much suspected to be a German, and tossed him a scornful nod as she went off.

On the evening after this happened, he was standing between five and six o'clock, in the Place de la Madeleine, blowing on his fingers and trying to plan his next move, when he heard his name called by a familiar voice, and turned to face his aunt's adviser, the priest.

Ángel Olgoso: El misántropo

Don Celso Filgueira convocaba la antipatía de todos los vecinos del concello de Ribadeo. Confundían su pereza verbal con arrogancia y la justa cordialidad con desprecio. Recelaban de su negativa a copas y cafés y de su timidez bronca que no se paraba en hipocresías. El malentendido es la ley de gravitación de los solitarios. Cuando don Celso murió, todos consideraron para sí a aquel sujeto insociable una especie de lobezno muerto y bien muerto, pero don Celso Filgueira fue enterrado inadvertidamente con vida. Él, que anticipó esta contingencia (la soledad regala a manos llenas tiempo y temas), hizo instalar en su féretro un sistema patentado por el ingeniero Avendaño, de Monforte. Así pues, al despertar, oprimió en seguida el interruptor que levantó en la superficie un disco portador del número de enterramiento, encendió la lámpara de señalización y conectó la sirena de alarma. Era la mañana después de san Wenceslao, llovía y el soplo del orvallo apenas dejaba escuchar la llamada de auxilio. Mientras don Celso se removía como loco en la oscuridad, devorado ya por los gusanos del miedo, los vecinos iban acudiendo al camposanto atraídos por aquellos extraños e incansables bocinazos. Bastó que supieran de qué tumba provenían para que se dieran media vuelta. Y subiéndose unos las solapas y sacudiéndose otros las pellas de barro en los retamales, todos se alejaron, se alejaron.

Ambrose Bierce: An Arrest

Having murdered his brother-in-law, Orrin Brower of Kentucky was a fugitive from justice. From the county jail where he had been confined to await his trial he had escaped by knocking down his jailer with an iron bar, robbing him of his keys and, opening the outer door, walking out into the night. The jailer being unarmed, Brower got no weapon with which to defend his recovered liberty. As soon as he was out of the town he had the folly to enter a forest; this was many years ago, when that region was wilder than it is now.

The night was pretty dark, with neither moon nor stars visible, and as Brower had never dwelt thereabout, and knew nothing of the lay of the land, he was, naturally, not long in losing himself. He could not have said if he were getting farther away from the town or going back to it - a most important matter to Orrin Brower. He knew that in either case a posse of citizens with a pack of bloodhounds would soon be on his track and his chance of escape was very slender; but he did not wish to assist in his own pursuit. Even an added hour of freedom was worth having.

Suddenly he emerged from the forest into an old road, and there before him saw, indistinctly, the figure of a man, motionless in the gloom. It was too late to retreat: the fugitive felt that at the first movement back toward the wood he would be, as he afterward explained, “filled with buckshot.” So the two stood there like trees, Brower nearly suffocated by the activity of his own heart; the other - the emotions of the other are not recorded.

A moment later - it may have been an hour - the moon sailed into a patch of unclouded sky and the hunted man saw that visible embodiment of Law lift an arm and point significantly toward and beyond him. He understood. Turning his back to his captor, he walked submissively away in the direction indicated, looking to neither the right nor the left; hardly daring to breathe, his head and back actually aching with a prophecy of buckshot.

Elia Barceló: Mil euros por tu vida

 La luz del amanecer entraba sesgada a través de los toldos verdeazules creando en la sala un efecto de cueva submarina. Un reloj marcaba los minutos y, con cada clac, las dos personas que ocupaban el cuarto miraban en derredor, como sorprendidos, pará perder de nuevo la vista en los sedantes paisajes que adornaban las paredes.

    Ambos llevaban la bata azul caro de las instituciones hospitalarias europeas; ambos tenían la piel oscura, él más que ella; ambos sufrían obviamente de una tensión casi insoportable que los hacía removerse en la silla de plástico y girarse hacia la puerta cada vez que el silencio era interrumpido por un mínimo ruido.

    El hombre -joven, alto, musculoso- se puso en pie con un suspiro y dio unos pasos hasta tos ventanales que miraban al jardín. Ella lo siguió con la vista, sin hablar, y lanzó la mirada hacia afuera, hacia el césped verde y húmedo, salpicado de flores, hacía las palmeras que se balanceaban suavemente en la brisa que venía del mar. Le habría gustado estar ahí, poder posar los pies descalzos sobre la hierba, caminar hasta la playa, sentir las olas cachetearle las piernas cubriéndolas de carne de gallina.

    Se preguntó si, después de lo que iban a hacer con ella, podría volverá sentir el sol en su piel, el agua en su pelo. Tendría que preguntárselo al doctor Mendoza, que le diría que sí, seguro, había limitaciones por supuesto, ella lo sabía, pero no iba a perder tanto como ella misma se figuraba, no era tan trágico al fin y al cabo, existían leyes que regulaban sus prestaciones y en Europa la ley se tomaba muy en serio.

    Todo en Europa se tomaba muy en serio, particularmente el euro, el rey y dios del viejo mundo. Y del nuevo. Y de todos los mundos posibles.

    Eso era lo que la había llevado allí. Lo que los había llevado allí, se corrigió, mirando de reo,o al hombre que compartía su espera. Era guapo,de piel oscura y rasgos casi occidentales, con la nariz estrecha y recta y los pómulos altos; caminaba erguido como una lanza y era tan alto que ella tenía que echar la cabeza para atrás para verle el pelo, que le llegaba hasta los hombros, peinado en centenares de pequeñas trenzas. Se  preguntó dequé país sería, sabiendo que en la base no importaba. Vendría, como ella, de uno de los muchos países africanos en vías de extinción. Su familia, como la de ella, habría llegado al límite absoluto de la miseria y él habría llegado también a la conclusión de que lo único que podría darles una oportunidad de seguir con vida era la de vender lo poco que poseían, lo que aún tenía valor en el mercado europeo, si uno era lo bastante joven, lo bastante guapo y lo bastante sano como para que alguno de los muchos millonarios de Europa quisiera comprarlo. Y, sobre todo, si, por un capricho del destino, tus engramas cerebrales se ajustaban al diseño de los engramas del otro; algo casi milagroso que, sin embargo, sucedía de vez en cuando, como le había ocurrido a ella, como le tenía que haber ocurrido también a él, si estaba allí ahora, con la bata azul y la mirada perdida en el horizonte del mar.

Frank R. Stockton: Story Of Seven Devils

The negro church which stood in the pine woods near the little village of Oxford Cross Roads, in one of the lower counties of Virginia, was presided over by an elderly individual, known to the community in general as Uncle Pete; but on Sundays the members of his congregation addressed him as Brudder Pete. He was an earnest and energetic man, and, although he could neither read nor write, he had for many years expounded the Scriptures to the satisfaction of his hearers. His memory was good, and those portions of the Bible, which from time to time he had heard read, were used by him, and frequently with powerful effect, in his sermons. His interpretations of the Scriptures were generally entirely original, and were made to suit the needs, or what he supposed to be the needs, of his congregation.

Whether as "Uncle Pete" in the garden and corn-field, or "Brudder Pete" in the church, he enjoyed the good opinion of everybody excepting one person, and that was his wife. She was a high-tempered and somewhat dissatisfied person, who had conceived the idea that her husband was in the habit of giving too much time to the church, and too little to the acquisition of corn-bread and pork. On a certain Saturday she gave him a most tremendous scolding, which so affected the spirits of the good man that it influenced his decision in regard to the selection of the subject for his sermon the next day.

His congregation was accustomed to being astonished, and rather liked it, but never before had their minds received such a shock as when the preacher announced the subject of his discourse. He did not take any particular text, for this was not his custom, but he boldly stated that the Bible declared that every woman in this world was possessed by seven devils; and the evils which this state of things had brought upon the world, he showed forth with much warmth and feeling. Subject-matter, principally from his own experience, crowded in upon his mind, and he served it out to his audience hot and strong. If his deductions could have been proved to be correct, all women were creatures who, by reason of their sevenfold diabolic possession, were not capable of independent thought or action, and who should in tears and humility place themselves absolutely under the direction and authority of the other sex.

Justo Sierra: La Fiebre Amarilla

INCOMPLETO A SALTOS

Registrando un cuaderno pomposamente intitulado Álbum de viaje, y que yacía sobre ese polvo simpático que el tiempo aglomera en una caja de papeles largo tiempo olvidados, me encontré lo que verán mis amables lectoras:

Veníamos en la diligencia de Veracruz, un joven alemán, Wilhelm S., de cabellos de oro gris, ojos azules, grandes y sin expresión, y yo. No bien habíamos encumbrado el Chiquihuite cuando se desató la tormenta. El carruaje se detuvo para no exponerse a los peligros del descenso por aquellas pendientes convertidas en ríos. Asomé la cabeza por la portezuela, levantando la pesada cortinilla de cuero que el viento azotaba contra el marco; parecía de noche. Sobre nosotros la tempestad con sus mil alas negras golpeaba el espacio; sus gritos eléctricos rodaban por las cuestas hasta el mar, y el rayo, abriendo como espada fulmínea el seno de las nubes, nos mostraba las lívidas entrañas de la borrasca. Estábamos, literalmente, en el centro de una cascada que despeñándose de las nubes rebotaba en la cumbre de la montaña y corría por las pendientes con un furor torrencial.

pasaba sobre altísimo puente. sus larguísimas alas. sobre cuyo gris azuloso se destacaban negros e inmóviles los stratus que parecían una bandada de pájaros marinos abriendo al viento. y tengo un horno en el vientre. El camino que habíamos seguido al subir la cuesta. que apenas destacaban sus copas entre la tupida cortina de las lianas. Estoy sudando a mares ─me decía en francés mi compañero de viaje─. . del pie de la montaña. Duerma usted ─le contesté─. Dos horas después la tempestad había pasado. Eran las cinco de la tarde y el sol marchaba por el camino en que se perdían los últimos jirones de las nubes. manchado aquí y allí por el tierno y brillante verdor de los platanares. lleva al puerto. Y uniendo al consejo el ejemplo me arrebujé a mi capa y cerré los ojos. y ondulando por aquella gradería de titanes. En el fondo del cuadro. Por oriente un tapiz infinito de verdura bajaba plegándose en todas las quiebras y dobleces de la serranía. que tardaba en soplar. abajo. tiñéndolo todo con una maravillosa multiplicidad de tintas que se fundían en un tono cálido de oro y esmeralda. huyendo hacia el oeste por entre la verde serranía. por entre espesos y bullentes matorrales a confundirse con el fragmento de vía-férrea que. allí donde se adivinaba el mar. hasta convertirse en azul por la distancia y bañar su ancho fleco de arena en la costa de Veracruz. Penetraba la luz por entre aquella vegetación exuberante. así le pasará todo. serpenteaba por entre árboles. bajaba en curvas abiertas a una pequeña población de madera e iba. se levantaban soberbios grupos de nubes.

Robert William Chambers: The Messenger

Little gray messenger.
Robed like painted Death.
Your robe is dust.
Whom do you seek
Among lilies and closed buds
At dusk?
Among lilies and closed buds
At dusk.
Whom do you seek
Little gray messenger.
Robed in the awful panoply
Of painted Death?
--R.W. C.


All--wise.
Hast thou seen all there is to see with thy two eyes?
Dost thou know all there is to know and so.
Omniscient.
Darest thou still to say thy brother lies?
--R.W.C.

"The bullet entered here," said Max Fortin, and he placed his middle finger over a smooth hole exactly in the centre of the forehead.

I sat down upon a mound of dry seaweed and unslung my fowling piece.

The little chemist cautiously felt the edges of the shot-hole, first with his middle finger, then with his thumb.

"Let me see the skull again," said I.

Max Fortin picked it up from the sod.

"It's like all the others," he observed. I nodded, without offering to take it from him. After a moment he thoughtfully replaced it upon the grass at my feet.

"It's like all the others," he repeated, wiping his glasses on his handkerchief. "I thought you might care to see one of the skulls, so I brought this over from the gravel pit. The men from Bannalec are digging yet. They ought to stop."

"How many skulls are there altogether?" I inquired.

"They found thirty-eight skulls; there are thirty-nine noted in the list. They lie piled up in the gravel pit on the edge of Le Bihan's wheat field. The men are at work yet. Le Bihan is going to stop them."

"Let's go over," said I; and I picked up my gun and started across the cliffs, Fortin on one side, Môme on the other.

"Who has the list?" I asked, lighting my pipe. "You say there is a list?" "The list was found rolled up in a brass cylinder," said the little chemist. He added: "You should not smoke here. You know that if a single spark drifted into the wheat--"

"Ah, but I have a cover to my pipe," said I, smiling.

Fortin watched me as I closed the pepper-box arrangement over the glowing bowl of the pipe.

Then he continued:

Jorge Luis Borges: La biblioteca de Babel

El universo (que otros llaman la Biblioteca) se compone de un número indefinido, y tal vez infinito, de galerías hexagonales, con vastos pozos de ventilación en el medio, cercados por barandas bajísimas. Desde cualquier hexágono se ven los pisos inferiores y superiores: interminablemente.

La distribución de las galerías es invariable. Veinte anaqueles, a cinco largos anaqueles por lado, cubren todos los lados menos dos; su altura, que es la de los pisos, excede apenas la de un bibliotecario normal. Una de las caras libres da a un angosto zaguán, que desemboca en otra galería, idéntica a la primera y a todas. A izquirda y a derecha del zaguán hay dos gabinetes minúsculos.

Uno permite dormir de pie; otro, satisfacer las necesidades finales. Por ahí pasa la escalera espiral, que se abisma y se eleva hacia lo remoto. En el zaguán hay un espejo, que fielmente duplica las apariencias. Los hombres suelen inferir de ese espejo que la Biblioteca no es infinita (si lo fuera realmente ¿a qué esa duplicación ilusoria?); yo prefiero soñar que las superficies bruñidas figuran y prometen el infinito... La luz procede de unas frutas esféricas que llevan el nombre de lámparas. Hay dos en cada hexágono: transversales. La luz que emiten es insuficiente, incesante

Como todos los hombres de la Biblioteca, he viajado en mi juventud; he peregrinado en busca de un libro, acaso del catálogo de catálogos; ahora que mis ojos casi no pueden descifrar lo que escribo, me preparo a morir a unas pocas leguas del hexágono en que nací. Muerto, no faltarán manos piadosas que me tiren por la baranda; mi sepultura será el aire insondable; mi cuerpo se hundirá largamente y se corromperá y disolverá en el viento engendrado por la caída, que es infinita.

Yo afirmo que la Biblioteca es interminable. Los idealistas arguyen que las salas hexagonales son una forma necesaria del espacio absoluto o, por lo menos, de nuestra intuición del espacio. Razonan que es inconcebible una sala triangular o pentagonal. (Los místicos pretenden que el éxtasis les revela una cámara circular con un gran libro circular de lomo continuo, que da toda la vuelta de las paredes; pero su testimonio es sospechoso; sus palabras, oscuras. Ese libro cíclico es Dios.) Básteme, por ahora, repetir el dictamen clásico: La Biblioteca es una esfera cuyo centro cabal es cualquier hexágono, cuya circunferencia es inaccesible.

A cada uno de los muros de cada hexágono corresponden cinco anaqueles; cada anaquel encierra treinta y dos libros de formato uniforme; cada libro es de cuatrocientas diez páginas; cada página, de cuarenta renglones; cada renglón, de unas ochenta letras de color negro. También hay letras en el dorso de cada libro; esas letras no indican o prefiguran lo que dirán las páginas. Sé que esa inconexión, alguna vez, pareció misteriosa. Antes de resumir la solución (cuyo descubrimiento, a pesar de sus trágicas proyecciones, es quizá el hecho capital de la historia) quiero rememorar algunos axiomas. 

L. Sprague de Camp: Two Yards of Dragon

Eudoric Dambertson, Esquire, rode home from his courting of Lusina, daughter of the enchanter Baldonius, with a face as long as an olifant's nose. Eudoric's sire, Sir Dambert, said:

"Well, how fared thy suit, boy? Ill, eh?"

"I—" began Eudoric.

"I told you 'twas an asinine notion, eh? Was I not right? When Baron Emmerhard has more daughters than he can count, any one of which would fetch a pretty parcel of land with her, eh? Well, why answerest not?"

"I—" said Eudoric.

"Come on, lad, speak up!"

"How can he, when ye talk all the time?" said Eudoric's mother, the Lady Aniset.

"Oh," said Sir Dambert. "Your pardon, son. Moreover 25

and furthermore, as I've told you, an ye were Emmerhard's son-in-law, he'd use his influence to get you your spurs. Here ye be, a strapping youth of three-and-twenty, not yet knighted. 'Tis a disgrace to our lineage."

"There are no wars toward, to afford opportunity for deeds of knightly dought," said Eudoric.

"Aye, 'tis true. Cedes, we all hail the blessings of peace, which the wise governance of our sovran emperor hath given us for lo these thirteen years. Howsomever, to perform a knightly deed, our young men must needs waylay banditti, disperse rioters, and do suchlike fribbling feats."

As Sir Dambert paused, Eudoric interjected, "Sir, that problem now seems on its way to solution."

"How meanest thou?"

"If you'll but hear me, Father! Doctor Baldonius has set me a task, ere he'll bestow Lusina on me, which should fit me for knighthood in any jurisdiction."

"And that is?"

"He's fain to have two square yards of dragon hide. Says he needs 'em for his magical mummeries."

"But there have been no dragons in these parts for a century or more!"