¿Hay una historia?

¿Hay una historia? Si hay una historia empieza hace tres años. En abril de 1976, cuando se publica mi primer libro, él me manda una carta. Con la carta viene una foto donde me tiene en brazos: desnudo, estoy sonriendo, tengo tres meses y parezco una rana. A él en cambio, se lo ve favorecido en esa fotografía: traje cruzado, sombrero de ala fina, la sonrisa campechana: un hombre de treinta años que mira el mundo de frente. Al fondo, borrosa y casi fuera de foco, aparece mi madre, tan joven que al principio me costó reconocerla.
La foto es de 1941; atrás él había escrito la fecha y después, como si buscara orientarme, transcribió las dos líneas del poema inglés que ahora sirve de epígrafe a este relato. No hubo otra tragedia en la historia de mi familia; ningún otro héroe digno de ser recordado. (Continúa) Varias versiones circulaban en secreto, confusas, conjeturales. Casado con una mujer de fortuna, mujer que llevaba el increíble nombre de Esperancita y de la que se decía que era delicada del corazón y que siempre dormía con la luz encendida y que en sus horas de melancolía rezaba en voz alta para que Dios pudiera oírla, el hermano de mi madre había desaparecido a los seis meses de matrimonio llevándose todo el dinero de su señora esposa para irse a vivir con una bailarina de cabaret de sobrenombre Coca. Con perfecta calma, sin perder su helada cortesía, Esperancita denunció el robo, movió influencias, hasta lograr que la policía lo encontrara, unos meses después, viviendo a todo tren y con nombre supuesto en un hotel de Río Hondo.
Me acuerdo de los recortes de diarios donde se hablaba del caso, escondidos en un cajón más o menos secreto del ropero, el mismo en el que mi padre guardaba Fisiología de las pasiones y mecánica sexual del profesor T. E. Van de Velde, autor de El matrimonio perfecto, y el libro de Engels sobre El origen de la familia, la propiedad privada y el Estado, junto con cartas, papeles y documentos diversos, entre ellos mi propia partida de nacimiento. Después de complicadas operaciones que ocupaban las siestas de mi infancia yo abría el cajón y en secreto espiaba los secretos de aquel nombre del que todos, en casa, hablaban en voz baja. Convicto y confeso decía (me acuerdo) uno de los titulares y siempre me emocionaba ese título, como si aludiera a acciones heroicas y un poco desesperadas. “Convicto y confeso”: repetía y me exaltaba porque no entendía bien el significado de las palabras y pensaba que convicto quería decir invencible.

Ricardo Piglia: Respiración Artificial

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In a hole in the ground

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.
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It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. The door opened on to a tube-shaped hall like a tunnel: a very comfortable tunnel without smoke, with panelled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted, provided with polished chairs, and lots and lots of pegs for hats and coats—the hobbit was fond of visitors. The tunnel wound on and on, going fairly but not quite straight into the side of the hill—The Hill, as all the people for many miles round called it—and many little round doors opened out of it, first on one side and then onanother. No going upstairs for the hobbit: bedrooms, bathrooms, cellars, pantries (lots of these), wardrobes (he had whole rooms devoted to clothes), kitchens, dining-rooms, all were on the same floor, and indeed on the same passage. The best rooms were all on the left-hand side (going in), for these were the only ones to have windows, deep-set round windows looking over his garden, and meadows beyond, sloping down to the river.
This hobbit was a very well-to-do hobbit, and his name was Baggins. The Bagginses had lived in the neighbourhood of The Hill for time out of mind, and people considered them very respectable, not only because most of them were rich, but also because they never hadany adventures or did anything unexpected: you could tell what a Baggins would say on any question without the bother of asking him. This is a story of how a Baggins had an adventure, and found himself doing and saying things altogether unexpected. He may have lost the neighbours" respect, but he gained—well, you will see whether he gained anything in the end.

J. R. R. Tolkien: The Hobbit

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Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.

Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.

For Lucy had her work cut out for her. The doors would be taken off their hinges; Rumpelmayer's men were coming. And then, thought Clarissa Dalloway, what a morning--fresh as if issued to children on a beach.

What a lark! What a plunge! For so it had always seemed to her, when, with a little squeak of the hinges, which she could hear now, she had burst open the French windows and plunged at Bourton into the open air. How fresh, how calm, stiller than this of course, the air was in the early morning; like the flap of a wave; the kiss of a wave; chill and sharp and yet (for a girl of eighteen as she then was) solemn, feeling as she did, standing there at the open window, that something awful was about to happen; looking at the flowers, at the trees with the smoke winding off them and the rooks rising, falling; standing and looking until Peter Walsh said, "Musing among the vegetables?"--was that it?--"I prefer men to cauliflowers"--was that it? He must have said it at breakfast one morning when she had gone out on to the terrace--Peter Walsh. He would be back from India one of these days, June or July, she forgot which, for his letters were awfully dull; it was his sayings one remembered; his eyes, his pocket-knife, his smile, his grumpiness and, when millions of things had utterly vanished--how strange it was!--a few sayings like this about cabbages.

She stiffened a little on the kerb, waiting for Durtnall's van to pass. A charming woman, Scrope Purvis thought her (knowing her as one does know people who live next door to one in Westminster); a touch of the bird about her, of the jay, blue-green, light, vivacious, though she was over fifty, and grown very white since her illness. There she perched, never seeing him, waiting to cross, very upright.

For having lived in Westminster--how many years now? over twenty,--one feels even in the midst of the traffic, or waking at night, Clarissa was positive, a particular hush, or solemnity; an indescribable pause; a suspense (but that might be her heart, affected, they said, by influenza) before Big Ben strikes. There! Out it boomed. First a warning, musical; then the hour, irrevocable. The leaden circles dissolved in the air. Such fools we are, she thought, crossing Victoria Street. For Heaven only knows why one loves it so, how one sees it so, making it up, building it round one, tumbling it, creating it every moment afresh; but the veriest frumps, the most dejected of miseries sitting on doorsteps (drink their downfall) do the same; can't be dealt with, she felt positive, by Acts of Parliament for that very reason: they love life. In people's eyes, in the swing, tramp, and trudge; in the bellow and the uproar; the carriages, motor cars, omnibuses, vans, sandwich men shuffling and swinging; brass bands; barrel organs; in the triumph and the jingle and the strange high singing of some aeroplane overhead was what she loved; life; London; this moment of June.
(Continúa)For it was the middle of June. The War was over, except for some one like Mrs. Foxcroft at the Embassy last night eating her heart out because that nice boy was killed and now the old Manor House must go to a cousin; or Lady Bexborough who opened a bazaar, they said, with the telegram in her hand, John, her favourite, killed; but it was over; thank Heaven--over. It was June. The King and Queen were at the Palace. And everywhere, though it was still so early, there was a beating, a stirring of galloping ponies, tapping of cricket bats; Lords, Ascot, Ranelagh and all the rest of it; wrapped in the soft mesh of the grey-blue morning air, which, as the day wore on, would unwind them, and set down on their lawns and pitches the bouncing ponies, whose forefeet just struck the ground and up they sprung, the whirling young men, and laughing girls in their transparent muslins who, even now, after dancing all night, were taking their absurd woolly dogs for a run; and even now, at this hour, discreet old dowagers were shooting out in their motor cars on errands of mystery; and the shopkeepers were fidgeting in their windows with their paste and diamonds, their lovely old sea-green brooches in eighteenth-century settings to tempt Americans (but one must economise, not buy things rashly for Elizabeth), and she, too, loving it as she did with an absurd and faithful passion, being part of it, since her people were courtiers once in the time of the Georges, she, too, was going that very night to kindle and illuminate; to give her party. But how strange, on entering the Park, the silence; the mist; the hum; the slow-swimming happy ducks; the pouched birds waddling; and who should be coming along with his back against the Government buildings, most appropriately, carrying a despatch box stamped with the Royal Arms, who but Hugh Whitbread; her old friend Hugh--the admirable Hugh!

"Good-morning to you, Clarissa!" said Hugh, rather extravagantly, for they had known each other as children. "Where are you off to?"

"I love walking in London," said Mrs. Dalloway. "Really it's better than walking in the country."

They had just come up--unfortunately--to see doctors. Other people came to see pictures; go to the opera; take their daughters out; the Whitbreads came "to see doctors." Times without number Clarissa had visited Evelyn Whitbread in a nursing home. Was Evelyn ill again? Evelyn was a good deal out of sorts, said Hugh, intimating by a kind of pout or swell of his very well-covered, manly, extremely handsome, perfectly upholstered body (he was almost too well dressed always, but presumably had to be, with his little job at Court) that his wife had some internal ailment, nothing serious, which, as an old friend, Clarissa Dalloway would quite understand without requiring him to specify. Ah yes, she did of course; what a nuisance; and felt very sisterly and oddly conscious at the same time of her hat. Not the right hat for the early morning, was that it? For Hugh always made her feel, as he bustled on, raising his hat rather extravagantly and assuring her that she might be a girl of eighteen, and of course he was coming to her party to-night, Evelyn absolutely insisted, only a little late he might be after the party at the Palace to which he had to take one of Jim's boys,--she always felt a little skimpy beside Hugh; schoolgirlish; but attached to him, partly from having known him always, but she did think him a good sort in his own way, though Richard was nearly driven mad by him, and as for Peter Walsh, he had never to this day forgiven her for liking him.

She could remember scene after scene at Bourton--Peter furious; Hugh not, of course, his match in any way, but still not a positive imbecile as Peter made out; not a mere barber's block. When his old mother wanted him to give up shooting or to take her to Bath he did it, without a word; he was really unselfish, and as for saying, as Peter did, that he had no heart, no brain, nothing but the manners and breeding of an English gentleman, that was only her dear Peter at his worst; and he could be intolerable; he could be impossible; but adorable to walk with on a morning like this.

(June had drawn out every leaf on the trees. The mothers of Pimlico gave suck to their young. Messages were passing from the Fleet to the Admiralty. Arlington Street and Piccadilly seemed to chafe the very air in the Park and lift its leaves hotly, brilliantly, on waves of that divine vitality which Clarissa loved. To dance, to ride, she had adored all that.)

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Virginia Woolf: Mrs Dalloway

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Mucho tiempo he estado acostándome temprano

Mucho tiempo he estado acostándome temprano. A veces apenas había apagado la bujía, cerrábanse mis ojos tan presto, que ni tiempo tenía para decirme: «Ya me duermo» . Y media hora después despertábame la idea de que ya era hora de ir a buscar el sueño; quería dejar el libro, que se me figuraba tener aún entre las manos, y apagar de un soplo la luz; durante mi sueño no había cesado de reflexionar sobre lo recién leído, pero era muy particular el tono que tomaban esas reflexiones, porque me parecía que yo pasaba a convertirme en el tema de la obra, en una iglesia, en un cuarteto, en la rivalidad de Francisco I y Carlos V. Esta figuración me duraba aún unos segundos después de haberme despertado: no repugnaba a mi razón, pero gravitaba como unas escamas sobre mis ojos sin dejarlos darse cuenta de que la vela ya no estaba encendida. Y luego comenzaba a hacérseme ininteligible, lo mismo que después de la metempsicosis pierden su sentido, los pensamientos de una vida anterior; el asunto del libro se desprendía de mi personalidad y yo ya quedaba libre de adaptarme o no a él; en seguida recobraba la visión, todo extrañado de encontrar en torno mío una oscuridad suave y descansada para mis ojos, y aun más quizá para mi espíritu, al cual se aparecía esta oscuridad como una cosa sin causa, incomprensible, verdaderamente oscura. Me preguntaba qué hora sería; oía el silbar de los trenes que, más o menos en la lejanía, y señalando las distancias, como el canto de un pájaro en el bosque, me describía la extensión de los campos desiertos, por donde un viandante marcha de prisa hacía la estación cercana; y el caminito que recorre se va a grabar en su , recuerdo por la excitación que le dan los lugares nuevos, los actos desusados, la charla reciente, los adioses de la despedida que le acompañan aún en el silencio de la noche, y la dulzura próxima del retorno.
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Apoyaba blandamente mis mejillas en las hermosas mejillas de la almohada, tan llenas y tan frescas, que son como las mejillas mismas de nuestra niñez. Encendía una cerilla para mirar el reloj. Pronto serían las doce. Este es el momento en que el enfermo que tuvo que salir de viaje y acostarse en una fonda desconocida, se despierta, sobrecogido por un dolor, y siente alegría al ver una rayita de luz por debajo de la puerta. ¡Qué gozo! Es de día ya. Dentro de un momento los criados se levantarán, podrá llamar, vendrán a darle alivio. Y la esperanza de ser confortado le da valor para sufrir. Sí, ya le parece que oye pasos, pasos que se acercan, que después se van alejando. La rayita de luz que asomaba por debajo de la puerta ya no existe. Es medianoche: acaban de apagar el gas, se marchó el último criado, y habrá que estarse la noche enteró sufriendo sin remedio.

Me volvía a dormir, y a veces ya no me despertaba más que por breves instantes, lo suficiente para oír los chasquidos orgánicos de la madera de los muebles, para abrir los ojos y mirar al calidoscopio de la oscuridad, para saborear, gracias a un momentáneo resplandor de conciencia, el sueño en que estaban sumidos los muebles, la alcoba, el todo aquel del que yo no era más que una ínfima parte, el todo a cuya insensibilidad volvía yo muy pronto a sumarme. Otras veces, al dormirme, había retrocedido sin esfuerzo a una época para siempre acabada de mi vida primitiva, me había encontrado nuevamente con uno de mis miedos de niño, como aquel de que mi tío me tirara de los bucles, y que se disipó .fecha que para mí señala una nueva era. el día que me los cortaron. Este acontecimiento había yo olvidado durante el sueño, y volvía a mi recuerdo tan pronto como acertaba a despertarme para escapar de las manos de mi tío: pero, por vía de precaución, me envolvía la cabeza con la almohada antes de tornar al mundo de los sueños.

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Marcel Proust: En busca del tiempo perdido: Por el Camino de Swann

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It was the best of times

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so.

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Charles Dickens: A Tale of Two Cities

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I'll make my report

I'll make my report as if I told a story, for I was taught as a child on my homeworld that Truth is a matter of the imagination. The soundest fact may fail or prevail in the style of its telling: like that singular organic jewel of our seas, which grows brighter as one woman wears it and, worn by another, dulls and goes to dust.

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Ursula Le Guin: The Left Hand of Darkness


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