world lit 1

8/8/2019 World Lit 1

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BUTTERFLIES

By Patricia Grace

The Grandmother plaited her granddaughters hair and then she said, Get your lunch.

Put it in your bag. Get your apple. You come straight back after school, straight home here.

Listen to the teacher, she said. Do what she say.

Her grandfather was out on the step. He walked down the path with her and out onto the

footpath. He said to a neighbor, Our granddaughter goes to school. She lives with us now.

Shes fine, the neighbor said. Shes terrific with her two plaits in her hair.

And clever, the grandfather said. Writes every day in her book.

Shes fine, the neighbor said.

The grandfather waited with his granddaughter by the crossing and then he said, Go to

school. Listen to the teacher. Do what she say.

When the granddaughter came home from school her grandfather was hoeing around the

cabbages. Her grandmother was picking beans. They stopped their work.

You bring your book home? the grandmother asked.

Yes.

You write your story?

Yes.

Whats your story?

About the butterflies.

Get your book then. Read your story.

The granddaughter took her book from her schoolbag and opened it.

I killed all the butterflies, she read. This is me and this is all the butterflies.

And your teacher like your story, did she?

I dont know.

What your teacher say?

She said butterflies are beautiful creatures. They hatch out and fly in the sun. The

butterflies visit all the pretty flowers, she said. They lay their eggs and then they die. You dont

kill butterflies, thats what she said.

The grandmother and the grandfather were quiet for a long time, and their granddaughter,

holding the book, stood quite still in the warm garden.

Because you see, the grandfather said, your teacher, she buy all her cabbages from the

supermarket and thats why.


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Hills Like White Elephants

By Ernest Hemingway

The hills across the valley of the Ebro were long and white. On this side there was no shade and no trees and the

station was between two lines of rails in the sun. Close against the side of the station there was the warm shadow

of the building and acurtain, made of strings of bamboo beads, hung across the open door into the bar, to keep

out flies. The American and the girl with him sat at a table in the shade, outside the building. It was very hot and

the express from Barcelona would come in forty minutes. It stopped at this junction for two minutes and went to

Madrid.

What should we drink? the girl asked. She had taken off her hat and put it on the table.

Its pretty hot, the man said.

Lets drink beer.

Dos cervezas, the man said into the curtain.

Big ones? a woman asked from the doorway.

Yes. Two big ones.

The woman brought two glasses of beer and two felt pads. She put the felt pads and the beer glass on the table

and looked at the man and the girl. The girl was looking off at the line of hills. They were white in the sun and the

country was brown and dry.

They look like white elephants, she said.

Ive never seen one, the man drank his beer.

No, you wouldnt have.

I might have, the man said. Just because you say I wouldnt have doesnt prove anything.

The girl looked at the bead curtain. Theyve painted something on it, she said. What does it say?

Anis del Toro. Its a drink.

Could we try it?

The man called Listen through the curtain. The woman came out from the bar.

Four reales. We want two Anis del Toro.

With water?

Do you want it with water?

I dont know, the girl said. Is it good with water?

Its all right.

You want them with water? asked the woman.

Yes, with water.

It tastes like liquorice, the girl said and put the glass down.

Thats the way with everything.


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Yes, said the girl. Everything tastes of liquorice. Especially all the things youve waited so long for, like absinthe.

Oh, cut it out.

You started it, the girl said. I was being amused. I was having a fine time.

Well, lets try and have a fine time.

All right. I was trying. I said the mountains looked like white elephants. Wasnt that bright?

That was bright.

I wanted to try this new drink. Thats all we do, isnt it look at things and try new drinks?

I guess so.

The girl looked across at the hills.

Theyre lovely hills, she said. They dont really look like white elephants. I just meant the colouring of their skin

through the trees.

Should we have another drink?

All right.

The warm wind blew the bead curtain against the table.

The beers nice and cool, the man said.

Its lovely, the girl said.

Its really an awfully simple operation, Jig, the man said. Its not really an operation at all.

The girl looked at the ground the table legs rested on.

I know you wouldnt mind it, Jig. Its really not anything. Its just to let the air in.

The girl did not say anything.

Ill go with you and Ill stay with you all the time. They just let the air in and then its all perfectly natural.

Then what will we do afterwards?

Well be fine afterwards. Just like we were before.

What makes you think so?

Thats the only thing that bothers us. Its the only thing thats made us unhappy.

The girl looked at the bead curtain, put her hand out and took hold of two of the strings of beads.

And you think then well be all right and be happy.

I know we will. Yon dont have to be afraid. Ive known lots of people that have done it.

So have I, said the girl. And afterwards they were all so happy.

Well, the man said, if you dont want to you dont have to. I wouldnt have you do it if you didnt want to. But I

know its perfectly simple.

And you really want to?

I think its the best thing to do. But I dont want you to do it if you dont really want to.

And if I do it youll be happy and things will be like they were and youll love me?

I love you now. You know I love you.


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I know. But if I do it, then it will be nice again if I say things are like white elephants, and youll like it?

Ill love it. I love it now but I just cant think about it. You know how I get when I worry.

If I do it you wont ever worry?

I wont worry about that because its perfectly simple.

Then Ill do it. Because I dont care about me.

What do you mean?

I dont care about me.

Well, I care about you.

Oh, yes. But I dont care about me. And Ill do it and then everything will be fine.

I dont want you to do it if you feel that way.

The girl stood up and walked to the end of the station. Across, on the other side, were fields of grain and trees

along the banks of the Ebro. Far away, beyond the river, were mountains. The shadow of a cloud moved across the

field of grain and she saw the river through the trees.

And we could have all this, she said. And we could have everything and every day we make it more impossible.

What did you say?

I said we could have everything.

We can have everything.

No, we cant.

We can have the whole world.

No, we cant.

We can go everywhere.

No, we cant. It isnt ours any more.

Its ours.

No, it isnt. And once they take it away, you never get it back.

But they havent taken it away.

Well wait and see.

Come on back in the shade, he said. You mustnt feel that way.

I dont feel any way, the girl said. I just know things.

I dont want you to do anything that you dont want to do -

Nor that isnt good for me, she said. I know. Could we have another beer?

All right. But youve got to realize

I realize, the girl said. Cant we maybe stop talking?

They sat down at the table and the girl looked across at the hills on the dry side of the valley and the man looked at

her and at the table.


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Youve got to realize, he said, that I dont want you to do it if you dont want to. Im perfectly willing to go

through with it if it means anything to you.

Doesnt it mean anything to you? We could get along.

Of course it does. But I dont want anybody but you. I dont want anyone else. And I know its perfectly simple.

Yes, you know its perfectly simple.

Its all right for you to say that, but I do know it.

Would you do something for me now?

Id do anything for you.

Would you please please please please please please please stop talking?

He did not say anything but looked at the bags against the wall of the station. There were labels on them from all

the hotels where they had spent nights.

But I dont want you to, he said, I dont care anything about it.

Ill scream, the girl siad.

The woman came out through the curtains with two glasses of beer and put them down on the damp felt pads.

The train comes in five minutes, she said.

What did she say? asked the girl.

That the train is coming in five minutes.

The girl smiled brightly at the woman, to thank her.

Id better take the bags over to the other side of the station, the man said. She smiled at him.

All right. Then come back and well finish the beer.

He picked up the two heavy bags and carried them around the station to the other tracks. He looked up the tracks

but could not see the train. Coming back, he walked through the bar-room, where people waiting for the train

were drinking. He drank an Anis at the bar and looked at the people. They were all waiting reasonably for the train.

He went out through the bead curtain. She was sitting at the table and smiled at him.

Do you feel better? he asked.

I feel fine, she said. Theres nothing wrong with me. I feel fine.


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A Clean, Well-Lighted Place

By Ernest Hemingway

It was very late and everyone had left the cafe except an old man who sat in the shadow the leaves of the tree

made against the electric light. In the day time the street was dusty, but at night the dew settled the dust and the

old man liked to sit late because he was deaf and now at night it was quiet and he felt the difference. The two

waiters inside the cafe knew that the old man was a little drunk, and while he was a good client they knew that if

he became too drunk he would leave without paying, so they kept watch on him.

"Last week he tried to commit suicide," one waiter said.

"Why?"

"He was in despair."

"What about?"

"Nothing."

"How do you know it was nothing?"

"He has plenty of money."

They sat together at a table that was close against the wall near the door of the cafe and looked at the terrace

where the tableswere all empty except where the old man sat in the shadow of the leaves of the tree that moved

slightly in the wind. A girl and a soldier went by in the street. The street light shone on the brass number on his

collar. The girl wore no head covering and hurried beside him.

"The guard will pick him up," one waiter said.

"What does it matter if he gets what he's after?"

"He had better get off the street now. The guard will get him. They went by five minutes ago."

The old man sitting in the shadow rapped on his saucer with his glass. The younger waiter went over to him.


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"What do you want?"

The old man looked at him. "Another brandy," he said.

"You'll be drunk," the waiter said. The old man looked at him. The waiter went away.

"He'll stay all night," he said to his colleague. "I'm sleepy now.I never get into bed before three o'clock. He should

have killed himself last week."

The waiter took the brandy bottle and another saucer from thecounter inside the cafe and marched out to the old

man's table. Heput down the saucer and poured the glass full of brandy.

"You should have killed yourself last week," he said to the deafman. The old man motioned with his finger. "A little

more," hesaid. The waiter poured on into the glass so that the brandy slopped over and ran down the stem into

the top saucer of the pile."Thank you," the old man said. The waiter took the bottle back inside the cafe. He sat

down at the table with his colleague again.

"He's drunk now," he said.

"He's drunk every night."

"What did he want to kill himself for?"

"How should I know."

"How did he do it?"

"He hung himself with a rope."

"Who cut him down?"

"His niece."

"Why did they do it?"


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"Fear for his soul."

"How much money has he got?" "He's got plenty."

"He must be eighty years old."

"Anyway I should say he was eighty."

"I wish he would go home. I never get to bed before three o'clock.What kind of hour is that to go to bed?"

"He stays up because he likes it."

"He's lonely. I'm not lonely. I have a wife waiting in bed for me."

"He had a wife once too."

"A wife would be no good to him now."

"You can't tell. He might be better with a wife."

"His niece looks after him. You said she cut him down."

"I know." "I wouldn't want to be that old. An old man is a nasty thing."

"Not always. This old man is clean. He drinks without spilling.Even now, drunk. Look at him."

"I don't want to look at him. I wish he would go home. He has no regard for those who must work."

The old man looked from his glass across the square, then over at the waiters.

"Another brandy," he said, pointing to his glass. The waiter who was in a hurry came over.

"Finished," he said, speaking with that omission of syntax stupid people employ when talking to drunken people or

foreigners. "Nomore tonight. Close now."


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"Another," said the old man.

"No. Finished." The waiter wiped the edge of the table with a towel and shook his head.

The old man stood up, slowly counted the saucers, took a leathercoin purse from his pocket and paid for the

drinks, leaving half a peseta tip. The waiter watched him go down the street, a very oldman walking unsteadily but

with dignity.

"Why didn't you let him stay and drink?" the unhurried waiter asked. They were putting up the shutters. "It is not

half-past two."

"I want to go home to bed."

"What is an hour?"

"More to me than to him."

"An hour is the same."

"You talk like an old man yourself. He can buy a bottle and drinkat home."

"It's not the same."

"No, it is not," agreed the waiter with a wife. He did not wish to be unjust. He was only in a hurry.

"And you? You have no fear of going home before your usual hour?"

"Are you trying to insult me?"

"No, hombre, only to make a joke."

"No," the waiter who was in a hurry said, rising from pulling down the metal shutters. "I have confidence. I am all

confidence."


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"You have youth, confidence, and a job," the older waiter said."You have everything."

"And what do you lack?"

"Everything but work."

"You have everything I have."

"No. I have never had confidence and I am not young."

"Come on. Stop talking nonsense and lock up."

"I am of those who like to stay late at the cafe," the older waitersaid.

"With all those who do not want to go to bed. With all those who need a light for the night."

"I want to go home and into bed."

"We are of two different kinds," the older waiter said. He was now dressed to go home. "It is not only a question of

youth and confidence although those things are very beautiful. Each night I am reluctant to close up because there

may be some one who needs the cafe."

"Hombre, there are bodegas open all night long."

"You do not understand. This is a clean and pleasant cafe. It is well lighted. The light is very good and also, now,

there are shadows of the leaves."

"Good night," said the younger waiter.

"Good night," the other said. Turning off the electric light he continued the conversation with himself, It was the

light of course but it is necessary that the place be clean and pleasant. You do not want music. Certainly you do not

want music. Nor can you stand before a bar with dignity although that is all that isprovided for these hours. What

did he fear? It was not a fear ordread, It was a nothing that he knew too well. It was all anothing and a man was a

nothing too. It was only that and light was all it needed and a certain cleanness and order. Some lived init and

never felt it but he knew it all was nada y pues nada y naday pues nada. Our nada who art in nada, nada be thy


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name thy kingdom nada thy will be nada in nada as it is in nada. Give usthis nada our daily nada and nada us our

nada as we nada our nadas and nada us not into nada but deliver us from nada; pues nada. Hail nothing full of

nothing, nothing is with thee. He smiled and stood before a bar with a shining steam pressure coffee machine.

"What's yours?" asked the barman.

"Nada."

"Otro loco mas," said the barman and turned away.

"A little cup," said the waiter.

The barman poured it for him.

"The light is very bright and pleasant but the bar is unpolished,"the waiter said.

The barman looked at him but did not answer. It was too late at night for conversation.

"You want another copita?" the barman asked.

"No, thank you," said the waiter and went out. He disliked bars and bodegas. A clean, well-lighted cafe was a very

different thing. Now, without thinking further, he would go home to his room. Hewould lie in the bed and finally,

with daylight, he would go to sleep. After all, he said to himself, it's probably only insomnia. Many must have it.


12/21

The Use of Force

By William Carlos Williams

They were new patients to me, all I had was the name, Olson. Please come down as soon as you can, my daughter

is very sick.

When I arrived I was met by the mother, a big startled looking woman, very clean and apologetic who merely said,

Is this the doctor? and let me in. In the back, she added. You must excuse us, doctor, we have her in the kitchen

where it is warm. It is very damp here sometimes.

The child was fully dressed and sitting on her father's lap near the kitchen table. He tried to get up, but I motioned

for him not to bother, took off my overcoat and started to look things over. I could see that they were all very

nervous, eyeing me up and down distrustfully. As often, in such cases, they weren't telling me more than they had

to, it was up to me to tell them; that's why they were spending three dollars on me.

The child was fairly eating me up with her cold, steady eyes, and no expression to her face whatever. She did not

move and seemed, inwardly, quiet; an unusually attractive little thing, and as strong as a heifer in appearance. But

her face was flushed, she was breathing rapidly, and I realized that she had a high fever. She had magnificent

blonde hair, in profusion. One of those picture children often reproduced in advertising leaflets and the

photogravure sections of the Sunday papers.

She's had a fever for three days, began the father and we don't know what it comes from. My wife has given her

things, you know, like people do, but it don't do no good. And there's been a lot of sickness around. So we tho't

you'd better look her over and tell us what is the matter.

As doctors often do I took a trial shot at it as a point of departure. Has she had a sore throat?

Both parents answered me together, No . . . No, she says her throat don't hurt her.

Does your throat hurt you? added the mother to the child. But the little girl's expression didn't change nor did she

move her eyes from my face.

Have you looked?

I tried to, said the mother, but I couldn't see.

As it happens we had been having a number of cases of diphtheria in the school to which this child went during

that month and we were all, quite apparently, thinking of that, though no one had as yet spoken of the thing.

Well, I said, suppose we take a look at the throat first. I smiled in my best professional manner and asking for the

child's first name I said, come on, Mathilda, open your mouth and let's take a look at your throat.

Nothing doing.

Aw, come on, I coaxed, just open your mouth wide and let me take a look. Look, I said opening both hands wide, I

haven't anything in my hands. Just open up and let me see.


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Such a nice man, put in the mother. Look how kind he is to you. Come on, do what he tells you to. He won't hurt

you.

At that I ground my teeth in disgust. If only they wouldn't use the word "hurt" I might be able to get somewhere.

But I did not allow myself to be hurried or disturbed but speaking quietly and slowly I approached the child again.

As I moved my chair a little nearer suddenly with one catlike movement both her hands clawed instinctively for my

eyes and she almost reached them too. In fact she knocked my glasses flying and they fell, though unbroken,

several feet away from me on the kitchen floor.

Both the mother and father almost turned themselves inside out in embarrassment and apology. You bad girl, said

the mother, taking her and shaking her by one arm. Look what you've done. The nice man .

For heaven's sake, I broke in. Don't call me a nice man to her. I'm here to look at her throat on the chance that she

might have diphtheria and possibly die of it. But that's nothing to her. Look here, I said to the child, we're going to

look at your throat. You're old enough to understand what I'm saying. Will you open it now by yourself or shall we

have to open it for you)

Not a move. Even her expression hadn't changed. Her breaths however were coming faster and faster. Then the

battle began. I had to do it. I had to have a throat culture for her own protection. But first I told the parents that it

was entirely up to them. I explained the danger but said that I would not insist on a throat examination so long as

they would take the responsibility.

If you don't do what the doctor says you'll have to go to the hospital, the mother admonished her severely.

Oh yeah? I had to smile to myself. After all, I had already fallen in love with the savage brat, the parents were

contemptible to me. In the ensuing struggle they grew more and more abject, crushed, exhausted while she surely

rose to magnificent heights of insane fury of effort bred of her terror of me.

The father tried his best, and he was a big man but the fact that she was his daughter, his shame at her behavior

and his dread of hurting her made him release her just at the critical times when I had almost achieved success, till

I wanted to kill him. But his dread also that she might have diphtheria made him tell me to go on, go on though he

himself was almost fainting, while the mother moved back and forth behind us raising and lowering her hands in

an agony of apprehension.

Put her in front of you on your lap, I ordered, and hold both her wrists.

But as soon as he did the child let out a scream. Don't, you're hurting me. Let go of my hands. Let them go I tell

you. Then she shrieked terrifyingly, hysterically. Stop it! Stop it! You're killing me!

Do you think she can stand it, doctor! said the mother.

You get out, said the husband to his wife. Do you want her to die of diphtheria?

Come on now, hold her, I said.

Then I grasped the child's head with my left hand and tried to get the wooden tongue depressor between her

teeth. She fought, with clenched teeth, desperately! But now I also had grown furious--at a child. I tried to hold


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myself down but I couldn't. I know how to expose a throat for inspection. And I did my best. When finally I got the

wooden spatula behind the last teeth and just the point of it into the mouth cavity, she opened up for an instant

but before I could see anything she came down again and gripping the wooden blade between her molars she

reduced it to splinters before I could get it out again.

Aren't you ashamed, the mother yelled at her. Aren't you ashamed to act like that in front of the doctor?

Get me a smooth-handled spoon of some sort, I told the mother. We're going through with this. The child's mouth

was already bleeding. Her tongue was cut and she was screaming in wild hysterical shrieks. Perhaps I should have

desisted and come back in an hour or more. No doubt it would have been better. But I have seen at least two

children lying dead in bed of neglect in such cases, and feeling that I must get a diagnosis now or never I went at it

again. But the worst of it was that I too had got beyond reason. I could have torn the child apart in my own fury

and enjoyed it. It was a pleasure to attack her. My face was burning with it.

The damned little brat must be protected against her own idiocy, one says to one's self at such times. Others must

be protected against her. It is a social necessity. And all these things are true. But a blind fury, a feeling of adult

shame, bred of a longing for muscular release are the operatives. One goes on to the end.

In a final unreasoning assault I overpowered the child's neck and jaws. I forced the heavy silver spoon back of her

teeth and down her throat till she gagged. And there it was--both tonsils covered with membrane. She had fought

valiantly to keep me from knowing her secret. She had been hiding that sore throat for three days at least and

lying to her parents in order to escape just such an outcome as this.

Now truly she was furious. She had been on the defensive before but now she attacked. Tried to get off her

father's lap and fly at me while tears of defeat blinded her eyes.


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A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings

By Gabriel Garcia Marquez

On the third day of rain they had killed so many crabs inside the house that Pelayo had to cross his drenched

courtyard and throw them into the sea, because the newborn child had a temperature all night and they thought it

was due to the stench. The world had been sad since Tuesday. Sea and sky were a single ash-gray thing and the

sands of the beach, which on March nights glimmered like powdered light, had become a stew of mud and rotten

shellfish. The light was so weak at noon that when Pelayo was coming back to the house after throwing away the

crabs, it was hard for him to see what it was that was moving and groaning in the rear of the courtyard. He had to

go very close to see that it was an old man, a very old man, lying face down in the mud, who, in spite of his

tremendous efforts, couldn't get up, impeded by his enormous wings.

Frightened by that nightmare, Pelayo ran to get Elisenda, his wife, who was putting compresses on the sick child,

and he took her to the rear of the courtyard. They both looked at the fallen body with a mute stupor. He was

dressed like a ragpicker. There were only a few faded hairs left on his bald skull and very few teeth in his mouth,

and his pitiful condition of a drenched great-grandfather took away and sense of grandeur he might have had. His

huge buzzard wings, dirty and half-plucked were forever entangled in the mud. They looked at him so long and so

closely that Pelayo and Elisenda very soon overcame their surprise and in the end found him familiar. Then they

dared speak to him, and he answered in an incomprehensible dialect with a strong sailor's voice. That was how

they skipped over the inconvenience of the wings and quite intelligently concluded that he was a lonely castaway

from some foreign ship wrecked by the storm. And yet, they called in a neighbor woman who knew everything

about life and death to see him, and all she needed was one look to show them their mistake.

"He's an angel," she told them. "He must have been coming for the child, but the poor fellow is so old that the rain

knocked him down."

On the following day everyone knew that a flesh-and-blood angel was held captive in Pelayo's house. Against the

judgment of the wise neighbor woman, for whom angels in those times were the fugitive survivors of a spiritual

conspiracy, they did not have the heart to club him to death. Pelayo watched over him all afternoon from the

kitchen, armed with his bailiff's club, and before going to bed he dragged him out of the mud and locked him up

with the hens in the wire chicken coop. In the middle of the night, when the rain stopped, Pelayo and Elisenda

were still killing crabs. A short time afterward the child woke up without a fever and with a desire to eat. Then they

felt magnanimous and decided to put the angel on a raft with fresh water and provisions for three days and leave

him to his fate on the high seas. But when they went out into the courtyard with the first light of dawn, they found


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the whole neighborhood in front of the chicken coop having fun with the angel, without the slightest reverence,

tossing him things to eat through the openings in the wire as if weren't a supernatural creature but a circus animal.

Father Gonzaga arrived before seven o'clock, alarmed at the strange news. By that time onlookers less frivolous

than those at dawn had already arrived and they were making all kinds of conjectures concerning the captive's

future. The simplest among them thought that he should be named mayor of the world. Others of sterner mind

felt that he should be promoted to the rank of five-star general in order to win all wars. Some visionaries hoped

that he could be put to stud in order to implant the earth a race of winged wise men who could take charge of the

universe. But Father Gonzaga, before becoming a priest, had been a robust woodcutter. Standing by the wire, he

reviewed his catechism in an instant and asked them to open the door so that he could take a close look at that

pitiful man who looked more like a huge decrepit hen among the fascinated chickens. He was lying in the corner

drying his open wings in the sunlight among the fruit peels and breakfast leftovers that the early risers had thrown

him. Alien to the impertinences of the world, he only lifted his antiquarian eyes and murmured something in his

dialect when Father Gonzaga went into the chicken coop and said good morning to him in Latin. The parish priest

had his first suspicion of an imposter when he saw that he did not understand the language of God or know how to

greet His ministers. Then he noticed that seen close up he was much too human: he had an unbearable smell of

the outdoors, the back side of his wings was strewn with parasites and his main feathers had been mistreated by

terrestrial winds, and nothing about him measured up to the proud dignity of angels. The he came out of the

chicken coop and in a brief sermon warned the curious against the risks of being ingenuous. He reminded them

that the devil had the bad habit of making use of carnival tricks in order to confuse the unwary. He argued that if

wings were not the essential element in determining the different between a hawk and an airplane, they were

even less so in the recognition of angels. Nevertheless, he promised to write a letter to his bishop so that the latter

would write his primate so that the latter would write to the Supreme Pontiff in order to get the final verdict from

the highest courts.

His prudence fell on sterile hearts. The news of the captive angel spread with such rapidity that after a few hours

the courtyard had the bustle of a marketplace and they had to call in troops with fixed bayonets to disperse the

mob that was about to knock the house down. Elisenda, her spine all twisted from sweeping up so much

marketplace trash, then got the idea of fencing in the yard and charging five cents admission to see the angel.

The curious came from far away. A traveling carnival arrived with a flying acrobat who buzzed over the crowd

several times, but no one paid any attention to him because his wings were not those of an angel but, rather,

those of a sidereal bat. The most unfortunate invalids on earth came in search of health: a poor woman who since

childhood has been counting her heartbeats and had run out of numbers; a Portuguese man who couldn't sleep

because the noise of the stars disturbed him; a sleepwalker who got up at night to undo the things he had done


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while awake; and many others with less serious ailments. In the midst of that shipwreck disorder that made the

earth tremble, Pelayo and Elisenda were happy with fatigue, for in less than a week they had crammed their rooms

with money and the line of pilgrims waiting their turn to enter still reached beyond the horizon.

The angel was the only one who took no part in his own act. He spent his time trying to get comfortable in his

borrowed nest, befuddled by the hellish heat of the oil lamps and sacramental candles that had been placed along

the wire. At first they tried to make him eat some mothballs, which, according to the wisdom of the wise neighbor

woman, were the food prescribed for angels. But he turned them down, just as he turned down the papal lunches

that the pentinents brought him, and they never found out whether it was because he was an angel or because he

was an old man that in the end ate nothing but eggplant mush. His only supernatural virtue seemed to be

patience. Especially during the first days, when the hens pecked at him, searching for the stellar parasites that

proliferated in his wings, and the cripples pulled out feathers to touch their defective parts with, and even the

most merciful threw stones at him, trying to get him to rise so they could see him standing. The only time they

succeeded in arousing him was when they burned his side with an iron for branding steers, for he had been

motionless for so many hours that they thought he was dead. He awoke with a start, ranting in his hermetic

language and with tears in his eyes, and he flapped his wings a couple of times, which brought on a whirlwind of

chicken dung and lunar dust and a gale of panic that did not seem to be of this world. Although many thought that

his reaction had not been one of rage but of pain, from then on they were careful not to annoy him, because the

majority understood that his passivity was not that of a her taking his ease but that of a cataclysm in repose.

Father Gonzaga held back the crowd's frivolity with formulas of maidservant inspiration while awaiting the arrival

of a final judgment on the nature of the captive. But the mail from Rome showed no sense of urgency. They spent

their time finding out in the prisoner had a navel, if his dialect had any connection with Aramaic, how many times

he could fit on the head of a pin, or whether he wasn't just a Norwegian with wings. Those meager letters might

have come and gone until the end of time if a providential event had not put and end to the priest's tribulations.

It so happened that during those days, among so many other carnival attractions, there arrived in the town the

traveling show of the woman who had been changed into a spider for having disobeyed her parents. The

admission to see her was not only less than the admission to see the angel, but people were permitted to ask her

all manner of questions about her absurd state and to examine her up and down so that no one would ever doubt

the truth of her horror. She was a frightful tarantula the size of a ram and with the head of a sad maiden. What

was most heartrending, however, was not her outlandish shape but the sincere affliction with which she recounted

the details of her misfortune. While still practically a child she had sneaked out of her parents' house to go to a

dance, and while she was coming back through the woods after having danced all night without permission, a

fearful thunderclap rent the sky in tow and through the crack came the lightning bolt of brimstone that changed


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her into a spider. Her only nourishment came from the meatballs that charitable souls chose to toss into her

mouth. A spectacle like that, full of so much human truth and with such a fearful lesson, was bound to defeat

without even trying that of a haughty angel who scarcely deigned to look at mortals. Besides, the few miracles

attributed to the angel showed a certain mental disorder, like the blind man who didn't recover his sight but grew

three new teeth, or the paralytic who didn't get to walk but almost won the lottery, and the leper whose sores

sprouted sunflowers. Those consolation miracles, which were more like mocking fun, had already ruined the

angel's reputation when the woman who had been changed into a spider finally crushed him completely. That was

how Father Gonzaga was cured forever of his insomnia and Pelayo's courtyard went back to being as empty as

during the time it had rained for three days and crabs walked through the bedrooms.

The owners of the house had no reason to lament. With the money they saved they built a two-story mansion with

balconies and gardens and high netting so that crabs wouldn't get in during the winter, and with iron bars on the

windows so that angels wouldn't get in. Pelayo also set up a rabbit warren close to town and have up his job as a

bailiff for good, and Elisenda bought some satin pumps with high heels and many dresses of iridescent silk, the

kind worn on Sunday by the most desirable women in those times. The chicken coop was the only thing that didn't

receive any attention. If they washed it down with creolin and burned tears of myrrh inside it every so often, it was

not in homage to the angel but to drive away the dungheap stench that still hung everywhere like a ghost and was

turning the new house into an old one. At first, when the child learned to walk, they were careful that he not get

too close to the chicken coop. But then they began to lose their fears and got used to the smell, and before they

child got his second teeth he'd gone inside the chicken coop to play, where the wires were falling apart. The angel

was no less standoffish with him than with the other mortals, but he tolerated the most ingenious infamies with

the patience of a dog who had no illusions. They both came down with the chicken pox at the same time. The

doctor who took care of the child couldn't resist the temptation to listen to the angel's heart, and he found so

much whistling in the heart and so many sounds in his kidneys that it seemed impossible for him to be alive. What

surprised him most, however, was the logic of his wings. They seemed so natural on that completely human

organism that he couldn't understand why other men didn't have them too.

When the child began school it had been some time since the sun and rain had caused the collapse of the chicken

coop. The angel went dragging himself about here and there like a stray dying man. They would drive him out of

the bedroom with a broom and a moment later find him in the kitchen. He seemed to be in so many places at the

same time that they grew to think that he'd be duplicated, that he was reproducing himself all through the house,

and the exasperated and unhinged Elisenda shouted that it was awful living in that hell full of angels. He could

scarcely eat and his antiquarian eyes had also become so foggy that he went about bumping into posts. All he had

left were the bare cannulae of his last feathers. Pelayo threw a blanket over him and extended him the charity of

letting him sleep in the shed, and only then did they notice that he had a temperature at night, and was delirious


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with the tongue twisters of an old Norwegian. That was one of the few times they became alarmed, for they

thought he was going to die and not even the wise neighbor woman had been able to tell them what to do with

dead angels.

And yet he not only survived his worst winter, but seemed improved with the first sunny days. He remained

motionless for several days in the farthest corner of the courtyard, where no one would see him, and at the

beginning of December some large, stiff feathers began to grow on his wings, the feathers of a scarecrow, which

looked more like another misfortune of decreptitude. But he must have known the reason for those changes, for

he was quite careful that no one should notice them, that no one should hear the sea chanteys that he sometimes

sang under the stars. One morning Elisenda was cutting some bunches of onions for lunch when a wind that

seemed to come from the high seas blew into the kitchen. Then she went to the window and caught the angel in

his first attempts at flight. They were so clumsy that his fingernails opened a furrow in the vegetable patch and he

was on the point of knocking the shed down with the ungainly flapping that slipped on the light and couldn't get a

grip on the air. But he did manage to gain altitude. Elisenda let out a sigh of relief, for herself and for him, when

she watched him pass over the last houses, holding himself up in some way with the risky flapping of a senile

vulture. She kept watching him even when she was through cutting the onions and she kept on watching until it

was no longer possible for her to see him, because then he was no longer an annoyance in her life but an

imaginary dot on the horizon of the sea.


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An Incident

By Lu Xun

Six years have slipped by since I came from the country to the capital. During that time I have seen and heard quite

enough of so-called affairs of state; but none of them made much impression on me. If

asked to define their influence, I can only say they aggravated my ill temper and made me, frankly speaking, more

and more misanthropic.

One incident, however, struck me as significant, and aroused me from my ill temper, so that even now I cannot

forget it.

It happened during the winter of 1917. A bitter north wind was blowing, but, to make a living, I had to be up and

out early. I met scarcely a soul on the road, and had great difficulty in hiring a rickshaw to take me to S Gate.

Presently the wind dropped a little. By now the loose dust had all been blown away, leaving the roadway clean,

and the rickshaw man quickened his pace. We were just approaching S Gate when someone crossing the road

was entangled in our rickshaw and slowly fell.

It was a woman, with streaks of white in her hair, wearing ragged clothes. She had left the pavement without

warning to cut across in front of us, and although the rickshaw man had made way, her tattered jacket,

unbuttoned and fluttering in the wind, had caught on the shaft. Luckily the rickshaw man pulled up quickly,

otherwise she would certainly have had a bad fall and been seriously injured.

She lay there on the ground, and the rickshaw man stopped. I did not think the old woman was hurt, and there had

been no witnesses to what had happened, so I resented this off iciousness which might land him in trouble and

hold me up.

"It's all right," I said. "Go on."

He paid no attention, howeverperhaps he had not heardfor he set down the shafts, and gently helped the old

woman to get up. Supporting her by one arm, he asked:

"Are you all right?"

"I'm hurt."

I had seen how slowly she fell, and was sure she could not be hurt. She must be pretending, which was disgusting.

The rickshaw man had asked for trouble, and now he had it. He would have to find his own way out.

But the rickshaw man did not hesitate for a minute after the old woman said she was injured. Still holding her arm,

he helped her slowly forward. I was surprised. When I looked ahead, I saw a police station. Because of the high

wind, there was no one outside, so the rickshaw man helped the old woman towards the gate.

Suddenly I had a strange feeling. His dusty, retreating figure seemed larger at that instant. Indeed, the further he

walked the larger he loomed, until I had to look up to him. Ar the same time he seemed gradually to be exerting a

pressure on me, which threatened to overpower the small self under my fur-lined gown.


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My vitality seemed sapped as I sat there motionless, my mind a blank, until a policeman came out. Then I got down

from the rickshaw.

The policeman came up to me, and said, "Get another rickshaw. He can't pull you any more."

Without thinking, I pulled a handful of coppers from my coat pocket and handed them to the policeman. "Please

give him these," I said.

The wind had dropped completely, but the road was still quiet. I walked along thinking, but I was almost afraid to

turn my thoughts on myself. Setting aside what had happened earlier, what had I meant by that handful of

coppers? Was it a reward? Who was I to judge the rickshaw man? I could not answer myself.

Even now, this remains fresh in my memory. It often causes me distress, and makes me try to think about myself.

The military and political affairs of those years I have forgotten as completely as the classics I read in my childhood.

Yet this incident keeps coming back to me, often more vivid than in actual life, teaching me shame, urging me to

reform, and giving me fresh courage and hope.

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