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Unha Ducia De Ovos. Tan Cerca Del Son De Las Gaitas, Tan Lejos De La Espuma De Inglaterra.

Ganar es un hábito. Pero no hace al monje ni al Porco Bravo. Las cosas no se deben dar nunca por supuestas. Ninguna cigarra pasó nunca mejor invierno que una hormiga. Es cierto que a veces hay casualidades y otras hay excepciones. Pero sólo confirman la regla general. Sin entrenar, sin sacrificio, sin disciplina, no se va a ninguna parte. Aunque a veces un buen resultado maquille una mala actitud. Aunque a veces el talento colectivo tape las miserias individuales. Y viceversa. Hemos tomado nota. Los trenes de la purga ya están en el andén del no volverá a pasar.



El uniforme, ¿no era totalmente negro?

La otra crónica, la escrita según el tradicional método galeguidade ao pao, informa:


Porcos Bravos 8 - Sheffield Stags 4

Os Porcos Bravos: Manu Blondo (Gk); Frank; Nacho; Xandre; Sergio (4); Peter Rojo; Martín Fisher; Estevo (2); Villanueva; Gael (2); Josué; Sava y Xurxo Moldes

The Sheffield Stags: Gallo (Gk); Thomo; Harrison (2); Machen; Percy; Simon (2); Irish; Ben Thompson y P.K.

Venue: Agüeiros, en Campañó. Mañana soleada. El otoño en Galiza ya no es lo que era. Estuvieron arreglando el campo y se notó.

Attendance: 700 privilegiados en las gradas. Entre ellos, los hermosos y los malditos.

Uniformes: Os Porcos Bravos cabalgan otra vez con Jako, hermosa camiseta germana y negra.
Los Stags insisten en el verde de tonalidad confusa. Ya saben que la esperanza es una puta vestida de ese color.

El Laurence Bowles (¿o es ya el premio Colin Davies?) al mejor jugador porcobravo es para Peter Rojo, imperial en la zaga local.

El Derek Dooley's Left Leg al mejor jugador inglés recae en Simon, al que otras fuentes llaman Schofield.

Árbitro: E. Manzano Negreira. Sin influencia en el resultado.


Los Datos: Van cinco victorias seguidas del equipo galego y la tentación de la rima siempre está presente.

Sergio se convierte en el primer jugador que golea en cuatro ediciones consecutivas.

Os Porcos Bravos empiezan a ser una voluta de humo en el horizonte. 12 triunfos a 7. Jamás un equipo en esta Cup había tenido cinco partidos de ventaja. Contando además con la particularidad que diez ediciones se han disputado en Inglaterra por sólo 9 en Galiza. En la XX, buscarán, una vez más, lo nunca visto en la competición. Ganar 6 ediciones consecutivas.

No nos engañemos. La puesta en escena de los Porcos Bravos fue un puto espanto. Se notó que parte del equipo se dejó arrastrar por la resaca de la noche pontevedresa y ni hizo acto de presencia. Se notó que no se entrenó la XIX ni a las canicas y lo pagaron con hasta tres lesionados. Se notó que están embriagados de éxito. Y tanto dieron la nota, que los ingleses marcaron en su primer ataque. Tocaba a los locales, deslavazados y engreídos, remar contracorriente. Y entonces los cuervos, una vez más, decidieron volar en dirección al Main. El delantero titular para la ocasión demostró de que pie cojea y hubo que cambiarlo. Genio y figura, a Sergio le bastó lo que quedaba de primera parte para marcar la diferencia con un póquer de goles y cambiar el curso de la batalla con su ejemplo. Espoleados y notables, Gael, Xandre, Josué y los debutantes Estevo y Villanueva, empezaron a subir el ritmo y la jornada se tiñó de negro. Los de Sheffield, un equipo aseado y trabajado tácticamente, acusaron eso tan viejo de que todo el mundo tiene un plan hasta que le cae la primera hostia, y encajaron un quinto antes del recreo.

Aunque nadie lo dijo en voz alta, todos sabían que la segunda parte sobraba. Un parcial de 3 a 3 a pesar del noble temple de los arqueros en el intercambio limpio de golpes en el correcalles y del admirable pero infructuoso esfuerzo de Martín por hacer su gol y defender la corona de máximo goleador histórico.

También hubo otros detalles de esos que enriquecen la mitología anglogaliciosa que se bebe en los pubs: el golazo de Simon, directo a un tutorial de como pegarle a la pelota; o la asistencia de tacón de Sava...lástima que volviese a confundir la portería.

Ahora toca preparar la XX. Un partido que se prevé épico.
Os galegos tienen que hacer examen de conciencia.
Los ingleses, jugando de locales y con tres fichajes más, tendrán una nueva oportunidad para acabar con una sequía que enfila hacia la década.

Pero eso será otra marea y en otro país

Después de todo, mañana, si los dioses no disponen otra cosa, será otro día.

800 comentarios:

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  1. Into the pigsty of Anglogalician Rode the Six Hundred dixo...
  2. La Crónica Irrefutable está a medio camino entre el mu­tismo de los animales y las mentiras del Main.

  3. Viejo era el caballo y otros tienes dixo...
  4. Anduve errante por la niebla de doce montañas
    Caminé y me arrastré por seis rutas tortuosas
    Llegué hasta el centro de siete bosques desolados
    Estuve delante de doce océanos muertos
    Metí 8 goles a los Stags

  5. Anónimo dixo...
  6. Toda esta vanidad. Toda esta Crónica. Nada entendió, pero se contuvo. Y aparecieron los salvajes, o quizá los no salvajes, con un llanto como el susurro de los robles, como el zumbido de las abejas, como el salpique de las olas, como el silencio de las piedras y como la faz de los desiertos, alzando platos sobre sus cabezas, bajando sin apuro desde las cumbres hacia la tierra escasa.

  7. Vate con un bate dixo...
  8. Cuando aplico la nariz al agujero huelo el llano de aluvión
    del canal después de un huracán
    y los sitios con hierba donde yacen ingleses a montón

    con hedor, con hedor, con hedor sin fin.

    Cuando aplico el ojo al agujero veo a alguien que a la lluvia expone bosta caballar
    con la esperanza, sí, sencilla
    de extraer de allí una que otra espiga integral

    con un pio, con un pio, con un pio-lín.

    Y cuando logro ya en definitiva
    aplicar la boca al nicho ribeteado de pelo de caballo
    saboreo la hogaza que él horneó a partir de esa semilla

    con un la, con un la, con un lametón.

  9. Saúl González Mendieta dixo...
  10. Number 1 is Gallacher,
    Number 2 is Gallacher,
    Number 3 is Gallacher,
    Number 4 is Gallacher,
    ¡GALLACHER!
    We all dream of a team of Gallacher's

  11. Saúl González Mendieta dixo...
  12. Los Puercos Bravos van de negro, como los árbitros.
    Nada más que comentar.

  13. No tengo nada en contra de que las mujeres usen su belleza o sus habilidades sexuales (el ascensor social–bucal–vaginal, lo llamo yo) como mejor les parezca. dixo...
  14. De que el oficio de chutar balones está plagado de lacras. Levantemos veloz inventario de lo que no se alivia con el botiquín del masajista: el nacionalismo, la violencia en los estadios, la comercializacion de la especie y lo mal que nos vemos con la cara pintada. Todo esto merece un obvio voto de censura. Pero no se puede luchar contra el gusto de figurarnos cosas. Cada aficionado encuentra en el partido un placer o una perversión a su medida. En un mundo donde el erotismo va de la poesía trans a los condones rotos, no es casual que se diversifiquen las reacciones cuando siempre ganan los de negro.

  15. Sodomía danesa dixo...
  16. El hombre en trance futbolístico sucumbe a un frenesí difícil de asociar con la razón pura. En sus mejores momentos, recupera una porción de infancia, el reino primigenio donde las hazañas tienen reglas pero dependen de caprichos, y donde algunas veces, bajo una lluvia oblicua o un sol de justicia, alguien anota un gol como si matara un leopardo y enciende las antorchas de la tribu.
    En sus peores momentos, el fan del futbol es un idiota con la boca abierta ante un sandwich y la cabeza llena de datos inservibles. Es obvio que la Ilustración no ocurrió para idolatrar héroes cuyas estampas aparecen en paquetes de galletas ni para aceptar el nirvana que suspende el juicio y la mordida. La verdad, cuesta trabajo asociar a estos aficionados con los rigores del planeta posindustrial. Pero estan ahí y no hay forma de cambiarlos por otros.
    En sociedades descompuestas, Hamlet incita a matar padrastros y el fútbol a cometer actos vandálicos.

  17. Pussy King of the Pirates dixo...
  18. Los Stags no van a volver a ganar...NUNCA

  19. El Balón Perdido de Nivea dixo...
  20. Hay un equipo que tiene al otro de hijo

  21. Comentario 611 dixo...
  22. Levanto la mano y miro la oscuridad pasar entre mis dedos, casi definitivos. Y en este limbo pienso que todo fuera parece hondo como el sueño de un tigre y que, a oscuras, el vientre del tiempo es aún más blando. Me protejo con las sábanas y no me limpian. Me oculto, como un secreto que apenas turba el mundo.

  23. Vine aquí para que me chupes la polla dixo...
  24. -Y cada día debo decidir que no será el día.
    -¿No puedes sencillamente vivir como hace todo el mundo?
    -Claro que sí. Y ocurrirá. Quizá durante días, semanas o meses. Pero esto también soy yo -señalo mi pulsera con mis datos sobre las cicatrices-. He de saber que no me he curado, que no me puedo curar, que en nadie debe pesar la responsabilidad de hacerlo.
    -Vivirás enfermo, entonces.
    -No hay otro modo. Pero sabré que no hay máscara tan gruesa para tapar mi rostro. Ni línea ni cicatriz que no reciba el azar en cada hora. Y eso es lo único importante. Atravesar el aire. Desgarrar la noche con los dedos y saber que cuando el tiempo acabe, el tiempo último que rinda cuentas a la nada, dirá entonces que fuimos parte de su nombre. Dirá que todos fuimos necesarios.

  25. Fred Hankey dixo...
  26. ‘Why dois your Brand sae drap wi bluid,
    Edward, Edward,
    Why dois your Brand sae drap wi bluid,
    And whe sae sad gang yee, O?’
    ‘O I hue killed my jauke sae guid,
    Mither, mither,
    O I hae killed my hauke sae guid,
    And I had nae mair bot hee o’

    ‘Your haukis bluid was nevir sae reid,
    Edward, Edward,
    Your haukis bluid was nevir sae reid,
    My deir son I tell thee O.’
    ‘O I hae killd my reid-roan steid,
    mither, mither,
    O I hae killed my reid-roan steid,
    That erst was sae fair and frie O.’

    ‘Your steid was auld, and ye hae gat mair,
    Edward, Edward,
    Your steid was auld, and ye hae gat mair,
    Sum other yule ye drie O.’
    ‘O I hae killed my fadir deir,
    Mither, mither,
    O I hae killed my fader deir,
    Alas, adn wae is mee O!’

    And thatten penance wul ye drie, for that,
    Edward, Edward?
    And thatten penance will ye drie for that?
    My deir son, now tell me O.’
    ‘Ille set my deit in yonder boat,
    Mither, mither,
    Ille set my geit in yonder boat,
    And Ille fare ovir the sea O.’

    ‘And what wul ye doe wi your towirs and your ha,
    Edward, Edward?
    And what wul ye doe wi your woris and your ha,
    That were sae fair to see O?’
    ‘Ille let tham stand tul they doun fa,
    Mither, mither,
    Ille let thame stand tul they doun fa,
    For here nevir mair maun I bee O.’

    ‘And what wul ye leive to your bairns and your wife,
    Edward, Edward?
    And what wul ye leive to your bairns and your wife,
    Whan ye gang ovir the sea O?’
    ‘The warldis room, late them beg trae life,
    Mither, mither,
    The warldis room, late them beg thrae life,
    For tham nevir mair I wul see O.’

    ‘And what wul ye leive to your ain mither deir,
    Edward, Edward,
    And what wul ye leive to your ain mither deir?
    My deir son, now tell O.’
    ‘The curse of hell frae me sall ye beir,
    Mither, mither,
    The curse of hell frae me sall ye beir,
    Sic counseils ye gave to me O.’

  27. Fred Hankey dixo...
  28. ‘O where ha you been, Lord Randal, my son?
    And where ha you been, my handsome young man?
    ‘I ha been at the greenwood; mother mak my bed soon;
    For I’m wearied wi hunting, and fain wad lie down.’

    ‘An wha met ye there, Lord Randal, my son?
    An wha met you there, my handsome young man?’
    ‘O I met wi my true-love; mother, mak my bed soon,
    For I’m wearied wi huntin, and fain wad lie down.’

    ‘And what did she give you, Lord Randal, my son?
    And what did she give you, my handsome young man?
    ‘Eels fried in a pan; mother, mak my bed son,
    For I’m wearied wi huntin, and fain wad lie down.’

    ‘And wha gat your leaving, Lord Randal, my son?
    And wha gat your leaving, my handsom young man?’
    ‘My hawks and my hounds; mother, mal my bed soon,
    For I’m weaned wi hunting, and fain wad lie down.’

    ‘And what becam of them, Lord Randal, my son?
    And what becam of them, my handsome young man?’
    ‘They stretched their legs out and died; mother, mak my bed soon,
    For I’m wearied wi hunting, and fain wad lie down.’

    ‘O I fear you are posoned, Lord Randal, my son!
    I fear you are poisoned, my handsome young man!’
    ‘O yes, I am poisoned; mother, make my bed soon,
    For I’m sick at the heart, and I fain wad lie down.’

    ‘What d’ye leave to your mother, Lord Randal, my son?
    What d’ue leave to your mother, my handsome young man?
    ‘Four and twenty milk kye; mother, mak my bed soon.
    For I’m sick at the heaert, and I fain wad lie down.’

    ‘What d’ye leave to your sister, Lord Randal, my son?
    What d’ye leave to your sister, my handsome young man?’
    ‘My gold and my silver; mother, mak my bed soon,
    For I’m sick at the heart, and I fain wad lie down.’

    ‘What d’ye leave to your brother, Lord Randal, my son?
    What d’ye leave to your brother, my handsome young man?
    ‘My houses and muy lands; mother, mak my bed soon,
    For I’m sick at the heart, and I fain wad lie down.’

    ‘What d’ye leave to your true-love, Lord Randal, my son?
    What d’ye leave to your true-love, my handsome young man?
    ‘I leave her hell and fire; mother, mak my bed soon,
    For I’m sick at the heart, and I fain wad lie down.’

  29. Fred Hankey dixo...
  30. Bollocks to the rules! We're strong – we hunt!

  31. Tierra-616 dixo...
  32. Los juicios son morales tanto como estéticos. A veces se elogia y se admira, otras veces se censura. La misma persona puede, en una sola tarde, recibir elogios y amonestaciones (porque hasta el amigo más querido tiene defectos, y porque no hay persona ―una vez que se la ha frecuentado lo suficiente― que no resulte insoportable). Los que conversan, son dos hombres sensibles e inteligentes. También, prejuiciosos. Cada uno sufre los prejuicios del compañero. El juego, a veces, los aleja; acaso los hiere, pues llegan a veredictos diferentes. En silencio, cada cual hace del compañero objeto de la misma maquinaria.

  33. Due to a technical issue, we couldn't complete this request. Please try again. dixo...
  34. Claro: sin purgas no hay ningún camino ni ninguna Causa.

  35. Cuchichoco dixo...
  36. Era la asarde y los flexgosos tavos
    Grulaban y gladraban en el pórdex;
    Andaban lánguchos los borogavos
    Y brachían los górdex.

  37. O Couto dixo...
  38. Los buenos jugadores también tienen que aparecer en campos así

  39. ¿De un bocado de un tigre dientes de sable o ahogado en una bañera de Nocilla? dixo...
  40. Lo segundo tiene su encanto. Uno imagina el abrazo cálido y goloso del chocolate industrial, rindiéndose a su viscosidad decadente como un emperador romano que por fin ha perdido la voluntad de resistirse al postre. El tigre, aunque más rápido, es difícil de idealizar. Hay algo profundamente humillante en convertirse a la vez en plato principal y remordimiento digestivo de un felino. No solo mueres: te mastican, te digieren y te excretan. Un ciclo completo de indignidad.

    Y, sin embargo, parece que hoy la gente prefiere el tigre.

    Por todo el mundo, la gente está harta de promesas, bañadas en chocolate: prosperidad, igualdad, oportunidades…, siempre programadas, como un vuelo retrasado eternamente, para mañana (siempre mañana). Renunciando a la dulzura imaginaria, muchos optan por el verdugo más brutal, pero más eficiente. Si todo va a derrumbarse igualmente, ¿por qué no elegir el derrumbe que al menos ruge con convicción?

  41. Vida de un pollo blanquecino de piel fina dixo...
  42. Mejor inventar un gesto nuevo que insistir en uno falso.

  43. Miedo a fallar dixo...
  44. La violencia, igual que el miedo, es comprometedora

  45. el primero que se atreve a comer junto a las patas de los poderosos ciervos dixo...
  46. Una disección excelente de la idiosincrasia de la XIX. Somos eso. Por eso la Bestia excede al lenguaje, porque el vacío que nos hace no se puede nombra

  47. Amada, vamos al borde dixo...

  48. Siempre la realidad viene del excremento.

  49. Hace 1.001 noches o vicisitudes fucsiaocres que no lloro. dixo...
  50. Acontece que somos exactamente iguales, estamos exactamente igual de perdidos. Igual, igual.

    Propongo encontrarnos junto a los juncos cimbreados. Y qué
    miel grata, qué cima, brea! Cierto?

  51. Qué rubia la adultez, eh? Hace 5 siglos. dixo...
  52. wow!
    Te hiciste pis. Eso sí sé.

    Mi consejo para meter goles? Di «Mi consejo?» con seguridad.
    Pasado mañana será otro día.

  53. ¡Goool en Las Gaunas! dixo...
  54. Un delantero gordo cuya imagen es un icono del deportista anterior a la era metrosexual, salvó el culo a los Porquiños

  55. De lo efímero de los rectángulos azules dixo...
  56. La vida del mortal. Frase como una bofetada menor. Cota de malla llevo pero la flecha es fina. Hasta mi corazón bien podría llegar una serpiente. (¿Recuerdas aquel viejo aromático mordiendo el coral de agua que lo había mordido?) Oscuridad de la humedad. Aroma del verde profundo. Barro lavado y virgen. Un día los hombres llenarán estas rutas con el desconcierto, tal vez, de la costumbre. Pero hoy sólo existe, digámoslo, el miedo. Y he aquí que sentimos el sol desde arriba de los árboles. El miedo. Mis hombres: apresurad el paso.

  57. Don Pimpón dixo...
  58. Esto de los Testigos de Jehová
    está super jodido
    porque después vendrán
    los jueces de Jehová
    los fiscales de Jehová
    los cuilios de Jehová
    los guardias nacionales de Jehová
    y nos tomarán entre todos
    la declaración extrajudicial de Jehová

    Para no hablar todavía
    de los goles de Jehová
    y luego los ciervos de Jehová
    y los bombardeos estratégicos de Jehová
    más conocidos con el nombre de
    Armagedón Don Pimpón

  59. Y yo con estas pintas dixo...
  60. Ralph se arrodilló sobre la revuelta tierra y aguardó a que todo recobrase su normalidad. A los pocos minutos, los troncos blancos y partidos, los palos rotos y el destrozado matorral volvieron a aparecer con precisión ante sus ojos. Sentía agobio en el pecho, allí donde su propio pulso se había hecho casi visible.
    Silencio de nuevo.
    Pero no del todo. Oyó murmullos afuera; inesperadamente, las ramas a su derecha se agitaron violentamente en dos lugares. Apareció la punta afilada de un palo. Ralph, invadido por el pánico, atravesó con su lanza el resquicio abierto, impulsándola con todas sus fuerzas.
    —¡Ayyy!
    Giró la lanza ligeramente y después volvió a atraerla hacia sí.
    —¡Uyyy!
    Alguien se quejaba al otro lado, al mismo tiempo que se elevaba un aleteo de voces. Se había entablado una violenta discusión mientras el salvaje herido seguía lamentándose. Cuando por fin volvió a hacerse el silencio, se oyó una sola voz y Ralph decidió que no era la de Jack.
    —¿Ves? ¿No te lo dije? Es peligroso.
    El salvaje herido se quejó de nuevo.
    ¿Qué ocurriría ahora? ¿Qué iba a suceder?
    Ralph apretó sus manos sobre la mordida lanza. Alguien hablaba en voz baja a unos cuantos metros de él, en dirección al Peñón del Castillo. Oyó a uno de los salvajes decir «¡No!», con voz sorprendida, y a continuación percibió risas sofocadas. Se sentó en cuclillas y mostró los dientes a la muralla de ramas. Alzó la lanza, gruñó levemente y esperó. El invisible grupo volvió a reír. Oyó un extraño crujido, al cual siguió un chispear más fuerte, como si alguien desenvolviese enormes rollos de papel de celofán. Un palo se partió en dos; Ralph ahogó la tos. Entre las ramas se filtraba humo en nubéculas blancas y amarillas; el rectángulo de cielo azul tomó el color de una nube de tormenta, hasta que por fin el humo creció en torno suyo.

  61. Y yo con estas pintas dixo...
  62. Alguien reía excitado y una voz gritó:
    —¡Humo!
    Ralph se abrió paso por el matorral hacia el bosque, manteniéndose fuera del alcance del humo. No tardó en llegar a un claro bordeado por las hojas verdes del matorral. Entre él y el bosque se interponía un pequeño salvaje, un salvaje de rayas rojas y blancas, con una lanza en la mano. Tosía y se embadurnaba de pintura alrededor de los ojos, con una mano, mientras intentaba ver a través del humo, cada vez más espeso. Ralph se tiró a él como un felino, lanzó un gruñido, clavó su lanza y el salvaje se retorció de dolor. Ralph oyó un grito al otro lado de la maleza y salió corriendo bajo ella, impelido por el miedo. Llegó a una trocha de cerdos, por la cual avanzó unos cien metros, hasta que decidió cambiar de rumbo. Detrás de él el cántico de la tribu volvía de nuevo a recorrer toda la isla, acompañado ahora por el triple grito de uno de ellos. Supuso que se trataba de la señal para el avance y salió corriendo una vez más hasta que sintió arder su pecho. Se escondió bajo un arbusto y aguardó hasta recobrar el aliento. Se pasó la lengua por dientes y labios y oyó a lo lejos el cántico de sus perseguidores.
    Tenía varias soluciones ante él. Podía subirse a un árbol, pero eso era arriesgarse demasiado. Si le veían, no tenían más que esperar tranquilamente.
    ¡Si tuviese un poco de tiempo para pensar!
    Un nuevo grito, repetido y a la misma distancia, le reveló el plan de los salvajes. Aquel de ellos que se encontrase atrapado en el bosque lanzaría doble grito y detendría la línea hasta encontrarse libre de nuevo. De ese modo podrían mantener unida la línea desde un costado de la isla hasta el otro. Ralph pensó en el jabalí que había roto la línea de muchachos con tanta facilidad. Si fuese necesario, cuando los cazadores se aproximasen demasiado, podría lanzarse contra ella, romperla y volver corriendo. Pero ¿volver corriendo a dónde? La línea volvería a formarse y a rodearle de nuevo. Tarde o temprano tendría que dormir o comer... y despertaría para sentir unas manos que le arañaban y la caza se convertiría en una carnicería.
    ¿Qué debía hacer, entonces? ¿Subirse a un árbol? ¿Romper la línea como el jabalí? De cualquier forma, la elección era terrible.
    Un grito aceleró su corazón, y poniéndose en pie de un salto, corrió hacia el lado del océano y la espesura de la jungla hasta encontrarse rodeado de trepadoras. Allí permaneció unos instantes, temblándole las piernas. ¡Si pudiese estar tranquilo, tomarse un buen descanso, tener tiempo para pensar!
    Y de nuevo, penetrantes y fatales, surgían aquellos gritos que barrían toda la isla. Al oírlos, Ralph se acobardó como un potrillo y echó a correr una vez más hasta casi desfallecer. Por fin, se tumbó sobre unos helechos. ¿Qué escogería, el árbol o la embestida? Logró recobrar el aliento, se pasó una mano por la boca y se aconsejó a sí mismo tener calma. En alguna parte de aquella línea se encontraban Samyeric, detestando su tarea. O quizás no. Y además, ¿qué ocurriría si en vez de encontrarse con ellos se veía cara a cara con el Jefe o con Roger, que llevaban la muerte en sus manos?
    Ralph se echó hacia arras la melena y se limpió el sudor de su mejilla sana. En voz alta, se dijo:
    —Piensa.
    ¿Qué sería lo más sensato?
    Ya no estaba Piggy para aconsejarle. Ya no había asambleas solemnes donde entablar debates, ni contaba con la dignidad de la caracola.

  63. Y yo con estas pintas dixo...
  64. Lo que ahora más temía era aquella cortinilla que le cerraba la mente y le hacía perder el sentido del peligro hasta convertirle en un bobo.
    Una tercera solución podría ser esconderse tan bien que la línea le pasara sin descubrirle.
    Alzó bruscamente la cabeza y escuchó. Había que prestar atención ahora a un nuevo ruido: un ruido profundo y amenazador, como si el bosque mismo se hubiera irritado con él, un ruido sombrío, junto al cual el ulular de antes se veía sofocado por su intensidad. Sabía que no era la primera vez que lo oía, pero no tenía tiempo para recordar.
    Romper la línea.
    Un árbol.
    Esconderse y dejarles pasar.
    Un grito más cercano le hizo ponerse en pie y echar de nuevo a correr con todas sus fuerzas entre espinos y zarzas. Se halló de improviso en el claro, de nuevo en el espacio abierto, y allí estaba la insondable sonrisa de la calavera, que ahora no dirigía su sarcástica mueca hacia un trozo de cielo, profundamente azul, sino hacia una nube de humo. Al instante Ralph corrió entre los árboles, comprendiendo al fin el tronar del bosque. Usaban el humo para hacerle salir, prendiendo fuego a la isla.
    Era mejor esconderse que subirse a un árbol, porque así tenía la posibilidad de romper la línea y escapar si le descubrían.
    Así, pues, a esconderse.
    Se preguntó si un jabalí estaría de acuerdo con su estrategia, y gesticuló sin objeto. Buscaría el matorral más espeso, el agujero más oscuro de la isla y allí se metería. Ahora, al correr, miraba en torno suyo. Los rayos de sol caían sobre él como charcos de luz y el sudor formó surcos en la suciedad de su cuerpo. Los gritos llegaban ahora desde lejos, más tenues.
    Encontró por fin un lugar que le pareció adecuado, aunque era una solución desesperada. Allí, los matorrales y las trepadoras, profundamente enlazadas, formaban una estera que impedía por completo el paso de la luz del sol. Bajo ella quedaba un espacio de quizá treinta centímetros de alto, aunque atravesado todo él por tallos verticales. Si se arrastraba hasta el centro de aquello estaría a unos cuatro metros del borde y oculto, a no ser que al salvaje se le ocurriese tirarse al suelo allí para buscarle; pero, aun así, estaría protegido por la oscuridad, y, si sucedía lo peor y era descubierto, podría arrojarse contra el otro, desbaratar la línea y regresar corriendo.
    Con cuidado y arrastrando la lanza, Ralph penetró a gatas entre los tallos erguidos. Cuando alcanzó el centro de la estera se echó a tierra y escuchó.
    El fuego se propagaba y el rugido que le había parecido tan lejano se acercaba ahora. ¿No era verdad que el fuego corre más que un caballo a galope? Podía ver el suelo, salpicado de manchas de sol, hasta una distancia de quizá cuarenta metros, y mientras lo contemplaba, las manchas luminosas le pestañeaban de una manera tan parecida al aleteo de la cortinilla en su mente que por un momento pensó que el movimiento era imaginación suya. Pero las manchas vibraron con mayor rapidez, perdieron fuerza y se desvanecieron hasta permitirle ver la gran masa de humo que se interponía entre la isla y el sol.

  65. Y yo con estas pintas dixo...
  66. Quizás fuesen Samyeric quienes mirasen bajo los matorrales y lograsen ver un cuerpo humano. Seguramente fingirían no haber visto nada y no le delatarían. Pegó la mejilla contra la tierra de color chocolate, se pasó la lengua por los labios secos y cerró los ojos. Bajo los arbustos, la tierra temblaba muy ligeramente, o quizás fuese un nuevo sonido demasiado tenue para hacerse sentir junto al tronar del fuego y los chillidos ululantes
    Alguien lanzó un grito. Ralph alzó la mejilla del suelo rápidamente y miró en la débil luz. Deben estar cerca ahora, pensó mientras el corazón le empezaba a latir con fuerza. Esconderse, romper la línea, subirse a un árbol; ¿cuál era la solución mejor? Lo malo era que sólo podría elegir una de las tres.
    El fuego se aproximaba; aquellas descargas procedían de grandes ramas, incluso de troncos, que estallaban. ¡Esos estúpidos! ¡Esos estúpidos! El fuego debía estar ya cerca de los frutales. ¿Qué comerían mañana?
    Ralph se revolvió en su angosto lecho. ¡Si no arriesgaba nada! ¿Qué podrían hacerle? ¿Golpearle? ¿Y qué? ¿Matarle? Un palo afilado por ambas puntas.
    Los gritos, tan cerca de pronto, le hicieron levantarse. Pudo ver a un salvaje pintado que se libraba rápidamente de una maraña verde y se aproximaba hacia la estera. Era un salvaje con una lanza. Ralph hundió los dedos en la tierra. Tenía que prepararse, por si acaso.
    Ralph tomó la lanza, cuidó de dirigir la punta afilada hacia el frente, y notó por primera vez que estaba afilada por ambos extremos.
    El salvaje se detuvo a unos doce metros de él y lanzó su grito.
    Quizás pueda oír los latidos de mi pecho, pensó. No grites. Prepárate.
    El salvaje avanzó de modo que sólo se le veía de la cintura para abajo. Aquello era la punta de la lanza. Ahora sólo le podía ver desde las rodillas. No grites.
    Una manada de cerdos salió gruñendo de los matorrales por detrás del salvaje, y penetraron velozmente en el bosque. Los pájaros y los ratones chillaban, y un pequeño animalillo entró a saltos bajo la estera y se escondió atemorizado.
    El salvaje se detuvo a cuatro metros, junto a los arbustos, y lanzó un grito. Ralph se sentó agazapado, dispuesto. Tenía la lanza en sus manos, aquel palo afilado por ambos extremos, que vibraba furioso, se alargaba, se achicaba, se hacía ligero, pesado, ligero...
    Los alaridos abarcaban de orilla a orilla. El salvaje se arrodilló junto al borde de los arbustos y tras él, en el bosque, se veía el brillo de unas luces. Se podía ver una rodilla rozar en la turba. Luego la otra. Sus dos manos. Una lanza.
    Una cara.
    El salvaje escudriñó la oscuridad bajo los arbustos. Evidentemente, había visto luz a un lado y otro, pero no en el medio. Allí, en el centro, había una mancha de oscuridad, y el salvaje contraía el rostro e intentaba adivinar lo que la oscuridad ocultaba.
    Los segundos se alargaron. Ralph miraba directamente a los ojos del salvaje.
    No grites.
    Te salvarás.
    Ahora te ha visto. Se está cerciorando. Tiene un palo afilado.

  67. Y yo con estas pintas dixo...
  68. Ralph lanzó un grito, un grito de terror, ira y desesperación. Se irguió y sus gritos se hicieron insistentes y rabiosos. Se abalanzó, quebrantándolo todo, hasta encontrarse en el espacio abierto, gritando, furioso y ensangrentado. Giró el palo y el salvaje cayó al suelo; pero otros venían hacia él, también gritando. Con un giro de costado esquivó una lanza que voló a él; en silencio, echó a correr. De pronto, todas las lucecillas que habían brillado ante él se fundieron, el rugido del bosque se elevó en un trueno y un arbusto, frente a él, reventó en un abanico de llamas. Giró hacia la derecha, corrió con desesperada velocidad, mientras el calor le abofeteaba el costado izquierdo y el fuego avanzaba como la marea. Oyó el ulular a sus espaldas, que fue quebrándose en una serie de gritos breves y agudos: la señal de que le habían visto. Una figura oscura apareció a su derecha y luego quedó atrás. Todos corrían, todos gritaban como locos. Les oía aplastar la maleza y sentía a su izquierda el ardiente y luminoso tronar del fuego. Olvidó sus heridas, el hambre y la sed y todo ello se convirtió en terror, un terror desesperado que volaba con pies alados a través del bosque y hacia la playa abierta. Manchas de luz bailaban frente a sus ojos y se transformaban en círculos rojos que crecían rápidamente hasta desaparecer de su vista. Sus piernas, que le llevaban como autómatas, empezaban a flaquear y el insistente ulular avanzaba como ola amenazadora, y ya casi se encontraba sobre él.
    Tropezó en una raíz y el grito que le perseguía se alzó aún más. Vio uno de los refugios saltar en llamas; el fuego aleteaba junto a su hombro, pero frente a él brillaba el agua. Segundos después rodó sobre la arena cálida; se arrodilló en ella con un brazo alzado; en un esfuerzo por alejar el peligro, intentó llorar pidiendo clemencia.
    Con esfuerzo se puso en pie, preparado para recibir nuevos terrores, y alzó la vista hacia una gorra enorme con visera. Era una gorra blanca, que llevaba sobre la verde visera una corona, un ancla y follaje de oro. Vio tela blanca, charreteras, un revólver, una hilera de botones dorados que recorrían el frente del uniforme.

  69. Y yo con estas pintas dixo...
  70. Un oficial de marina se hallaba en pie sobre la arena mirando a Ralph con recelo y asombro. En la playa, tras él, había un bote cuyos remos sostenían dos marineros. En el interior del bote otro marinero sostenía una metralleta.
    El cántico vaciló y por fin se apagó del todo.
    El oficial miró a Ralph dudosamente por unos instantes. Luego retiró la mano de la culata del revólver.
    —Hola.
    Acobardado y consciente de su descuidado aspecto, Ralph contestó tímidamente:
    —Hola.
    El oficial hizo un gesto con la cabeza, como si hubiese recibido una respuesta.
    —¿Hay algún adulto..., hay gente mayor entre vosotros?
    Ralph sacudió la cabeza en silencio y se volvió. Un semicírculo de niños con cuerpos pintarrajeados de barro y palos en las manos se había detenido en la playa sin hacer el menor ruido.
    —Conque jugando, ¿eh? —dijo el oficial.
    El fuego alcanzó las palmeras junto a la playa y las devoró estrepitosamente. Una llama solitaria giró como un acróbata y roció las copas de las palmeras de la plataforma. El cielo estaba ennegrecido. El oficial sonrió alegremente a Ralph.
    —Vimos vuestro fuego. ¿Qué habéis estado haciendo? ¿Librando una batalla o algo por el estilo?
    Ralph asintió con la cabeza.
    El oficial contempló al pequeño espantapájaros que tenía delante, Al muchacho le hacía falta un buen baño, un corte de pelo, un pañuelo para la nariz y pomada.
    —No habrá muerto nadie, espero. No habrá cadáveres.
    —Sólo dos. Pero han desaparecido.
    El oficial se agachó y miró detenidamente a Ralph.
    —¿Dos? ¿Muertos?
    Ralph volvió a asentir. Tras él, la isla entera llameaba. El oficial sabía distinguir por experiencia la verdad de la mentira. Silbó suavemente.
    Otros niños iban apareciendo, algunos de ellos de muy corta edad, con la dilatada barriga de pequeños salvajes. Uno de ellos se acercó al oficial y alzó los ojos hacia él.
    —Soy, soy...
    Pero no supo continuar. Percival Wemys Madison se esforzó por recordar aquella fórmula encantada que se había desvanecido por completo.
    El oficial se volvió de nuevo a Ralph.
    —Os llevaremos con nosotros. ¿Cuántos sois?
    Ralph sacudió la cabeza. El oficial recorrió con la mirada el grupo de muchachos pintados,
    —¿Quién de vosotros es el jefe?
    —Yo —dijo Ralph con voz firme.
    Un niño que vestía los restos de una gorra negra sobre su pelo rojo y de cuya cintura pendían unas gafas rotas se adelantó unos pasos, pero cambió de parecer y permaneció donde estaba.
    —Vimos vuestro fuego. ¿Así que no sabéis cuántos sois?
    —No, señor.
    —Me parece —dijo el oficial, pensando en el trabajo que le esperaba para contar a todos—. Me parece a mí que para ser ingleses..., sois todos ingleses, ¿no es así?..., no ofrecéis un espectáculo demasiado brillante que digamos.
    —Lo hicimos bien al principio —dijo Ralph—, antes de que las cosas... Se detuvo.
    —Estábamos todos juntos entonces...
    El oficial asintió amablemente.
    —Ya sé. Como buenos ingleses. Como en la Isla de Coral.

  71. Y yo con estas pintas dixo...
  72. Ralph le miró sin decir nada. Por un momento volvió a sentir el extraño encanto de las playas. Pero ahora la isla estaba chamuscada como leños apagados. Simón había muerto y Jack había... Las lágrimas corrieron de sus ojos y los sollozos sacudieron su cuerpo. Por vez primera en la isla se abandonó a ellos; eran espasmos violentos de pena que se apoderaban de todo su cuerpo. Su voz se alzó bajo el negro humo, ante las ruinas de la isla, y los otros muchachos, contagiados por los mismos sentimientos, comenzaron a sollozar también. Y en medio de ellos, con el cuerpo sucio, el pelo enmarañado y la nariz goteando, Ralph lloró por la pérdida de la inocencia, las tinieblas del corazón del hombre y la caída al vacío de aquel verdadero y sabio amigo llamado Piggy.
    El oficial, rodeado de tal expresión de dolor, se conmovió algo incómodo. Se dio la vuelta para darles tiempo de recobrarse y esperó, dirigiendo la mirada hacia el espléndido crucero, a lo lejos.

    Porcos Bravos 8- Sheffield Stags 4

  73. Moncho Lobo dixo...
  74. «¡Coño; nos están atacando!». Thomo respondió muy tranquilo sin soltar el volante del tractor: « Yes! Let’s go to the front ».

  75. treinta grados centígrados bajo cero. dixo...
  76. El frío actúa como los castigos de la infancia tras perder un partido: tras una cantidad excesiva no se siente nada.

  77. Anónimo dixo...
  78. The Anglogalician es un imposible colectivo.

  79. Keziah Delaney dixo...
  80. Do we want to be remembered for fighting or being cowards?

  81. La Facecias del Bashi-Bazouk (Winter is here) dixo...
  82. Señor de las tormentas, líbranos de los muertos
    pasados y futuros, y del buitre que ensaya
    círculos melancólicos y espejismos de espanto
    para explorar su espacio espectral en el mundo.
    Líbranos de unos pocos, líbranos de la noche
    y de la nieve lenta de la noche.
    Así en la tierra dura como en la mar sombría,
    líbranos de este mundo, señor de las ventiscas.
    De este mundo que ahora y en la hora de la bruma
    es menos comprensible, más opaco, más mudo.
    Líbranos de las calles y de las extrasístoles,
    de los dientes, la lluvia y el fruto del desierto.
    Líbranos del destino que nos espera inmóvil
    agazapado en niebla.
    De la uña y la herradura líbranos, dios del frío.
    Líbranos de la noche y de sus astros tristes,
    líbranos de las vísperas del sueño antefuturo.
    De los pluscuamperfectos líbranos cada noche,
    de las esquirlas frías del cristal y el recuerdo.
    Tú que miras ahora desde la ardiente sílaba,
    desde la nada fría de tu sangre sin nadie,
    déjanos en el hueco del tambor y del húmero
    y en la paloma muerta
    con un temblor de lluvia y un cántaro con ecos.
    Tú que incendias los campos con tu último destello,
    déjanos este tiempo
    en la luz vacilante de los amaneceres
    que suben de la niebla y cantan desde el sueño,
    en las torres sin viento y en las banderas lentas de la noche.

  83. La Facecias del Bashi-Bazouk (Winter is here) dixo...
  84. Nos lo dijo la lluvia cuando caía la tarde sobre el centro del mundo y del campo.

  85. La caída de hielo o granizo fue registrada en Mesoamérica; su deidad era Tezcatlipoca en su advocación de señor de los pedernales, del frío, del hielo, de la helada, del castigo justiciero dixo...
  86. La Anglogalician es el espacio donde cultivamos nuestras primeras máscaras de personalidad

  87. Balada del ciervo dixo...
  88. Cómo errar, por los años, sin gloria.
    Cómo aceptar que las almas son vagos ensueños que en sueños tan sólo se dan, y despiertos se borran.

  89. Malvado Follomar dixo...
  90. 21 de diciembre
    Los caballeros de la Orden de Malta
    (1983)
    Nos jugábamos el pase a la Eurocopa de Francia, en la que, por cierto, luego quedaríamos la mar de bien: segundos. En el grupo habíamos ganado en casa a Países Bajos, pero habíamos perdido allí. Era con ella con la que nos jugábamos el pase, claro. El grupo se completaba con Éire, Islandia y Malta. El partido final es con esta última selección, Malta, en el Benito Villamarín de Sevilla. A él llegamos con cinco victorias, un empate y una derrota. Necesitamos una sexta victoria… pero por once goles o más de ventaja, para ganarle por diferencia final de goles el grupo a Países Bajos, que tiene los mismos puntos que nosotros podamos alcanzar venciendo a Malta, pero con un gran promedio goleador. Parece misión imposible. La víspera del partido entrevisté a John Bonello, el portero maltés, convertido sin comerlo ni beberlo en el enemigo público número uno de un país que pisaba por primera vez: «¿Once goles? Ni a mí ni a nadie, eso es imposible». Malta era la cenicienta del grupo, nos llegó con una victoria y seis derrotas en los partidos anteriores, si bien es verdad que con «solo» 25 goles encajados en siete partidos. Países Bajos le había metido cinco. Ganar por once de diferencia parecía subir una montaña.
    El seleccionador, que es Miguel Muñoz, designa para esa misión imposible a: Buyo; Señor, Maceda, Goikoetxea, Camacho; Víctor, Sarabia, Gordillo; Carrasco, Santillana y Rincón. El ambiente es apasionadísimo, con un público sevillano responsabilizado más que nunca en su tarea de jugador número doce. España empieza hecha una furia y con el árbitro barriendo a favor. A los dos minutos, un penalti un poquito cogido por los pelos, pero Señor lo tira al palo. Rincón cae en fuera de juego varias veces, el árbitro no lo pita. Bonello para o le rebota, y anda siempre por el suelo. En eso, marca Santillana, en el 16’. Furor. Pero, sorprendentemente, en su única salida al ataque, Malta marca. Es un tiro de Demanuele que rebota en Maceda, se envenena y se cuela. Minuto 24 y 1-1. El fuego del estadio afloja. España sigue mandando, pero el golpe pesa. Dos goles más de Santillana y 3-1 al descanso. La montaña ahora es de ocho goles en 45 minutos. No vamos con el horario previsto. Se hace recuento de remates, de las ocasiones perdidas. Muchos, muchas. Pero faltan goles y no sobra tiempo.
    Entonces el racial Poli Rincón reenciende la mecha con un gol en el 47’, al que une otro en el 56’, que ni celebra, coge el balón y lo lleva corriendo al centro del campo. Es la señal: hay tiempo. Entonces llega la locura: Maceda se adelanta, Gordillo y Señor son extremos, los malteses se quitan de encima los balones al buen tuntún, balones que les vuelven una y otra vez al área, como si el campo estuviera en cuesta. España va al remate con cuatro, cinco o seis, en oleadas. Maceda marca en el 69’ y en el 73’, Rincón otra vez en el 74’, Santillana en el 75’, Malta sufre la expulsión de Di Giorgio, Rincón marca el décimo en el 78’. Todo el campo vuelve a cantar otra vez el «¡Sí, sí sí, España va a París!». En el 79’, gol de Sarabia e invasión de campo. En el 83’, el gol de Señor, que establece la distancia de once. José Ángel de la Casa, el eterno y sobrio narrador de la selección, suelta un gallo por primera vez en su carrera, porque este gol le transporta como ningún otro en tantísimos partidos. Aquello es un manicomio. Los periodistas, aturdidos, hacemos una y otra vez la cuenta. ¿Será verdad? A ver, cuatro Santillana, cuatro Rincón, dos Maceda, uno Sarabia, el de Señor… ¡Doce! Menos el de ellos, salen los once. ¡Sí, a París!
    En Países Bajos se televisó el partido en directo. Al final se despide el programa con el plano de un árbol de Navidad adornado con doce bolas negras.

  91. Malvado Follomar dixo...
  92. 22 de diciembre
    El Gran Jurado de quinielas
    (1962)
    El invierno a caballo entre 1962 y 1963 fue durísimo en Inglaterra, muchos aún lo recuerdan, y el fútbol lo sufrió de lleno. El primer aviso llegó tres días antes de la Navidad, cuando toda la isla amaneció envuelta en una niebla helada. El fútbol no pudo ser ajeno a ello: dieciocho partidos quedaron aplazados y ocho que comenzaron a trancas y barrancas fueron suspendidos sobre la marcha, ante la imposibilidad de completarlos. Un día así no hubiera supuesto nada grave, pero la situación iba a durar dos meses. El Boxing Day (26 de diciembre), el país apareció cubierto de nieve, paralizado, por lo que de nuevo hubieron de ser suspendidos todos los partidos. El 29, por fin, pudieron jugarse algunos encuentros, pero para Año Nuevo otra vez hubieron de suspenderse todos. Para el 5 de enero, jornada de Copa, la temperatura fue de 20 bajo cero y el país estaba bajo la nieve y ennegrecido por la niebla (The Big Freeze). Nada que hacer .
    Para Inglaterra el fútbol es fútbol más apuestas, y las casas de apuestas se vieron en un apuro. Sin fútbol no podían vivir y a la vista de ello las tres principales del país, Vernons, Zetters y Littlewoods, se reunieron y se pusieron de acuerdo. Si no había resultados sobre los que apostar, ellos crearían esos resultados. Y conformaron un jurado con cuatro célebres ex jugadores (los ingleses Tom Finney, Tommy Lawton y Ted Drake, y el escocés George Young), el no menos célebre árbitro Arthur Ellis, recién retirado, y una gloria nacional llamada John Theodore Cuthbert Moore-Brabazon, aristócrata de avanzada edad, que había sido un pionero de la aviación y que en 1909 había volado con un cerdito metido en un cubo y atado a un ala para demostrar que los cerdos sí pueden volar. (En Inglaterra existe el dicho «Cuando los cerdos vuelen» como referencia a algo imposible. Toshack lo utilizó en una célebre ocasión en España.) Ellis, por su parte, había sido tenido en su momento como «el mejor árbitro del mundo», aunque los madridistas de la época no estarán muy de acuerdo en eso. Fue el que arbitró en el Bernabéu el partido de ida de la Copa de Europa contra el Barcelona, en el que el Madrid se sintió muy perjudicado. (Ellis pitó un penalti por falta de Vicente a Kocsis fuera del área en una jugada en la que Kocsis había arrancado en fuera de juego señalado por el linier.)
    El acta de constitución del Gran Jurado se firmó el 26 de enero. El jurado se reunía en estricto secreto en un lugar reservado de Londres y decidía los resultados de los partidos que no se jugaban, resultados que eran anunciados por la BBC. Eso permitió a las apuestas seguir vivas. De los 38 resultados que fijaron en la primera jornada (Primera y Segunda) resultaron muy sorprendentes la victoria del Leeds sobre el Stoke y la del Peterborough en el campo del Derby County. Dos sorpresas para dar picante a las apuestas, se entiende.
    El duro invierno se mantuvo hasta entrado marzo, cuando el tiempo empezó a despejarse. Poco a poco se fueron jugando más partidos. Once el 16 de febrero, veinticuatro el 23, lo que ya hizo innecesario que el Jurado de Quinielas se siguiera reuniendo. El 16 de marzo se pudo jugar por fin una jornada completa por primera vez en tres meses. El fútbol recobró su normalidad, y también las apuestas. El duro invierno se olvidó, pero del Gran Jurado se siguió hablando durante mucho tiempo.

  93. Malvado Follomar dixo...
  94. 23 de diciembre
    Robo y fundición de la Jules Rimet
    (1983)
    La Copa del Mundo, que se disputa desde 1930 cada cuatro años, se llamó Copa Jules Rimet a partir de 1950 por decisión adoptada en el congreso de la FIFA que tuvo lugar en Luxemburgo en 1946. Justo homenaje al que fuera presidente de la FIFA y gran promotor del torneo. Nacido el 24 de octubre de 1873 en la localidad francesa de Theuley-lesLavoncourt, se implicó desde muy pronto en un deporte que en realidad nunca practicó. En 1914 representó a Francia en el congreso de la FIFA y en 1921 fue elegido presidente, cargo en el que se mantuvo hasta después del Mundial de 1954. Su tarea más recordada fue la creación de la Copa del Mundo, un poco en sustitución del campeonato olímpico de fútbol, en el que se prohibió que actuaran profesionales y hasta se llegó a expulsar al fútbol en la edición de 1932. El primer Mundial se jugaría en Uruguay, en homenaje a los dos títulos olímpicos conseguidos por este país, los de 1924 y 1928. Para premiar al equipo campeón, Jules Rimet encargó una copa de oro a un célebre orfebre francés, llamado Abel Lafleur. Se trataba en realidad de la estatuilla de una victoria alada, que sostenía sobre su cabeza un envase hexagonal. Medía treinta centímetros, con la peana de mármol incluida, y pesaba cuatro kilos, de los cuales 1,8 eran oro y el resto mármol. Una preciosidad.
    Esa copa la fueron levantando sucesivamente Nasazzi en 1930, Combi en 1934, Meazza en 1938, Obdulio Varela en 1950, Fritz Walter en 1954, Bellini en 1958, Mauro en 1962, Bobby Moore en 1966 y Carlos Alberto en 1970, como capitanes respectivos de Uruguay, Italia, Italia, Uruguay, Alemania, Brasil, Brasil, Inglaterra y de nuevo Brasil. Al ganar Brasil su tercer título se decidió ofrecerle la copa en propiedad y crear otra, que es la que se entrega desde entonces. Es obra del italiano Silvio Gazzaniga y representa también una victoria alada, aunque más estilizada, que sostiene un mundo en su cabeza. Mide 37 centímetros, pesa cinco kilos y está hecha también de oro, con incrustaciones de malaquita.
    Brasil instaló la antigua en una urna, en la sede de su Federación, pero tuvo un descuido tremendo. La urna, hecha de cristal antibalas, estaba pegada a la pared y a la base de mampostería con cinta aislante, de manera que bastaba con despegarla de la pared para sacar la copa. Y eso fue lo que hicieron unos chorizos en la madrugada del 22 al 23 de diciembre de 1983. Entraron en la Federación, deambularon, esperaron la hora de cierre metidos en un baño y cuando se hubo marchado todo el mundo fueron a por la copa. Retiraron la cinta aislante, levantaron con cuidado el conjunto de cristal antibalas, lo dejaron en el suelo y se llevaron el trofeo, que para ellos era solo oro, vil metal. El instigador del golpe fue un argentino llamado Juan Carlos Hernández, que se dedicaba a traficar en oro, joyas, cocaína o lo que se terciase. A través de un tal Sergio Pereyra Ayres, alias Sergio Peralta, experto conocedor de los bajos fondos, reclutó a dos tipos llamados José Luiz Vieira da Sila, alias Luiz Bigode, y Francisco José Rocha Rivera, alias Chico Barbudo. Ellos dos se encargaron directamente de la faena y en la misma madrugada llevaron la copa al taller de Juan Carlos Hernández, donde fue troceada y fundida, para acabar siendo vendida como oro vulgar. Ya no existe, por tanto. La banda fue detenida algún tiempo más tarde y todos acabaron en la cárcel. Pero el sagrado tótem ya no existe. Lo que hoy se muestra en la sede de la Federación brasileña es una reproducción.

  95. Malvado Follomar dixo...
  96. 24 de diciembre
    Di Stéfano, Superbalón de Oro
    (1989)
    Queda dicho en el día 18 que en 1956 se creó el Balón de Oro. El primero lo ganó el extremo inglés Stanley Matthews, el Chaplin del fútbol , con 47 puntos, solo tres más que Di Stéfano. Di Stéfano ganó la segunda edición, al compás de su segundo título consecutivo en la Copa de Europa, y con una ventaja extraordinaria: 72 puntos, por 19 de Wright y 16 de Kopa y Edwards. «Donde quiera que vaya, el adversario se inclina», titularía su artículo en esta ocasión Gabriel Hanot, que escribe: «En él celebramos al gran señor, al caballero, que alía la bravura a la invencibilidad (…). Si Matthews es el humor, Di Stéfano es la epopeya». Luego ganaría asimismo la cuarta edición. La tercera fue para el francés Kopa, también jugador del Madrid, consecuencia de su buen hacer en el Mundial de 1958, al que Di Stéfano no acudió. En esa cuarta edición Di Stéfano obtendría 80 puntos, por 42 de Kopa y 24 del galés John Charles. Después no volvería a ganarlo. El quinto sería para el español Luis Suárez, entonces en el Barcelona, y que pronto iría al Inter. Di Stéfano, por tanto, se paró en dos. En tiempos sucesivos, dos jugadores ganaron hasta tres veces el trofeo: Cruyff y Platini. Y más adelante lo lograría también Van Basten.
    En el staff de la revista quedó una cierta sensación de injusticia, que nacía de la certeza de que Di Stéfano había sido el mejor de todos. Él había liderado al gran Real Madrid que ganó las cinco primeras copas de Europa, había marcado al menos un gol en cada una de las finales victoriosas y en puridad habría merecido el trofeo cada uno de esos cinco años, solo que el primero se destinó al mítico Matthews, por su extraordinaria longevidad (cuando lo recibió tenía ya cuarenta y un años y se mantenía como internacional con Inglaterra), y en lo sucesivo se trató de no abusar de la repetición, cosa que luego sí se aceptaría. Es significativo en ese sentido que para la tercera edición, tras ganar la segunda, a Di Stéfano no se le otorgara ni un solo punto, de acuerdo con el criterio de no repetir ganador, criterio que se cambió inmediatamente después por considerarlo una equivocación. Asi que en 1989, al tiempo que se le concedía por segunda vez a Van Basten, exquisito delantero holandés, se le hizo entrega a Di Stéfano del Superbalón de Oro por ganar una votación que trataba de determinar quién había sido el mejor entre todos los ganadores hasta la fecha. Era, así, su tercero, solo que este con más valor que cualquier otro, lo que reponía la injusticia cometida años atrás. Ningún jugador ha conseguido más de tres balones de oro.
    A Di Stéfano este reconocimiento aplazado de France Football le sirvió para que el Real Madrid, que le tenía por entonces un tanto olvidado, le recuperase. Ramón Mendoza, presidente en esa época, decidió hacerle consejero de presidencia y otorgarle un sueldo. Años más adelante, cuando llegó Florentino Pérez al cargo, fue más allá y le nombró presidente de honor del club.

  97. Malvado Follomar dixo...
  98. 25 de diciembre
    Hay fútbol entre las trincheras
    (1914)
    También en Navidad ha habido fútbol. En Navidad recibió el Madrid a los comunistas del Partizan de Belgrado, nada menos, en 1955, en la primera Copa de Europa, para ganarles 4-0. (A la vuelta las pasó canutas, sobre la nieve de Belgrado, véase el dia 29 de enero). En Navidad jugaba el Barça, durante muchos años, un partido matinal, con el propósito, que entonces se veía loable pero que hoy sería indefendible, de que el padre se llevara a los hijos mientras la madre preparaba tranquila la comidad de Navidad. Eran partidos en los que invitaba a equipos extranjeros y de gran atractivo en tiempos en que apenas se veía otro fútbol que el propio.
    Pero los más célebres partidos en este día se disputaron en 1914, en plena Primera Guerra Mundial, entre las líneas de trincheras que separaban a las tropas inglesas de las alemanas. La feroz guerra tuvo una tregua navideña, según se fue sabiendo después por las cartas que enviaron los soldados de uno y otro bando a sus casas. En la noche del 24, en las trincheras de los alemanes se escucharon algunos villancicos cantados por los combatientes, singularmente el más bello de todos, Noche de paz . En respuesta, también se cantaron villancicos desde las trincheras inglesas. La sorpresa, según describió un brigada escocés en carta a su casa, fue que a la mañana siguiente aparecieron, desarmados, andando por la tierra de nadie, soldados alemanes portando cajas de cigarrillos y algunos regalos. «¿Qué hacer? —se preguntaba el brigada en la carta—. ¿Dispararles? No se puede disparar a hombres desarmados.» Los soldados intercambiaron regalos y concertaron un partido de fútbol para festejar el encuentro y la Navidad.
    Lo mismo ocurrió en varias zonas del frente, según testimonio de un reportero del Manchester Guardian , que en su crónica publicada el día 26 describe cómo «cada acre de terreno útil para el juego existente entre las dos líneas de trincheras fue ocupado por el fútbol». El día de Año Nuevo, un mayor del ejército inglés explica que el día de Navidad su regimiento, de nombre Saxons, jugó un partido contra un regimiento alemán, al que habría vencido por 3-2. El mismo día, otro oficial británico explica cómo rechazó la idea del partido, porque en su zona de operaciones el terreno entre ambas trincheras estaba demasiado roturado por los cañonazos y no había manera de encontrar un espacio suficiente para ello. Multitud de muchachos escribieron con emoción a sus casas sobre los hechos de ese singular día de Navidad. Uno de los relatos explica que en su partido había un trofeo en disputa, una liebre, que ganaría el equipo alemán.
    Luego volverían los tiros. Aquella fue una guerra terrible que duró casi cuatro años más y dejó espantada a la humanidad. Pero el fútbol había sustituido por un día a las balas. La lástima fue que para el año siguiente la oficialidad de uno y otro lado de las trincheras tomó las disposiciones oportunas para que tal cosa no se repitiera, de manera que aquello quedó circunscrito a la Navidad de 1914.

  99. Malvado Follomar dixo...
  100. 26 de diciembre
    53 000 espectadores para un partido femenino
    (1920)
    El fútbol femenino es tenido por algo relativamente moderno, pero no lo es tanto. En Inglaterra tuvo gran auge desde los días de la Primera Guerra Mundial, cuando un grupo de trabajadoras de la Dick, Kerr, fábrica de munición de Preston, constituyeron un equipo, bajo el apoyo del Preston North End, que llamaron el Dick, Kerr’s Ladies. Jugaban partidos con fines caritativos y las recaudaciones fueron continuamente a más, particularmente por el tirón de su gran estrella, llamada Lily Parr. Según cuentan las crónicas de la época, tenía, además de habilidad y gran visión de juego, un disparo terrorífico. Había debutado con catorce años, y en su primera temporada consiguió 47 goles. Su leyenda se acrecentó cuando, desafiada por un portero masculino profesional, que le dijo que su disparo era potente entre mujeres pero que no podría vencer a un guardameta como él, accedió al reto. El potente disparo de Parr rompió un brazo del meta, según las crónicas. Quizá una leyenda urbana, pero contribuyó a su prestigio. Terminada la guerra, el equipo se mantuvo y siguió jugando, siempre en busca de recaudaciones con fines de caridad.
    El 26 de diciembre, Boxing Day en Inglaterra, fue el mayor día de gloria del Dick, Kerr’s Ladies, y del fútbol femenino, hasta la fecha. El partido entre este equipo y el St Helens Ladies concentró en el Goodison Park de Liverpool una multitud de 53 000 espectadores, que dejaron en taquilla 3115 libras de la época. Las Dick, Kerr’s Ladies de Parr ganaron por 4-0. Los rectores de la Football Association llegaron a estar celosos del fútbol femenino, y en 1921 dictaron unas severas normas restrictivas en contra: las mujeres nunca podrían jugar en los mismos campos que utilizaban los hombres, y tampoco podría arbitrar sus partidos ningún árbitro oficial. Ese año, las Dick, Kerr’s Ladies habían jugado 67 partidos por toda Inglaterra, con una asistencia total de 900 000 personas y una recaudación de 175 000 libras. El año siguiente serían contratadas para una gira por Estados Unidos. Ya antes, en 1920, habían jugado en Francia.
    Lily Parr jugó hasta 1951. Se retiró con cuarenta y cinco años. Siempre compartió su afición al fútbol, que practicó, como sus compañeras, de forma totalmente amateur , con el trabajo de nurse . El Dick, Kerr’s Ladies subsistió hasta 1965, cuando se disolvió por el desinterés de las chicas de la época por el fútbol. Detrás quedaban 828 partidos, de los que ganaron 758, empataron 46 y solo perdieron 24, uno por cada dos de sus años de existencia. Tom Finney, extraordinario extremo internacional de la época, apoyó al equipo y arbitró muchos de sus partidos, ante la imposibilidad de que lo hicieran árbitros colegiados.
    Disuelto el Dick, Kerr’s Ladies, la semilla germinó. Los nuevos tiempos trajeron nuevas gentes y en 1978 la Football Association reconoció al fútbol femenino, que acogió en su seno. Hoy se juegan competiciones regulares de fútbol entre mujeres en muchos países, y también partidos entre selecciones en busca de campeonas continentales y mundiales.

  101. Malvado Follomar dixo...
  102. 27 de diciembre
    Sanción de veinticuatro partidos a Cortizo
    (1964)
    Todavía no se ha producido en nuestro gran fútbol un castigo ni siquiera aproximado al que sufrió Cortizo, lateral derecho del Zaragoza, por su entrada a Enrique Collar, de la que este resultó con fractura de tibia y peroné. Aquellos eran buenos años del Atlético y del Zaragoza. El club maño andaba entonces con sus «Magníficos» y llegó a jugar cuatro finales de Copa consecutivas, dos de ellas contra el Atlético. Este, a su vez, tenía un gran equipo, una de cuyas estrellas era el extremo izquierda, Enrique Collar. El partido es el último de la primera vuelta. El Atlético está a un punto del Madrid, líder. El Zaragoza es tercero. El ambiente, muy apasionado. Luis adelanta al Atlético, pero el Zaragoza le da la vuelta al marcador. El partido sube el nivel de dureza y en una de esas Cortizo le hace una fuerte entrada a Collar, que sale en camilla. No podrá volver a jugar hasta varios meses después.
    El ambiente es tal que desborda al árbitro, Gómez Arribas, al que alguien dice que lo de Collar es un fingimiento. En principio lo cree, y como Collar es el capitán, exige que pase para firmar el acta, cosa que no puede hacer. Entonces exige que le entreguen un certificado médico en regla antes de aceptar que firme otro jugador por él, y así se hace. El Atlético regresa con una derrota por 3-1 y con Collar lastimado.
    La radiografía señala fractura de tibia y peroné. Collar no podrá jugar en varios meses. El Comité de Competición examina el caso y decide suspender a Cortizo por lo que resta de temporada, lo que supondrá 24 partidos: los quince de la segunda vuelta de la liga y nueve de Copa, porque el Zaragoza alcanzará la final… precisamente ante el Atlético. Zaragoza se alza indignada, la mayoría de los aficionados defienden que la lesión fue fortuita, que no se produjo por el impacto, sino por la caída. Cortizo muestra las marcas de los tacos de Collar, que antes de esa jugada le había puesto un planchazo. Desde Zaragoza se señala que el conde de Cheles, vicepresidente del Atlético, es también vicepresidente del Comité de Competición y que se ha tomado una revancha injusta. Pero no hay caso: la sanción se aplica y será decisiva en la carrera de Cortizo, que entonces andaba ya por los treinta y perderá la plaza de titular en el Zaragoza a partir de esa jugada. Collar es escayolado y tardará meses en reaparecer.
    Los dos equipos se enfrentan en la final de Copa, como había ocurrido el año anterior, en esa ocasión con victoria del Zaragoza. Collar llega a tiempo de jugar ese partido, que gana el Atlético. Él alza la copa, como capitán. Cortizo completa ese día su sanción. La plaza de lateral derecho, que un año antes en este mismo partido había ocupado él con la misión de marcar a Collar, fue esta vez ocupada por el habitual lateral izquierda, Reija, que a su vez deja su puesto a su suplente, Zubiaurre. Cortizo volverá a jugar la temporada siguiente, pero arrastrando la leyenda de jugador brutal, al que increpan los públicos. Poco a poco irá perdiendo el puesto a favor del joven Irusquieta y acabará marchándose al Jaén, donde se retirará y se establecerá.

  103. Malvado Follomar dixo...
  104. 28 de diciembre
    Supercopa para la Real y cinco «subtítulos» merengues
    (1982)
    La Supercopa, que enfrenta al campeón de liga y al de Copa, se empezó a jugar en España en 1982. Enlazaba con una tradición de muchos años atrás, ya perdida en el tiempo, de cuando se llamaba Copa Eva Duarte de Perón, gesto amistoso del régimen al trigo que nos enviaba Argentina en la posguerra. Aquel año ganó la liga la Real, por segunda vez consecutiva. La Copa la ganó el Madrid, en final victoriosa sobre el Sporting, en Valladolid, con un frío de mil demonios impropio del verano. El Madrid y la Real habían vivido esos años una extrema rivalidad, con unos codo a codo impresionantes en la liga. En uno de ellos, la Real estuvo imbatida hasta la penúltima jornada, cuando perdió en Sevilla, y esa sola derrota le costó el título. El año siguiente, consiguió ganarlo con un gol de Zamora en el último minuto del último partido, cuando el Madrid, que había ganado en Valladolid, ya se sentía campeón.
    Así que aquella fue una Supercopa caliente. Costó encontrarle las fechas, con el verano cargado de compromisos por parte de ambos clubes, y al final se organizó para el 13 de octubre, en el Bernabéu, y el 28 de diciembre, Día de los Inocentes, en el viejo Atocha, hoy desaparecido. El partido de ida ya fue de aúpa, con frecuente lanzamiento de botes al campo y un Enríquez Negreira desbordado por las circunstancias, defendiéndose con las tarjetas como podía. Sacó catorce tarjetas amarillas, dos de ellas a Juanito, que por ello fue expulsado en el minuto 22. El partido resultó un bochorno general y lo ganó el Madrid por un gol de cabeza de Metgod, un grandote líbero holandés que estuvo en el equipo durante poco tiempo. El partido de vuelta, en Atocha, fue aún más desastroso. Los dos equipos acudieron aún con sangre en el ojo y el árbitro, Pes Pérez, intentó ahorrar las tarjetas al principio, pero al final tuvo que acudir a ellas. Fue más valiente con el Madrid que con la Real, y expulsó a Juan José en el 22’ y a Ángel en el 67’. La Real marcó por medio de Uralde en el 53’, lo que igualaba la eliminatoria. En el primer minuto de la prórroga López Ufarte marcó el segundo. El Madrid ya tuvo que abrirse y encajó dos goles más, obra de Uralde uno y el otro, al alimón, de Beguiristain y Bakero. La primera Supercopa fue para la Real.
    El Madrid, claro, fue segundo, lo que abriría una curiosa serie de cinco subcampeonatos del Madrid en esa temporada, en la que tuvo por entrenador a Di Stéfano. En la liga, estuvo en liza hasta la última jornada, en la que le bastaba con empatar en Mestalla para ser campeón o, aun perdiendo, con tal de que el Athletic no ganara en Las Palmas. Pero perdió uno cero, gol de Tendillo, y el Athletic hizo un rotundo 1-5 en Las Palmas y fue campeón. Luego vino la final de la Recopa, en Gotemburgo, perdida en la prórroga, 2-1, ante el Aberdeen, que entonces entrenaba Alex Ferguson. En la Copa jugó la final ante el Barça, en Zaragoza, resuelta para los blaugrana en el último instante, en espectacular cabezazo de Marcos. Pero aún quedaba cáliz por apurar: la Copa de la liga, cuya final era a doble partido. Llegaron de nuevo el Barcelona (que era el de Maradona y Schuster) y el Madrid. Empate a dos en el Bernabéu y dos a uno en la vuelta. El Barça era campeón y el Madrid, de nuevo, segundo.

  105. Malvado Follomar dixo...
  106. 29 de diciembre
    Gullit pide el Balón de Oro para Gordillo
    (1987)
    El Balón de Oro de este año rozó al fútbol español, pero se fue al italiano. Butragueño, que había sido tercero la edición anterior, tras Belanov y Lineker, tenía sus aspiraciones. También Míchel, su compañero de la Quinta. Y Futre, estrella del Atlético. Pero lo ganó Gullit, uno de los tres deslumbrantes holandeses que reunió Berlusconi en el Milán a las órdenes de Sacchi. (Los otros fueron Van Basten, que ganaría tres veces el Balón de Oro, y Rijkaard). Gullit nació en Ámsterdam, su padre era originario de Surinam, su madre, holandesa. Alto, elástico y de gran técnica, es quizá el único jugador de la historia del fútbol moderno que ha sido considerado estrella en posiciones tan distintas como líbero, mediocampista de amplio espectro o delantero en punta, posición en la que jugó junto a Van Basten en el Milán. Se había criado en el Ámsterdam, de donde saltó al Haarlem, de ahí al Feyenoord (junto a un veteranísimo Cruyff, a cuyo lado hizo el doblete), luego al PSV y finalmente al Milán, en el que formó parte de uno de los mejores equipos de todos los tiempos.
    Gullit, hombre concienciado, dedica el Balón de Oro a Nelson Mandela, entonces encarcelado en su lucha contra el apartheid . Gullit había sido frecuente participante en programas de radio en apoyo a los miembros perseguidos del Congreso Nacional Africano (CNA), el partido terrorista de Mandela en permanente lucha contra el apartheid , y había participado en conciertos de reggae en homenaje a Steve Biko, símbolo y mártir de esa lucha, muerto diez años antes tras ser torturado por la policía surafricana. Por todo eso no extrañó que hiciera su dedicatoria a Mandela. Pero sí sorprendió lo que dijo después en declaraciones a la prensa. «Agradezco este premio, pero no es justo. Yo se lo hubiera dado a Gordillo. Es el mejor jugador que pisa ahora los campos.»
    La declaración sorprendió a todos, también al fútbol español, que había obtenido los puestos segundo (Futre, Atlético), tercero (Butragueño, Madrid), cuarto (Míchel, Madrid) y quinto (Lineker, Barcelona). Nadie había pensado en Gordillo, ni siquiera en España o en el Madrid, donde en esos tiempos se acarició la ilusión de que Butragueño o Míchel alcanzaran el premio. Gordillo no había tenido un solo punto en la votación, nadie lo había tenido presente. Pero Rafa Gordillo fue un grande de la época. Criado en la cantera del Betis, distribuyó su carrera entre este equipo y el Madrid, siempre desde la banda izquierda, con un subir y bajar incansable y una muy buena técnica en su pierna izquierda, con la que marcó bastantes goles y dio muchos más. Míchel en una banda y Gordillo en la otra fueron la clave para aquellos grandes años del Madrid de la Quinta. Prácticamente no hubo partido que jugara, con el Madrid, con el Betis o con la selección, en el que no fuera dominador pleno de su zona, una amplia franja de diez metros de ancho desde un banderín de córner al otro, en la banda izquierda de su equipo. Su natural modesto hizo que se le pospusiera en las grandes elecciones, pero Gullit, un hombre sensible y preocupado por los humildes, le hizo homenaje en su día más grande.

  107. Malvado Follomar dixo...
  108. 30 de diciembre
    Enrique Ponce y José Tomás dirigen los ataques del derbi
    (1998)
    La presencia de toreros en partidos benéficos ha sido frecuente. A pesar de que en sus orígenes en España el fútbol fue mal visto por el mundo taurino, que lo consideraba una costumbre zafia y extranjerizante, pronto hubo quien pudo, quiso y supo compartir esas aficiones. Entre otros, Ignacio Sánchez Mejías, el matador de toros muerto en la plaza, al que García Lorca dedicó el poema elegíaco más bello del castellano. Sánchez Mejías fue, en su corta, intensa y azarosa vida, presidente del Betis por unos meses (véase el día 19 de agosto). Antoñete jugó al fútbol muy bien. Él y Curro Girón animaban los partidos de artistas contra toreros que solían alegrar las navidades madrileñas en los sesenta. Y Montalvo, un jugador del Madrid, toreó un novillo en una corrida organizada por el Madrid durante sus bodas de oro (en la que también toreó Antoñete) y dio tantas manoletinas que hasta desacreditó ese pase. Los toreros «de verdad» dejaron de dar manoletinas porque quedó flotando en el aire que si las daba un futbolista no sería un pase de gran mérito.
    Pero el hecho más extraordinario en esa relación fue el partido organizado el 30 de diciembre, en busca de recaudar fondos para enviar a Honduras, que había sufrido una fuerte inundación por el huracán Mitch. En un programa de la SER, José Ramón de la Morena sugirió a los dos presidentes, Sanz y Gil, que mejoraran el partido con algún guiño diferente. Por ejemplo, meter en los equipos a los dos toreros del momento, Enrique Ponce y José Tomás. Enrique Ponce, valenciano de Chiva, era el número uno del escalafón, pero José Tomás, madrileño de Galapagar, aparecía con una fuerza tremenda, con un toreo sin igual, de arte y riesgo, y amenazaba su posición, un poco acomodada ya. Además, el valenciano es un reconocido madridista, amigo personal de Hierro y Raúl, mientras que José Tomás es atlético. Y los dos juegan (o jugaban) bien al fútbol. Así que pareció una buena idea. Y lo fue.
    Porque el Madrid y el Atlético se enfrentaron en un partido en que todo lo demás fue perfectamente formal. Los entrenadores, Hiddink y Sacchi, sacaron sus equipos titulares, sin más alteración que la presencia en ambos ataques del correspondiente matador, ambos con el número nueve y su nombre a la espalda. Los días anteriores Ponce recibió clases extras de sus amigos Hierro y Raúl. El Atlético, por su parte, envió a Vincenzo Pincolini a darle a José Tomás algunas instrucciones y a valorar su condición técnica y física, y volvió impresionado. Los dos toreros le dieron el último tirón a la taquilla. Su presencia resultó decisiva porque la noche apareció lluviosa y un amistoso más entre los rivales madrileños no hubiera tenido ese tirón. A la hora de la verdad, puede decirse que dieron el pego. Tocaron bien y parecieron futbolistas serios por sus maneras, aunque sin hacer nada extraordinario. Ponce jugó 56 minutos, bien apoyado de cerca por Raúl y Mijatovic, que le acompañaban en el ataque. Tocó nueve balones, generalmente bien, y pudo marcar en un mano a mano con Molina. José Tomás jugó 47 minutos. Aunque se vio algo más aislado en punta, con menos compañeros cerca, intervino once veces, también con acierto, remató una vez fuera y superó también con nota la alternativa. Los dos se fueron felices, por el llenazo, por la experiencia y por haber contribuido a una causa tan noble.

  109. Malvado Follomar dixo...
  110. 31 de diciembre
    El Cosmos no paga y se disuelve la NASL
    (1984)
    En la segunda mitad de los setenta el fútbol profesional había hecho un gran intento por asaltar Estados Unidos con la creación de la NASL, la North American Soccer League. El gran impulsor había sido la gran compañía de entretenimiento y comunicación Warner Brothers, en cuyo seno creó el Cosmos, el equipo en el que se enroló Pelé. La llegada de este provocó una verdadera inflamación de interés colectivo. Durante los tres años que permaneció en el equipo, las asistencias medias al Giant Stadium fueron de 40 000 personas, en ocasiones de 70 000. Tras Pelé fueron llegando a Estados Unidos (y a Canadá, que jugaba la misma liga) otras grandes figuras del fútbol europeo o suramericano, a consumir allí el final de sus carreras, singularmente Cruyff, Beckenbauer, Müller, Carlos Alberto y Chinaglia. También algún español, como Velázquez, el cerebro del Madrid, que se retiró en Toronto. Pero la retirada de Pelé demostró que todo dependía de él.
    Porque las asistencias y el interés decrecieron rápidamente. El esfuerzo del Cosmos por mantenerse en cabeza, con fichajes importantes, fue, irónicamente, contraproducente. El Cosmos, ya sin Pelé, ganó los campeonatos de 1978, 1980 y 1982. Ese dominio casi aplastante no es del agrado del público norteamericano, que prefiere más rotación en los ganadores, como ocurre generalmente en las ligas de béisbol, hockey sobre hielo o baloncesto, así que la fuerza del Cosmos fue en detrimento de sus propias taquillas y de las de los rivales. Es lo que los economistas del deporte conocen como «la paradoja de Joe Louis». Joe Louis quiere ser el mejor y debe intentarlo, pero necesita un Max Baer que compita contra él con reales posibilidades de éxito para rentabilizar su habilidad.
    Así las cosas, el Cosmos intentó convencer a Pelé para un regreso en 1984, cuando el campeonato ya languidecía. Pelé, empleado de la Warner todavía como figura para lanzar sus productos en el mercado mundial, fue presionado para ello, pero tras algunas dudas no aceptó. Para entonces había pasado ya los cuarenta años y llevaba siete sin jugar. Y el final se precipitó. Ante el comienzo de la temporada de 1985, los clubes tenían de límite el último día de 1984 para entregar la fianza obligada para la inscripción. Todo el mundo estaba pendiente del Cosmos. Los dirigentes de la Warner estaban cansados de perder tanto dinero en un negocio que no era el suyo, y que maldita la gracia que les hacía sin Pelé. Así que cuando se cumplió el cambio de año, el Cosmos no había depositado la fianza. Solo tres clubes lo habían hecho. Aquello significó el fin de la NASL, la muerte del sueño americano, como titularon algunos. La NASL empleó las primeras semanas del año en liquidar, y para el 28 de marzo cerró las oficinas. El Cosmos sobrevivió aún algún tiempo, en el que jugó unos pocos amistosos. El 13 de junio fue el último de ellos, ante el Lazio, el equipo de Chinaglia. Ese fue su último partido.
    De aquella siembra sí quedó una seria implantación del fútbol en Estados Unidos como deporte de práctica escolar, aspecto en el que es muy valorado. Tiene un número muy alto de practicantes. Y de nuevo hay liga profesional, llamada ahora Major League Soccer, aunque apenas tiene seguimiento. Está muy por detrás de los deportes clásicos y de puta mierda norteamericanos.

  111. Las tetas de Jessica Alba dixo...
  112. Cuando hay muchos hombres blancos al mando, se sienten más cómodos contando historias desde su perspectiva.

  113. Javi Pavas dixo...
  114. Insisto, no quiero decir que Manzano Negreira tenga relación con apuestas deportivas ni nada de eso. Pero a mí me da que pensar, te lo digo de verdad, que es absolutamente repugnante.

  115. Hoy comienzan los días hiemales y las noches hibernizas. dixo...
  116. Conocimos a los británicos en pleno invierno.
    El cielo era lavanda y la nieve lavanda azuleja.
    Alcancé a oír, abajo lejos, el son de dos torrentes unidos
    (estaban helados los dos)
    y, para mayor extrañeza, yo gritaba en gallego
    a través de aquel claro de bosque.

  117. inglés afincado dixo...
  118. We met the British in the dead of winter.
    The sky was lavender

    and the snow lavender-blue.
    I could hear, far below,

    the sound of two streams coming together
    (both were frozen over)

    and, no less strange,
    myself calling out in French

    across that forest-
    clearing. Neither General Jeffrey Amherst

    nor Colonel Henry Bouquet
    could stomach our willow-tobacco.

    As for the unusual
    scent when the Colonel shook out his hand-

    kerchief: C’est la lavande,
    une fleur mauve comme le ciel.

    They gave us six fishhooks
    and two blankets embroidered with smallpox.

  119. Cuando pones a un esclavo a dirigir la plantación. dixo...
  120. Suena Wilfred Nancy para los Sheffield Stags

  121. Me dicen dixo...
  122. Come, bebe, folla, alégrate por lo que tienes.
    Y tienen razón.

  123. Los perros que comen los chinos dixo...
  124. Llama al restaurante chino y pide comida a domicilio. Pide lo que te apetezca y, mientras lo haces, imagina que el hombre que te atiende está siendo amable por inercia, por corrección. Está siendo amable porque le toca ser amable, pero está sometido a una presión enorme. Las circunstancias lo tienen atenazado, asfixiado. Le comen las deudas, la presión social de su entorno y también la del mundo exterior. Mientras apunta los rollitos de primavera y el arroz con gambas, un sudor frío le congela el rostro, y sus piernas se agitan muchas veces con movimientos breves y rápidos, en una convulsión insoportable. Te está atendiendo, pero lo que necesita realmente es colgar sin más explicación y salir a la calle a gritar, a dar golpes a las paredes, a los coches, a asustar a la gente con una mirada por fin sincera. Te van a traer el encargo con puntualidad, pero el tipo que te atiende al teléfono se siente crispado, vacío, violento, desesperado. Se siente como si ya hubiera muerto. Nunca se sintió peor. Quizá luego se calme, se marche a su casa y mañana será otro día, pero quizá no pueda librarse de sí mismo y se trague un frasco de somníferos y una botella entera del licor de hierbas que tiene tan al alcance de la mano. Quizá sea la última vez que hables con él, y nunca lo sabrás porque para ti los chinos son todos iguales. Misma cara, misma voz y misma simpatía detrás de la cual nunca sabrás qué demonios ocultan.

  125. Putas en las tascas dixo...
  126. He visto cosas muy extrañas tras la barra de un bar, pero nunca nada tan asombroso como aquel marinero de patillas blancas que un día apareció por mi bodega pidiendo una jarra de vino. Cuando la tuvo entre las manos, se sentó a una de las mesas y, al tiempo que se arremangaba los brazos, fue hundiendo las manos en el fondo del recipiente. Algún parroquiano audaz le preguntó qué intentaba. El marinero fue extrayendo las palmas vacías y turbias de vino, y luego dijo que todo pozo, todo lago, todo fondeadero y todo mar guardaban tesoros imposibles y cadáveres de naufragios. Debo apuntar que mis clientes esbozaron algunas sonrisas maliciosas. El viejo marinero terminó de remover el fondo y, tras el pago, desapareció por la puerta. Al día siguiente, repitió el mismo ritual, remangándose los antebrazos para buscar tesoros inventados en las profundidades mínimas de la jarra.
    Tres días después, y cuando ya lo considerábamos un loco habitual que pagaba para remojarse las manos, rompió el silencio de la taberna con una exclamación: para nuestra sorpresa, sus dedos comenzaron a extraer puñados de oro en monedas viejas del interior del recipiente de vino que no parecía tener fondo. Reunida una cantidad de riquezas suficiente para retirarse unos años a vaguear a una isla, colocó el dinero sobre la barra y dijo que me compraría la taberna. La vendí, por supuesto, y entonces comenzaron mis penurias: dediqué lo ganado a recorrer otros bares y bodegas, adquiriendo jarras de vino en las que introduje los brazos buscando tesoros, tal y como había visto hacer a aquel marinero. Cuando estaba perdiendo ya mi fortuna en vino derramado, unos tipos con bata blanca me pusieron una chaqueta Y me trajeron a este lugar, donde, pese a la medicación, sigo en la quimera de rastrear tesoros de otros naufragios.

  127. Un viajero es alguien con ganas de ver. Un turista es alguien con ganas de que otros le vean ver. dixo...
  128. La Reina de las Luciérnagas era la más bella y más brillante de todos los pequeños seres que vuelan. Ella moraba en el corazón de un loto rosa. El loto crecía en un lago tranquilo, y se mecía de aquí para allá en el seno del lago mientras la Reina de las Luciérnagas dormía en su interior. Parecía el reflejo de una estrella en el agua.
    Debéis saber, oh, pequeños hijos de la noche, que la reina luciérnaga tenía muchos pretendientes. Innumerables polillas, escarabajos sanjuaneros y libélulas volaban hasta el loto del lago. Y sus corazones estaban repletos de apasionado amor.
    —Ten piedad, ten piedad —imploraban—, Reina de las Luciérnagas, Brillante Luz del Lago.
    Pero la Reina de las Luciérnagas se sentaba y sonreía y brillaba. Parecía que no era sensible al incienso del amor que la rodeaba.
    Al final les dijo a sus admiradores:
    —Oh, vosotros amantes, todos sin excepción, ¿qué hacéis aquí tan ociosos, abarrotando mi casa del loto? Demostrad vuestro amor si me amáis de verdad. Id y traedme fuego, y después yo os daré una respuesta.
    Entonces, oh, pequeños hijos de la noche hubo un rápido zumbar de alas, ya que las innumerables polillas y escarabajos sanjuaneros y libélulas partieron de manera inmediata en busca del fuego. Pero la Reina de las Luciérnagas se quedó riendo. Luego os contare la razón de su risa.
    Así que los amantes volaron aquí y allá en la tranquila noche, llevando con ellos su deseo. Descubrieron luz en celosías entreabiertas y penetraron en el interior de las habitaciones. En un cuarto había una muchacha que sacaba una carta de amor de su almohada y la leía entre lágrimas, a la luz de una candela. En otra habitación una mujer estaba sentada sujetando una luz cerca de un espejo, ante el que se miraba y se pintaba la cara. Una gran polilla blanca apagó la temblorosa llama de la candela con sus alas.
    —¡Ay, qué miedo! —gritó la mujer—. ¡Qué horrible oscuridad!
    En otro lugar yacía un hombre agonizando que dijo:
    —Tened piedad de mí, encendedme la lámpara, pues la negra noche está cayendo.
    —Ya la hemos encendido —le respondieron—, hace rato ya. La tienes a tu lado, y una legión de polillas y libélulas aletean a su alrededor.
    —No puedo ver nada en absoluto —murmuró el hombre.
    Pero todos aquellos que volaron en busca del fuego quemaron sus frágiles alas en la llama. Por la mañana yacían muertos por centenares y fueron barridos y olvidados.
    La Reina de las Luciérnagas permanecía segura en su flor de loto con su amado, que era tan brillante como ella, ya que era un gran señor de las luciérnagas. No tenía necesidad de emprender la búsqueda del fuego, pues llevaba una llama viva entre sus alas.
    Así fue que la Reina de las Luciérnagas embaucó a sus amantes, y de eso se reía cuando los envió a una vana aventura».
    —No seáis engañados —aconsejó el sabio poeta—, oh, pequeños hijos de la noche. La Reina de las Luciérnagas es indiferente a vosotros. Poned fin a la búsqueda del fuego.
    Sin embargo las polillas, los escarabajos sanjuaneros y las libélulas no prestaron atención a las palabras del sabio. Ellos seguían revoloteando alrededor de la candela, y se quemaron sus brillantes alas en la llama y así murieron.

  129. Es invierno, quizás. dixo...
  130. Poco después del accidente en el que perdió el ojo empezó a olvidarse de la mitad de las cosas que había visto hasta entonces, a no tenerlas en cuenta, a perderlas de vista, como si dijéramos.
    De sus dos hijos solo se acordaba de uno, a su mujer la reconocía de frente pero no de espaldas, jugaba al fútbol con la mitad del equipo, se extraviaba de continuo por el barrio que antes del accidente hubiera podido recorrer con los ojos cerrados…
    Los médicos se echan las manos a la cabeza sin encontrar explicación al fenómeno.
    Tampoco el ojo de cristal —última tecnología alemana— ha servido para nada.
    De vez en cuando, sin que nadie lo vea, el ojo bueno llora su desgracia con lágrimas que añoran a sus hermanas del otro lado, perdidas para siempre.

  131. A Besta dixo...
  132. Algunos lloran, sobre todo las señoras de buen corazón que se arrebujan en sus abrigos de pieles, tiritando de tristeza y enjugándose unas lagrimillas mientras observan la escena del mendigo destripado en medio de la calle, reteniendo el tráfico que lo rodea, atropellado frente a la puerta de la iglesia, protegido por un chucho desgreñado que no para de aullar.
    Tapándose la boca con un pañuelito de hilo dice una:
    —¡Qué lástima! Alguien debería llamar a la perrera.

  133. 10 años sin ganar dixo...
  134. Tienen sombra infinita las derrotas.

  135. El combate a que se entregan en cada individuo el fanático y el impostor es causa de que nunca sepamos a quién dirigirnos. dixo...
  136. Juan nunca salió del granero. Sus padres, vecinos nuestros, le tenían encerrado a cal y canto porque no querían que nadie en el pueblo se enterara. De pequeños, mi hermano y yo nos escapábamos de clase para verlo, recorriendo un pasadizo que habíamos cavado bajo el vallado de separación de las granjas. Acurrucado en su nido, Juan temblaba, sonreía, y piaba un poco al advertir nuestra presencia. Nunca dijimos nada a los mayores, sólo nos mirábamos con tristeza cuando la madre de Juan llegaba a casa y le traía a la mía los huevos que religiosamente pagábamos. «¿ Os ha hecho algo la tortilla?, ¿por qué no mojáis la yema?», solía regañarnos mi madre viendo que no tocábamos el plato. Nosotros, niños que éramos, nunca entendimos que tuvieran a Juan encerrado en el granero sólo por poner huevos de vez en cuando.

  137. En el mundo de los caníbales, seguimos tratando de no comer carne. dixo...
  138. La efebolia que han difundido los neofenicios que controlan los me dios publicitarios es un claro ejemplo de complementación de ruindades. Por un lado: la glorificación de la inmadurez; por el otro: la exigencia desmedida de novedad. Y no nos debe caber la menor duda de que el deseo desmedido de novedad es propio de principiantes.

  139. Los verdaderos fracasados no son los que fracasan, sino los que se niegan a aprender del fracaso dixo...
  140. Nada es más patético que el orgullo de un imbécil triunfante.

  141. Emilio "Mapache" dixo...
  142. Una macana le cayó cerca de la cabeza, chocó contra la pared.
    No supo si alguien la aventó, si fueron los gases lacrimógenos pero quedó panza para arriba y ahí amaneció. No la mataron los macanazos, ni golpes con tronco de árbol con que se sonaban los bandos en pugna, la mató el zapato del barrendero que al verla desprotegida la embarró con el pavimento.

  143. El retorno de los brujos dixo...
  144. No dijeron su palabra en su momento y ya es tarde para que la digan. El retomo de los brujos nos les trae desembrujados. Les amamos, les esperamos. Pero es difícil, ya, que nos embrujen.

  145. Emilio "Mapache" dixo...
  146. Lo esencial está amenazado sin cesar por lo insignificante. Ciclo rastrero.

  147. John Pollas dixo...
  148. El delantero titular de los Porcos Bravos está deprimido. Desde que su amigo imaginario se echó novia imaginaria no tiene con quien jugar.

  149. Capitán de nabos dixo...
  150. Miraba al pelotón, sin miedo. Los soldados al apuntarle pensaban:
    «Nada me ha hecho».
    «Lo conozco desde niño».
    «A sangre fría no puedo».
    «Su mirada es íntegra».
    Los disparos dibujaron una silueta en la pared.
    «Tiene los ojos de padre».
    El capitán apoyó el arma en su cabeza y disparó.

  151. El esperma es un veneno dixo...
  152. Todo era mentira. Cruzó el mar a nado. Sin embargo, cuando llegó a su destino el infinito había desaparecido. Furioso, hizo el camino de vuelta y al llegar a la orilla una ola borró sus huellas.

  153. En las dictaduras lo que funciona es la censura; en las democracias resulta mucho más efectiva la manipulación. dixo...
  154. Somos irresponsables, culpables de lo que no está hecho, odiosos de la obligatoriedad del acto. No tomamos magnitud, ni percibimos ninguna deuda. La omisión y el desánimo no representan un castigo para nosotros. Dejamos para mañana lo que podemos hacer hoy.
    Cada vez que no vibró, lo soltamos; si se quería ir, lo dejamos; si se quería quedar, lo quedamos. Asumimos las consecuencias y a veces no sabemos ni cuáles son. Somos niños que guerrean las batallas inútiles que nos inventamos librar. Somos un jardín de infantes en Alcatraz. No verificamos, no somos exactos, no lo entendemos, no disponemos de pruebas para nada de lo que decimos.
    Somos irresponsables, infractores de lo que no hemos escrito por nuestra cuenta, pero inocentes de lo que hacen los responsables en nuestro nombre.

  155. Nobleza Baturra dixo...
  156. Aquellas jugadas absurdas e impenetrables de los ingleses manifestaban en última instancia una rebelión íntima y resentida contra lo real, la rebelión de quien sabe que va a perder y, no obstante, sigue jugando.

  157. Eliade dixo...
  158. Lo que es cierto para los individuos también lo es para las comunidades. Los recuerdos reprimidos son peligrosos porque, cuando salen a la superficie, pueden destruir lo que es saludable, degradar lo que es noble, socavar lo que es elevado.

  159. 12, camino de 13 dixo...
  160. Ahora nunca mencionaban los tiempos pasados, pero el hecho de haber convertido en costumbre aquellas partidas, ca si sin proponérselo, hablaba de un oscuro deseo de borrar todos aquellos años intermedios en que se veían casi como al pasar, por casualidad. Al frecuentarse de nuevo, preferían creer que el tiempo no había pasado realmente, sino que se había quemado y se había convertido en un denso humo por el que apenas
    podía penetrar la memoria, porque la memoria prefería caminar a saltos, dejando en medio largos paréntesis de olvido, lagunas que ninguno de ellos mencionaba y que, en otros tiempos me nos convulsos que los nuestros, hubieran conferido por sí solas el sentido a una vida. Sin embargo, así eran las cosas: hablaban
    de trivialidades, bebían cerveza, fumaban algunos canutos
    y jugaban al fútbol mejor que antes

  161. LSD de domingo dixo...
  162. pero dime, ¿por qué ninguno de esos tíos y tías llegan nunca hasta el final? Comienzan a matarlas y, ¡zas!, aparece otro
    que comienza a matar a otra y luego un jabalí que comienza
    a matar a un ciervo y luego un drácula que va a morder, pero
    nunca nadie termina la tarea

  163. He visto a la abubilla fabricar su nido con sus excrementos blancos, más deslumbrantes que las palabras de los ermitaños. dixo...
  164. Para poder dormirme, cuento ovejitas. Las ocho primeras saltan ordenadamente por encima del cerco. Las dos siguientes se atropellan, dándose topetazos. La número once salta más alto de lo debido y baja planeando. A continuación saltan cinco vacas, dos de ellas voladoras. Las sigue un ciervo y después otro. Detrás de los ciervos viene corriendo un lobo. Por un momento la cuenta vuelve a regularizarse: un ciervo, un lobo, un ciervo, un lobo. Una desgracia: el lobo número treinta y dos me descubre por el olfato. Inicio rápidamente la cuenta regresiva. Cuando llegue a uno, ¿logrará despertarme la última oveja negra?

  165. Panenkita Woke dixo...
  166. Leo que el tal Estevo debutó y marcó.

    Mi pregunta para el Rodillarato: ¿Cuántos Porcos han marcado en su debut?

  167. Folly Bucelario dixo...


  168. Gran Bretaña ha sido parodiada como una potencia colonial recalcitrante, desesperada por aferrarse a su botín cultural en sustitución de su imperio perdido; Grecia como una advenediza república balcánica, un estado campesino al que no se le puede confiar la custodia de un tesoro internacional. Los políticos se han subido y apeado del carro. Los sucesivos gobiernos griegos han encontrado en la pérdida de las esculturas del Partenón un oportuno símbolo de unidad nacional y en las peticiones de devolución una campaña de bajo coste y relativamente libre de riesgos. Tras largas demoras, se construyó un nuevo museo en Atenas con un espacio reservado para su regreso. Con igual diligencia, los sucesivos gobiernos laboristas británicos han olvidado las apresuradas promesas, hechas desde la oposición, de devolver los mármoles a Atenas tan pronto como accedieran al poder. Entretanto, en el fuego cruzado, han surgido todo tipo de cuestiones cruciales relativas al patrimonio cultural: ¿a quién pertenecen el Partenón y los demás monumentos de primer orden?, ¿deberían repatriarse todos los tesoros culturales o deberían enorgullecerse los museos de sus posesiones internacionales?, ¿es el Partenón un caso especial? y, si lo es, ¿por qué?

  169. Si usted quiere… y de puntos y coma. dixo...
  170. Busco los adjetivos. Ese olor está ahí. En esta estación hay pocas bestias, pero también están lo que yo llamo «las otras bestias», es decir, no las domésticas, las otras. Justo ahora había dos rapaces flotando.

  171. Eso es la embriaguez: vértigo y júbilo. dixo...
  172. aquí los borrachos no tienen tiempo que perder con la tristeza
    y se cantan nanas para no dormirse; esto es el puto infierno en llamas, aquí hasta los chirridos tienen ritmo y todos los deseos que pidas se cumplen.

  173. la poesía inglesa y el arroz de marisco dixo...
  174. La lujuria, no me hagas reír, un entretenimiento de tres años y luego qué.
    Las jodidas olas de la mar, una detrás de otra, oh, qué milagro.
    El mar, ese viejo imbécil; las montañas, esas viejas putas.

    Me gustaría tener en la mano miles de corazones arrancados
    y aún palpitando
    y comérmelos y resucitar un rato y volverme a morir y volver
    a resucitar y volverme a morir hasta aburrirme,
    hasta morirme de aburrimiento.

  175. ilesos por pura tradición en un horno que arde. dixo...
  176. Se salvarán más mujeres que hombres,
    más peces que mamíferos,
    desaparecerá el rock and roll, quedarán las plegarias,
    desaparecerá el dinero, y volverán las conchas.
    La humanidad serán pocos, mestizos, nómadas,
    se moverán a pie. Y su botín, la vida:
    la riqueza más grande que se puede transmitir a un hijo.

  177. Ve y vota. dixo...
  178. Somos frontera cuando dejamos de ser barrera, somos camino cuando dejamos de ser límite

  179. Pura representación simbólica de la nada. dixo...
  180. El circo está completo, que pase el público y que la locura nos mire sonriente, domada, al otro lado de una vitrina.

  181. Ficticius dixo...
  182. Hey tú. Sí, tú mismo. Comprendes la línea de fuerza que trazan nuestras colas, una circunferencia truncada con el arco del vano. Curvas y masas de color. Pequeñas pulgas que nadie se digna a pintar pero escuecen bajo el pelaje. Pequeño Renacimiento: este es el verdadero antropocentrismo: el del mono encadenado. Hey tú. Que uno de nosotros mire al horizonte marino por donde llegan y huyen centenares de barcos, que el otro mire fijamente al espejo que le mira. No hay escapada posible cuando la cadena forma parte de uno mismo. Hey tú, consuélate con tu bonito sombrero humano. Consuélate con la compañía de otro igual a ti. Pequeño corazón de mono. No hay escapatoria ni hacia el océano ni hacia el hombre. No la hay.

  183. Anónimo dixo...
  184. Los faros de un coche adensando la hilazón de la niebla. Un no-lugar. Un espacio fuera del tiempo y del espacio. Pura ausencia. La infinita posibilidad del vacío. El absoluto y su mentira. Todo esto, frente a tus ojos. Y como ellos, sucumbiendo al arañazo, a la violencia. Al relámpago negro que quiebra como un cristal la exactitud. A esa nervadura o raíz o élitro de suma oscuridad. Movimiento en la claridad. Convulsión de alas negras. Esto es un estado del ánimo, un suceso interior, un acontecimiento intraducible a palabras pero exacto a su correlato en tu pecho. Lo que ves es tu reflejo. ¿No has sentido antes dentro de ti lo que está frente a tus ojos?

  185. Mira esa mirada y comprenderás la dimensión de la palabra Patria. Mira esa mirada y estarás mirando el corazón de todos los himnos. dixo...
  186. Se sentó ante las líneas enemigas en una mecedora, sorteaba
    los disparos, sonriendo: la primera bala le había alcanzado mortalmente
    Se seguirá meciendo hasta dejar sin munición a todos.

  187. Déjame estar, junto a ti, en este diminuto instante interminable dixo...
  188. Será cierto eso de que los hombres se disfrazan de negro para acercarse más a la verdad.

  189. Pintor de lefas dixo...
  190. Un cuerpo humano es inverosímil en pleno siglo XXI

    600 millones de pollos triturados al año en España

      a quién se le ocurre un cuerpo humano

    61 millones de gallinas descuartizadas al año en España

      un ser humano crucificado sobre el peso de sus costillas sí

    50 millones de cerdos despiezados al año en España

      las carnicerías en las que Dios ya no existe sí

    20 millones de corderos

      ¿Pero el cuerpo humano?

    3 millones de bóvidos asesinados por el cuerpo humano

      en todo caso carne con sangre añadida a base de cubos de pintura roja.

  191. Doctor Pyg dixo...
  192. las facciones del cerdo reflejan un horror indescriptible y premonitorio

    lo mismo con el rostro

    un aguacate es abierto por la mitad, se le saca el corazón, se le hincan los dientes

    lo mismo con la carne

    los pequeños pollitos van directos a la trituradora para hacer carne picada

    lo mismo con el cuerpo

    las manzanas en el desayuno suelen ser peladas troceadas cuidadosamente

    lo mismo con el cuerpo

    un cerdo en un matadero es despiezado en decenas de trozos bien distinguidos

    lo mismo con el cuerpo



    en este punto el rostro ha desaparecido:

    una torsión de carne batida intentando recomponerse

    es imposible saber si la cabeza de la figura encerrada en la jaula

    es de cerdo, de manzana, de pollo, de gallina

  193. Doctor Pyg dixo...
  194. En una carnicería:
    una figura grita pidiendo piedad
    un animal ya no grita pidiendo piedad
    el artista:
    un carnicero
    intenta cuidadosamente dibujar los huesos hasta que parezcan salir del lienzo
    le ha quebrado los huesos le ha seccionado la textura epitelial
    captar el dolor
    antes de separar
    inmovilizar el dolor
    el costillar en dos
    de la pobre figura que
    ha colgado boca abajo
    sufre, sufre y sufre
    el animal
    lo más difícil
    no ha pensado que el grito
    es que el grito
    está más allá del cuerpo
    es amarillo y no tiene
    mucho más allá
    ningún lenguaje
    de la figura que abre la boca

  195. Doctor Pyg dixo...
  196. Aún. Respiran. Demasiado (con una frase larga la sintaxis se escabulle por los huecos, anuda amarra los andrajos, simula un organismo). Los recubro. De arpillera. Y aúno. Con clavos. Separo. Con metralla. La x. Crucifixión. Encrucijada. El ex-stasis. Lo que se queda. Quieto. Afuera. Y dice. Rígido (o grietamente la marca de que hay hombre enterrado, una resina negra ha desollado las paredes del tú, su extremo visceral, impregna el fondo, acaba abriendo

    orificio ) performación ) rotura-ojo ) abismo-boca )

  197. Doctor Pyg dixo...
  198. Un tajo en el abismo, un corte transversal | verás miles de tráqueas, cartílago, la arteria palatina, el estupor, pliegues ventriculares, el nervio troclear, lo interrumpido, huesos hioides, venas, músculos, entrelazados, indagados | la multitud de bocas | vastos coros | sangrando en su pregunta ― ¿has dado testimonio? ― ¿has estado? ― ¿miraste el eco de mi rostro? ― ¿oíste el rostro de mi miedo? ― ¿tocaste el techo de los gritos? ― ¿el paladar? ― ¿te desollaste el oído? ― ¿te manchaste las manos? ― ¿hasta el vértigo? ― ¿la náusea? ― ¿la caída? ― ¿apuñalaste tu palabra | o mentiste?

  199. 700. La larga y fría oscuridad dixo...
  200. Surgen, por lo tanto, dos modalidades ecfrásticas principales, guiadas por la autorreflexión lingüística de la nada futbolística: una clásica ―aquella en la que se establece una representación verbal clásica mediante un pacto descriptivo más o menos explícito― y una más actual ―aquella en la que la imagen impulsa y dinamiza un desarrollo lírico que desborda los límites de la mera descripción literaria, generando incluso un discurso autónomo―. Los códigos de la écfrasis se insertan de este modo en una larga tradición al tiempo que originan nuevas dinámicas que la diferencian de otras técnicas representativas anteriores. Así, la hibridación de estas dos modalidades, y el amplio espectro que se genera entre ellas, activa nuevos códigos que cifran las ilimitadas posibilidades de la écfrasis actual.

  201. El agujero: mi agujero: tu agujero: un agujero es el fin de la materia: no su ausencia, pues solo vemos borde, momento de torsión, de intorsión, caída, ¿desde aquí? dixo...
  202. Hay que buscar al personaje, pero sin convertirse en un esclavo

  203. Cantinflas dixo...
  204. Estamos peor, pero estamos mejor, porque antes estábamos bien pero era mentira. No como ahora que estamos mal, pero es verdad

  205. Nadal Vermello dixo...
  206. Las cabalgatas de Reyes en las que los pajes les tiran los caramelos a los niños como si fueran perdigones. El precio de los langostinos. El alcalde de Vigo aullando, en su inglés de Pontevedra, que en Navidad brillan más luces en su ciudad que en Nueva York (y que los casi tres millones de euros que cuestan son un buen negocio para los vigueses). El precio del cordero. Que no haya más canciones como Fuck Christmas, de Eric Idle. Los turrones El Almendro. Los partidos amistosos entre la selección de Cataluña y la del Kurdistán, o entre España y Guatemala. Los niños de San Ildefonso, su irritante soniquete y las ganas que tiene uno de que se les caigan las bolas (las de los números) o confundan los números. Los retrasados mentales que asisten al sorteo de la lotería de Navidad disfrazados de papá Noel o del capitán John Sparrow. Los adornos kitsch que cuelgan los vecinos en la puerta de sus casas. El burrito sabanero. Que la Navidad celebre un hecho religioso y apócrifo. El precio del cordero. Las muñecas de Famosa, que se dirigen al portal. El discurso del Rey en Nochebuena. La Nochebuena. Comprar lotería navideña en el trabajo, aunque nunca juegues a la lotería, no sea que toque el gordo y tú seas el único imbécil que no tenga. Los burros y las vacas que llenan las plazas de los pueblos. Los caganers. La obligación de ser feliz. Que te regalen una birria de jersey o unos calzoncillos demasiado pequeños. El alcalde de Badalona aullando, en los ratos libres que le deja expulsar a cuatro centenares de negros pobres de sus refugios improvisados en la ciudad, que el árbol de Navidad del municipio pronto será más alto que el de Vigo. El precio del besugo. Las exhortaciones de RENFE y de las compañías aéreas a que volvamos a casa por Navidad. La obligación de comer hasta reventar el 24, el 25, el 26 (en Cataluña y Baleares) y el 31 de diciembre, y el 6 de enero. La presencia de cuñados, primos remotos, tíos desconocidos, suegras insufribles y demás gente de mal vivir en esos ágapes colosales. El champán Rondel. El calvo de la Navidad, que ya ha muerto. Las galas de fin de año, sobre todo si participan Raphael, Fernando Esteso o Bertín Osborne. La alegría prefabricada, las sonrisas impostadas, los buenos deseos industriales. Que la Navidad ni siquiera sirva para que haya un día de tregua entre los combatientes, como en la Primera Guerra Mundial, y los rusos y los ucranianos sigan matándose alegremente en el Donetsk. La media hora larga que dedican el Telediario y todos los noticieros nacionales el 22 de diciembre a los que les ha tocado la lotería, y las escenas de los agraciados gritando como posesos y rociándose en cava en las administraciones donde han comprado la participación, o en el bar del barrio, en el que todos están invitados. El concurso de saltos de esquí, casi tan aburrido como el discurso del Rey en Nochebuena, que esas mismas cadenas retransmiten la mañana del 1 de enero. La obligación de cumplir con una tradición de la que no te sientes heredero. La capa española de Ramón García, antes, y el vestido de la Pedroche, ahora, en Nochevieja. La Pedroche en Nochevieja. Los polvorones, las peladillas y el turrón duro. Atragantarse con las uvas. Sentir la necesidad de felicitar la Navidad a gente que ni nos importa ni conocemos. No cumplir ninguno de los buenos propósitos que hacemos para el año nuevo. Ayuso anunciando la buena nueva de que va a nacer un niño y de que la persecución judicial de su novio, un mero ciudadano particular, es solo una perversa operación para destruirla, orquestada por el pérfido Perro Sanxe y su gobierno corrupto. Que en la tele ineluctablemente echen ¡Qué bello es vivir! y Solo en casa.

  207. Ebenezer Scrooge dixo...
  208. Multitudes por la calle cargadas de bolsas de El Corte Inglés. El gordinflón de Papá Noel, que nunca renueva el vestuario, ni modera las risotadas, ni adelgaza, el reno Rodolfo y su nariz de payaso, y los elfos, que malbaratan el trabajo: lo cumplen como japoneses y ni siquiera reclaman el plus de nocturnidad. La misa del gallo. Los mensajes de paz y amor de gilipollas e hijos de puta. El precio del bogavante. La obligación de tener —y demostrar— buenos sentimientos. Que a finales de octubre ya empiecen a aparecer arbolitos de Navidad en las tiendas y papás noeles en los balcones. El amigo invisible. Seguir viendo la cara de los compañeros que aborreces en los aperitivos del trabajo o las comidas de empresa, y escuchar las arengas de los jefes, a los que aún detestas más. La obligación de cumplir las normas sociales. Que los grinchs sean considerados unos aguafiestas y no unos visionarios. Las iluminaciones disneyanas en los balcones de las casas. Las frases de autoayuda que difunden los establecimientos comerciales, como “creer en la Navidad es creer en las personas”. Las canciones de Mariah Carey. Que sea un rito: la fosilización —y el vaciamiento— del significado que haya podido tener. ¡Viva Ebenezer Scrooge (antes de su conversión)!

  209. Gonzo Hearst o las Tribulations del periodismo feraz dixo...
  210. Coidate dos medios de comunicación porque vas rematar odiando ao oprimido e amando ao opresor

  211. Mighty Main dixo...
  212. Aunque en esta tierra no existiera el silencio, ese nevar lo habría inventado ya en su sueño.

  213. Mike Barja dixo...
  214. Sin amistad no hay vida, si es que se quiere llevar una vida digna de un hombre.

  215. ¿ 4 goles ? dixo...
  216. Puede entenderse que la amistad implica deberes especiales hacia los amigos, ciertas obligaciones de ayudarles y apoyarles en mayor medida que a las personas que no son amigos. Claro que esta preocupación especial por los amigos puede suponer cierta parcialidad hacia ellos, un sesgo, lo que puede entrar en contradicción con determinados preceptos morales que exigen proporcionar un trato igual a todos los seres humanos. El favoritismo es sin duda una degeneración de la amistad. El amiguismo corrompe el juicio moral, pues debilita la justicia y erosiona la confianza común. No es un exceso de amistad, es su desnaturalización.

  217. hay daqué siniestro n’adoma de la bestia dixo...
  218. Levedad que alcanza incluso la evocación de la violencia y la dureza del mundo al que se remonta, y aún más, a la violencia misma que supone cualquier intento de reapropiarse, renombrándolo, un tiempo ya pasado.

  219. Besta do seu sangue dixo...
  220. Galiza como lugar de depravación e decadencia onde a civilización esmorece

  221. hai elementos da idiosincrasia nacional do bispado que aínda non cachou dixo...
  222. Ás veces o máis fascinante da historia non é a historia en si, senón o seu propio relato. A forma en que alguén nos fixo crer aquilo que quixo

  223. El Maizal de Sombras de Juan Fake dixo...
  224. En el continuo ser a ambos lados del reflejo, con un desfase de femtosegundos, percibir la mecánica del fluir del suceso como error en la consciencia de la repetición

    (Notas para un infierno posible)

  225. El Maizal de Sombras de Juan Fake dixo...
  226. Intentar pensar
    Una tristeza sin nostalgia

    (Notas para un infierno vulgar)

  227. El Maizal de Sombras de Juan Fake dixo...
  228. Silencio que se cuenta a pulgadas. Filos en el aire que se exhala. Ojos en los dientes que escudriñan las vísceras del mirlo de la casa. El sueño de los pulpos o el ib en el cielo que pesa la balanza. Las frases como espinas de la brea y en la brea, que acaban teniendo música porque lo que cae en la duración todos sabemos qué dios es y lo que hace con su padre y con sus hijos.

  229. El Maizal de Sombras de Juan Fake dixo...
  230. Acto de amor que deja
    Una vida ante los lobos
    Inocencia saluda cantando
    Sonriente La falsa moneda

    Cruzando la meada - susurra al oído de un mundo
    Alea jacta est

  231. El Maizal de Sombras de Juan Fake dixo...
  232. Grises en grises y amagos de azul de ánimas huecas pasadas por esparto estraza o pómez. Cultivar un infierno en dos ya patentados: el Infierno frío feo y aburrido de los griegos. Y a ése echarle el ricino del Infierno cristiano de una Europa que hace cuarenta años un calvo por la tele ya dijo que había muerto. Por el desagüe marcha la rosa: el Infierno sólo existe para el que lo sufre. De cualquier forma en cualquiera de los tiempos verbales. No se gana ni se encuentra. No hay juicio ni mérito. Es porque estás en él. Despachado replegarse al repeluco que se siente por los orgullosos de la mondaraja del Esfuerzo y los Eurekas fabricados por una olla a presión. Ir con la plancha y poner en cursiva universal los filósofos alemanes del XIX orinaban sentados y malamente. Humores y cálculos

  233. El Maizal de Sombras de Juan Fake dixo...
  234. La noticia de la salud de un amigo
    Alegra las zancadas del marabú
    Que pasea bolsas de mierda por el barrio

  235. El Maizal de Sombras de Juan Fake dixo...
  236. Iros todos a tomar por culo - escupo: roto el espejo en su mejor idilio ya de espaldas a la vida es mi canción de la mañana / oh /
    ¡Para ser ahorcado hermoso día!

  237. El Maizal de Sombras de Juan Fake dixo...
  238. Hagamos análisis Sicosocial del in itínere que consiste en el paso de una tripa a la otra por el interior de una ciudad que todos observamos desde las pantallas. El meta leviatán transmutado en sierpes avanza por el hueco arquitectónico de una cáscara habitada por su fluir constante, que traslada fantasmas que pasan de una a otra sin dejar de mirar la pantalla por la que todo esto nos pasa. Es todo tan sencillo que no te has dado cuenta de tu porcentaje de fantasma digital en todo este trayecto diario. Menos mal que estábamos aquí. Ahora, ya no tienes excusa, perla.

  239. El Maizal de Sombras de Juan Fake dixo...
  240. Escribe el cerebro - la lucidez exige su nómina - la burocracia es estadio mitológico de - digamos - un Hades 4.0 y la premisa de que nada existe: todo es rodando por un constructo - encelado de tráqueas unidas de homes - cánula del fluir del yo entre hoces interrogativas

  241. El Maizal de Sombras de Juan Fake dixo...
  242. Lo Tuto es Mío.
    Lo Mío es Mío.

  243. Malaquías Malagrowther dixo...
  244. Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge’s name was good upon ’Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

    Mind! I don’t mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country’s done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

    Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were partners for I don’t know how many years. Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend, and sole mourner. And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral, and solemnised it with an undoubted bargain.

    The mention of Marley’s funeral brings me back to the point I started from. There is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate. If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet’s Father died before the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-aged gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot—say Saint Paul’s Churchyard for instance—literally to astonish his son’s weak mind.

    Scrooge never painted out Old Marley’s name. There it stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse door: Scrooge and Marley. The firm was known as Scrooge and Marley. Sometimes people new to the business called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley, but he answered to both names. It was all the same to him.

    Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dog-days; and didn’t thaw it one degree at Christmas.

    External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn’t know where to have him. The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect. They often “came down” handsomely, and Scrooge never did.

    Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks, “My dear Scrooge, how are you? When will you come to see me?” No beggars implored him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him what it was o’clock, no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to such and such a place, of Scrooge. Even the blind men’s dogs appeared to know him; and when they saw him coming on, would tug their owners into doorways and up courts; and then would wag their tails as though they said, “No eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master!”

    But what did Scrooge care! It was the very thing he liked. To edge his way along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance, was what the knowing ones call “nuts” to Scrooge.

  245. Malaquías Malagrowther dixo...
  246. Once upon a time—of all the good days in the year, on Christmas Eve—old Scrooge sat busy in his counting-house. It was cold, bleak, biting weather: foggy withal: and he could hear the people in the court outside, go wheezing up and down, beating their hands upon their breasts, and stamping their feet upon the pavement stones to warm them. The city clocks had only just gone three, but it was quite dark already—it had not been light all day—and candles were flaring in the windows of the neighbouring offices, like ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air. The fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was so dense without, that although the court was of the narrowest, the houses opposite were mere phantoms. To see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring everything, one might have thought that Nature lived hard by, and was brewing on a large scale.

    The door of Scrooge’s counting-house was open that he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who in a dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was copying letters. Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk’s fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one coal. But he couldn’t replenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal-box in his own room; and so surely as the clerk came in with the shovel, the master predicted that it would be necessary for them to part. Wherefore the clerk put on his white comforter, and tried to warm himself at the candle; in which effort, not being a man of a strong imagination, he failed.

    “A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!” cried a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge’s nephew, who came upon him so quickly that this was the first intimation he had of his approach.

    “Bah!” said Scrooge, “Humbug!”

    He had so heated himself with rapid walking in the fog and frost, this nephew of Scrooge’s, that he was all in a glow; his face was ruddy and handsome; his eyes sparkled, and his breath smoked again.

    “Christmas a humbug, uncle!” said Scrooge’s nephew. “You don’t mean that, I am sure?”

    “I do,” said Scrooge. “Merry Christmas! What right have you to be merry? What reason have you to be merry? You’re poor enough.”

    “Come, then,” returned the nephew gaily. “What right have you to be dismal? What reason have you to be morose? You’re rich enough.”

    Scrooge having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment, said, “Bah!” again; and followed it up with “Humbug.”

    “Don’t be cross, uncle!” said the nephew.

  247. Malaquías Malagrowther dixo...
  248. “What else can I be,” returned the uncle, “when I live in such a world of fools as this? Merry Christmas! Out upon merry Christmas! What’s Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every item in ’em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? If I could work my will,” said Scrooge indignantly, “every idiot who goes about with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!”

    “Uncle!” pleaded the nephew.

    “Nephew!” returned the uncle sternly, “keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine.”

    “Keep it!” repeated Scrooge’s nephew. “But you don’t keep it.”

    “Let me leave it alone, then,” said Scrooge. “Much good may it do you! Much good it has ever done you!”

    “There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,” returned the nephew. “Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round—apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that—as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!”

    The clerk in the Tank involuntarily applauded. Becoming immediately sensible of the impropriety, he poked the fire, and extinguished the last frail spark for ever.

    “Let me hear another sound from you,” said Scrooge, “and you’ll keep your Christmas by losing your situation! You’re quite a powerful speaker, sir,” he added, turning to his nephew. “I wonder you don’t go into Parliament.”

    “Don’t be angry, uncle. Come! Dine with us to-morrow.”

    Scrooge said that he would see him—yes, indeed he did. He went the whole length of the expression, and said that he would see him in that extremity first.

    “But why?” cried Scrooge’s nephew. “Why?”

    “Why did you get married?” said Scrooge.

    “Because I fell in love.”

    “Because you fell in love!” growled Scrooge, as if that were the only one thing in the world more ridiculous than a merry Christmas. “Good afternoon!”

    “Nay, uncle, but you never came to see me before that happened. Why give it as a reason for not coming now?”

    “Good afternoon,” said Scrooge.

    “I want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you; why cannot we be friends?”

    “Good afternoon,” said Scrooge.

    “I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so resolute. We have never had any quarrel, to which I have been a party. But I have made the trial in homage to Christmas, and I’ll keep my Christmas humour to the last. So A Merry Christmas, uncle!”

    “Good afternoon!” said Scrooge.

    “And A Happy New Year!”

    “Good afternoon!” said Scrooge.

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  250. His nephew left the room without an angry word, notwithstanding. He stopped at the outer door to bestow the greetings of the season on the clerk, who, cold as he was, was warmer than Scrooge; for he returned them cordially.

    “There’s another fellow,” muttered Scrooge; who overheard him: “my clerk, with fifteen shillings a week, and a wife and family, talking about a merry Christmas. I’ll retire to Bedlam.”

    This lunatic, in letting Scrooge’s nephew out, had let two other people in. They were portly gentlemen, pleasant to behold, and now stood, with their hats off, in Scrooge’s office. They had books and papers in their hands, and bowed to him.

    “Scrooge and Marley’s, I believe,” said one of the gentlemen, referring to his list. “Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. Scrooge, or Mr. Marley?”

    “Mr. Marley has been dead these seven years,” Scrooge replied. “He died seven years ago, this very night.”

    “We have no doubt his liberality is well represented by his surviving partner,” said the gentleman, presenting his credentials.

    It certainly was; for they had been two kindred spirits. At the ominous word “liberality,” Scrooge frowned, and shook his head, and handed the credentials back.

    “At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge,” said the gentleman, taking up a pen, “it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.”

    “Are there no prisons?” asked Scrooge.

    “Plenty of prisons,” said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.

    “And the Union workhouses?” demanded Scrooge. “Are they still in operation?”

    “They are. Still,” returned the gentleman, “I wish I could say they were not.”

    “The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?” said Scrooge.

    “Both very busy, sir.”

    “Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course,” said Scrooge. “I’m very glad to hear it.”

    “Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude,” returned the gentleman, “a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?”

    “Nothing!” Scrooge replied.

    “You wish to be anonymous?”

    “I wish to be left alone,” said Scrooge. “Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don’t make merry myself at Christmas and I can’t afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned—they cost enough; and those who are badly off must go there.”

    “Many can’t go there; and many would rather die.”

    “If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Besides—excuse me—I don’t know that.”

    “But you might know it,” observed the gentleman.

    “It’s not my business,” Scrooge returned. “It’s enough for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people’s. Mine occupies me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen!”

    Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue their point, the gentlemen withdrew. Scrooge resumed his labours with an improved opinion of himself, and in a more facetious temper than was usual with him.

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  252. Meanwhile the fog and darkness thickened so, that people ran about with flaring links, proffering their services to go before horses in carriages, and conduct them on their way. The ancient tower of a church, whose gruff old bell was always peeping slily down at Scrooge out of a Gothic window in the wall, became invisible, and struck the hours and quarters in the clouds, with tremulous vibrations afterwards as if its teeth were chattering in its frozen head up there. The cold became intense. In the main street, at the corner of the court, some labourers were repairing the gas-pipes, and had lighted a great fire in a brazier, round which a party of ragged men and boys were gathered: warming their hands and winking their eyes before the blaze in rapture. The water-plug being left in solitude, its overflowings sullenly congealed, and turned to misanthropic ice. The brightness of the shops where holly sprigs and berries crackled in the lamp heat of the windows, made pale faces ruddy as they passed. Poulterers’ and grocers’ trades became a splendid joke: a glorious pageant, with which it was next to impossible to believe that such dull principles as bargain and sale had anything to do. The Lord Mayor, in the stronghold of the mighty Mansion House, gave orders to his fifty cooks and butlers to keep Christmas as a Lord Mayor’s household should; and even the little tailor, whom he had fined five shillings on the previous Monday for being drunk and bloodthirsty in the streets, stirred up to-morrow’s pudding in his garret, while his lean wife and the baby sallied out to buy the beef.

    Foggier yet, and colder. Piercing, searching, biting cold. If the good Saint Dunstan had but nipped the Evil Spirit’s nose with a touch of such weather as that, instead of using his familiar weapons, then indeed he would have roared to lusty purpose. The owner of one scant young nose, gnawed and mumbled by the hungry cold as bones are gnawed by dogs, stooped down at Scrooge’s keyhole to regale him with a Christmas carol: but at the first sound of

    “God bless you, merry gentleman!
    May nothing you dismay!”

    Scrooge seized the ruler with such energy of action, that the singer fled in terror, leaving the keyhole to the fog and even more congenial frost.

    At length the hour of shutting up the counting-house arrived. With an ill-will Scrooge dismounted from his stool, and tacitly admitted the fact to the expectant clerk in the Tank, who instantly snuffed his candle out, and put on his hat.

    “You’ll want all day to-morrow, I suppose?” said Scrooge.

    “If quite convenient, sir.”

    “It’s not convenient,” said Scrooge, “and it’s not fair. If I was to stop half-a-crown for it, you’d think yourself ill-used, I’ll be bound?”

    The clerk smiled faintly.

    “And yet,” said Scrooge, “you don’t think me ill-used, when I pay a day’s wages for no work.”

    The clerk observed that it was only once a year.

    “A poor excuse for picking a man’s pocket every twenty-fifth of December!” said Scrooge, buttoning his great-coat to the chin. “But I suppose you must have the whole day. Be here all the earlier next morning.”

    The clerk promised that he would; and Scrooge walked out with a growl. The office was closed in a twinkling, and the clerk, with the long ends of his white comforter dangling below his waist (for he boasted no great-coat), went down a slide on Cornhill, at the end of a lane of boys, twenty times, in honour of its being Christmas Eve, and then ran home to Camden Town as hard as he could pelt, to play at blindman’s-buff.

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  254. Scrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy tavern; and having read all the newspapers, and beguiled the rest of the evening with his banker’s-book, went home to bed. He lived in chambers which had once belonged to his deceased partner. They were a gloomy suite of rooms, in a lowering pile of building up a yard, where it had so little business to be, that one could scarcely help fancying it must have run there when it was a young house, playing at hide-and-seek with other houses, and forgotten the way out again. It was old enough now, and dreary enough, for nobody lived in it but Scrooge, the other rooms being all let out as offices. The yard was so dark that even Scrooge, who knew its every stone, was fain to grope with his hands. The fog and frost so hung about the black old gateway of the house, that it seemed as if the Genius of the Weather sat in mournful meditation on the threshold.

    Now, it is a fact, that there was nothing at all particular about the knocker on the door, except that it was very large. It is also a fact, that Scrooge had seen it, night and morning, during his whole residence in that place; also that Scrooge had as little of what is called fancy about him as any man in the city of London, even including—which is a bold word—the corporation, aldermen, and livery. Let it also be borne in mind that Scrooge had not bestowed one thought on Marley, since his last mention of his seven years’ dead partner that afternoon. And then let any man explain to me, if he can, how it happened that Scrooge, having his key in the lock of the door, saw in the knocker, without its undergoing any intermediate process of change—not a knocker, but Marley’s face.

    Marley’s face. It was not in impenetrable shadow as the other objects in the yard were, but had a dismal light about it, like a bad lobster in a dark cellar. It was not angry or ferocious, but looked at Scrooge as Marley used to look: with ghostly spectacles turned up on its ghostly forehead. The hair was curiously stirred, as if by breath or hot air; and, though the eyes were wide open, they were perfectly motionless. That, and its livid colour, made it horrible; but its horror seemed to be in spite of the face and beyond its control, rather than a part of its own expression.

    As Scrooge looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it was a knocker again.

    To say that he was not startled, or that his blood was not conscious of a terrible sensation to which it had been a stranger from infancy, would be untrue. But he put his hand upon the key he had relinquished, turned it sturdily, walked in, and lighted his candle.

    He did pause, with a moment’s irresolution, before he shut the door; and he did look cautiously behind it first, as if he half expected to be terrified with the sight of Marley’s pigtail sticking out into the hall. But there was nothing on the back of the door, except the screws and nuts that held the knocker on, so he said “Pooh, pooh!” and closed it with a bang.

    The sound resounded through the house like thunder. Every room above, and every cask in the wine-merchant’s cellars below, appeared to have a separate peal of echoes of its own. Scrooge was not a man to be frightened by echoes. He fastened the door, and walked across the hall, and up the stairs; slowly too: trimming his candle as he went.

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  256. You may talk vaguely about driving a coach-and-six up a good old flight of stairs, or through a bad young Act of Parliament; but I mean to say you might have got a hearse up that staircase, and taken it broadwise, with the splinter-bar towards the wall and the door towards the balustrades: and done it easy. There was plenty of width for that, and room to spare; which is perhaps the reason why Scrooge thought he saw a locomotive hearse going on before him in the gloom. Half-a-dozen gas-lamps out of the street wouldn’t have lighted the entry too well, so you may suppose that it was pretty dark with Scrooge’s dip.

    Up Scrooge went, not caring a button for that. Darkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it. But before he shut his heavy door, he walked through his rooms to see that all was right. He had just enough recollection of the face to desire to do that.

    Sitting-room, bedroom, lumber-room. All as they should be. Nobody under the table, nobody under the sofa; a small fire in the grate; spoon and basin ready; and the little saucepan of gruel (Scrooge had a cold in his head) upon the hob. Nobody under the bed; nobody in the closet; nobody in his dressing-gown, which was hanging up in a suspicious attitude against the wall. Lumber-room as usual. Old fire-guard, old shoes, two fish-baskets, washing-stand on three legs, and a poker.

    Quite satisfied, he closed his door, and locked himself in; double-locked himself in, which was not his custom. Thus secured against surprise, he took off his cravat; put on his dressing-gown and slippers, and his nightcap; and sat down before the fire to take his gruel.

    It was a very low fire indeed; nothing on such a bitter night. He was obliged to sit close to it, and brood over it, before he could extract the least sensation of warmth from such a handful of fuel. The fireplace was an old one, built by some Dutch merchant long ago, and paved all round with quaint Dutch tiles, designed to illustrate the Scriptures. There were Cains and Abels, Pharaoh’s daughters; Queens of Sheba, Angelic messengers descending through the air on clouds like feather-beds, Abrahams, Belshazzars, Apostles putting off to sea in butter-boats, hundreds of figures to attract his thoughts; and yet that face of Marley, seven years dead, came like the ancient Prophet’s rod, and swallowed up the whole. If each smooth tile had been a blank at first, with power to shape some picture on its surface from the disjointed fragments of his thoughts, there would have been a copy of old Marley’s head on every one.

    “Humbug!” said Scrooge; and walked across the room.

    After several turns, he sat down again. As he threw his head back in the chair, his glance happened to rest upon a bell, a disused bell, that hung in the room, and communicated for some purpose now forgotten with a chamber in the highest story of the building. It was with great astonishment, and with a strange, inexplicable dread, that as he looked, he saw this bell begin to swing. It swung so softly in the outset that it scarcely made a sound; but soon it rang out loudly, and so did every bell in the house.

    This might have lasted half a minute, or a minute, but it seemed an hour. The bells ceased as they had begun, together. They were succeeded by a clanking noise, deep down below; as if some person were dragging a heavy chain over the casks in the wine-merchant’s cellar. Scrooge then remembered to have heard that ghosts in haunted houses were described as dragging chains.

    The cellar-door flew open with a booming sound, and then he heard the noise much louder, on the floors below; then coming up the stairs; then coming straight towards his door.

    “It’s humbug still!” said Scrooge. “I won’t believe it.”

    His colour changed though, when, without a pause, it came on through the heavy door, and passed into the room before his eyes. Upon its coming in, the dying flame leaped up, as though it cried, “I know him; Marley’s Ghost!” and fell again.

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  258. The same face: the very same. Marley in his pigtail, usual waistcoat, tights and boots; the tassels on the latter bristling, like his pigtail, and his coat-skirts, and the hair upon his head. The chain he drew was clasped about his middle. It was long, and wound about him like a tail; and it was made (for Scrooge observed it closely) of cash-boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel. His body was transparent; so that Scrooge, observing him, and looking through his waistcoat, could see the two buttons on his coat behind.

    Scrooge had often heard it said that Marley had no bowels, but he had never believed it until now.

    No, nor did he believe it even now. Though he looked the phantom through and through, and saw it standing before him; though he felt the chilling influence of its death-cold eyes; and marked the very texture of the folded kerchief bound about its head and chin, which wrapper he had not observed before; he was still incredulous, and fought against his senses.

    “How now!” said Scrooge, caustic and cold as ever. “What do you want with me?”

    “Much!”—Marley’s voice, no doubt about it.

    “Who are you?”

    “Ask me who I was.”

    “Who were you then?” said Scrooge, raising his voice. “You’re particular, for a shade.” He was going to say “to a shade,” but substituted this, as more appropriate.

    “In life I was your partner, Jacob Marley.”

    “Can you—can you sit down?” asked Scrooge, looking doubtfully at him.

    “I can.”

    “Do it, then.”

    Scrooge asked the question, because he didn’t know whether a ghost so transparent might find himself in a condition to take a chair; and felt that in the event of its being impossible, it might involve the necessity of an embarrassing explanation. But the ghost sat down on the opposite side of the fireplace, as if he were quite used to it.

    “You don’t believe in me,” observed the Ghost.

    “I don’t,” said Scrooge.

    “What evidence would you have of my reality beyond that of your senses?”

    “I don’t know,” said Scrooge.

    “Why do you doubt your senses?”

    “Because,” said Scrooge, “a little thing affects them. A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There’s more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!”

    Scrooge was not much in the habit of cracking jokes, nor did he feel, in his heart, by any means waggish then. The truth is, that he tried to be smart, as a means of distracting his own attention, and keeping down his terror; for the spectre’s voice disturbed the very marrow in his bones.

    To sit, staring at those fixed glazed eyes, in silence for a moment, would play, Scrooge felt, the very deuce with him. There was something very awful, too, in the spectre’s being provided with an infernal atmosphere of its own. Scrooge could not feel it himself, but this was clearly the case; for though the Ghost sat perfectly motionless, its hair, and skirts, and tassels, were still agitated as by the hot vapour from an oven.

    “You see this toothpick?” said Scrooge, returning quickly to the charge, for the reason just assigned; and wishing, though it were only for a second, to divert the vision’s stony gaze from himself.

    “I do,” replied the Ghost.

    “You are not looking at it,” said Scrooge.

    “But I see it,” said the Ghost, “notwithstanding.”

    “Well!” returned Scrooge, “I have but to swallow this, and be for the rest of my days persecuted by a legion of goblins, all of my own creation. Humbug, I tell you! humbug!”

    At this the spirit raised a frightful cry, and shook its chain with such a dismal and appalling noise, that Scrooge held on tight to his chair, to save himself from falling in a swoon. But how much greater was his horror, when the phantom taking off the bandage round its head, as if it were too warm to wear indoors, its lower jaw dropped down upon its breast!

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  260. Scrooge fell upon his knees, and clasped his hands before his face.

    “Mercy!” he said. “Dreadful apparition, why do you trouble me?”

    “Man of the worldly mind!” replied the Ghost, “do you believe in me or not?”

    “I do,” said Scrooge. “I must. But why do spirits walk the earth, and why do they come to me?”

    “It is required of every man,” the Ghost returned, “that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellowmen, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world—oh, woe is me!—and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness!”

  261. Malaquías Malagrowther dixo...
  262. Again the spectre raised a cry, and shook its chain and wrung its shadowy hands.

    “You are fettered,” said Scrooge, trembling. “Tell me why?”

    “I wear the chain I forged in life,” replied the Ghost. “I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?”

    Scrooge trembled more and more.

    “Or would you know,” pursued the Ghost, “the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it, since. It is a ponderous chain!”

    Scrooge glanced about him on the floor, in the expectation of finding himself surrounded by some fifty or sixty fathoms of iron cable: but he could see nothing.

    “Jacob,” he said, imploringly. “Old Jacob Marley, tell me more. Speak comfort to me, Jacob!”

    “I have none to give,” the Ghost replied. “It comes from other regions, Ebenezer Scrooge, and is conveyed by other ministers, to other kinds of men. Nor can I tell you what I would. A very little more is all permitted to me. I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I cannot linger anywhere. My spirit never walked beyond our counting-house—mark me!—in life my spirit never roved beyond the narrow limits of our money-changing hole; and weary journeys lie before me!”

    It was a habit with Scrooge, whenever he became thoughtful, to put his hands in his breeches pockets. Pondering on what the Ghost had said, he did so now, but without lifting up his eyes, or getting off his knees.

    “You must have been very slow about it, Jacob,” Scrooge observed, in a business-like manner, though with humility and deference.

    “Slow!” the Ghost repeated.

    “Seven years dead,” mused Scrooge. “And travelling all the time!”

    “The whole time,” said the Ghost. “No rest, no peace. Incessant torture of remorse.”

    “You travel fast?” said Scrooge.

    “On the wings of the wind,” replied the Ghost.

    “You might have got over a great quantity of ground in seven years,” said Scrooge.

    The Ghost, on hearing this, set up another cry, and clanked its chain so hideously in the dead silence of the night, that the Ward would have been justified in indicting it for a nuisance.

    “Oh! captive, bound, and double-ironed,” cried the phantom, “not to know, that ages of incessant labour by immortal creatures, for this earth must pass into eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is all developed. Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast means of usefulness. Not to know that no space of regret can make amends for one life’s opportunity misused! Yet such was I! Oh! such was I!”

    “But you were always a good man of business, Jacob,” faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself.

    “Business!” cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. “Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”

    It held up its chain at arm’s length, as if that were the cause of all its unavailing grief, and flung it heavily upon the ground again.

    “At this time of the rolling year,” the spectre said, “I suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a poor abode! Were there no poor homes to which its light would have conducted me!”

    Scrooge was very much dismayed to hear the spectre going on at this rate, and began to quake exceedingly.

    “Hear me!” cried the Ghost. “My time is nearly gone.”

    “I will,” said Scrooge. “But don’t be hard upon me! Don’t be flowery, Jacob! Pray!”

    “How it is that I appear before you in a shape that you can see, I may not tell. I have sat invisible beside you many and many a day.”

    It was not an agreeable idea. Scrooge shivered, and wiped the perspiration from his brow.

  263. Malaquías Malagrowther dixo...
  264. “That is no light part of my penance,” pursued the Ghost. “I am here to-night to warn you, that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate. A chance and hope of my procuring, Ebenezer.”

    “You were always a good friend to me,” said Scrooge. “Thank’ee!”

    “You will be haunted,” resumed the Ghost, “by Three Spirits.”

    Scrooge’s countenance fell almost as low as the Ghost’s had done.

    “Is that the chance and hope you mentioned, Jacob?” he demanded, in a faltering voice.

    “It is.”

    “I—I think I’d rather not,” said Scrooge.

    “Without their visits,” said the Ghost, “you cannot hope to shun the path I tread. Expect the first to-morrow, when the bell tolls One.”

    “Couldn’t I take ’em all at once, and have it over, Jacob?” hinted Scrooge.

    “Expect the second on the next night at the same hour. The third upon the next night when the last stroke of Twelve has ceased to vibrate. Look to see me no more; and look that, for your own sake, you remember what has passed between us!”

    When it had said these words, the spectre took its wrapper from the table, and bound it round its head, as before. Scrooge knew this, by the smart sound its teeth made, when the jaws were brought together by the bandage. He ventured to raise his eyes again, and found his supernatural visitor confronting him in an erect attitude, with its chain wound over and about its arm.

    The apparition walked backward from him; and at every step it took, the window raised itself a little, so that when the spectre reached it, it was wide open.

    It beckoned Scrooge to approach, which he did. When they were within two paces of each other, Marley’s Ghost held up its hand, warning him to come no nearer. Scrooge stopped.

    Not so much in obedience, as in surprise and fear: for on the raising of the hand, he became sensible of confused noises in the air; incoherent sounds of lamentation and regret; wailings inexpressibly sorrowful and self-accusatory. The spectre, after listening for a moment, joined in the mournful dirge; and floated out upon the bleak, dark night.

    Scrooge followed to the window: desperate in his curiosity. He looked out.

    The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither and thither in restless haste, and moaning as they went. Every one of them wore chains like Marley’s Ghost; some few (they might be guilty governments) were linked together; none were free. Many had been personally known to Scrooge in their lives. He had been quite familiar with one old ghost, in a white waistcoat, with a monstrous iron safe attached to its ankle, who cried piteously at being unable to assist a wretched woman with an infant, whom it saw below, upon a door-step. The misery with them all was, clearly, that they sought to interfere, for good, in human matters, and had lost the power for ever.

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  266. Whether these creatures faded into mist, or mist enshrouded them, he could not tell. But they and their spirit voices faded together; and the night became as it had been when he walked home.

    Scrooge closed the window, and examined the door by which the Ghost had entered. It was double-locked, as he had locked it with his own hands, and the bolts were undisturbed. He tried to say “Humbug!” but stopped at the first syllable. And being, from the emotion he had undergone, or the fatigues of the day, or his glimpse of the Invisible World, or the dull conversation of the Ghost, or the lateness of the hour, much in need of repose; went straight to bed, without undressing, and fell asleep upon the instant.

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  268. When Scrooge awoke, it was so dark, that looking out of bed, he could scarcely distinguish the transparent window from the opaque walls of his chamber. He was endeavouring to pierce the darkness with his ferret eyes, when the chimes of a neighbouring church struck the four quarters. So he listened for the hour.

    To his great astonishment the heavy bell went on from six to seven, and from seven to eight, and regularly up to twelve; then stopped. Twelve! It was past two when he went to bed. The clock was wrong. An icicle must have got into the works. Twelve!

    He touched the spring of his repeater, to correct this most preposterous clock. Its rapid little pulse beat twelve: and stopped.

    “Why, it isn’t possible,” said Scrooge, “that I can have slept through a whole day and far into another night. It isn’t possible that anything has happened to the sun, and this is twelve at noon!”

    The idea being an alarming one, he scrambled out of bed, and groped his way to the window. He was obliged to rub the frost off with the sleeve of his dressing-gown before he could see anything; and could see very little then. All he could make out was, that it was still very foggy and extremely cold, and that there was no noise of people running to and fro, and making a great stir, as there unquestionably would have been if night had beaten off bright day, and taken possession of the world. This was a great relief, because “three days after sight of this First of Exchange pay to Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge or his order,” and so forth, would have become a mere United States’ security if there were no days to count by.

    Scrooge went to bed again, and thought, and thought, and thought it over and over and over, and could make nothing of it. The more he thought, the more perplexed he was; and the more he endeavoured not to think, the more he thought.

    Marley’s Ghost bothered him exceedingly. Every time he resolved within himself, after mature inquiry, that it was all a dream, his mind flew back again, like a strong spring released, to its first position, and presented the same problem to be worked all through, “Was it a dream or not?”

    Scrooge lay in this state until the chime had gone three quarters more, when he remembered, on a sudden, that the Ghost had warned him of a visitation when the bell tolled one. He resolved to lie awake until the hour was passed; and, considering that he could no more go to sleep than go to Heaven, this was perhaps the wisest resolution in his power.

    The quarter was so long, that he was more than once convinced he must have sunk into a doze unconsciously, and missed the clock. At length it broke upon his listening ear.

    “Ding, dong!”

    “A quarter past,” said Scrooge, counting.

    “Ding, dong!”

    “Half-past!” said Scrooge.

    “Ding, dong!”

    “A quarter to it,” said Scrooge.

    “Ding, dong!”

    “The hour itself,” said Scrooge, triumphantly, “and nothing else!”

    He spoke before the hour bell sounded, which it now did with a deep, dull, hollow, melancholy One. Light flashed up in the room upon the instant, and the curtains of his bed were drawn.

    The curtains of his bed were drawn aside, I tell you, by a hand. Not the curtains at his feet, nor the curtains at his back, but those to which his face was addressed. The curtains of his bed were drawn aside; and Scrooge, starting up into a half-recumbent attitude, found himself face to face with the unearthly visitor who drew them: as close to it as I am now to you, and I am standing in the spirit at your elbow.

  269. Malaquías Malagrowther dixo...
  270. It was a strange figure—like a child: yet not so like a child as like an old man, viewed through some supernatural medium, which gave him the appearance of having receded from the view, and being diminished to a child’s proportions. Its hair, which hung about its neck and down its back, was white as if with age; and yet the face had not a wrinkle in it, and the tenderest bloom was on the skin. The arms were very long and muscular; the hands the same, as if its hold were of uncommon strength. Its legs and feet, most delicately formed, were, like those upper members, bare. It wore a tunic of the purest white; and round its waist was bound a lustrous belt, the sheen of which was beautiful. It held a branch of fresh green holly in its hand; and, in singular contradiction of that wintry emblem, had its dress trimmed with summer flowers. But the strangest thing about it was, that from the crown of its head there sprung a bright clear jet of light, by which all this was visible; and which was doubtless the occasion of its using, in its duller moments, a great extinguisher for a cap, which it now held under its arm.

    Even this, though, when Scrooge looked at it with increasing steadiness, was not its strangest quality. For as its belt sparkled and glittered now in one part and now in another, and what was light one instant, at another time was dark, so the figure itself fluctuated in its distinctness: being now a thing with one arm, now with one leg, now with twenty legs, now a pair of legs without a head, now a head without a body: of which dissolving parts, no outline would be visible in the dense gloom wherein they melted away. And in the very wonder of this, it would be itself again; distinct and clear as ever.

    “Are you the Spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to me?” asked Scrooge.

    “I am!”

    The voice was soft and gentle. Singularly low, as if instead of being so close beside him, it were at a distance.

    “Who, and what are you?” Scrooge demanded.

    “I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.”

    “Long Past?” inquired Scrooge: observant of its dwarfish stature.

    “No. Your past.”

    Perhaps, Scrooge could not have told anybody why, if anybody could have asked him; but he had a special desire to see the Spirit in his cap; and begged him to be covered.

    “What!” exclaimed the Ghost, “would you so soon put out, with worldly hands, the light I give? Is it not enough that you are one of those whose passions made this cap, and force me through whole trains of years to wear it low upon my brow!”

    Scrooge reverently disclaimed all intention to offend or any knowledge of having wilfully “bonneted” the Spirit at any period of his life. He then made bold to inquire what business brought him there.

    “Your welfare!” said the Ghost.

    Scrooge expressed himself much obliged, but could not help thinking that a night of unbroken rest would have been more conducive to that end. The Spirit must have heard him thinking, for it said immediately:

    “Your reclamation, then. Take heed!”

    It put out its strong hand as it spoke, and clasped him gently by the arm.

    “Rise! and walk with me!”

    It would have been in vain for Scrooge to plead that the weather and the hour were not adapted to pedestrian purposes; that bed was warm, and the thermometer a long way below freezing; that he was clad but lightly in his slippers, dressing-gown, and nightcap; and that he had a cold upon him at that time. The grasp, though gentle as a woman’s hand, was not to be resisted. He rose: but finding that the Spirit made towards the window, clasped his robe in supplication.

    “I am a mortal,” Scrooge remonstrated, “and liable to fall.”

    “Bear but a touch of my hand there,” said the Spirit, laying it upon his heart, “and you shall be upheld in more than this!”

  271. Malaquías Malagrowther dixo...
  272. As the words were spoken, they passed through the wall, and stood upon an open country road, with fields on either hand. The city had entirely vanished. Not a vestige of it was to be seen. The darkness and the mist had vanished with it, for it was a clear, cold, winter day, with snow upon the ground.

    “Good Heaven!” said Scrooge, clasping his hands together, as he looked about him. “I was bred in this place. I was a boy here!”

    The Spirit gazed upon him mildly. Its gentle touch, though it had been light and instantaneous, appeared still present to the old man’s sense of feeling. He was conscious of a thousand odours floating in the air, each one connected with a thousand thoughts, and hopes, and joys, and cares long, long, forgotten!

    “Your lip is trembling,” said the Ghost. “And what is that upon your cheek?”

    Scrooge muttered, with an unusual catching in his voice, that it was a pimple; and begged the Ghost to lead him where he would.

    “You recollect the way?” inquired the Spirit.

    “Remember it!” cried Scrooge with fervour; “I could walk it blindfold.”

    “Strange to have forgotten it for so many years!” observed the Ghost. “Let us go on.”

    They walked along the road, Scrooge recognising every gate, and post, and tree; until a little market-town appeared in the distance, with its bridge, its church, and winding river. Some shaggy ponies now were seen trotting towards them with boys upon their backs, who called to other boys in country gigs and carts, driven by farmers. All these boys were in great spirits, and shouted to each other, until the broad fields were so full of merry music, that the crisp air laughed to hear it!

    “These are but shadows of the things that have been,” said the Ghost. “They have no consciousness of us.”

    The jocund travellers came on; and as they came, Scrooge knew and named them every one. Why was he rejoiced beyond all bounds to see them! Why did his cold eye glisten, and his heart leap up as they went past! Why was he filled with gladness when he heard them give each other Merry Christmas, as they parted at cross-roads and bye-ways, for their several homes! What was merry Christmas to Scrooge? Out upon merry Christmas! What good had it ever done to him?

    “The school is not quite deserted,” said the Ghost. “A solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left there still.”

    Scrooge said he knew it. And he sobbed.

    They left the high-road, by a well-remembered lane, and soon approached a mansion of dull red brick, with a little weathercock-surmounted cupola, on the roof, and a bell hanging in it. It was a large house, but one of broken fortunes; for the spacious offices were little used, their walls were damp and mossy, their windows broken, and their gates decayed. Fowls clucked and strutted in the stables; and the coach-houses and sheds were over-run with grass. Nor was it more retentive of its ancient state, within; for entering the dreary hall, and glancing through the open doors of many rooms, they found them poorly furnished, cold, and vast. There was an earthy savour in the air, a chilly bareness in the place, which associated itself somehow with too much getting up by candle-light, and not too much to eat.

    They went, the Ghost and Scrooge, across the hall, to a door at the back of the house. It opened before them, and disclosed a long, bare, melancholy room, made barer still by lines of plain deal forms and desks. At one of these a lonely boy was reading near a feeble fire; and Scrooge sat down upon a form, and wept to see his poor forgotten self as he used to be.

    Not a latent echo in the house, not a squeak and scuffle from the mice behind the panelling, not a drip from the half-thawed water-spout in the dull yard behind, not a sigh among the leafless boughs of one despondent poplar, not the idle swinging of an empty store-house door, no, not a clicking in the fire, but fell upon the heart of Scrooge with a softening influence, and gave a freer passage to his tears.

  273. Malaquías Malagrowther dixo...
  274. The Spirit touched him on the arm, and pointed to his younger self, intent upon his reading. Suddenly a man, in foreign garments: wonderfully real and distinct to look at: stood outside the window, with an axe stuck in his belt, and leading by the bridle an ass laden with wood.

    “Why, it’s Ali Baba!” Scrooge exclaimed in ecstasy. “It’s dear old honest Ali Baba! Yes, yes, I know! One Christmas time, when yonder solitary child was left here all alone, he did come, for the first time, just like that. Poor boy! And Valentine,” said Scrooge, “and his wild brother, Orson; there they go! And what’s his name, who was put down in his drawers, asleep, at the Gate of Damascus; don’t you see him! And the Sultan’s Groom turned upside down by the Genii; there he is upon his head! Serve him right. I’m glad of it. What business had he to be married to the Princess!”

    To hear Scrooge expending all the earnestness of his nature on such subjects, in a most extraordinary voice between laughing and crying; and to see his heightened and excited face; would have been a surprise to his business friends in the city, indeed.

    “There’s the Parrot!” cried Scrooge. “Green body and yellow tail, with a thing like a lettuce growing out of the top of his head; there he is! Poor Robin Crusoe, he called him, when he came home again after sailing round the island. ‘Poor Robin Crusoe, where have you been, Robin Crusoe?’ The man thought he was dreaming, but he wasn’t. It was the Parrot, you know. There goes Friday, running for his life to the little creek! Halloa! Hoop! Halloo!”

    Then, with a rapidity of transition very foreign to his usual character, he said, in pity for his former self, “Poor boy!” and cried again.

    “I wish,” Scrooge muttered, putting his hand in his pocket, and looking about him, after drying his eyes with his cuff: “but it’s too late now.”

    “What is the matter?” asked the Spirit.

    “Nothing,” said Scrooge. “Nothing. There was a boy singing a Christmas Carol at my door last night. I should like to have given him something: that’s all.”

    The Ghost smiled thoughtfully, and waved its hand: saying as it did so, “Let us see another Christmas!”

    Scrooge’s former self grew larger at the words, and the room became a little darker and more dirty. The panels shrunk, the windows cracked; fragments of plaster fell out of the ceiling, and the naked laths were shown instead; but how all this was brought about, Scrooge knew no more than you do. He only knew that it was quite correct; that everything had happened so; that there he was, alone again, when all the other boys had gone home for the jolly holidays.

    He was not reading now, but walking up and down despairingly. Scrooge looked at the Ghost, and with a mournful shaking of his head, glanced anxiously towards the door.

    It opened; and a little girl, much younger than the boy, came darting in, and putting her arms about his neck, and often kissing him, addressed him as her “Dear, dear brother.”

    “I have come to bring you home, dear brother!” said the child, clapping her tiny hands, and bending down to laugh. “To bring you home, home, home!”

    “Home, little Fan?” returned the boy.

  275. Malaquías Malagrowther dixo...
  276. “Yes!” said the child, brimful of glee. “Home, for good and all. Home, for ever and ever. Father is so much kinder than he used to be, that home’s like Heaven! He spoke so gently to me one dear night when I was going to bed, that I was not afraid to ask him once more if you might come home; and he said Yes, you should; and sent me in a coach to bring you. And you’re to be a man!” said the child, opening her eyes, “and are never to come back here; but first, we’re to be together all the Christmas long, and have the merriest time in all the world.”

    “You are quite a woman, little Fan!” exclaimed the boy.

    She clapped her hands and laughed, and tried to touch his head; but being too little, laughed again, and stood on tiptoe to embrace him. Then she began to drag him, in her childish eagerness, towards the door; and he, nothing loth to go, accompanied her.

    A terrible voice in the hall cried, “Bring down Master Scrooge’s box, there!” and in the hall appeared the schoolmaster himself, who glared on Master Scrooge with a ferocious condescension, and threw him into a dreadful state of mind by shaking hands with him. He then conveyed him and his sister into the veriest old well of a shivering best-parlour that ever was seen, where the maps upon the wall, and the celestial and terrestrial globes in the windows, were waxy with cold. Here he produced a decanter of curiously light wine, and a block of curiously heavy cake, and administered instalments of those dainties to the young people: at the same time, sending out a meagre servant to offer a glass of “something” to the postboy, who answered that he thanked the gentleman, but if it was the same tap as he had tasted before, he had rather not. Master Scrooge’s trunk being by this time tied on to the top of the chaise, the children bade the schoolmaster good-bye right willingly; and getting into it, drove gaily down the garden-sweep: the quick wheels dashing the hoar-frost and snow from off the dark leaves of the evergreens like spray.

    “Always a delicate creature, whom a breath might have withered,” said the Ghost. “But she had a large heart!”

    “So she had,” cried Scrooge. “You’re right. I will not gainsay it, Spirit. God forbid!”

    “She died a woman,” said the Ghost, “and had, as I think, children.”

    “One child,” Scrooge returned.

    “True,” said the Ghost. “Your nephew!”

    Scrooge seemed uneasy in his mind; and answered briefly, “Yes.”

    Although they had but that moment left the school behind them, they were now in the busy thoroughfares of a city, where shadowy passengers passed and repassed; where shadowy carts and coaches battled for the way, and all the strife and tumult of a real city were. It was made plain enough, by the dressing of the shops, that here too it was Christmas time again; but it was evening, and the streets were lighted up.

    The Ghost stopped at a certain warehouse door, and asked Scrooge if he knew it.

    “Know it!” said Scrooge. “Was I apprenticed here!”

    They went in. At sight of an old gentleman in a Welsh wig, sitting behind such a high desk, that if he had been two inches taller he must have knocked his head against the ceiling, Scrooge cried in great excitement:

    “Why, it’s old Fezziwig! Bless his heart; it’s Fezziwig alive again!”

    Old Fezziwig laid down his pen, and looked up at the clock, which pointed to the hour of seven. He rubbed his hands; adjusted his capacious waistcoat; laughed all over himself, from his shoes to his organ of benevolence; and called out in a comfortable, oily, rich, fat, jovial voice:

    “Yo ho, there! Ebenezer! Dick!”

    Scrooge’s former self, now grown a young man, came briskly in, accompanied by his fellow-’prentice.

    “Dick Wilkins, to be sure!” said Scrooge to the Ghost. “Bless me, yes. There he is. He was very much attached to me, was Dick. Poor Dick! Dear, dear!”

    “Yo ho, my boys!” said Fezziwig. “No more work to-night. Christmas Eve, Dick. Christmas, Ebenezer! Let’s have the shutters up,” cried old Fezziwig, with a sharp clap of his hands, “before a man can say Jack Robinson!”

  277. Malaquías Malagrowther dixo...
  278. You wouldn’t believe how those two fellows went at it! They charged into the street with the shutters—one, two, three—had ’em up in their places—four, five, six—barred ’em and pinned ’em—seven, eight, nine—and came back before you could have got to twelve, panting like race-horses.

    “Hilli-ho!” cried old Fezziwig, skipping down from the high desk, with wonderful agility. “Clear away, my lads, and let’s have lots of room here! Hilli-ho, Dick! Chirrup, Ebenezer!”

    Clear away! There was nothing they wouldn’t have cleared away, or couldn’t have cleared away, with old Fezziwig looking on. It was done in a minute. Every movable was packed off, as if it were dismissed from public life for evermore; the floor was swept and watered, the lamps were trimmed, fuel was heaped upon the fire; and the warehouse was as snug, and warm, and dry, and bright a ball-room, as you would desire to see upon a winter’s night.

    In came a fiddler with a music-book, and went up to the lofty desk, and made an orchestra of it, and tuned like fifty stomach-aches. In came Mrs. Fezziwig, one vast substantial smile. In came the three Miss Fezziwigs, beaming and lovable. In came the six young followers whose hearts they broke. In came all the young men and women employed in the business. In came the housemaid, with her cousin, the baker. In came the cook, with her brother’s particular friend, the milkman. In came the boy from over the way, who was suspected of not having board enough from his master; trying to hide himself behind the girl from next door but one, who was proved to have had her ears pulled by her mistress. In they all came, one after another; some shyly, some boldly, some gracefully, some awkwardly, some pushing, some pulling; in they all came, anyhow and everyhow. Away they all went, twenty couple at once; hands half round and back again the other way; down the middle and up again; round and round in various stages of affectionate grouping; old top couple always turning up in the wrong place; new top couple starting off again, as soon as they got there; all top couples at last, and not a bottom one to help them! When this result was brought about, old Fezziwig, clapping his hands to stop the dance, cried out, “Well done!” and the fiddler plunged his hot face into a pot of porter, especially provided for that purpose. But scorning rest, upon his reappearance, he instantly began again, though there were no dancers yet, as if the other fiddler had been carried home, exhausted, on a shutter, and he were a bran-new man resolved to beat him out of sight, or perish.

    There were more dances, and there were forfeits, and more dances, and there was cake, and there was negus, and there was a great piece of Cold Roast, and there was a great piece of Cold Boiled, and there were mince-pies, and plenty of beer. But the great effect of the evening came after the Roast and Boiled, when the fiddler (an artful dog, mind! The sort of man who knew his business better than you or I could have told it him!) struck up “Sir Roger de Coverley.” Then old Fezziwig stood out to dance with Mrs. Fezziwig. Top couple, too; with a good stiff piece of work cut out for them; three or four and twenty pair of partners; people who were not to be trifled with; people who would dance, and had no notion of walking.

  279. Malaquías Malagrowther dixo...
  280. But if they had been twice as many—ah, four times—old Fezziwig would have been a match for them, and so would Mrs. Fezziwig. As to her, she was worthy to be his partner in every sense of the term. If that’s not high praise, tell me higher, and I’ll use it. A positive light appeared to issue from Fezziwig’s calves. They shone in every part of the dance like moons. You couldn’t have predicted, at any given time, what would have become of them next. And when old Fezziwig and Mrs. Fezziwig had gone all through the dance; advance and retire, both hands to your partner, bow and curtsey, corkscrew, thread-the-needle, and back again to your place; Fezziwig “cut”—cut so deftly, that he appeared to wink with his legs, and came upon his feet again without a stagger.

    When the clock struck eleven, this domestic ball broke up. Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig took their stations, one on either side of the door, and shaking hands with every person individually as he or she went out, wished him or her a Merry Christmas. When everybody had retired but the two ’prentices, they did the same to them; and thus the cheerful voices died away, and the lads were left to their beds; which were under a counter in the back-shop.

    During the whole of this time, Scrooge had acted like a man out of his wits. His heart and soul were in the scene, and with his former self. He corroborated everything, remembered everything, enjoyed everything, and underwent the strangest agitation. It was not until now, when the bright faces of his former self and Dick were turned from them, that he remembered the Ghost, and became conscious that it was looking full upon him, while the light upon its head burnt very clear.

    “A small matter,” said the Ghost, “to make these silly folks so full of gratitude.”

    “Small!” echoed Scrooge.

    The Spirit signed to him to listen to the two apprentices, who were pouring out their hearts in praise of Fezziwig: and when he had done so, said,

    “Why! Is it not? He has spent but a few pounds of your mortal money: three or four perhaps. Is that so much that he deserves this praise?”

    “It isn’t that,” said Scrooge, heated by the remark, and speaking unconsciously like his former, not his latter, self. “It isn’t that, Spirit. He has the power to render us happy or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and looks; in things so slight and insignificant that it is impossible to add and count ’em up: what then? The happiness he gives, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune.”

    He felt the Spirit’s glance, and stopped.

    “What is the matter?” asked the Ghost.

    “Nothing particular,” said Scrooge.

    “Something, I think?” the Ghost insisted.

    “No,” said Scrooge, “No. I should like to be able to say a word or two to my clerk just now. That’s all.”

    His former self turned down the lamps as he gave utterance to the wish; and Scrooge and the Ghost again stood side by side in the open air.

    “My time grows short,” observed the Spirit. “Quick!”

    This was not addressed to Scrooge, or to any one whom he could see, but it produced an immediate effect. For again Scrooge saw himself. He was older now; a man in the prime of life. His face had not the harsh and rigid lines of later years; but it had begun to wear the signs of care and avarice. There was an eager, greedy, restless motion in the eye, which showed the passion that had taken root, and where the shadow of the growing tree would fall.

    He was not alone, but sat by the side of a fair young girl in a mourning-dress: in whose eyes there were tears, which sparkled in the light that shone out of the Ghost of Christmas Past.

    “It matters little,” she said, softly. “To you, very little. Another idol has displaced me; and if it can cheer and comfort you in time to come, as I would have tried to do, I have no just cause to grieve.”

    “What Idol has displaced you?” he rejoined.


  281. Malaquías Malagrowther dixo...
  282. “A golden one.”

    “This is the even-handed dealing of the world!” he said. “There is nothing on which it is so hard as poverty; and there is nothing it professes to condemn with such severity as the pursuit of wealth!”

    “You fear the world too much,” she answered, gently. “All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being beyond the chance of its sordid reproach. I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the master-passion, Gain, engrosses you. Have I not?”

    “What then?” he retorted. “Even if I have grown so much wiser, what then? I am not changed towards you.”

    She shook her head.

    “Am I?”

    “Our contract is an old one. It was made when we were both poor and content to be so, until, in good season, we could improve our worldly fortune by our patient industry. You are changed. When it was made, you were another man.”

    “I was a boy,” he said impatiently.

    “Your own feeling tells you that you were not what you are,” she returned. “I am. That which promised happiness when we were one in heart, is fraught with misery now that we are two. How often and how keenly I have thought of this, I will not say. It is enough that I have thought of it, and can release you.”

    “Have I ever sought release?”

    “In words. No. Never.”

    “In what, then?”

    “In a changed nature; in an altered spirit; in another atmosphere of life; another Hope as its great end. In everything that made my love of any worth or value in your sight. If this had never been between us,” said the girl, looking mildly, but with steadiness, upon him; “tell me, would you seek me out and try to win me now? Ah, no!”

    He seemed to yield to the justice of this supposition, in spite of himself. But he said with a struggle, “You think not.”

    “I would gladly think otherwise if I could,” she answered, “Heaven knows! When I have learned a Truth like this, I know how strong and irresistible it must be. But if you were free to-day, to-morrow, yesterday, can even I believe that you would choose a dowerless girl—you who, in your very confidence with her, weigh everything by Gain: or, choosing her, if for a moment you were false enough to your one guiding principle to do so, do I not know that your repentance and regret would surely follow? I do; and I release you. With a full heart, for the love of him you once were.”

    He was about to speak; but with her head turned from him, she resumed.

    “You may—the memory of what is past half makes me hope you will—have pain in this. A very, very brief time, and you will dismiss the recollection of it, gladly, as an unprofitable dream, from which it happened well that you awoke. May you be happy in the life you have chosen!”

    She left him, and they parted.

    “Spirit!” said Scrooge, “show me no more! Conduct me home. Why do you delight to torture me?”

    “One shadow more!” exclaimed the Ghost.

    “No more!” cried Scrooge. “No more. I don’t wish to see it. Show me no more!”

    But the relentless Ghost pinioned him in both his arms, and forced him to observe what happened next.

  283. Malaquías Malagrowther dixo...
  284. They were in another scene and place; a room, not very large or handsome, but full of comfort. Near to the winter fire sat a beautiful young girl, so like that last that Scrooge believed it was the same, until he saw her, now a comely matron, sitting opposite her daughter. The noise in this room was perfectly tumultuous, for there were more children there, than Scrooge in his agitated state of mind could count; and, unlike the celebrated herd in the poem, they were not forty children conducting themselves like one, but every child was conducting itself like forty. The consequences were uproarious beyond belief; but no one seemed to care; on the contrary, the mother and daughter laughed heartily, and enjoyed it very much; and the latter, soon beginning to mingle in the sports, got pillaged by the young brigands most ruthlessly. What would I not have given to be one of them! Though I never could have been so rude, no, no! I wouldn’t for the wealth of all the world have crushed that braided hair, and torn it down; and for the precious little shoe, I wouldn’t have plucked it off, God bless my soul! to save my life. As to measuring her waist in sport, as they did, bold young brood, I couldn’t have done it; I should have expected my arm to have grown round it for a punishment, and never come straight again. And yet I should have dearly liked, I own, to have touched her lips; to have questioned her, that she might have opened them; to have looked upon the lashes of her downcast eyes, and never raised a blush; to have let loose waves of hair, an inch of which would be a keepsake beyond price: in short, I should have liked, I do confess, to have had the lightest licence of a child, and yet to have been man enough to know its value.

    But now a knocking at the door was heard, and such a rush immediately ensued that she with laughing face and plundered dress was borne towards it the centre of a flushed and boisterous group, just in time to greet the father, who came home attended by a man laden with Christmas toys and presents. Then the shouting and the struggling, and the onslaught that was made on the defenceless porter! The scaling him with chairs for ladders to dive into his pockets, despoil him of brown-paper parcels, hold on tight by his cravat, hug him round his neck, pommel his back, and kick his legs in irrepressible affection! The shouts of wonder and delight with which the development of every package was received! The terrible announcement that the baby had been taken in the act of putting a doll’s frying-pan into his mouth, and was more than suspected of having swallowed a fictitious turkey, glued on a wooden platter! The immense relief of finding this a false alarm! The joy, and gratitude, and ecstasy! They are all indescribable alike. It is enough that by degrees the children and their emotions got out of the parlour, and by one stair at a time, up to the top of the house; where they went to bed, and so subsided.

    And now Scrooge looked on more attentively than ever, when the master of the house, having his daughter leaning fondly on him, sat down with her and her mother at his own fireside; and when he thought that such another creature, quite as graceful and as full of promise, might have called him father, and been a spring-time in the haggard winter of his life, his sight grew very dim indeed.

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  286. “Belle,” said the husband, turning to his wife with a smile, “I saw an old friend of yours this afternoon.”

    “Who was it?”

    “Guess!”

    “How can I? Tut, don’t I know?” she added in the same breath, laughing as he laughed. “Mr. Scrooge.”

    “Mr. Scrooge it was. I passed his office window; and as it was not shut up, and he had a candle inside, I could scarcely help seeing him. His partner lies upon the point of death, I hear; and there he sat alone. Quite alone in the world, I do believe.”

    “Spirit!” said Scrooge in a broken voice, “remove me from this place.”

    “I told you these were shadows of the things that have been,” said the Ghost. “That they are what they are, do not blame me!”

    “Remove me!” Scrooge exclaimed, “I cannot bear it!”

    He turned upon the Ghost, and seeing that it looked upon him with a face, in which in some strange way there were fragments of all the faces it had shown him, wrestled with it.

    “Leave me! Take me back. Haunt me no longer!”

    In the struggle, if that can be called a struggle in which the Ghost with no visible resistance on its own part was undisturbed by any effort of its adversary, Scrooge observed that its light was burning high and bright; and dimly connecting that with its influence over him, he seized the extinguisher-cap, and by a sudden action pressed it down upon its head.

    The Spirit dropped beneath it, so that the extinguisher covered its whole form; but though Scrooge pressed it down with all his force, he could not hide the light: which streamed from under it, in an unbroken flood upon the ground.

    He was conscious of being exhausted, and overcome by an irresistible drowsiness; and, further, of being in his own bedroom. He gave the cap a parting squeeze, in which his hand relaxed; and had barely time to reel to bed, before he sank into a heavy sleep.

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  288. Awaking in the middle of a prodigiously tough snore, and sitting up in bed to get his thoughts together, Scrooge had no occasion to be told that the bell was again upon the stroke of One. He felt that he was restored to consciousness in the right nick of time, for the especial purpose of holding a conference with the second messenger despatched to him through Jacob Marley’s intervention. But finding that he turned uncomfortably cold when he began to wonder which of his curtains this new spectre would draw back, he put them every one aside with his own hands; and lying down again, established a sharp look-out all round the bed. For he wished to challenge the Spirit on the moment of its appearance, and did not wish to be taken by surprise, and made nervous.

    Gentlemen of the free-and-easy sort, who plume themselves on being acquainted with a move or two, and being usually equal to the time-of-day, express the wide range of their capacity for adventure by observing that they are good for anything from pitch-and-toss to manslaughter; between which opposite extremes, no doubt, there lies a tolerably wide and comprehensive range of subjects. Without venturing for Scrooge quite as hardily as this, I don’t mind calling on you to believe that he was ready for a good broad field of strange appearances, and that nothing between a baby and rhinoceros would have astonished him very much.

    Now, being prepared for almost anything, he was not by any means prepared for nothing; and, consequently, when the Bell struck One, and no shape appeared, he was taken with a violent fit of trembling. Five minutes, ten minutes, a quarter of an hour went by, yet nothing came. All this time, he lay upon his bed, the very core and centre of a blaze of ruddy light, which streamed upon it when the clock proclaimed the hour; and which, being only light, was more alarming than a dozen ghosts, as he was powerless to make out what it meant, or would be at; and was sometimes apprehensive that he might be at that very moment an interesting case of spontaneous combustion, without having the consolation of knowing it. At last, however, he began to think—as you or I would have thought at first; for it is always the person not in the predicament who knows what ought to have been done in it, and would unquestionably have done it too—at last, I say, he began to think that the source and secret of this ghostly light might be in the adjoining room, from whence, on further tracing it, it seemed to shine. This idea taking full possession of his mind, he got up softly and shuffled in his slippers to the door.

    The moment Scrooge’s hand was on the lock, a strange voice called him by his name, and bade him enter. He obeyed.

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  290. It was his own room. There was no doubt about that. But it had undergone a surprising transformation. The walls and ceiling were so hung with living green, that it looked a perfect grove; from every part of which, bright gleaming berries glistened. The crisp leaves of holly, mistletoe, and ivy reflected back the light, as if so many little mirrors had been scattered there; and such a mighty blaze went roaring up the chimney, as that dull petrification of a hearth had never known in Scrooge’s time, or Marley’s, or for many and many a winter season gone. Heaped up on the floor, to form a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, great joints of meat, sucking-pigs, long wreaths of sausages, mince-pies, plum-puddings, barrels of oysters, red-hot chestnuts, cherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears, immense twelfth-cakes, and seething bowls of punch, that made the chamber dim with their delicious steam. In easy state upon this couch, there sat a jolly Giant, glorious to see; who bore a glowing torch, in shape not unlike Plenty’s horn, and held it up, high up, to shed its light on Scrooge, as he came peeping round the door.

    “Come in!” exclaimed the Ghost. “Come in! and know me better, man!”

    Scrooge entered timidly, and hung his head before this Spirit. He was not the dogged Scrooge he had been; and though the Spirit’s eyes were clear and kind, he did not like to meet them.

    “I am the Ghost of Christmas Present,” said the Spirit. “Look upon me!”

    Scrooge reverently did so. It was clothed in one simple green robe, or mantle, bordered with white fur. This garment hung so loosely on the figure, that its capacious breast was bare, as if disdaining to be warded or concealed by any artifice. Its feet, observable beneath the ample folds of the garment, were also bare; and on its head it wore no other covering than a holly wreath, set here and there with shining icicles. Its dark brown curls were long and free; free as its genial face, its sparkling eye, its open hand, its cheery voice, its unconstrained demeanour, and its joyful air. Girded round its middle was an antique scabbard; but no sword was in it, and the ancient sheath was eaten up with rust.

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  292. “You have never seen the like of me before!” exclaimed the Spirit.

    “Never,” Scrooge made answer to it.

    “Have never walked forth with the younger members of my family; meaning (for I am very young) my elder brothers born in these later years?” pursued the Phantom.

    “I don’t think I have,” said Scrooge. “I am afraid I have not. Have you had many brothers, Spirit?”

    “More than eighteen hundred,” said the Ghost.

    “A tremendous family to provide for!” muttered Scrooge.

    The Ghost of Christmas Present rose.

    “Spirit,” said Scrooge submissively, “conduct me where you will. I went forth last night on compulsion, and I learnt a lesson which is working now. To-night, if you have aught to teach me, let me profit by it.”

    “Touch my robe!”

    Scrooge did as he was told, and held it fast.

    Holly, mistletoe, red berries, ivy, turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, meat, pigs, sausages, oysters, pies, puddings, fruit, and punch, all vanished instantly. So did the room, the fire, the ruddy glow, the hour of night, and they stood in the city streets on Christmas morning, where (for the weather was severe) the people made a rough, but brisk and not unpleasant kind of music, in scraping the snow from the pavement in front of their dwellings, and from the tops of their houses, whence it was mad delight to the boys to see it come plumping down into the road below, and splitting into artificial little snow-storms.

    The house fronts looked black enough, and the windows blacker, contrasting with the smooth white sheet of snow upon the roofs, and with the dirtier snow upon the ground; which last deposit had been ploughed up in deep furrows by the heavy wheels of carts and waggons; furrows that crossed and re-crossed each other hundreds of times where the great streets branched off; and made intricate channels, hard to trace in the thick yellow mud and icy water. The sky was gloomy, and the shortest streets were choked up with a dingy mist, half thawed, half frozen, whose heavier particles descended in a shower of sooty atoms, as if all the chimneys in Great Britain had, by one consent, caught fire, and were blazing away to their dear hearts’ content. There was nothing very cheerful in the climate or the town, and yet was there an air of cheerfulness abroad that the clearest summer air and brightest summer sun might have endeavoured to diffuse in vain.

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  294. For, the people who were shovelling away on the housetops were jovial and full of glee; calling out to one another from the parapets, and now and then exchanging a facetious snowball—better-natured missile far than many a wordy jest—laughing heartily if it went right and not less heartily if it went wrong. The poulterers’ shops were still half open, and the fruiterers’ were radiant in their glory. There were great, round, pot-bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors, and tumbling out into the street in their apoplectic opulence. There were ruddy, brown-faced, broad-girthed Spanish Onions, shining in the fatness of their growth like Spanish Friars, and winking from their shelves in wanton slyness at the girls as they went by, and glanced demurely at the hung-up mistletoe. There were pears and apples, clustered high in blooming pyramids; there were bunches of grapes, made, in the shopkeepers’ benevolence to dangle from conspicuous hooks, that people’s mouths might water gratis as they passed; there were piles of filberts, mossy and brown, recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks among the woods, and pleasant shufflings ankle deep through withered leaves; there were Norfolk Biffins, squat and swarthy, setting off the yellow of the oranges and lemons, and, in the great compactness of their juicy persons, urgently entreating and beseeching to be carried home in paper bags and eaten after dinner. The very gold and silver fish, set forth among these choice fruits in a bowl, though members of a dull and stagnant-blooded race, appeared to know that there was something going on; and, to a fish, went gasping round and round their little world in slow and passionless excitement.

    The Grocers’! oh, the Grocers’! nearly closed, with perhaps two shutters down, or one; but through those gaps such glimpses! It was not alone that the scales descending on the counter made a merry sound, or that the twine and roller parted company so briskly, or that the canisters were rattled up and down like juggling tricks, or even that the blended scents of tea and coffee were so grateful to the nose, or even that the raisins were so plentiful and rare, the almonds so extremely white, the sticks of cinnamon so long and straight, the other spices so delicious, the candied fruits so caked and spotted with molten sugar as to make the coldest lookers-on feel faint and subsequently bilious. Nor was it that the figs were moist and pulpy, or that the French plums blushed in modest tartness from their highly-decorated boxes, or that everything was good to eat and in its Christmas dress; but the customers were all so hurried and so eager in the hopeful promise of the day, that they tumbled up against each other at the door, crashing their wicker baskets wildly, and left their purchases upon the counter, and came running back to fetch them, and committed hundreds of the like mistakes, in the best humour possible; while the Grocer and his people were so frank and fresh that the polished hearts with which they fastened their aprons behind might have been their own, worn outside for general inspection, and for Christmas daws to peck at if they chose.

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  296. But soon the steeples called good people all, to church and chapel, and away they came, flocking through the streets in their best clothes, and with their gayest faces. And at the same time there emerged from scores of bye-streets, lanes, and nameless turnings, innumerable people, carrying their dinners to the bakers’ shops. The sight of these poor revellers appeared to interest the Spirit very much, for he stood with Scrooge beside him in a baker’s doorway, and taking off the covers as their bearers passed, sprinkled incense on their dinners from his torch. And it was a very uncommon kind of torch, for once or twice when there were angry words between some dinner-carriers who had jostled each other, he shed a few drops of water on them from it, and their good humour was restored directly. For they said, it was a shame to quarrel upon Christmas Day. And so it was! God love it, so it was!

    In time the bells ceased, and the bakers were shut up; and yet there was a genial shadowing forth of all these dinners and the progress of their cooking, in the thawed blotch of wet above each baker’s oven; where the pavement smoked as if its stones were cooking too.

    “Is there a peculiar flavour in what you sprinkle from your torch?” asked Scrooge.

    “There is. My own.”

    “Would it apply to any kind of dinner on this day?” asked Scrooge.

    “To any kindly given. To a poor one most.”

    “Why to a poor one most?” asked Scrooge.

    “Because it needs it most.”

    “Spirit,” said Scrooge, after a moment’s thought, “I wonder you, of all the beings in the many worlds about us, should desire to cramp these people’s opportunities of innocent enjoyment.”

    “I!” cried the Spirit.

    “You would deprive them of their means of dining every seventh day, often the only day on which they can be said to dine at all,” said Scrooge. “Wouldn’t you?”

    “I!” cried the Spirit.

    “You seek to close these places on the Seventh Day?” said Scrooge. “And it comes to the same thing.”

    “I seek!” exclaimed the Spirit.

    “Forgive me if I am wrong. It has been done in your name, or at least in that of your family,” said Scrooge.

    “There are some upon this earth of yours,” returned the Spirit, “who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us.”

    Scrooge promised that he would; and they went on, invisible, as they had been before, into the suburbs of the town. It was a remarkable quality of the Ghost (which Scrooge had observed at the baker’s), that notwithstanding his gigantic size, he could accommodate himself to any place with ease; and that he stood beneath a low roof quite as gracefully and like a supernatural creature, as it was possible he could have done in any lofty hall.

    And perhaps it was the pleasure the good Spirit had in showing off this power of his, or else it was his own kind, generous, hearty nature, and his sympathy with all poor men, that led him straight to Scrooge’s clerk’s; for there he went, and took Scrooge with him, holding to his robe; and on the threshold of the door the Spirit smiled, and stopped to bless Bob Cratchit’s dwelling with the sprinkling of his torch. Think of that! Bob had but fifteen “Bob” a-week himself; he pocketed on Saturdays but fifteen copies of his Christian name; and yet the Ghost of Christmas Present blessed his four-roomed house!

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  298. Then up rose Mrs. Cratchit, Cratchit’s wife, dressed out but poorly in a twice-turned gown, but brave in ribbons, which are cheap and make a goodly show for sixpence; and she laid the cloth, assisted by Belinda Cratchit, second of her daughters, also brave in ribbons; while Master Peter Cratchit plunged a fork into the saucepan of potatoes, and getting the corners of his monstrous shirt collar (Bob’s private property, conferred upon his son and heir in honour of the day) into his mouth, rejoiced to find himself so gallantly attired, and yearned to show his linen in the fashionable Parks. And now two smaller Cratchits, boy and girl, came tearing in, screaming that outside the baker’s they had smelt the goose, and known it for their own; and basking in luxurious thoughts of sage and onion, these young Cratchits danced about the table, and exalted Master Peter Cratchit to the skies, while he (not proud, although his collars nearly choked him) blew the fire, until the slow potatoes bubbling up, knocked loudly at the saucepan-lid to be let out and peeled.

    “What has ever got your precious father then?” said Mrs. Cratchit. “And your brother, Tiny Tim! And Martha warn’t as late last Christmas Day by half-an-hour?”

    “Here’s Martha, mother!” said a girl, appearing as she spoke.

    “Here’s Martha, mother!” cried the two young Cratchits. “Hurrah! There’s such a goose, Martha!”

    “Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you are!” said Mrs. Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and taking off her shawl and bonnet for her with officious zeal.

    “We’d a deal of work to finish up last night,” replied the girl, “and had to clear away this morning, mother!”

    “Well! Never mind so long as you are come,” said Mrs. Cratchit. “Sit ye down before the fire, my dear, and have a warm, Lord bless ye!”

    “No, no! There’s father coming,” cried the two young Cratchits, who were everywhere at once. “Hide, Martha, hide!”

    So Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, the father, with at least three feet of comforter exclusive of the fringe, hanging down before him; and his threadbare clothes darned up and brushed, to look seasonable; and Tiny Tim upon his shoulder. Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little crutch, and had his limbs supported by an iron frame!

    “Why, where’s our Martha?” cried Bob Cratchit, looking round.

    “Not coming,” said Mrs. Cratchit.

    “Not coming!” said Bob, with a sudden declension in his high spirits; for he had been Tim’s blood horse all the way from church, and had come home rampant. “Not coming upon Christmas Day!”

    Martha didn’t like to see him disappointed, if it were only in joke; so she came out prematurely from behind the closet door, and ran into his arms, while the two young Cratchits hustled Tiny Tim, and bore him off into the wash-house, that he might hear the pudding singing in the copper.

    “And how did little Tim behave?” asked Mrs. Cratchit, when she had rallied Bob on his credulity, and Bob had hugged his daughter to his heart’s content.

    “As good as gold,” said Bob, “and better. Somehow he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind men see.”

    Bob’s voice was tremulous when he told them this, and trembled more when he said that Tiny Tim was growing strong and hearty.

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  300. At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the hearth swept, and the fire made up. The compound in the jug being tasted, and considered perfect, apples and oranges were put upon the table, and a shovel-full of chestnuts on the fire. Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth, in what Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning half a one; and at Bob Cratchit’s elbow stood the family display of glass. Two tumblers, and a custard-cup without a handle.

    These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as golden goblets would have done; and Bob served it out with beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and cracked noisily. Then Bob proposed:

    “A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us!”

    Which all the family re-echoed.

    “God bless us every one!” said Tiny Tim, the last of all.

    He sat very close to his father’s side upon his little stool. Bob held his withered little hand in his, as if he loved the child, and wished to keep him by his side, and dreaded that he might be taken from him.

    “Spirit,” said Scrooge, with an interest he had never felt before, “tell me if Tiny Tim will live.”

    “I see a vacant seat,” replied the Ghost, “in the poor chimney-corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, the child will die.”

    “No, no,” said Scrooge. “Oh, no, kind Spirit! say he will be spared.”

    “If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none other of my race,” returned the Ghost, “will find him here. What then? If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”

    Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by the Spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief.

    “Man,” said the Ghost, “if man you be in heart, not adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered What the surplus is, and Where it is. Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die? It may be, that in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man’s child. Oh God! to hear the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust!”

    Scrooge bent before the Ghost’s rebuke, and trembling cast his eyes upon the ground. But he raised them speedily, on hearing his own name.

    “Mr. Scrooge!” said Bob; “I’ll give you Mr. Scrooge, the Founder of the Feast!”

    “The Founder of the Feast indeed!” cried Mrs. Cratchit, reddening. “I wish I had him here. I’d give him a piece of my mind to feast upon, and I hope he’d have a good appetite for it.”

    “My dear,” said Bob, “the children! Christmas Day.”

    “It should be Christmas Day, I am sure,” said she, “on which one drinks the health of such an odious, stingy, hard, unfeeling man as Mr. Scrooge. You know he is, Robert! Nobody knows it better than you do, poor fellow!”

    “My dear,” was Bob’s mild answer, “Christmas Day.”

    “I’ll drink his health for your sake and the Day’s,” said Mrs. Cratchit, “not for his. Long life to him! A merry Christmas and a happy new year! He’ll be very merry and very happy, I have no doubt!”

    The children drank the toast after her. It was the first of their proceedings which had no heartiness. Tiny Tim drank it last of all, but he didn’t care twopence for it. Scrooge was the Ogre of the family. The mention of his name cast a dark shadow on the party, which was not dispelled for full five minutes.

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  302. After it had passed away, they were ten times merrier than before, from the mere relief of Scrooge the Baleful being done with. Bob Cratchit told them how he had a situation in his eye for Master Peter, which would bring in, if obtained, full five-and-sixpence weekly. The two young Cratchits laughed tremendously at the idea of Peter’s being a man of business; and Peter himself looked thoughtfully at the fire from between his collars, as if he were deliberating what particular investments he should favour when he came into the receipt of that bewildering income. Martha, who was a poor apprentice at a milliner’s, then told them what kind of work she had to do, and how many hours she worked at a stretch, and how she meant to lie abed to-morrow morning for a good long rest; to-morrow being a holiday she passed at home. Also how she had seen a countess and a lord some days before, and how the lord “was much about as tall as Peter;” at which Peter pulled up his collars so high that you couldn’t have seen his head if you had been there. All this time the chestnuts and the jug went round and round; and by-and-bye they had a song, about a lost child travelling in the snow, from Tiny Tim, who had a plaintive little voice, and sang it very well indeed.

    There was nothing of high mark in this. They were not a handsome family; they were not well dressed; their shoes were far from being water-proof; their clothes were scanty; and Peter might have known, and very likely did, the inside of a pawnbroker’s. But, they were happy, grateful, pleased with one another, and contented with the time; and when they faded, and looked happier yet in the bright sprinklings of the Spirit’s torch at parting, Scrooge had his eye upon them, and especially on Tiny Tim, until the last.

    By this time it was getting dark, and snowing pretty heavily; and as Scrooge and the Spirit went along the streets, the brightness of the roaring fires in kitchens, parlours, and all sorts of rooms, was wonderful. Here, the flickering of the blaze showed preparations for a cosy dinner, with hot plates baking through and through before the fire, and deep red curtains, ready to be drawn to shut out cold and darkness. There all the children of the house were running out into the snow to meet their married sisters, brothers, cousins, uncles, aunts, and be the first to greet them. Here, again, were shadows on the window-blind of guests assembling; and there a group of handsome girls, all hooded and fur-booted, and all chattering at once, tripped lightly off to some near neighbour’s house; where, woe upon the single man who saw them enter—artful witches, well they knew it—in a glow!

    But, if you had judged from the numbers of people on their way to friendly gatherings, you might have thought that no one was at home to give them welcome when they got there, instead of every house expecting company, and piling up its fires half-chimney high. Blessings on it, how the Ghost exulted! How it bared its breadth of breast, and opened its capacious palm, and floated on, outpouring, with a generous hand, its bright and harmless mirth on everything within its reach! The very lamplighter, who ran on before, dotting the dusky street with specks of light, and who was dressed to spend the evening somewhere, laughed out loudly as the Spirit passed, though little kenned the lamplighter that he had any company but Christmas!

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  304. And now, without a word of warning from the Ghost, they stood upon a bleak and desert moor, where monstrous masses of rude stone were cast about, as though it were the burial-place of giants; and water spread itself wheresoever it listed, or would have done so, but for the frost that held it prisoner; and nothing grew but moss and furze, and coarse rank grass. Down in the west the setting sun had left a streak of fiery red, which glared upon the desolation for an instant, like a sullen eye, and frowning lower, lower, lower yet, was lost in the thick gloom of darkest night.

    “What place is this?” asked Scrooge.

    “A place where Miners live, who labour in the bowels of the earth,” returned the Spirit. “But they know me. See!”

    A light shone from the window of a hut, and swiftly they advanced towards it. Passing through the wall of mud and stone, they found a cheerful company assembled round a glowing fire. An old, old man and woman, with their children and their children’s children, and another generation beyond that, all decked out gaily in their holiday attire. The old man, in a voice that seldom rose above the howling of the wind upon the barren waste, was singing them a Christmas song—it had been a very old song when he was a boy—and from time to time they all joined in the chorus. So surely as they raised their voices, the old man got quite blithe and loud; and so surely as they stopped, his vigour sank again.

    The Spirit did not tarry here, but bade Scrooge hold his robe, and passing on above the moor, sped—whither? Not to sea? To sea. To Scrooge’s horror, looking back, he saw the last of the land, a frightful range of rocks, behind them; and his ears were deafened by the thundering of water, as it rolled and roared, and raged among the dreadful caverns it had worn, and fiercely tried to undermine the earth.

    Built upon a dismal reef of sunken rocks, some league or so from shore, on which the waters chafed and dashed, the wild year through, there stood a solitary lighthouse. Great heaps of sea-weed clung to its base, and storm-birds—born of the wind one might suppose, as sea-weed of the water—rose and fell about it, like the waves they skimmed.

    But even here, two men who watched the light had made a fire, that through the loophole in the thick stone wall shed out a ray of brightness on the awful sea. Joining their horny hands over the rough table at which they sat, they wished each other Merry Christmas in their can of grog; and one of them: the elder, too, with his face all damaged and scarred with hard weather, as the figure-head of an old ship might be: struck up a sturdy song that was like a Gale in itself.

    Again the Ghost sped on, above the black and heaving sea—on, on—until, being far away, as he told Scrooge, from any shore, they lighted on a ship. They stood beside the helmsman at the wheel, the look-out in the bow, the officers who had the watch; dark, ghostly figures in their several stations; but every man among them hummed a Christmas tune, or had a Christmas thought, or spoke below his breath to his companion of some bygone Christmas Day, with homeward hopes belonging to it. And every man on board, waking or sleeping, good or bad, had had a kinder word for another on that day than on any day in the year; and had shared to some extent in its festivities; and had remembered those he cared for at a distance, and had known that they delighted to remember him.

    It was a great surprise to Scrooge, while listening to the moaning of the wind, and thinking what a solemn thing it was to move on through the lonely darkness over an unknown abyss, whose depths were secrets as profound as Death: it was a great surprise to Scrooge, while thus engaged, to hear a hearty laugh. It was a much greater surprise to Scrooge to recognise it as his own nephew’s and to find himself in a bright, dry, gleaming room, with the Spirit standing smiling by his side, and looking at that same nephew with approving affability!

  305. Malaquías Malagrowther dixo...
  306. “Ha, ha!” laughed Scrooge’s nephew. “Ha, ha, ha!”

    If you should happen, by any unlikely chance, to know a man more blest in a laugh than Scrooge’s nephew, all I can say is, I should like to know him too. Introduce him to me, and I’ll cultivate his acquaintance.

    It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good-humour. When Scrooge’s nephew laughed in this way: holding his sides, rolling his head, and twisting his face into the most extravagant contortions: Scrooge’s niece, by marriage, laughed as heartily as he. And their assembled friends being not a bit behindhand, roared out lustily.

    “Ha, ha! Ha, ha, ha, ha!”

    “He said that Christmas was a humbug, as I live!” cried Scrooge’s nephew. “He believed it too!”

    “More shame for him, Fred!” said Scrooge’s niece, indignantly. Bless those women; they never do anything by halves. They are always in earnest.

    She was very pretty: exceedingly pretty. With a dimpled, surprised-looking, capital face; a ripe little mouth, that seemed made to be kissed—as no doubt it was; all kinds of good little dots about her chin, that melted into one another when she laughed; and the sunniest pair of eyes you ever saw in any little creature’s head. Altogether she was what you would have called provoking, you know; but satisfactory, too. Oh, perfectly satisfactory.

    “He’s a comical old fellow,” said Scrooge’s nephew, “that’s the truth: and not so pleasant as he might be. However, his offences carry their own punishment, and I have nothing to say against him.”

    “I’m sure he is very rich, Fred,” hinted Scrooge’s niece. “At least you always tell me so.”

    “What of that, my dear!” said Scrooge’s nephew. “His wealth is of no use to him. He don’t do any good with it. He don’t make himself comfortable with it. He hasn’t the satisfaction of thinking—ha, ha, ha!—that he is ever going to benefit US with it.”

    “I have no patience with him,” observed Scrooge’s niece. Scrooge’s niece’s sisters, and all the other ladies, expressed the same opinion.

    “Oh, I have!” said Scrooge’s nephew. “I am sorry for him; I couldn’t be angry with him if I tried. Who suffers by his ill whims! Himself, always. Here, he takes it into his head to dislike us, and he won’t come and dine with us. What’s the consequence? He don’t lose much of a dinner.”

    “Indeed, I think he loses a very good dinner,” interrupted Scrooge’s niece. Everybody else said the same, and they must be allowed to have been competent judges, because they had just had dinner; and, with the dessert upon the table, were clustered round the fire, by lamplight.

    “Well! I’m very glad to hear it,” said Scrooge’s nephew, “because I haven’t great faith in these young housekeepers. What do you say, Topper?”

    Topper had clearly got his eye upon one of Scrooge’s niece’s sisters, for he answered that a bachelor was a wretched outcast, who had no right to express an opinion on the subject. Whereat Scrooge’s niece’s sister—the plump one with the lace tucker: not the one with the roses—blushed.

    “Do go on, Fred,” said Scrooge’s niece, clapping her hands. “He never finishes what he begins to say! He is such a ridiculous fellow!”

    Scrooge’s nephew revelled in another laugh, and as it was impossible to keep the infection off; though the plump sister tried hard to do it with aromatic vinegar; his example was unanimously followed.

  307. Malaquías Malagrowther dixo...
  308. “I was only going to say,” said Scrooge’s nephew, “that the consequence of his taking a dislike to us, and not making merry with us, is, as I think, that he loses some pleasant moments, which could do him no harm. I am sure he loses pleasanter companions than he can find in his own thoughts, either in his mouldy old office, or his dusty chambers. I mean to give him the same chance every year, whether he likes it or not, for I pity him. He may rail at Christmas till he dies, but he can’t help thinking better of it—I defy him—if he finds me going there, in good temper, year after year, and saying Uncle Scrooge, how are you? If it only puts him in the vein to leave his poor clerk fifty pounds, that’s something; and I think I shook him yesterday.”

    It was their turn to laugh now at the notion of his shaking Scrooge. But being thoroughly good-natured, and not much caring what they laughed at, so that they laughed at any rate, he encouraged them in their merriment, and passed the bottle joyously.

    After tea, they had some music. For they were a musical family, and knew what they were about, when they sung a Glee or Catch, I can assure you: especially Topper, who could growl away in the bass like a good one, and never swell the large veins in his forehead, or get red in the face over it. Scrooge’s niece played well upon the harp; and played among other tunes a simple little air (a mere nothing: you might learn to whistle it in two minutes), which had been familiar to the child who fetched Scrooge from the boarding-school, as he had been reminded by the Ghost of Christmas Past. When this strain of music sounded, all the things that Ghost had shown him, came upon his mind; he softened more and more; and thought that if he could have listened to it often, years ago, he might have cultivated the kindnesses of life for his own happiness with his own hands, without resorting to the sexton’s spade that buried Jacob Marley.

    But they didn’t devote the whole evening to music. After a while they played at forfeits; for it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself. Stop! There was first a game at blind-man’s buff. Of course there was. And I no more believe Topper was really blind than I believe he had eyes in his boots. My opinion is, that it was a done thing between him and Scrooge’s nephew; and that the Ghost of Christmas Present knew it. The way he went after that plump sister in the lace tucker, was an outrage on the credulity of human nature. Knocking down the fire-irons, tumbling over the chairs, bumping against the piano, smothering himself among the curtains, wherever she went, there went he! He always knew where the plump sister was. He wouldn’t catch anybody else. If you had fallen up against him (as some of them did), on purpose, he would have made a feint of endeavouring to seize you, which would have been an affront to your understanding, and would instantly have sidled off in the direction of the plump sister. She often cried out that it wasn’t fair; and it really was not. But when at last, he caught her; when, in spite of all her silken rustlings, and her rapid flutterings past him, he got her into a corner whence there was no escape; then his conduct was the most execrable. For his pretending not to know her; his pretending that it was necessary to touch her head-dress, and further to assure himself of her identity by pressing a certain ring upon her finger, and a certain chain about her neck; was vile, monstrous! No doubt she told him her opinion of it, when, another blind-man being in office, they were so very confidential together, behind the curtains.

  309. Malaquías Malagrowther dixo...
  310. Scrooge’s niece was not one of the blind-man’s buff party, but was made comfortable with a large chair and a footstool, in a snug corner, where the Ghost and Scrooge were close behind her. But she joined in the forfeits, and loved her love to admiration with all the letters of the alphabet. Likewise at the game of How, When, and Where, she was very great, and to the secret joy of Scrooge’s nephew, beat her sisters hollow: though they were sharp girls too, as Topper could have told you. There might have been twenty people there, young and old, but they all played, and so did Scrooge; for wholly forgetting in the interest he had in what was going on, that his voice made no sound in their ears, he sometimes came out with his guess quite loud, and very often guessed quite right, too; for the sharpest needle, best Whitechapel, warranted not to cut in the eye, was not sharper than Scrooge; blunt as he took it in his head to be.

    The Ghost was greatly pleased to find him in this mood, and looked upon him with such favour, that he begged like a boy to be allowed to stay until the guests departed. But this the Spirit said could not be done.

    “Here is a new game,” said Scrooge. “One half hour, Spirit, only one!”

    It was a Game called Yes and No, where Scrooge’s nephew had to think of something, and the rest must find out what; he only answering to their questions yes or no, as the case was. The brisk fire of questioning to which he was exposed, elicited from him that he was thinking of an animal, a live animal, rather a disagreeable animal, a savage animal, an animal that growled and grunted sometimes, and talked sometimes, and lived in London, and walked about the streets, and wasn’t made a show of, and wasn’t led by anybody, and didn’t live in a menagerie, and was never killed in a market, and was not a horse, or an ass, or a cow, or a bull, or a tiger, or a dog, or a pig, or a cat, or a bear. At every fresh question that was put to him, this nephew burst into a fresh roar of laughter; and was so inexpressibly tickled, that he was obliged to get up off the sofa and stamp. At last the plump sister, falling into a similar state, cried out:

    “I have found it out! I know what it is, Fred! I know what it is!”

    “What is it?” cried Fred.

    “It’s your Uncle Scro-o-o-o-oge!”

    Which it certainly was. Admiration was the universal sentiment, though some objected that the reply to “Is it a bear?” ought to have been “Yes;” inasmuch as an answer in the negative was sufficient to have diverted their thoughts from Mr. Scrooge, supposing they had ever had any tendency that way.

    “He has given us plenty of merriment, I am sure,” said Fred, “and it would be ungrateful not to drink his health. Here is a glass of mulled wine ready to our hand at the moment; and I say, ‘Uncle Scrooge!’ ”

    “Well! Uncle Scrooge!” they cried.

    “A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to the old man, whatever he is!” said Scrooge’s nephew. “He wouldn’t take it from me, but may he have it, nevertheless. Uncle Scrooge!”

    Uncle Scrooge had imperceptibly become so gay and light of heart, that he would have pledged the unconscious company in return, and thanked them in an inaudible speech, if the Ghost had given him time. But the whole scene passed off in the breath of the last word spoken by his nephew; and he and the Spirit were again upon their travels.

  311. Malaquías Malagrowther dixo...
  312. Much they saw, and far they went, and many homes they visited, but always with a happy end. The Spirit stood beside sick beds, and they were cheerful; on foreign lands, and they were close at home; by struggling men, and they were patient in their greater hope; by poverty, and it was rich. In almshouse, hospital, and jail, in misery’s every refuge, where vain man in his little brief authority had not made fast the door, and barred the Spirit out, he left his blessing, and taught Scrooge his precepts.

    It was a long night, if it were only a night; but Scrooge had his doubts of this, because the Christmas Holidays appeared to be condensed into the space of time they passed together. It was strange, too, that while Scrooge remained unaltered in his outward form, the Ghost grew older, clearly older. Scrooge had observed this change, but never spoke of it, until they left a children’s Twelfth Night party, when, looking at the Spirit as they stood together in an open place, he noticed that its hair was grey.

    “Are spirits’ lives so short?” asked Scrooge.

    “My life upon this globe, is very brief,” replied the Ghost. “It ends to-night.”

    “To-night!” cried Scrooge.

    “To-night at midnight. Hark! The time is drawing near.”

    The chimes were ringing the three quarters past eleven at that moment.

    “Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask,” said Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit’s robe, “but I see something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw?”

    “It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it,” was the Spirit’s sorrowful reply. “Look here.”

    From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children; wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment.

    “Oh, Man! look here. Look, look, down here!” exclaimed the Ghost.

    They were a boy and girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread.

  313. Malaquías Malagrowther dixo...
  314. Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude.

    “Spirit! are they yours?” Scrooge could say no more.

    “They are Man’s,” said the Spirit, looking down upon them. “And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!” cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. “Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse. And bide the end!”

    “Have they no refuge or resource?” cried Scrooge.

    “Are there no prisons?” said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. “Are there no workhouses?”

    The bell struck twelve.

    Scrooge looked about him for the Ghost, and saw it not. As the last stroke ceased to vibrate, he remembered the prediction of old Jacob Marley, and lifting up his eyes, beheld a solemn Phantom, draped and hooded, coming, like a mist along the ground, towards him.

  315. Narciso dixo...
  316. El narcisismo que invade esta crónica es la anulación de la pregunta por uno mismo. El sublime objeto de la ideología es eso. Una fuerza capaz de tranquilizar al yo y dar identidad, pero que tiene como contrapeso la paranoia y la anulación del otro como otro. Por eso, los personajes de la XIX se olvidan de sus cuerpos y los ponen al servicio de la muerte, tienen sexo solo para destruir y no para crear, se relacionan solo por intereses individuales, como máquinas caen en la trampa: creer que usar al otro puede darte una ventaja o un atajo para un fin.

  317. Perfidia dixo...
  318. Wake up, soldier boy. You died and went to pussy heaven, motherfucker.

  319. Hud Bannon dixo...
  320. Merry Christmas. Hail, Saint Nick.

  321. Hud Bannon dixo...
  322. Nothing is secure. Everything is wrong. No one is above suspicion.

  323. Hud Bannon dixo...
  324. Every Edición begins fighting demons. Motherfuckers just end up fighting themselves

  325. Hud Bannon dixo...
  326. Our aim and your aim is the same; to find dangerous lunatics, haters and punk trash and stop them. No more lunatics.

  327. Hud Bannon dixo...
  328. I believe she was a sperm thief, a semen demon.

  329. Malaquías Malagrowther dixo...
  330. The Phantom slowly, gravely, silently, approached. When it came near him, Scrooge bent down upon his knee; for in the very air through which this Spirit moved it seemed to scatter gloom and mystery.

    It was shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed its head, its face, its form, and left nothing of it visible save one outstretched hand. But for this it would have been difficult to detach its figure from the night, and separate it from the darkness by which it was surrounded.

    He felt that it was tall and stately when it came beside him, and that its mysterious presence filled him with a solemn dread. He knew no more, for the Spirit neither spoke nor moved.

    “I am in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come?” said Scrooge.

    The Spirit answered not, but pointed onward with its hand.

    “You are about to show me shadows of the things that have not happened, but will happen in the time before us,” Scrooge pursued. “Is that so, Spirit?”

    The upper portion of the garment was contracted for an instant in its folds, as if the Spirit had inclined its head. That was the only answer he received.

    Although well used to ghostly company by this time, Scrooge feared the silent shape so much that his legs trembled beneath him, and he found that he could hardly stand when he prepared to follow it. The Spirit paused a moment, as observing his condition, and giving him time to recover.

    But Scrooge was all the worse for this. It thrilled him with a vague uncertain horror, to know that behind the dusky shroud, there were ghostly eyes intently fixed upon him, while he, though he stretched his own to the utmost, could see nothing but a spectral hand and one great heap of black.

    “Ghost of the Future!” he exclaimed, “I fear you more than any spectre I have seen. But as I know your purpose is to do me good, and as I hope to live to be another man from what I was, I am prepared to bear you company, and do it with a thankful heart. Will you not speak to me?”

    It gave him no reply. The hand was pointed straight before them.

    “Lead on!” said Scrooge. “Lead on! The night is waning fast, and it is precious time to me, I know. Lead on, Spirit!”

    The Phantom moved away as it had come towards him. Scrooge followed in the shadow of its dress, which bore him up, he thought, and carried him along.

    They scarcely seemed to enter the city; for the city rather seemed to spring up about them, and encompass them of its own act. But there they were, in the heart of it; on ’Change, amongst the merchants; who hurried up and down, and chinked the money in their pockets, and conversed in groups, and looked at their watches, and trifled thoughtfully with their great gold seals; and so forth, as Scrooge had seen them often.

    The Spirit stopped beside one little knot of business men. Observing that the hand was pointed to them, Scrooge advanced to listen to their talk.

    “No,” said a great fat man with a monstrous chin, “I don’t know much about it, either way. I only know he’s dead.”

    “When did he die?” inquired another.

    “Last night, I believe.”

    “Why, what was the matter with him?” asked a third, taking a vast quantity of snuff out of a very large snuff-box. “I thought he’d never die.”

    “God knows,” said the first, with a yawn.

  331. Malaquías Malagrowther dixo...
  332. “What has he done with his money?” asked a red-faced gentleman with a pendulous excrescence on the end of his nose, that shook like the gills of a turkey-cock.

    “I haven’t heard,” said the man with the large chin, yawning again. “Left it to his company, perhaps. He hasn’t left it to me. That’s all I know.”

    This pleasantry was received with a general laugh.

    “It’s likely to be a very cheap funeral,” said the same speaker; “for upon my life I don’t know of anybody to go to it. Suppose we make up a party and volunteer?”

    “I don’t mind going if a lunch is provided,” observed the gentleman with the excrescence on his nose. “But I must be fed, if I make one.”

    Another laugh.

    “Well, I am the most disinterested among you, after all,” said the first speaker, “for I never wear black gloves, and I never eat lunch. But I’ll offer to go, if anybody else will. When I come to think of it, I’m not at all sure that I wasn’t his most particular friend; for we used to stop and speak whenever we met. Bye, bye!”

    Speakers and listeners strolled away, and mixed with other groups. Scrooge knew the men, and looked towards the Spirit for an explanation.

    The Phantom glided on into a street. Its finger pointed to two persons meeting. Scrooge listened again, thinking that the explanation might lie here.

    He knew these men, also, perfectly. They were men of business: very wealthy, and of great importance. He had made a point always of standing well in their esteem: in a business point of view, that is; strictly in a business point of view.

    “How are you?” said one.

    “How are you?” returned the other.

    “Well!” said the first. “Old Scratch has got his own at last, hey?”

    “So I am told,” returned the second. “Cold, isn’t it?”

    “Seasonable for Christmas time. You’re not a skater, I suppose?”

    “No. No. Something else to think of. Good morning!”

    Not another word. That was their meeting, their conversation, and their parting.

    Scrooge was at first inclined to be surprised that the Spirit should attach importance to conversations apparently so trivial; but feeling assured that they must have some hidden purpose, he set himself to consider what it was likely to be. They could scarcely be supposed to have any bearing on the death of Jacob, his old partner, for that was Past, and this Ghost’s province was the Future. Nor could he think of any one immediately connected with himself, to whom he could apply them. But nothing doubting that to whomsoever they applied they had some latent moral for his own improvement, he resolved to treasure up every word he heard, and everything he saw; and especially to observe the shadow of himself when it appeared. For he had an expectation that the conduct of his future self would give him the clue he missed, and would render the solution of these riddles easy.

  333. Malaquías Malagrowther dixo...
  334. He looked about in that very place for his own image; but another man stood in his accustomed corner, and though the clock pointed to his usual time of day for being there, he saw no likeness of himself among the multitudes that poured in through the Porch. It gave him little surprise, however; for he had been revolving in his mind a change of life, and thought and hoped he saw his new-born resolutions carried out in this.

    Quiet and dark, beside him stood the Phantom, with its outstretched hand. When he roused himself from his thoughtful quest, he fancied from the turn of the hand, and its situation in reference to himself, that the Unseen Eyes were looking at him keenly. It made him shudder, and feel very cold.

    They left the busy scene, and went into an obscure part of the town, where Scrooge had never penetrated before, although he recognised its situation, and its bad repute. The ways were foul and narrow; the shops and houses wretched; the people half-naked, drunken, slipshod, ugly. Alleys and archways, like so many cesspools, disgorged their offences of smell, and dirt, and life, upon the straggling streets; and the whole quarter reeked with crime, with filth, and misery.

    Far in this den of infamous resort, there was a low-browed, beetling shop, below a pent-house roof, where iron, old rags, bottles, bones, and greasy offal, were bought. Upon the floor within, were piled up heaps of rusty keys, nails, chains, hinges, files, scales, weights, and refuse iron of all kinds. Secrets that few would like to scrutinise were bred and hidden in mountains of unseemly rags, masses of corrupted fat, and sepulchres of bones. Sitting in among the wares he dealt in, by a charcoal stove, made of old bricks, was a grey-haired rascal, nearly seventy years of age; who had screened himself from the cold air without, by a frousy curtaining of miscellaneous tatters, hung upon a line; and smoked his pipe in all the luxury of calm retirement.

    Scrooge and the Phantom came into the presence of this man, just as a woman with a heavy bundle slunk into the shop. But she had scarcely entered, when another woman, similarly laden, came in too; and she was closely followed by a man in faded black, who was no less startled by the sight of them, than they had been upon the recognition of each other. After a short period of blank astonishment, in which the old man with the pipe had joined them, they all three burst into a laugh.

    “Let the charwoman alone to be the first!” cried she who had entered first. “Let the laundress alone to be the second; and let the undertaker’s man alone to be the third. Look here, old Joe, here’s a chance! If we haven’t all three met here without meaning it!”

    “You couldn’t have met in a better place,” said old Joe, removing his pipe from his mouth. “Come into the parlour. You were made free of it long ago, you know; and the other two an’t strangers. Stop till I shut the door of the shop. Ah! How it skreeks! There an’t such a rusty bit of metal in the place as its own hinges, I believe; and I’m sure there’s no such old bones here, as mine. Ha, ha! We’re all suitable to our calling, we’re well matched. Come into the parlour. Come into the parlour.”

    The parlour was the space behind the screen of rags. The old man raked the fire together with an old stair-rod, and having trimmed his smoky lamp (for it was night), with the stem of his pipe, put it in his mouth again.

  335. Malaquías Malagrowther dixo...
  336. While he did this, the woman who had already spoken threw her bundle on the floor, and sat down in a flaunting manner on a stool; crossing her elbows on her knees, and looking with a bold defiance at the other two.

    “What odds then! What odds, Mrs. Dilber?” said the woman. “Every person has a right to take care of themselves. He always did.”

    “That’s true, indeed!” said the laundress. “No man more so.”

    “Why then, don’t stand staring as if you was afraid, woman; who’s the wiser? We’re not going to pick holes in each other’s coats, I suppose?”

    “No, indeed!” said Mrs. Dilber and the man together. “We should hope not.”

    “Very well, then!” cried the woman. “That’s enough. Who’s the worse for the loss of a few things like these? Not a dead man, I suppose.”

    “No, indeed,” said Mrs. Dilber, laughing.

    “If he wanted to keep ’em after he was dead, a wicked old screw,” pursued the woman, “why wasn’t he natural in his lifetime? If he had been, he’d have had somebody to look after him when he was struck with Death, instead of lying gasping out his last there, alone by himself.”

    “It’s the truest word that ever was spoke,” said Mrs. Dilber. “It’s a judgment on him.”

    “I wish it was a little heavier judgment,” replied the woman; “and it should have been, you may depend upon it, if I could have laid my hands on anything else. Open that bundle, old Joe, and let me know the value of it. Speak out plain. I’m not afraid to be the first, nor afraid for them to see it. We know pretty well that we were helping ourselves, before we met here, I believe. It’s no sin. Open the bundle, Joe.”

    But the gallantry of her friends would not allow of this; and the man in faded black, mounting the breach first, produced his plunder. It was not extensive. A seal or two, a pencil-case, a pair of sleeve-buttons, and a brooch of no great value, were all. They were severally examined and appraised by old Joe, who chalked the sums he was disposed to give for each, upon the wall, and added them up into a total when he found there was nothing more to come.

    “That’s your account,” said Joe, “and I wouldn’t give another sixpence, if I was to be boiled for not doing it. Who’s next?”

    Mrs. Dilber was next. Sheets and towels, a little wearing apparel, two old-fashioned silver teaspoons, a pair of sugar-tongs, and a few boots. Her account was stated on the wall in the same manner.

    “I always give too much to ladies. It’s a weakness of mine, and that’s the way I ruin myself,” said old Joe. “That’s your account. If you asked me for another penny, and made it an open question, I’d repent of being so liberal and knock off half-a-crown.”

    “And now undo my bundle, Joe,” said the first woman.

    Joe went down on his knees for the greater convenience of opening it, and having unfastened a great many knots, dragged out a large and heavy roll of some dark stuff.

    “What do you call this?” said Joe. “Bed-curtains!”

    “Ah!” returned the woman, laughing and leaning forward on her crossed arms. “Bed-curtains!”

    “You don’t mean to say you took ’em down, rings and all, with him lying there?” said Joe.

    “Yes I do,” replied the woman. “Why not?”

    “You were born to make your fortune,” said Joe, “and you’ll certainly do it.”

  337. Malaquías Malagrowther dixo...
  338. “I certainly shan’t hold my hand, when I can get anything in it by reaching it out, for the sake of such a man as He was, I promise you, Joe,” returned the woman coolly. “Don’t drop that oil upon the blankets, now.”

    “His blankets?” asked Joe.

    “Whose else’s do you think?” replied the woman. “He isn’t likely to take cold without ’em, I dare say.”

    “I hope he didn’t die of anything catching? Eh?” said old Joe, stopping in his work, and looking up.

    “Don’t you be afraid of that,” returned the woman. “I an’t so fond of his company that I’d loiter about him for such things, if he did. Ah! you may look through that shirt till your eyes ache; but you won’t find a hole in it, nor a threadbare place. It’s the best he had, and a fine one too. They’d have wasted it, if it hadn’t been for me.”

    “What do you call wasting of it?” asked old Joe.

    “Putting it on him to be buried in, to be sure,” replied the woman with a laugh. “Somebody was fool enough to do it, but I took it off again. If calico an’t good enough for such a purpose, it isn’t good enough for anything. It’s quite as becoming to the body. He can’t look uglier than he did in that one.”

    Scrooge listened to this dialogue in horror. As they sat grouped about their spoil, in the scanty light afforded by the old man’s lamp, he viewed them with a detestation and disgust, which could hardly have been greater, though they had been obscene demons, marketing the corpse itself.

    “Ha, ha!” laughed the same woman, when old Joe, producing a flannel bag with money in it, told out their several gains upon the ground. “This is the end of it, you see! He frightened every one away from him when he was alive, to profit us when he was dead! Ha, ha, ha!”

    “Spirit!” said Scrooge, shuddering from head to foot. “I see, I see. The case of this unhappy man might be my own. My life tends that way, now. Merciful Heaven, what is this!”

    He recoiled in terror, for the scene had changed, and now he almost touched a bed: a bare, uncurtained bed: on which, beneath a ragged sheet, there lay a something covered up, which, though it was dumb, announced itself in awful language.

    The room was very dark, too dark to be observed with any accuracy, though Scrooge glanced round it in obedience to a secret impulse, anxious to know what kind of room it was. A pale light, rising in the outer air, fell straight upon the bed; and on it, plundered and bereft, unwatched, unwept, uncared for, was the body of this man.

    Scrooge glanced towards the Phantom. Its steady hand was pointed to the head. The cover was so carelessly adjusted that the slightest raising of it, the motion of a finger upon Scrooge’s part, would have disclosed the face. He thought of it, felt how easy it would be to do, and longed to do it; but had no more power to withdraw the veil than to dismiss the spectre at his side.

  339. Malaquías Malagrowther dixo...
  340. No voice pronounced these words in Scrooge’s ears, and yet he heard them when he looked upon the bed. He thought, if this man could be raised up now, what would be his foremost thoughts? Avarice, hard-dealing, griping cares? They have brought him to a rich end, truly!

    He lay, in the dark empty house, with not a man, a woman, or a child, to say that he was kind to me in this or that, and for the memory of one kind word I will be kind to him. A cat was tearing at the door, and there was a sound of gnawing rats beneath the hearth-stone. What they wanted in the room of death, and why they were so restless and disturbed, Scrooge did not dare to think.

    “Spirit!” he said, “this is a fearful place. In leaving it, I shall not leave its lesson, trust me. Let us go!”

    Still the Ghost pointed with an unmoved finger to the head.

    “I understand you,” Scrooge returned, “and I would do it, if I could. But I have not the power, Spirit. I have not the power.”

    Again it seemed to look upon him.

    “If there is any person in the town, who feels emotion caused by this man’s death,” said Scrooge quite agonised, “show that person to me, Spirit, I beseech you!”

    The Phantom spread its dark robe before him for a moment, like a wing; and withdrawing it, revealed a room by daylight, where a mother and her children were.

    She was expecting some one, and with anxious eagerness; for she walked up and down the room; started at every sound; looked out from the window; glanced at the clock; tried, but in vain, to work with her needle; and could hardly bear the voices of the children in their play.

    At length the long-expected knock was heard. She hurried to the door, and met her husband; a man whose face was careworn and depressed, though he was young. There was a remarkable expression in it now; a kind of serious delight of which he felt ashamed, and which he struggled to repress.

    He sat down to the dinner that had been hoarding for him by the fire; and when she asked him faintly what news (which was not until after a long silence), he appeared embarrassed how to answer.

    “Is it good?” she said, “or bad?”—to help him.

    “Bad,” he answered.

    “We are quite ruined?”

    “No. There is hope yet, Caroline.”

    “If he relents,” she said, amazed, “there is! Nothing is past hope, if such a miracle has happened.”

    “He is past relenting,” said her husband. “He is dead.”

    She was a mild and patient creature if her face spoke truth; but she was thankful in her soul to hear it, and she said so, with clasped hands. She prayed forgiveness the next moment, and was sorry; but the first was the emotion of her heart.

    “What the half-drunken woman whom I told you of last night, said to me, when I tried to see him and obtain a week’s delay; and what I thought was a mere excuse to avoid me; turns out to have been quite true. He was not only very ill, but dying, then.”

    “To whom will our debt be transferred?”

    “I don’t know. But before that time we shall be ready with the money; and even though we were not, it would be a bad fortune indeed to find so merciless a creditor in his successor. We may sleep to-night with light hearts, Caroline!”

    Yes. Soften it as they would, their hearts were lighter. The children’s faces, hushed and clustered round to hear what they so little understood, were brighter; and it was a happier house for this man’s death! The only emotion that the Ghost could show him, caused by the event, was one of pleasure.

    “Let me see some tenderness connected with a death,” said Scrooge; “or that dark chamber, Spirit, which we left just now, will be for ever present to me.”

  341. Malaquías Malagrowther dixo...
  342. The Ghost conducted him through several streets familiar to his feet; and as they went along, Scrooge looked here and there to find himself, but nowhere was he to be seen. They entered poor Bob Cratchit’s house; the dwelling he had visited before; and found the mother and the children seated round the fire.

    Quiet. Very quiet. The noisy little Cratchits were as still as statues in one corner, and sat looking up at Peter, who had a book before him. The mother and her daughters were engaged in sewing. But surely they were very quiet!

    “ ‘And He took a child, and set him in the midst of them.’ ”

    Where had Scrooge heard those words? He had not dreamed them. The boy must have read them out, as he and the Spirit crossed the threshold. Why did he not go on?

    The mother laid her work upon the table, and put her hand up to her face.

    “The colour hurts my eyes,” she said.

    The colour? Ah, poor Tiny Tim!

    “They’re better now again,” said Cratchit’s wife. “It makes them weak by candle-light; and I wouldn’t show weak eyes to your father when he comes home, for the world. It must be near his time.”

    “Past it rather,” Peter answered, shutting up his book. “But I think he has walked a little slower than he used, these few last evenings, mother.”

    They were very quiet again. At last she said, and in a steady, cheerful voice, that only faltered once:

    “I have known him walk with—I have known him walk with Tiny Tim upon his shoulder, very fast indeed.”

    “And so have I,” cried Peter. “Often.”

    “And so have I,” exclaimed another. So had all.

    “But he was very light to carry,” she resumed, intent upon her work, “and his father loved him so, that it was no trouble: no trouble. And there is your father at the door!”

    She hurried out to meet him; and little Bob in his comforter—he had need of it, poor fellow—came in. His tea was ready for him on the hob, and they all tried who should help him to it most. Then the two young Cratchits got upon his knees and laid, each child a little cheek, against his face, as if they said, “Don’t mind it, father. Don’t be grieved!”

    Bob was very cheerful with them, and spoke pleasantly to all the family. He looked at the work upon the table, and praised the industry and speed of Mrs. Cratchit and the girls. They would be done long before Sunday, he said.

    “Sunday! You went to-day, then, Robert?” said his wife.

    “Yes, my dear,” returned Bob. “I wish you could have gone. It would have done you good to see how green a place it is. But you’ll see it often. I promised him that I would walk there on a Sunday. My little, little child!” cried Bob. “My little child!”

    He broke down all at once. He couldn’t help it. If he could have helped it, he and his child would have been farther apart perhaps than they were.

    He left the room, and went up-stairs into the room above, which was lighted cheerfully, and hung with Christmas. There was a chair set close beside the child, and there were signs of some one having been there, lately. Poor Bob sat down in it, and when he had thought a little and composed himself, he kissed the little face. He was reconciled to what had happened, and went down again quite happy.

  343. Malaquías Malagrowther dixo...
  344. They drew about the fire, and talked; the girls and mother working still. Bob told them of the extraordinary kindness of Mr. Scrooge’s nephew, whom he had scarcely seen but once, and who, meeting him in the street that day, and seeing that he looked a little—“just a little down you know,” said Bob, inquired what had happened to distress him. “On which,” said Bob, “for he is the pleasantest-spoken gentleman you ever heard, I told him. ‘I am heartily sorry for it, Mr. Cratchit,’ he said, ‘and heartily sorry for your good wife.’ By the bye, how he ever knew that, I don’t know.”

    “Knew what, my dear?”

    “Why, that you were a good wife,” replied Bob.

    “Everybody knows that!” said Peter.

    “Very well observed, my boy!” cried Bob. “I hope they do. ‘Heartily sorry,’ he said, ‘for your good wife. If I can be of service to you in any way,’ he said, giving me his card, ‘that’s where I live. Pray come to me.’ Now, it wasn’t,” cried Bob, “for the sake of anything he might be able to do for us, so much as for his kind way, that this was quite delightful. It really seemed as if he had known our Tiny Tim, and felt with us.”

    “I’m sure he’s a good soul!” said Mrs. Cratchit.

    “You would be surer of it, my dear,” returned Bob, “if you saw and spoke to him. I shouldn’t be at all surprised—mark what I say!—if he got Peter a better situation.”

    “Only hear that, Peter,” said Mrs. Cratchit.

    “And then,” cried one of the girls, “Peter will be keeping company with some one, and setting up for himself.”

    “Get along with you!” retorted Peter, grinning.

    “It’s just as likely as not,” said Bob, “one of these days; though there’s plenty of time for that, my dear. But however and whenever we part from one another, I am sure we shall none of us forget poor Tiny Tim—shall we—or this first parting that there was among us?”

    “Never, father!” cried they all.

    “And I know,” said Bob, “I know, my dears, that when we recollect how patient and how mild he was; although he was a little, little child; we shall not quarrel easily among ourselves, and forget poor Tiny Tim in doing it.”

    “No, never, father!” they all cried again.

    “I am very happy,” said little Bob, “I am very happy!”

    Mrs. Cratchit kissed him, his daughters kissed him, the two young Cratchits kissed him, and Peter and himself shook hands. Spirit of Tiny Tim, thy childish essence was from God!

    “Spectre,” said Scrooge, “something informs me that our parting moment is at hand. I know it, but I know not how. Tell me what man that was whom we saw lying dead?”

    The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come conveyed him, as before—though at a different time, he thought: indeed, there seemed no order in these latter visions, save that they were in the Future—into the resorts of business men, but showed him not himself. Indeed, the Spirit did not stay for anything, but went straight on, as to the end just now desired, until besought by Scrooge to tarry for a moment.

    “This court,” said Scrooge, “through which we hurry now, is where my place of occupation is, and has been for a length of time. I see the house. Let me behold what I shall be, in days to come!”

    The Spirit stopped; the hand was pointed elsewhere.

    “The house is yonder,” Scrooge exclaimed. “Why do you point away?”

    The inexorable finger underwent no change.

  345. Malaquías Malagrowther dixo...
  346. Scrooge hastened to the window of his office, and looked in. It was an office still, but not his. The furniture was not the same, and the figure in the chair was not himself. The Phantom pointed as before.

    He joined it once again, and wondering why and whither he had gone, accompanied it until they reached an iron gate. He paused to look round before entering.

    A churchyard. Here, then; the wretched man whose name he had now to learn, lay underneath the ground. It was a worthy place. Walled in by houses; overrun by grass and weeds, the growth of vegetation’s death, not life; choked up with too much burying; fat with repleted appetite. A worthy place!

    The Spirit stood among the graves, and pointed down to One. He advanced towards it trembling. The Phantom was exactly as it had been, but he dreaded that he saw new meaning in its solemn shape.

    “Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point,” said Scrooge, “answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of things that May be, only?”

    Still the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by which it stood.

    “Men’s courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead,” said Scrooge. “But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me!”

    The Spirit was immovable as ever.

    Scrooge crept towards it, trembling as he went; and following the finger, read upon the stone of the neglected grave his own name, Ebenezer Scrooge.

  347. Calixto Lence dixo...
  348. Con cada volea de los futbolistas el pringoso balón de cuero salía volando bajo la luz gris, como un pájaro pesado

  349. Calixto Lence dixo...
  350. Los caminos del desclasamiento son múltiples, quebradizos y nada inescrutables, el mío fue rechazar la vulgaridad que conllevan ciertos triunfos: un desclasamiento del desclasarse.

  351. Calixto Lence dixo...
  352. 8 a 4.

    Sin nostalgia ni rencor a lo que tuvo lugar.

  353. Malaquías Malagrowther dixo...
  354. “Am I that man who lay upon the bed?” he cried, upon his knees.

    The finger pointed from the grave to him, and back again.

    “No, Spirit! Oh no, no!”

    The finger still was there.

    “Spirit!” he cried, tight clutching at its robe, “hear me! I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must have been but for this intercourse. Why show me this, if I am past all hope!”

    For the first time the hand appeared to shake.

    “Good Spirit,” he pursued, as down upon the ground he fell before it: “Your nature intercedes for me, and pities me. Assure me that I yet may change these shadows you have shown me, by an altered life!”

    The kind hand trembled.

    “I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone!”

    In his agony, he caught the spectral hand. It sought to free itself, but he was strong in his entreaty, and detained it. The Spirit, stronger yet, repulsed him.

    Holding up his hands in a last prayer to have his fate reversed, he saw an alteration in the Phantom’s hood and dress. It shrunk, collapsed, and dwindled down into a bedpost.

  355. Malaquías Malagrowther dixo...
  356. Yes! and the bedpost was his own. The bed was his own, the room was his own. Best and happiest of all, the Time before him was his own, to make amends in!

    “I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future!” Scrooge repeated, as he scrambled out of bed. “The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. Oh Jacob Marley! Heaven, and the Christmas Time be praised for this! I say it on my knees, old Jacob; on my knees!”

    He was so fluttered and so glowing with his good intentions, that his broken voice would scarcely answer to his call. He had been sobbing violently in his conflict with the Spirit, and his face was wet with tears.

    “They are not torn down,” cried Scrooge, folding one of his bed-curtains in his arms, “they are not torn down, rings and all. They are here—I am here—the shadows of the things that would have been, may be dispelled. They will be. I know they will!”

    His hands were busy with his garments all this time; turning them inside out, putting them on upside down, tearing them, mislaying them, making them parties to every kind of extravagance.

    “I don’t know what to do!” cried Scrooge, laughing and crying in the same breath; and making a perfect Laocoön of himself with his stockings. “I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to everybody! A happy New Year to all the world. Hallo here! Whoop! Hallo!”

    He had frisked into the sitting-room, and was now standing there: perfectly winded.

    “There’s the saucepan that the gruel was in!” cried Scrooge, starting off again, and going round the fireplace. “There’s the door, by which the Ghost of Jacob Marley entered! There’s the corner where the Ghost of Christmas Present, sat! There’s the window where I saw the wandering Spirits! It’s all right, it’s all true, it all happened. Ha ha ha!”

    Really, for a man who had been out of practice for so many years, it was a splendid laugh, a most illustrious laugh. The father of a long, long line of brilliant laughs!

    “I don’t know what day of the month it is!” said Scrooge. “I don’t know how long I’ve been among the Spirits. I don’t know anything. I’m quite a baby. Never mind. I don’t care. I’d rather be a baby. Hallo! Whoop! Hallo here!”

    He was checked in his transports by the churches ringing out the lustiest peals he had ever heard. Clash, clang, hammer; ding, dong, bell. Bell, dong, ding; hammer, clang, clash! Oh, glorious, glorious!

    Running to the window, he opened it, and put out his head. No fog, no mist; clear, bright, jovial, stirring, cold; cold, piping for the blood to dance to; Golden sunlight; Heavenly sky; sweet fresh air; merry bells. Oh, glorious! Glorious!

    “What’s to-day!” cried Scrooge, calling downward to a boy in Sunday clothes, who perhaps had loitered in to look about him.

    “Eh?” returned the boy, with all his might of wonder.

    “What’s to-day, my fine fellow?” said Scrooge.

    “To-day!” replied the boy. “Why, Christmas Day.”

    “It’s Christmas Day!” said Scrooge to himself. “I haven’t missed it. The Spirits have done it all in one night. They can do anything they like. Of course they can. Of course they can. Hallo, my fine fellow!”

  357. Malaquías Malagrowther dixo...
  358. “Hallo!” returned the boy.

    “Do you know the Poulterer’s, in the next street but one, at the corner?” Scrooge inquired.

    “I should hope I did,” replied the lad.

    “An intelligent boy!” said Scrooge. “A remarkable boy! Do you know whether they’ve sold the prize Turkey that was hanging up there?—Not the little prize Turkey: the big one?”

    “What, the one as big as me?” returned the boy.

    “What a delightful boy!” said Scrooge. “It’s a pleasure to talk to him. Yes, my buck!”

    “It’s hanging there now,” replied the boy.

    “Is it?” said Scrooge. “Go and buy it.”

    “Walk-er!” exclaimed the boy.

    “No, no,” said Scrooge, “I am in earnest. Go and buy it, and tell ’em to bring it here, that I may give them the direction where to take it. Come back with the man, and I’ll give you a shilling. Come back with him in less than five minutes and I’ll give you half-a-crown!”

    The boy was off like a shot. He must have had a steady hand at a trigger who could have got a shot off half so fast.

    “I’ll send it to Bob Cratchit’s!” whispered Scrooge, rubbing his hands, and splitting with a laugh. “He sha’n’t know who sends it. It’s twice the size of Tiny Tim. Joe Miller never made such a joke as sending it to Bob’s will be!”

    The hand in which he wrote the address was not a steady one, but write it he did, somehow, and went down-stairs to open the street door, ready for the coming of the poulterer’s man. As he stood there, waiting his arrival, the knocker caught his eye.

    “I shall love it, as long as I live!” cried Scrooge, patting it with his hand. “I scarcely ever looked at it before. What an honest expression it has in its face! It’s a wonderful knocker!—Here’s the Turkey! Hallo! Whoop! How are you! Merry Christmas!”

    It was a Turkey! He never could have stood upon his legs, that bird. He would have snapped ’em short off in a minute, like sticks of sealing-wax.

    “Why, it’s impossible to carry that to Camden Town,” said Scrooge. “You must have a cab.”

    The chuckle with which he said this, and the chuckle with which he paid for the Turkey, and the chuckle with which he paid for the cab, and the chuckle with which he recompensed the boy, were only to be exceeded by the chuckle with which he sat down breathless in his chair again, and chuckled till he cried.

    Shaving was not an easy task, for his hand continued to shake very much; and shaving requires attention, even when you don’t dance while you are at it. But if he had cut the end of his nose off, he would have put a piece of sticking-plaister over it, and been quite satisfied.

  359. Malaquías Malagrowther dixo...
  360. He dressed himself “all in his best,” and at last got out into the streets. The people were by this time pouring forth, as he had seen them with the Ghost of Christmas Present; and walking with his hands behind him, Scrooge regarded every one with a delighted smile. He looked so irresistibly pleasant, in a word, that three or four good-humoured fellows said, “Good morning, sir! A merry Christmas to you!” And Scrooge said often afterwards, that of all the blithe sounds he had ever heard, those were the blithest in his ears.

    He had not gone far, when coming on towards him he beheld the portly gentleman, who had walked into his counting-house the day before, and said, “Scrooge and Marley’s, I believe?” It sent a pang across his heart to think how this old gentleman would look upon him when they met; but he knew what path lay straight before him, and he took it.

    “My dear sir,” said Scrooge, quickening his pace, and taking the old gentleman by both his hands. “How do you do? I hope you succeeded yesterday. It was very kind of you. A merry Christmas to you, sir!”

    “Mr. Scrooge?”

    “Yes,” said Scrooge. “That is my name, and I fear it may not be pleasant to you. Allow me to ask your pardon. And will you have the goodness”—here Scrooge whispered in his ear.

    “Lord bless me!” cried the gentleman, as if his breath were taken away. “My dear Mr. Scrooge, are you serious?”

    “If you please,” said Scrooge. “Not a farthing less. A great many back-payments are included in it, I assure you. Will you do me that favour?”

    “My dear sir,” said the other, shaking hands with him. “I don’t know what to say to such munifi—”

    “Don’t say anything, please,” retorted Scrooge. “Come and see me. Will you come and see me?”

    “I will!” cried the old gentleman. And it was clear he meant to do it.

    “Thank’ee,” said Scrooge. “I am much obliged to you. I thank you fifty times. Bless you!”

    He went to church, and walked about the streets, and watched the people hurrying to and fro, and patted children on the head, and questioned beggars, and looked down into the kitchens of houses, and up to the windows, and found that everything could yield him pleasure. He had never dreamed that any walk—that anything—could give him so much happiness. In the afternoon he turned his steps towards his nephew’s house.

    He passed the door a dozen times, before he had the courage to go up and knock. But he made a dash, and did it:

    “Is your master at home, my dear?” said Scrooge to the girl. Nice girl! Very.

    “Yes, sir.”

    “Where is he, my love?” said Scrooge.

  361. Malaquías Malagrowther dixo...
  362. “He’s in the dining-room, sir, along with mistress. I’ll show you up-stairs, if you please.”

    “Thank’ee. He knows me,” said Scrooge, with his hand already on the dining-room lock. “I’ll go in here, my dear.”

    He turned it gently, and sidled his face in, round the door. They were looking at the table (which was spread out in great array); for these young housekeepers are always nervous on such points, and like to see that everything is right.

    “Fred!” said Scrooge.

    Dear heart alive, how his niece by marriage started! Scrooge had forgotten, for the moment, about her sitting in the corner with the footstool, or he wouldn’t have done it, on any account.

    “Why bless my soul!” cried Fred, “who’s that?”

    “It’s I. Your uncle Scrooge. I have come to dinner. Will you let me in, Fred?”

    Let him in! It is a mercy he didn’t shake his arm off. He was at home in five minutes. Nothing could be heartier. His niece looked just the same. So did Topper when he came. So did the plump sister when she came. So did every one when they came. Wonderful party, wonderful games, wonderful unanimity, won-der-ful happiness!

    But he was early at the office next morning. Oh, he was early there. If he could only be there first, and catch Bob Cratchit coming late! That was the thing he had set his heart upon.

    And he did it; yes, he did! The clock struck nine. No Bob. A quarter past. No Bob. He was full eighteen minutes and a half behind his time. Scrooge sat with his door wide open, that he might see him come into the Tank.

    His hat was off, before he opened the door; his comforter too. He was on his stool in a jiffy; driving away with his pen, as if he were trying to overtake nine o’clock.

    “Hallo!” growled Scrooge, in his accustomed voice, as near as he could feign it. “What do you mean by coming here at this time of day?”

    “I am very sorry, sir,” said Bob. “I am behind my time.”

    “You are?” repeated Scrooge. “Yes. I think you are. Step this way, sir, if you please.”

    “It’s only once a year, sir,” pleaded Bob, appearing from the Tank. “It shall not be repeated. I was making rather merry yesterday, sir.”

    “Now, I’ll tell you what, my friend,” said Scrooge, “I am not going to stand this sort of thing any longer. And therefore,” he continued, leaping from his stool, and giving Bob such a dig in the waistcoat that he staggered back into the Tank again; “and therefore I am about to raise your salary!”

    Bob trembled, and got a little nearer to the ruler. He had a momentary idea of knocking Scrooge down with it, holding him, and calling to the people in the court for help and a strait-waistcoat.

    “A merry Christmas, Bob!” said Scrooge, with an earnestness that could not be mistaken, as he clapped him on the back. “A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than I have given you, for many a year! I’ll raise your salary, and endeavour to assist your struggling family, and we will discuss your affairs this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop, Bob! Make up the fires, and buy another coal-scuttle before you dot another i, Bob Cratchit!”

  363. Malaquías Malagrowther dixo...
  364. Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.

    He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the Total Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards; and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!

    In Main We Trust

  365. Pedro Botero dixo...
  366. Toda la familia habíamos pasado ya a mejor vida y domiciliado nuestra residencia en las Calderas de Pepe Botero, o sea, en el infierno (a excepción de tres o cuatro meapilas que se empeñaron en ir al cielo). Manteníamos, sin embargo, la costumbre de reunirnos con los que quedaba vivos de la familia a cenar el día de Navidad. Lo de cenar es un decir, porque nosotros al ser una especie de espectros, o fantasmas, o espíritus, o almas en pena, no teníamos propiamente un sistema digestivo como Dios manda, así que daba igual que comiéramos o no. Con el paso de los años habíamos perdido, además, la dentadura, con lo cual en el hipotético caso de que tuviéramos un mondongo rudimentario, no podríamos masticar nada. Nuestros deudos se afanaban en preparar unas comilonas gigantescas como si fuéramos un batallón de muertos hambriento, que luego, supongo, llevarían a algún comedor de beneficencia o a alguna ONG. Mi interés por asistir a la cena era puramente intelectual, así que procuraba sentarme junto a una sobrina mía que quitaba el hipo y la dejaba que me preguntara todo lo que le diera la gana. Por ejemplo, en la última cena me espetó:
    —Tito, ¿en el infierno hacéis el amor?
    —Pero qué cosas preguntas, criatura. En todas partes se hace lo que se puede, pero nuestra condición de occisos, o sea, de fiambres nos impone ciertas de limitaciones de tipo mecánico, que no voy a detallar, de modo tal que hacer el amor no deja de ser una forma alegórica de hablar.
    —O sea, que no hacéis el amor.
    —Ni por el forro.

  367. centauros, valquirias, hadas, unicornios, trolls y otras maravillas dixo...
  368. Hunde las púas del tenedor en el roscón de Reyes, corta un pedazo y se lo lleva a la boca. La institutriz lo observa, satisfecha de los progresos del pequeño que ha sabido incluso defenderse con los cubiertos del pescado. De pronto, sus dientecitos tropiezan con algo. El niño se saca de la boca un rey de porcelana embadurnado de cabello de ángel y enseña la sorpresa oculta en el roscón a la familia. Los tíos de Grecia aplauden. La madre coge la figurita, la limpia con la servilleta y se la devuelve con una sonrisa. El padre, con solemnidad impostada y reverencia incluida, ciñe la corona de cartón en la cabeza del pequeño. Todos ríen la ocurrencia. También sus hermanas y los primos. En realidad, todos lo hacen menos el hermano mayor. A él el asunto no le ha hecho ni pizca de gracia.

  369. El Rey roncaba sonoramente. dixo...
  370. —Bueno, pues ahora que los dos nos hemos visto el uno al otro —repuso el unicornio—, si tú crees en mí, yo creeré en ti, ¿trato hecho?

  371. El ritmo es la única historia de la sustancia. En la jaula del tiempo que nos lleva. dixo...
  372. Este es nuestro tiempo mítico, la profecía del triunfo somos nosotros.

  373. Teoría de la postmodernidad dixo...
  374. y siempre hacia adelante, por si la vida. Hacia el lugar donde nace el sol. Apenas. Acaso. Para arder allí. Baila eso. Pinta eso con tus manos, con tu saliva, con tu semen, tus heces, pinta eso con tu alimento y con tu sombra, con cristales rotos y fragmentos de arpillera, con ojos de muñeca y catálogos de muebles de oficina. Pinta eso bailando. Podría decir: la nitidez de los huesos. Los breves árboles jalonando el camino como esqueletos blandos de sepia, transparentes y ardiendo. Pinta tus manos en negativo sobre la roca, toma posesión del mundo. Aquí y ahora. Pinta los animales salvajes bailando alrededor del chamán con la cabeza de pájaro. Pinta los cazadores rodeando la presa, esquemáticos y armados. Rodeándote a ti. Apuntándote a ti con sus arcos. Pinta la boca de los peces en los muros de la casa abandonada frente al mar, las flores y las constelaciones en las vidrieras de la catedral sumergida. Nada hacia dentro del agujero. Hacia aquí, al otro lado del asfalto,

    donde ya no hay nada.

  375. lo digo lo he dicho. Eres una puta es su respuesta. dixo...
  376. El fusil no siempre mata
    quiero decir
    el fusil no sirve sólo para matar
    no dispara y ya está no amenaza y ya está
    a veces el fusil traspasa los límites del mal
    porque el asesinato está sólo en el mal
    pero cuando el fusil viola y desgarra desgarra y viola
    parte en dos parte en tres a una dama con velo
    cuando es prolongación de catorce soldados
    de catorce militantes de catorce años
    de una guerra sangrienta de catorce mentiras
    entonces no es el mal
    entonces no es matar lo que hace el fusil
    entonces aniquila a la especie
    mientras catorce papas miran hacia otro lado.

  377. / dixo...
  378. Las sociedades basadas en la culpa lo fían todo a la conciencia individual, a esa voz interior que nos dice 'Eso no está bien'. Su noción clave, lo han adivinado, es el pecado. Y después del pecado, ¿qué viene? La expiación, el arrepentimiento, el perdón. Seguro que les suena.

    Las culturas que se basan en la vergüenza, en cambio, no dependen tanto de la conciencia de cada uno, sino de la opinión de los demás, de la comunidad, del grupo. Aquí entraría también la llamada opinión pública. En estas sociedades, los individuos que obran mal se enfrentan al oprobio.
    En las primeras, por tanto, la represión viene de uno mismo; en las segundas, el control es externo. En los dos casos se trata de mantener a la gente a raya, aunque difieren en la forma de conseguirlo

  379. cuatro millones de patos, cinco millones de cerdos dixo...

  380. Este es el dios al que estamos sacrificando nuestra forma de vida. Los mercados son insaciables, dicen, los mercados necesitan de nuestro esfuerzo para que podamos seguir viviendo. Nos lo exigen todo. Y sus profetas nos dicen: hemos de dárselo porque la culpa es nuestra, lo contrario es el abismo. Los mercados. Son nadie, una mano invisible. El rostro de nadie que nos roba y nos esquilma. Mammón no va dejar de nosotros ni las cenizas- A menos que aprendamos a deletrear su nombre, y los nombres que le favorecen. Mammón vive dentro de nosotros. Es peligroso. Si lo desalojamos Mammón y sus profetas se desharán como estatuas de arena en la playa.

  381. Una referencia ineludible en los debates epistemológicos y ontológicos dixo...
  382. Lo que intentaba decir en la Crónica, es que, aunque no tengamos muy claro cuáles son los mecanismos implicados en ese tipo de explicaciones, el hecho de su existencia nos obliga a admitir en ese campo criterios de identidad más laxos que los extensionales

  383. Interior metafísico con galletas dixo...
  384. El primer rey era deforme; nació con una protuberancia sobre el cráneo que llamaron corona, pero esa deformidad le confirió mucho poder.
    Ésa fue la única corona de hueso, la única auténtica corona:
    una sola corona de verdad en toda la historia de los hombres.
    A partir de entonces, el resto de los reyes simulaban la deformidad con coronas de arcilla acero oro.

  385. Aún los viejos seducen a las niñas mostrándoles sus premolares y la aguja entra por el ojo de la aguja. dixo...
  386. Yo. Yo. Yo. Mentira. Mentira. Mentira. 4 goles.

  387. El lenguaje es un virus dixo...

  388. ¿Recuerdas cuando hubo un tiempo que cada día podía ser el último? ¿Recuerdas el color brillante intenso de mil soles desbordando el cielo? El fin del mundo no llegó y sin embargo quieren que sigamos viviendo con miedo. No temas, baila conmigo el baile de la destrucción. Baila conmigo hasta que se caigan todas las estrellas al mar. ¿Recuerdas los pasos?

  389. Main y el LSD. dixo...
  390. Valientemente se esconden, gallardamente se escapan
    del campo de Campañó estas fugitivas cacas,
    que me duelen hace tiempo en los cojones del alma.

  391. Mike Barja dixo...
  392. Hola 1916. Hola 2026. Hola viento que despeina el cerebro por dentro, súbete al lomo de esta montura divertida. Hola pequeñez de lo grandioso. Buenas noches princesa de lo efímero, de los colores vivos. Viva el eje de este círculo que nos gira. Dije hola. El mundo está podrido. Yo saludo desde mi caballito a los malos momentos por venir, aquí estoy girando, no me podéis hacer daño porque esto es una vacuna contra el miedo y contra el mundo. Hola plástico de los muñecos que me cubre el rostro. En Inglaterra los jóvenes besan a la destrucción en los labios, en Galicia golpean a la gente que sólo quiere alzar la voz. Pero yo giro y sonrío, plástico hierático, saludando a todo el mundo. Hey. Hola. Aquí arriba no me toca la mano negra del mundo. Aquí arriba soy un idiota que gira. Ciego, sólo por hoy. Feliz, sólo por hoy. Antes de arrojarme de nuevo al barro. Pero no hoy. Hoy es 1916, en plena Gran Guerra, giramos por encima de las trincheras. Como muñecos estúpidos. Felices, sólo por hoy. Hola, qué tal. Súbete aquí arriba conmigo, que el suelo mancha.

  393. Un lugar por encima del humo dixo...
  394. Cada cierto tiempo sueño con que soy, otra vez, un futbolista adolescente. Y me veo de nuevo en el túnel de vestuarios, nervioso o con frío, palpándome los tobillos. A lo lejos se oye una sarta de abucheos que sacude la arquitectura de cemento, reverbera en las sienes de mis compañeros, quizás en nuestras clavículas y en nuestros cojones.

  395. May it also be to the taste of Francis! dixo...
  396. The wild boar shooting is therefore very good this year & I hasten to send you a hure de sanglier [boar’s head] which I hope shall arrive in good condition, & just in time for your Christmas dinner. It is the head of a lady & not of a gentleman wild boar & perhaps less showy, but the old Master of the hunt informed me it was particularly tender, & so I send it at once & trust you will let your dear Mama partake of it.

  397. with traditional English roast turkey (Dinde roti a la anglaise) and a stuffed wild boar’s head (Hure de sanglier) dixo...
  398. ¡Oh, si pudiera irme a follar huérfanas, farol y pene en alto, aprisa
    con un ciervo delante, bajo estrellas de sal y hectolitros de cerveza!

  399. Octavio Pasajero Kubota dixo...
  400. Tú regresaste también, así que bébete
    aprisa el aceite de los faros fluviales
    de Campañó.
    Ocho a cuatro.
    8-4.
    Reconoce pronto el gran día decembrino,
    cuando la yema de los huevos se mezcla a la brea ebria.

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