Huck´s Father

Donde el padre de Huck aparece de nuevo. De su descripción física, del enojo porque Huck aprende a leer y escribir, y de los celos por que Huck vive en una casa y él tiene que dormir con los cerdos. Del original ingles “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”, de Mark Twain

I HAD shut the door to.  Then I turned around and there he was.  I used to be scared of him all the time, he whipped me so much.  I reckoned I was scared now, too; but in a minute I see I was mistaken—that is, after the first shake, as you may say, when my breath sort of raised, he being so unexpected; but right away after I see I warn't scared of him worth bothring about.

He was most fifty, and he looked it.  His hair was long and tangled and greasy, and hung down, and you could see his eyes shining through like he was behind vines.  It was all black, no gray; so was his long, mixed-up whiskers.  There warn't no color in his face, where his face showed; it was white; not like another man's white, but a white to make a body sick, a white to make a body's flesh crawl—a tree-toad white, a fish-belly white.  As for his clothes—just rags, that was all.  He had one ankle resting on t'other knee; the boot on that foot was busted, and two of his toes stuck through, and he worked them now and then.  His hat was laying on the floor—an old black slouch with the top caved in, like a lid.

I stood a-looking at him; he set there a-looking at me, with his chair tilted back a little.  I set the candle down.  I noticed the window was up; so he had clumb in by the shed.  He kept a-looking me all over.  By and by he says:

"Solemn clothes—very.  You think you're a good deal of a big-bug, DON'T you?"

"Maybe I am, maybe I ain't," I says.

Relaxing

"Don't you give me none o' your lip," says he.  "You've put on considerable many superfluities since I been away.  I'll take you down a peg before I get done with you.  You're educated, too, they say—can read and write.  You think you're better'n your father, now, don't you, because he can't?  I'LL take it out of you.  Who told you you might meddle with such hifalut'n foolishness, hey?—who told you you could?"

"The widow.  She told me."…

"Well, I'll learn her how to meddle.  And looky here—you drop that school, you hear?  I'll learn people to bring up a boy to put on airs over his own father and let on to be better'n what HE is.  You lemme catch you fooling around that school again, you hear?  Your mother couldn't read, and she couldn't write, nuther, before she died.  None of the family couldn't before THEY died.  I can't; and here you're a-swelling yourself up like this.  I ain't the man to stand it—you hear? Say, lemme hear you read."

I took up a book and begun something about General Washington and the wars. When I'd read about a half a minute, he fetched the book a hit with his hand and knocked it across the house.  He says:

"It's so.  You can do it.  I had my doubts when you told me.  Now looky here; you stop that putting on trappings.  I won't have it.  I'll lay for you, my smarty; and if I catch you about that school I'll tan you good. First you know you'll get religion, too.  I never see such a son."…

"AIN'T you a sweet-scented dandy, though?  A bed; and bedclothes; and a look'n'-glass; and a piece of carpet on the floor—and your own father got to sleep with the hogs in the tanyard.  I never see such a son.  I bet I'll take some o' these frills out o' you before I'm done with you. Why, there ain't no end to your airs—they say you're rich.  Hey?—how's that?" (Adaptación propia. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, de Mark Twain.)

Vocabulario

Tanyard: curtiembre

Frills: superficialidades

Tópicos para discutir

Padres irresponsables.

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