domingo, 9 de diciembre de 2012

Heart of Darkness

La muerte de un capitán le ofrece la oportunidad a Marlow de viajar a África. De la clásica novela Heart of Darkness, escrita por Joseph Conrad...
"It appears the Company had received news that one of their captains had been killed in a scuffle with the natives. This was my chance, and it made me the more anxious to go. It was only months and months afterwards, when I made the attempt to recover what was left of the body, that I heard the original quarrel arose from a misunderstanding about some hens. Yes, two black hens.
Fresleven—that was the fellow's name, a Dane—thought himself wronged somehow in the bargain, so he went ashore and started to hammer the chief of the village with a stick. Oh, it didn't surprise me in the least to hear this, and at the same time to be told that Fresleven was the gentlest, quietest creature that ever walked on two legs. No doubt he was; but he had been a couple of years already out there engaged in the noble cause, you know, and he probably felt the need at last of asserting his self-respect in some way. Therefore he whacked the old nigger mercilessly, while a big crowd of his people watched him, thunderstruck, till some man,—I was told the chief's son,—in desperation at hearing the old chap yell, made a tentative jab with a spear at the white man—and of course it went quite easy between the shoulder-blades.
Then the whole population cleared into the forest, expecting all kinds of calamities to happen, while, on the other hand, the steamer Fresleven commanded left also in a bad panic, in charge of the engineer, I believe. Afterwards nobody seemed to trouble much about Fresleven's remains, till I got out and stepped into his shoes.
I couldn't let it rest, though; but when an opportunity offered at last to meet my predecessor, the grass growing through his ribs was tall enough to hide his bones. They were all there. The supernatural being had not been touched after he fell.
And the village was deserted, the huts gaped black, rotting, all askew within the fallen enclosures. A calamity had come to it, sure enough.
The people had vanished. Mad terror had scattered them, men, women, and children, through the bush, and they had never returned. What became of the hens I don't know either. I should think the cause of progress got them, anyhow. However, through this glorious affair I got my appointment, before I had fairly begun to hope for it. . . . (Chapter 1 from Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad)

Vocabulario
Whack: To strike (someone or something) with a sharp blow; slap.
Askew: to one side.
El libro
Heart of Darkness es una novela del autor polaco Joseph Conrad, sobre un viaje por el río Congo, en el corazón de África. La historia es narrada por Marlow. En este marco se desarrolla la historia de la obsesión de Marlow con el traficante de marfil Kurtz, lo que le permite a Conrad trazar un paralelo entre Londres y África como lugares oscuros.  Fue publicada en 1899.
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De la web
Heart of Darkness, audiobook



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