The Ebb-Tide. Robert Louis Stevenson. Lloyd Osborne

Robert Louis Stevenson : The Complete Short Stories

   

Una lectura que sigue

- - -

Robert Louis Stevenson : The Complete Short Stories

   

Una lectura que regresa

- - -

Robert Louis Stevenson : Weir of Hermiston and Other Fragments

   

   

Una lectura que prosigue

- - -

Robert Louis Stevenson : Weir of Hermiston and Other Fragments

   

   

Una lectura que comienza

- - -

Robert Louis Stevenson : Catriona

   

   

Una lectura que comienza

- - -

Robert Louis Stevenson : Kidnapped

   

   

Una lectura que comienza

- - -

Robert Louis Stevenson : Virginibus Puerisque

Una lectura que comienza

Many thanks to you — Long John

   

It was a strange collection, like Billy Bones’s hoard for the diversity of coinage, but so much larger and so much more varied that I think I never had more pleasure than in sorting them. English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Georges, and Louises, doubloons and double guineas and moidores and sequins, the pictures of all the kings of Europe for the last hundred years, strange Oriental pieces stamped with what looked like wisps of string or bits of spider’s web, round pieces and square pieces, and pieces bored through the middle, as if to wear them round your neck — nearly every variety of money in the world must, I think, have found a place in that collection; and for number, I am sure they were like autumn leaves, so that my back ached with stooping and my fingers with sorting them out.

(... )

At last, seeing the ship still bore on her course and was now swiftly drawing out of earshot, one of them — I know not which it was — leapt to his feet with a hoarse cry, whipped his musket to his shoulder, and sent a shot whistling over Silver’s head and through the mainsail.

After that, we kept under cover of the bulwarks, and when next I looked out they had disappeared from the spit, and the spit itself had almost melted out of sight in the growing distance. That was, at least, the end of that; and before noon, to my inexpressible joy, the highest rock of Treasure Island had sunk into the blue round of sea.

(... )

Ben Gunn was on deck alone, and as soon as we came on board he began, with wonderful contortions, to make us a confession. Silver was gone. The maroon had connived at his escape in a shore boat some hours ago, and he now assured us he had only done so to preserve our lives, which would certainly have been forfeit if “that man with the one leg had stayed aboard.” But this was not all. The sea cook had not gone empty-handed. He had cut through a bulkhead unobserved and had removed one of the sacks of coin, worth perhaps three or four hundred guineas, to help him on his further wanderings.

(... )

The bar silver and the arms still lie, for all that I know, where Flint buried them; and certainly they shall lie there for me. Oxen and wain-ropes would not bring me back again to that accursed island; and the worst dreams that ever I have are when I hear the surf booming about its coasts or start upright in bed with the sharp voice of Captain Flint still ringing in my ears: “Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!”

Captain Silver

   
There was a long pause after this. I stood straight up against the wall, my heart still going like a sledge-hammer, but with a ray of hope now shining in my bosom. Silver leant back against the wall, his arms crossed, his pipe in the corner of his mouth, as calm as though he had been in church; yet his eye kept wandering furtively, and he kept the tail of it on his unruly followers. They, on their part, drew gradually together towards the far end of the block house, and the low hiss of their whispering sounded in my ear continuously, like a stream. One after another, they would look up, and the red light of the torch would fall for a second on their nervous faces; but it was not towards me, it was towards Silver that they turned their eyes.

Israel Hands

   

Before he could recover, I was safe out of the corner where he had me trapped, with all the deck to dodge about. Just forward of the main-mast I stopped, drew a pistol from my pocket, took a cool aim, though he had already turned and was once more coming directly after me, and drew the trigger. The hammer fell, but there followed neither flash nor sound; the priming was useless with sea-water. I cursed myself for my neglect. Why had not I, long before, reprimed and reloaded my only weapons? Then I should not have been as now, a mere fleeing sheep before this butcher.

( . . . )

I was drinking in his words and smiling away, as conceited as a cock upon a wall, when, all in a breath, back went his right hand over his shoulder. Something sang like an arrow through the air; I felt a blow and then a sharp pang, and there I was pinned by the shoulder to the mast. In the horrid pain and surprise of the moment—I scarce can say it was by my own volition, and I am sure it was without a conscious aim— both my pistols went off, and both escaped out of my hands. They did not fall alone; with a choked cry, the coxswain loosed his grasp upon the shrouds and plunged head first into the water.

A deep silence filled the classroom at first; then we all burst into cheers — and so, another afternoon went by on 1965, forever ours, treasured and lost.

That school afternoon . . .

   
   
All the time he was jerking out these phrases he was stumping up and down the tavern on his crutch, slapping tables with his hand, and giving such a show of excitement as would have convinced an Old Bailey judge or a Bow Street runner. My suspicions had been thoroughly reawakened on finding Black Dog at the ‘Spy-glass’, and I watched the cook narrowly. But he was too deep, and too ready, and too clever for me, and by the time the two men had come back out of breath and confessed that they had lost the track in a crowd, and been scolded like thieves, I would have gone bail for the innocence of Long John Silver.




And so it happened that, after reading that last paragraph, we all knew the fine boy was in deep trouble . . .

Treasure Island; by Robert Louis Stevenson

   
   

SQUIRE TRELAWNEY, Dr Livesey, and the rest of these gentlemen having asked me to write down the whole particulars about Treasure Island, from the beginning to the end, keeping nothing back but the bearings of the island, and that only because there is still treasure not yet lifted, I take up my pen in the year of grace 17— and go back to the time when my father kept the Admiral Benbow inn and the brown old seaman with the sabre cut first took up his lodging under our roof.

And so — this is how it begins, my friend — and never ends.

Robert Louis Stevenson : Treasure Island

Una lectura que comienza

 

Juego de niños

Dijo Stevenson que el arte es un juego, pero debemos jugar seriamente, como juegan los niños. Está bien eso, ¿no? Un niño juega con seriedad. Yo trato de jugar seriamente, de escribir con... probidad; sé que es un juego y trato de no escribir nada que no pueda imaginarme.



>>>

J. L. Borges
Reportaje de 1983
publicado en "La Nación" el 02.09.89

<<<

Salarios

Y el artista, incluso si no divierte al público, se divierte a sí mismo; al menos ese hombre será más feliz gracias a sus horas de vigilia. Éste es el aspecto práctico del arte: una fortaleza inexpugnable para el practicante sincero. Los beneficios directos —el salario del oficio— son reducidos, pero los beneficios indirectos —el salario de la vida— son incalculables. No existe otro negocio que ofrezca al hombre su pan de cada día en términos tan convenientes.



>>>

Robert Louis Stevenson
Ensayos literarios
Hiperión - Madrid - 1983

Traducción : Beatriz Canals & Juan Ignacio de Laiglesia

<<<