Horacio Quiroga A la deriva --
[Adrift] Edición bilingüe, español- inglés, de Miguel Garci-Gomez Dept. Romance Studies of Duke University --
El hombre pisó algo blancuzco, y en seguida sintió la mordedura en el pie. Saltó adelante, y al volverse con un juramento vio una yaracacusú que, arrollada sobre sí misma, esperaba otro ataque.
The man stepped on something faintly soft and white, and immediately he felt the bite on his foot. He jumped forward cursing and turned around to see the yaracacusú coiled around itself, ready for another attack.
El hombre echó una veloz ojeada a su pie, donde dos gotitas de sangre engrosaban dificultosamente, y sacó el machete de la cintura. La víbora vio la amenaza, y hundió más la cabeza en el centro mismo de su espiral; pero el machete cayó de lomo, dislocándole las vértebras.
The man cast a quick glance at his foot, where two droplets of blood were swelling arduously, and drew his machete from his belt. The viper saw the threat and hid his head in the middle of his coiled spiral but the machete fell with the dull spine of the blade, separating the snake’s vertebrae.
El hombre se bajó hasta la mordedura, quitó las gotitas de sangre, y durante un instante contempló. Un dolor agudo nacía de los dos puntitos violetas, y comenzaba a invadir todo el pie. Apresuradamente se ligó el tobillo con su pañuelo y siguió por la picada hacia su rancho.
The man knelt down to examine the bite, rubbed off the drops of blood and thought for a moment. A dull pain spread from the two violet punctures and began to invade his whole foot. Hurriedly, he tied his bandana around his ankle and hobbled along the trail towards his ranch.
El dolor en el pie aumentaba, con sensación de tirante abultamiento, y de pronto el hombre sintió dos o tres fulgurantes puntadas que, como relámpagos, habían irradiado desde la herida hasta la mitad de la pantorrilla. Movía la pierna con dificultad; una metálica sequedad de garganta, seguida de sed quemante, le arrancó un nuevo juramento.
The pain in his foot spread with a sensation of flesh bulging out from his taunt skin, and suddenly—like thunder—pain irradiated out from the wound to the middle of his calf. He had difficulty moving his foot; a metallic dryness seized his throat, followed by a burning thirst, he let out another curse.
Llegó por fin al rancho y se echó de brazos sobre la rueda de un trapiche. Los dos puntitos violeta desaparecían ahora en la monstruosa hinchazón del pie entero. La piel parecía adelgazada y a punto de ceder, de tensa. Quiso llamar a su mujer, y la voz se quebró en un ronco arrastre de garganta reseca. La sed lo devoraba.
He finally arrived at his ranch and threw himself atop the wheel of his trepiche. The two violet dots now vanished in the monstrous swelling of his entire foot. His skin appeared to grow thin and tense to the point of bursting. He wanted to call to his woman but his voice broke in a coarse cry and was pulled back into his dry throat. The thirst devoured his voice
-¡Dorotea! -alcanzó a lanzar en un estertor-. ¡Dame caña1!
“Dorotea!” He managed to throw out in a powerful cry. “Give me brandy!”
Su mujer corrió con un vaso lleno, que el hombre sorbió en tres tragos. Pero no había sentido gusto alguno.
She ran over with a full glass that the man slurped up in three gulps. But he tasted nothing.
-¡Te pedí caña, no agua! -rugió de nuevo-. ¡Dame caña!
“I asked for brandy, not water.” He bellowed again. “Give me brandy.”
-¡Pero es caña, Paulino! -protestó la mujer, espantada.
“But that is brandy, Paulino.” She protested, frightened.
-¡No, me diste agua! ¡Quiero caña, te digo!
“No, you gave me water! I want brandy!”
La mujer corrió otra vez, volviendo con la damajuana. El hombre tragó uno tras otro dos vasos, pero no sintió nada en la garganta.
The woman ran back, returning with the demijohn bottle. The man drank glass after glass but felt nothing in his throat.
-Bueno; esto se pone feo -murmuró entonces, mirando su pie lívido y ya con lustre gangrenoso. Sobre la honda ligadura del pañuelo, la carne desbordaba como una monstruosa morcilla.
“Well, this is bad.” He murmured to himself looking at his foot, already bruised in a gangrenous luster. Over the bandana-knotted limb, flesh flowed like a monstrous blood sausage.
Los dolores fulgurantes se sucedían en continuos relampagueos y llegaban ahora a la ingle. La atroz sequedad de garganta que el aliento parecía caldear más, aumentaba a la par. Cuando pretendió incorporarse, un fulminante vómito lo mantuvo medio minuto con la frente apoyada en la rueda de palo.
The blinding pain continued expanding in flashes of pain that reached his groin. The atrocious thirst in his throat seemed to grow warm as he breathed. When he attempted to sit up, he was seized by a fulminant urge to vomit; for half a minute he vomited with his head rested against the wooden wheel.
Pero el hombre no quería morir, y descendiendo hasta la costa subió a su canoa. Sentose en la popa y comenzó a palear hasta el centro del Paraná. Allí la corriente del río, que en las inmediaciones del Iguazú corre seis millas, lo llevaría antes de cinco horas a Tacurú-Pucú.
But the man did not want to die, and made his way down to the coast where he climbed into his canoe. He sat in the stern and began to paddle towards the center of the Paraná. There, the current of the river, which runs six miles an hour in the vicinity of the Iguazu, would take him to Tacurú-Pucú in less than five hours.
El hombre, con sombría energía, pudo efectivamente llegar hasta el medio del río; pero allí sus manos dormidas dejaron caer la pala en la canoa, y tras un nuevo vómito -de sangre esta vez- dirigió una mirada al sol que ya trasponía el monte.
The man, with somber energy, managed to arrive exactly in the middle of the river; but once there his sleeping hands dropped the paddle back into the canoe, and after vomiting again—with blood this time—he crooked his head to look at the sun that had already began to set behind the high hills.
La pierna entera, hasta medio muslo, era ya un bloque deforme y durísimo que reventaba la ropa. El hombre cortó la ligadura y abrió el pantalón con su cuchillo: el bajo vientre desbordó hinchado, con grandes manchas lívidas y terriblemente doloroso. El hombre pensó que no podría jamás llegar él solo a Tacurú-Pucú, y se decidió a pedir ayuda a su compadre Alves, aunque hacía mucho tiempo que estaban disgustados.
His whole leg, until the middle of his thigh, had already become a deformed and hard block bursting the stitching of his pants. The man cut the bandage and opened his pants with his knife; the underside of his leg overflowed in large swollen lurid blotches that throbbed in pain. The man thought that he could no longer reach Tacurú-Pucú by himself, and decided to ask for help from his friend Alves, even though it had been a long while since they could be called friends.
La corriente del río se precipitaba ahora hacia la costa brasileña, y el hombre pudo fácilmente atracar. Se arrastró por la picada en cuesta arriba, pero a los veinte metros, exhausto, quedó tendido de pecho.
The current of the river now rushed over to the Brazilian coast, and the man easily docked his canoe. He dragged himself up the trail that ran up the slope; but after twenty meters, exhausted, he stayed there flat on his stomach.
-¡Alves! -gritó con cuanta fuerza pudo; y prestó oído en vano.
“Alves!” He yelled with as much force as he could, and he listened in vain.
-¡Compadre Alves! ¡No me niegue este favor! -clamó de nuevo, alzando la cabeza del suelo. En el silencio de la selva no se oyó un solo rumor. El hombre tuvo aún valor para llegar hasta su canoa, y la corriente, cogiéndola de nuevo, la llevó velozmente a la deriva.
“Compadre Alves! Don’t deny me this favor.” He exclaimed again, lifting his head from the ground. In the silence of the jungle not even a whisper was heard. The man found the courage and strength to climb back into his canoe, and the current, scooping him up again, took him rapidly adrift.
El Paraná corre allí en el fondo de una inmensa hoya, cuyas paredes, altas de cien metros, encajonan fúnebremente el río. Desde las orillas bordeadas de negros bloques de basalto, asciende el bosque, negro también. Adelante, a los costados, detrás, la eterna muralla lúgubre, en cuyo fondo el río arremolinado se precipita en incesantes borbollones de agua fangosa. El paisaje es agresivo, y reina en él un silencio de muerte. Al atardecer, sin embargo, su belleza sombría y calma cobra una majestad única.
The Paraná ran down into the depths of an immense canyon whose walls, more than a hundred meters high, mournfully boxed in the river. From the river banks, lined with black spires of basalt, rose the forest, black as well. In front of him, behind the banks of the river, the eternal melancholy wall of the forest went on forever; in those depths the swirling river rushed in violent, incessant waves of muddy water. The landscape is unforgiving, yet in him reigned the silence of death. As dusk approached, without fail, the calm and somber beauty of the forest formed a unique majesty.
El sol había caído ya cuando el hombre, semitendido en el fondo de la canoa, tuvo un violento escalofrío. Y de pronto, con asombro, enderezó pesadamente la cabeza: se sentía mejor. La pierna le dolía apenas, la sed disminuía, y su pecho, libre ya, se abría en lenta inspiración.
The sun had already gone down when the man, laying half conscious in the back of his canoe, came down with a violent chill. Suddenly, and with astonishment, he slowly raised his heavy head—he felt better. His leg barely hurt, his thirst diminished, and his chest, feeling freed, opened in a slow breath.
El veneno comenzaba a irse, no había duda. Se hallaba casi bien, y aunque no tenía fuerzas para mover la mano, contaba con la caída del rocío para reponerse del todo. Calculó que antes de tres horas estaría en Tacurú-Pucú.
The venom began to leave him; he had no doubt. He felt fairly well and even though he did not have the energy to move his hand, he counted on the dewfall to recuperate him completely. He calculated that in less than three hours he would be in Tacurú-Pucú.
El bienestar avanzaba, y con él una somnolencia llena de recuerdos. No sentía ya nada ni en la pierna ni en el vientre. ¿Viviría aún su compadre Gaona en Tacurú-Pucú? Acaso viera también a su ex patrón mister Dougald, y al recibidor del obraje.
His condition improved, and with it came a somnolence full of memories. He felt nothing in his thigh nor in his belly. Does his compadre Goana still live in Tacurú-Pucú? Perhaps he might also see his ex-employer, and the buyer of all the men’s production, Mr. Dougald.
¿Llegaría pronto? El cielo, al poniente, se abría ahora en pantalla de oro, y el río se había coloreado también. Desde la costa paraguaya, ya entenebrecida, el monte dejaba caer sobre el río su frescura crepuscular, en penetrantes efluvios de azahar y miel silvestre. Una pareja de guacamayos cruzó muy alto y en silencio hacia el Paraguay.
Would he arrive soon? The western sky opened into a golden screen, and the river took on the same color. Onto the darkened Paraguayan coast, the mountain dropped over the river a faint freshness in penetrating aura of orange blossoms and wild honey. A pair of guacamayos flew high over head, gliding silently towards Paraguay.
Allá abajo, sobre el río de oro, la canoa derivaba velozmente, girando a ratos sobre sí misma ante el borbollón de un remolino. El hombre que iba en ella se sentía cada vez mejor, y pensaba entretanto en el tiempo justo que había pasado sin ver a su ex patrón Dougald. ¿Tres años? Tal vez no, no tanto. ¿Dos años y nueve meses? Acaso. ¿Ocho meses y medio? Eso sí, seguramente.
Down there, on the golden river, the canoe drifted rapidly, twisting itself around at times caught in the bubbling swirling water. The man that went with the river felt better with each passing moment and thought in the meanwhile about how long it had been since he last saw his old partner Dougald. Three years? No, not that long. Two years and nine months? Close. Eight and a half months? That was it, surely.
De pronto sintió que estaba helado hasta el pecho.
Suddenly the man felt frozen up to his chest. What could it be?
¿Qué sería? Y la respiración…
And his breathing as well…
Al recibidor de maderas de mister Dougald, Lorenzo Cubilla, lo había conocido en Puerto Esperanza un viernes santo… ¿Viernes? Sí, o jueves…
He had met the man who bought Dougald’s lumber, Lorenzo Cubilla, on a holy Friday. Was it a Friday? Yes. Or maybe a Thursday.