Hands

La pequeña historia de Wing Biddlebaum acerca de su llegada al pueblo. Del clásico Winesburg, Ohio, de Sherwood Anderson…

Wing Biddlebaum tenía otro nombre anteriormente y otra profesión. Hablaba con sus alumnos, se sentaba en las escaleras y acariciaba sus hombros y despeinaba sus cabezas. Hasta que un día uno de esos jóvenes se enamoró de él y lo que sintió fue tan fuerte que pareció real…

En vocabulario buscamos beset, rickety, tousled…

 

Y entonces llegó la tragedia. Un joven, medio tonto de la escuela, se enamoró del maestro. En su cama en la noche imaginaba cosas inenarrables y en la mañana contaba sus sueños como verdades. Espantosas acusaciones salieron de sus labios. Una especie de temblor atravesó el pequeño pueblo de Pennsylvania…

 

... Upon the half decayed veranda of a small frame house that stood near the edge of a ravine near the town of Winesburg, Ohio, a fat little old man walked nervously up and down…

Wing Biddlebaum, forever frightened and beset by a ghostly band of doubts, did not think of himself as in any way a part of the life of the town where he had lived for twenty years. Among all the people of Winesburg but one had come close to him. With George Willard, son of Tom Willard, the proprietor of the New Willard House, he had formed something like a friendship…

In the presence of George Willard, Wing Biddlebaum, who for twenty years had been the town mystery, lost something of his timidity, and his shadowy personality, submerged in a sea of doubts, came forth to look at the world. With the young reporter at his side, he ventured in the light of day into Main Street or strode up and down on the rickety front porch of his own house, talking excitedly…

Wing Biddlebaum talked much with his hands. The slender expressive fingers, forever active, forever striving to conceal themselves in his pockets or behind his back, came forth and became the piston rods of his machinery of expression.

The story of Wing Biddlebaum is a story of hands…

In his youth Wing Biddlebaum had been a school teacher in a town in Pennsylvania. He was not then known as Wing Biddlebaum, but went by the less euphonic name of Adolph Myers. As Adolph Myers he was much loved by the boys of his school.

Adolph Myers was meant by nature to be a teacher of youth. He was one of those rare, little-understood men who rule by a power so gentle that it passes as a lovable weakness. In their feeling for the boys under their charge such men are not unlike the finer sort of women in their love of men.

And yet that is but crudely stated. It needs the poet there. With the boys of his school, Adolph Myers had walked in the evening or had sat talking until dusk upon the schoolhouse steps lost in a kind of dream. Here and there went his hands, caressing the shoulders of the boys, playing about the tousled heads. As he talked his voice became soft and musical. There was a caress in that also. In a way the voice and the hands, the stroking of the shoulders and the touching of the hair were a part of the schoolmaster's effort to carry a dream into the young minds. By the caress that was in his fingers he expressed himself. He was one of those men in whom the force that creates life is diffused, not centralized. Under the caress of his hands doubt and disbelief went out of the minds of the boys and they began also to dream.

And then the tragedy. A half-witted boy of the school became enamored of the young master. In his bed at night he imagined unspeakable things and in the morning went forth to tell his dreams as facts. Strange, hideous accusations fell from his loosehung lips. Through the Pennsylvania town went a shiver. Hidden, shadowy doubts that had been in men's minds concerning Adolph Myers were galvanized into beliefs.

The tragedy did not linger. Trembling lads were jerked out of bed and questioned. "He put his arms about me," said one. "His fingers were always playing in my hair," said another.

One afternoon a man of the town, Henry Bradford, who kept a saloon, came to the schoolhouse door. Calling Adolph Myers into the school yard he began to beat him with his fists. As his hard knuckles beat down into the frightened face of the school-master, his wrath became more and more terrible. Screaming with dismay, the children ran here and there like disturbed insects. "I'll teach you to put your hands on my boy, you beast," roared the saloon keeper, who, tired of beating the master, had begun to kick him about the yard… (From Winesburg, Ohio, by Sherwood Anderson)

 

Vocabulario

Beset: trouble.

Inflation besets the economy.

Rickety: in poor condition.

Just below them, hugging the shore, rose a village of thatched huts, with a small, rickety pier.

Tousled: untidy, confuse, disorder

 

Sintesis

Wing Biddlebaum hablaba mucho con sus manos. Los delgados y expresivos dedos, siempre activos, siempre luchando por esconderse en sus bolsillos o detrás, a sus espaldas, se adelantaban y se convertían en pistones de una maquinaria expresiva.

Fue creado por la naturaleza para ser maestro de los jóvenes. Era uno de esos raros personajes, poco entendidos, que gobernaban por un poder tan gentil que pasaba como una debilidad amorosa.

Se sentaba con sus alumnos y acariciaba los hombros de los chicos y jugaba con las prolijas cabezas. Mientras hablaba su voz se hacía suave y musical. De una forma, la voz y las manos, el acariciar los hombros y el tocar sus cabellos, eran parte de su esfuerzo de llevar sueños a las mentes de los jóvenes.

Y entonces llegó la tragedia. Un joven, medio tonto de la escuela, se enamoró del maestro. En su cama en la noche imaginaba cosas inenarrables y en la mañana contaba sus sueños como verdades. Espantosas acusaciones salieron de sus labios. Una especie de temblor atravesó el pequeño pueblo de Pennsylvania.

Temblorosos jóvenes fueron sacados de sus camas y cuestionados. “Me abrazó”, dijo uno. “Sus dedos siempre estaban jugando con mi pelo”, dijo otro.

Una tarde un hombre llegó al pueblo. Era Henry Bradford, que tenía un bar.  Llamó a Adolph Myers y empezó a golpearlo con sus puños. Mientras más lo golpeaba más aumentaba su rabia.

 

Anderson in 1933

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