The Show

Los jóvenes fueron forzados a dar un show a los blancos de alcurnia. Vieron a una mujer desnuda y el protagonista se dio cuenta que ella estaba avergonzada. Párrafos de Invisible Man, de Ralph Ellison.

En vocabulario encontamos clumsy y cottonmouth.

 

As the dancer flung herself about with a detached expression on her face, the men began reaching out to touch her. I…

 

Párrafos

... And then she began to dance, a slow sensuous movement; the smoke of a hundred cigars clinging to her like the thinnest of veils. She seemed like a fair bird-girl girdled in veils calling to me from the angry surface of some gray and threatening sea. I was transported. Then I became aware of the clarinet playing and the big shots yelling at us. Some threatened us if we looked and others if we did not. On my right I saw one boy faint. And now a man grabbed a silver jug from a table and stepped close as he dashed ice water upon him and stood him up and forced two of us to support him as his head hung and moans issued from his thick bluish lips. Another boy began to plead to go home. He was the largest of the group, wearing dark red fighting trunks much too small to conceal the erection which projected from him as though in answer to the insinuating low-registered moaning of the clarinet. He tried to hide himself with his boxing gloves.

And all the while the blonde continued dancing, smiling faintly at the big shots who watched her with fascination, and faintly smiling at our fear. I noticed a certain merchant who followed her hungrily, his lips loose and opened. He was a large man who wore diamond jewelry in a shirtfront which swelled with the ample belly underneath, and each time the blonde swayed her undulating hips he ran his hand through the thin hair of his bald head and, with his arms upheld, his posture clumsy like that of an intoxicated panda, wound his belly in a slow and obscene grind. This creature was completely hypnotized. The music had quickened. As the dancer flung herself about with a detached expression on her face, the men began reaching out to touch her. I could see their beefy fingers sink into the soft flesh. Some of the others tried to stop them and she began to move around the floor in graceful circles, as they gave chase, slipping and sliding over the polished floor. It was mad. Chairs went crashing, drinks were spilt, as they ran laughing and crying after her. They caught her just as she reached a door, raised her from the floor, and moved her as college boys are moved at an initiation, and above her red, fixed-smiling lips I saw the terror and disgust in her eyes, almost like my own terror and that which I saw in some of the other boys. As I watched, they moved her twice and her soft breasts seemed to flatten against the air and her legs moved wildly as she rotated. Some of the more sober ones helped her to escape. And I started off the floor, heading for the anteroom with the rest of the boys.

Some were still crying and in hysteria. But as we tried to leave we were stopped and ordered to get into the ring. There was nothing to do but what we were told. All ten of us climbed under the ropes and allowed ourselves to be blindfolded with broad bands of white cloth. One of the men seemed to feel a bit sympathetic and tried to cheer us up as we stood with our backs against the ropes. Some of us tried to smile. "See that boy over there?" one of the men said. "I want you to run across at the bell and give it to him right in the belly. If you don't get him, I'm going to get you. I don't like his looks." Each of us was told the same. The blindfolds were put on. Yet even then I had been going over my speech. In my mind each word was as bright as flame. I felt the cloth pressed into place, and frowned so that it would be loosened when I relaxed.

But now I felt a sudden fit of blind terror. I was unused to darkness.It was as though I had suddenly found myself in a dark room filled with poisonous cottonmouths. I could hear the uncleared voices yelling insistently for the battle royal to begin… (Excerpts from Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison, in easier English)

Primera edición de Invisible Man, 1952

Vocabulario

Clumsy: awkward in movement or in handling things.

"the cold made his fingers clumsy"

Cottonmouths: a large, dangerous semiaquatic pit viper that inhabits lowland swamps and waterways of the south-eastern US. When threatening it opens its mouth wide to display the white interior.

El Autor

Ralph Waldo Ellison (1914 – 1994) fue novelista, crítico literario e investigador. Nacido en Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Ellison es más conocido por su novela Invisible Man, que le ganó el National Book Award en 1.953.

Resources from the Web

Saul Bellow on Invisible Man (el famoso autor opina sobre Invisible Man)

Artículos relacionados

Tropecé como un bebé o un borracho. El humo se había vuelto más grueso y con cada nuevo golpe me parecía que los pulmones tenían más dificultad en hacer su… La pelea

… los adultos nunca entienden nada por sí mismos, y es muy cansador para los niños estar siempre explicándoles las cosas… El Principito

La crisis golpeaba con fuerza a los trabajadores.  Forges, Sonnevile, Hoton, Dutilleul, reducían el personal, bajaban los sueldos o despedían gente… Sin trabajo