Donde leemos sobre Esther Summerson y cómo fue
criada por su madrina. ¿Vocabulario? Frock. Al final un video muy interesante del
comienzo de la obra. Del clásico de Charles Dickens, Bleak House.
… I have a great
deal of difficulty in beginning to write my portion of these pages, for I know
I am not clever. I always knew that. I can remember, when I was a very little
girl indeed, I used to say to my doll when we were alone together, "Now,
Dolly, I am not clever, you know very well, and you must be patient with me,
like a dear!" And so she used to sit propped
up in a great arm-chair, with her beautiful complexion and rosy lips,
staring at me—or not so much at me, I think, as at nothing—while I busily stitched
away and told her every one of my secrets.
My dear old
doll! I was such a shy little thing that I seldom dared to open my lips, and
never dared to open my heart, to anybody else. It almost makes me cry to think
what a relief it used to be to me when I came home from school of a day to run
upstairs to my room and say, "Oh, you dear faithful Dolly, I knew you
would be expecting me!" and then to sit down on the floor, leaning on the
elbow of her great chair, and tell her all I had noticed since we parted. I had
always rather a noticing way—not a quick way, oh, no!—a silent way of noticing
what passed before me and thinking I should like to understand it better. I
have not by any means a quick understanding. When I love a person very tenderly
indeed, it seems to brighten. But even that may be my vanity.
I was brought
up, from my earliest remembrance—like some of the princesses in the fairy
stories, only I was not charming—by my godmother. At least, I only knew her as
such. She was a good, good woman! She went to church three times every Sunday,
and to morning prayers on Wednesdays and Fridays, and to lectures whenever
there were lectures; and never missed. She was handsome; and if she had ever
smiled, would have been (I used to think) like an angel—but she never smiled.
She was always grave and strict. She was so very good herself, I thought, that
the badness of other people made her frown all her life. I felt so different
from her, even making every allowance for the differences between a child and a
woman; I felt so poor, so trifling, and so far off that I never could be
unrestrained with her—no, could never even love her as I wished... This made
me, I dare say, more timid and retiring than I naturally was and cast me upon
Dolly as the only friend with whom I felt at ease. But something happened when
I was still quite a little thing that helped it very much.
I had never
heard my mama spoken of. I had never heard of my papa either, but I felt more
interested about my mama. I had never worn a black frock, that I could recollect. I had never been shown my mama's
grave. I had never been told where it was. Yet I had never been taught to pray
for any relation but my godmother. I had more than once approached this subject
of my thoughts with Mrs. Rachael, our only servant, who took my light away when
I was in bed (another very good woman, but austere to me), and she had only
said, "Esther, good night!" and gone away and left me.
Although there
were seven girls at the neighbouring school where I was a day boarder, and
although they called me little Esther Summerson, I knew none of them at home.
All of them were older than I, to be sure (I was the youngest there by a good
deal), but there seemed to be some other separation between us besides that, and
besides their being far more clever than I was and knowing much more than I
did. One of them in the first week of my going to the school (I remember it
very well) invited me home to a little party, to my great joy. But my godmother
wrote a stiff letter declining for me, and I never went. I never went out at
all.
It was my
birthday. There were holidays at school on other birthdays—none on mine. There
were rejoicings at home on other birthdays, as I knew from what I heard the
girls relate to one another—there were none on mine. My birthday was the most
melancholy day at home in the whole year.
I have mentioned
that unless my vanity should deceive me (as I know it may, for I may be very
vain without suspecting it, though indeed I don't), my comprehension is
quickened when my affection is. My disposition is very affectionate, and
perhaps I might still feel such a wound if such a wound could be received more
than once with the quickness of that birthday.
Dinner was over,
and my godmother and I were sitting at the table before the fire. The clock
ticked, the fire clicked; not another sound had been heard in the room or in
the house for I don't know how long. I happened to look timidly up from my
stitching, across the table at my godmother, and I saw in her face, looking
gloomily at me, "It would have been far better, little Esther, that you
had had no birthday, that you had never been born!"… (Paragraphs from Bleak House, by Charles Dickens)
Vocabulario
Prop up: support by placing against something solid.
Frock: old-fashioned way to say “dress”. Typically, girls and women wear
frocks, especially to formal events like weddings. The word frock isn´t as
common today as it was in the past.
Bleak House
La novela ayudó a ganar apoyo para reformar el
sistema judicial británico. Bleak House
se cuenta desde el punto de vista de la
tercera persona del narrador omnisciente y del narrador en primera persona (Esther).
El narrador omnisciente habla en el presente y es desapasionado. Esther cuenta
su propia historia en el pasado y es caracterizada por su modestia.
Artículos
relacionados
Recursos
Bleak House, Reading introduction.
Mandános
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