The
Woman in White es una novela de Wilkie Collins, publicada en 1859. Es
considerada entre las primeras novelas de
misterio y la mejor en el género de “sensation
novels” (ficción que se centra en historias alrededor de biografías de criminales).
Encontramos sinónimos para reemplazar weary, roused, impelled, impromptu; para hacerlo más
fácil.
En vocabulario buscamos gaiters.
Without being actually a dwarf—for he was perfectly well
proportioned from head to foot—Pesca was, I think, the smallest human being I
ever saw out of a show-room. Remarkable anywhere, by his personal appearance,
he…
Paragraphs
… It was the last day of July. The long hot summer
was drawing to a close; and we, the tired
pilgrims of the London pavement, were beginning to think of the cloud-shadows
on the corn-fields, and the autumn breezes on the sea-shore.
For my own poor part, the fading summer left me out
of health, out of spirits, and, if the truth must be told, out of money as
well. During the past year I had not managed my professional resources as
carefully as usual; and my extravagance now limited me to the prospect of
spending the autumn economically between my mother's cottage at Hampstead and
my own chambers in town.Wilkie Collins
The evening, I remember, was still and cloudy; the
London air was at its heaviest; the distant hum of the street-traffic was at
its faintest; the small pulse of the life within me, and the great heart of the
city around me, seemed to be sinking in unison, languidly and more languidly, with
the sinking sun. I moved
myself from the book which I was dreaming over rather than reading, and left my
chambers to meet the cool night air in the suburbs. It was one of the two
evenings in every week which I was accustomed to spend with my mother and my
sister. So I turned my steps northward in the direction of Hampstead.
Events which I have yet to relate make it necessary
to mention in this place that my father had been dead some years at the period
of which I am now writing; and that my sister Sarah and I were the sole
survivors of a family of five children. My father was a drawing-master before
me. His exertions had made him highly successful in his profession; and his
affectionate anxiety to provide for the future of those who were dependent on
his labours had driven him,
from the time of his marriage, to devote to the insuring of his life a much
larger portion of his income than most men consider it necessary to set aside
for that purpose. Thanks to his admirable prudence and self-denial my mother and
sister were left, after his death, as independent of the world as they had been
during his lifetime. I succeeded to his connection, and had every reason to
feel grateful for the prospect that awaited me at my starting in life.
The quiet twilight was still trembling on the
topmost ridges of the heath; and the view of London below me had sunk into a
black gulf in the shadow of the cloudy night, when I stood before the gate of
my mother's cottage. I had hardly rung the bell before the house door was
opened violently; my worthy Italian friend, Professor Pesca, appeared in the
servant's place; and darted out joyously to receive me, with a shrill foreign
parody on an English cheer.
On his own account, and, I must be allowed to add,
on mine also, the Professor merits the honour of a formal introduction.
Accident has made him the starting-point of the strange family story which it
is the purpose of these pages to unfold.
I had first become acquainted with my Italian friend
by meeting him at certain great houses where he taught his own language and I
taught drawing. All I then knew of the history of his life was, that he had
once held a situation in the University of Padua; that he had left Italy for
political reasons (the nature of which he uniformly declined to mention to any
one); and that he had been for many years respectably established in London as
a teacher of languages.
Without being actually a dwarf—for he was perfectly
well proportioned from head to foot—Pesca was, I think, the smallest human
being I ever saw out of a show-room. Remarkable anywhere, by his personal
appearance, he was still further distinguished among the rank and file of
mankind by the harmless eccentricity of his character. The ruling idea of his
life appeared to be, that he was bound to show his gratitude to the country
which had afforded him an asylum and a means of subsistence by doing his utmost
to turn himself into an Englishman. Not content with paying the nation in
general the compliment of invariably carrying an umbrella, and invariably
wearing gaiters and
a white hat, the Professor further aspired to become an Englishman in his
habits and amusements, as well as in his personal appearance. Finding us
distinguished, as a nation, by our love of athletic exercises, the little man,
in the innocence of his heart, devoted himself unprepared to all our English sports and pastimes whenever
he had the opportunity of joining them; firmly persuaded that he could adopt
our national amusements of the field by an effort of will precisely as he had adopted
our national gaiters and our national white hat.Gaiters
I had seen him risk his limbs blindly at a fox-hunt
and in a cricket-field; and soon afterwards I saw him risk his life, just as
blindly, in the sea at Brighton... (Paragraphs from The Woman in White in easier
English)
Palabras reemplazadas
Weary
Roused
Impelled
Impromptu
Vocabulario
Gaiters:
garments worn over the shoe and lower pants leg, and used primarily as personal
protective equipment. Originally, gaiters were made of leather.
Gaiters:
polainas
El autor
William
Wilkie Collins (1824 –1889) fue un escritor inglés.
Sus mejores trabajos son The Woman in
White (1859), No Name (1862), Armadale (1866), y The Moonstone (1868).
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