viernes, 23 de junio de 2017

My Lady Nicotine

El autor ha dejado de fumar y encuentra el vicio asqueroso, habla de las malolientes cortinas, del humo que sus amigos le tiran provocándolo. Había tenido que elegir entre su prometida y el tabaco.

Un relato humorístico del autor de J. M. Barrie, My Lady Nicotine.

Al final tobacco tins y en vocabulario buscamos debar.

Más abajo niñas trabajadoras en la American Tobacco Company.

 

The very smell of tobacco is abominable, for one cannot get it out of the curtains, and there is little pleasure in…

 

Cigarette brands, including Craven "A", advertised in Shaftesbury Avenue, London in 1949
Propagandas de cigarrillos en Londres, 1949

Paragraphs

My present state is so happy that I can only look back with wonder at my hesitation to enter upon it. Our house was taken while I was still arguing that it would be dangerous to break myself of smoking all at once.

At that time my ideal of married life was not what it is now, and I remember Jimmy's persuading me to fix on this house, because the large room upstairs with the three windows was a smoker's dream.

He pictured himself and me there in the summer-time blowing rings, with our coats off and our feet out at the windows; and he said that the closet at the back looking on to a blank wall would make a charming drawing-room for my wife.

For the moment his enthusiasm carried me away, but I see now how selfish it was, and I have before me the face of Jimmy when he paid us his first visit and found that the closet was not the drawing-room.

Jimmy is a fair specimen of a man, not without parts, destroyed by devotion to his pipe. To this day he thinks that mantelpiece vases are meant for holding pipe-lights in. We are almost certain that when he stays with us he smokes in his bedroom—a detestable practice that I cannot permit…

Judging by myself, I should say that it was want of thought rather than selfishness that makes heavy smokers of so many bachelors. Once a man marries, his eyes are opened to many things that he was quite unaware of previously, among them being the delight of adding an article of furniture to the drawing-room every month, and having a bedroom in pink and gold, the door of which is always kept locked.

If men would only consider that every cigar they smoke would buy part of a new piano-stool in terra-cotta plush, and that for every pound tin of tobacco purchased away goes a vase for growing dead geraniums in, they would surely hesitate. They do not consider, however, until they marry, and then they are forced to it. For my own part, I fail to see why bachelors should be allowed to smoke as much as they like, when we are debarred from it…

The very smell of tobacco is abominable, for one cannot get it out of the curtains, and there is little pleasure in existence unless the curtains are all right. As for a cigar after dinner, it only makes you dull and sleepy and disinclined for ladies' society… (My Lady Nicotine, A Study in Smoke. J. M. Barrie. Chapter 1)

Child laborers at American Tobacco Company in Wilmington, Delaware, 1910, photo by Lewis Hine
Niñas explotadas por una compañía de cigarros

Para saber

Tobacco tins were used to keep tobacco fresh and extend its shelf life. Once opened, tobacco soon dried out so boxy or cylindrical tins about 6 to 8 inches inches tall were used to store bulk tobacco while smaller pocket tins were good for taking tobacco on-the-go. As the shapes and sizes of tobacco tins were fairly uniform with a few exceptions, companies were adept at making their tins stand out on shelves with colorful decoration and imagery. Most were designed to appeal to male consumers so “masculine” imagery, including sports, the navy and gentlemanly leisure pursuits were frequently used on tobacco tins.

Vocabulario

Debar: to exclude from a place, a right, etc.

Libellous editors could be permanently debarred from awards.

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Fuentes

Cigarette, Wikipedia

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