PeruvianStories
"A good book is not one that thinks for you, but
one that makes you think." James McCosh
Braulio friend
Manuel Gonzales Prada
At that time I was an intern from San Carlos almost eighteen
years and had composed a few hundred verses, without it had occurred to me to
publish any or confess to anyone my poetic hobbies. I enjoyed a kind of
voluptuousness in believing me a great unpublished poet.
Suddenly, the
desire to see some of my verses in print was born in me.
At that time an illustrated weekly magazine was published in Lima in Lima, which enjoyed great popularity and was read and commented on Mondays among the school's fans: it was called
At that time an illustrated weekly magazine was published in Lima in Lima, which enjoyed great popularity and was read and commented on Mondays among the school's fans: it was called
The
Lima Illustrate. After reading
my collection of poems twenty times, comparing its merit and rejecting today as
bad as what I had thought yesterday was very good, I concluded by choosing one,
copying it on fine paper and with the best of my letters.
Trembling like an inmate going to the scaffold, I went
one Sunday morning to the printing press of The Lima Illustrate.
More than once I wanted to return; but a secret force prevented me.
With the hat in my hand and making a thousand bows, I entered a room full of odds and ends, galleys, boxes, types of printing.
_ Mr. Director? Asked wanting to show serenity, but trembling.
_I'm me, young man. The answer was given me by a colossus of frizzy hair, olive-colored, intelligent look and frank unburdened manners. In shirt sleeves, with a blue apron, covered in sweat and stained with ink, he took up the strapping and glued directions.
I have been commissioned to give you a verse composition. _ lets go to the desk.
There he puts his glasses on, takes the paper from my hands and without sitting or remembering offer to seat me, he starts reading with the greatest attention. It was the first time that profane eyes were fixed in my poetic lucubrations. Those who have not handled a pen cannot conceive what a man feels when he sees violated, so to speak, the virginity of his thought.
I continued I spied on the face of the director to guess the effect that my verses caused him: sometimes he seemed to be enthusiastic, sometimes he acridly censored me.
_And who is the author? He told me the reading was over. I started to stutter, to mean some supposed name, to mutter intelligible words, until I ended up mute and turn into a grenade color. What is your name young? _Roque Roca.
Well then: I will publish the composition in the next issue and I will put your name, because you are the author: I know that in the face. True? I could not deny it, much more when the good colossus gave me a pat on the shoulder; he invited me to sit down and talked to me as if we had been friends for many years. Upon leaving the printing press, I would have wished to own the millions of Rothschild have to raise a golden statue to the director of The Lima Illustrated.
More than once I wanted to return; but a secret force prevented me.
With the hat in my hand and making a thousand bows, I entered a room full of odds and ends, galleys, boxes, types of printing.
_ Mr. Director? Asked wanting to show serenity, but trembling.
_I'm me, young man. The answer was given me by a colossus of frizzy hair, olive-colored, intelligent look and frank unburdened manners. In shirt sleeves, with a blue apron, covered in sweat and stained with ink, he took up the strapping and glued directions.
I have been commissioned to give you a verse composition. _ lets go to the desk.
There he puts his glasses on, takes the paper from my hands and without sitting or remembering offer to seat me, he starts reading with the greatest attention. It was the first time that profane eyes were fixed in my poetic lucubrations. Those who have not handled a pen cannot conceive what a man feels when he sees violated, so to speak, the virginity of his thought.
I continued I spied on the face of the director to guess the effect that my verses caused him: sometimes he seemed to be enthusiastic, sometimes he acridly censored me.
_And who is the author? He told me the reading was over. I started to stutter, to mean some supposed name, to mutter intelligible words, until I ended up mute and turn into a grenade color. What is your name young? _Roque Roca.
Well then: I will publish the composition in the next issue and I will put your name, because you are the author: I know that in the face. True? I could not deny it, much more when the good colossus gave me a pat on the shoulder; he invited me to sit down and talked to me as if we had been friends for many years. Upon leaving the printing press, I would have wished to own the millions of Rothschild have to raise a golden statue to the director of The Lima Illustrated.
II
When the weekly came to light with my verses, it
produced in San Carlos the effect of a bomb! Poetam habemus! , shouted a boy
who remembered not being able to learn Latin.
In the dining
room, in the courtyards, in the bedroom, and even in the chapel, I heard some
tenacious and mocking little voice that was screaming or repeating a verse or a
verse, a hemistich, or an adjective of my composition. The indolence of a
fellow student of mine came to such an extent that when the professor of
literature asked for an example of paired verses, he indicated the following:
The poet Roque Roca
Take flowers through your mouth.
The poet Roque Roca
Take flowers through your mouth.
With saying that the same teacher laughed and gave me
a taunt, just understand the wonderful effect of the two couplets: half an hour
by heart he knew all the school and were written in black pencil on white walls
and white powder on the black boards. There were also variants such as:
The poet Roca
Put cabbages in the mouth;
The poet Roca
Put cabbages in the mouth;
The
poet Roque Roca
Put toads through the mouth.
An anonymous bard, not well versed in the placement of accents, wrote:
The poet Roque Roca
it is an immeasurable cork oak.
Exhausted patience, I resorted to the punching; but as the remedy worsened the evil, I ended up deciding that the sanest party was to ignore them and not to publish a single line.
I just found a friendly voice. There was a boy we called the metaphorical,
Because of his strange and allegorical way of expressing himself, the metaphorical man called me aside and told me with the best good faith: _ Look, do not listen to them and keep riding on the Pegasus (Big bus of tine) : the nightingale does not respond to the donkeys; poet-Aurora, despises men-kicks.
The words consoled me, although they came from a nut. What a voice does not sound sweet and pleasant when it hurts our misfortunes and sustains us in our hours of weakness.
Put toads through the mouth.
An anonymous bard, not well versed in the placement of accents, wrote:
The poet Roque Roca
it is an immeasurable cork oak.
Exhausted patience, I resorted to the punching; but as the remedy worsened the evil, I ended up deciding that the sanest party was to ignore them and not to publish a single line.
I just found a friendly voice. There was a boy we called the metaphorical,
Because of his strange and allegorical way of expressing himself, the metaphorical man called me aside and told me with the best good faith: _ Look, do not listen to them and keep riding on the Pegasus (Big bus of tine) : the nightingale does not respond to the donkeys; poet-Aurora, despises men-kicks.
The words consoled me, although they came from a nut. What a voice does not sound sweet and pleasant when it hurts our misfortunes and sustains us in our hours of weakness.
I had a friend
of my heart: Braulio Pérez. Together we had entered the school, school,
followed the same subjects and for five years we had studied in company.
On one occasion, a disease delayed him in his courses; I watched two or
three months so he would not lose the year. Who but he would be with me?
As no word had told me about my verses or came out in my defense, his behavior seemed strange to me and I spoke to him with the greatest frankness. _ what do you say about what happens?
Man _ answered me _ Why publish the verses without consulting with a friend?
_ _You know that I ... _ Right. I am even resentful of your reservation with me.
_I did it from pure shame. _If you ever publish anything again ...
_ to post? They used to cut me.
I kept my resolution for a month, and I would have maintained it for a thousand years, if the director of The Lima Illustrated would not have appeared at school to tell me that it was lacking in originals in verse and that it required my weekly collaboration. I wanted to excuse myself, but the man _convincing _ promised to send a verse composition every Wednesday.
I look to my friend Braulio, I told him what happened and I showed him my whole book of verses so he could choose the least bad ones; but we cannot agree; all my inspirations seemed lazy, vulgar, unworthy of seeing the public light in a weekly newspaper where the first literary figures of Lima collaborated. Impossible to get him out of the phrase: "They're all bad."
After hiding from my friend Braulio, I copied the verses that seemed best to me and sent them to the director of The Lima Illustrate.
As no word had told me about my verses or came out in my defense, his behavior seemed strange to me and I spoke to him with the greatest frankness. _ what do you say about what happens?
Man _ answered me _ Why publish the verses without consulting with a friend?
_ _You know that I ... _ Right. I am even resentful of your reservation with me.
_I did it from pure shame. _If you ever publish anything again ...
_ to post? They used to cut me.
I kept my resolution for a month, and I would have maintained it for a thousand years, if the director of The Lima Illustrated would not have appeared at school to tell me that it was lacking in originals in verse and that it required my weekly collaboration. I wanted to excuse myself, but the man _convincing _ promised to send a verse composition every Wednesday.
I look to my friend Braulio, I told him what happened and I showed him my whole book of verses so he could choose the least bad ones; but we cannot agree; all my inspirations seemed lazy, vulgar, unworthy of seeing the public light in a weekly newspaper where the first literary figures of Lima collaborated. Impossible to get him out of the phrase: "They're all bad."
After hiding from my friend Braulio, I copied the verses that seemed best to me and sent them to the director of The Lima Illustrate.
The storm was renewed with my
second publication; it was abated with the third and fourth, the fifth, the
jokes had diminished and only from time to time some fool I foisted the
couplets or he directed a taunt of bad taste.
The only relentless one was the friend Braulio, turned into my severe Aristarchus, all for friendship, as he used to repeat it to me.
The only relentless one was the friend Braulio, turned into my severe Aristarchus, all for friendship, as he used to repeat it to me.
As soon as he received the number
of The Lima Illustrated he installed himself in a solitary corner and
pencil in hand, he taught himself to criticize my verses: one was lame, the
other long-legged; it lacked accents, those had others. As for the background,
worse than the form.
_ Look_ He launched one of his intimate expansions that only is conceived in the youth look, the man not only dishonors with stealing and killing, but also in writing bad verses.
Thieves or murderers can force us the circumstances; but; what compels us to be ridiculous poets?
Since two months ago published my verses, when in the same weekly, a new collaborator appeared who signed his compositions with the pseudonym of Genaro Latino.
My friend Braulio began to compare my verses with those of Genaro Latino.
_When you write like that, you will have the right to publish _ he said without the least hesitation.
_ Look_ He launched one of his intimate expansions that only is conceived in the youth look, the man not only dishonors with stealing and killing, but also in writing bad verses.
Thieves or murderers can force us the circumstances; but; what compels us to be ridiculous poets?
III
Since two months ago published my verses, when in the same weekly, a new collaborator appeared who signed his compositions with the pseudonym of Genaro Latino.
My friend Braulio began to compare my verses with those of Genaro Latino.
_When you write like that, you will have the right to publish _ he said without the least hesitation.
I was constantly immolated for the sake of my poetic rival; he was
Homer, Virgil and Dante; I was a mean coupler. When my name disappeared from
The Illustrated Lima
to give place to the Genaro Latino, many of my classmates recognized me the merit of having admitted my nullity and known to retire on time. However, some insinuated that the director of the weekly had denied me hospitality.
Everyone believed poisoning my bile with reading my rival's verses, figuring that envy devoured my heart. Braulio himself was already attacking me head on, and the paternity of this new couplet was attributed to him:
to give place to the Genaro Latino, many of my classmates recognized me the merit of having admitted my nullity and known to retire on time. However, some insinuated that the director of the weekly had denied me hospitality.
Everyone believed poisoning my bile with reading my rival's verses, figuring that envy devoured my heart. Braulio himself was already attacking me head on, and the paternity of this new couplet was attributed to him:
Before Genaro Latino
Roque Roca is a colt.
Roque Roca is a colt.
One day, Braulio triumphant and brandishing a paper settles on a chair,
asks for attention from the listeners and begins to read a silva by Genaro Latino, published in the last
issue of The Lima Illustrated. He suddenly changes color, bites his lips,
squeezes the newspaper and puts it in his pocket. _ Why do not you keep
reading? Iasked a stentorian voice_. It was the Metaphoric_! Follow, follow! Some
exclaimed.
I will follow, said the Metaphoric.
He climbed into the chair that the friend Braulio had just left and read:
He climbed into the chair that the friend Braulio had just left and read:
Note from the Management. As there are people who claim to be the
authors of other people's works, we warn the public (at the risk of hurting the
modesty of the author) that the verses published in The Lima Illustrated with
the pseudonym of Genaro Latino are
written by our former collaborator, the young student of jurisprudence, Mr.
Roque Roca
The friend Braulio did not speak to me again.
The author.
The friend Braulio did not speak to me again.
The author.
Editor's note:
Manuel Gonzales Prada (1848-1918) Essayist of vigorous verb, his life and his work powerfully influenced successive generations of the present century. In prose he wrote articles, speeches and essays in which he relentlessly criticized the country's political and social vices.
Manuel Gonzales Prada (1848-1918) Essayist of vigorous verb, his life and his work powerfully influenced successive generations of the present century. In prose he wrote articles, speeches and essays in which he relentlessly criticized the country's political and social vices.
Also, due to translation matters there are some verses out of rhyme.
With affection,
Ruben
Ruben
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