(ENG) Chapter 2: Horacio Kalibang

Para los lectores de español:
Si desea leer el texto original "Horacio Kalibang o los autómatas" por Eduardo Ladislao Holmberg  en español, puede descargar el archivo PDF, haga clic en "ciencia ficción" en la página principal.

II.
Although there are ill-willed people who claim that my cousin and relative, the burgomeister Hipknock, carries this name due to the circumstances of one of his ancesters choking on a bone, in the time of Carlos V,  I argue that it is false, although I am not interested in demonstrating the opposite.

Luisa, the daughter of my cousin, is 15 years old today. She is a beautiful creature, “just like the most beautiful dolls made in Nuremburg”, my birth city. With this I have said everything. Her eyes of blue have the candor of unlimited innocence, her hair falls in golden curls to the side of her cheeks, pink with dawn, and fresh as a head of lettuce, and her lips, like cherries from the Black Forest, I do not know what memories they waken in the palate, to the extent that dampness shudders and slips down the angle to the right of the mouth.

Fifteen years! The most delicious age for a woman,
despite already having ripened this unconscious seed that we call the human heart, the head enjoys the most ethereal and divine emptiness.

Fifteen years! The age in which one thinks of nothing, failing to think of something else. And nevertheless, there is nothing to worry about after 20. Why? Unfathomable mysteries of the unconscious, that hardening of the bones.

Despite everything, the daughter of my cousin is not a mushroom. Her hands of cotton know how to make  muffins with syrup on the outside, and apple on the inside, so rich and so inviting, they honor the bone that was not swallowed by her father's ancester.

To celebrate his birthday, the burgomeister has gathered a crowd with a good appetite. He believes, like me, that the modern table has many tricks and little juice; that there is no wine like Rhine, and the ham is excellent when it is not bad quality. So, upon entering the dining room, I paused for a moment on the threshold, to observe the tableaux that the family and friends presented.

At the head of the table was seated my cousin, at his right, Luisa, dressed in white, with blue ties.  In the front of her, her cousin Hermann, who looked at her with all the ferocity of a lieutenant in love, with the consent of Marshall Vogelplatz, who was sitting next to Luisa, and wishing to commune with the lieutenant.

The marshal is a tremendous personage: His nose is the color and temperature of the setting sun, and in the belly, all the dimensions of a well educated elephant. He swallows like a palmiped and drinks like a whirlwind. Captain Hartz, the village pastor, Kasper (secretary of the burgomeister) and his wife, the schoolmaster, and the director of the nearby military encampment, with his wife, and in front of the owner of the house, his mistress...here is the brilliant whole, gathered at the house of the burgomeister.

My seat has not been occupied, and I manage to not have anyone move from their seats, by quickly taking mine.

"Come on, Fritz" my cousin says to me, smiling with a mocking air. "Finally, eh? I believed you would keep  scratching miserably at the infamous cello, that gives you every appearance of a sentimental toad, when you sit at my side"

"It's understood, cousin, that you insist on hating music.”

"Stop the music, Fritz, the music does not mean anything. Look, this is the positive, the solid, that which can be well digested! And this! Pass me your cup, this is Liebfrauenmilch, the best Rhine label, the glory of Germany, glorifying our palates like the ones of the gods.

"Very good, indeed, but I see that I have interrupted an interesting conversation, perhaps, and I wouldn’t like to do that."

"Not so; it is one of the many preoccupations of my nephew."

"How so?"

"Just imagine, he is trying to convince me that a man can lose his center of gravity. Ha, Ha, Ha!"

"And why not? if he is placed, for example, at a location that neutralizes the attractions of the earth and the moon."

"Nor had I thought such a thing" interrupted the lieutenant Blagerdorff. "Do you know about Horacio Kalibang?"

"A character named very much like a figure from The Tempest by Shakespeare"

"This is going off on a tangent" observed the marshal, swallowing with ease an enormous bite. "Do you know about Horacio Kalibang, the man who has lost his center of gravity? Yes or no?"

"No, Señor Marshall, and neither do I expect to meet him."

"He is a prodigy of the fantasy of Hermann. Let's go! Cauliflower and meat!  You are an idiot, nephew!  Serve the marshall some wine. Luisa, my daughter, serve Mr. Marshall. Captain! Would you like to pass me this chicken,which  despite the action of the fire, jumps in the dish, as if it had also lost gravity? Fritz, drink, son, drink!"

"Thanks, cousin, I would not like to be like Horacio.."
   `
"The Señor Kalibang!" interrupted one of the maids, entering into the room, frightened.

"Adelante! Adelante!" Come in, come in! exclaimed the burgomeister, getting to his feet, as we all were, and then dropping to a chair, as if a bullet had struck his lungs.

But that hadn't happened.

The personage who was presented in the scene was possibly 5 feet in height, or that is to say 1 meter 443 millimeters, and formed proportionally. His face was completely devoid of expression, and to see him one would say that he had just emerged from a mold at a mask factory. Not a single movement of the eyelids revealed the sensations that determined the change of light, or the variation of the images. His pupils didn’t move, they were like those portraits that are fixed to the front, causing dread in children who for the first time, see them.

They were the expression of the flat plane in relief.

"A very good evening, ladies and gentlemen" he said, looking simultaneously at everyone.

"Have a very excellent evening, Señor Kalibang"  babbled my cousin, the burgomeister, seeing the lips of the newcomer move in an identical manner to pronounce each one of the syllabus of those words; "Take your seat."

"Thank you; as I have no weight, any position is the same to me."

In that moment, there were only two faces that did not register the most profound terror; the lieutenant Blagerdorff, and that of Horacio Kalibang. The first shone with the light of victory; the second had been stamped by the eternal shadow of indifference. I do not count myself. Kalibang made a movement with the right arm, and instantly his body inclined in such a manner that the line of gravity fell half a meter away from his feet.

"Impossible!" exclaimed the burgomeister. "This is entirely outside the laws of physics!"

"Unless..." insinuated Kasper.

"What..what...unless you are such a fool as my nephew."

"Uncle!"

"Silence, Hermann" said Luisa, making a gesture that dominated the lieutenent.

"Unless.." repeated Kasper, "Señor Kalibang is hollow, or has feet of platinum."

"What?"

"I think so, because having platinum at the specific weight of 21 can serve as a resistance to the body's gravity, in an inclination of this grade, causing the legs to have enough energy not to give."

"Do not say such a thing, Kasper..Señor Kalibang has declared, when we offered a seat, that because he lacks weight, any position is equal.”

"Ladies and Gentlemen, many good nights; you see I am not a myth"
And turning on one of his heels, Señor Kalibang retired, inclining in the same impossible manner.

The marshal had lost his appetite despite being his turn with the desserts, and the other guests as well, and except for Hermann and I, kept the most strange silence and stupid dread.

"Do you know what that is?" asked the lieutenant.

"Do I know it?  Of course! It is the most stupendous that can be seen; the most wondrous of all the phenomena: To lose gravity!"

I smiled.

"And what indifference to all opinions" said the burgomeister between his teeth.

"And what a look..!" added Luisa.

"It looked like an owl" said one.

"Two owls" insinuated another.

This prelude was not displeasing to me.  Like the birds who wake up each other, hidden by the leaves whispering at dawn, the owners of the house and their guests seemed to mutually encourage each other, after an instant of terror that had made a minute last as long as a century.

"I shall know who Horacio Kalibang is; meanwhile, Marshall, let’s finish what is almost over. Wine! Wine! Coffee! Hey, boys, do not sleep!"

  May the transparent wine sparkle in the cup
   May it spread the joy in torrents!

"Do you see, cousin, that there is no happiness without music? You yourself give the example"

"They are emotions, Fritz, emotions of another kind, that result in discordant notes. I do not know if you understand me, but you know that an excess of impressions must be transformed in some way. I sing, some laugh, others cry.."

"I tremble"

"I eat"

"I drink Rhine wine and love the music just because..goodness for its own sake ..the music for its own sake..What does the music mean? I don't know, it is not important for me to know. Wine here...one sings and rejoices.”

"I look at Luisa.."

"But the lieutenant does not escape my glance."  added the marshall, his face flashing a burning twilight.

  The greater punishments,
   the deep groans,
   the grieving breasts,
   cured, fall silent, erased in wine.

"Hoorah!"

"Another!"

"Encore!"

"Horacio Kalibang! Another! Encore! The man who has lost his gravity..Hey! You are all fools!"

And taking the hat and the stick, the burgomeister left abruptly from the dining room.

One moment later, I left also, thinking that it is not necessary to be called Horacio Kalibang to lose gravity.

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