Cronopios and Famas
Page 9
LION. Damn the luck, I have in my left paw a thorn that annoys me exceedingly. Take it out for me and I’ll let you go.
The cronopio removes the thorn and the lion goes off snarling in a poor temper:
—Thanks, Androcles.
Condor and Cronopio
A condor fell like a streak of lightning upon a cronopio who was passing through Tinogasta, corralled him against a concrete wall, and in high dudgeon addressed him, like for instance:
CONDOR. Dare you to say I’m not handsome.
CRONOPIO. You’re the handsomest bird I’ve ever seen.
CONDOR. Again, more.
CRONOPIO. You are more handsome than a bird of paradise.
CONDOR. I dare you to say I don’t fly high.
CRONOPIO. You fly to the most dizzying heights and you are completely supersonic and stratospheric.
CONDOR. Dare you to say I stink.
CRONOPIO. You smell better than a whole liter of Jean-Marie Farina cologne.
CONDOR. What a shitheel you are. Not leaving the vaguest possibility of taking even a peck at you.
Flower and Cronopio
A cronopio runs across a solitary flower in the middle of the fields. At first he’s about to pull it up,
but then he thinks,
this is a useless cruelty,
and he gets down on his knees beside it
and plays lightheartedly with the flower, to see he caresses the petals, he puffs at it until it dances, he buzzes at it like a bee, he inhales its perfume, and finally he lies down under the flower and falls asleep, enveloped in a profound peace.
The flower thinks: “He’s like a flower.”
Fama and Eucalyptus
A fama is walking through a forest, and although he needs no wood he gazes greedily at the trees. The trees are terribly afraid because they are acquainted with the customs of the famas and anticipate the worst. Dead center of the wood there stands a handsome eucalyptus and the fama on seeing it gives a cry of happiness and dances respite and dances Catalan around the disturbed eucalyptus, talking like this:
—Antiseptic leaves, winter with health, great sanitation!
He fetches an axe and whacks the eucalyptus in the stomach. It doesn’t bother the fama at all. The eucalyptus screams, wounded to death, and the other trees hear him say between sighs:
—To think that all this imbecile had to do was buy some Valda tablets.
Turtles and Cronopios
Now it happens that turtles are great speed enthusiasts, which is natural.
The esperanzas know that and don’t bother about it.
The famas know it, and make fun of it.
The cronopios know it, and each time they meet a turtle, they haul out the box of colored chalks, and on the rounded blackboard of the turtle’s shell they draw a swallow.
ALSO BY JULIO CORTÁZAR
Blow-Up & Other Stories
A Certain Lucas
Cronopios and Famas
Final Exam
Hopscotch
Nicaraguan Sketches
Twilight: Selected Poems
The Winners
Copyright © 1962 by Julio Cortázar and the Heirs of Julio Cortázar.
Translation copyright © 1969 by Random House, Inc.
All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in a newspaper, magazine, radio, television, or website review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.
Originally published in 1962 by Ediciones Minotauro as Historias de Cronopios y de Famas. First U.S. edition published 1969 by Pantheon Books. First published as a New Directions Classic in 1999.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cortázar, Julio.
[Historias de Cronopios y de Famas.English]
Cronopios and famas / Julio Cortázar;translated from the
Spanish by Paul Blackburn.
p. cm. — (A New Directions classic)
Originally published: New York: Pantheon Books, 1969.
ISBN 978-0-8112-2146-7 (e-book)
I. Blackburn, Paul.II. Title.III. Series: New Directions classics
PQ7797.C7145H5131999
863-dc2198-54270
CIP
New Direction Books are published for James Laughlin
by New Directions Publishing Corporation
80 Eighth Avenue, New York 10011