Así comienza / De ratones y hombres

John Steinbeck

DE RATONES Y HOMBRES

Unas millas al sur de Soledad, el Río Salinas se ahonda junto al margen de la ladera y fluye profundo y verde. Es tibia el agua, porque se ha deslizado chispeante sobre la arena amarilla y al calor del sol antes de llegar a la angosta laguna. A un lado del río, las doradas cuestas de la ladera se van curvando y trepando hasta las montañas de Gabilán, fuertes y rocosas, pero del lado del valle el agua está bordeada por árboles: sauces frescos y verdes con cada primavera, que en las junturas más bajas de sus hojas muestran los rezagos de la crecida invernal; y sicomoros de troncos veteados, blancos, recostados, y ramas que se arquean sobre el estanque. En la arenosa orilla, bajo los árboles, yacen espesas las hojas, y tan quebradizas, que las lagartijas hacen un ruido como un chisporroteo si corren entre ellas. Los conejos salen del matorral para sentarse en la arena, al atardecer, y los húmedos bajíos están cubiertos por las huellas nocturnas de los coatíes, y por los manchones donde se han revolcado los perros de los ranchos, y por las marcas como cuñas partidas dejadas por los cuervos que llegan a abrevar en la oscuridad.

Hay un sendero a través de los sauces y entre los sicomoros, un sendero de piso endurecido por el paso de los niños que vienen de los ranchos a nadar en la profunda laguna, y por el de los vagabundos que a la noche llegan cansados desde la carretera a levantar campamento cerca del agua. Frente al bajo tronco horizontal de un sicomoro gigante se alza una pilada de cenizas, resto de muchos fuegos; el tronco está pulido por los hombres que se han sentado en él.

El atardecer de un día cálido puso en movimiento una leve brisa entre las hojas. La sombra trepó por las colinas hacia la cumbre. Sobre la orilla de arena, los conejos estaban sentados, quietos como grises piedras esculpidas. Y de pronto, desde la carretera estadual, llegó el sonido de pasos sobre frágiles hojas de sicomoro. Los conejos corrieron sin ruido a ocultarse. Una zancuda garza se remontó trabajosamente en el aire aleteó aguas abajo. Por un momento estuvo sin vida el lugar, y luego los dos hombres emergieron del sendero y asomaron en la abertura junto a la laguna.

John Steinbeck

De ratones y hombres

Buenos Aires, Editorial Sudamericana S.A., 1953

John Steinbeck

OF MICE AND MEN

A few miles south of Soledad, the Salinas River drops in close to the hillside bank and runs deep and green. The water is warm too, for it has slipped twinkling over the yellow sands in the sunlight before reaching the narrow pool. On one side of the river the golden foothill slopes curve up to the strong and rocky Gabilan mountains, but on the valley side the water is lined with trees—willows fresh and green with every spring, carrying in their lower leaf junctures the debris of the winter’s flooding; and sycamores with mottled, white, recumbent limbs and branches that arch over the pool. On the sandy bank under the trees the leaves lie deep and so crisp that a lizard makes a great skittering if he runs among them. Rabbits come out of the brush to sit on the sand in the evening, and the damp flats are covered with the night tracks of ’coons, and with the spread pads of dogs from the ranches, and with the split-wedge tracks of deer that come to drink in the dark.

There is a path through the willows and among the sycamores, a path beaten hard by boys coming down from the ranches to swim in the deep pool, and beaten hard by tramps who come wearily down from highway in the evening to jungle-up near water. In front of the low horizontal limb of a giant sycamore there is an ash pile made by many fires; the limb is worn smooth by men who have sat on it.

Evening of a hot day started the little wind to moving among the leaves. The shade climbed up the hills toward the top. On the sand banks the rabbits sat as quietly as little gray, sculptured stones. And then from the direction of the state highway came the sound of footsteps on crisp sycamore leaves. The rabbits hurried noiselessly for cover. A stilted heron labored up into the air and pounded down river. For a moment the place was lifeless, and then two men emerged from the path and came into the opening by the green pool.

They had walked in single file down the path, and even in the open one stayed behind the other. Both were dressed in denim trousers and in denim coats with brass buttons. Both were black, shapeless hats and both carried tight blanket rolls slung over their shoulders. The first man was small and quick, dark of face, with restless eyes and sharp, strong features. Every part of him was defined: small, strong hands, slender arms, a thin and bony nose. Behind him walked his opposite, a huge man, shapeless of face, with large, pale eyes, with wide, sloping shoulders; and he walked heavily, dragging his feet a little, the way a bear drags in paws. His arms did not swing at his sides, but hung loosely.

John Steinbeck

Of Mice and Men

New York, Penguin Books, 1993