A louse crawled over the nape of his neck and, putting his thumb and forefinger deftly beneath his loose collar, he caught it. He rolled its body, tender yet brittle as a grain of rice, between thumb and finger for an instant before he let it fall from him and wondered would it live or die. There came to his mind a curious phrase from CORNELIUS A LAPIDE which said that the lice born of human sweat were not created by God with the other animals on the sixth day. But the tickling of the skin of his neck made his mind raw and red. The life of his body, ill clad, ill fed, louse-eaten, made him close his eyelids in a sudden spasm of despair and in the darkness he saw the brittle bright bodies of lice falling from the air and turning often as they fell. Yes, and it was not darkness that fell from the air. It was brightness.
Brightness falls from the air.
He had not even remembered rightly Nash's line. All the images it had awakened were false. His mind bred vermin. His thoughts were lice born of the sweat of sloth.
He came back quickly along the colonnade towards the group of students. Well then, let her go and be damned to her! She could love some clean athlete who washed himself every morning to the waist and had black hair on his chest. Let her.
*
Un piojo se arrastró sobre por su nuca y, usando hábilmente sus dedos índice y pulgar bajo el cuello abierto de su camisa, lo atrapó. Enrolló su cuerpo, tierno y quebradizo como un grano de arroz, entre el dedo y el pulgar por un instante antes de dejarlo caer y se preguntó si viviría o moriría. Entonces recordó una curiosa frase de CORNELIUS A LAPIDE en la que decía que los piojos nacidos del sudor humano no fueron creados por Dios junto con los demás animales el sexto día. Pero el escozor en la piel del su cuello puso su mente en carne viva. La vida de su cuerpo, mal vestido, mal alimentado, comido por los piojos, lo hizo cerrar los párpados en un repentino espasmo de desesperación y en la oscuridad vio los quebradizos y brillantes cuerpos de piojos cayendo desde el aire y girando mientras caían. Sí, no era oscuridad lo que caía del aire, era claridad.
La claridad desciende desde el aire.
No habría recordado correctamente el verso de Nash. Todas las imágenes que había despertado eran falsas. Su mente engendraba alimañas. Sus pensamientos eran piojos nacidos del sudor de la pereza.
Volvió rápidamente entre las columnas hacia el grupo de estudiantes. Bueno, entonces, ¡déjala ir y que se vaya a la cresta! Ella podía amar un limpio atleta que se baña todas las mañanas hasta la cintura y que tiene pelos negros en el pecho, déjala.
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, p. 233.
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