A primeira de muitas reviews atrasadas.
Elizabeth Gaskell foi uma das primeiras autoras sobre quem escrevi, nos primórdios deste blog; Wives and Daughters deixou-me imensamente curiosa, e comprei mais uns quantos Wordsworth, tendo recomeçado a leitura da obra desta autora vitoriana com esta colecção de histórias, por sugestão do meu grande amor.
Como todas as colecções de histórias, há aqui altos e baixos (sendo as últimas tremendamente baixas). Não são, de todo, histórias desprovidas de interesse ou mérito, mas o género não me parece ser o forte de Gaskell - destaco, porém, como curiosidade, que muitas das histórias foram encomendadas por Dickens para a revista em que trabalhava na altura.
Algumas das histórias são muito boas: The Nurse's Story, uma história de fantasmas; The Squire's Story, sobre um mistério realmente macabro; Lois the Witch, sobre os julgamentos de bruxas de Salem; e The Poor Clare, sobre a maldição lançada por uma velha irlandesa abandonada:
"(...) Yet my father called me by names of which I hardly know the meaning, but my heart told me they were such as shame any modest woman; and from that day he turned quite against me; - nay, sir, not many weeks after that, he came in with a riding-whip in his hand; and, accusing me harshly of evil doings, of which I knew no more than you, sir, he was about to strike me, and I, all in bewildering tears, was ready to take his stripes as great kindness compared to his harder words, when suddenly he stopped his arm midway, gasped and staggered, crying out, "The curse - the curse!" I looked up in terror. In the great mirror opposite I saw myself, so like me that my soul seemed to quiver within me, as though not knowing to which similitude of body it belonged. My father saw my Double at the same moment, either in its dreadful reality, whatever that might be, or in the scarcely less terrible reflection in the mirror; but what came of it at that moment I cannot say, for I suddenly swooned away; and when I came to myself I was lying in my bed, and my faithful Clarke sitting by me. I was in my bed for days; and even while I lay there my Double was seen by all, flitting about the house and gardens, always about some mischievous or detestable work. What wonder that everyone shrank from me in dread - that my father drove me forth at length, when the disgrace of which I was the cause was past his patience to bear. Mistress Clarke came with me; and here we try to live such a life of piety and prayer as may in time set me free from the curse."
Os elementos de macabro nestas histórias vão desde o fantasmagórico, ao sobrenatural, à simples má percepção de uma personagem por parte de outra. Não é uma clássica colecção de histórias de fantasmas vitorianas, mas é uma boa colecção de histórias algo assustadoras.
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