De Engelse schrijver Charles Dickens werd geboren op 7 februari 1812 in Landport. Zie ook alle tags voor Charles Dickens op dit blog.
Uit: Hard Times
“He had reached the neutral ground upon the outskirts of the town, which was neither town nor country, and yet was either spoiled, when his ears were invaded by the sound of music. The clashing and banging band attached to the horse-riding establishment, which had there set up its rest in a wooden pavilion, was in full bray. A flag, floating from the summit of the temple, proclaimed to mankind that it was ‘Sleary’s Horse-riding’ which claimed their suffrages. Sleary himself, a stout modern statue with a money-box at its elbow, in an ecclesiastical niche of early Gothic architecture, took the money. Miss Josephine Sleary, as some very long and very narrow strips of printed bill announced, was then inaugurating the entertainments with her graceful equestrian Tyrolean flower-act. Among the other pleasing but always strictly moral wonders which must be seen to be believed, Signor Jupe was that afternoon to ‘elucidate the diverting accomplishments of his highly trained performing dog Merrylegs.’ He was also to exhibit ‘his astounding feat of throwing seventy-five hundred-weight in rapid succession backhanded over his head, thus forming a fountain of solid iron in mid-air, a feat never before attempted in this or any other country, and which having elicited such rapturous plaudits from enthusiastic throngs it cannot be withdrawn.’ The same Signor Jupe was to ‘enliven the varied performances at frequent intervals with his chaste Shaksperean quips and retorts.’ Lastly, he was to wind them up by appearing in his favourite character of Mr. William Button, of Tooley Street, in ’the highly novel and laughable hippo- comedietta of The Tailor’s Journey to Brentford.’
Thomas Gradgrind took no heed of these trivialities of course, but passed on as a practical man ought to pass on, either brushing the noisy insects from his thoughts, or consigning them to the House of Correction. But, the turning of the road took him by the back of the booth, and at the back of the booth a number of children were congregated in a number of stealthy attitudes, striving to peep in at the hidden glories of the place.
This brought him to a stop. ‘Now, to think of these vagabonds,’ said he, ‘attracting the young rabble from a model school.”
Charles Dickens (7 februari 1812 – 9 juni 1870)
Cover
De Duitse dichteres, schrijfster en vertaalster Lioba Happel werd geboren op 7 februari 1957 in Aschaffenburg. Zie ook alle tags voor Lioba Happel op dit blog.
Je hangt mij al lang het oog uit.
Je hangt mij al lang het oog uit.
En daar zit je dan, neergestreken op een stoel!
En de nacht lacht.
En een ster blaakt –
Omwille van mij?
Omwille van jou?
Kus me, als dat mag, nog een keer –
Tik in mijn oor!
Kom nog eens terug!
Zonder adjectieven.
Of ga weg!
Ik kom in de benen –
Asjeblieft een gedicht!
Vaarwel, adieu, jij gekwelde, opgehangene!
In mijn nachtoog –
Vaarwel, adieu!
Zo teder als jij bent,
ben ik behoorlijk hardvochtig!
Ik heb genoeg van je!
Ik open de deur –
Het stuift buiten!
Vertaald door Frans Roumen
Lioba Happel (Aschaffenburg, 7 februari 1957)
Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 7e februari ook mijn blog van 7 februari 2019 en eveneens mijn blog van 7 februari 2016 deel 2 en eveneens deel 3.
