Fui a una gran habitacin, lejos de Broadway, de un gran y viejo edificio cuyos departamentos superiores haban estado vacos

por aos, hasta que yo llegu. El lugar haba sido ganado haca tiempo por el polvo y las telaraas, por la soledad y el silencio. La primer noche que sub a mis cuartos, me pareci estar a tientas entre las tumbas e invadiendo la privacidad de los muertos. Por primera vez en mi vida, me dio un pavor supersticioso; y como si una invisible tela de araa hubiera rozado mi rostro con su textura, me estremec como alguien que se encuentra con un fantasma. Una vez que llegu a mi cuarto me sent feliz, y expuls la oscuridad. Un alegre fuego arda en la chimenea, y me sent frente al mismo con reconfortante sensacin de alivio. Estuve as durante dos horas, pensando en los buenos viejos tiempos; recordando escenas, e invocando rostros medio olvidados a travs de las nieblas del pasado; escuchando, en mi fantasa, voces que tiempo ha fueron silenciadas para siempre, y canciones una vez familiares que hoy en da ya nadie canta. Y cuando mi ensueo se atenu hasta un mustio patetismo, el alarido del viento fuera se convirti en un gemido, el furioso latido de la lluvia contra las ventanas se acall y uno a uno los ruidos en la calle se comenzaron a silenciar, hasta que los apresurados pasos del ltimo paseante rezagado murieron en la distancia y ya ningn sonido se hizo audible. El fuego se estaba extinguiendo. Una sensacin de soledad se ceb en m. Me levant y me desvest, movindome en puntillas por la habitacin, haciendo todo a hurtadillas, como si estuviera rodeado por enemigos dormidos cuyos descansos fuera fatal suspender. Me acost y me tend a escuchar la lluvia y el viento y los distantes sonidos de las persianas, hasta que me adormec. Me dorm profundamente, pero no se por cuanto tiempo. De repente, me despert, estremecido. Todo estaba en calma. Todo, a excepcin de mi corazn - poda escuchar mi propio latido. En ese momento las frazadas y colchas comenzaron a deslizarse lentamente hacia los pies de la cama, cmo si alguien estuviera jalndolas! No poda moverme, no poda hablar. Los cobertores se haban deslizado hasta que mi pecho qued al descubierto. Entonces, con un gran esfuerzo los aferr y los sub nuevamente hasta mi cabeza. Esper, escuch, esper. Una vez ms comenz el firme jaln. Al final arrebat los cobertores nuevamente a su lugar, y los as con fuerza. Esper. Luego sent nuevos tirones, y la cosa renov sus fuerzas. El tirn se afianz con firme tensin - a cada momento se haca ms fuerte. Mi fuerza ces, y por tercera vez las frazadas se alejaron. Gem. Y un gemido de respuesta vino desde los pies de la cama! Gruesas gotas de sudor comenzaron a poblar mis sienes. Estaba ms muerto que vivo. Escuch unos fuertes pasos en el cuarto - como si fuera el paso de un elefante, eso me pareci - y no era nada humano. Pero era como si se alejara de m. Lo escuch aproximndose a la puerta, traspasndola sin mover cerrojo o cerradura, y deambular por los ttricos pasillos, tensando

el piso de madera y haciendo crujir las vigas a su paso. Luego de eso, el silencio rein una vez ms. Cuando mi excitacin se calm, me dije a m mismo, "esto ha sido un sueo, simplemente un horrendo sueo." Y me qued pensando eso hasta que me convenc que haba sido solo una pesadilla, y entonces, me relaj lo suficiente como para rer un poco y estuve feliz de nuevo. Me levant y encend una luz; y cuando revis la puerta, vi que la cerradura y el cerrojo estaba como lo haba dejado. Otra serena sonrisa fluy desde mi corazn y se onde en mis labios. Tom mi pipa y la encend, y cuando estaba ya sentado frente al fuego, la pipa se me cay de entre mis dedos, la sangre se fue de mis mejillas, y mi plcida respiracin se detuvo y qued sin aliento! Entre las cenizas del hogar, a un costado de mi propios huellas, haba otra, tan vasta en comparacin, que las mas parecan de un infante. Entonces, haba habido un visitante, y las pisadas del elefante quedaban demostradas. Apagu la luz y regres a la cama, paraltico de miedo. Me recost un largo rato, mirando fijamente en la oscuridad, y escuchando. Percib un rechinido ms arriba, como si alguien estuviera arrastrando un cuerpo pesado por el piso; entonces escuch que lanzaban el cuerpo, y el chasquido de mis ventanas fue la respuesta del golpe. En otras partes del edificio escuch portazos. A intervalos, tambin oi sigilosos pasos, por aqu y por all, a travs de los corredores, y subiendo y bajando las escaleras. Algunas veces esos ruidos se acercaban a mi puerta, dubitaban y luego retrocedan. Escuch desde pasillos lejanos, el dbil sonido de cadenas, los que se iban acercando paulatinamente, a la par que ascendan las escaleras, marcando cada movimiento con un matraqueo metlico. Escuch palabras murmurantes; gritos a medias que parecan ser violentamente sofocados; y el crujido de prendas invisibles. En ese momento fui conciente que mi habitacin estaba siendo invadida, y de que no estaba solo. Escuch suspiros y alientos alrededor de mi cama, y misteriosos murmullos. Tres pequeas esferas de suave fosforescencia aparecieron en el techo, directamente sobre mi cabeza, brillando durante un instante, para luego dejarse caer - dos de ellas sobre mi cara, y una sobre la almohada. Me salpicaron con algo lquido y clido. La intuicin me dijo que podra ser sangre - no necesitaba luz para darme cuenta de ello. Entonces vi rostros plidos, levemente luminosos, y manos blancas, flotando en el aire, como sin cuerpos - flotando en un momento, para luego desaparecer. El murmullo ces, lo mismo que las voces y los sonidos, y una solemne calma sigui. Esper y escuch. Sent que tend aunque encender una luz o morira. Estaba debilitado por el temor. Lentamente me alc hasta sentarme, y mi rostro entr en contacto con una mano viscosa! Todas mis fuerzas me abandonaron de repente, y me ca como si fuera un invlido. Entonces escuch el susurro de una tela - pareci como si hubiera pasado la puerta y salido.

Cuando todo se calm una vez ms, sal de la cama, enfermo y enclenque, y encend la luz de gas, con una mano tan trmula como si fuera de una persona de cien aos. La luz me dio algo de alegra a mi espritu. Me sent y qued contemplando las grandes huellas en las cenizas. Las mir mientras la llama del gas se pona mustia. En ese mismo momento volv a escuchar el paso elefantino. Not su aproximacin, cada vez ms cerca, por el vestbulo, mientras la luz se iba extinguiendo poco a poco. Los ruidos llegaron hasta mi puerta e hicieron una pausa - la luz ya haba menguado hasta convertirse en una mrbida llama azul, y todas las cosas a mi alrededor tenan un aspecto espectral. La puerta no se abri, y sin embargo, sent en el rostro una leve bocanada de aire. En ese momento fui conciente que una presencia enorme y gris estaba frente a m. Mir con ojos fascinados. Haba una luminosidad plida sobre la Cosa; gradualmente sus pliegues oscuros comenzaron a tomar forma - apareci una mano, luego unas piernas, un cuerpo, y al final una gran cara de tristeza surgi del vapor. Limpio de su cobertura, desnudo, muscular y bello, el majestuoso Gigante de Cardiff apareci ante m! Todo mi misterio dej de existir - ya que de nio saba que ningn dao podra esperar de tal benigno semblante. Mi alegra regres una vez ms a mi espritu, y en simpata con esta, la llama de gas resplandeci nuevamente. Nunca un solitario exiliado fue tan feliz en recibir compaa como yo al saludar al amigable gigante. Dije: "Nada ms que t? Sabes que me he pegado un susto de muerte durante las ltimas dos o tres horas? Estoy ms que feliz de verte. Deseara tener una silla, aqu, aqu. No trates de sentarte en esa cosa!" Pero ya era tarde. Se haba sentado antes que pudiera detenerlo; nunca vi una silla estremecerse as en toda mi vida. "Detente, detente, o arruinars todo." De nuevo muy tarde. Hubo otro destrozo, y otra silla fue reducida a sus elementos originales. "Al infierno! Es que no tienes juicio? Deseas arruinar todo el mobiliario de este lugar? Aqu, aqu, tonto petrificado." Pero fue intil, antes que pudiera detenerlo, ya se haba sentado en la cama, y esta era ya una melanclica ruina. "Qu clase de conducta es esta? Primero vienes pesadamente aqu trayendo una legin de fantasmas vagabundos para intranquilizarme, y luego tengo que pasar por alto tal falta de delicadeza que no sera tolerada por ninguna persona de cultura elevada excepto en un teatro respetable, y no contento con la desnudez de tu sexo, tu me compensas destrozando todo el mobiliario mientras buscas lugar donde sentarte. Tu te daas a t mismo tanto como a m. Te has lastimado el final de tu columna vertebral, y has dejado el piso sembrado de astillas de tus destrozos.

Deberas estar avergonzado, ya eres bastante grande como para saber las cosas." "Est bien, no romper ms muebles. Pero qu puedo hacer? No he tenido chance de sentarme desde hace cien aos." Y las lgrimas comenzaron a brotar de sus ojos. "Pobre diablo," dije, "no debera haber sido tan rudo contigo. Eres un hurfano, sin duda. Pero sintate en el piso, aqu, ninguna otra cosa aguantar tu peso. As que se sent en el piso, y encend una pipa que me dio, le di una de mis mantas y se la puse sobre sus hombros, le puse mi baera invertida en su cabeza, a modo de casco, y lo puse sentir confortable. Entonces, l cruz sus piernas, mientras yo aviv el fuego y acerque las prodigiosas formas de sus pies al calor. "Qu pasa con las plantas de tus pies y la parte anterior de tus piernas, que parecen cinceladas?" "Sabaones infernales! Los agarr estando en la granja Newell. Amo ese lugar, como si fuera mi viejo hogar. No hay para m como la tranquilidad que siento cuando estoy ah." Hablamos durante media hora, y luego not que se vea cansado, y se lo dije. "Cansado?" dijo. "Bueno, debera estarlo. Y ahora te dir todo, ya que me has tratado tan bien. Soy el espritu del Hombre Petrificado que yace sobre la calle que va al museo. Soy el fantasma del Gigante de Cardiff. No puedo tener descanso, no puedo tener paz, hasta que alguien de a mi pobre cuerpo una sepultura. Qu es lo ms natural que puedo hacer para hacer que los hombres satisfagan ese deseo? Aterrorizarlos, encantar el lugar donde descansan! As que embruj el museo noche tras noche. Hasta tuve la ayuda de otros espectros. Pero no hice bien, porque nadie se atreva luego a ir al museo a medianoche. Entonces se me ocurri acechar un poco este lugar. Sent que si escuchaba gritos, tendra xito, as que reclut a las ms eficientes almas que la perdicin pudiera proveer. Noche tras noche estuvimos estremeciendo estas enmohecidas recmaras, arrastrando cadenas, gruendo, murmurando, deambulando, subiendo y bajando escaleras, hasta que, para decir la verdad, me cans de hacerlo. Pero cuando vi una luz en su cuarto esta noche, recuper mis energas nuevamente y sal con la frescura original. Pero estoy cansado, enteramente agotado. Dadme, os imploro, dadme alguna esperanza!" Encendido por un estallido de excitacin, exclam: "Esto sobrepasa todo, todo lo que ocurrido! Por qu tu, pobre fsil antiguo, te toms tantas preocupaciones por nada? Has estado acechando una efigie de yeso de t mismo, ya que el verdadero Gigante de Cardiff est en Albany! "Demonios! No sabes en donde estn tus propios restos?"

Nunca vi tan elocuente mirada de vergenza, de lastimera humillacin. El Hombre Petrificado se levant lentamente, y dijo: "Honestamente, es eso cierto?" "Tan cierto como que estoy aqu sentado." Sac la pipa de su boca y la dej en el mantel, luego se irgui dubitativamente (de manera inconsciente, por algn viejo hbito, llev sus manos hasta donde los bolsillos de sus pantalones deberan haber estado, y de forma meditativa dej caer su barbilla en su pecho), finalmente dijo: "Bien, nunca antes me sent tan absurdo. El Hombre Petrificado ha sido vendido a alguien ms, y ahora el peor fraude ha terminado vendiendo su propio fantasma! Hijo mo, si tienes alguna caridad en tu corazn de un pobre fantasma sin amigos como yo, no dejes que esto se sepa. Piensa como te sentiras si te hubieras puesto tu mismo en ridculo tambin." Escuch esto, y el bribn se fue retirando lentamente, paso a paso baj las escaleras y sali a la calle desierta; me sent triste que se hubiera ido, pobre tipo, y tambin porque se llev mi manta y mi baera. I TOOK a large room, far up Broadway, in a huge old building whose upper stories had been wholly unoccupied for years, until I came. The place had long been given up to dust and cobwebs, to solitude and silence. I seemed groping among the tombs and invading the privacy of the dead, that first night I climbed up to my quarters. For the first time in my life a superstitious dread came over me; and as I turned a dark angle of the stairway and an invisible cobweb swung its slazy woof in my face and clung there, I shuddered as one who had encountered a phantom. I was glad enough when I reached my room and locked out the mould and the darkness. A cheery fire was burning in the grate, and I sat down before it with a comforting sense of relief. For two hours I sat there, thinking of bygone times; recalling old scenes, and summoning half-forgotten faces out of the mists of the past; listening, in fancy, to voices that long ago grew silent for all time, and to once familiar songs that nobody sings now. And as my reverie softened down to a sadder and sadder pathos, the shrieking of the winds outside softened to a wail, the angry beating of the rain against the panes diminished to a tranquil patter, and one by one the noises in the street subsided, until the hurrying foot- steps of the last belated straggler died away in the distance and left no sound behind. The fire had burned low. A sense of loneliness crept over me. I arose and undressed, moving on tiptoe about the room, doing stealthily what I had to do, as if I were environed by sleeping enemies whose slumbers it would be fatal to break. I covered up in bed, and lay listening to the

rain and wind and the faint creaking of distant shutters, till they lulled me to sleep. I slept profoundly, but how long I do not know. All at once I found myself awake, and filled with a shuddering expectancy. All was still. All but my own heart -- I could hear it beat. Presently the bed- clothes began to slip away slowly toward the foot of the bed, as if someone were pulling them! I could not stir; I could not speak. Still the blankets slipped deliberately away, till my breast was un-covered. Then with a great effort I seized them and drew them over my head. I waited, listened, waited. Once more that steady pull began, and once more I lay torpid a century of dragging seconds till my breast was naked again. At last I roused my energies and snatched the covers back to their place and held them with a strong grip. I waited. By and by I felt a faint tug, and took a fresh grip. The tug strengthened to a steady strain -- it grew stronger and stronger. My hold parted, and for the third time the blankets slid away. I groaned. An answering groan came from the foot of the bed! Beaded drops of sweat stood upon my forehead. I was more dead than alive. Presently I heard a heavy footstep in my room -- the step of an elephant, it seemed to me -- it was not like anything human. But it was moving FROM me -there was relief in that. I heard it approach the door pass out without moving bolt or lock -- and wander away among the dismal corridors, straining the floors and joists till they creaked again as it passed -- and then silence reigned once more. When my excitement had calmed, I said to myself, "This is a dream -- simply a hideous dream." And so I lay thinking it over until I convinced myself that it WAS a dream, and then a comforting laugh relaxed my lips and I was happy again. I got up and struck a light; and when I found that the locks and bolts were just as I had left them, another soothing laugh welled in my heart and rippled from my lips. I took my pipe and lit it, and was just sitting down before the fire, when down went the pipe out of my nerveless fingers, the blood forsook my cheeks, and my placid breathing was cut short with a gasp! In the ashes on the hearth, side by side with my own bare footprint, was another, so vast that in comparison mine was but an infant's'! Then I had HAD a visitor, and the elephant tread was explained. I put out the light and returned to bed, palsied with fear. I lay a long time, peering into the darkness, and listening. Then I heard a grating noise overhead, like the dragging of a heavy body across the floor; then the throwing down of the body, and the shaking of my windows in response to the concussion. In distant parts of the building I heard the muffled slamming of doors. I heard, at intervals, stealthy footsteps creeping in and out among the corridors, and up and down the stairs. Sometimes these noises approached my door, hesitated, and went away again. I heard the

clanking of chains faintly, in remote passages, and listened while the clanking grew nearer -- while it wearily climbed the stairways, marking each move by the loose surplus of chain that fell with an accented rattle upon each succeeding step as the goblin that bore it advanced. I heard muttered sentences; half-uttered screams that seemed smothered violently; and the swish of invisible garments, the rush of invisible wings. Then I became conscious that my chamber was invaded -- that I was not alone. I heard sighs and breathings about my bed, and mysterious whisperings. Three little spheres of soft phosphorescent light appeared on the ceiling directly over my head, clung and glowed there a moment, and then dropped-- two of them upon my face and one upon the pillow. They spattered, liquidly, and felt warm. Intuition told me they had turned to gouts of blood as they fell -- I needed no light to satisfy myself of that. Then I saw pallid faces, dimly luminous, and white uplifted hands, floating bodiless in the air --floating a moment and then disappearing. The whispering ceased, and the voices and the sounds, and a solemn stillness followed. I waited and listened. I felt that I must have light or die. I was weak with fear. I slowly raised myself toward a sitting posture, and my face came in contact with a clammy hand! All strength went from me apparently, and I fell back like a stricken invalid. Then I heard the rustle of a garment -- it seemed to pass to the door and go out. When everything was still once more, I crept out of bed, sick and feeble, and lit the gas with a hand that trembled as if it were aged with a hundred years. The light brought some little cheer to my spirits. I sat down and fell into a dreamy contemplation of that great footprint in the ashes. By and by its outlines began to waver and grow dim. I glanced up and the broad gas flame was slowly wilting away. In the same moment I heard that elephantine tread again. I noted its approach, nearer and nearer, along the musty halls, and dimmer and dimmer the light waned. The tread reached my very door and paused -- the light had dwindled to a sickly blue, and all things about me lay in a spectral twilight. The door did not open, and yet I felt a faint gust of air fan my cheek, and presently was conscious of a huge, cloudy presence before me. I watched it with fascinated eyes. A pale glow stole over the Thing; gradually its cloudy folds took shape -- an arm appeared, then legs, then a body, and last a great sad face looked out of the vapor. Stripped of its filmy housings, naked, muscular and comely, the majestic Cardiff Giant loomed above me! All my misery vanished -- for a child might know that no harm could come with that benignant countenance. My cheerful spirits returned at once, and in sympathy with them the gas flamed up brightly again. Never a lonely outcast was so glad to welcome company as I was to greet the friendly giant. I said: "Why, is it nobody but you? Do you know, I have been scared to death for the last two or three hours? I am most

honestly glad to see you. I wish I had a chair -- Here, here, don't try to sit down in that thing! But it was too late. He was in it before I could stop him, and down he went -- I never saw a chair shivered so in my life. "Stop, stop, You'll ruin ev--" Too late again. There was another crash, and another chair was resolved into its original elements. "Confound it, haven't you got any judgment at all? Do you want to ruin all the furniture on the place? Here, here, you petrified fool--" But it was no use. Before I could arrest him he had sat down on the bed, and it was a melancholy ruin. "Now what sort of a way is that to do? First you come lumbering about the place bringing a legion of vagabond goblins along with you to worry me to death, and then when I overlook an indelicacy of costume which would not be tolerated anywhere by cultivated people except in a respectable theater, and not even there if the nudity were of YOUR sex, you repay me by wrecking all the furniture you can find to sit down on. And why will you? You damage yourself as much as you do me. You have broken off the end of your spinal column, and littered up the floor with chips of your hams till the place looks like a marble yard. You ought to be ashamed of yourself -- you are big enough to know better." "Well, I will not break any more furniture. But what am I to do? I have not had a chance to sit down for a century." And the tears came into his eyes. "Poor devil," I said, "I should not have been so harsh with you. And you are an orphan, too, no doubt. But sit down on the floor here nothing else can stand your weight -- and besides, we cannot be sociable with you away up there above me; I want you down where I can perch on this high counting-house stool and gossip with you face to face." So he sat down on the floor, and lit a pipe which I gave him, threw one of my red blankets over his shoulders, inverted my sitz-bath on his head, helmet fashion, and made himself picturesque and comfortable. Then he crossed his ankles, while I renewed the fire, and exposed the flat, honeycombed bottoms of his prodigious feet to the grateful warmth. "What is the matter with the bottom of your feet and the back of your legs, that they are gouged up so?" "Infernal chillblains -- I caught them clear up to the back of my head, roosting out there under Newell's farm. But I love

the place; I love it as one loves his old home. There is no peace for me like the peace I feel when I am there." We talked along for half an hour, and then I noticed that he looked tired, and spoke of it. "Tired?" he said. "Well, I should think so. And now I will tell you all about it, since you have treated me so well. I am the spirit of the Petrified Man that lies across the street there in the Museum. I am the ghost of the Cardiff Giant. I can have no rest, no peace, till they have given that poor body burial again. Now what was the most natural thing for me to do, to make men satisfy this wish? Terrify them into it! -- haunt the place where the body lay! So I haunted the museum night after night. I even got other spirits to help me. But it did no good, for nobody ever came to the museum at midnight. Then it occurred to me to come over the way and haunt this place a little. I felt that if I ever got a hearing I must succeed, for I had the most efficient company that perdition could furnish. Night after night we have shivered around through these mildewed halls, dragging chains, groaning, whispering, tramping up and down stairs, till, to tell you the truth, I am almost worn out. But when I saw a light in your room tonight I roused my energies again and went at it with a deal of the old freshness. But I am tired out -- entirely fagged out. Give me, I beseech you, give me some hope!" I lit off my perch in a burst of excitement, and exclaimed: "This transcends everything -- everything that ever did occur! Why you poor blundering old fossil, you have had all your trouble for nothing-- you have been haunting a PLASTER CAST of yourself -- the real Cardiff Giant is in Albany! [Footnote by Twain: A fact. The original fraud was ingeniously and fraudfully duplicated, and exhibited in New York as the "only genuine" Cardiff Giant (to the unspeakable disgust of theowners of the real colossus) at the very same time that the latter was drawing crowds at a museum in Albany.] Confound it, don't you know your own remains?" I never saw such an eloquent look of shame, of pitiable humiliation, overspread a countenance before. The Petrified Man rose slowly to his feet, and said: "Honestly, IS that true?" "As true as I am sitting here." He took the pipe from his mouth and laid it on the mantel, then stood irresolute a moment (unconsciously, from old habit, thrusting his hands where his pantaloons pockets should have been, and meditatively dropping his chin on his breast), and finally said:

"Well -- I NEVER felt so absurd before. The Petrified Man has sold everybody else, and now the mean fraud has ended by selling its own ghost! My son, if there is any charity left in your heart for a poor friendless phantom like me, don't let this get out. Think how YOU would feel if you had made such an ass of yourself." I heard his, stately tramp die away, step by step down the stairs and out into the deserted street, and felt sorry that he was gone, poor fellow and sorrier still that he had carried off my red blanket and my bath tub. END.