Baldomero Lillo: Master of Chilean Short Stories
The Shellfish
Cipriana, a seafood gatherer, pulled shellfish from the crevices of rocks. While leaving his child on the shore, he saw a snail in a narrow slit and thought it could serve his son as a toy. His hand got stuck, and he died watching the waves, leaving his son with the sea as a loving mother.
As the man succumbs to nature, sometimes cruel, as it has no control over it.
The Drowned
Characters: Magdalena, Sebastian
Sebastian plunged into the sea and began to remember their history of heartbreak. Since childhood, he was engaged to Mary Magdalene, and the two were poor until she received an inheritance. It changed their lives, and now her parents wanted a good match for their daughter and committed her to a sailor who wanted to invest their capital in a business with his future father-in-law.
Sebastian found a castaway who had died. The castaway had a jacket which allowed Sebastian to float, and he suddenly realized that the castaway had a bag of gold coins. He took the bag, deflated the life preserver, and sank. However, he didn’t realize the bag was tied with string and sank with it. Disturbed, he returns to town and takes to the nightlife. He embarks on a drunken, aimless journey and sees the drowned everywhere until he finds himself alone on a reef, unable to move forward or backward. He sees the shipwrecked chasing him and drowns.
Unredemption
Characters: Maid, Princess
The princess had organized a party, and all attention was on the decoration of flowers, which were scattered everywhere – a spectacular idea in the opinion of the guests. Before bed, the princess wanted to spread some of the petals in her room and had the following dream: walking through the woods, a breath from her mouth snatched the flowers from the trees, which then prevented her from breathing and suffocated her with the branches. She then went to purgatory, attended the trial of thieves who went to hell, and thought that she and a thief had a big difference. The trial ruled that she did not apologize for taking the flowers of the peach tree and killing thousands of insects living there. After the maid woke up, she said, “I knew sleeping with flowers is like sleeping with the dead; they have nightmares.”
The Wheel
Characters: Ash and Clavel
Two roosters, Ash and Clavel, fight, with the latter edging him out with his spurs. In the fierce fight, Clavel lost but refused to die. Looking through him, he succumbed to the air. In the fall, he collided with a pear tree, and the blow showered him with flowers, creating a funeral robe.
Eve Dead
Characters: Woman, Saleswoman, Girl
A woman in black tells the saleswoman about the promise she made to a woman before she died. The deceased made her promise to look after her daughter like her own. She gave her word that she would do so. However, she did not fulfill the promise and abused the child meaninglessly. In the winter, she did not change the girl’s clothes for thicker ones, and one night of intense coughing, she cast her out of the house. Torrential rain fell, and the girl became ill. When she entered, she was in agony and died. For the great pangs of conscience and how to repair the damage, each deceased Eve takes the best flowers.
Gold
It represents the ambition of man for eternity and materiality, there is no longer causing any sense of value.
The Wanderer
Characters: Homeless man, Farmers, Don Simon, Isidro
A tramp tells her story: one day, while playing hopscotch, his mother told him to bring chips. He ignored her, became angry, and his mother hit him. He sent a backhand down on his mother and cursed him. Since then, he carries his hand stuck in his chest, leaving the lesson that children should obey their parents, as the Bible says. All the peasants who listened gave him alms.
Don Simon, the owner of the site where the shed was, shouted that the tramp had acquired all he had through hard work. He was a widower, and his son, Isidro, was very unlike him; they were like oil and water. The young man had an aversion to work and a disregard for money.
Don Simon angrily told his son to take out the hand from the chest of the bum. Isidro refused repeatedly until he preferred to do it for his father. He threw the bum on the floor and took his hand. After this, something changed in him.
Isidro then resolved to rebel and go racing with his friends. He argued with his father, who beat him, and Isidro fought back, hitting his father. Isidro jumped on his horse, but the spur became entangled in the loop. Eventually, the buckle broke, and he rolled in the dust, which cushioned the fall, and he lived. The women screamed, “A miracle!”
Iname
Characters: Guar, Martin, Headquarters Official, Judge
Rupert, alias Guar, the keeper of the local police, had great prestige and was considered a well of knowledge. His most characteristic trait was how he invented terms when the real ones didn’t come to mind.
He was left to stand guard in an industry where traffic was almost non-existent, which he disliked because there were no surprising infringements. A girl was running, and Martin was chasing a dead snake, which he had found in the yard. The goalkeeper arrested him for taking animals on public roads – “iname.”
In the barracks, the officer got angry. The inspector asked why they arrested him. Guar didn’t understand what the word meant, and when he was about to ask, he repented because he had previously edited it and realized he was wrong. For this reason, he didn’t want to appear ignorant to his deputy. Martin thought it was because he worked the horses in poor condition and wondered what would happen to him in prison.
When he reached the perfect police, he also hesitated and asked, not wanting to appear ignorant in front of his subordinates. The judge did the same thing and gave him 20 days in prison at 20 pesos fine. At headquarters, the duty officer asked about the conviction, and the goalkeeper told him that it would be impossible to pay 20 pesos because he had left the wagon. The guard then asked how he had broken the law of the road if he wasn’t walking with the cart. He realized how much of a mistake he made when writing the report and how ridiculous he was running. He stained the parties to delete the word, and all was sorted. The next day, the judge put the money in some envelopes that he gave to Martin, showing that they had paid his debt.
The Trap
This story is about horse thieves that ravaged the fields, killing cows, from which they took the leather and tongue. For one year, the police took no action until, thanks to the advice he gave Antonio, Luis Rivera fixed the problem by renting a field called “Laurel.”
Chilean storyteller born in Lota, near the Concepción mining center, on January 6, 1867. He studied at the Liceo de Lebu, where he studied until the 2nd year of Humanities. His father, Jose Nazario, manager of a mine, drove daily reading at home. The son worked in the coal trade to help the family finances. In 1897, he married Mrs. Natividad Miller, with whom he had four children: Marta, Laura, Edward, and Oscar.
In 1898, he traveled to Santiago, where he became an administrative officer of the University of Chile. He continued his reading, joined other writers in the “Colonia Tolstoy,” and after a brief foray into poetry, published storybooks Sub Terra (1904) and Sub Sole (1907). The main complaint of the first is the exploitation, suffering, and death of coal workers, written in a direct, vigorous, sometimes crude, pathetic style, although there are also quiet, loving, humorous, and even urban themes. The second, more elaborate literary work, pulls the strings of customs, psychology, drama, indigenous culture, and even the fantastic. Considered the master of the short story in South America, Lillo was translated into English and other languages.
In 1903, he won first prize awarded by the Catholic magazine with the story “John Farina.” Don Baldomero’s posthumous works are “The Discovery” and “Popular Stories.” He also left an unfinished novel entitled “The Strike,” which dealt with the lives of miners in the nitrate fields in the north.
His wife died in 1912, and on September 10, 1923, Baldomero Lillo ceased to exist in the city of San Bernardo, a victim of tuberculosis.
A Contribution to Chilean Literature
Baldomero Lillo was, above all, a keen observer of life. From a young age, he was impressed by what he saw in the Far North, where he met the world of pampas workers, and later that of the miners of Lota and Coronel, which resulted in his most famous works: “Sub-Terra” and “Sub-Sole.”
His greatest successes as a storyteller are in the description of environments and the figures that act within them, which seem to emerge from hell. He was faithful to the pen to the sensations obtained in the actual lived experience, imbued with the naturalism he met in the French writer Emile Zola. The result still thrills readers today and always.
He alone said it best: “Man delves into the realm of pain and glides over the surface of the joys, as if suffering will provide for an intimate and mysterious contradiction, more vibrant joys and shake your body more fully.”
He is considered among the great storytellers of the Chilean short story and the novel.
Baldomero Lillo was one of the greats of the generation of 1900. In his 56 years of life, he wrote a total of 45 stories of great human content.
His name will forever be associated with the dark and damp tunnels of the coal mines.
ls of the coal mines.