Authors: Josep Pla
“Do you believe such things are so important? I would never have said …”
“Vinyals, dear Vinyals the dentist, these things
are
what is really important and what has always excited me. If you think for a moment with a modicum of insight, you will understand and I won’t need to explain further. If you reflect on what has most influenced you in the course of your life, you will soon realize that it is shot through with sentimentality and vulgar errors. The most intelligent men can, with the utmost difficulty, shed that baggage. In my travels through the world, I have met one really outstanding man. I refer to Professor Turull the renowned writer and accomplished humanist. Physically he was yellow as tallow and thin as a rake. You’d often see him in bookshops and if you ever conversed with him he came across as good-natured and mild, although he possessed that acid, stubbornly sardonic manner intellectuals often have. He was very studious and worked tirelessly. He wrote very well, in a style that was fluent, elegant, lapidary, and taut. His huge memory seemed to encompass the most vivid recreation of the ancient world, one that was not seen through rose-tinted glasses, but a much more complex vision that included the murky areas where anguish and passion rub shoulders. He embellished this knowledge with vast humanist erudition,
erudition that enabled him to live a tranquil life and fill his days with scientific order and wise conversation. He was poor, wore a shiny black jacket, threadbare pants, and his knobbly knees and elbows stuck out like lumps of pig iron. He was always short of money and spent his life begging and writing highly obsequious letters to people in high places. He liked to eat well and would turn pale and twitch his fat nose at the bouquet from a glass of vintage wine. He had a traditional kind of maid and when he had the money she cooked him a range of exquisite dishes. I have never ever eaten Catalan-style broad beans with so much relish and insight as in the dining room of that celebrated and erudite professor. Moreover, he always followed up with delicious coffee and, generally speaking, liqueurs and tobacco that showed his excellent taste. He was a civilized man.”
“…”
“It would be an understatement to say that his ability to cope with everyday life was practically non-existent: he was literally hopeless. By the time I got to know him he’d been living beyond his means for years. He really had no clear idea about what he earned and what he spent. His entire economic activity was devoted to plugging the holes that kept appearing. It was hardly a pleasant way to live. When he started out as a teacher, however, though he had his fair share of headaches and wasted lots of time, he managed to keep up appearances. But as time passed the burden became increasingly onerous and his life became highly disagreeable. His debts started to pile up, innumerable small debts not even he could keep track of, but all together they represented a sum that was too much for the almost impecunious life of that innocent abroad. Scattered around his neighborhood, his debtors were strident and were always trying to pin him down: he owed shopkeepers who were naturally and respectably greedy. The time came when his situation became untenable, and Dr. Turull was pitched into an implacable
struggle with his creditors that threatened to choke him. He had to learn all the strategies of the recalcitrant debtor: fake entrances and exits, skill in wriggling out of tight corners, and expertise in formulating the necessary, firm-sounding promises that were devoid of any real substance. Apart from the time one can waste on such wrangles and their intolerable side effects, they have a particularly malign impact in that they embitter the most evenly keeled of temperaments. Heading the professor’s queue of creditors was a tall, skinny, hyperactive woman whose skin was the sallow hue of people with jaundice. The professor had put that woman in charge of the upkeep of his underwear – the washing and ironing thereof – and this labor had accrued a debt of three hundred and eighty pesetas. The professor couldn’t believe the little she had washed and ironed could have spawned such a large debt. But that was only because Dr Turull possessed the
vaguest
notion of time: the woman had been washing his underwear for years. According to the professor’s housecleaner, the bill was perfectly in order, indeed rather generous, and on the low side. As a bill it simply shared the principal defect of all bills: it had to be paid. The lady became tired of promises and decided she must collect. She spoke to all his creditors and agitated tirelessly. She managed to persuade them to act in concert, and after much coming and going they hired a lively, vociferous young lawyer. Dr Turull was shortly summonsed to court. The episode had immediate repercussions in academic circles and the world of intellectuals. The professor believed momentarily that the speed at which the situation was deteriorating might lead to a solution in the sense that he lived in hope of a helping hand that would materialize and save him from infamy. But no such hand appeared and he simply confronted sullen, aggressive warnings that constituted
de facto
threats. Professor Turull could see he was done for. Crestfallen, more dead than alive, wiping the sweat from his face – now the color of sodden
parchment – he exclaimed in a strained, low-key voice, as if completely sure of himself: ‘God will punish this evil woman …”
“That old refrain, that old refrain!” said the dentist, wearily.
“I simply want to demonstrate, my dear Vinyals, that if a man as strong and as knowledgeable as Professor Turull can get it wrong, it is because sentimentality and erroneous habits flow in our blood. Traditions of magic and the supernatural wield such an influence in this world that it is an uphill struggle not to lose one’s grip on reality. Individuals who strive to base their lives firmly in reality and eliminate fantastic explanations – which are legion – of why humanity suffers so are dubbed cynical charlatans and denied what people call their daily bread. Our ideas are completely paradoxical on this front. Some people’s waywardness enables them to defend contemporary notions of morality only a few days after the end of a war that has led twelve million men to the slaughter, in the flower of their youth, for no point whatsoever. We are possessed by the narcissism of idiots. We discredit an astronomer who is a few seconds out in his calculations of the movements of a quite ordinary star and don’t show the slightest contempt for the people who plan a war and cut down men’s lives as if they were reaping a field of corn. My dear Vinyals, nobody can say I don’t combat the influence of magic and fantasy. I do what I can – which is very little – but you find that tedious.”
On that note we reached the end of the park. We heard Big Ben striking four o’clock. The white esplanade of Admiralty Arch in Whitehall stretched before us. We could see the Horse Guards, in their red and white uniforms, against a background of muted chamois-colored stone. On both sides, and in the distance, the characteristic pearl-gray outline of this part of London: the domes, roofs, and large buildings of State. There is nothing grandiose about their jagged profile, but everything is severe and imposing. Dusk was
descending. Behind us patches of purple and faded pink in the pristine air of the park stood out against a bluish backdrop. The atmosphere was a subtle blue, and the fine mist cloaked everything in haze. We stood and gaped for a moment, in awe.
“What is that building, Sr Pla?” asked Vinyals the dentist.
“The building with the large radio aerial hoops hanging over its roof is, I believe, the Admiralty.”
“And the other building to its right?”
“That palace with the austere, classical lines is the Foreign Office.
El Ministeri de Negocis Estrangers
, if you’d prefer it in low Latin. I see you like the sound of that and even find it slightly exciting. It has the same effect on me, dear Vinyals. The two buildings we see on either side of that murky esplanade are perhaps the two most important in the world. It is one place in the world where people quite naturally doff their hats when they walk past. I don’t know if you understand what …”
“I understand you perfectly … so what do you want to do now?”
“At this time of day the level of noise and bustle in London is deafening, and I must confess I feel rather tired. If you like, we can return to the park and slowly make our way home. You can’t imagine how I love to walk through this charming mist and watch reality fade and melt away. Everything is so fragile and the air is like a feather pillow. It is uniquely delightful …”
We retraced our steps following the fence around the banks of the lake. Waterfowl were still swimming like shadows over the hazy water. A duck occasionally flew up, its wings beating the weary, twilight air. There were scant passersby. Beyond the trees in the park, car headlights projected a diffuse, gleaming light on the Mall. You could hear the hubbub of the huge, amorphous, distant city. The buzz of big cities has always made me feel
deeply depressed. The noise makes me think how futile everything is. I find it oppressive and feel lost there like a speck of mud in the ocean. We suddenly saw a white shadow looming strangely on the other side of the fence. We approached, intrigued, and saw it was a penguin and a bigger specimen than the earlier one. That monster of a bird seemed rooted to the spot and was endlessly opening and closing its long mouth. I thought it was holding a gray, extremely flattened object in its beak. I recalled the battered sparrow from two hours ago. No doubt about it. It was a similar item.
“My dear Vinyals,” I said to my companion after contemplating that unpleasant spectacle for a moment. “My dear friend, it is not a mirage: another sparrow has bit the dust. Those monstrous birds aren’t stuffed and they never stop …”
The penguin was conscientiously going about its business. It slowly opened and closed its mouth and the bones in its beak crunched when they came together like pebbles colliding. You could see its bloodshot, demon eyes in the dark. When the sparrow had turned into soft pulp, the penguin lifted its long neck, twisted, and swallowed. Then, once it was inside its body, the penguin started flapping its short wings as if dancing a
sevillana
. Finally, with its neck bobbling on its slight shoulders, it disappeared into the mist, eyes half-closed, exhausted beak thrust forward, walking at a solemn gait. The dentist was sad. It was almost dark, but the mist charged the air with a luminous spongy texture. I took his arm and we walked on.
“My dear Vinyals,” I said after we’d walked in silence for a while, the penguins and sparrows in St. James’s Park have ruined our afternoon. We have witnessed the victory of penguins and the wretched defeat of sparrows. The spectacle, I must confess, was not without interest. Not a feather or toenail of the bird was spared. The poor creature’s big brothers and sisters must be feeling fragile. Sparrows are such animated little animals! They spend their
lives in full view of the public, inspiring tenderness in lovers and loving non-stop themselves. We can’t see how they love one another, but naturalists seem well informed on the subject and report on it in their books. This recent victim was probably a late-riser who wanted to make the most of the final flicker of daylight to enjoy one last fling. The penguin gobbled it down, teeth flashing – to use a zoologically exaggerated image – and that was that. I think the moment has come for us both to repeat what Adela Boniquet and Professor Turull exclaimed in similar circumstances: ‘God has justly punished …!’ ”
“That refrain again, dear Pla? You never tire, never give up …”
“Vinyals, I’m glad to hear you protest. I put things as best as I can. When I talk about serious matters, I tend to become rather entangled and convoluted. You’ve just seen me. I won’t give up, however. Only a minority of intelligent people has grasped that God does
not
punish sparrows …”
The papers that follow were discovered among those left by my friend Albert Santianol. They refer to his stay in Meanwood, a suburb of Leeds, in Yorkshire, England.
The happenstance of a journey, writes Santaniol, led me to make the acquaintance of a very pleasant family in Leeds, who, in the course of conversation, offered me full board in their house at a rate that seemed more than reasonable. I accepted in principle and told them I’d go to see them towards the end of summer. However, I arrived, in fact, in early October when everything was already Novembering, to put it like Robert Burns.
Leeds is an old town surrounded by a huge suburban sprawl from the
Victorian era. It grew so quickly, the suburbs are so invasive, that everything seems suburban. It is a dirty brick place, with lots of ups and downs, because it is a sad and somber place set on small hills. The streets from the era of the industrial revolution – that are over a hundred years old – give an impression of monotony and lack of character under lofty factory chimneys. The stone houses off the central streets are sooty black and the official buildings solemn and dignified. The only cheerful thing is a modest old Catholic church with cloisters straight out of a Romantic novel. Filthy water from a tannery ribbons its way through the center of the town, greasy water brimming with all manner of residues and patches of acid. Fortunately, I found that the house where I went to live was on the outskirts, on Meanwood Road, almost four kilometers from the city. Leeds is surrounded by huge parks that must have been well maintained when the bourgeoisie was at the height of its success. When I explored them, they were already in decay, because they were extremely expensive to keep up and their owners preferred the town council to take charge. In any case, the textiles and coal bourgeois classes were still very important and the atmosphere very rarified.
One feels at ease with the English. Their sense of comfort is relative but they have such a natural way of accepting your presence in the world, that, even if they had no other qualities, that would make them infinitely appealing. If you have ever lived abroad, you will have noticed that people always act as if you are a rare species. One must be fair to England: they don’t think foreigners are important. After buying a couple of tons of coal we all join in the struggle against the cold with the gritty perseverance that has always been the hallmark of the inhabitants of Yorkshire. And thus we began the winter alternating days the color of pea soup with days the color of potato purée, by the side of a coal fire that makes blue flames.