Authors: Josep Pla
“Of course, but the poor have so little freedom of maneuver. I must do something or other, but so far I dread even to think about it. Perhaps it will be best …”
“What will be best?”
“Perhaps it will be best to wait for her
coup de foudre
to cool. Sometimes the stronger it starts, the quicker it fades. Formiguera is no caged bird. When he’s recovered, he’ll do whatever he feels like. He’s footloose and …”
“You’re prophesying now and prophecies don’t necessarily work out.”
“Agreed. But I’ve seen him do this so often. There’s nothing one can do. He’s a man who will die by his cannon, because only the artillery dies standing by its cannon.”
“Naturally …”
There was little more one could say; perhaps the most useful thing right then was to take his mind off that obsession he found so depressing. I suggested we dine in a restaurant. He agreed. It was a somewhat funereal dinner. Above all, it was a long one, because whenever he thought how he’d be returning to a room full of old junk and as cold as a dog’s snout – to use a German expression – his head filled with all manner of malevolence. However, in the end, we had no choice but to go our separate ways. Snow was still falling.
I lived in Berlin for a couple more months and the situation didn’t change one iota in all that time. Formiguera made a rapid recovery and returned to his normal routines: Toselli’s
serenatas
and pink pajamas. He was a man fated to alternate life and death in his natural stride. But, against every prediction, he didn’t decide to change the roof over his head. He stayed by Sra Piccioni’s side. If I’d been more experienced in life’s ways, I’d have given that magnificent dish of spaghetti a greater transcendence than I routinely had – that, though substantial, fell quite short.
Against all the assumptions of logic, Tintorer the philologist maintained what is known as the status quo in diplomatic parlance. He didn’t feel the need to migrate to more comfortable territory. As a young, but die-hard, subtenant he stayed in his cave. The weak point of this kind of man, to whom people generally attribute an almost unquenchable freedom of movement, is that they only smell the aromas coming from the kitchen. When the time comes to change aromas, their stomachs cave in. His situation improved slightly, objectively speaking. When Formiguera donned his tuxedo, returned to work and started to be generous with his space, Tintorer had the right to settle back in his old bedroom, pursue his studies, and fill
in his filing cards. It was a positive gain, because if there was one thing he couldn’t do in his junk room, it was to engage in endeavors connected to his little gray cells. The drawback was that he had to take Serafí for a walk whenever Sra Piccioni deemed it was necessary. The dog had become totally indifferent to the philologist and acknowledged only the dancer and the Italian lady. When a limp Tintorer accompanied him to dingy street corners and the icy outskirts, the dog acted as if he were doing him a favor, as if he were reluctantly agreeing to being escorted by such a gray individual, such an obvious nonentity. However, Tintorer didn’t fiddle while Rome burned in this respect. He concluded that his gains made up for any recriminations from his self-esteem. One day he confessed that if he’d seen a crack in the ice in the canal from the Spree on one of those expeditions, he’d have thrown the dog down it, doing his utmost to ensure he was immediately covered by a solid slab of ice. But that winter was extremely harsh, and the canal didn’t shift one bit until the grassy banks showed the first fluff of spring.
Sra Piccioni went out of her way – always according to the philologist – to keep a hold on the lad from Granollers, but as soon as he began to feel fancy-free – to use current lingo – she decided he was beyond the pale, a fly-by-night, who flew little but never really landed. She showered him with her most positive, well-intentioned feelings, but was simply struck by a sense of Formiguera’s flightiness. She accepted that his departure was inevitable and tried to defer it as long as possible, using all kinds of flattery, and that was the state of play when I left Berlin.
It’s very likely this situation would have continued quite some time, if the inflation of the German mark had lasted. But everything in this world comes to an end: inflation yields to deflation, and Formiguera became unemployed. Certain easy ways of earning a living are linked to confidence in the currency, and morals depend on the price of money. The dancer
decided Paris would be more favorable territory and he moved, despite the overtures Sra Piccioni alternated with lamentations.
When the philologist saw his bedroom was free once again, he tried to reinstate himself with his baggage and his piles of paper. The Italian lady refused him point-blank. She’d had a taste of the risqué and found anything else insipid. Faced by such an impasse Tintorer had no choice but to allege that he’d exhausted his research in Berlin and that it was vital to resume them in Paris.
A few months after my departure I met up with these members of the Berlin circle in Paris in the area around the Sorbonne.
“Open up for Tintorer the philologist …”
“Come in, Tintorer the philologist!”
“Bad news,” said the philologist in the doorway. “Bad news: our great, much admired friend, Formiguera, the dancer from Granollers, is dying in Montmartre. Science has uttered its last word: nothing more can be done.”
“…?”
“Rampant, terminal TB. The day after tomorrow he will find eternal rest.”
“Science has uttered its last word?”
“Absolutely.”
The moment we knew that science had uttered its last word, we could all relax.
We left the hotel and Tintorer the philologist suggested we go for a stroll in Le Jardin du Luxembourg. I agreed.
“Nothing can distract better from death’s intolerable presence,” declared the philologist, “than the contemplation of beautiful things. This park is an ideal spot. The Palace of the Medicis, today the seat of honorable senators of the Republic, is built of fine, ancient stone. The offspring of the bourgeoisie
sails multiple toy yachts on the central pond. Perhaps one would prefer it to be less crowded, but they are harmless folk, and not out to knock into you or give you a shove. In short, I like this park. The pomp and circumstance of its trees are most pleasant.”
We strolled along its avenues and under its trees, we gawped at the circular pond and the children’s merry-go-rounds, we read the names of the poets inscribed on their monuments in that wretched style we all know so well. We walked as far as Sainte-Beuve’s statue. The second we arrived, a pigeon deposited a small drop of white excrement on the great critic’s broad and noble baldpate.
“Notwithstanding,” said a rather embarrassed Tintorer, “Sainte-Beuve is right.”
We finally sat on a bench close to the statue of Le Play. The conversation drifted slowly in dribs and drabs. The philologist drew triangles and other geometrical figures in the park earth. He livened up all of a sudden.
“Formiguera,” he said, “is a son of Granollers. His father was a schoolmaster. His mother was one of these petite middle-class women who spend their lives brooding over the ambitions of their children. It’s all they have to live for, they never go out, they secrete their lives away in the nooks and crannies of their houses. They had two children, a boy, and a girl who married a veterinary surgeon in La Garriga. They tried to interest the boy in studying. His father wanted him to be a doctor. He scraped through his school certificate. The lad was easily distracted, uninterested, with no strength of will. The time came to leave for university in Barcelona. His mother accompanied him. You recall those middle-aged women one sometimes saw in university courtyards, dressed in black, with peachy cheeks, inquisitive eyes, and black headscarves? One such … They looked for lodgings, student lodgings on Carrer d’Aribau. They bought a few things from
stores. A bookseller familiar with the dirty swindle in science textbooks sold them course notes. Then the mother burst into tears … Are you too from outside Barcelona?” asked Tintorer after a brief pause.
“Yes.”
“Did you study at university?”
“Yes.”
“Then you experienced that unforgettable feeling of being alone in Barcelona at the age of seventeen. It’s a combination of homesickness and weary fascination. You get up one morning in October, with a sun that’s still hot. You go to class with your course notes in your pocket. By that time, the university is buzzing. An occasional professor in his gown is walking across the courtyards. Carts with barrels of water wash down the sunny square. The whole world seems to be populated by seamstresses and kiosks selling aperitifs and olives. Then you open a door and see a billiards table with young lads in their shirtsleeves who look as if they’ve been playing there from the day they came into the world. At the back, the table for seven and a half. Do you remember the smell small change leaves in the palm of the hand? You draw in your stomach. I know because I’ve also alternated philosophy with these vile passions. You take that smell into the street – and a dab of cue chalk on your back – and if you recall the grimace on the croupier’s face, imagine! – an early morning croupier! As the first yellow tram trundles by, you have a brief fainting fit. Then you go down Pelayo and take a walk along the Rambla. So horrible, but long live Pelayo! Every morning the whole of Barcelona takes a walk down Pelayo. When you’re a student, you inevitably bump into everyone you want to meet. If you’re playing hooky, you bump into your professor. He doesn’t know you, but you doff your hat instinctively, though you’d rather not. Did he perhaps see me? You turn round. The professor turns round – to look at a seamstress or a widow
on her way to sign on at the tax office. You assume that fellow will fail you. You bump into a gang of students coming from lectures. What was that? Did they get me drunk out of my mind? If they didn’t, you conclude you must be the most intelligent being on the planet. If, on the other hand, they did, it becomes the axle around which the world gyrates, the center of the earth, the Holy Trinity … Nevertheless, you buy a newspaper. You look for news from your town. Well, well! We’ll have a new priest! The Daughters of Maria will be happy because they say he’s the learned sort. The apothecary is betrothed. You glance at the front page. Poincaré has given another speech. Havana cigars. The situation in Moldavia: Havana cigars, Variety Shows.
25 beautiful young ladies, 25
. Kursaal:
Death of the Heart
(drama). Canaletes. The first absinthe of the day at the Continental. You put your watch right – your First Communion watch. You go into Poliorama to see the photos. Last year’s law graduates. Idiots, to a man. At eleven some people are impatiently waiting for the girls to leave El Sigle. They leave the store at one, but some people will do what they will. The trees are still green, but their leaves have withered. The Marquess de Comillas, completely incognito, is dangling his legs over his palace garden wall, reading
El Criterio
by Balmes. Further down, a flower seller is chatting to an old man. The nights those florists must enjoy! A tiny lady in a hat is still in time to carry a fish on a cabbage leaf from the Boqueria market. A lady in an open carriage that’s as gray as a cello. The aristocracy. Caldetes is small potatoes, we think. Granollers is better, albeit without the sea. Then, the billboard man. The Bone Cure. Lots of seamstresses. A river in full flow. Those coming from Boqueria are off to the Carrer de l’Hospital; those coming from Carrer de l’Hospital are off to Boqueria. A late bat flies out from Carrer d’En Roca and turns up Carrer de Sant Pau. A whiff of the dankness of stagnant old Barcelona hits you from Carrer de Ferran. The wind brings a whiff of blotting paper from the Town
Hall and Local Government Offices. The Plaça Reial. Pitarra, the immortal and unpleasant Pitarra. The Hotel Falcón. I’ve slept there. I could repeat the experience. Inevitably you find in such places ordinary folk enjoying their aperitifs, cheap, nasty cigars between their lips and carnations behind their ears. What will they be up to at home? Did Carrer Nou ever loom large in your life? In those early days, you’d make it to the Porta de la Pau. The sea is heavy and a diesel-oil color, but the seagulls skim your eyes with their wings. The breeze weakens your legs. The Majorca ferry is always the same though for Majorcans it’s always different. At this point in time, they are better documented. The sound of pigs squealing. A train passes, trucks clang over the revolving platform. You feel even worse if you look at the statue of Columbus. On your way back, you walk behind military officers. You follow those same backs as far as Canaletes. Trams are packed with gentlemen on their way to lunch. Their wives wait for them between two bowls of steaming soup. Today, however, they’ve cooked rice with strips of cod. Some are yawning. They’re already on their coffee at the Petit Pelayo. It seems as if it was only yesterday. A footballer – pastry in hand – is arguing, then eats it and wipes his fingers on the back of his pants. Street musicians. They’ve just been to see the chair of the Events Committee. Multicolored chufa milk is gushing violently in Canaletes. On Pelayo you hear the noise of an iron gate banging shut. The tram to Sarrià. The empty Plaça de la Universitat. A trickle of students leaves that premier teaching center. A priest. They’re from the Arts Faculty and most enlightened. A stream of filth. And now a huddle of professors with their walking sticks and high culture, as if they’d just returned from the Battle of Lepanto. Did
they
get me drunk out of my mind? You drag yourself up the staircase of your lodgings by the banister. The room hasn’t been cleaned; the mattresses are rolled up on a chair, though they have opened the windows. A breeze. A stench of oil
and raw onion. Various noises from the inside yard. You enter the kitchen gripping your Mineralogy notes. Followed by soup. You feel tired, dead on your feet that are on fire. The landlady’s longest hair always ends up on your plate. You eat with little appetite and a tad disgusted, especially if you don’t study Medicine. Things at home are cleaner. Better not wipe your fork on your napkin …”