Pepita

by Vita Sackville-West

  This, then, was the background story of the family which had presented itself for an interview with Don Antonio Ruiz in Madrid. Of course he knew nothing of it; he did not know that the encampment in the basement of 15 Encomienda included also a small child of five or six, named Lola, the daughter of Manuel Lopez though not of Catalina; and the young man, Diego, the wild tiresome son of Catalina, who was always to go threading his way in and out of their stormy history. Antonio Ruiz could naturally not be interested in such things. As Director of the ballet, he could only be interested in the discovery of a new dancer, and, as such, he had done his duty: he had noted the lovely girl and had detailed his man Perez to give her some dancing lessons at her own home. The Director could scarcely be expected to do more.

  IV

  The dancing lessons were a complete failure. Pepita might have danced ‘as a bird in the air’ in Malaga, but in Madrid it was found impossible to raise her to the required level of excellence. The capital evidently had a higher standard than the provinces, and her career as a dancer seemed doomed. Antonio Ruiz, who had been so rash as to sign a contract for her engagement at the Teatro del Príncipe, cancelled it. This was not the sort of thing which Catalina would tamely accept. After all, she had paid for dancing lessons in Malaga when she could ill afford it; she had provided four silk dresses; she had succeeded in pushing Pepita on to the Malaguenian stage in connection with a foreign company; and a woman of her determination was not likely to abandon such an enterprise once she had set it in train. There is no telling what Catalina might have done to Don Antonio Ruiz for his insult to her daughter, when luckily a new element entered into the life of the family occupying the basement of 15 Encomienda, in the shape of a young man who had fallen violently in love with Pepita at first sight.

  This young man, who was named Juan Antonio Gabriel de la Oliva, was only a year older than Pepita herself, in other words, twenty; but he had the advantage of having been on the stage in Madrid and also in Corunna ever since he was sixteen or seventeen. Destined for the study of medicine when he left school, he had very soon abandoned that pursuit for his chosen taste of dancing. He was thus quite a man of the world compared with the lovely provincial girl from Malaga, and moreover, being a Spaniard of hot blood and ardent feelings, he allowed nothing to stand in the way between himself and the desired acquaintance with Pepita. A reserved young man, not given to confidences even towards his most familiar friends, he was purposeful and knew how to get his way when he wanted it. In this case he wanted it badly. Fortunately for him he had a friend, another dancer, named Pedrosa, with whom he was so intimate that ‘either’s purse was always at the disposal of the other’. To this friend he now had recourse, and asked him to arrange for him, Oliva, to give lessons to Pepita instead of Perez. He also prevailed upon Pedrosa to persuade Perez to take him, Oliva, to Pepita’s home and introduce him. And finally, when the management cancelled Pepita’s contract, Oliva cancelled his own contract of his own accord, and left the theatre in a rage.

  By these energetic and turbulent methods the young Oliva had succeeded in establishing himself as a recognised friend in the basement. It was an odd household that he had entered, though perhaps it did not seem very odd to him, accustomed as he was to the theatrical circles and irregular lives of that under-world of Madrid. It cannot have troubled him in the slightest to know that Manuel Lopez was living only ‘apparently matrimonially’ with Pepita’s mother, or that Pepita herself was at pains to inform her acquaintances that her own father was dead, so that she might not be believed to be Manuel Lopez’ daughter.

  Oliva had eighteen brothers and sisters, and a correspondingly impressive number of uncles and aunts. His family came from the same class as Pepita’s; that is to say, his brother-in-law was a harness-maker, another brother-in-law a tailor, a nephew was also a harness-maker; his uncles were farm-labourers at Ocana in the province of Toledo. There was thus no difference in their social status, and Oliva could be accepted on an equal footing in the Encomienda. The intimacy grew rapidly, so that he fell into the habit of accompanying them on their peddling expeditions when he was not giving a lesson to Pepita. I think Oliva must then have been an attractive, sincere, and likeable young man. A most dutiful son, he lived at home when in Madrid, and whenever he went away on theatrical engagements he frequently wrote to his parents; his father would then read the letters aloud to the rest of the children. As a dancer he was evidently making a successful career, for he never seems to have been without an engagement, and as a character he inspired a remarkably deep affection in his friends. In spite of this, he was said to be unusually reticent, even for a Spaniard, so that they found it difficult to hear anything of his life even when most anxious to help him in his troubles. They recognised and deplored his extravagance, but were always ready to come to his rescue with the price of a fare in the diligence, or of a meal, whenever he wanted it. For ‘he spent every penny he earned as soon as he got it, and as he was fond of good living his money was soon gone’. Later in his life we find him doing precisely the things we should expect him to do—living with various women, fathering their children, associating with dancers and bull-fighters, even accepting jobs in connection with the bull-ring when the theatres had closed down after the winter season; but for the moment, that is to say in 1849 at the age of twenty, he appears as a rather serious, determined young man, respectably living with his parents in the Calle Riviera de Cutidores and bent only upon the perfectly honourable idea of marrying Pepita as soon as he possibly could.

  These parents were decent people, country-born of peasant stock. The father had left his brothers to carry on their profession of farm-labourers, and had removed himself to Madrid, where he obtained employment in the service of his uncle as a working furrier. He never appears to have risen to be even a master-furrier, but there is no reason to suppose that he was anything but contented with his lot. It was quite a novelty in his family to have a son who insisted on going in for a theatrical career; more usually they adopted some trade such as harness-making, but since Juan Antonio’s tastes had lain so very definitely in that direction ever since he was a little boy of ten, no objection had been raised, and indeed by the time the Olivas enter this history they had every reason to be proud of their thoroughly satisfactory son. Juan Antonio himself, like many people of otherwise unconventional and happy-go-lucky life, had a certain respect for orthodox observances, and unquestionably in Spain he would not have stood much chance of success had he proceeded with anything but the most severe propriety in his courtship of the girl he desired to make his wife. Catalina and Lopez themselves, little better than vagrants though they were, would not have permitted any departure from the established rule. Lopez might make his living as a bandit or as a cobbler of old shoes, Catalina might have tumbled in the circus-ring and yielded to the embraces of a grandee so far above herself in station as the Duke of Osuna, but neither Lopez nor Catalina would have tolerated any infringement of the strict Spanish code or any disrespect towards the desirable girl they guarded.

  It comes as a surprise to learn how very strict was the standard of conduct observed even by those professional dancers who had passed beyond the supervision of mother or parents. Alexandre Dumas, for simply having attempted with ordinary politeness to kiss the hand of Petra Camara on being introduced to her in her dressing-room, to his great surprise heard the lady scream and instantly afterwards received a sound box on the ear. He is writing from Seville to a friend in Paris during the winter season of the ballet in 1847: ‘Pardon, madame, I had forgotten to tell you something: that these ladies are of ferocious virtue, and when I tell you for whom this virtue is so carefully preserved, it will make you smile pityingly. Each one of these ladies has a fiancé qui Plume la dinde avec elle,—I crave forgiveness of your amorous sensibility, but in this case plumer la dinde means to stand under the balcony, to sing serenades, and to exchange glances between the window-bars. This fiancé (who by the banks of the Guadalquivir is known as the novio) may s
ometimes be a tailor’s boy, or a shoemaker, who, concerned with waistcoats or gaiters, has managed to slip his way into the theatre, and who, once in the wings, watches over his treasure as Argus over Jupiter’s. The only difference being, that Argus was watching over Io on Juno’s behalf, whereas these Arguses of ours are acting on their own.

  ‘You understand now, madame, what perturbation I, with my Parisian manners, had introduced into these bucolic idylls; I kissed a hand at first sight, in other words, I was filching (j’escroquais) a favour which is usually accorded to the novio only after eighteen months or two years of acquaintance!’

  Oliva, once accepted as Pepita’s novio, of course had to conform to the prevailing rule, nor would it ever have entered his head to do otherwise. The two young creatures were rigorously chaperoned. Whenever visitors went to the basement in the Encomienda, Catalina was sure to be present, and sometimes Lopez too, and sometimes the child Lola. Of course in his capacity as her dancing-master, Oliva had an unusually good opportunity of improving his acquaintance with his love, and it is clear that he found the occasion to reveal his sentiments to her, for Pedrosa, whom curiosity had driven to the house, was the recipient of Pepita’s confidences. ‘When I arranged with Perez for Juan Antonio to teach her,’ he says, ‘I had not yet made the acquaintance of Pepita.’ But he knew Catalina very well, and after he had effected the introduction of Oliva he continued to frequent the family. ‘On a few occasions I was present when Juan Antonio was giving her lessons. There was not up to the time of the marriage an open-hearted friendship between Pepita and me so that she would confide to me everything, but I used occasionally to go to the house and stop to breakfast and dinner, and she used to confide to me her love affairs with Juan Antonio.’

  Pedrosa was not at all happy about his friend’s infatuation, and cautioned him seriously. ‘When I found that Juan Antonio was so violently in love, I counselled him to look well what he was doing, as although I had a good opinion of Pepita I certainly did not like either her mother or her stepfather, of whom I had formed my opinion by their general behaviour and their rather gross language.’ This, naturally, produced a coolness between Oliva and his best friend, which however was not of very long duration. Pedrosa meanwhile kept an anxious eye on the way things were going. He was anything but reassured to witness what he describes as a lovers’ quarrel between Oliva and Pepita: Oliva, it appears, was very fond of the bull-fights and never missed attending them if he could help it, and on this occasion when Pepita did not wish him to go, he insisted on going. Neither of them being an easy-going or accommodating person, this particular quarrel lasted for a month or five weeks out of their brief courtship, after which Pedrosa says resignedly that ‘they made it up and went on as before’.

  Still according to Pedrosa, no more than three months elapsed between the first lesson and the date of their marriage. Oliva had not wasted his time, but when the moment came for action he conducted himself in the most approved fashion. It is from his sister Isabel that we learn that he sent his parents formally to ask for Pepita’s hand. They had scarcely known Pepita or her mother until their son despatched them on this mission, and when he did speak to them of his intentions they were anything but pleased. Their sense of propriety did not at all relish the current rumour that Catalina was not really married to Lopez; and as for Lopez himself, they considered that he was far too often seen idling on horseback with a cigar in his mouth while the women looked after the family earnings. For the same reasons, they were most reluctant to allow their daughter Isabel to frequent the basement in the Encomienda, even after they had been compelled to accept the engagement with as good a grace as possible. There is a faint note of wistfulness in Isabel’s evidence; clearly she would have liked to come closer to the romantic figure who was about to become her sister-in-law, but even on the rare occasions when she was allowed to visit there, Pepita, occupied with her own affairs, remained withdrawn. ‘I saw Pepita from two to three times in all before the wedding … my acquaintance with her remained very slight, either because she was of a very reserved nature or because she considered me a child. Whenever I went to Pepita’s I saw her mother’—alas, no opportunity for intimacy there!—‘At that time I was about seventeen. I have an idea that Pepita was then about nineteen or twenty.’ What a gulf those two or three years made! But how intensely the younger girl admired her from the distance thus imposed! ‘She was very pretty. Her eyes were large, black, and almond-shaped,—what the Spanish call rasgados. She had no particular habit or peculiarity, such for example as twitching of the eyes, but her way of looking at one was what is called in Spanish muy gracioso, that is to say, very seductive and agreeable. Her manner of walking was very airoso, that is to say, very airy and graceful; her disposition very amiable; her mode of speaking was charming, neither fast nor slow, just like most of the Andalusians, that is to say, in tono alegre (vivacious and animated). She had small feet like most Andalusians, a dimpled chin, and small pretty ears. She was the same height as Juan Antonio; I know this because Juan Antonio was nearly an inch shorter than my brother Agustin, who has his exact height stated in his Military Service Ticket as 1666 millimetres. The reason why I say that Pepita was just as tall as Juan Antonio is that I have often seen them walking together. Her hair was black and very shiny. It is common in Spain for women to have long and abundant hair, but in Pepita’s case it was exceptionally so. It was at Pepita’s house that I saw her combing her hair….’

  JUAN ANTONIO DE LA OLIVA IN 1875

  Poor Isabel was not the only one who, with admiration, watched Pepita combing that marvellous hair. Manuel Guerrero, who, as a ballet-master, was well accustomed to dealing with decorative women, later saw her combing it at an hotel window, and thought it worth while to record his impression: ‘Long, thick, luxuriant, it reached down below the knee’. But that was much later; that was after delirious audiences in Germany had forced her to let it down upon the stage as they refused to believe it was not false. Guerrero was not personally acquainted with Pepita at the time of her engagement to Oliva; he knew her only by sight as the girl who had had her contract cancelled at the theatre because her dancing was not up to their standard, but who nevertheless had been the cause of the promising young Oliva renouncing his job. He saw her walk slowly down the street as he stood with a group of his friends at the door of the Café de Venecia at the corner of Plaza Santa Ana and the Calle del Príncipe, a café, as he says, ‘usually frequented by artists’, and through the bald words of his statement the whole scene comes to life.

  She passed down the street accompanied by Catalina, Lopez, and Juan Antonio Oliva himself. ‘What a fine girl’, Guerrero said, and one of his friends, he didn’t know which, replied that she was Juan Antonio’s sweetheart. ‘There’, he added, ‘goes the intended bride of Oliva.’ Guerrero, who did not happen to be employed at the same theatre as Oliva, had no personal acquaintance then with him either, ‘but of course I and all my theatrical friends knew of the marriage. She was so very handsome that she attracted everybody’s attention. We all stood looking at her admiringly. The distance at which I saw her would have been the width of the street, which is about the width of two carriages. She was such a striking person that, once seen, you could not possibly mistake her. I stood looking at her as she went down the street. I can even remember the dress she wore. She had on a dark-coloured gown with the shawl known as the manton de capucha with many colours, and on her head she wore a black Spanish mantilla. She wore the sortijilla, that is the lock or ring of hair on the cheek by the ear.’

  Could more be said? Oh, young and lovely gypsy, reserved, a promised bride, how glad I am that you once passed down a street in Madrid, before a café frequented by artists, so very handsome that you attracted everybody’s attention in your mantilla and your manton, the sortijilla on your cheek, and lived to work out the strange career which after many vicissitudes made you the mother of my mother.

  Pepita, can I re-create you? Come to me. Make yourself alive again
. Vitality such as yours cannot perish. I know so much about you: I have talked to old men who knew you, and they have all told me the same legend of your beauty. There was an old Swede once in Rome, who had known you, and who loved my mother partly for your sake, though partly also for her own. Why should I be afraid of invoking you or my own mother, who are both dead though you were both once so much alive,—more vividly and troublesomely alive than most people? You both made trouble for everybody connected with you. You were both that sort of person. Yet you were both adored.

  Pepita, my grandmother,—it is difficult for me, your grandchild, to think of you as a grandmother, for you seem to me so eternally young,—come back to me. I wish I had known you in the flesh. My mother, who was only nine when you died, told me so many stories about you that she made you into a living person for me from my childhood upwards. She had loved you herself and made me love you in my turn. Even as Juan Antonio Oliva found you in Madrid and loved you when you were just nineteen, even as my grandfather found you in Paris and loved you when you were twenty-two, so did my mother love you and so do I, for evidently you were a person made to be loved.

  There was an evening once in Seville, years ago, when your ghost seemed to stand very close behind me, so close as almost to lay a soft hand upon my shoulder. It was a May evening, and the air in the warm narrow streets was overpoweringly heavy with the scent of orange-blossom. It had been heavy all day, but in this velvet dusk it deepened into an actual caress of the senses. I was walking with friends through the silent, shuttered streets to a party. Now there were at that time many places in Seville where foreigners might go to watch gypsy dancing, but this was no such place; this was a private party, given in a private house by an artist resident in Seville who had for many years been well acquainted with the gypsies of Triana (the gypsy quarter), some of whom he had coaxed through long familiarity into sometimes serving him as models. From this, they had taken the habit of frequenting his house, quite at their ease without the suspicion that they were being in any way exploited.