Life Embitters

by Josep Pla

  Coberta’s outburst prompted several protests. The most vociferous came from Herr and Frau Mulhens, a German couple from Breslau. They were a remarkable pair. They had lived as man and wife until the age of thirty in a state of lukewarm marital bliss. He was a bank clerk and she did the books for a restaurant. One day, however, they met a psychiatric doctor with a great future behind him who was moreover an expert practitioner of the occult sciences and so-called manifestations of vital energies. I’m not exactly sure what these highly respectable mental disciplines amounted to. Nevertheless, the fact is that the good doctor hooked up the married couple and the Mulhens suddenly moved on from their previously dull gray existence to a life of violent disarray. He left his bank and she abandoned her restaurant to join the way-out bohemian crowd. Germans bring to everything they do, whether normal or not, the same nervous energy and the same desire for total possession. One saw them attend the soirées of the most radical avant-garde, half-hidden clubs, and other clandestine sensual-cum-scientific dives. Initially, it was a great effort to acclimatize but, instructed by their well-qualified guide they soon saw the light. They explored all the medieval byways that, so they say, have resurfaced in recent years: black magic, the occult, theosophy, spiritualism, expressionism, experiences of rejuvenation and euphoria, not to mention different manifestations of transcendental pornography. At that precise moment they were cresting the wave of psychoanalysis and wallowing in the symbolism of the senses and the unconscious. They heroically survived that tortuous path, but their determination was astounding: they were two scraps of humanity in the grips of new knowledge. They happily clung to the tightrope of their lunatic obsessions. Frau Mulhens was a small, plump, oily, unattractive, repugnant woman, awash with furs and diamonds. She acted as a medium and read the cards. He was a chlorinated ivory white, medium-built fellow, with a face like a fetus and a big, protruding butt: ravaged, putrefied, and pockmarked. He was an art critic and music-hall songster.

  “Why do you speak of such important questions, Sr Coberta” the two halves of the indignant duo retorted almost simultaneously, “if you are bereft of method or any sense of responsibility? If one wishes to attain a certain level of culture, one must set out on a long, difficult road way beyond the simple possibilities of a petty merchant …”

  Sr Coberta heard them out, head down, ironically tapping the leg of the sofa with his shoe. Then he looked up and stared at them as if they were a high mountain peak. Everyone anticipated a brilliant riposte. Coberta shrugged his shoulders and abandoned the field of battle.

  Every one of Xammar’s predictions was handsomely fulfilled. Those cups of tea bore rapid fruit. Von Berg asked us to collaborate and on very good terms. Xammar almost allowed himself to be monopolized by the Italians and their highly active press services. We prepared a detailed biography of Boca the baritone that Frau Schoen paid for most generously. The same lady – whose connections were vast – put the translation our way of promotional material for the Hamburg American Line: easy, convenient, well-remunerated work. Sr Coberta opened his arms to us. Apart from the business we knew he was in, he had begun a new initiative: the antique trade. The economic recession was highly favorable for this kind of business. A large part of the merchandise traded during the years of inflation re-entered the market. Coberta was flourishing … Thus, what with one thing and another, we managed to rustle up a substantial income. We could defend the respect due to human dignity in terms of margarine and ersatz products. We could, at the same time, hand the translation of Kropotkin’s Ethics generously sent our way by Tassin over to more expert hands. Xammar would come carrying now this, now that new item. The Kantstrasse apartment became more elegant and stylish by the day.

  The time came when we began to wonder how much more of an open house we could sustain. The number of visitors increased weekly and I think that was down to the fact that, unlike what happened in many Berlin get-togethers, our gathering didn’t especially center on culture.

  “Our gatherings,” said Xammar, “are too entertaining, people are having too much of a good time. If we want to ensure that our guests don’t come too often, perhaps we need to raise the intellectual level in order to clear the air now and then.”

  To achieve this aim, it seemed that the presence of Dr Guerrero would be useful: a Madrid-educated Guatemalan philosopher, he was a small, thin, wan young man who carried a walking stick over his arm and spent his life rubbing his hands together. His skull was long and hard, his complexion, earthy and his nose, aristocratic and imposing. At first sight, he looked like a barber by trade who was a fan of bullfighting. Whenever I saw him, he always wore a small white jacket, carried scissors or a knife, with a yellow cigarette butt tucked behind his ear, and talked bullfight talk using convoluted language and gesturing in a peculiarly clockwork manner. He aspired after a university career but was really suffering from terrible constipation and a dearth of fibrous vegetables. Dr Guerrero was a typical example of the intense intellectual: a confused morass driven by a single desire – to enjoy a fellowship or the status of a fellow; to be a professor or enjoy the status of a professor; to have a foot on the ladder, or merit a place on the ladder. Intellectually speaking, any bubble of words sent his head into a spin. His forte was his almost complete inability to connect with reality, to separate the wheat from the chaff. He constantly oscillated between Byzantine obscurity and a mania for startling shafts of wit and held his ground as long as he could call up an incomprehensible argument or a happy play on words. He was never clear or spontaneous. He brought on that stress engendered by men born to speak without ever knowing what they are saying, men born to pronounce like oracles.

  Unfortunately, Dr Guerrero was soon rendered hors de combat. In effect, he came up against a systematic brake on his perorations in the person of Sr Mariano Regulado, from the Portuguese colonies, who’d come to town to give a course of lectures on tropical pathology. In our gatherings, Regulado was the spirit of common sense, balance, and normality. He was a paunchy diabetic, the color of faded liquorice, with long, lank, moist hair, and a face veiled in suffering.

  That fine gentleman amused himself by standing opposite the budding professor and listening to him with a smile that was enigmatic, though apparently congenial. He stood there as long as was necessary, never losing his patience, always attentive and intrigued. And it was infallible: after a more or less long spiel, the philosopher would lose his thread and start to stumble. Guerrero always tired of talking before Regulado tired of listening. When he saw he was leaking water, the Portuguese man gently cajoled him. “I can guarantee you one thing, Sr Guerrero. You are a really lovely man, I’d say it was almost a foregone conclusion that you will have a distinguished career.”

  Gerdy’s sharp eye often helped Regulado in his efforts to keep him on a rein. Guerrero made the big mistake of saying something silly about French wine in the presence of Gerdy, one of many foolish remarks one heard at the time on things that were fully established and recognized.

  “Oh, no!” exclaimed the indignant Pole. “I can’t let that remark go. It’s going too far. And tell me, Professor, what kind of philosophy do you teach if you are ignorant of such basic things? This doesn’t mean,” added Gerdy, laughing contemptuously, “that you will never become a fine university teacher …”

  Fortunately, our need to strengthen the cultural gravitas of these get-togethers was bolstered by the figure of Doctor Wiener, Privat-Dozent of Metrics at Hale University. He was in his forties, blonde going on gray, gaunt, passive, and absentminded. He looked very much like Nietzsche in the most common portraits of him, with that air of someone suddenly taken by surprise. He was very odd to observe in action. He asked the strangest questions with a deadpan expression and stopped everyone in their tracks. His curiosity knew no bounds and he poked his nose into everything. He asked equally enthusiastically about artistic matters as about the world of finance, about down-to-earth or lofty subjects. His questions seemed even odder when one noticed that Dr. W
iener never listened to any answers. Indeed, sometimes it even transpired his interlocutor was familiar with the subject his question addressed.

  Rarely, to be true: the professor was too self-preoccupied to choose his targets successfully and would often talk to young ladies about philosophy and to highly respected faculty about fashion and contemporary dance. But sometimes he got it right, and when that was the case, his target focused his ideas and would launch into general introductory remarks to what promised to be a brilliant speech. After listening for a few moments, the professor’s mind was already elsewhere. If he was on another wavelength, mid-peroration, he would hum a tune out of key or ask a question on a completely different subject, for no obvious reason. These lapses were the weak point in his strong character, though people could never agree on how to interpret them. Some declared they were clear proof that he was the consummate sage. Others, on the contrary, said he was rude and various levelheaded fellows would have liked to teach him a lesson.

  He was no different when he was doing the talking. He would switch tack, race from 3000 BC to Bismarck at a dizzy pace. His conversations were ineffably chaotic. In a nutshell, he saw some things as a function of others. However, this method, that so many people espouse, seemed comical on his lips that had never traveled the world. When he spoke it was impossible not to imagine him, ladle in hand, stirring a pot brimming with the most peculiar ingredients. The ladle brought to the surface Socrates’ broken nose as readily as a broken jaw from the Stone Age, the steeple of a Gothic cathedral as easily as sideburns from forty years ago. Many years ago when I was leafing through Spengler’s book on the crisis in the West – a book that is now completely forgotten – Dr Wiener often came to mind. They were two of a piece. Later, when I began to think of German culture and read about its history, I’ve realized that that Metrics professor was a typical product. German culture is a frantic race through time in a quest for the resolution of the principle of contradiction and the problem of duality. In this race moments of specialization are linked to successive moments of humanism, like the beads of a rosary. Specialization precedes humanism, and the latter then redescends into specialization. Specialization usually coincides with periods of prosperity; it is, we might say, the way prosperity clogs up. Humanism appears in times of decadence, is a loosening of vital energies that are unsure and confused. This pendulum movement never stops in the culture and oscillates from one side to the other to a final conclusion. Dr. Wiener brilliantly represented the humanistic moment.

  Nonetheless, the presence of that man produced the results we wanted. Many people who were intending to come to our gatherings didn’t when they knew that the professor from Hale would be there. His thick skin inspired dread and people avoided him as the devil flees the cross. The people who comprised the longstanding elements in our gathering were indifferent to his presence because they never took any notice of him.

  So an era of complete normality was established. Our needs were catered to. We enjoyed freedom of movement once again, movements that were always very modest anyway. We celebrated the way things had turned out with an excellent dinner at the Kempinski restaurant, washed down by unforgettable wines.

  However, when everything was on the right track and shipshape, I had to leave Berlin. These breaks in rhythm happen in life. I was truly sorry to say goodbye to Xammar my old friend, his wife, Mauzi, the Pekingese, and the members of our circle.

  Months went by, maybe even two or three years. My memories of that era began to fade. Every now and then I would hear news, usually vague generalities, of the inhabitants of the Kantstrasse apartment. Sometimes, I’m not sure why, I’d remember Gerdy, that lively Polish woman. She brought the charm of a spring sky, an edgy, subtle freshness to the tarnished portrait of Berlin. That was also her main drawback: Gerdy was all over you and it was difficult to have a simple straightforward conversation with her, an everyday exchange. At any rate I noted that she’d left a memory that stood out in the haze left by the march of time.

  Then all of a sudden I received news of her.

  When I was in Girona, not long ago, I saw big street hoardings advertising a performance of Rigoletto that very evening. I spotted the name of Mattia Bocca on the list of singers and presumed it was the Italian version of the name of the baritone from the Camp de Tarragona. I bought a ticket to the Teatre Principal performance and did indeed see him on stage looking sadder, more wretched and dejected than ever. His voice had flattened and he sang as a baritone bass. He had a limp and the mattress-spring shape the effort of lifting weights had given his body had slackened comically. Afterwards, we went to Ca la Quima to eat pork loin and kidney beans, roasted almonds and a drop of white wine. When we began to gossip, we talked about Berlin, but I thought his memories were embittered. All the same, I persisted and asked him if he had any news of Gerdy.

  “Do you know what happened to that amusing young lady?”

  “Yes, of course, Gerdy, the illegitimate child of Frau Schoen …”

  “Whose illegitimate child …?” I asked, astonished.

  “That’s right! Frau Schoen’s. She died only a few months ago.”

  “She died …? That can’t be right.”

  “It can’t be right? You still have it in you to make me laugh … She died of a dreadful attack of tuberculosis soon after you left.”

  I didn’t dare ask him anything else. Fear of the past had chilled me to the bone. We went for a walk along the banks of the Onyar. Maties Boca smoked, was preoccupied with himself, absent, and lethargic. He didn’t seem to want to talk. It was a mild, rather damp autumn evening. I looked at the sky, to pass the time: the usual stars, the same blank, overwhelming, inhuman world. It all inclined you to shut your eyes and be carried away by the morbid pleasures of a memory that was inevitably set to fade. Awareness of the pettiness of humankind induced melancholy voluptuousness: a mixture of dread and tenderness. We carried on walking for perhaps another quarter of an hour.

  “Isn’t about time to make our way to bed?” asked the baritone, throwing his cigar at the pebbles in the river.

  “Very well, if you like.”

  We turned round and headed back towards the city.

  “Tomorrow is another day!” said Sr Boca as he bid me farewell and held out his hand.

  “That’s very likely, of course.”

  “Good night.”

  “Adéu-siau.”

  We went off in opposite directions. Before I turned the corner, I looked back. Sr Boca had also looked back. We surveyed each other from a distance, for one lingering moment. We were at once friends and strangers in the night. In the end, I shrugged my shoulders and continued on my way.

  Roby or Deflation

  Frau Berends silently opened the door and tiptoed in. It was nearly pitch black in my bedroom. I was lying on the bed at the back smoking. I expect I’d been awake for a while, but I was afloat on a cloud of languid unknowing. Frau Berends stood by my night table, put down my newspapers and letters, and turned to leave.

  “Eleven o’clock, Frau Berends …?” I asked in a sheepish, squeaky voice.

  Frau Berends replied, groping for the handle to close the door, not looking round, her head sunk between her shoulders, in a pitiful rather than resigned tone:“Eleven o’clock …? Two o’clock! It’s getting dark again …”

  She left holding her head between her hands.

  I opened my letters. One was from my brother. It said: “Last week I sent two telegrams to your new address. They were accurately written, but both were returned with the comment: not known! They were about the favor Sr N. asked of you, that you promised to honor and never will. If you weren’t so careless and lackadaisical, I’d feel really sorry for you. Where the hell are you? Who is this Marta Berends? Are you really in Berlin? Are you sure? You’ll never change, there’s no curing you: you’re a loose cannon. Your selfishness creates infinite problems for you and makes your life a real mess. You think you’re doing whatever you feel like and the smallest incide
nt sends you off course …”

  My first inclination was mentally to agree with my brother. That gave me the pleasure of feeling I’d done my duty. That pleasure would have restored me to my languid cloud, had I not decided to reread the letter. The lost telegrams stirred me. It was indeed odd and disturbing.

  Are you an unknown in this household? I wondered, as I laced up my shoes.

  I thought about it for a time. It was strange. However, there could be no mistake. I was the only visible subtenant. The other living creatures were Frau Berends, a boy, Roby, a cat, and a kitten. The house contained objects from the intermediate realm – a gramophone, a stove and an alarm clock. Apart from that, there was nothing else with any life.