Life Embitters

by Josep Pla

  Obviously the philologist bore the brunt, and nobody thought how Tintorer had simply carried out his errand in the quickest, most correct manner his officious attitude would allow. At no time during the lulls in the Italian lady’s indignant outcries did I hear the dancer pipe up. His reaction to the letter must have been completely deadpan, not only because acting blasé is the style in the cabaret world, but also because the lady was screaming too loudly to attempt to interject. He didn’t even ask from where or whom the letter had come. The philologist tried to say something – concretely, that there was a young woman at the door waiting for a reply – but the mere mention of her presence sparked such a spectacular surge in Sra Piccioni’s indignation, furnished it with such fruity vocabulary, that he decided it was vital to reverse the clock, as if nothing had happened. Still holding the letter, he swiveled round, sped down the passage and into the hallway, where the young woman in the plum dress and I were stood like two stuffed dummies, apparently unnerved by the screaming we’d just heard. Tintorer was a nervous wreck. He handed the letter back to the young woman and eerily parroted Sra Piccioni’s “Niente, niente … lettere …! Niente!”

  The young woman acted as if she’d understood nothing. She buttoned her coat up, put on her gloves, bowed, swept through the door and disappeared.

  Now we were alone once again, the philologist gave me a look that seemed to say nothing in particular. It could just as easily have been a purely reflex action as the attitude struck by a man trying to be his normal, intelligent self …

  “This woman’s so full of energy, as I told you …!” he squawked, obviously pleased with himself.

  “So I see …”

  “You know, she is not one to fiddle while Rome burns …”

  “Of course …”

  “He’ll be back to normal soon, you just see! In a couple of weeks he’ll be back dancing in cabarets. We’ll have a party. I know Sra Piccioni …”

  “I’m sure! Well, good night …”

  “When will we meet again?”

  “You know where to find me. Call me … I’ll very likely drop by the café one of these days …”

  “Yes, we should meet up.”

  “Whenever you feel like it …”

  The second I walked out the door it struck me we’d be seeing one another much earlier than we anticipated. The outcry I’d just heard, as a result of the young lady’s letter, confirmed all my conclusions. The upshot from that scene was so obvious and quite amazing given the extremely short time the dancer had been living in the household. But some women are like that: they throw themselves at the object of their desire – whatever that might be – with a quite unexpected vehemence.

  I went to a restaurant, had a light supper, and was back home at ten o’clock, with the help of a taxi that drove through the falling snow with due caution worthy of appreciation and reward.

  It snowed throughout the night and was still snowing well into the morning. Rather too much snow for my liking. Nothing in excess; surfeits unnerve me. A few days before, Nicolau Tatin, the Russian writer, had given me a description of snow in Russia, presenting that meteorological phenomenon with the solemnity, gravitas, and grandeur of something sacred. However, sacred meteorology bores me. I don’t think snow is in any way sacred nor, for that matter, is the yellow, sticky, dusty African sun of our summer climate. I like mild climes, shades of green, rain, pleasant temperatures, and sunshine. Nothing in excess, as I said.

  A surfeit of snow stuns and creates such hypochondria that men begin to behave like rabid dogs whose frenzy finds release in all kinds of unnatural and crazy deeds. I went out in the early evening in search of some normal café conviviality. Berlin was an impressive sight with brigades out clearing the way for all kinds of traffic. I was lucky and could take the usual tram.

  Tintorer was seated at the table we usually occupied. He didn’t look at all well, and knowing he was susceptible to the cold and remembering the scenes from the time his nose froze, I wasn’t boundlessly optimistic. He greeted me in a limp, weary fashion.

  “My dear philologist,” I remarked, “the weather couldn’t be worse! So where did you sleep?”

  “How come you know?”

  “I know nothing. I’m simply formulating as a question a concern that keeps buzzing round my head.”

  “I slept in the dingy room next to the kitchen, where there’s little space and lots of junk.”

  “That was predictable!”

  “Do you mean human ingratitude is always predictable?”

  “No, I mean there was every reason to expect that would happen!”

  “Sra Piccioni is an ungrateful soul. She has given the dancer from Granollers my bedroom and stuck me in the junk room.”

  “So the matter is finally resolved?”

  “What matter?”

  “The one that led you to take me to your house yesterday, on foot in that foul weather, to experience some of the most unpleasant moments in my life. I mean the matter of lodging.”

  “It’s been resolved in a reverse manner to what I anticipated. If I begged you to accompany me, it was to find a bed and room for him; it turns out he’s now established in mine.”

  “The spaghetti, dear Tintorer, the spaghetti!” I said in a spontaneously dreamy air, still in awe at the substance and quality of the contents of that tray. “Spaghetti, parmesan cheese, and a half liter of Chianti!”

  “I don’t see the connection …”

  “You still can’t see the connection? You don’t grasp the fabulous amount of emotion invested in that tray? If you don’t, it must be your poor eyesight. That tray might have seemed the most natural thing in the world, but it came loaded with a bullet. My dear friend, that was the precise moment I deduced you’d end up sleeping anywhere except in your own bedroom. Did you at least sleep soundly? I hope you didn’t catch cold? The snow is attaining absolutely sacred levels, in true Slavic style. Don’t catch cold, Tintorer! If you catch cold and your nose freezes, we’ll have to give you such a terrible beating!”

  “I can never tell whether you speak in jest or seriously …”

  “And is that young man feeling better?”

  “The young man is so-so, or so they say. I’ve not seen him, because she’s not let him get up today and has banned visits.”

  “Niente … lettere …!”

  “Precisely, Niente, niente …” Apparently, however, he didn’t enjoy a very good night. He’s been alternating bouts of sweating and chattering teeth. Formiguera is exhausted, obviously …”

  “Yes, of course, he is exhausted, emotionally exhausted, to use that word in its broadest sense, to make myself clear. He’s drained. His recovery is only a matter of time. He can look after himself, don’t you worry on his behalf …”

  “In any case, it was a wretched night. At around two, Sra Piccioni knocked on the junk room door in a state of panic and said: ‘Perhaps you should go for a doctor. Darsonval isn’t feeling well.’ ”

  “And what did you reply?”

  “That I’d put my trousers on right away.”

  “Quite the thing to say.”

  “What would you have done?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know what I’d have done. In any case, I’m more than happy to learn that you did what you did.”

  “She was alarmed because his symptoms were so extreme. His chest seemed congested. His breathing became fast and feverish. Fortunately, as the morning proceeded, her anxiety receded and I could rest. Then I felt as if I’d been asleep for days and it did me a power of good.”

  “You’ll soon see him back dancing in places where Toselli’s serenatas are all the rage.”

  “In any case, Sra Piccioni gives the orders and she says how things should be done. She’s become deeply attached to that young man and you know how dynamic she can be.”

  “Don’t be unduly anxious, dear Tintorer. It’s only a matter of very little time.”

  “Be that as it may, she’s cosseting him like a chil
d. Although she’s only known him for a couple of days and can’t be sure he likes her house, she’s caring for him better than she would her favorite niece. It’s all hot water bottles, cups of brodo, I mean broth, and treats of very kind. Everybody seems to be at the dancer’s beck and call. Can you believe it? When I moved to the junk room, Serafí refused to join me. Some days are so pernicious they seem tailor-made to destroy principles one thought were rock solid. And I always thought a dog was a man’s best friend!”

  “Now who is fiddling while …? Please don’t start being hard on canine caprices! Only poetic truth, my dearly beloved philologist, is truly liberating … Goethe dixit ages ago.”

  There was a short lull. Tintorer’s humble glass of coffee had gone cold. I suggested fortifying it with a shot of kirsch and luckily he got the message. That man worried me. Whenever I looked through the crack in the curtains and out on to the street, I saw a cold, unfriendly night out there and thought he’d have been better off keeping to our climate. “If he falls ill in his present lodgings,” I thought, “what decision will Sra Piccioni decide to take? Will she suggest he go to hospital? Will she tell him that she’s done her duty by sick men? Will she leave him in the junk room?”

  “Is there a way to heat the room you’re in now?” I asked.

  “No stove, no light, no brazier, no fireplace.”

  “So what will you do? How do you see things?”

  “I don’t know. My brain is tired. All in all, I don’t think it would be a good idea to break with him or her.”

  “In principle, I think …”

  “He’s a good lad. I’ve known him for years. We have bumped into each other in different countries. He’s done me no end of favors. He has no side to him. He is generous, genuinely so, I mean I don’t need to flatter him for you to see that. But he has one terrible weakness, though he’s no side, he’s never his own man. He’s a plaything in the hands of the people he meets from day to day. When I met him in Paris in a small restaurant on the Rue Blanche that was packed out with fair-haired, jovial young toughs who lived well though they had neither a trade nor income, he was exactly the same as he is now. Don’t think that this doesn’t have its merit …”

  “What merit might that be? If it’s a feature of elephants to have trunks and of squirrels to have long tails, are you of the opinion that a squirrel’s long tail earns it merit?”

  “If you only knew the people Formiguera has had to suck up to, or entertain, you would be astonished!”

  “But that’s no merit in itself. It’s in his nature. Was he dancing in Paris?”

  “It’s all he did. He could earn as much money as he wanted. But it was a wretched life. I’d ask him, ‘Aren’t you ashamed? You’re a pleasant, nice young man. Any activity could earn you enough for a decent life. If you want maintenance without ever doing anything, a certain notion of marriage might be the solution.’ I brought him to tears, but all to no avail. Everything dragged him back to that way of life. He was vain, money ran through his fingers, and he’d come to take that world seriously. He was a rural lad intoxicated by patent leather shoes and gleaming white teeth. He liked being in that dazzling cesspit – the corrupt sentimentalism of late nights and catchy tunes. It’s a world where you laugh yourself to death. It made Formiguera cry and quiver with emotion. And strange to say he was from Granollers, from the rural-domestic hearth of the symphony that is Vallès. It’s beyond belief. Cabarets are the running sores of modern life. That a boy from Granollers should find himself in Berlin and giddy on cabaret at this particular moment in history is at once tragic and miserably grotesque.”

  “That’s for sure.”

  “You saw him yesterday. He looks in a bad state, the distilled pallor, the three- or four-day-old beard, his nose’s cold anguished lines, hollow cheeks, sunken eyes, blotting-paper ears … I’ve seen him like that a number of times, and I’ll tell you one thing: even when ill, his kind is lucky. Do you know what I’ve heard some ladies say about Formiguera? That he’s got lovely eyelashes …”

  “Is Sra Piccioni of the same opinion?”

  “I must confess I’ve reached a point when I understand nothing.”

  “All the same, you must reach a decision in relation to her. The room you’re in now is not what you call comfortable.”

  “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.