Josep Pla - Life Embitters

Certainly Ramonet was a dissolute character who left artistes and chorus girls gasping; he had been marked for life by his ability to work on the emotions. One year he failed in a number of subjects in his final engineering exams and his father sentenced him to spend the summer in Barcelona, something that delighted him. He lived in a boarding house two floors down from the one owned by Donya Emília. This meant that Angelina and Reynals met and talked on the staircase. One day they even ate an ice cream together in a café on the nearby Ronda. But there was nothing else that could allow one to speculate about a deepening relationship between Angelina and Reynals.

Pastells’ point of view was ridiculous, however much he’d been influenced by the magical aura surrounding certain privileged beings. To affirm that Reynal’s sole presence in a specific building was enough to affect the different young ladies living on the same staircase seemed to be taking it too far. That young ladies could be defiled without being touched is a typically medieval occurrence, recorded in the history books, and only comprehensible in the light of the dark shadows hanging over that era. The world of today has evolved; contemporary enlightenment is undeniable and science will not allow one to get away with random supposition. But I wasn’t surprised that Sr Pastells’ ideas about this individual were so full of heroic imponderables: he had hobnobbed far too much with blue-blooded people. Despite leading a life in the wide world, surrounded by celebrities and luminaries, and despite warming so many chairs in aristocratic circles and being a man without prejudices, Pastells was a throwback, a man from a bygone age, a relic.

One learned, meanwhile, that Angelina had shut up like a clam and was in vehement denial of the reality. That gave us an idea of her basically moral ways and we thought she must have been duped in a most caddish manner. Though material proof of reality was obvious from her face, we would have needed little persuasion to side with her, and that says a lot about the frailty of man’s philosophical capacities. Time went by and we just couldn’t get to the bottom of it. Students asked would reply in a huff, hoping — I concluded — to force people to think they were men like any others, or even men whose ambitions flew much higher. “Who do you take me for, senyora, who do you take me for …?” hapless Donya Emília kept hearing, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

Nevertheless, reality took its course, and finally, Angelina, at her wits’ end, revealed all. The man responsible was one Joan Casas, completely unknown to lodgers and family alike; from a good family, he was a poet who had won prizes in various competitions, an aloof, passionate young fellow who had migrated to France a few months ago, as a consequence of those hard times. There was no news from the seducer. Perhaps he was simply a frivolous chap. Perhaps his silence was due to the economic difficulties overwhelming him. Be that as it may, the boarders were hugely affected and the whole house sank into a state of bitter sorrow.

It is difficult to describe the silent, inconsolable sadness that swept through the place. Angelina’s carelessness had no excuses. Everyone agreed that she had abused trust and had gone much too far. The disaster wrought havoc on the honest consciences of Niubó the registrar, Sr Pastells and my friend Veciana. They found it hard to bury what had happened under words of reproach because they were stunned, as if they’d been hit by a hammer. Donya Emília stopped coming into the dining room and I’d often hear her muffled sobs from her bedroom that was next to mine. The judge’s visits became few and far between. On the few occasions he did come he went in for a second and then emerged with a glazed, deadly serious expression on his face. Angelina’s finger exercises ended. Her door seemed to have turned into a gravestone. An oppressive atmosphere enveloped the table at mealtimes. Everyone ate in silence, with no appetite, the only sound coming from the cutlery clattering against plates and glasses. At night, in particular, suppers were interminable and we struggled to chew our meat or empty our glasses of water. My friend Veciana attempted several times to initiate general conversation in order to distract everyone. He tried everything to no avail. One day he decided to remind us that a friend of his at the bank was of the opinion that people like Angelina are capable of amazing sincerity. He struggled to finish his sentence. A round of furious glances strangled his words.

The dining room perhaps livened up slightly at the end of meals. Then everyone grabbed a toothpick and trilled like a songbird. The room became a birdcage. This was followed by a pause to roll cigarettes that generated the only spontaneous exchanges.

“Sr Pastells, invite me to a smoke …!” said the registrar.

“Veciana, you wouldn’t have a paper by any chance?” asked Sr Pastells.

“Sr Niubó, a match if you don’t mind …” piped the debt-collector.

This had been happening for years. It was proof of the friendship the three men enjoyed. This swapping of small items was common among recalcitrant lodgers. If anyone at the end of the year had counted the cigarettes, papers, matches, buttons, shoelaces that Veciana, Pastells, and Niubó had exchanged, each man’s contribution would have worked out exactly the same.

Even so, when the meal was over, we stood up with a sense of release, shut ourselves in our bedrooms, and breathed again.

Afternoons in the boarding house thus became drawn out, mute, brooding occasions. Silence thickened the air and not a word broke it. The line of doors on both sides of the passage always remained closed. If someone went in or out, they were like a weightless shadow no sound betrayed. The cat padded voluptuously through the hushed house. That was clearly an overreaction. It was a great misfortune, but what was behind everyone’s pitiful face? Weren’t they perfect strangers? I found it wearisome and, though the place suited me, I decided to tell Donya Emília that she could dispose of my room.

A few days after I’d told her I was surprised by a conversation in the room next door. No doubt about it: it was Donya Emília and Veciana the debt collector.

“Poor girl! What a calamity!”

“For God’s sake, Veciana, don’t ever mention it again!”

“So what’s happened?”

“I can tell you. I’ve written to the whole of France.”

“And nothing forthcoming …”

“Not a word.”

A long lull. Stillness. Stifled sobs.

“So how will you fix this, Donya Emília?”

“Fix this? What on earth do you mean, Veciana?”

“One can fix anything …”

“Can one?”

“Yes, one certainly can, senyora. It’s easy …”

“You think it’s easy?”

“Yes, senyora, very easy.”

“Even if she is bearing someone else’s child?”

“Yes, senyora, even if she is bearing someone else’s child …”

A long lull. Stillness. A flood of tears.

“One can fix anything, senyora.”

“And how can one fix this, Veciana?”

“By marrying her off …”

“By marrying her off to whom? Who will ever want to marry her in such circumstances?”

“I’m not sure how to say this … Yours truly, senyora, and you need look no further.”

“You, Veciana? Are you insane? Poor Veciana!”

“I don’t know about that. I’ve said it now. It’s up to you … You must decide and dispose. And rest.”

“Veciana, my poor Veciana …!

Footsteps. The door closes. A waterfall of tears.

Several days went by. Nothing changed in the boarding house. The same bleak oppression. It was Saturday afternoon. It was sultry and silent in the almost empty apartment. I heard muttering in Donya Emília’s room. It was the registrar’s nasal croak.