Josep Pla - Life Embitters

“Niubó, many thanks …”

“Donya Emília, please, I beg you!”

“It has been a dire misfortune, an irreversible misfortune …”

“Have you had no reply? Haven’t you received a single letter?”

“I’ve written everywhere … Not a word.”

“Calm down, Donya Emília. These upsets could kill you.”

A long lull. Stillness. Muffled sobs.

“He’s not going to answer, Donya Emília.”

“How do you know? What else have you to say to me?”

“I think … there’s no reason to despair, even so.”

“Niubó, for God’s sake, you of all people should understand.”

“I do. And I would say that Providence sometimes provides the most surprising solutions.”

“Solutions? What possible solution could there be?”

“Providence is almighty and it is sinful to despair.”

“Some things cannot be forgiven …”

“Everything is forgivable, Donya Emília, if one has faith.”

Long lull. Stillness. A waterful of tears.

“Yes, Senyora Emília. Providence does provide solutions …”

“What solution do you see, Niubó?”

“It’s obvious enough: marry her off.”

“Marry her off?”

“Yes, senyora, marry her off.”

“By the Virgin Mary, Niubó, marry her off to whom?”

“It’s rather a delicate matter … But, given certain conditions, I might be willing to marry her …”

“Would you marry her, Senyor Niubó?”

“Yes, I would, senyora. However, I don’t wish to trouble you any more now … You need rest. We can talk later. A good afternoon to you …”

“Niubó, Senyor Niubó!”

Long lull. Stillness. Stifled sobs.

The day after was Sunday. Most of the boarders went out in the morning. I was relaxing on my bed smoking a cigar. It was early on and I was suddenly surprised to hear voices next door. Sr Pastells had just made an entrance.

“Senyora, I’d not come before …”

“Oh, Pastells, this is such a wretched stroke of misfortune …!”

“Poor child!”

“Child …? What do you expect me to say?”

“Do you have any news?”

“I’ve done everything in my power to find out where he is. For the moment nobody knows what’s become of him.”

“That’s natural enough …”

“Natural enough? Pastells, do you really think it’s natural?”

“Youth is wild … We’ve all been young in our time. Perhaps it’s best to accept that.”

Long lull. Stillness. More stifled sobs.

“Donya Emília, try to put it behind you …”

“Believe me, if I could …”

“Make an effort … Sometimes the most complicated situations can be resolved …”

“How can you resolve this one, Pastells? It offers no way out, it’s an absolute dead end.”

“Time is a great healer, Donya Emília … Don’t be so anxious.”

“You are very kind, Pastells, but you are forgetting how terrible such misfortunes …”

“One never knows, Donya Emília, one never knows …”

“One never knows, you say!”

“I repeat that one never knows …”

Long lull. Stillness. A waterfall of tears.

“I feel for you, Donya Emília …”

“I didn’t deserve this.”

“Of course you didn’t! Don’t act this way …”

“So how do you expect me to act?”

“Sometimes, those who stay put can replace those who depart …”

“And what is that supposed to mean …?”

“It wouldn’t be difficult to marry her off …”

“Who would you like to marry her off to?”

“What if we were to say it’s something we might discuss?”

“Would you marry her, Senyor Pastells?”

“Stranger things have happened under the sun. I don’t know why we might not discuss …”

“Poor Pastells! Would you marry her?”

“Why not? Who knows? Let’s talk about it anon. Forgive me if I’ve made things worse …”

“Pastells, poor Pastells …!”

Footsteps. The door closes. A flood of tears.

I stayed on in the boarding house for a few more days. I was very surprised these conversations didn’t echo further abroad. Everyone acted as if nothing had happened. I thought for a moment that it would be amusing to pass on the conversations I’d overheard. I only needed to speak to the maid. That elemental soul had a natural ability to turn the simplest matters into a wonderful hue and cry. I didn’t dare. I felt it would be cruel to play with everyone’s woes. In effect everything had taken the same road and we were all in this together.

At mealtimes, the deep seriousness of the boarders showed no sign of giving. My friend Veciana made one last effort to break the ice: it was hopeless. A series of indignant looks convinced him that the case of Angelina’s frailty had received its final sentence. She had gone too far. It was intolerable. Niubó assumed an air of righteous respectability, faced up to Veciana, and told him to be quiet. Pastells was evidently overjoyed.

The dining room became a highly unpleasant place. One could hear the flies buzz as the clatter of plates and cutlery faded. The clatter seemed to lighten the egg stains on the napkins. We struggled to swallow a mouthful of water and chew our meat. We had lost our appetite and thirst. We were like a collection of specters, and the maid passed round plates in a daydream. I looked at the row of them, Niubó the registrar between Sr Pastells and the bank debt-collector under the print of Romeo and Juliet on their idealized romantic balcony. One could say they were extremely subdued. Knowing what lay behind their ashen faces, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Their cordial manner upset me. They exchanged affable glances when each one was hoping his two colleagues would disappear to a far corner on the face of this earth. I discerned successive changes in their tired eyes. Sometimes one seemed to look perkier, as if his personal situation had improved. Generally, however, they reflected an awareness of the implacably impossible nature of things. They were like three broken-toothed, shabby old lions, down-and-out, ready to leap at anything, waiting for the right moment …

Every day toothpick time would come when the dining room turned into a cage of canaries as the lodgers trilled. Followed by the roll-a-cigarette moment …

“Sr Niubó, do invite me for a smoke …” said Sr Pastells.

“You wouldn’t have a paper, Sr Pastells?” asked the debt-collector.

“Sr Veciana, a match if you don’t mind …” piped the registrar.

These exchanges never ceased. It was a phenomenon that triumphed over any sporadic contingency.

When the meal was over, we all stood up looking relieved, shut ourselves in our bedrooms, and breathed again.

Afternoons were sultry and oppressive. Donya Emília continued to be engulfed in disconsolate sorrow. The judge’s visits became less frequent, and when he did appear he simply asked the maid for the essential news, in that sardonic, roundabout way of his. Angelina’s room remained becalmed in total silence. The maid gave up the rocking chair completely. The sun lingered on the ideal print. Now and then a wraith emerged from the gloomy passageway. Then the lavatory would flush, making a horrible, appalling, shocking racket. Later on, the cat went on the prowl and you could hear its nails grate on the mosaic tiles …

The first of the month eventually came around, and I left without making a fuss, so as not to bother …

Sr Verdaguer, who had spent his life going in and out of boarding houses, used to tell me rather pompously: “Young man, a boarding house is a way of working …”

I also lived a lot in lodgings in my student days. I didn’t experience the classic establishments in the old quarter of Barcelona: dark and dirty, with huge, dimly lit, freezing bedrooms. On the other hand, I did experience many in the Eixample: pretentious places that were, in fact, shamefully poverty-stricken even if they kept up appearances and paid lip service to current fads and clichés.