Josep Pla - Life Embitters

When I reached this point in my inner monologue, Sra Piccioni brought the dancer a cup of scented coffee. I decided it was time to leave. I stood up and said goodbye to my hostess; I wished my friend Formiguera a rapid recovery and, clearly glutted, he responded with a gloomy smile. Serafí was still curled up on the fluffy eiderdown, and I thought it best to let him be. Tintorer observed my movements with a deal of surprise and resigned to the inevitable, accompanied me to the front door. We crossed the passage into the hallway with small curtains that looked like a slightly extended puppet-theater stage.

While Tintorer silently helped me on with my coat, a bell rang. It was the bell to the door the philologist opened immediately, with the officious flourish of an expert performing a role that doesn’t form part of his expertise. A small, plump, blue-eyed young woman stood there, her cheeks red from the bitter cold amid the steam from her own mouth. She wore a tiny leather hat, a feline fur coat that made her look bulky, and the usual rubber boots. The moment the door opened she began to benefit from the temperature inside and unbuttoned her coat, giving us a glimpse of her ornately adorned plum-colored evening dress. Conversely, it also meant a handful of snow on her hat now started to melt, and that explained why her hat and coat were wet, why her coat and gloves were dripping and why her face looked so ruddy. Standing opposite the philologist, she removed her gloves, opened her purse and extracted a deeply suggestive pale lilac envelope.

“This letter,” the young lady said, “is for Herr Darsonval …”

“One moment!” replied Tintorer who turned to ask me to wait for a second.

When the letter passed by me, I noticed the perfume in the air — how that place’s usual dank dampness had been suffused by a sweet charm that didn’t belong to everyday life, as if the memory of something distant, unwarranted and rather disagreeable had popped up.

To judge by the vociferous shouting that went up shortly, at the other end of the passage, from Sra Piccioni’s hoarse, cracked voice, I guessed that Tintorer’s appearance with the letter for Formiguera was producing a genuine finimondo . The good lady must have decided the sick man was in no fit state to receive scented epistles, pale lilac missives fatally destined to upset his feelings. “That letter,” she must have thought, “is an intolerable impertinence, an absolutely obscene disruption of the peace.”

“Niente, niente!” I heard her shout from the entry hall. “ Darsonval! Non riceve lettere, imbecile! ” stormed Sra Piccioni, breaking into a sweat, quite beside herself.

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.”