Josep Pla - Life Embitters

A silence descended that Ferrer could only endure by looking wistfully at Sra Paradís.

“On the other hand, you know …” the lady of the house said finally, in her normal tone of voice, “Apparently Verdaguer and Riera are going …”

“Yes, they are, apparently …” replied a much quieter, almost offhand Sr Ferrer.

“Verdaguer doesn’t surprise me,” added the landlady. “He was planning something that totally failed. I expect you know that he proposed to me … What a cheek!”

“You’ve completely floored me …!” said Ferrer, returning to his pathetic tone.

“That should be nothing to surprise you. Verdaguer is a has-been. He’s past it. He’s done nothing worthwhile in life. He is sour and irritable, is unpleasant and nasty, drinks cognac and is unable to keep a friend. He’s the kind that likes to give out orders. He’s old and finds he has no means to support himself, no trade or income …”

“But the fellow could work, could find a partner …”

“Oh, no, he could not! ” said Sra Paradís, more animated than ever. “Verdaguer now cleans typewriter keys with a toothbrush, and that’s for a very few hours in the day, and it has embittered him. He is a vain man. He could, if you like, be a tax collector or a shop assistant, but I don’t think they’d ever manage to train him. As far as he was concerned, the solution was to marry me: he saw that much very clearly. It would be the way to settle what he owed me, a lot of money, more than five hundred pesetas — you should know that he is a man who spends more than he earns, and, into the bargain, he’d resolve the problem of the years to come …”

“And did you consider that was a good or bad solution as far as you were concerned?” asked the naïvely impertinent Ferrer.

“What can I say? How could I know!” replied Sra Paradís, shrugging her shoulders. “I didn’t like the way he framed his proposal — ‘I will be your administrator! And you can take a rest. You could do with a rest, lots of rest … We will have an accounts book. We will note income on one side and expenses on the other … At the end of the month we’ll add up and do our accounts. You’ll never have to do another thing; you’ll live like a queen, and be free of headaches … I will see to everything, purchases, meals, lodgers, the apartment …’ ”

“My God, what nerve!” exclaimed Ferrer, pretending to be highly indignant.

“But you must realize that I see through this kind of person? I see them coming a mile away. What’s the difference between Riera and Verdaguer? None whatsoever! They are hollow, withered men, devoid of warmth and tenderness: ice-cold egotists. Look at them now: they’re both off … When Verdaguer suggested that we should marry, I decided one day to act as if I was going along with him, and we even got to down to some of the details … The first thing he told me when we started on the nitty-gritty, was that he didn’t have enough clothes to marry a person of my status. He wanted me to settle the eventual tailor’s bill … Sr Ferrer, it would be sad to have to depend on this kind of fellow!”

Sr Ferrer’s perplexity spiraled. He looked at Sra Paradís. What most impressed him was the coldly objective way she spoke about such a disagreeable subject.

“I see you find all this very upsetting, my poor Sr Ferrer,” continued Sra Paradís after a brief pause. “You pretend to be strong minded, but you are really little more than a child …”

“And what happened about Sr Riera, Sra Paradís?” Sr Ferrer asked softly.

“He’s quite another matter …”

“Did he also propose to you?”

“Never! He made an appointment to see me one day in the Plaça Reial, when it was pouring with rain.”

“Yes, I know, senyora! I know all about …”

“How can you, Sr Ferrer? He made this mysterious appointment in the Plaça Reial, and inside a hallway let flow at length in a speech full of pithy observations, the way he likes to speak, sprinkled with trite circumlocutions as sickly sweet as crystallized fruit. And all paving the way to tell me that he had lots of money in a current account in some bank or other …”

“That must have impressed you …” suggested Sr Ferrer, in another display of naïve impertinence.

“You can imagine! I told him no, no, no …!”

“Just like General Prim, I see.”

“And what exactly do you mean by ‘Just like General Prim, I see’?”

“I’m sorry. I was recalling the famous remark made by General Prim: ‘Never, never, never!’ ”

“I didn’t know you were so learned, Sr Ferrer! You keep it so well hidden …”

“Not at all. The truth is that my father hailed from Reus like the general.”

“Ah, right! I expect you know the whole story that turned out to be rather long-winded.”

“Shush, I beg you, Sra Paradís, don’t say another word!”

They were silent for a moment. Then apparently weary and out-of-sorts, after glancing at Sr Ferrer a tad contemptuously, the lady of the house walked towards the door.

“You seem very despondent, senyora!” said Ferrer warmly, with an air of obsequious concern. “Are you very tired?”

“Yes, frankly, I am rather tired …”

“Would like me to make you a cup of lemon verbena or a lime infusion?”

“Oh no, thank you, senyor! Everything is switched off at this time of night. In fact, everything is always switched off in this house … Shall we call it a day, Sr Ferrer? A goodnight to you, sleep well …” said Sra Paradís, turning the door handle.

The sparrows on the Rambla greeted dawn on August 1, 192_ … with their usual noisy chatter. Light, transparent, steely wafers of cloud covered the sky that morning. To the east, from the Barceloneta, they were purplish, like huge bruises. The sun shone, the sky was clean and pure; the day was unfurling in all its sunny crystalline splendor. The tree branches lining the streets retained their sour green texture but dust turned the leaves a pale yellow. The raw morning light emphasized the familiar hard lines of the long avenues. Normal city life began and the coffee taps ran on Canaletes. The trams were like impish, endlessly multiplying blotches of canary yellow.

At a quarter to eight slight activity was apparent in the boarding house on Carrer de Consell de Cent. Sr Verdaguer came into the passage with a huge package under his arm and headed towards Sr Riera’s room.

“Are you ready?” whispered Verdaguer, knocking on the door

Riera soon emerged with a large blue cardboard suitcase, tied round with esparto grass string. The suitcase was in typical Mediterranean taste.

“All ready!” he said, putting his hat slightly on the tilt, as was his style.

They quietly opened the door, went down the stairs and Riera left his suitcase with the concierge.

“A porter will fetch it tomorrow,” he told the concierge, who was shaking a glass of white coffee into which she was about to dip her bread.

They walked into the street and glanced at each other quite spontaneously. Verdaguer looked white and nervous, had slept very badly, and in the stark sunlight seemed sallow, withered, and wrinkled. Under his large black Valencia hat, Riera looked rather gloomy and apprehensive. His little eyes seemed to have receded even further under his bushy gray eyebrows. A bitter — monotonously bitter — smile revealed his chipped teeth.

They walked down Carrer de Balmes.

Verdaguer soon broke into a sweat, perhaps because he was so nervous and upset, and with that package tied round with string under his arm he looked an irredeemably broken reed of a man.

“I must confess, Riera, my dear friend, that even if I could have stayed in that house, I wouldn’t … It was revolting!” exclaimed Verdaguer, visibly straining to seem indignant.