Josep Pla - Life Embitters

“I don’t understand …”

“It’s obvious enough. Don’t you agree it is vanity that leads men to approach women?”

“So is it vanity that’s making you talk to me now?”

“Absolutely.”

“And nothing else?”

When she asked that, I simply stared at the ceiling; I couldn’t think what to say. For a moment I felt like replying: “I’m talking to you in order to kill time …” but I thought that would have seemed far too brutal. Then, I felt like saying, in tremulous tones: “I was fantastically interested in you; if you are prepared to hear a declaration of love …”

My sense of the ridiculous intervened and swept away my beautiful words. How pitiful and sad.

She probably took pity on me, because she went on to ask, as if nothing was amiss: “And what might the advantages be?”

“There’s the huge pride at a done deal. Above all, you mustn’t mistake the smoke for the fire. Think about pure movement, about love. Love is one of the most ingenuous forms of vanity. We bond …”

“You might just as well say ‘we marry’ …”

“Are you married?”

“Imagine that I am. Go on …”

“Well, we marry to ensure we have a dedicated, understanding, enraptured audience. We always need somebody to listen to us.”

“This is all very convoluted.”

“Explanations of such things are always very convoluted. But don’t you think this is crystal-clear? Can you conceive of a theater without an enthusiastic audience?”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing much, really … When we meet a woman who will listen to us we say she is in love with us …”

“Is that all?”

“Well, that she is listening one-hundred percent. Sometimes, she only appears to be listening. The more compliments we receive, the greater the arguments we provoke, the more loved we feel. Love is never a dialogue …”

“So it’s a monologue then?” she asked, laughing sadly.

“True love, absolute love is never anything but an absurdly selfish monologue in the presence of a spectator who takes an interest or who we think takes an interest in the things we are saying …”

“You reduce everything to a spectacle the audience always approves of … and what happens if the audience answers back and speaks her mind?”

“Well, I hardly need tell you that nobody finds it pleasant to be contradicted. What do you expect? We don’t like … I’m talking, in general terms, about people in a good state of health. I’ve sometimes felt pleasure at being annoyed. When I’ve felt like that, it’s because I was sick …”

“And do you think nothing can ever be mutual?”

“No, it’s a monologue, pure show. The person talking feels pleased that someone is listening. Other people’s sensuality is in the listening. I will go that far. Other people’s vanity is completely out of my control. In any case, it must be like mine: huge!”

“But isn’t love also about listening a little?”

“Listening to what?”

“To what a woman is saying, for example …”

“But do women ever say anything?”

“You are so unfair! One of the most astonishing things in this world is the wonderful flexibility of a woman in love …”

“In novels, for sure …”

“And in trains sometimes …”

“But don’t you find,” I replied, not rising to the bait, “that, if they listen to you and at the same time find pleasure in so doing, that the harmony is too great for one to say it is love?”

“Why do you over-complicate things so? Reciprocity isn’t an unattainable ideal. It exists.”

“Yes, it exists, but it’s no longer love. It has become a habit, like eating everyday at the same time with the same person …”

She lowered the window and put her head out, with a cigarette between her lips. The cigarette burst into flame and the sparks flew into her hair. I rushed to put them out with my hand. Her very short hair felt silken. My hand fell slowly from her hair to her neck. She looked at me in distress, but not in anger.

“Why were you crying?” I asked.

She didn’t answer. She shut the window and tidied her hair. In the meantime I said rather sarcastically: “Being in love is so sad …”

“I’m not in love.”

“That’s what it looks like.”

“In what way?”

“You seem anxious, extremely worried, and are smoking nervously …”

I stopped, amazed by my ability when it comes to trying my luck. I’d astonished myself, as somebody who is so shy on terra firma and such a chatterbox in a train corridor, and at that time of night. It was obviously the train. Everyone becomes charming and dreamy-eyed on a train, not to say bold and daring. I couldn’t stop looking into her green eyes.

“Why do you keep looking at me like that?”

“You’re so interesting. Besides, I think I’ve seen you …”

“I can’t possibly be of interest to you. Where did you see me?”

“In Le Jardin du Luxembourg. I live in Montparnasse.”

“I live quite close. On the Avénue d’Orléans.”

“You’re very lucky. It’s a delightful place.”

“Too bourgeois, perhaps; too manicured, and rather exhausting.”

“Lots of teachers …”

“Yes, we’re all quite mad. We’re a band of harmless dreamers. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

“But it’s so pretty. The trees on the Avénue d’Orléans are such a warm green, I know a restaurant where the food is excellent, the children are so angelic. Do you have any children?”

“Any children?” she repeated, shocked.

“You’re married …”

“How did you find that out?”

“If you had a child, you’d be asleep in your compartment now …”

“Maybe. Who can say!”

“That’s the solution.”

“The solution to what?”

“To marriage.”

She stared at me, after a pause: “Do you think so? Do you speak from experience?”

“No, not from experience. I simply think …”

“It’s such fun talking about other people’s problems.”

“No, I am really interested in these things.”

“It’s not worth the candle. Life is so fickle. Nothing holds up, or at least very little. If you’re unfortunate enough to harbor expectations …”

“I want to put on a bold front, at the very least.”

Suddenly: “Look, the moon is coming out …”

I opened the window and we both put our heads outside. She pointed to the glow on the horizon. With her arm still reaching into the darkness she asked, “Is it the moon?”

“I don’t know … If it is, it’s a very strange moon.”

“Perhaps it’s the glow from Limoges.”

“No, that’s another hour.”

“Still!”

“Are you in a hurry?”

“If only you knew!”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing! It’s not worth …”

I looked insistently at her. I did find that woman interesting. Conversely, I needed to kill time. I didn’t know how. We started to talk about other things. What didn’t we talk about? Our journey went on like that, for ages.

Where were we when the dramatic moves took place? We can’t have been far from Limoges. All of a sudden she looked at me, and laughed so sadly as she asked: “Where are you going?”

“To Barcelona.”

“Why don’t you keep me company in Limoges? I’d really like that.”

I was dumbfounded and thought I must be hallucinating. Then I replied, “Will you be there long?”

“Why? Won’t you keep me company if I stay very long?”

“If one wants to be your friend, one shouldn’t have other commitments, right?”

“Oh, I see! You’ve lots to do.”

“I thought I did a few seconds ago.”

“Thank you so much. I’ll stay in Limoges for a day — in fact, not in Limoges really. Tomorrow I have to go to a nearby town, to Le Dorat. If you like, we can go together.”