Josep Pla - Life Embitters

“Why don’t we go to Bruges? If you introduce me to Dr Busch, I promise to show you the city.”

“There’s an express that leaves for Brussels at nine A.M.”

But this train didn’t interest Marta. She chose a much slower one that left an hour earlier, because — so she said — she was looking forward to enjoying the landscape.

We met at the station at the time we’d agreed and took a train as far as Dunkirk. From Calais to Dunkirk the train runs alongside the dunes and sandbanks in the Channel. A desolate, desert landscape: strikingly monotonous and depressing. Then we took another train to Bruges via Diksmuide and Kortemark. It was quite a slow journey — somnolent would be the word. The grayness of the day intensified all that. We saw a large slice of western Flanders — what wonderful countryside!

After Dunkirk the quiet chug-chug of the train seemed to intensify the vibrations from Marta. Lolling back on her seat in the compartment — next to my left arm — her mouth slightly open, both entranced and aroused by the views, nose tilted slightly upwards, legs outstretched and eyes drowsy, she seemed in thrall to the outside world. I could hear her deep, quiet breathing. The train was progressing through Flanders’ fields, and the presence of that rather weary body so close to mine made it feel as if I was putting my ear and cheek to the pale earth and listening to its deep, regular heartbeat.

Flanders, Flanders … Is there a land more charming than Flanders? The country is as flat as a hand; like blue down, a barely perceptible veil of darkness sheaths the fields’ infinite shades of apple green. The languid, gracious land seems to half-smile. There are no woods or eyesores. Tall slender trees stand to attention along the canals, shadows from their unstill leaves tremble over the water. Changing and ineffable, the wondrous gray-green sky quivers and frolics, voluptuous yet melancholy in the dense, sleeping water. When brightness breaks through and day begins, the white of the houses warms up, red roofs turn a pumpkin color and the earth stirs slightly, as if turning on its other side. A barge daubed with tar leaves a hazy trail of light. Seemingly from behind a half-closed door, a muffled sound spreads through the air. Fair-haired, well-fed, chubby folk come out to take a look. Women stick their heads out of windows and a spot of gold appears between small white curtains. For a moment. The sun hides behind a creamy pink cloud, a stray beam streaks a distant purple downpour and that vaguely opaque eyelid covers the earth once again and shrouds the glittering waters. Hours pass by in this eternal play between heaven and earth. The lapses into silence, the lovingly dense water, the sardonic indifference of the sky slip away in a gentle haze. Life is never changing: roosters’ early morning shrieks, animals’ afternoon ruminations, country people gossiping quietly, soft, gentle rainfall, the nighttime sea wind’s complaining whine, distant, burning lights amid the faint glow from cities … By the time we reached Bruges, darkness was falling. The days were beginning to shorten.

We walked down to the Hôtel de Londres in the station district — a hotel that seemed very comfortable. Marta said she was very tired and stayed in her bedroom. I went out keen to find out whether Professor Busch was about. I knew he used to go to the Claeys bookshop on the Place de l’Académie in the late afternoon, and I headed there. I’d not taken thirty steps along the street when I was enveloped by the silence of Bruges, that divine peacefulness. A hazy light was reflected in the mauve waters of the small canals and faded on the gray façades of the houses. I walked along the sidestreets around the Saint-Sauveur cathedral and the Bishop’s Palace, and then, along the Rue Sainte-Catherine to the Place de l’Académie that is quite close to the old Béguinage. I was surprised by the buttery smell floating on the streets and squares. It is — immediately — rather too dense a smell (for my taste). It is the smell that Belgium and Holland make. The atmosphere in the bookshop was extremely drowsy and tepid within its generally severe, solid tone. I asked the young lady at the till about the professor and she said that this gentleman never failed to drop by the bookshop in the afternoon to browse and leaf through the new titles. I decided to wait. After twenty minutes I saw him come in accompanied by two ladies who spoke English — two ladies who right away made a strange impact on me, an impact I found difficult to pin down, though it was definitely strange. Given the unexpected company he was keeping I thought it would be tactful to wait for another opportunity to say hello. But I suppose the young lady at the till told him I’d shown an interest in seeing him. He came over, recognized me, and welcomed me extremely effusively — which I found rather surprising — and he introduced me to his friends, a couple of Miss Clarks (if I remember rightly) from Plymouth. These ladies, who were hardly young, though they were quite skinny, shook my hands in a stiff, frosty manner I felt they overdid.

Professor Busch was a small, thin man with a huge, completely bald head that rested on his shoulder; he looked well over sixty. A dark flame glimmered disturbingly in his warm, blue eyes. He had big flapping parchment-colored ears, sported a limp gray moustache, and his wry lips constantly fired out sarcastic rockets.

He dressed in black, extremely shabbily: a jacket that hung down on all sides, trousers with baggy knees, and a frayed tie with a half-made knot. He wore misshapen shoes and a hat that was battered rather than old. The blackness of his clothes underlined the deep pallor of his face. This color reminded me of how, at the end of his lectures, a pale patch of pink used to appear on his cheeks, like a patch of faded crimson. He must now be permanently weary because his cheeks were rosy pink.

“How long have you been here?” asked a very welcoming Professor Busch.

“I’ve only just arrived …”

“Are you by yourself?”

“I’ve come with a young lady who is longing to make your acquaintance.”

“A student? That’s wonderful!”

I had to respond, and I confirmed the professor’s hunch. I told him that she was indeed a student.

“I have to make a confession: you will find I’ve changed a lot. Yes, I’ve changed drastically. Now, for example, I like women. After living in limbo for so many years, not taking notice of anything, vegetating in my obsession for things, might we say, to do with culture, I now like to live life. I’m passionate about women. Especially students, if I’m going to be candid. They are usually adorable people. In a way, my aims in life have changed focus: before I liked culture’s object; now I prefer the subjects … Do you catch my drift? I only rue one thing: that I’ve come round so late.”

I stared at him and thought I must be hallucinating. It was a really drastic change. On the one hand, he seemed more on edge, worried about putting on an open-minded front, about appearing to be lively and curious, and at the same time I thought he’d aged considerably, and felt old fogeyish — out-of-kilter and enfeebled in a way. Good God! In Louvaine I’d always seen him as a man difficult to befriend, given his solitary ways and aloof, remote demeanor. He was the kind of man who never initiated a conversation and who only spoke — and then little — when spoken to. True, he had somewhat of a reputation for being bohemian and eccentric and was thought to suffer from delicate health. Some people claimed he spent months not getting out of bed, shut up in his house, always working away. He was considered to be a highly reputable scholar in the field of the History of the Reformation, but, curiously enough, whenever anyone referred to him as professor, he half-closed his eyes and a small smile — ironic rather than vain — would spread over his face.