Josep Pla - Life Embitters

We went as far as Notre-Dame. The entrance to the Hôpital de Saint Jean is through an almost hidden door opposite the church. It so happened, however, that we bumped into Professor Busch in the Rue du Sablon. And that was that. I introduced Marta to him.

“Oh, mademoiselle!” he said, suddenly moistening his lips. “You are so lovely.”

At first, she was visibly surprised by his rather buffoonish appearance — that big head of his was quite scary. Then she glanced at him pleasantly, in an ingenuously flirtatious manner, but — and this was surely what the professor most appreciated — obviously intrigued.

He said he was on his way back from the station where he’d accompanied those ladies, who were planning to take the London ferry from Ostend that afternoon, and had lost his way. I said we were planning to go to the Hôpital to see the Memlings and I asked him to accompany us, but he didn’t seem at all keen on the idea.

“Bah!” he replied, reacting rather histrionically, puffing out his chest and raising his head to the sky, “forget those antiques! When I hear the word ‘hôpital’ I get goose bumps. Why do you want to go to a hospital when you are in the company of such a pleasant young woman? Put these anachronisms behind you. Let’s go for some aperitifs and then have lunch …”

Marta immediately went along with his surprising outburst and filled Dr Busch’s cup of happiness to the brim. So we strolled leisurely to the Grande Place and entered a café that was completely empty. The waiters were getting the place ready. They watched us walk in not with looks of surprise — because the world is full of fools — but with the irritation the unexpected can often provoke. The professor headed to a back corner of the dining room. Marta sat on the cushioned seat, Busch sat next to her. I took the chair opposite him.

“You see,” said Busch, with a chuckle, “how annoyed my disciple from Louvaine looks, he is in a bad temper because he couldn’t go to the Hôpital … But I ask you, mademoiselle, what on earth was the point of going to the Hôpital …”

“I agree!” said Marta, staring him in the eye, closer to the professor, flirtatious in a predatory way that was new to me. “Dullards like that kind of thing. Museums give me a stomachache. They’re almost as boring as my lectures at the university.”

I was naturally very upset, but I let it go. The professor was a raging madman. Marta was going for the kill at a spectacular pace.

“By the way, mademoiselle,” said the professor, “apparently you are a student. Santaniol told me that was the case yesterday …”

“Yes, sir, at the University of Lille,” said Marta with remarkable aplomb.

“And in which faculty are you enrolled? I assume you don’t like Pharmacy …”

“I’m enrolled in Arts, specializing in modern languages, English and German, to be precise …”

“Do you have a good grasp of English, mademoiselle?”

Marta looked to me for confirmation.

“The mademoiselle has perfect English,” I said extremely confidently. It wasn’t hard, because I knew it was actually true.

The professor was delighted. He had tilted his hat over the back of his neck and now and then wet his lips on the glass of port he’d been served, he couldn’t take his eyes off Marta: he looked at her enraptured. He did so quite without ceremony, as he seemed to think he had a right to do so. It is very likely that, as soon as he’d seen how quickly Marta had gone along with his opposition to the visit to the Hôpital, he’d concluded that he was in the company of two people who were incompatible — like so many — and, consequently, on a terrain open to his maneuvers. Later on, when he heard that the young lady knew English, his senile rapture was compounded by an evident interest he didn’t try to conceal.

“Dear friend,” the professor suddenly declared, “this young lady is a dream … Obviously, dreams never become real. But the fact is I could do with a young lady, a young lady with her very qualifications, for some of the business I’m handling at the moment …”

“Is it some scholarly endeavor?” asked Marta, flirting childishly — outrageously.

“No, no, no! My days as a scholar are over. I imagine your friend must have told you what my current thinking is about such activities. No way! I could do with someone to collaborate in other kinds of tasks that are altogether much more exciting.”

“It’s a foregone conclusion, professor … When people talk, they start to understand each other. I was rather under the impression she had no specific work on,” I added, quite idly, just passing the time of day.

Marta gave me a slight nod — in gratitude, I imagine.

“Where do you live, mademoiselle?” asked the professor, getting agitated. “I suppose you must live in Lille …”

“Not at all, sir … I live in Ypres where I give English lessons to the children of a family and conversation classes to some crazy old ladies,” replied Marta with her usual grace.

“So you can easily give those up?”

“Indeed it’s summer and they’ve stopped. In fact, I soon hope to be restarting all that …”

“I could offer you some well-paid work, just a few hours. I’m sure we’d soon agree to terms. I only need to be sure of one thing, that’s quite crucial: your discretion. The work I can offer you involves being completely discreet.”

“Don’t scare me off, professor!” exclaimed Marta with a mixture of fear and candor. “If it’s something so delicate, perhaps I’m no use.”

“Pray understand, mademoiselle …!” said Busch, putting his pale, arthritic hand on Marta’s. “You must understand … I only say that as a preventive measure.”

The second Marta saw the professor’s hand on hers, she gave me a rather startled look; her first inclination was to take hers away, but she didn’t. She must have had second thoughts, and decided that the best thing would be to let things follow their natural course.

Busch, who was downing his third port of the morning, must have noticed Marta’s hesitancy, perhaps he felt her hand stiffen — and thought he was duty bound to apologize.

“Do forgive me,” he said in a tone that was at once smarmy and shy. “That was — how should I put it? — an unconscious professorial tic. If you like, a rather paternal, university gesture … It doesn’t mean your hand isn’t very beautiful. Your hand is long … Long hands aren’t what you call unpleasant …”

“Oh please, don’t worry …” replied the young lady, with a smile that was both an angel’s and a cynic’s. “You are such a lively, admirable man, at your age …”

“How old would you say I am, mademoiselle? Very old, naturally …” snapped the professor, suddenly seeming worried, if not anguished.

“No … But I wouldn’t like to get this wrong. Maybe fifty-five …?”

“Fifty-three … I look older, of course. I’ve led such a stupid, ridiculous, wrong-headed life! Even though it depended on me, I can’t understand how I could be so insane. I’ve spent my whole life filling in filing cards … in reality throwing a shadow over what others wrote perfectly clearly. Believe me it’s sad to feel that one has wasted one’s life in pursuit of vacuous nonsense. I wish I could make up for it, but it’s irreversible, that time has passed …”

“But what’s fifty-five?” the young lady asked, bubbling with optimism.

“Sorry, you’re wrong, mademoiselle. He said fifty-three …” I said to shortcircuit the friction her slip might cause.

“Yes, of course,” she rushed to add. “What is it to be fifty-three if you are so lively?”

“What do you mean, mademoiselle? I imagine that is exactly what I am not.”