Josep Pla - Life Embitters

Niubó wiped the back of his neck.

“I am sure that, if you were in my situation,” said Tàpies staring at him, “you would get married. What do you bet that was what you wanted to say?”

“That’s one solution, of course! We’re getting on in years now. At our age, if you have something stashed away, marriage is one thing to do.”

“Yes, we’re beginning to age, and every day we feel a little more nostalgic. But marriage, marriage … What does that mean? Who do you want to marry me off to? You must see it’s not that easy.”

“Obviously not! We’re no longer the age to chase after the young things! That would be laughable. They’d pull our legs. But even so, what would you do?”

Niubó plucked up his courage again and asked him, “Don’t you like the Belgian girl?”

“Good God, what a question! With the kind of life she leads! Have you got a screw loose?”

“I tell you that girl is really bright. I’ve heard excellent things of her. It’s a pity: she earns real money …”

“What does she do?”

“She works for Barclays! She’s the secretary of some plutocrat, if I’m not mistaken.”

“Ah! I see now …!” and, after a pause, “But, for God’s sake, Niubó. Just think for a moment. Given this lady’s, shall we say, track record, how on earth could I …?”

“Bah, bah …! You’re too touchy! You’re like a real country bumpkin. When you’ve traveled the world a bit, these things don’t matter so much … Can’t you see that? Forget it, my friend … We’ve been on this earth too long for you to start suggesting such child’s play …”

“Take it easy, Niubó … Calm down, please!”

“I’m sorry! For sure, I’ve one caveat. All I’ve said depends on your liking the girl and always from the perspective that we’re beginning to be on the old side. If the lady isn’t to your taste, then forget everything I’ve just said.”

“It’s curious!” said Tàpies solemnly. “We see things so differently. I like this young lady and I think she’s a highly worthwhile individual. However, there’s the life she leads, Niubó, her life … That’s the problem!”

“So what! Everyone follows their fancy. It’s all down to likes and …”

“Oh, no it isn’t,” retorted Tàpies, becoming increasingly agitated. “It’s not a matter of likes and dislikes. It is a matter of principles.”

“Of course, but these principles make you more nostalgic by the day … principles that don’t really help, right? I start out with another set. To think that at our age we can marry as if we were fledglings is pie in the sky. We can’t be that fussy. We must see marriage simply from the point of view of convenience. Don’t you see it like that? If you don’t, you only have one other option: place an advert in the newspaper … because I imagine we’re too late to start dallying with young ladies from good families.”

“Niubó, you’re so cynical …”

“Forget it. It’s all water under the bridge.”

“No! Let’s keep on with this conversation for a while … You won’t believe it but I felt my nostalgia waning as we were talking!”

“What would you like to talk about?” said Niubó edgily, rather unpleasantly. “I hate people who stick the knife in.”

“And is that what I do?”

“Yes, you stick it in nice and deep.”

“Well, you said it!”

“And it’s true, Tàpies! You’re a small-minded, prejudiced fellow, unbelievably old-fashioned, I’m sorry to say.”

“A serious person can’t say there are small-minded prejudices.”

“Bah …! So what are they?”

“I mean, they aren’t, as far as we’re concerned.”

“Well, as far as I am, they are!”

“This isn’t the Niubó I know!”

“You’ll have to get used to this Niubó, because I’m not about to change my mind.”

Tàpies bowed his head two or three times, no doubt signaling his surprise. It was impossible to reinvigorate their conversation. They sat together for a while and then went to bed.

Attacks of nostalgia can be long- or short-lived, it depends. It’s true that the short ones are usually intense — I mean the intensity of loss that characterizes them can be quite painful, but that doesn’t imply that the long attacks, by dint of being watered down, aren’t irksome. Tàpies had a long attack. At the lunch table, he seemed anxious, and had bags under his eyes. The conversation with Niubó was making an initial impact in his thoughts. He was feeling nostalgic and, at the same time, didn’t know what to do: he was confused. He undoubtedly had to make a big effort, but finally what had to be, had to be: he searched out the young Belgian lady.

He wasn’t a man with a sophisticated turn of phrase. His range was rather limited. When he told Claudette that he was intending to ask her to enter a relationship that would shortly lead to a proper marriage, she barely reacted. She didn’t seem to take any notice. It was an incoherent, garbled conversation. While Tàpies unwrapped — shall we say — his declaration of love, the young lady told him that she’d decided to renew her wardrobe and purchase a fur coat. However, while they talked, she gazed at the face of her interlocutor, she thought he looked so pasty that she couldn’t avoid expressing her concern.

“What’s wrong with you, Tàpies?” she interjected. “What have you got? You look awful …”

“I was just telling you a minute ago. We should get married, Claudette.”

“And we should get married, on who’s say so?” the lass replied, quite unable to believe that Tàpies was being serious.

“It’s my idea … In any case, my friend Niubó, whom you know, who is like a brother to me and is very experienced in things of this world, is of the same opinion … To repeat what I said: if you are in agreement, I do think we should get married!”

The young lady glanced back at Tàpies and, when she saw the genuine anguish on his face, she began to grasp that he was in earnest, and genuinely so. The young woman had had a long experience of boarding houses and lodgings. They are character-molding places. If one spends an excessive number of years in these establishments, one becomes a typical lodger, a kind of crestfallen wretch, with deeply gray notions, a permanent inferiority complex, puerile attitudes that are often compatible with the sourest, ill-tempered outbursts, with the nurturing of the crankiest manias, sometimes with the warmest, most simple-minded crushes.

When Claudette realized that Tàpies was speaking in good faith, she first flashed her wonderful teeth, then put a small handkerchief over her face, and finally yielded to the succession of images that rapidly passed before her eyes and laughed boisterously.

Tàpies was taken aback, looked down and took a step backwards as if suddenly filled with fear. His whole being assumed the faintest shade of gray. His twenty-five years as a lodger surfaced.

“Tàpies, are you really being serious?” the young lady asked, striving to seem serious herself.

“Of course I am!”

“Good God, how can you possibly be?”

“I’ve told you. It’s perfectly possible, as far as I’m concerned. Don’t think I’ve not thought about it long and hard; even … I might say, painfully. I have spent hours and hours wondering what I should do.”

The young lady was on the brink of another burst of boisterous laughter, but that fellow’s sad face, his imploring, quivering stance, restrained her. However, she was unable to reply, being so intent on keeping a straight face.

“I would also, on the other hand,” continued Tàpies even more emotionally, “like to make a small confession. I am, of course, a man of modest, absolutely insignificant means, but I’m not completely broke. I’ve managed to put something by, I have savings, not much, but I do have some. I don’t know how to put this … but I’d like to put them at your disposal to spend however you felt inclined. I think there’s enough to buy a little cottage … Well, that’s what I wanted to tell you.”