Andres Neuman - Traveller of the Century

… you alone inscribed it there; I read

It so alone I withdraw from you …

We have to assume that in order to inspire this poem, Sophie continued, she must have possessed amazing qualities. And yet when he is interpreting them, the poet avoids her, isn’t this because he is protecting himself? Or hiding, so his beloved doesn’t get in the way? That is, he writes the poem on his own, with his eyes closed, and reads it to himself! (Hans, implored Álvaro, stop her, say something! She’s tearing our classics apart! Hans shrugged and gave a sigh.) And further on, look, another beautiful, rather suspect verse: “my soul has moulded you in its image”. Why should anyone be moulded?

With the aid of Álvaro, a couple of dictionaries and a Spanish grammar, they worked on poems by Quevedo, Juana Inés, Garcilaso, and St John of the Cross. They began by making observations, then discussed their meaning and finally translated a first draft. Álvaro’s German was almost perfect, but he couldn’t follow metre. If either Hans or Sophie weren’t sure of a meaning, they would ask Álvaro to translate it as literally as possible, then try to adapt the rhymes and metres. Álvaro enjoyed watching them trade syllables and stresses, as if they had a metronome in their mouth. They seemed to him similar, happy and faintly ridiculous. When they took too long, Álvaro wondered why if they already knew what they were going to say it mattered so much how they said it. A strange pastime, he thought, and a strange way to love. But he said nothing to them (about love or poetry) and waited for them to decide.

They took a break. Hans asked Frau Zeit to bring them up a jug of lemonade. While they chatted, Sophie spoke of the differences she found between her language and Álvaro’s. It’s the opposite of what I expected, she said, metre in German or English poetry resembles a dance, while in Spanish it is like a military march. In German poetry the dancer marks the rhythm until he decides to turn round and go on to the next verse, regardless of how many steps he takes. It is more spoken, more from the lungs, isn’t it? Spanish verse is beautiful and yet there is something rigid about it, something imposed that doesn’t seem to originate from speech, one has to count both accents and syllables, it’s almost Pythagorean. I imagine it requires great technical skill, perhaps that is why Spanish poetry can seem as rhetorical as French poetry. It must be so difficult to sound informal in your language, Álvaro, while observing metre! I suppose so, Álvaro shrugged, I don’t know much about verse. Although I have to say I think Spanish grammar is much more flexible, more fluid, shall we say, than German grammar. I feel like I’m banging a drum when I speak German and English, b-boom! B-boom! First — second! Subject — verb! You can never stray far from the path of the sentence, maybe this is why your German reasoning is so convincing; your language doesn’t allow any improvisation in mid-flow, you have to think before you speak in order to respect the word order. Whilst, as you see, Spanish grammar is like Spanish politics! Everything happens willy-nilly, by jerks. Ulrike always said I was more imaginative and less clear-headed when we spoke in Spanish. Ich weiß nicht , it’s possible.

And yet it is far more difficult to translate a rhyming poem from Spanish into German than it is the other way round, isn’t it? Assonant rhymes are easy to achieve in Spanish and they have a ring to them. In German, on the other hand, because of all our different vowel sounds and the endless consonants, ach! Assonance is more difficult and the rhymes are weak. What I find tedious about the Spanish language, said Álvaro, is all the long adverbs— larguísimamente largos, coño! — and how bad it is at joining nouns together. In English or German, two or three things can become one thing, one new thing, whereas we are as purist about language as we are about religion, each thing is what it is, and if you want something else you have to use another word. And yet, replied Hans, as you were saying earlier, Castilian grammar, do you say Castilian or Spanish? (Oof! Álvaro sighed. That is an extremely tedious subject, I don’t mind, whatever you like.) Well, in your language grammar allows you to play with words as if they were riddles, and this is immediately noticeable in poetry. Sentences in German are constructed like ships, out of big heavy sections. How funny! remarked Sophie, Álvaro eulogising German and Hans going into raptures over Spanish! What’s so odd about that, Miss Wandenburger, said Hans, doesn’t everyone aspire to being a little more of a foreigner?

They went back to work after finishing the jug of lemonade. They had left Álvaro’s favourite poem for last. After looking up the meaning of the words antaños and huirse , Sophie asked Álvaro to read Quevedo’s sonnet aloud.

ON THE BREVITY OF LIVING AND THE NOTHINGNESS OF HAVING LIVED

“Is life there?” No reply is given

Despite all the years I have lived!

Fortune all my days has gnawed,

My madness steals away the hours.

Unable to know how or where

My health and years have fled!

Life gone missing, the living past endures,

And every calamity presses round.

Yesterday’s no more; tomorrow is not yet,

Today is leaving in all haste,

I am a was, a will be, and a weary is.

Today, tomorrow, yesterday, I shape

Shroud and swaddling clothes, and remain

Present successions of the dead.

I don’t know what moves me more, Sophie gulped, the way time passes so swiftly in the poem or the poet’s despair over the time that he has left. Wait, said Hans, am I right in thinking this poem is divided into two? (Well done, Álvaro said sarcastically, quartets and tercets!) Very funny. The title suggests the poem will be about the fleeting nature of time, how quickly we grow old. And the quartets are about that. Yet the tercets say almost exactly the opposite, here a different voice appears to be speaking, the voice of a person who is tired of life, an old man for whom the end is dragging on, why is that? I’d never thought of that, said Álvaro, surprised, and I know the poem off by heart. You never thought of it precisely because you know it off by heart. I’ve had an idea, Sophie said pensively, perhaps the key to this is in that peculiar “soy un fue ”, that is, why isn’t it “soy un fui ”? What if, after reminiscing in the quartets, the old man, fearful of time, is able to contemplate the whole of his life, and he distances himself so much from his memories that he sees them as though he were another person, he becomes detached from himself and a second voice is born, the one we hear in the tercets. Bravo ! declared Hans. You’re both crazy, Álvaro said, surreptitiously rereading the poem. Now you mention it, said Hans, I can think of another turn of the screw — after turning into someone else who contemplates his own life, the old man continues along the path towards death, and when he stumbles on it, or at least catches sight of it, he arrives full circle, encountering the child he was, his own beginning. Then, in the final tercet, yesterday, today and tomorrow merge into one. In that case, Sophie added, let me suggest an optimistic ending — once he has encountered his beginning, the circle closing could be construed as a kind of eternity. That would explain the “present successions of the dead”. Present , do you see, because he is still alive!

Quevedo, Quevedo! Álvaro exclaimed. Come back to life, defend yourself!

Hans and Sophie looked at one another. They were no longer thinking of Quevedo, all they could see was a succession of present moments.