Josep Maria de Sagarra - Private Life

To understand the intimidation of the Baró de Falset, the acuteness of his panic and the extent of his vulnerability, one must always bear in mind the weakness and cowardice that stemmed from his abnormality. The other thing that must also be kept in mind is the kind of prestige he enjoyed and the kind of people he lived among.

Antoni Mates sought out a famous Jesuit priest. Mates had a reputation as a great Catholic and a great believer, even though at the core his religiosity was a sham. But he tried. He made an attempt to see whether his religion could be a living, breathing thing, and whether he could find some kind of consolation in it, in the event of a catastrophe.

The Jesuit was an intelligent man, but he felt lost here. The Baró de Falset was a moral wreck. He had no faith, no resignation, no repentance, nothing; he had only the asphyxiating fear of a rabbit, and nothing more. Antoni Mates also realized this was not the path for him.

When a cowardly man finds himself in a blind alley, he is capable of who knows what foul things. So it was that the Baró de Falset had a grotesque, criminal idea. He was in good standing with shady elements of the Ministry of the Interior — the Minister was Martínez Anido — who was in contact with other even shadier elements, more given to, shall we say, “direct action.” The Baró de Falset believed that, if he paid enough, there would be a way to make Guillem de Lloberola disappear, in an apparent accident or — why not? — a murder. So many had disappeared this way in Barcelona, what difference could one more make? He came very close to proposing the idea to a person who very possibly would have welcomed it, but he couldn’t, he didn’t have the guts. He didn’t trust the person he had in mind.

Secure in his power, Guillem initiated a new attack. That day the baron’s nerves were in better shape than usual. Guillem said:

“All right, it’s your decision! I will do as I see fit.”

Before the young man’s resolute expression, the baron proposed a transaction, but then Guillem decided to up the ante, and with appalling aplomb he uttered:

“I don’t give a damn about your money: it’s you I want to ruin. I will risk it all, I don’t care. I wouldn’t keep silent even if you gave me your entire fortune, do you understand? You are contemptible, and since you have no imagination, you can’t possibly comprehend the pleasure it would give me to annihilate a person like you. Even if I had to annihilate myself in the process, even if it meant the death of my father. As you can imagine, the death of a father, or anyone else, is nothing compared to the joy of ripping off a mask as well-anchored as the one attached to your face. What merit is there in destroying a worm, a wastrel, and a ne’er-do-well like me with a scandal? None at all. The merit lies in destroying the falsehoods of an imposter like you, surrounded by priests and bank accounts, flush with credit and consideration. To watch as this hypocritical society you belong to writhes disgustingly with joy and horror on hearing that one of the biggest fish in said society has been tarred with infamy and tossed into the gutter in his underwear. You must understand that if it is in my power to enjoy such a spectacle, I will not be so foolish as to let the occasion pass. I swear to you, everyone will know! Everyone will know who the Baró de Falset is, I swear it!”

Guillem’s words left the baron utterly terrified, his response dying on his lips.

From that day on, Guillem took pleasure in elaborating a sort of cruel torment. He found a way to secure introductions to persons who had frequent dealings with the baron, and to others who were under his authority. He would show up in the company of those persons in strategic places where the baron would be sure to see him speaking with them, wearing a meaningful smile. He had the nerve to show up in the baron’s own offices, and enter into conversation with his most important staff.

Antoni Mates thought he was done for. When he ran into someone who greeted him, when he chatted with someone else, he was utterly subject to suggestion. He thought he could sense that the person was already in on everything, that it had all been explained to him. He thought every word was an allusion; he perceived a double meaning in the most innocent things. In his office, on his most sensitive missions to the most notable members of society, on his many boards of administration, everywhere, he would discover imaginary eyes examining him, laughing at him, looking down on him as the lowest and most repugnant of perverts. And this fear, this terrible fear, began to leave its mark on his face. It altered his voice, his gestures, his way of walking. People who ran into him often, and, even more, those who had not seen him in a while, detected a bizarre uneasiness that they couldn’t explain. As the days went by, the situation became darker and darker. In the end, everyone was aware, everyone realized that something very serious was wrong with him, and no one could figure out the cause. Only Guillem de Lloberola secretly reveled, silent as a dead man, as he contemplated the slow martyrdom of that poor man laden with millions, with stature, and with cowardice.

In their conjugal life the situation was even more unsavory. Conxa asked her husband what was happening to him. Since Guillem’s first attack, Antoni Mates had manifested to Conxa his remorse for everything he had done, for the lengths he had gone to in degrading himself and degrading her. Conxa didn’t understand. She was made up of a combination of cynicism and other things the baron couldn’t suspect. She thought her husband had gone soft in the head, which for her, in truth, had long been true. But when his fear took on the dimensions of madness, Conxa became frightened. Antoni Mates didn’t hint at Guillem’s role in his disgrace and, naturally, Conxa didn’t know a thing, nor would she ever know, about how Guillem was undermining her husband.

Conxa called in two or three doctors. Perhaps it was a case of surmenage , a temporary breakdown; perhaps it could be cured with a bit of repose. The more they treated Antoni Mates, the worse things got. He hadn’t the slightest doubt that everyone was in on the story, and that he inspired disgust and pity. He once again considered the idea of making Guillem disappear, but by then it was too late. What good would it do? The death of that young man couldn’t heal a thing, and would only compound the horror that was stalking him with the horror of a crime.

Antoni Mates was a total wreck. In three months, a man who had been famous for his aplomb and his sagacity in business, for his unassailable social position, had turned into a sort of drooping puppet, powerless to clear his lungs of the pus of imaginary infamy that kept him from breathing.

IT TOOK FREDERIC a long time to realize it, but in the end he understood that he had done a foolish thing. Bobby had been a good and trustworthy friend to him. A man as unsubstantial and overwrought as Frederic needed a passive and patient foil. Not everyone could treat him with Bobby’s calm, cool nonchalance. If Frederic had been a thinking man, if he had been able to see himself in the mirror with critical good faith, without the passion and vanity that dominated him whenever his affairs were in question, perhaps he wouldn’t have needed others so much. Above all he wouldn’t have needed Bobby so much. For a man like Frederic, lacking in imagination and any kind of inner life, it is more troublesome to lose a friend of Bobby’s caliber than it is to lose a lover, no matter how smitten he may be. Because people like Frederic see women as creatures who fulfill them and satisfy them on given days or hours, in their spare time, beyond the ordinary, gray hours of everyday. To the man who is experiencing it, a bond with a woman who makes your head spin can seem like a one-of-a-kind thing, tinged with a pearly suggestiveness, a red-hot eagerness. Oftentimes — indeed, most times — this suggestiveness, and this eagerness, can simply be replaced with another woman. It can even happen — also quite frequently — that for the moment there is no need to replace them. That is, they can be compensated for with a feeling of calm, of liberation, of repose, and of clarity. Gray everyday life can continue precisely on its way, perhaps a bit more transparently. Once eliminated and in the past, those moments of private life, of incandescence and lyricism, do not by a long shot possess the same lyricism and incandescence. On the contrary, they are perceived as an oppressive imposition that we have been fortunate to free ourselves of, and if we just persist a bit, it will not be at all difficult to pick up another imposition that will have the same lyrical and incandescent effect.