Josep Maria de Sagarra - Private Life

Guillem didn’t budge from his stubborn insistence on giving her the bill. Not understanding his determination, Conxa laughed in his face, just to have something to do. Guillem looked down and turned cherry red. Conxa found the situation amusing and asked him, with no little aplomb:

“Sir, do you pull this trick with the fifty-pesseta bill with all the ladies?”

Guillem raised his eyes and, facing her with the full brunt of his insolence, responded:

“Not all of them, no. If I think they are worth less than fifty pessetes, I show them a twenty-five pesseta bill; and if I think they’re worth less than five duros, I take care not even to notice them.”

Right up until the last word, Conxa hadn’t recognized him, but the fact was, they had been introduced. What was his name …? Not losing her composure, and even being rather pleasant, she added:

“Listen here, I know you … your name is …”

“Yes, senyora. My name is Guillem de Lloberola. I had the pleasure of meeting you the day …”

“Do you mind telling me what angel inspired you to attempt something so crass with a lady you …”

“It was no angel! I have done this thing you call crass in the hope that you would not recognize me, wouldn’t remember me at all. It was within the realm of possibility not to be recognized. The dark, the suddenness of my approach, worked in my favor. And I thought … well, that you, a lady whom everyone knows, and everyone is familiar with, might perhaps, how shall I put it, enjoy running into a man who not only didn’t recognize her, but even took her for a …”

“How bizarre …”

“No, senyora, it is entirely natural. It’s so normal, in fact, as to be embarrassing, because your opinion of me … I mean, I have no interest in your taking me for a big shot or for an idiot. Your opinion doesn’t matter to me at all …”

“Well, then, what it is you’re after? I don’t understand this whole business. Why have you taken the trouble to …”

“It was an act of kindness, senyora, pure kindness …”

“Kindness?”

“Yes, senyora, to give you a little thrill, a moment of distraction …”

“I don’t understand.”

“Naturally, senyora. I said it was a ‘kindness,’ and I am not backing down. I didn’t do it in my own interest, but in yours, yours entirely. It’s quite simple. I can imagine how unbearable it must be for a person like you to play this incessantly passive role in the game of admiration and enthusiasm. To be known to everyone, and now, after your husband’s suicide, even more well known, and more highly esteemed. I imagine it must be a torment for you (well, perhaps torment is an exaggeration, but it must be tedious, at very least) to realize that you can never stop playing this one role, and that when you meet someone you have no choice but to put on this mask that others have assigned you. Because, if you are beautiful and interesting, and I am not denying that, of course, your interest and your beauty and your elegance become a sort of cliché, something everyone takes for granted, and this voice of everyone and general admiration and popularity — even if no aspect of the term ‘popular’ is exact or apt, in your case — are the elements that make up your way of being, or the role you play. And you are a slave to it all, to what you are and to what others have added to your innate prestige. There is absolutely no escape for you. At first, when one becomes cognizant of this power, of the power of this kind of stature, I have no doubt it must be rather amusing. But later, a person with all your gifts has to tire of it, and lose all pleasure in it, in this constant enthusiasm, in the acclaim and desire you see in everyone’s eyes. Look here, Baronessa, I am sure that a king, for example, or an eminent man, who enjoys extraordinary popularity, must feel the desire to evade his majesty or his fame and one day have the pleasure of not being recognized by anyone, or respected or admired by anyone, of being just an anonymous person walking down the street. Do you see? And a woman like you is a player in this prestige of royalty. Most of the men who approach you, do so from below, like dogs, one could say, the same way they would approach a king or a genius, the same way they treat men who have such a public, notorious figure that they cannot escape their own skins, no matter how much they would like to. Baronessa, since I consider you to be a sensitive person, I imagine this is to some extent the way you must feel as well. And hence, believe me, my motive was not to be crass, but to be monstrous, to be atrocious, in pretending that I didn’t know who you were. It was out of kindness, senyora, that I wanted you to have the delight (perhaps I am mistaken, my dear senyora, but I think there must be some delight on your part) of seeing that a man like me, a man from Barcelona who doesn’t seem to be some kind of hayseed, not only doesn’t recognize you, not only offers you the thrill of ceasing to be la Senyora Baronessa, Viuda de Falset (please note, senyora, that I have called you ‘widow’), but rather takes her for a woman who can be bought, whom I think I can buy for fifty pessetes. In doing this, senyora, I am doing you the kindness, the immense service, of allowing you a change of personality, of granting you a way to leave behind that skin beautified for the admiration of all who know you to be the Baronessa de Falset, so that you can put on the skin of a common prostitute, in a world as far away as possible from yours, breathing an air that you will never, ever, be able to breathe. Never! Do you see? By saying that crass thing I said, I was opening a new door for you. Your curiosity would have shown me whether the door was tempting or not. I know that you, and not your curiosity, will say that never in this life could a door like that be tempting, and as a favor to me you will say I’ve gone mad, that is if you are forgiving or merciful enough not to say right off the bat that I am a scoundrel, or simply indecent. But that’s what the lady playing her role would say, not what sincerity would say, don’t you see? Not the intimate truth of a woman obliged to act in a play, and who finds this act to be a burden …”

“Excuse me …”

“Yes …”

“Well, this is all very … bizarre … and, indeed, it is all very interesting …”

“I haven’t quite finished, senyora.”

“But it’s getting late, you know. I would be pleased to go on listening, but …”

“Well, when you are not in a hurry, I am at your disposal to finish my explanation …”

“Tomorrow at five?”

“Perfect. Where?”

“On Gran Via, at the corner of Carrer del Bruc … Is that all right?”

Guillem de Lloberola kissed the baronessa’s hand, and she noticed a slight dampness on her skin. Even though it was now quite dark, when Guillem raised his head, the baronessa could see that his eyes were full of tears.

Guillem was quite pleased with himself. His relatively Pirandellian monologue — Pirandello was in vogue in Barcelona in those days — very possibly may have made an impression on the baronessa. If Guillem’s vague knowledge of Conxa Pujol’s flesh of had included a few of the tidbits of information that came up as we told the tale of Hortènsia Portell’s party in the first part of this story, if he had known of the forbidden escapades and whoring pursuits of his idol, perhaps he wouldn’t have played up that bit about the world “as far away as possible from yours” or that other bit about the “new door.”

If Conxa Pujol had not been something more than a mere dilettante, or a simple chlorotic tourist of the kind who are roused by the gabinetto pornografico of the National Museum of Naples and don’t go any farther, in a word, if Conxa Pujol had not been exactly who she was, she might simply have called a cop at the start of Guillem’s aggressive and insolent speech. Accustomed to more slimy and much more dimwitted admirers than Guillem, Conxa Pujol felt neither slighted nor persuaded, and the following day she showed up punctually for their appointment.