Josep Maria de Sagarra - Private Life

“If I have not had children, if I have not been able to love a man as I had dreamed of doing, I have made sure to do innumerable favors and to be a true friend. At sixty years of age, I realize exactly how naïve I have been and how far I have taken my lack of cynicism …”

“With all the favors I’ve done, I am sure none has been met with gratitude. The women I have felt closest to and had the most affection for, the persons I have aided morally and materially, are the ones who have criticized me the most and invented the most lies about me. I know that my society and my class is the least imaginative and most malicious of them all. If I have tried to play a more active and personal part in works of culture and beneficence than most of these ladies, they have only seen in my actions the desire to stand out and be praised. On occasion, and in all innocence, I have traveled in the company of men, good, discreet friends of mine, because I find that I can talk about anything with men, and it doesn’t get boring, as it does with my close women friends. And some of these men, while still dispensing all the attentions a lady deserves, have come to treat me in the cordial and evenhanded way they would any companion. The long journeys I have made in these conditions have been some of the loveliest moments of my life. Later I learned how the most spiritual and refined ladies I received in my home had criticized me. I’ve had one good fortune: I have not been very affected by what people said or thought about me. I get this spirit of independence of from Mamà.”

“I know my culture is very shallow, and there have been those, more sincere or less pleasant than the rest, who have made it clear to me that I am a perfectly ordinary woman whose ideas are sadly banal. I have never pretended to be wise, and I do not envy anyone his talent. I have enjoyed life in my own way, and I have felt great emotion. Even if I was not a person one might call sensitive, I have endeavored to listen to people I found sensitive, in order to modify my taste, and I have learned to enjoy things I felt impervious to by nature. If artists and men of letters have had some regard for me, it has been owing to my inclination to listen and learn and my willingness to modify my own criteria. I know I have been considered grotesque, ridiculous, and pretentious. But by behaving as I did, I have saved myself from boredom and, along the way, either with my name or my money, I have done a bit of good for my country.”

“What has most harmed me has been my lack of discretion, particularly in conversation. Though this has been interpreted as duplicity on my part, I am convinced, sadly, that it is simply the fruit of my ingenuousness and my belief that others are as well-meaning as I. My friend X has said so many times; naturally, I protested. Later, with the passage of time, I have concluded that my friend X was absolutely right. I have been and continue to be nauseatingly innocent.”

“At sixty years of age, I find myself desperately alone. My fortune has dwindled greatly, and I must make an effort to save. Many people have left my side, but I still have a weakness for wanting to know what is going on, in particular for the latest thing, and for what can bring about a change in my country. Many of my friends criticize me for supporting the Republican government. They say I’m an old woman and I should be ashamed of being so juvenile, and I’d be better off shutting myself up at home. The truth is, I’ve been shut up in my home for years, and I am never so happy as when I am sitting by the fireside, surrounded by my memories and in the company of my thoughts. When someone comes to take me out for a little trip, or some escapade, it embarrasses me to confess that I’m no young woman any more, and I get tired, or that I’m in no mood to be disturbed, and out of vanity, pure and simple vanity, I still go out as if I were twenty-five. But I’m less and less in the mood.”

“I would have liked to know how to write. I would have liked to be of use to my world by writing my memories of everything I’ve seen in this life, because in my position, I have met many people, and seen much grandeur and much misery. Writing a memoir is a constant temptation for me. Some people have urged me to do it, in good faith, I think. Today I’ve written down these things about myself to see if I am inspired to continue writing what I know of others. I have tried to start a story with a series of disorderly confessions. I am only at the start and I’m already fading. I wonder if, in the little bit I have written so far, I have been honest with myself. Maybe I have portrayed myself as too much of a victim, maybe I have neglected to say that both at heart and on the surface I am nothing but a selfish woman …”

Hortènsia Portell had just read the words “selfish woman.” She was holding a few sheets of thick, broad, and dramatic, paper, written in a careless and affectedly virile hand. Disillusioned, she reread what she had conceived of a few months ago, and had left off in the moment she penned the phrase “selfish woman.” Ever since she had stored it in a drawer with other intimate items, Hortènsia hadn’t had the heart to go over it. Manuscript in hand, Hortènsia had realized that her attempt to write her memoir had been a childish act. Why do it? What could she gain from it? Hortènsia Portell’s survivors would see her memoir as a posthumous extravagance. They wouldn’t even leave her cadaver in peace. Hortènsia didn’t want to give them the satisfaction. Moreoever, nothing she might have to say about her life and times would be of interest to anyone. That’s what Hortènsia was thinking in those moments as she weighed her manuscript, with a grimace of disgust as she considered what she had written about herself in a moment of weakness and innocence.

At the time, Hortènsia was facing a series of sumptuary and economic headaches. She had sold some of her paintings and intended to let go of many other things. Hortènsia proposed to retire to a more tranquil domicile that would not entail such great expense.

The manuscript Hortènsia was holding in her hands ended up, page by page, in the flames of the chimney. This literary auto-da-fè was carried out in silence, secretly, not without the executioner’s feeling the detachment of four dog-eared roses from the tip of her heart as she carried out the sacrifice.

When Hortènsia had completely destroyed her work, the doorbell rang, and the servant announced the widow Baronessa de Falset.

Conxa would often visit Hortènsia’s house in the afternoon, not so much to keep her company as to consult with her on things related to the new house the baronessa was building. Hortènsia had a reputation for good taste, and Conxa had faith in her judgment. At that stage, Conxa was absolutely immersed in the project, and in fact didn’t give her architect a moment’s rest. She wanted the building to be modern and brilliant, and the toast of all Barcelona. Conxa wanted to squeeze life down to the dregs. For days an idea had been spinning in her head and she hadn’t dared broach it with Hortènsia. But that afternoon she finally found the mettle. It was an idea related to the décor of her new house, and related above all to another person who was the axis around which all of Conxa Pujol’s feelings and illusions revolved.

“Listen, Hortènsia, what do you intend to do with your tapestry?”

“Frankly, if someone wanted to buy it …”

“The thing is, to tell the truth, I’ve been looking for a tapestry for quite some time now, but not just any old thing. I want something with a bit of style, you see? It’s for the entrance, and I think yours is the perfect size. It would fit there as if it had been made to order. Forgive me, Hortènsia, but it’s only because you say you want to sell all this, and that the house has got too big for you, that I dare to ask …”