Josep Maria de Sagarra - Private Life

One evening, in this peculiar state, Ferran looked at his sister, Maria Lluïsa. The life of this young woman was a mystery to Ferran. Her feminine climate was hermetically sealed in a world whose existence Ferran knew nothing of. He sensed, though, that a specific thing united him and his sister: their anti-family spirit, the aversion both of them felt to that apartment on Carrer de Bailèn and to the Lloberola name.

For the first time in his life, Ferran spoke of these things with his sister. Maria Lluïsa listened with discretion, appearing not to pay much attention. For her, that boy was the child she still envisioned in a sailor’s suit or in golf knickers, and it was impossible for her to take him seriously. It is very hard for a brother and sister to crack the shell of family intimacy, which is precisely the least cordial, least communicative and least human relationship that exists. In a family, affection and coexistence have an inevitable, instinctive cohesion that can be observed in a brood of chicks in a nest or in an ant colony, but the elective affection, that spark of friendship or love, that something that free will and feelings create as they go through the world and sort out affinities and connections, is missing.

And it is precisely because of that instinctive and inevitable factor in family relations that the betrayal of a sibling is always more painful than that of a friend, even if one believes oneself to be much more identified with the friend than with the sibling. The betrayal of a sibling brings on a pain that is almost physical, and physical pain, despite the poets, entails obsession and prejudice far beyond any moral pain.

With Ferran, Maria Lluïsa had adopted that very attitude of lack of cordiality and communication. She had no doubt that the very last person who might be able to understand her was that eighteen-year-old whippersnapper. Nevertheless, as the conversation continued throughout the evening, Maria Lluïsa shifted from a state of impatience to a state of attention. She began to see something personal in that young man; above all, the desire to be a man, and the trace of a spirit of inquiry. And what Maria Lluïsa saw, and this was what most surprised her, was the interest he took in her, a tenderness and affection that were not a question of habit, that didn’t correspond to their years of coexistence, or even to their common blood. The very unusual sound of a human voice that speaks to a person well known to it in some aspects but absolutely unknown in other, more important, ones. And all at once the inflection of this voice changes as it addresses those more important aspects, which it has just divined as if by miracle.

Maria Lluïsa saw Ferran progress from the — according to her — infrahuman condition of brother, to the condition of man.

Maria Lluïsa did not see that Ferran’s feelings for her were the consequence of that state of being in love with love, nor that in a sister like Maria Lluïsa he found reflections of that inchoate thing his nerves were demanding of him. Maria Lluïsa didn’t know anything about these things. If she herself gone through a moment like that, she hadn’t been aware of it and, being more realistic, as befits a woman, she had quickly found other conduits. Ferran spoke to Maria Lluïsa with intense passion, he almost told her intimate details of his life — always with the shyness and politeness with which one speaks to a sister — that Maria Lluïsa didn’t know how to construe. Maria Lluïsa thought that this brother who for her had just become a young man might perhaps be too much of a man, and his language might be too fervent and too casual. A painful thought crossed Maria Lluïsa’s mind. She had a much less nebulous idea of the world than her brother. Maria Lluïsa, at that point in time — she was in the midst of her selfish adventure with Bobby — didn’t know what it meant to be in love with love, but she did know that between brothers and sisters an event condemned by moralists, known as incest, sometimes occurred. Maria Lluïsa considered the possibility that that eighteen year-old creature who was still caught up in a state of sexual confusion and inexperience might, for some strange reason, one of which could very well be Maria Lluïsa’s own grace and beauty, might be the victim of a frankly incestuous inclination.

When, in the course of one of his confidences, Ferran innocently took Maria Lluïsa by her bare arm, and she felt his slightly sweaty palm molding itself to her cool skin, she flinched. Unable to hide her repulsion or disgust, she pulled away. Ferran was left with his hand hanging in the air in the middle of that room, as inexpressive and incongruous as the wing of a wounded bird. Ferran looked into his sister’s eyes to try to understand that instinctive rejection, that bitter gesture in the face of his candor and enthusiasm. He had taken his sister by the arm and kissed her on the cheek thousands of times, without provoking the slightest shadow or cloud in his or her eyes. And at the very moment when Ferran was breaking the ice, when he was seeking the human collaboration of his sister, when he was asking her to elevate him to the category of a good friend, what Ferran found in Maria Lluïsa was an attack of disgust or fear, or some indefinable detachment.

Then, despite his innocence, Ferran thought he could divine the explanation for that incongruity in Maria Lluïsa’s eyes. Her monstrous idea in some vague way impressed itself upon the boy’s brain. His explanation seemed as indelicate, as almost monstrous, as the thing itself. Ferran froze. Maria Lluïsa was still terrified, because Ferran’s hesitation, his air of bewilderment at the possibility that Maria Lluïsa might imagine that of him, only impressed the idea more vividly upon her.

The two siblings remained silent. It was impossible to say anything about something as ridiculous as what had just happened, about such an absurd misunderstanding. Ferran, who was much weaker and much more sincere than Maria Lluïsa, felt the unbearable convulsion of a sob, and he hid his head in his hands, unable to choke back his tears.

Maria Lluïsa’s distress was intense. The boy’s tears, each nuance of his behavior, served only to bolster the tenebrous idea. Far from feeling repelled, Maria Lluïsa began to feel an extremely curious pity for that child, whom she saw as the victim of a sick and deviant affection. But she was unable to come up with so much as half a word. For such a case as she was imagining, she had not anticipated a response. Anything she said might have seemed offensive to him. Ferran, conversely, found himself in a parallel situation. How was it possible that malice or misunderstanding on his sister’s part could have produced an idea of him that was so incompatible with his nature?

What could the boy say, what kind of clarification could he imagine when, tender and inexpert as he was, with the juvenile and magical idea he had of his sister’s purity, any syllable with which he might attempt to defend himself would seem like a sacrilege? His face still hidden, Ferran hoped he might have misinterpreted Maria Lluïsa’s gesture, but if “that” was not what her gesture was saying, if “that” was not what her eyes, chillingly diaphanous, were saying, were saying, then what was it, in fact, that had happened to his sister?

Maria Lluïsa interpreted Ferran’s tears and obstructed nerves as his reaction — his noble reaction, of course — to a faux pas. If his tears had been followed by imprecations and revelations, Maria Lluïsa’s situation would have been even more compromised. Any reaction, despite the fact that this was her own eighteen year-old brother, seemed impossible to her. Ferran’s silence allowed her, even obliged her, in a way, to say something. Maria Lluïsa had to offer a response to those tears, to make some comment; she couldn’t remain mute, she couldn’t allow this pathetically shattering and absurd scene to drag on. Maria Lluïsa believed that the best thing she could do was to erase the ill effect her gesture of repulsion had caused, and imply that none of this mattered in the slightest and she hadn’t noticed a thing. Of course this was a farce, and Ferran wouldn’t swallow it either, but women often believe in the efficacy of lies and dissembling right to one’s face. This is the most suitable stance for salvaging catastrophes, and perhaps momentarily the most effective. Later, time and reflection could provide tranquilizers, slow and numbing cauterizers that could heal any wound.