In the years I’m talking about – after the ’14 war – well-off people from our country liked to stay in Paris for a while.
They’d made money from the war and no doubt that’s why people of a certain social standing started to be very curious about things foreign. I don’t think so many people have ever crossed the frontier. Taste – especially the taste of the ladies – improved considerably: these were years when Europe was very influential, especially France.
Sr Albert Mascarell, a property owner, an affable young gentleman with a decent fortune, decked out in a way that was vaguely reminiscent of country folk, was one of those who “liked to stay in Paris for a while.” However, the motive behind Sr Mascarell’s trip wasn’t any specific hobbyhorse or the need to give rein to a particular mania. His pretext was disappointment in love.
Mascarell was thirty-four at the time. He had fallen in love with a young lady – with an angel – of nineteen. The initial phase of that business proceeded completely normally. However, she broke off the relationship all of a sudden. She said no in word and deed. Friends on both sides believed that the young lady’s no had been forced upon her. Her father – a gentleman who wore blue spectacles – was a character driven by clear-cut ideas. He was vigorously opposed to his sweet child marrying a recalcitrant bachelor. Every effort was made to persuade him that the difference in years was a secondary matter when the loving couple had reached the age they had; it was argued that in such a situation prophesying always fails and that earthy empiricism yields much better results in issues of love than any general law, however convincing the latter might seem. It was to no avail. He wouldn’t budge.
People were amazed how easily Mascarell threw in the towel. He had been put to the test, and one naturally imagined he would raise the stakes correspondingly. However, it didn’t happen, and, if I’m not mistaken, the reason was a tiny, almost grotesque incident that seems laughable when spelled out.
One day the young lady resident in Mascarell’s imagination received a delightful present from a girlfriend: a kitten. A lovely black kitten, a cute kitten. It knew how to play with the shadow of its tail and did so somersaulting in a way that made you split your sides.
“What will you call it?” asked the friend.
“I’ll call it Albert …” she answered immediately.
And, mentally, she told herself: That way I’ll think about him more: whenever I see the cat I’ll think of him; whenever I call it, etc.
It was an amusing, delightful idea. Except that Mascarell thought it showed a deplorable lack of respect.
As this episode coincided with her father’s first attempts to create difficulties for their relationship, the two circumstances amounted to a considerable obstacle. However, the detail of the cat never became public knowledge. Most people believed that the only cause of the break had been her father’s opposition. “Mascarell,” said his friends, “couldn’t marry because he’d been a bachelor for so long.” On hearing that opinion voiced, a senior gentleman said one day, “In this world, the further you go, the more you lose.”
It was after these little upsets that Mascarell decided to spend a while in Paris.
In Paris, he thought, I will surely find a few distractions …
On a friend’s recommendation, he lodged in a small hotel on the Boulevard de Montparnasse, on the Avenue de l’Observatoire side. He immediately felt at ease. Everyone reacts differently to experiences, especially to great cities. Mascarell’s reaction to Paris was very sui generis. What impressed him most, to the point of becoming an obsession, were the huge dimensions of the city. Sometimes the bigger a thing is, the more it arouses our curiosity: the more work you have, the more you carve out for yourself. In his The Century of Louis XIV, Voltaire recounts how Minister Colbert would enter his office to find a table strewn with heaps of paper and would rub his hands together, his eyes sparkling brightly; when there were few papers, he would look limp and downcast. The huge dimensions of Paris caused a completely different reaction in Mascarell. Perhaps the city was too much for him, perhaps he didn’t know where to start, perhaps the vastness of the spectacle reduced his curiosity in diametrically reverse proportions. On the other hand, I’ve already mentioned how Mascarell’s presence in Paris didn’t have any specific point to it. I don’t think a visit to the Louvre figured in his plans. A visit to Versailles did; the Louvre, on the other hand, remained regrettably absent from his itinerary.
The fact is that a week after his arrival in Paris Mascarell had become a man content to be in his quartier. He had trimmed his sails and decided that the district where he lived had everything he needed. A typical man of his kind, he instinctively curbed his excursions. These self-imposed limits came to be quite precise. Whenever he had to go to the great boulevards to carry out a routine bank transaction, he felt he was journeying to the back of beyond. Conversely, it was winter – the end of winter – and it was great fun to be in bed watching the rain or gazing at the faint pink haze that made Paris so lovely. He enjoyed some wonderful mornings. One day he lit a cigarette in bed, something he’d never done before. On another occasion he started reading a book, something he’d only ever done on the rare occasions when convalescing. In any case, he had nothing pressing to do. The two or three visits he’d intended making on acquaintances in Paris – visits he’d been planning to make the second he arrived – were postponed. It would have been difficult to pinpoint the reasons for these deferrals.
One could possibly sum up the situation like this: after a few days in Paris he felt the atmosphere acted like a ready-made effective tranquillizer, rather than raising his spirits and making him euphoric. This completely unanticipated outcome was a huge shock. When he’d been there two weeks and realized that he still hadn’t been to a night club or boîte de nuit – not even in his own quartier – he was astounded and scratched the back of his neck. He quickly put this down to the natural sense of bewilderment he’d experienced in those first few days. Soon after, when he realized he’d still not entered any such establishment, and didn’t feel the slightest curiosity or desire to cross their thresholds, he started to feel worried. A cursory investigation of this peculiar situation might lead one to conclude that it was caused by sentimental reminiscences afloat in Mascarell’s memory, ones related to the young lady with the kitten. This would be completely unfounded. If any wound opened by that young lady remained unhealed it was precisely the humiliation he had suffered – that he described in such terms – when she had been so frivolous as to christen the cat with his name. In other words, that situation was as absurd as ever and, consequently, deteriorated by the day.
Even so Mascarell didn’t feel out of touch with his new surroundings. He had a decent knowledge of French and expressed himself well enough. Of course, he spoke in a grating, awkward manner and his silent s’s lacked feathery warmth; he spoke French without a twang, without the bass twang of a cello. Naturally, it was also phonetically on the thin side. Nonetheless, everything else was splendid: the shape of his sentences, his vocabulary and their relevance. Like anyone who has studied a language through books, he excelled more in literary turns of phrase than common usage. When he was in a restaurant one day and a gentleman ordered an omelette baveuse he was quite shaken. He thought he knew everything about omelets in French that a foreigner could know. When he realized that an omelette baveuse was an underdone omelet, he was genuinely disgusted. But I think that his disgust was misplaced. One never finds everyday colloquial language in books – that comes with direct contact. At any rate, Mascarell didn’t live incommunicado, that’s for sure.
How then does one explain the peculiar way he mentally adapted to Paris, his tendency to stay put, his really strange withdrawal, one might almost say, his indifference? I think not even he could shed any light. It was a situation that worried him, the roots of which he couldn’t have explained at all coherently. And now he was in that frame of mind, his mood simply deepened as the days passed. Mascarell befriended the hotel owner. This gentleman soon noticed that this client was relaxed, peaceful, and not at all tapageur, and considered him to be a model customer. When he went in or out, retrieved or deposited his key in his pigeon hole, they exchanged pleasantries. Then one day they started to talk and at length. They finally became good friends. When Mascarell couldn’t think what to do – that was almost all the time – and he felt it wasn’t inopportune, he spent time in the hotel reception area. He sat in the comfy chair and when he wasn’t talking to Monsieur Paul – that being the owner’s name – he was distracted by movements in and out of the door.
Monsieur Paul was a tall, stout man with splendid bones, aged by arthritis and the sedentary life, just like his establishment. The Hotel Niort, however, was a small furnished hotel like hundreds more in Paris, and Monsieur Paul’s corpulent frame was too much for the modest size of the establishment. He’d have been better off in the generous spaces of a large hotel than in the minute area of his own tiny reception where he hardly fit. Blue-eyed and ashen-haired with a sulfur-colored mustache, he dressed like an hotelier – black jacket and pin-striped trousers. He was very given to outbursts of patriotic sentiment and speechifying, his fulsome eloquence flowed easily.
He was a man who lived in a constant bad temper. He had already once retired from business – retired to Normandy – but the war had shot down all his projects: his lack of sufficient funds had forced him to resume work for a second time, something that visibly made him indignant. He let off steam denigrating the government of the Republic and, generally, politics throughout the world. At first Mascarell listened with interest and then, as he began to grasp the drift of his sarcastic remarks, he became enthralled.
In a private, completely hidden way, Mascarell reveled in the harangues of Monsieur Paul. This gentleman was forever complaining: poor business, the growing demands of the taxman, lack of activity, and wretched profits. Monsieur Paul talked about this obsessive situation in a monotonous, bitter tone. In fact, it was precisely this pessimistic litany that most pleased Mascarell – he received a physical boost because it so contrasted with his own individual fortunes. He had come to Paris, having done his sums, that is, he knew he could spend a (considerable) amount weekly, an amount he intended to withdraw in successive tranches from the big bank on the boulevard. In fact, his sums hadn’t worked out in a quite admirable way. Mascarell spent, had spent much less – less than half – what he had budgeted for. This filled him with ineffable joy that he kept under wraps. He was in Paris and was saving money! It was an impressive outcome. He would sometimes while away his time wondering whether this astonishing situation had entailed sacrifices, hardships, or the curbing of one desire or another and was forced to admit that the life he was leading was exactly the one he liked. He wouldn’t have aspired to anything else or wanted it otherwise. So, Monsieur Paul’s somber, funereal harangues delighted him because they made him realize the excellent, positive path his own private affairs had taken. The longer Monsieur Paul’s face, the greater was Mascarell’s secret delight. One of the most naked sides to cruelty in this world is the value things assume only by virtue of such contrasts. Mascarell summed up his state of mind with a line that barely did him any credit: “I’d never have thought that I was so intelligent …”
Fortunately, his observation never reached the outside world.
It was Monsieur Paul who introduced him to Fanny.
Fanny was Catalan. She lived in the hotel by herself and had been in Paris for many years. Monsieur Paul thought Mascarell would like to meet a compatriot, who was a good customer and someone else who barely made any tapage. Mascarell was intrigued by Fanny. Via a strange process, the fact she was a compatriot led him to think that Fanny, like himself, belonged to the quartier. Fanny was in her early thirties – maybe thirty-three – short, plump, with black hair, bright eyes, a pale complexion and a freckle on her left cheek, and perhaps an overly showy sense of dress. She gave off a wonderful smell of scented soap and was good company. Fanny worked in an office on the Rue Richelieu, but Monsieur Paul told Mascarell that her earnings had been running her short for months.
In Paris romances of the time, Fanny’s physical type was much in demand. Years later, taller, willowy women, with more elongated behinds, were in vogue. Fanny’s name was really Eulàlia. She had made the switch to make pronunciation easier. And this was one of the first things she confessed to Mascarell. Her confession led Mascarell to raise an eyebrow: he thought it was her way of opening the path to friendship, even to intimacy.
What most struck him was the way she acted like young girls in his country fifteen years ago: she could play the piano just a little, excelled at sewing and knitting, particularly in the use of sequins; she spoke lovingly about her mother, was fond of things fried in bread crumbs with the white of an egg, and enthused about cheap prints; her handwriting was full of curlicues and she could quote two dozen pretty little poems. On the other hand, she hated anything connected with cooking. As far as she was concerned, cooking was a most vulgar occupation. She believed that the French obsession with cooking was vulgar.
Mascarell found Eulàlia’s company very agreeable. He made the most of every opportunity to accost her. Fresh information about her way of life didn’t make him at all critical. Quite the opposite. The moment came – very soon – when he decided that she was totally good news.
Eulàlia could be very up and down. She sometimes seemed tired and despondent and then her attitude might be rather curt and off-putting. On the other hand, she had days when she was wonderfully animated, with a frivolous allure. Mascarell preferred her when he could see she was depressed and tense – even though he had to suffer the consequences – to when she was smiling and laughing. Like all serious people – and Mascarell was a terribly serious fellow – he believed that other people should be equally serious.
“Do you see this?” Eulàlia laughed, with a sparkle in her eyes and moist lips, pointing to the freckle on her left cheek.
“Yes.”
“It brings bad luck.”
“Why so?”
“Because it just does.”
“Who told you that?”
“The cards.”
“But do you read the cards?”
“Yes, I do.”
“My lord!”
“Don’t be so solemn, you boor!”
And she burst out laughing, and that prevented Mascarell from putting his foot into it a second time. He had been about to spell out the reasons why one shouldn’t read the cards, or believe in them. If he’d done that, he’d only have proved that this world is a vale of tears. That would have pleased Mascarell much more than seeing Eulàlia look happy and vivacious.
That day they’d met by the hotel entrance when the streetlights were being switched on. It had been a warm, silken April day. The early blossom on the trees augured delicious bliss.
“Mascarell,” said the young lady. “You should invite me to dinner …”
“What do you mean?” replied an astonished Mascarell, sounding unfortunately tetchy.
Eulàlia was taken aback. Mascarell immediately corrected his inexplicable faux pas.
“Of course, I should invite you to dinner. But are you sure you’re not joking?”
“Not likely! I’m hungry and could do with a good dinner.”
“What time suits you?”
“How about half past seven here?”
“Fine.”
They met at the agreed time. They reached the Boulevard Saint-Michel via the Avenue de l’Observatoire, scented by the fluff drifting down from the magnificent chestnut-trees, and along the wrought iron fence around the Luxembourg – the gardens were closed. They went into the brasserie that was so renowned for its cuisine, opposite the Fontaine Médicis.
On that long walk Mascarell showed himself to be a gallant man, but one who said little. He was a man of few words – and even more so when accompanied by a woman. Eulàlia – who was having a good day – began two or three frankly flippant conversations with a spontaneity that was frankly delightful. One couldn’t have imagined a better aperitif than those conversations. The effect on Mascarell was counter-productive. He became quieter and more withdrawn than usual.
Their dinner was on the silent side. Anyone who didn’t know them would have said they’d been married for four or five years. Mascarell was visibly shocked when Eulàlia was greeted warmly by two portly gentlemen who were dining four or five tables behind them. For a moment a really Catalan thought passed through his head: what if he was just acting the country bumpkin?
When the waiter brought the bill, Mascarell picked it up with a flourish and gabbled tactlessly: “Will you allow me, Eulàlia …?”
Eulàlia looked at him as if she was hallucinating. She wondered for a moment whether he was being sarcastic or merely stupid. The look on her face seemed to say: what’s this simpleton playing at?
“I don’t like,” continued Mascarell, “to mention such vulgar matters, but I’m always afraid of doing the wrong thing in Paris … When it comes to paying, people can be very iffy.”
“He’s still going on about it …” Eulàlia whispered.
“Believe me, I find these day-to-day things really trying …”
Eulàlia thought: Pay for heaven’s sake and let’s forget it. What’s this guy after with all this nonsense? But she said nothing.
When they left the restaurant, they started to walk slowly back to the hotel. It was a very warm, pleasant night, and spring seemed to make everything delightfully languid.
“Mascarell,” said Eulàlia, “you’re so sad and lugubrious. What on earth’s wrong with you?”
“It’s how I am. People like me seem very odd in Paris, because Parisians are so fun-loving … That’s not the case in our country.”
“People are always so irritable there!” exclaimed Eulàlia with a grimace, her brow somber as if she was remembering something truly unpleasant.
“What can we do about that? Every land fights its own battles.”
“But why is your character like this, Mascarell? Don’t you think you’ve got it all wrong? What’s the point in wearing such a long face?”
“Oh dear, what do you expect me to say? I must be made this way.”
“You must be in love …”
“I’m sorry, that’s not true! I would like to be in love, but that’s quite another matter.”
“And you haven’t found anyone in Paris to take your scowls away? Don’t make me laugh!”
“It’s true, Eulàlia. I would like to fall in love because I need someone to keep me company; I feel lonely, do you see?”
“You feel lonely? But how can you be lonely here? Please don’t let on to anybody, because they won’t believe you.”
“You spend every day stuck in the hotel. Why don’t you go out more?”
“Where do you want me to go?”
“If you weren’t a man, I’d feel sorry for you …”
“Thank you so much, Eulàlia.”
Mascarell reacted strongly to the word “sorry.” He thought his friendship with that young woman had suddenly deepened.
“Did you enjoy dinner, Mascarell?” Eulàlia then asked, suddenly changing tack.
“Far too much!”
“Why ‘far too much’? Don’t make me laugh! I see nothing has changed in Barcelona.”
“Of course, I feel fine next to you, you know. I’m speaking generally …”
The last two sentences made Eulàlia want to burst out laughing but she had to restrain herself so as not to seem rude.
“I’m sorry,” said Eulàlia. “What do you mean by ‘I’m speaking generally …?’ ”
“I mean that I don’t like you when you are so cheerful, you don’t seem as nice as when …”
“You prefer me when I have headache …”
“Absolutely. On days when you are cheerful I feel we aren’t such good friends … as if I weren’t so close to you, do you understand?”
“What nonsense!”
“Why do you say that?”
“Mascarell, I beg you, don’t get me going! I forbid you! For God’s sake don’t wind me up!”
“But I’m not, as far as I can see. Can’t I say that I hold you in high esteem?”
“No! Not with that sad face! You can joke as much as you like, but, please, don’t ever speak seriously to me. I ask that as a favor. Don’t ever speak to me seriously …”
“Why not? This is really shocking …”
“You can be shocked as much as you like. That’s how it is.”
“Why don’t you want me to speak seriously? Don’t you like me one little bit?”
“Please don’t force me to say anything I’d rather not! Why do you do that? Why do you ask me questions that compel me to be unpleasant? Why are you so nosey? Why are you so rude and bossy?”
“Eulàlia, can you believe that I’ve never found myself in a situation like this? Never! You are extraordinary! I’ve never had dealings with a woman who is so independent …”
The conversation had taken such a vexing turn for Mascarell he could hardly contain himself. He struggled to put on a brave front, but so obviously his real inner state was quite transparent. One remark from Eulàlia had particularly floored him. “Why are you so nosey?” Eulàlia had rasped harshly. The meaning of that sentence is clear enough, Mascarell told himself. This young lady wouldn’t accept my presence in her life, not even on the doorstep. Mascarell found this deeply disturbing. His self-esteem suffered a battering. He felt sore. Something he could never have imagined – a person refusing to accept him as a friend – had actually happened right in his face. He felt disgust inside, and looked at Eulàlia with barely concealed contempt. He felt the need to irritate her, to make her feel his presence.
“Eulàlia,” he asked rather smugly, “who were those two gentlemen over there?”
“And what business of yours is that?”
“Are they close friends of yours?”
“Mascarell, don’t wind me up! Don’t be nosey, I beg you! Leave me and my independence well alone! You must realize that things are different here.”
“And you like things to be different?”
“I should think I do. It’s glorious! And now, believe me, let’s put all that behind us! Let’s cool down.”
“And why should we cool down?”
“We should cool down because if you continue along this path I’ll think you’re un homme fatal and you’ll go down in my estimation.”
“So I’m un homme fatal, am I? What exactly is that?”
“Un homme fatal is someone like you, like most men in our country, a boor who won’t let anyone live in peace. Believe me: let’s put all that behind us! We can still be friends, but don’t expect anything more. What do you say?”
Mascarell was in a state of nervous tension he could no longer conceal. The tension was such that he had the good sense to say nothing else. He’d never thought he would ever find himself in such a situation. His self-esteem had been so grievously harmed – his words – that he looked highly disgruntled. They walked on for a while in complete silence. They now looked as if they’d been married for ten years. They said goodbye – Mascarell being so ingenuous – frostily by the entrance to the hotel. Back in her bedroom, Eulàlia objectively reviewed the events of the evening. On the one hand, she was upset by what she’d been forced to say. On the other, however, she realized that what she’d done was the only way to stop Mascarell in his tracks and put an end to what would have been a very boring and trying business.
Mascarell withdrew too, agitated and fraught, convinced he’d been acting like a complete fool for the last three or four hours.
What Eulàlia had said – that he was un homme fatal – had lodged painfully in his brain. He thought it was the most cutting barb in all that Eulàlia had said. He tried to decide what un homme fatal might be, but couldn’t get any clarity at all, in view of which he decided to find out.
A few days later – it was dusk, and so mild and pleasant – Mascarell was strolling through Le Jardin du Luxembourg, on the Rue d’Assas side, and when he was close to the statue of Sainte-Beuve he spotted Eulàlia in the company of a foreign-looking man. And once he’d set his eyes on her, he made the mistake of loitering around hoping to find out more – and so obviously – that it was inevitable they would see each other. Eulàlia seemed very cheerful: she was laughing and talking loudly, sometimes took the arm of the person accompanying her, and was being wonderfully vivacious.
The gentleman by her side seemed rather perplexed. Perhaps he felt the young lady’s gestures were too flamboyant. At any rate, he kept looking fearfully to his left and right as if he was worried about being seen. He’d have probably acted quite differently if they’d been indoors.
Their paths crossed. When Eulàlia saw Mascarell she blanched slightly, bit her lip, tensed her whole body, but said nothing. Perhaps she’d just remembered what she’d repeatedly said that evening to Mascarell about interfering.
The gentleman accompanying her turned out to be a friend and acquaintance of the latter: it was Sr Tallada, from the Rambla de Catalunya, who ran a large outfitter’s concern and came to Paris every year. When Tallada saw Mascarell – they went to the same casino – he blinked for a moment and was briefly at a loss about what to do next. A second later he yanked his arm away from Eulàlia and shook Mascarell’s hand but without his usual noisy bonhomie. The latter seemed very pleased.
“Good heavens, Mascarell,” said Tallada. “I didn’t know you were in Paris.”
“Well, here I am …”
“Do you know Srta Fanny? We met in the Café de la Paix and she’s been so kind as to keep me company for a while.”
“Yes indeed, I do know her. How are you, senyoreta?”
Eulàlia shook hands but said nothing. That fellow’s appearance seemed to have changed her completely. She must have been aware of the transformation, because she made a visible effort to hide her sudden deflation. She acted as if she couldn’t care less about Mascarell, as if she felt contempt for him.
They spent a long time walking around the park chattering about nothing in particular. They observed the Palais du Sénat at great length that looked wonderful at twilight and left through la Porte de l’Odéon. They then walked as far as the Panthéon tavern that was almost on the corner of the Boulevard Saint-Michel and the Rue Soufflot. The big bulk of the Panthéon, its stone a light chamois tone, loomed at the end of this street.
“What’s that?” Tallada asked the young lady.
“It’s the Panthéon …”
Tallada put on the most admiring expression he could manage, took a couple of steps so he had a better view of the building and then said, with an air of great conviction, “You know, it is rather nice, isn’t it?”
If Eulàlia hadn’t been so downcast, she’d have burst out laughing at Tallada’s comment. All the same, she found his remark reeked of Barcelona.
When they reached the tavern door, Eulàlia assumed that Mascarell would take his leave, but not so. Mascarell stayed on. He seemed increasingly interested in what Tallada had to say. Eulàlia assumed that his interest was simply a pretext to annoy her, to justify a presence she found deeply wearisome.
They took a table inside and ordered aperitifs. It wasn’t crowded. They were playing a cloying sentimental ballad.
“That music is so lovely …” said Tallada, looking intense.
Eulàlia thought it was time to send Mascarell packing. She placed her head on Sr Tallada’s chest, in step with the melody, in an admirably French gesture. Mascarell averted his gaze and Tallada was choked and turned a bright red. Eulàlia concluded that Sr Tallada’s small-mindedness had ruined her ploy. It would be difficult to get rid of Mascarell. Eulàlia thought how un homme fatal has never been characterized by a keen sense of his own foolishness.
Shortly after, Tallada glanced at his watch and got up. Mascarell did likewise. While the former was settling the bill with the waiter, he spoke to Eulàlia, smiling rather sadly: “Fine. Duty is duty, Fanny. We’ll meet, as agreed, at half past eight, right here. If you like, we can go to the casino.”
“That’s a wonderful suggestion!” replied Eulàlia, smiling, but with rather despondent eyes.
Tallada and Mascarell departed, leaving Eulàlia alone with the empty aperitif glasses. A few moments later, she walked off in the direction of the hotel, looking visibly down.
At eight o’clock that evening two express messages were delivered to reception. One was for Fanny; the other for Mascarell. The chambermaid took them up to their respective rooms. Both were from Sr Tallada.
The first said:
Fanny: a telegram was waiting for me at the hotel. I must leave. My elder son is ill in bed. I’m very worried. I’ll be back next month, God willing. I’ll let you know. Think of me. T.
The one for Mascarell was somewhat longer.
Dear friend: I can admit this to you, Mascarell. Chance always seems to catch me one way or another and my first thought was how to make my escape. However farcical, my monogamy is definitive and rock-hard. I’ll bring greetings from you to our mutual friend Camps Margarit. Be discreet and see it in a good light. I’m leaving tonight. May Paris do you good! Enjoy yourself! Tallada.
Eulàlia knew that could be the only conclusion and thus read the message quite casually. For her it was past history. In respect to Mascarell, she felt burning rancor. On their way back from dinner that night, she’d said he was un homme fatal, but had said so with no hidden agenda, simply because she thought he was basically a fool. That was no longer the case: she now thought he truly was un homme fatal, that is, a boor who wouldn’t let anyone live in peace. The type of man Eulàlia hated most.
The next day they met in the hotel reception and Mascarell acted with his usual lack of tact, or with his customary boorishness.
“Did you receive anything, Eulàlia?” he asked.
“No, why?”
“Read this.”
And he handed her the express message from Tallada. Eulàlia laughed at his weird behavior but couldn’t be bothered to take the piece of paper. Mascarell stood there a while offering her the blue piece of paper and looking a complete idiot.
“Is this how you treat me now, Eulàlia?”
“Go away, you fool! Don’t waste any more of my time!”
However, she later felt she might have overstepped the mark.
Mascarell used to go to a barber shop on the Boulevard Montparnasse, two or three doors down from the hotel. He was very fussy about his hair and worried about its appearance down to the last detail. His head was so soigné, his hair clung to his head so unanimously (even though he didn’t use any grease), his cut was so immaculate, that when he gazed at himself, his eyes bulged out of their sockets, (a throwback to his rural forebears), and his head looked more like a model in the hairdresser’s window than a live human appendage.
It was an Italian hairdresser’s and had next-to-no French customers. The French have always required their hairdressers to be lugubrious and silent, in a stiff academic atmosphere. And that hairdresser’s was what we would vulgarly call a stewpot. When the artists in the quartier discovered the place had no French customers – when the exodus of artists from Montmartre on the other side of the river had begun towards Montparnasse – they flooded there. This new clientele obviously didn’t pursue normal, mechanical routines, because a visit to the barbers is for most people a mechanical reflex act. The artists went there when they had a little spare cash – a rare occurrence – and especially when they had nothing else to do. In any case, that gang of maniacs and half-crazed hobos suited the place down to the ground.
Sr Giacomo, the owner, was Neapolitan and had lived in Paris for many years. A small, fair-haired, chubby man with flabby cheeks, his tiny eyes glinted slyly. You might have thought he was an old-fashioned, lax, and skeptical notary. Though he was so short, he wore an undersized coat that made him look a grotesque clown. And naturally he was a great chatterbox. People who had the patience to listen to him – and at first everybody did listen to him – knew he championed the arts of peace, music, his country’s cuisine, and the ladies, whenever they were spoken for.
Sr Giacomo was a throwback to the pre-First World War period, when practically nothing existed in Europe that didn’t have a picturesque, amusing twist.
Music, however, was his weak point. When there wasn’t much in the way of work, that is, when he wasn’t under disagreeable pressure from waiting customers – that was quite common – he reckoned that every beard he trimmed merited a song. The moment he began to wet your face, he’d say: “With your permission, I’ll sing you a canzonetta …”
As he found his pitch, brandishing a sharp shiny blade, you thought: If this benighted fellow can’t let off steam, there might be an upset …
And thus one said, with resignation: “Of course, whatever …”
He began piano piano, then burbled quietly for a time. When he started shaving against the grain, his pitch gradually rose. As his comb gave the last touches to your fringe, he hit a high that made the mirrors and paving-stones rattle.
“Cosa me dice?” he asked point-blank the bewildered person who was the subject of his favors, with the arrogant air of someone who’d just won a huge battle, “i napolitani siamo cosi …”
Then he clutched at his neck with both hands, as if he had parted company with his head and was trying to fix it back in exactly the right spot.
Mascarell didn’t like Signor Giacomo’s barbershop. He found it noisy and gross, and not in keeping with his own intrinsic gravitas. Nevertheless, while he lived in Paris he never went anywhere else. It was so conveniently situated close to his hotel. It nurtured his instincts as a man of the quartier.
Signor Giacomo took note of that silent shrinking violet, greeted him most politely and bestowed on him his most obsequious bows, an art he excelled in as a good Italian émigré. Mascarell’s natural abruptness led him to think, initially, that the barber was making fun of him. But as time went by he began to soften and became more appreciative of the barber’s presence. Sr Giacomo was a past master in the art of flattery. The French always say and write that the motives behind human actions are prompted by self-esteem and vanity, but rarely benefit from their own insights. The Italians readily grant the French their pride in their discoveries, but bring to the vanity and self-esteem of others all the subtle strategies necessary to secure their own livelihood. A huge number of Italians have survived at the expense of the self-preening of others.
Mascarell fell for Signor Giacomo’s flattery, and that was the route by which they came to converse, more or less. I don’t mean that the barber “came to take a stroll within his private life,” a phrase I’ve read in a novel that’s just been translated. No. They never became close, but they were friends.
“You seem sad …?” Sr Giacomo asked one day.
“Oh no, sir! It’s not that bad …!” replied Mascarell, rather shamefaced.
“You are sad, and I know why you are sad … You are an intellectual …”
Mascarell instinctively felt he should retort: “You are wrong; there’s no substance to what you’ve just said!” The truth was, however, that he didn’t protest at all. He let it go. His vanity put the brake on.
“Yes, you are sad!” the Neapolitan continued. “And it’s because you work too hard … Lei lavora di notte col cervello …” he said in a somberly melodramatic tone that would have seemed laughable if Italians didn’t talk like that all the time.
When Signor Giacomo uttered that gem, three or four customers were waiting; he turned to them, as he was saying it. These gentlemen gave Mascarell intrigued, respectful looks.
Mascarell was immediately tempted to hurl at the barber’s head a small bottle of Rêve d’Amour or Roses du Crépuscule that were within easy reach of his chair. However, when he noted the other customers’ fascinated looks, he restrained himself. This brief moment of flattery broke the ice between two men who were so different.
Over time they became friends. The Neapolitan had one defect: it was literally impossible to imagine that he could ever not appear a complete idiot. Mascarell saw that clearly enough. He always thought the barber was a laughingstock. But it didn’t mean he didn’t think he wasn’t very knowledgeable about life, that his noisy, clownish exterior didn’t hide considerable experience and a real and astute grasp of reality. The fate of gawkers is to fall foul of the first little mirror placed in their field of vision.
Mascarell’s life was clouded by his obsession with Eulàlia’s accusation: “You are un homme fatal!” Her comment had been accompanied by a gesture that had made her drift quite explicit. But Mascarell thought she’d said it when in a bad temper, and, consequently, that it wasn’t so serious. Even assuming that her judgment was meant literally, he thought the literal meaning was diluted by the force and passion of the moment. Yes, Eulàlia had lost her cool, had overstepped the mark. That was clear … Nevertheless, her words remained. You are un homme fatal. Even if one interpreted them as a bad-tempered boutade, what did they mean?
Mascarell thought about it, much more often than it seemed on the surface. His first inclination was to ask Eulàlia to explain herself. Eulàlia was leading her usual life, was living in the same hotel, but he never saw her. If he hadn’t known that from the lips of Monsieur Paul, he’d never have believed it: he never saw Eulàlia. Initially, his modest pride had led him to believe that Eulàlia was so upset by their rift that she had deemed it necessary to stop living under the same roof. But that was all pure speculation on his part. Eulàlia hadn’t changed her normal routines one iota. Reasons existed, however, to believe that she was adept at avoiding his presence.
Seven or eight days after the scenes we have described, and totally depressed by his inability to talk to Eulàlia, Mascarell decided the very moment he sat in his barber’s chair to broach the matter with the Neapolitan. The idea came spontaneously, but he instinctively put the brake on. As he wanted a haircut and his hair wasn’t so short – meaning the job would take its time and he’d have plenty to decide what he should do. In the end: nothing very much. It simply came down to asking Sr Giacomo, who knew such a lot about life, what those words – un homme fatal – actually meant. The meaning of these words, not referring to anyone in particular, but in general: always speaking generally, of course. It was a very naïve question and meant he’d be baring himself to Sr Giacomo. But Mascarell was obsessed by Eulàlia’s remark and had to talk about it with somebody or other. It is in the fatal nature of obsessions that they must be aired.
The haircut proceeded in absolute silence. The barber didn’t seem to be in the mood. There was barely anybody waiting. When Sr Giacomo had given the final brush to Mascarell’s jacket collar, the latter addressed him rather worriedly: “I’d like a couple of words with you …”
“Take however long you need … That’s up to you!” replied the Neapolitan forcefully, with a friendly chuckle.
“When a woman says to a man: ‘You are un homme fatal,’ what do these words actually mean?”
“Did someone say that to you?” asked the barber, suddenly looking serious.
“Of course not! Who’d ever have said such a thing to poor old me? No, I’m speaking in general, take my word for it, absolutely in general …”
The barber didn’t reply at once. He looked blank and uneasy. He glanced briefly at Mascarell. Then peered at the glass panes in the entry door … And glanced back at him. He looked to all the world like a man who didn’t know which way to go to avoid putting his foot in it.
“You sure it doesn’t?” he asked finally.
“I told you! Really, I am talking in general terms.”
Sr Giacomo hesitated for a second. There was another long pause, with the corresponding, perplexed looks.
“I’d like to know why you’re asking me such a strange question …” he said staring at Mascarell.
“Oh, for no reason in particular. Simply out of curiosity …”
“If that really is the case, I will say, speaking strictly in general terms, that when a woman tells someone of the opposite sex that he is un homme fatal then it means that he is a moron, an out-and-out moron …”
Mascarell couldn’t stop himself turning slightly pale, but he responded rapidly: “Meaning?”
The Neapolitan panicked for a moment.
“What’s this all about?” he asked, uneasily. “You ask me a question. I give you a clear answer. What do you mean, ‘meaning?’ Are we or are we not speaking in general?”
“In general!” said Mascarell, rather hoarsely. “Absolutely in general. I told you it was simply something that had piqued my curiosity. My question was on the spur of the moment. The second you state your view, I assume that it is well-founded.”
“Don’t doubt that for one moment, I have known many un homme fatal. There are lots in Naples, where I come from. There’s another variety in Marseille. Not mention Paris … If you like, I can introduce you to one: he’s a giovinotto, who has hopes of being nominated an adviser …”
“No need, no need! I’ve never doubted your experience of life, your knowledge … When you say that un homme fatal is a moron …”
“Wait a moment, forgive me!” the barber interjected, sounding alarmed. “I didn’t say that! I said that when a woman says to someone in particular that he is un homme fatal it means …”
“Yes, of course, you are right. Absolutely right. I mangled what you said.”
“Of course! These things require precision, because it’s the tone that gives them their exact meaning. You know I couldn’t care less. As a barber, I couldn’t care less whether the guy whose hair I’m cutting is fatal or not. Now, it’s different with the ladies! When a lady uses these words in relation to a man, one concludes that she does indeed reckon he is a total moron …”
“All right! That’s the third time you’ve said that!” said Mascarell, barely concealing his ruffled feelings.
“Does it bother you?”
“Of course not, sir! You never bother me! In any case, you should clarify one point, if you don’t mind. What do you think drives a woman to say that un homme fatal is a total moron?”
“Hey, wait a minute, who do you take me for? Do you think I write for the papers or am a professor? Please don’t force me to think, I don’t have the right temperament …”
“But you’re so experienced in life itself …”
“Of course, just a little. All of us Italians are experienced in life. If you think about it, it’s all we have.”
“Exactly, that’s why I dared ask you this question. I’d like to draw on your experience …”
“Just slow down, please …! You’re always in such a rush. Now, if you want me to reply to what you just asked, I’ll do so briefly. I can only speak at length about things I’m not familiar with. For a woman, un homme fatal is selfish, boorish, arrogant, infatuated with himself, someone who imagines that other people only live to service him, who won’t let anyone live in peace … Now, what else would you like to hear …?”
At that a customer walked into the hairdresser’s and Sr Giacomo began to offer his usual bows. Mascarell was left standing by himself for a second in the middle of the shop. However, now wasn’t the moment, after repeatedly saying that he couldn’t care less, to show how hurtfully Signor Giacomo’s words had struck home. He hoarsely croaked a goodbye – the connection between the state of one’s soul and one’s vocal chords are very curious – put on his hat, and left.
He entered his hotel oblivious to everything. Monsieur Paul was in reception, as usual, but Mascarell barely noticed him. He seemed very depressed. He slowly went up the stairs. What had really impressed him was the way that Signor Giacomo had echoed almost the identical words Eulàlia had used that night. It would have been absurd to think some sort of conspiracy existed. Mascarell wasn’t that infantile. The very same, identical words! thought Mascarell. He decided that if everyone used the same words it was because everyone thought the same. Unanimity arose from the environment. But the clearer the explanation, the stranger it seemed.
Mascarell left Paris two days later, two disagreeable days later. He thought of the situation obsessively during those last hours. For a time he wondered whether he wasn’t living in an environment that was rejecting him, if not clearly and explicitly, at least quite actively. “Even the churches,” he told himself, “are different!” He felt fantastically foreign and displaced, but it never occurred to him that everything becomes even more impenetrable and remote for a conceited man who says he couldn’t care less. Monsieur Paul thought he looked on edge and depressed and rushed to talk to him. But Mascarell was in no mood to play-act. Monsieur Paul forgot his unremitting pessimism for once and invited him to go to the theater and a cabaret one night. Mascarell declined with silly, pointless excuses the hotel owner thought extremely peculiar. In those, his last hours in Paris, he tried to see Eulàlia. But if he had seen her, thought Mascarell, by now in his sleeper, what might he have said? Perhaps he might have said: “Would you like anything from Barcelona!” That would have been fatuous. He imagined how Eulàlia would have laughed at such a question; he could hear her noisy, rude, unmistakable sarcasm, and a virtual noise that became so loud and obsessive in his mind it completely blocked out the continual juddering and jolting of the express.