Pío Baroja

“ CERVANTES, SHAKESPEARE, MOLIÈRE For a long time, I thought that Shakespeare was a writer who was unique and different from all others. It seemed to me that the difference between him and other writers was one of quality rather than of quantity. I felt that, as a man, Shakespeare was of a different kind of humanity; but I do not think so now. Shakespeare is no more the quintessence of the world's literature than Plato and Kant are the quintessence of universal philosophy. ”

“ And as this romantic hour glided on, the shouts and songs and quarrels of the street subsided; the lights in the balconies were extinguished; the shopkeepers and janitors drew in their chairs from the gutter to surrender themselves to the arms of sleep.
In the chaste, pure dwelling of Doña Casiana the boarding-house keeper, idyllic silence had reigned for some time. Only through the balcony windows, which were wide open, came the distant rumbling of carriages and the song of a neighbouring cricket who scratched with disagreeable persistency upon the strident string of his instrument. ”

“ How many faces pale with envy there are! What low and repugnant hatreds! When I come out nauseated by seeing those people; when I am soaked with repugnance, then I come out here to walk, I look at those serious mountains, so frowning and strong, and the mere sight of them seems like a purifying flame which cleanses me from meanness.”
“I see that you are as absurd as ever, Cæsar. It would never occur to anybody to come and comfort himself with some melancholy mountains, out here between an abandoned hospital, which looks like a leper-asylum, and a deserted cemetery.” ”

“ This soil formed the daily deposits of the dumping-place; this earth, whose sole products were old sardine-cans, oyster shells, broken combs and shattered pots; this earth, black and barren, composed of the detritus of civilization, of bits of lime and mortar and factory refuse, of all that the city had cast off as useless, seemed to Manuel a place made especially for him, for he himself was a bit of the flotsam and jetsam likewise cast adrift by the life of the city.
Manuel had seen no other fields than the sad, rocky meadows of Soria and the still sadder ones of the Madrilenian suburbs. ”

“ She was rather loaded with jewels, which gave her the aspect of an ancient goddess.
“You, who find everything wrong,” said Mlle. Cadet to Cæsar, “what have you to say of that woman? I have been looking at her ever since she came in, and I don’t find the slightest defect.”
“Nor I. It is a face which gives no indication that the least shadow of sorrow has ever crossed it. It is beauty as serene as a landscape or as the sea when calm. Moreover, that very perfection robs it of character. It seems to be less a human face than a symbol of an apathetic being and an apathetic beauty.” ”

“ But beyond the fact of its intelligibility, music possesses different attractions for different people. The folk song preserves to us the very savour of the country in which we were born; it recalls the air, the climate that we breathed and knew. When we hear it, it is as if all our ancestors should suddenly present themselves. I realize that my tastes may be barbaric, but if there could only be one kind of music, and I were obliged to choose between the universal and the local, my preference would be wholly for the latter, which is the popular music. ”

“ In the plazoletas, white houses with green blinds, with their eaves shaded by tracings of blue paint, their intersecting angles twisted, and splashed with lime, sparkled and shone. And from the side of one of these sunbaked plazas, there started a narrow, damp, and sinuous alley, full of violet shadows.
Sometimes Quentin paused before sumptuous façades of old manorial houses. At the furthest end of the broad entrance, the wrought-iron flowers of the grating stood out against the brilliant clarity of a resplendent [27] patio. ”

“ The languorous afternoons invited to slumber. After lunch especially, Manuel would be overcome by stupor and deep depression. Through the doorway of the shop could be seen the fields of San Isidro bathed in light; in the Campillo de Gil Imón the wash hung out to dry gleamed in the sun.
There came a medley of crowing cocks, far-off shouts of vendors, the shrieking of locomotive whistles muffled by the distance. The dry, burning, atmosphere vibrated. ”

“ Even Dicenta did not. His Juan José is not a workingman, but a young gentleman. He has nothing of the workingman about him beyond the label, the clothes, and such externals.
Galdós, for example, can make the common people talk; Azorín can portray the villages of Castile, set on their arid heights, against backgrounds of blue skies; Blasco Ibáñez can paint the life of the Valencians in vivid colours with a prodigality that carries with it the taint of the cheap, but none of them has penetrated into the popular soul. That would require a great poet, and we have none. ”

“ To think of these sleeping forces irritated him: the waterfall, lost without leaving its energy anywhere; the ravine, which might be transformed into an irrigation reservoir; the river, which was flowing gently without fertilizing the fields; the land around the hermitage, which might have been converted into a park, with a bright, gay schoolhouse; all these things that could be done and were not done, seemed to him more real than the people with whom he talked and lived.
One morning Cæsar walked to Cidones; the sun shone strongly on the highway, and he reached the town choked and thirsty. ”

“ The Frenchwoman smiled, and her husband said:
“Weren’t you afraid?”
“Afraid of which?—The bulls, or my sweetheart?”
“Of both!” exclaimed the Frenchman, laughing heartily.
“What a simpleton!” reiterated the countryman, smiling, and looking at him as he would at a child.
“All you have to do with women and bulls to understand them,” said Quentin, with the air of a consummate connoisseur, “is to know them. If the bull attacks you on the right, just step to the left, or vice versa.”
“And if you don’t have time to do that?” questioned the Frenchman rather anxiously. ”

“ BOHEMIA I have never been a believer in the absurd myth called Bohemia. The idea of living gaily and irresponsibly in Madrid, or in any other Spanish city, without taking thought for the morrow, is so preposterous that it passes comprehension. Bohemia is utterly false in Paris and London, but in Spain, where life is difficult, it is even more of a cheat. ”

“ La Mellá was always in high spirits, singing and laughing at all hours of the day and night. She carried in her apron-pocket a tiny powder-puff with a mirror on the inside of the cover; she would stop at every other step to gaze at herself by the light of a street-lantern and powder her face.
She was affectionate and kind-hearted. Her excessive ugliness made Manuel gag. The lass was eager to win him but Vidal advised his cousin not to take up with her; La Goya suited him better, for she made more money. ”

“ It is obvious that, thus harboured and united by chance in this hotel, we disturb one another; a wall of prejudices and conventionalities separates us. The English old maids read their romantic novels; the German families talk among themselves; some Russian or other drinks champagne while he stares with vague and inexpressive eyes; and some swarthy man from a sultry country appears to be crushed by the lugubrious silence. ”

“ Great and small, illustrious and humble, every individual who gazes into a mirror will always see in the glass the reflection of a pretender.”
“I’m with you,” said Quentin.
“I believe,” declared the Swiss, “that you only look upon the dark side of things.”
“I force myself to see both sides,” responded Escobedo—“the bright as well as the dark. I believe that in every deed, in every man, there is both light and darkness; also that there is almost always one side that is serious and tragic, and another that is mocking and grotesque.”
“And what good does that do you?” asked Don Gil. ”

“ El Bizco and Manuel went along in the dark from one side to the other, exploring the hollows of the mountain, until a ray of light issuing from a crevice in the earth betrayed one of the caves.
They approached the hole; from within came the interrupted hum of hoarse voices.
By the flickering light of a candle which was held in position on the ground by two rocks, more than a dozen outcasts, some seated and some on their knees, formed a knot of card-players. In the corners might be discerned the hazy outlines of men stretched out on the sand.
A fetid vapour was exhaled by the cave. ”

“ EVIL AND ROUSSEAU'S CHINAMAN I do not believe in utter human depravity, nor have I any faith in great virtue, nor in the notion that the affairs of life may be removed beyond good and evil. We shall outgrow, we have already outgrown, the conception of sin, but we shall never pass beyond the idea of good and evil; that would be equivalent to skipping the cardinal points in geography. Nietzsche, an eminent poet and an extraordinary psychologist, convinced himself that we should be able to leap over good and evil with the help of a springboard of his manufacture. ”

“ Indubitably, there existed an instinctive accord of the sentiments between Amparito and him, an organic sympathy. She could feel for them both, but he could not think for them both; each mental machine ran in isolation, like two watches, which do not hear each other. She knew whether Cæsar was sad or joyful, disheartened or spirited, merely by looking at him. She had no need to ask him; she could read Cæsar’s face. ”

“ Don Paco, who had come in to take coffee, surprised him in this caviling. The man was oozing joy. The Revolution was made, the most glorious, the most humane that the centuries had ever witnessed. The entire world, the French, the English, the Swiss, the Germans;—all envied the Spaniards. Spain was going to be a different sort of country. Now, now, the great conquests of Progress and Democracy would be realized: Universal Suffrage, Freedom of Worship, Freedom of Association.
“And do you believe that all that will make life any better?” asked Quentin coldly. ”