Selected Writings (Dario, Ruben) (35 page)

But when the roses do not wither, and butterflies still flutter in our dream-garden, it is lovely to watch the roofs turn white, see the trees bare of leaves and the sky leaden. Gay, the rhythmic sound of rain caresses our ear.

Blessèd art thou, old winter!

THE IDEAL

And then, an ivory tower, a mystic flower, a star to fall in love with. . . . It passed; I saw it as one might see a dawn—fleeing swift and implacable.

It was an ancient statue with a soul that peered out from its eyes, angelical eyes, all tenderness, all azure as the sky, all enigma.

It felt me kiss it with my eyes, and it lashed me with the majesty of its beauty, and like a queen and a dove it looked at me, but it passed—breathtaking, dazzling, triumphant, like a blinding vision. And I, poor painter of Nature and of Psyche, maker of rhythms and airy castles, saw the glowing fairy gown, the star of its diadem, and thought of the yearned-for promise of beautiful love.

But all that remained of that supreme and fatal ray of light in the depths of my mind was the face of a woman, an azure dream.

BÖKLIN : “THE ISLE OF THE DEAD”

To what land of dreams, what funereal kingdom of dreams does that gloomy isle belong? It lies in a far and distant place where silence reigns. There, no voice issues from the water’s crystal waves, or from the wind’s light gusts, or from the black and mortuary trees’ dark leaves—those mortuary cypresses which, in silent copses, resemble ghostly monks.

One sees, carved in the volcanic rocks gnawed and scarred by time, the mouths of crypts, dark niches where, under the mysterious and taciturn sky, the dead sleep. The specular sea reflects the walls of that solitary palace of the unknown. The ship of mourning approaches a mute gravedigger, as in that poem by Tennyson. What pale dead princess is rowed to the Isle of the Dead? . . . What Helen, what beloved Yolanda?—A soft chant in minor key, a chant of vague melody and profound desolation. Perhaps the silence is broken by a wandering sob, or by a sigh; perhaps a vision wrapped in a veil as though of snow. . . .

That is where Psyche’s possession begins; it is within that blackness, poor dreamer, that you will see, perhaps, the dazzling wings of Hypsipyla sprout from the dark cocoon. To your solemn isle, oh Böklin!, goes pale Queen Bathsheba. And in a shroud of mourning goes, too, the wife of Mausolus, who poured ashes in her wine. And Hecuba—in what horrid trance!—silently, clenching her teeth against her howling, sinking her fingers into her aching maternal breasts. Venus, upon her clam shell drawn by white doves, approaches, to see whether Adonis’ shade still wanders, moaning. The imperial throng of proud porphyrogenitors, who loved both love and death. Upon a divine bark, with an archangel at its tiller, comes the Virgin Mary, wounded in the breast by the seven wounds.

SIRENS AND TRITONS

With more sonority than the sound of the conch rings the laughter of the triton, whose sea-satyr’s head, crowned with otherworldly vines that grow in undersea gardens and with roses of a strange and unknown flora, cut in beds of lichens and floating medusas, emerges from the waves. Behind him puffs a batrachian face, fleshy red mouth, bulging eyes. The waves are dancing. On the breast of one, a nymph of opulent thighs, with fins upon her heels, gives a watery leap and plunges into the sea. Farther out, another nymph, her head crowned with algae, exhibits her breasts. With jocose astonishment, an aquatic centaurian Sancho swims by; his hindquarters thrash the waves, and the spray forms a boiling white ring about his belly, on which one sees his deep stain, like the sign of a blow with a palette-knife, his navel.

In the foreground, in the transparency of the water, a siren displays her forkèd, curving fishtail, all jet and silver; in the white spray quivers that double rotundity whose curves, in a human maiden, issue in the nether limbs.

The fearful eyes look out to a point where something is espied, and the finny female fails to mind the fauny triton that beckons her, inviting her to some sexual dalliance—as on the land, to lovemaking in the great forest, Pan would beckon the woodland’s River-Nymph.

THE CLEPSYDRA: THE EXTRACTION OF THE IDEA

The Sun and the air and the still tongue of all things say to the good miner: It’s a good day.

The worker, agile and naked, feels his blood sing, feels an impulsive need to work as it courses through his marrow. It’s as if an inevitable radiant oil had charged his limbs with strength and levity, and he considers himself ready for any struggle and able to reach the heart of the earth with his pick.

The mouth of the hole calls out to him: the deep, cerebral hole beckons him to descend. The good worker peers over the edge and, far below, sees the precious stones shine.

Nature, like some maternal wet nurse, lends him a hand at the entrance to the mine, helps him go down. And he descends into the dark hole. Soon, there’s a harmonious sound of the metallic pick, wounding the rock.

When the miner comes up again from his labor, the light from the sky illuminates a new treasure on the face of the earth. There are diamonds, gold rubies, chalcedony quartz, emeralds, the rich and varied gems that the good worker has extracted.

Happy and tired, he rests, while the old and mysterious Wet Nurse smiles.

Is the Sun sick, perhaps? It has a dark veil over its eyes. The air jumps brusquely and steams, as if it were stepping from an icy bath. All things say to the good worker: It’s a bad day.

The miner feels a deathly chill in his body. His arms can’t lift the pick of his labor. He might think that he would keel over after a single step. The air around him does him harm: his eyes grow tired in their desire to drill through fog.

The hole, black and silent, seems to view him with hostility. The good worker peers over the edge and sees only darkness. Far below, he thinks he may hear the voice of an ill-fated cricket.

But it’s time to go down. And, weak, with no help and no high spirits, he descends into the shadowy hole.

Every so often, there’s the sound of the pick’s strident blows. In the silent intervals, the mine’s cricket sings.

At nightfall, the miner comes up like an ant on the edge of a glass. His hands and feet are destroyed. He hasn’t extracted anything. Tomorrow, he won’t be able to deal with the merchants. Exhausted, almost fainting at the entrance to the mine, he takes refuge in sleep.

Then, as he drifts off, the old Wet Nurse comes, holding a shaded lantern in silence. She casts light on his face and contemplates him in her mystery.

S. W.

WAR

For you, oh ardent youth, war is beautiful! Filled with illusions of glory, you think you were born under a lucky star and that the enemy bullets will respect your life even if your comrades fall like ripe fruit from dry branches. You’ll come out of this victorious, you say, so that when you return with their bodies you’ll be able to cry with a winner’s pride. You’ll be lifted in acclaim as if you were one of the first sons of the Motherland.

As for you, Mr. Merchant, you’ll stir your thick gravy, exploiting the needy patriots in your depravity and negotiating with the republic. You’ll bless the discord that will have filled your pockets with money and your belly with the deepest satisfaction.

And you, Mr. Foreign Banker: you’ll lend your money at an inflated interest. For you, Lord of Gunpowder and Killing Machines, death is a delectable dish, and you’ll sell murderous steel for fabulous prices, blood and gold, at the expense of poor peoples cast into the sea, their grave, at the mercy of the wind.

And you, Mr. Politician: after the carnage, you’ll rejoice in the remains of misfortune or, from your safe haven of victory, strut around in self-righteousness. And then you’ll plot some new infamy so that when the nation has recovered its lost health and its veins are coursing with fresh blood, you can seek new conflicts with your brother and your neighbor, conflicts that will bring new adventures in hatred and envy.

And you, artist and thinker: may you find a field worthy of your praise, where you can set your fantasies free in the air.

But what about those aging women who will do nothing more than cry? What about those pale women and those poor, orphaned children? What about those war benefits requested, that one light so late at night, those sad sewing machines? What about those black clothes?

S. W.

ESSAYS, OPINIONS, TRAVEL WRITING, AND MISCELLANEOUS PROSE

On Literature

MODERNISMO

 

 

 

In Madrid’s press, one sees constant allusions to
Modernismo,
references to the
Modernistas,
the Decadents, the Aesthetes, the Pre-Raphaelites—with
s
and all. Yet I cannot but be struck by the fact that I can find no reason whatever for the invective or the praise, or for any allusions at all. There is not in Madrid, or in all the rest of Spain, with the exception of Catalonia, any group, any “brotherhood” in which pure art—or, ye promulgators of rules, impure art—is cultivated in obedience to this “movement” that has recently been treated with such harshness by some, such enthusiasm by others. Traditional formalism, on the one hand, and the conception of a particular sort of morality and aesthetic, on the other, have produced a deep-rooted “Hispanicism” which, as don Juan Valera tells us, “cannot be uprooted no matter how hard one tugs.” This has prevented the inflowing of any cosmopolitan breeze, as it has prevented also any individual broadening, or liberty, or (let us say the consecrated word and be done with it) anarchism in art—which is the basis on which any modern or “modernist” evolution must be founded.

Now, in the youth that yearns for all things new, what is lacking in art is the virtue of desire, or, better said, enthusiasm, passion, and, above all, the gift of
will.
Furthermore, the limited public teaching and knowledge of foreign languages, the absolute lack of attention that the press gives, as a general rule, to the manifestations of the mental life of other nations (unless it be those that touch upon the “great unwashed”), and, especially, the rule of idleness and mockery, cause there to be only a tiny few who take art in all its integral value. In a visit I made recently to Jacinto Octavio Picón, the newest member of the Real Academia Española, this most excelsus writer said to me: “Believe me when I tell you, sir, that in Spain there are great talents; what we need is will, and character.”

Not long ago, Sr. Llanas Aguilaniedo, one of the few spirits among the new generation in Spain who accord study and meditation their due seriousness, said the following: “There are, furthermore, in this country idiotized by neglect and idleness, very few
active
spirits, for the general run of men are accustomed to the comforts of an easy life which demands little in the way of intellectual or physical effort. Most men do not understand how there might be individuals who find work of any sort to be a comfort, or a rest, and at the same time a tonic that expands the spirit. For true
workers,
with ideas and a true calling for labor, are, one might daresay, confined to the region north of the Peninsula; the rest of the nation, although one must not generalize absolutely in these matters, works when forced to, but without illusions and without enthusiasm.” Where I do not agree with Sr. Llanas is that here, everything produced in other countries is known, everything is analyzed, everything is studied, and then none of it is followed. “No doubt,” he says, “we consider ourselves elevated to a superior height, from whence we are content to observe what happens in the world, without its ever occurring to us to follow that movement.”

Let me expand on this. It is hard to find in any bookstore works of a certain genre unless one asks the bookseller to have them on hand. The Athenaeum receives a number of “independent” reviews and journals, yet only the smallest handful of writers and others with a taste for literature have any familiarity with the production of other nations. I have observed, for example, in the editorial offices of the
Revista Nueva,
where many good Italian, French, and English magazines are received, not to mention books of a certain type of intellectual aristocracy unknown in Spain, that even my colleagues of great talent look upon them with indifference, disdain, and an utter lack of curiosity. It goes without saying that in every circle of younger writers, everything descends finally to jokes, more or less risqué wit, or caricature and cliché—there is an absolute avoidance of deep thought. Those who reflect on art, or worship it—there is no doubt that in such promiscuity, they suffer.

Those labeled “Symbolists” have not a symbolist work to their name. Valle-Inclán is called a Decadent because he writes in a careful, polished prose of admirable formal merit. And Jacinto Benavente is called a
Modernista
and an Aesthete because if he philosophizes, he does so under the sun of Shakespeare, and if he smiles and satirizes, he does so in the manner of certain Parisians, who have nothing to do with the Aesthetes or
Modernismo.
Everything becomes a joke. For the first time,
Modernismo
was talked about in Madrid, and our aforementioned Sr. Llanas Aguilaniedo had the following to say: “The ‘hardware store’ of the Athenaeum functioned as a sort of oracle, where Oscar Wilde was remembered. . . . The court’s newspapers and magazines came out playing with words and measuring all the idolaters of beauty by the yardstick of the founder of the school, abusing the term [
‘Modernismo’
] so much that by now, even López Silva’s barbers consider the name offensive, and take umbrage at the epithet. That road leads nowhere.”

Nor does
Modernismo
have any representatives in painting, aside from a few Catalonians, unless it be the “draughtsmen,” who believe they have done it all by simply leading their silhouettes as in
vitraux,
imitating the wood-shaving ringlets of Mucha’s women, or copying the decorations in German, French, or Italian magazines. The Catalonians have, however, done everything possible—perhaps even too much—to add their bit to the progress of modern art, from their literature, which numbers such luminaries as Rusiñol, Maragall, Utrillo, to their painting and decorative arts, which have, once again, Rusiñol, Casas (whose wit and skill are worthy of all praise and attention), Pichot, and others who, like Nouell-Monturiol, have made reputations not only in Barcelona but also in Paris and other cities of art and ideas.