During those days I got a good deal of Garcia’s writings, considerably more than usual and that was not a little. I happened to be on vacation and consequently at his mercy almost twenty-four hours a day. One of the things on which Garcia and I agree is on not going to the country, and much less the seashore, for a vacation, but to spend it in New York. It is not only that we like New York in the summertime, enjoying with contented steadfastness the crises of heat waves that squeeze the stuffings out of tenements and onto their fire escapes, children playing under street sprinklers and water gushing from a fire hydrant opened by the hand of some civic-minded good Samaritan, the frequent and ephemeral cool drinks in the company of kindred sweating souls under a sidewalk awning, a sparkling vision of golden heat, of humid shadows and informality that march unhurriedly but straight to the heart; but if besides all this, one does not have to work, if one can roam about in freedom, gleefully pitying the rest of the busy population enslaved by their jobs, with the opportunity of seeing how the city looks during a weekday, what things those who are not imprisoned in offices or factories do, that they always tell us about when we return home from a day’s work, there seems to be no reason for going away.
Garcia has suggested many of these things and, in conspiracy with lack of funds, has encouraged me to stay in town and I have believed him candidly and also possibly because I want to believe him, but sometimes I suspect that he wants me around so that he can read to me and this he did during those days and even induced me to attempt some translations of his writings which I don’t think he found very satisfactory.
What followed of his novel was still in a more tentative phase and his plans were not quite definite. He introduced another character, a young friend of Jorge Sandoval, with whom Lolita, the younger sister, fell in love. Garcia’s treatment took more kindly to this new character than it had to the captain. He was described as an individual of extraordinary tranquility, very detached and indifferent for his age, who had not been very responsive to Lolita’s open advances, but had carried his circumspection to what she considered an insulting degree. I am sure that Garcia had wanted to bring these two individuals — the captain and this other boy — as the knights in shining armor, champions of equanimity and composure coming to rescue the damsels from the insane, or neurotic and abnormal atmosphere in which they had grown, and while Garcia, through no fault of his, had managed to make this new character rather simpático, which was also unexpected in view of his determined coolness, again the plot had militated against him and frustrated his ends.
Lolita, aroused by such circumspect disinterest on the part of the man she desired, had quarreled with him, grossly insulted him, and he had left her. Then she heard that his father, with whom he lived alone, had died and the boy had gone to America. Subsequently she learned that there he had become involved in some revolution, mistaken for someone else and executed without further ado.
Here Garcia became quite lyrical about Lolita’s feelings. In his absence, she realized the greatness of her passion for him. Here is part of it:
That friendship had lifted her style of love to a plane different from that of the flesh. She realized that besides a carnal passion, he had aroused a tenderness in her that was stronger now in memories.
He had been a great gentleman. With his supreme indifference he had passed over her, leaving her blood a sea of fire, and from that melting pot he had brought out newer, well-tempered feelings which pierced her soul like blades. He had taught her a new side of love and passion, a side that was stronger, more binding — a dangerous side.
And on bright days, she always imagined him, his placid face, his clean-cut features, his kindly eyes, looking from the bottom of his normal, unique soul upon the sea, and an old ship carrying him away. She could see him looking at the horizon, indifferent to everything, this strange man whose unglamorous manner was flat with the greatness of a prairie, this man, oblivious of life and death, who had passed through existence like a cool breeze, like a calm breeze, even as he had passed through her heart, bringing out a new and last flower and then, unconsciously, withering it when only a bud.
Since that day, Lolita decided that she would never allow love to go deeper than the flesh.
Here I remarked that this was a big decision not only for such a little girl to make but even for a writer to make for her, and I also inquired whether Garcia had intentionally made both heroes come in and out of the girls’ lives in a ship and looking at the horizon, but Garcia paid no attention and continued to struggle with his papers.
It was a good thing that all this part of the novel was in a tentative stage because the plot again became objectionable. It was not the Peeping Tom kind of pornography, the sicalipsis which had marred it on other occasions, because the subject was dealt with in a more serious, almost tragic vein, but it could scarcely be recommended nevertheless.
Lolita had turned in despair once more to her brother Jorge, and if their very strange relationship had been suggested quite frankly before, it now became an openly acknowledged incestuous situation. The novel at this point became sordid, sinister. It seems that Garcia was intent upon showing in no uncertain terms the downhill path of this family, its complete degradation leading to ultimate material and moral collapse, and he was assiduously heaping every disgrace upon them. I remonstrated with him, but again he repeated that his story was true to life and that what he described had become common knowledge to all Madrid. Seeing that he was dealing with the subject in such earnestness I could not attack his work in this case as being unnecessarily ugly and had to let it pass, but I did tell him that many things sounded in English much more crude than in Spanish, as I believe I had already said before, and that a translation under the circumstances might prove exceedingly difficult and requiring a finesse well beyond my capabilities, so that perhaps he had better count me out.
Garcia only said that his work was still in a very embryonic stage and that he might be able to shorten that section or subdue it somewhat, but that he could not see how he could eliminate it and at the same time save his literary integrity. He added that we would see and with that went on to another section.
This one covered a good deal of ground. The main idea was to show the gradual deterioration of the family and the jewelry business. Here Garcia intended to document himself properly. He wanted to describe in detail how a jewelry business crumbles notwithstanding the skillful efforts of an administrator of the caliber of good old Ledesma, but Garcia had no knowledge of business whatsoever and confessed that he was in a quandry as to whom he should consult. I suggested the Señor Olózaga.
This part of the book was also to deal with the courtship of Rojelia by Captain Albarran and their eventual marriage. This was strenuously opposed by her family because her suitor had no titles or fortune. A series of quarrels took place and the question wound up with their elopement, just before the crash, when she was saved, with but little time to spare, from the general financial ruin by his captain’s pay. All through this section Garcia expected to describe minutely the progressive abulia of Fernando Sandoval induced by some kind of disease, which had not been decided upon, in combination with excessive drinking. The specific ailment was something which Garcia’s mother had apparently neglected to tell him. She had told him of the symptoms, however: growing irritability, distraction, weakening of willpower and a complete breakdown of the spirit which ended in idiocy and incapacity to recognize people. Armed with these symptoms gathered on such heresay, Garcia intended to accost Dr. de los Rios and obtain a complete diagnosis. I agreed to the plan because I supposed that de los Rios in the end would pick out some disease for Garcia, give him the proper symptoms so that they would fit the general plot, and thus deliver him from his difficulties.