In the days of the chauffeur, and even before then, Conxa had had her own feasts for the goddesses. Like a figure out of Juvenal, Conxa had paid many afternoon visits to houses of infamy, and had taken advantage of trips abroad to engage in a sport in whose practice someone from her world would never be recognized. She derived pleasure from being brutalized by scum. Fed up with endless flattery from all sides, she found a very special voluptuosity in the thrusting and biting of a drunken sailor. This creature whom evil tongues had claimed to see arch her back in the air like a grouper out of water, continued to arch her back like all the fish in the sea.
Her mysterious afternoon adventures left her with an ailment that required the intervention of Cuyàs, the dermatologist. Conxa had to offer him some explanation, but, like all good dermatologists, Cuyàs kept his professional counsel.
Cuyàs was one of Hortènsia’s guests. He smiled at the Baronessa de Falset with utmost politeness. The two rather blond young men he was with had contradictory opinions about the baronessa.
“She’s not such a big deal. We all know where she came from. I don’t get all the whoop-de-doo about her.”
“She’s ‘out of this world.’ ”
“Just another pretty face …”
“Come on, you’re exaggerating. I say she’s ‘out of this world,’ truly out of this world.”
“I know another girl who’s out of this world and nobody pays her any mind and she’s available to anyone. Yeah, yeah, don’t give me that look — she’s just as ‘out of this world’ as this one.”
“And what’s the name of this beauty?”
“She has only one name: Camèlia.”
“And her address?”
“Carrer de Demòstenes, 31. Every afternoon, from four to eight. Price: twenty-five pessetes.”
Dr. Cuyàs smiled without saying a word, but his eyes were saying “This fool doesn’t know the first thing about Carrer de Demòstenes. He just wants to play the enfant terrible. But, to be honest, maybe he’s not that far off.”
On the last stroke of twelve there was a great commotion and a sort of general “Aaaah …!” Five or six ramrod-straight individuals had just come into the house. Among them was a tall florid man with thin white hair. He was fatigued and ordinary, a cross between a police inspector and a canasta player, with a touch of the priest and a touch of the lion tamer. It was General Miguel Primo de Rivera.
Many ladies frankly threw themselves at him. Cuyàs the dermatologist whispered into his neighbor’s ear:
“My God, how many of the young creatures here today wouldn’t give anything in the world to be raped by that old goat?”
Primo de Rivera strode over to the most glittering and crusty group. His eyes popped at the sight of Teodora Macaia’s supple skin, and his lips were coated with a dense saliva. Primo de Rivera had had a long day and he was tired. His cheeks wore the natural rouge of wine.
The ladies pawed at him. He proferred highly spiritual words in return. To his nearest and dearest, he told a filthy unexpurgated story from the barracks. The ladies choked with laughter.
The Marquesa de Lió, who didn’t leave his side, said to him, in Spanish:
“Ay, Miguel! You are so funny, so salty, saladísimo!”
And amid the cackling of the old ladies, that saladísimo kept echoing, floating in the night air like a drowned man’s shoe.
The merriment lasted till quarter to four in the morning.
THE DAY AFTER Hortènsia’s party, at a poker game played many afternoons at Rafaela Coll’s house, a trip to the red light district off the Rambla known as the Barri Xino was organized. The name alluded and, in a way, paid homage, to the vice and filth of Chinatown in San Francisco. The co-conspirators for the escapade were Rafaela, Teodora Macaia, Teodora’s best friend, Isabel Sabadell, Hortènsia, Bobby, the Comte de Sallès, Pep Arnau and Emili Borràs: two widows, two divorcées, three bachelors and one married man. Rafaela had been a widow the longest; she had already been to La Criolla and other dives. So had Hortènsia. Teodora and Isabel, the two divorcées, had not. Isabel and Teodora had been friends all their lives, and both had been unlucky in marriage. They were both a little tired of their own feelings. Teodora had very few illusions; Isabel, who was prettier and more sentimental, still believed in love and in the relative fidelity of her friend, Ferran Castelló. Among the men, the Comte de Sallès, the married one, was a most eccentric and charming fellow. He took the dress code, neckties and rouge very seriously. He was romantic, childish, and a little silly. When he took a paramour out for dinner, he would order roses for the table in the color of the soul of the woman he had invited. It was all the same if she was an interesting person or the most brazen turner of tricks, the count behaved towards her just as he would have behaved if the fates had conceded him the grace of dining with the mummies of Madame de Sévigné or Madame de Lafayette.
The Comte would speak of literature, politics, and international elegance with a certain innocent fancy, often unaware that he was boring the lady. They would tolerate him as one tolerated a child who was not only extremely polite but also paid very generously and always without offending. The childlike count had his stubborn side and his lyrical fugues. Sometimes he would stop mid-word in a conversation, and affect a sort of beatific smile. One could see a minuscule boat sailing through his blue eyes. It was the little boat that carried him off to glide through the dead waters of the moon. The count was a cross between an elegant and original man and a simpleton. He was misunderstood in his milieu. Society folk made fun of him behind his back. They thought he was a crashing bore, but at heart they appreciated him because he was a good person. To tell the truth, the count was far superior to all the people who would address him with the familiar “tu” when they found themselves having their hair cut next to him in the barbershop of the Club Eqüestre. With his great concern for aristocratic refinement, in Barcelona he was like Robinson Crusoe on the desert island. He would escape to Paris to see his friends at the Jockey Club. There he would seek out a mad duchess from the Faubourg St.-Germain, a veritable wax figure with whom he could talk of dogs, horses, religion, and the nobility, most particularly of Eugénie Montijo, the Spanish marquesa who became the last empress of the French when she married Napoleon III.
Emili Borràs was just as eccentric as the count. He was a mathematician who took a great interest in the visual arts and in women’s fashion. He enjoyed this elegant and somewhat trashy world purely as spectacle. Cold, evasive, inconsistent, and fragile in a feminine sort of way, he never let down his guard. Some said he had no blood in his veins. He was the purest example of an intellectual to be found in Barcelona society in those years. Emili Borràs was very successful with women because of his special way of being chic, a bit negligent and apparently offhanded. He was well liked because his conversation was never vulgar. It fluctuated between disconcerting naiveté and putrid cynicism. Emili Borràs was Catholic, and he worked for a living.
Pep Arnau was another member of this group, as was Bobby. The reader will remember that we first ran into him playing baccarat at Mado’s. When we recounted the events of that evening, we didn’t pay much attention to Pep Arnau, nor will we do so now, because, as we said at the time, Pep Arnau’s only distinguishing characteristic was to be fat and innocent as a pig.