In examining Mallea's treatment of the problem of Argentina, we have seen that this problem, isolated here for the purposes of study, is but one facet of the universal problem that concerns our author. Another facet pertains to the broader aspects of world movements and situations; and a third deals primarily with the individual.
Mallea's attitude toward human, or individual, existence is epitomized by Pascal's «roseau pensant». Man, for Mallea, is an infinitesimal being pitted against a vast and complex universe; time and again, he quotes the famous «le silence éternel de ces espaces infinis m'effraie»181. From the point of view of the universe, the life of the individual is the most measurable and finite phenomenon on earth, more finite even than the life of the insect, since man, by his very power of thought, is continually projecting himself toward the eventual limit of his life182. This life, then, is no more than a «lapso de agonía entre las dos nadas del nacer y el morir»183. Man's unwillingness to reconcile himself to his own transitory and insignificant position is, today as in the time of Pascal, the chief philosophical problem in any attempt to explore the foundations of individual existence. Mallea, too, is aware that
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el intelecto de este siglo continúa en combate con el eterno problema bifronte de la civilización occidental: el conflicto del ser planteado por las condiciones de su sustancia temporal y su esencia eterna. Como en todos los tiempos, la primacía de una u otra faz se produce por ciclos, desde la especulación humanista hasta el ejercicio de una filosofía existencial.184 |
This duality of human existence gives a tragic meaning to man's destiny. It also makes it necessary, in any attempt to lay the bases of individual existence, to choose between the temporal and eternal aspects of man's life -a choice between reason and faith, since the brevity and finiteness of earthly existence are incontrovertible facts and any reluctance to draw the logical conclusions must be based on faith- either a religious faith or a belief in transcendental human values. Mallea realizes the necessity for a choice which his concept of man's position implies, and he leaves little doubt as to what his choice must be:
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Mas existe el dogma eterno y el dogma de actualidad. La ortodoxia intemporal y la ortodoxia temporal. De las dos no hay más que una que puede ser falsa y ya se sabe cuál es. Porque la actualidad es, por esencia, un riesgo de deformación: el hombre y el suceso se encuentran en un momento dado yuxtapuestos. No existiendo espacio intermedio no existe posibilidad de visión extensa, posibilidad de visión total. Ahora bien: lo propio de la catolicidad es una negación de la parcialidad. Esta condición está en su nombre mismo.185 |
Essentially, Mallea believes, there are two great human attitudes: one oriented toward grace and revelation; the other, toward its earthly center186. His own attitude, however, does not appear to partake fully of either position. In his writings he certainly does not advocate a life centered on the transitory aspects of human existence, but neither does he rely on grace and revelation in the traditional religious sense; he chooses, rather, to see in the finite life of man on earth a significance that transcends its temporal limits. Since he believes that human destiny is greater than the purely personal187, and that the spirit and the idea are, in the long run, more powerful than the opportune act, Mallea defines the greatness of a man in terms of his choice of aims which can come to fruition only after his own lifetime, and the degree to which he accepts an atemporal concept of all things, even of the temporal188.
We return once more to Mallea's idea of «la exaltación severa de la vida» -«un estar particular del hombre en el espacio que abarca la terrestre realidad, las contingencias y la aspiración hacia Dios». Essentially based on Senecan Stoicism, «la exaltación severa de la vida» does not exclude the possibility of the existence of God, but rather demands of man a life that takes into account all possibilities, both terrestrial and eternal. It is neither a questionable deduction from an unprovable hypothesis (the nonexistence of God), nor is it an evaluation of life on earth as only a preparation for the bliss of paradise. It is, rather, the elevation (exaltación = elevación) of human life to the sacramental level, and the demand that man make of his life something valuable, something of atemporal greatness.
This greatness cannot be achieved without suffering. Through suffering we gain extension and depth, are made aware of the reality of others, and are brought into communication with them on the plane of intelligence and love.
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El individuo es la criatura que no puede prolongarse más que artificialmente; la persona es, al contrario, la criatura en su forma más prolongable, menos confinada -menos confinable- y más fértil. [...]Sólo cuando el individuo asume un grado de existencia que se trasciende a sí mismo por la inteligencia y el amor sobreviene la persona, es decir, el estado -ontológico- de generosidad.189 |
Fundamentally, these ideas are Christian; Mallea believes in a human greatness derived from a capacity not for dominion but for expiation, linking the latter to the teaching of rebirth through death190.
In a sense, then, Mallea's concept of human life is a religious one; yet formal religion plays virtually no part in his writings. In Historia de una pasión argentina he tells us that his «canal religioso» was not open and that his metaphysical concern was primarily to seek the heroic in man himself and in thought191. God is not denied -«... está al principio y al fin de toda cuestión humana, cuando ya no quedan contestaciones en la tierra»192- but He is a last resort, and, we must conclude, a rather unsatisfactory one for Mallea. The consolation of religion is, for example, useless in the face of death193. Mallea considers the idea of a life after death a form of treason against the immutable, unique beings whom we love194. What he seems to reject in religion is religion's own rejection of life and its emphasis on death. His position is stated early in La bahía de silencio (p. 30): «Al regresar a casa pasábamos frente a la iglesia de Las Catalinas, en cuyo Cristo de mampostería señalaba con su reposo una paloma viva la caridad apostólica del brazo. In hoc signo vinces. Pero nos hacía falta creer en la vida». This attitude is once more «la exaltación severa de la vida»: the belief that life itself, the finite and transitory human life, must be made into something of lasting value, and that the transcendental meaning of a life depends on what is made of it on this earth. Mallea denies that the individual can achieve fulfillment only after his death; he deals with questions of earthly existence, and apparently he does not despair of finding answers to them in this world. The only type of ascetic or saint that appeals to him is that of Saint Augustine, because he was not predestined to a life of faith and piety, but attained this faith after a tempestuous life in the world195. Actually, Mallea's belief is not too remote from a religion based on free will, in which salvation depends in large degree on the actions of man on earth; it is, however, completely removed from any concept of predestination, which tends to make of earthly existence a more or less meaningless interlude between the Before and the already determined After.
Life, then, must not be thought of negatively: «La vida es afirmación. Los dudosos, los opositores son siempre seres enfermizos...»196 One must make of life a creative process; it is action in an almost physical sense: «la vida es un ir a las cosas con el cuerpo»197. What Mallea wants is «dar a su proceso interior la calidad de un acto, así como la fe de Job era acto y no simple meditación inspirada»198. Hence it is necessary to deal with the substance of things, not merely abstractions199. This, we are told, is the natural way and will result in natural thought and, as a consequence, natural living: «Así como aterraba a Pascal la presencia de los eternos espacios infinitos, socava la presencia de lo natural el ánimo erizado o sofístico; lo fuerza a ser "substancialmente", no por las vías que las sirenas de la abstracción preparan. Ante lo natural, un hombre piensa naturalmente»200. To be «natural» is not to live on the level of the brute or to be insensitive. «Natural» living has the rhythm and unity of trees, clouds, and water -not indifference, but active imperturbability201, expressed by Walt Whitman in a poem to which Mallea refers frequently:
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In other words, one must be firmly rooted, close to the substance of life, with a deep belief in the value of life and its natural development. Mallea makes frequent reference to this natural course of life, the permanence and order of which transcends the temporal limits of any individual existence. In La torre (p. 396), Roberto Ricarte observes this process: «Unas cosas se liberaban incesantemente de otras. La noche, de la tarde; la tarde, de la mañana; los dulces cantos, de las gargantas fibrosas; el pasto, de la tierra; el árbol crecido, de su estatura anterior». These observations lead Roberto to reflect that our ills come from lack of confidence in the circuit which each living process must describe:
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y nosotros sin pensar que todo fracaso es una parte de cierto camino hacia un destino muy vasto, muy redondo, muy lejano, nos ponemos a endurecernos en la fracción de la duda o en las etapas de la frustración, de la ira, del crimen o del desconsuelo. Pero todo es camino hacia un fin. Y al camino, ¿por qué no aceptarlo como camino, hasta que llegue a ser otra cosa? Los hombres que desesperan son los que no se han planteado nunca un fin claro, o los que reclamaron para sí un fin injusto hacia otros, un fin criminal o sea un fin incompleto, un fin imposible de completar en té[r]minos naturales. Ya vendrá todo, a su tiempo, si lo esperamos con lealtad.203 |
Mallea's position must rest ultimately on faith -not so much faith in God as faith in man and his potentialities. The way to this position is therefore not reason, any more than the way to religious faith is reason. The purely rational conclusions to be drawn from the observable facts of human existence could hardly justify Mallea's belief in the immanent transcendental value of human life, any more than they can form sound arguments for the existence of a Creator204. Consequently we must not be surprised to find in Mallea's writings a consistently antirational attitude. Reason, Mallea tells us, is dangerous. Since the life of the individual is not a rational matter (and basically man's position is irrational or absurd), the tendency of «pure reason», without an inner passion, is to deform the facts and make its deformation into a verisimilitude205. «Y la idea no es historia y todo lo que no es historia no es humanidad»206. The conflict is brought into the open in La bahía de silencio in an argument between Dr. Dervil and Anselmi. In response to the doctor, who upholds a life guided by reason, Anselmi, the companion of Martín Tregua, attacks reason as «el uniforme de parada de la estupidez», and insists that more important is the fire of the soul, composed of reason, but also of sensitivity, temperament, and conscience. He declares (pp. 38-39)
Mallea tells us that he is repelled by the purely intellectual, that he wants wisdom, which involves going beyond reason to the realm of heroism and saintliness. Reason, he says, must be «un perro dócil del espíritu»; it is useful as a tool, but not as an interpreter of itself207.
Thus Mallea does not reject reason and intelligence in toto. On the contrary, he declares that «no hay nada bello que valga si no es por la inteligencia -son sus lazos los que nos conducen por los caminos menos esperados, más numerosos, y una humanidad sin inteligencia ¡qué isla sin caminos!»208 But at the same time he believes that all cultures rooted in reason have decayed. Only through emotional sensitivity -a sensitivity refined into intelligence and a spirit of love- can one find the true way of knowledge209. Like Pascal, Mallea appeals for the use of reason in the creation of a fuller intelligence, comprising the heart as well as the brain.
Mallea sees the individual placed in an existence to which, though it is finite, he can give a transcendental value. In doing this, he must avail himself of reason, but not of reason exclusively; he must develop a sensitivity and a power of love that will enable him to know and to create -to create his own life. This is a combination of «la exaltación severa de la vida» and the creative power of love. We shall consider the behavior of Mallea's characters in this situation, the problems they encounter, and their attempts to solve these problems.
One of the most important bases of Mallea's position is the fixing of responsibility on the individual man for the creation of (that is, for the giving of value to) his own life210. For this individual to realize his potentialities to the full, he must first become aware of these potentialities and the directions in which he can hope to develop. Every life, individual or collective, must be in harmony with its own best inner nature; through self-knowledge, even weaknesses can become a source of strength211. In Mallea's characters, this search for self-knowledge becomes a passion for authenticity, an urge which makes every man different from all others -«al cobarde claramente cobarde y al valiente claramente valiente, al madrugador hombre de alba y al inútil inútil, sin paliativo ni acomodo posible»212. But the individual is under constant and violent pressure from the political and collective forms in which he lives; he is urged and forced continually to make adjustments to the «realities» of his situation, thus abandoning the reality of his own personality213.
If he is to endure as an authentic being, he must resist these pressures: «... se es o se deja de ser, según que tengamos o no el coraje de nuestra conciencia»214. This negation becomes in itself an affirmation, since its rejections imply a choice; and this resistance in its inner core makes a life great and admirable215.
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Así, rebelarnos a soportar destinos que nos son ajenos, destinos que nos vengan a sojuzgar, rebelarnos ante la idea de ser otros que lo que somos, nos parece un programa excelente. Esto nos obligará, entre otras cosas, a acentuar y fortalecer nuestras cualidades peculiares, nuestro propio estilo, las características de nuestra diferencia; en una palabra, a concretar cómo somos y cómo resistiremos. La personalidad es en definitiva el modo de resistir.216 |
Exactly what the pressures are that try to prevent the individual from realizing his authentic self is not made very clear. We can, however, assume that they resemble those which have brought about the «visible Argentina»: a desire to pretend to be (representar) what one is not, and a willingness to abandon one's authentic directions and «play the game» in return for the conventional rewards in money and popular esteem. Román Ricarte, Roberto's father, is lost because he has never been willing to assert himself-indeed, has never dared to assert himself against the endless round of mundane achievements which form the basis of his wife's and his daughters' existence. Roberto, on the other hand, is willing and able to abandon both the material advantages of his family's life and the love of Calila Montes in order to search for his true self. Basically the same attitude is found in Martín Tregua in his relation with Mercedes Miró and in the painter Lintas in his relation to society. On a universal plane, the individual is pressed into conformity and abandonment of personal authenticity by the rise of the superstate and the «invasion of consciences».
In a sense, the discovery of the authentic self means also the discovery of one's proper place in an order, since order (not artificially imposed, but growing out of the nature of its constituent elements) is one of Mallea's aims. Thus he demands: «Que cada cual se destierre conscientemente en el territorio de su función. El médico en sus curas, el arquitecto en sus piedras, el escritor en sus papeles»217. This, however, must be interpreted in the context of Mallea's desire for order. Mallea does not advocate a rigid compartmentalization of personality; on the contrary, he believes that while a man must attempt to fulfill to the utmost his function in life, he must be able to transcend that function and achieve a greater humanity. Only thus can he be authentic and avoid being a representante, for «de un lado están los que viven ordenados a una sola función -que suele ser la máscara con que se muestran- y del otro los que ponen en total función su vivir; los primeros asesinan en sí potencias que en los otros florecen»218. These two apparently contradictory statements arise, it must be assumed, from the dual role of the individual. On the one hand, he must comprehend all that is involved in being a man, and express this quality in his life. On the other hand, he aspires to create in the world, as in himself, an order in which he must fulfill his particular function as completely as possible. Both aspects of the person's life must be developed; otherwise he will lack creative relationship with other beings or will become a mere cog in the universal machine.
Authenticity as seen by Mallea is not easy to achieve, although it might appear to be so on the surface. «No hay más grave», Mallea says, «más fatal error para una vida -y esto es válido para lo colectivo- que arreglar su marcha a rumbos cuya teoría contradice el sentido de su mejor intimidad. (Véase que no decimos el capricho de su intimidad)»219. In Las Águilas (p. 108) he declares that «cuando nos aceptamos sin discutirnos hemos adecuado con eso solo el alma a un definitivo ir de vencida; no le guardamos ya plazo más que para su disolución». And his character, Roberto Ricarte, believes with Robert Louis Stevenson, whom he quotes, in the hidden potentialities of each man: «My life is but a travesty and slander on myself. I have lived to belie my nature. All men do; all men are better than this disguise that grows about and stifles them...»220 Thus the search for authentic being and an authentic place in an order requires an effort which not everyone is willing to make and of which perhaps not everyone is capable. It is easier to be a representante; conscious awareness of one's situation and responsibility in life and of one's possibilities is difficult. The authentic individual, the person, is actually the very opposite of the mass-man as defined by Ortega y Gasset: «Masa es todo aquel que no se valora a sí mismo -en bien o en mal- por razones especiales, sino que se siente "como todo el mundo" y, sin embargo, no se angustia, se siente a sabor al sentirse idéntico a los demás»221.
Ortega defines the superior man not as the man who believes himself to be superior, but as the man who demands from himself more than do others, regardless of whether or not he reaches his goals (p. 47). Similarly, Mallea writes: «Ríete de los nobles de aire desdeñoso: no son grandes señores sino grandes castrados del alma. Toda categoría genuina se sobrepasa a sí misma, no necesita de ninguna actitud o ademán para alcanzarse, está mucho más allá de la necesidad de su ficción»222. Denouncing a system based on privilege, he maintains that true nobility can grow only out of suffering, out of man's triumph over disaster223. Characteristically, Mallea rejects the concept of virtue as the avoidance of extremes and insists that it is the extreme resistance, the extreme persistence in «aquello que, al contradecirnos momentáneamente, nos afirma permanentemente»224. Nobility involves a passion for decency and simplicity and a disinterest in the material, in the struggle for existence225. And above all it involves the construction of an authentic personality, immune to the degrading influences which may surround it226.
The authentic and noble individual must be able to surpass his own self through faith, which Mallea conceives of not as given but as won after a painful and often lifelong struggle. In Historia de una pasión argentina (p. 158), he tells of «esa lucha, esa constante aspiración de una vía mística, esa necesidad desesperada de dar a mi marcha un sentido, ese apetito siempre virgen». The main problem of his characters is the attainment of faith; and the tragedy of some is their inability to achieve it. Adrián, in Nocturno europeo (p. 212), is tortured by his lack of faith, by not being able to save himself by consuming himself: «Darse, darse. Eso era lo que estaba destinado a buscar -cómo darse. No otra cosa, el modo de darse y su puesto en el mundo. Su lugar frente al hombre, los acontecimientos, el tiempo, las cosas, la fruta». Yet Adrián is also afraid of suppressing his self in a surrender to belief. In this way the man who has once gained consciousness of his authentic individuality is torn between the fear of abandoning it and the desire to lose himself in an all-embracing cause. Yet he must decide; and Mallea would have us believe that the surrender of self is not only necessary but, indeed, indispensable for the true fulfillment of personality, as, in the Gospel of Saint John, the death of the grain is necessary for its rebirth.
Since Mallea believes that a life lived purely within its own confines cannot partake of the creative power of love and sensitivity and can not transcend the limits imposed by its own inevitable end, he represents many of his characters as struggling to communicate with others. Communication in this sense means more than superficial contact, more than the exchange of conventional phrases, and more even than the living together of husband and wife. It is not de pendent primarily on the intelligence, but uses as its instrument the sensitivity and love which the authentic person has developed toward his fellow men. The relation is essentially one of empathy, lack of which isolates the individual.
Total isolation is, for Mallea, made impossible by the individual's bonds with the rest of humanity, which he must discover and strengthen227. Nevertheless, communication is not easy; and man finds himself originally isolated in the midst of the unhearing spaces:
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¿Por qué el espacio que no oye nada, parece tan grande oído? La noche y el día, esas dos grandes orejas, sordas. La vida, esa oreja sorda. La muerte, esa oreja sorda. Nada oye. O mejor: todo oye; pero nada nos oye. Todo lo oímos y nada nos oye. Un oído inhabitado, una voz inescuchada; he ahí la condición del ser.228 |
Isolation forces man to find his own expression and to seek a listener; for, if he is to live, he must communicate: «Vivir qué es sino multiplicar nuestra relación universal»229.
As in the matter of faith, so, also, in regard to communication, Mallea emphasizes the struggle to achieve it. He tells of his own efforts in Historia de una pasión argentina; and Todo verdor perecerá is a consummate portrayal of human isolation. Ágata Cruz has been unable to communicate with her widowed father; during fifteen years of childless marriage, pride and bitterness only increase the isolation which love might have overcome. After her husband Nicanor's death, Ágata once more seeks contact with life, a contact which she hopes to achieve through love. She finds temporary fulfillment in an affair with the superficial and insincere Sotero; but when he abandons her she is plunged into even deeper despair, and cries out, «Dios, cuándo encontraré quien hable mi lenguaje» (p. 138). After this third failure to establish communication, Ágata is terrified at the prospect of eternal solitude. Obsessed by her failure and her apparent destiny, she loses all contact with reality and enters a nightmare world. The circle from which she has been unable to escape is completed as we find Ágata weeping on the steps of her dead father's house.
Ágata Cruz is not an Emma Bovary. While the latter sought simply excitement, and then love, Ágata's desires go beyond that. Love, for her, would be a means, not an end. Her goal is the achievement of communication, of full communion, with at least one other human being. Love, if she could have found it, would have been only the means of achieving this goal. Since Ágata failed to achieve any lasting and mutual emotional relationship, she fails also to establish intimate contact with any other human being and, consequently, with the world. Her eventual retreat into hysteria and semimadness is only a step removed from her former position, merely the final awareness of the total isolation in which she has lived all her life, but which she had hoped to overcome.
While Todo verdor perecerá shows the efforts of a character to escape from isolation by means of profound human contact, which she fails to achieve, Chaves portrays a man who relies on words to establish such contact. From childhood he had been withdrawn and silent, living «en el fondo de su mutismo»230. As a young man, he marries Pura, a woman not timid, but cold and distant, apparently dissociated from the ordinary things of life (pp. 32-33). Chaves first emerges from his «mutismo» when he fears that Pura is being attracted to another man during their slow and silent courtship. With floods of speech he seeks to win her back; and his apparent success makes him believe in the magic power of words -words uttered for their own sake. Thereafter he has recourse to words whenever difficulties beset him. Thus he tries to reach his sick child with words, and he fails. With words he tries to improve the desperate financial situation of the couple, and once more he is disappointed. And when Pura becomes mortally ill, Chaves is unable to talk away her sickness or to communicate his anguish to a series of doctors. Then, when Pura is dead, Chaves talks to her all night in a last vain effort to invoke the magic power of words. «Y así fue como Chaves habló, aquella vez. Y como después bajó de las palabras a la llanura de su soledad» (p. 97).
Yet Chaves' return to silence is not the end of his problem of communication; while words failed to assist him in a positive sense, their absence comes to be a negative factor in his life. His silence is interpreted by his fellow workers as an assertion of superiority and difference, and they demand from him the superficial communication which he is no longer willing to give. Words, which could not save Chaves in times of crisis, now form, by their absence, a wall between him and other men. He is completely isolated, unable to communicate profoundly and unwilling to communicate superficially.
Thus in Chaves Mallea presents his concept of the importance of words as an apparent link between men and at the same time shows the superficiality of this link and its failure in times of real crisis. He seeks to demonstrate that authentic communication is more than a matter of surface contact and that it depends on spiritual communion231.
In La bahía de silencio, Gloria Bambil is another example of extreme isolation; but her despair, unlike Ágata's, is caused not so much by the realization of her solitude as by the desperate desire to preserve it. She has come to accept isolation so completely that she considers Tregua's attempt to overcome it as bound to fail; and she chooses suicide rather than accept a change in the condition which she now considers essential to her authentic being. Thus, while Ágata is doomed because of her failure to overcome her isolation, Gloria Bambil is doomed because she accepts her isolation as irremediable. She lacks a priori the faith in the possibility of human communion which kept Ágata alive through the years of her silent struggle with Nicanor.
In «El vínculo», isolation once more becomes the prelude to death. The story deals with two friends, Durán and Pinas, whose lives are mysteriously linked. Durán undergoes what he calls «pacification», and thereafter remains aloof from life. When he dies in an automobile accident, the gradual isolation of Pinas begins. He comes to feel more and more apart from others and to question the motives of his existence. Remembering the isolation of his friend before death, he tries feverishly to establish contact with the world; but his efforts become a nightmare in which he is ignored by everyone and finally dies. In the absence of any apparent cause for Pinas' dilemma and in the frantic futility of his attempts to solve it, this story is reminiscent of Kafka. There appears to be no escape for Pinas from the terror that hounds him and eventually destroys him.
La ciudad junto al río inmóvil, a collection of short stories, offers various examples of this theme, outstanding among which is «La causa de Jacobo Uber, perdida». Jacobo Uber, a quiet and respectable employee, has for years been living in a dream world, preferring his hallucinations to flesh-and-blood realities, and even rejecting a woman whom he believes he loves in favor of his mental image of her. Eventually, however, he realizes that he is merely floating through life without aim and without any real point of contact. «Tenía el sentimiento de que todo nace y vive en el mundo por un acto de amor y él no había buscado otra cosa que traer amor a su isla condenándose así cada vez más, en lugar de salvarse por el arrojo ciego del alma y la pasión» (p. 167). Uber is overcome by the sense of his own futility and sterility. Seized by despair, he runs into the river and swims until, with a scream, he disappears. Yet the isolation of Jacobo Uber was not forced on him. He deliberately cultivated it in the belief that an inward life is a superior life; consequently, when the completeness of his isolation became apparent to him, he found also that he had destroyed all links with the world for which he now longed. Thus his «case» was lost by his own doing even before he became aware of the crisis.
These are some of the types of isolation and the concomitant need for communication which abound in Mallea's work232. Essentially, these characters are unfulfilled; their isolation breeds sterility. In Los enemigos del alma, the topic of the self-contained individual is presented in greater detail and with more numerous variations than in any other of Mallea's novels. Its plot is based on the family of the Guilléns - Mario, Cora, and Débora. Cora, dedicated to the pursuit of sensual pleasure, is incapable of anything else. Mario, a small-town superman, conceives of himself, in Nietzschean terms, as above good and evil. His great desire is to be always «el afortunado. O sea el impune. Con eso, lo era todo» (p. 210). Like Carlos Oro of «Rapsodia del alegre malhechor»233, Mario is reptilian in the darting rapidity of his actions and speech (p. 179):
Yet actually, in his passion for greatness, Mario is incredibly small. His words have no substance. His belief in himself as a self-contained and complete unit, his refusal to acknowledge any higher standard (pp. 180-181), is, to Mallea, the essence of smallness and sterility, the failure to realize the self fully through devotion to something greater than the individual. He is matched by his sister Débora, who, feeling cut off from human contacts, clings to her isolation and her pride, shunning that donation of self to either love or faith which would be her salvation.
Life among these three has, over the years, developed to such a pitch of hatred, resentment, and mutual irritation that any communication among them is unthinkable. All points of contact have, by continual friction, become points of conflict; the slightest pressure in this tense atmosphere throws all three into violent recriminations and vicious jibes. An outsider tells Mario that worse even than their way of life and the black legend that has grown up about them is «el horroroso idioma de su soledad. Hablan siempre; pero a lo mejor no han hablado nunca con nadie, no han visto a nadie, ni saben quién es otro que ustedes. Debe de ser horrible. Si yo viviera así, me ahorcaría» (pp. 333-334). Yet the Guilléns are united by their mutual hate and by the scene of their constant battles, Villa Rita.
To the isolation of these three is added that of the Ortigosas, a superior woman and the husband with whom she cannot communicate. Only Consuelo Ortigosa can escape from the solitude and sterility in which the others are sunk, and she does this by withdrawing from them into her true self. The solution is essentially the same as that of Martín Tregua's ideal woman, the Señora de Cárdenas. It is still a form of isolation, but it has the advantage of recognizing the failure to communicate and of withdrawing from superficial contacts in order to await a more profound one. This, it appears, is the way of the authentic person, who must be differentiated from a Cora Guillén, unable to understand that communication is lacking, or of a Nicanor Cruz, embittered by this lack, or of a Mario Guillén, who glories in superficiality. Nor is this a withdrawal born of despair, as is that of Gloria Bambil. There is dignity in Consuelo's withdrawal; and she, as well as others of Mallea's characters in a similar situation, is primarily aristocratic.
In the foregoing characters and situations, Mallea treats the problem of communication primarily in its negative aspect, that of isolation. All these individuals, by their own fault or otherwise, are cut off from communication with their fellow creatures and with life as a whole. The realization of this situation produces despair, often leading to a pitiable end. Words and worldly contacts are of no avail; the word has not been made flesh, since it lacks the substance of communion which only understanding and love can give it. Thus Martín Tregua feels that he has, in a sense, communicated with the Señora de Cárdenas because of his empathic relation to her, though he has never really spoken to her; whereas the words exchanged between Ágata and Nicanor Cruz serve only to widen the gap between them, not to bring them together. In a very real sense, then, the verse of the Apostle Paul is true for these characters: «Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal» (1 Cor. 13: 1).
In Mallea's works we find no positive illustration of communication between individuals, but the same vagueness we encountered in his descriptions of the «authentic Argentina». Actually, Mallea gives no outstanding examples of human communion to match his portrayals of isolation and despair. What he does show is the struggle to achieve communion, notably the struggles of Martín Tregua, Roberto Ricarte, and Adrián, the hero of Nocturno europeo. Yet none of these really achieves the desired objective. They, as well as Lintas (Fiesta en noviembre), are quite as isolated as Ágata Cruz or even Jacobo Uber. The difference lies in their belief that communication with the outside world is not only impossible but would actually be harmful to the attainment of a more profound communion. Ágata Cruz would have been able to realize all her desires for contact with life if Sotero or Nicanor had responded to her in the right way. Jacobo Uber is terrified by his lack of contact with the people who surround him. But Roberto Ricarte, rather than seeking to establish a closer relationship with Calila Montes, withdraws from her entirely. Tregua behaves similarly. And Adrián leaves his country and goes to Europe, partly to escape his native surroundings. All these actions must be based on the belief that a mundane relationship, no matter how close, is worse than none, and that it is necessary to withdraw from «the world» in order to achieve a true sense of communion. Actually, what these characters seek is not communication with any one person, which would be totally insufficient for their desires; they wish to feel a solidarity with humanity as a whole, and with their people in particular. It is no accident, therefore, that these same characters are the chief spokesmen of Mallea's message of the «authentic Argentina».
Martín Tregua, in La bahía de silencio, illustrates this point particularly well. The sense of communion between himself and the Señora de Cárdenas, whom he has never really met, rests primarily on the fact that they are both part of «la Argentina invisible». This explains his obvious reluctance to meet the lady, which, we must conclude, is due not only to a feeling of unworthiness234, but also to his realization that once this incarnation of Argentine authenticity becomes for him a flesh-and-blood woman, the peculiar nature of their relationship will be destroyed. The feeling of communion with an ideal is, to Tregua, more important than actual human contact.
The first step in the characters' search for communication is withdrawal. It is, in a monastic sense, a retreat from the world in order to achieve what is considered to be a higher communion. Thus Roberto Ricarte goes to the country, «no para volatilizarse o precipitarse, sino, además de para tomar distancia de mucha cosa embargante, para juntar, con paciencia y recolección minuciosa, los pedazos que en él la ciudad llamaba a diáspora, apurándolos y cansándolos antes de que hubieran sacado la cabeza a la superficie»235. Lintas similarly retires; Adrián goes to Europe; and Tregua avoids even the like-minded companions of his youth. By their withdrawal into the Bay of Silence, these characters hope to crystallize their authentic selves and prepare to answer the message when it comes. Without the Bay of Silence the noise of the world would drown out the hoped-for voices236.
Self-chosen isolation from the superficial world, in the characters most representative of Mallea's thought, leads to an affirmation of the authentic personality and also to a more intense desire for communication in a transcendental sense237. In his self-imposed «exile», Roberto Ricarte longs for the communion of which the varied activities of the city have deprived him. «Extrañaba el mundo con amor del desterrado; y en el destierro buscaba el mundo, solicitándolo y pensándolo en sus aspectos menos evidentes, más conmovedores»238. And with this greater desire come heightened awareness and sensitivity, which Mallea depicts in El retorno and its companion volume, Rodeada está de sueño. Here, in a skillful blend of essay and fiction, Mallea describes his seclusion in a rural retreat, where he can give up his urban activities and overcome the limits of self. The fictional episodes are interesting not primarily for their content, but for the author's expressed intention of projecting himself into his characters' lives as protagonist rather than as observer. He thus achieves, through creative solitude, an empathic relationship with others and with the world, a true communion239.
Nothing better illustrates the completeness of the withdrawal which Mallea demands than his treatment of the relations between the sexes. His female characters are subject to the same isolating tendencies as the male, and experience the same need for a profound human communion. In a sense, their isolation is even more complete than that of the male characters, since they are hampered in their efforts to achieve communication by the passive social role of their sex. Likewise, they differ from characters like Martín Tregua, Adrián, and Roberto Ricarte in the predominantly personal nature of their search, lacking the passion for national authenticity which motivates the men. Men play a negative role in the lives of Ágata Cruz, Consuelo Ortigosa, Gloria Bambil, and the Señora de Cárdenas. And for Isolina Navarro, in La sala de espera, the very absence of any relationship with the opposite sex brings bitterness and desperation. Here it is not empty sensuality that dissatisfies, as with Ágata, but resentment born of enforced sterility. «Pero la soledad me fue secando, me agravié con lo sobrenatural, guardé rencor a todo lo que me relegaba a la prisión de mí misma, a la esterilidad y la soltería, a la virginidad espantosa de las feas» (p. 174).
But if men play a negative part in the lives of Mallea's female characters, the same is true of the role given to women in the lives of his men. The male characters do not establish profound contacts with women; rather, they seek to avoid any strong emotional relationships.
Thus, in Nocturno europeo, Adrián responds to the presence of Miss Ira Dardington, but their relationship is a purely sensual one in which a part of Adrián's personality abstracts itself from what «un espectro suyo» is doing. He hates himself for giving in to the demands of the flesh, for the weakening of his will and conscience240.
Similar is the relationship between Martín Tregua and Mercedes Miró in La bahía de silencio. Tregua feels attracted toward this woman who, like Ira Dardington, combines physical beauty with a desire to be dissociated from things and people. She scorns love as antiquated, as destroying originality; but Tregua cannot accept her refusal to blend with others. After a period of conflict and of demand on the part of each that the other accept his outlook on life, the two separate at Tregua's suggestion.
Separation is the outcome also of the relationship between Roberto Ricarte and Calila Montes in La torre. Calila resembles Gloria Bambil rather than Mercedes Miró; she first appears as a «gran huraña» who, orphaned and isolated, asks of Roberto only that he leave her alone with her dead (p. 215). Unlike Gloria, however, she comes to realize that Roberto affords her an opportunity for escape from isolation; and she then tries to draw him toward her and to dominate him. In the face of these attempts, Roberto, like Adrián, abstracts himself from his role as a lover and develops separate and, in his case, almost paternal sentiments (p. 204). He decides that he cannot allow Calila to tie herself to him and that, before any permanent relationship can be established between the two, each must define his authentic personality. Roberto tries to force the girl not to rely on him and to withdraw into herself until her problems are solved. The scenes in which he seeks to convince Calila of the rightness of his decision are masterpieces of rationalization (pp. 275 ff., 407 ff.). We suspect that Roberto's reluctance stems not only from his «concern» for Calila but also from his own unwillingness to become involved in emotions more personal and intense than this «concern». The seclusion and withdrawal which Roberto feels he needs in order to reach and define his authentic personality and nationality would be disturbed by a concrete relationship with a concrete woman. He can conceive of such union only in terms of two already defined authentic individuals, and he realizes that neither he nor Calila has reached this state. His avoidance of fusion is therefore a means to an end, while for Mercedes Miró it has become an end in itself.
Withdrawal may be attributed to the simple fear of losing one's liberty, as with Tomás Botón, in La sala de espera. The implications, however, go beyond liberty and include the individual's search for authenticity. In Rodeada está de sueño, the author portrays himself as separated by his own decision from a woman who shares his outlook on life. He considers this separation necessary as a trial (of the permanence of their sentiments?) and as a means of returning to his problems with full force and a clear conscience (pp. 116 ff.). Here, then, is the extreme case in which a direct and personal relationship even with a like-minded woman is still an obstacle to the full development of the individual.
The only instances in which Mallea's male characters sustain a positive relationship with women occur in Fiesta en noviembre and La bahía de silencio. The former novel depicts the conversation of Lintas with Marta Rague, in which the two, while not opposing one another, clash to a certain extent and probe each other's ideas. The objections of Marta help Lintas to clarify and express his own thought; their relationship, however, is neither emotional nor permanent. La bahía de silencio is the only example in the works of Mallea of a lasting man woman relationship that does not descend into sterility, sensuality, or incomprehension. The Señora de Cárdenas remains, throughout, the incarnation for Tregua of the ideal woman and the ideal Argentina; and his supposed authorship of La bahía de silencio is his major effort to communicate with his ideal. But this relationship exists only in the mind of Tregua, for whom the ideal woman takes the place of any and all real women, as also for Jacobo Uber the image of Carlota Morel takes the place of the real Carlota241.
Thus, for Mallea's male characters, relationships with women are not only no aid in the achievement of authenticity, but they are actually an impediment. The full development of the authentic personality requires a withdrawal and a creative solitude that are incompatible with emotional involvement242. Mallea's characters may feel a generalized passion for humanity, but they resist and reject individual passion.
Since Mallea suggests rather than expounds a system of philosophy, the picture of the authentic individual, like that of the «invisible Argentine», must be pieced together from the whole of his work-from novels, short stories, and essays; and this picture retains a vagueness born of Mallea's interest in the individual in search of fulfillment rather than in the individual fulfilled. Yet there emerges a vision of Mallea's aims-not a set of definitions, not a series of formulas, but a vision of man seeking to be true to himself, and dedicated to some thing higher and greater than himself. Mallea makes no claims of startling originality; he wishes merely to restate permanent truths. It is, indeed, a mark of Mallea's originality that he should ignore the fad of seeking to be original.
There are obvious similarities between Mallea's treatment of the problems of the individual and those to be found in literatures other than the Argentine, particularly among writers generally (and some what loosely) termed «existentialist». If this term is to be taken in its broader sense, there can be little doubt that Mallea falls within its limits. He coincides with thinkers such as Jaspers, Heidegger, and Ortega in his concept of the isolation of the individual, especially of the authentic individual, who is not a mass-man. We have seen the influence of Pascal on Mallea's formulation of the position of man in the universe. And we have seen that the basic absurdity of man's position is to be overcome (not resolved) by faith, the acceptance of which is in itself absurd. While faith for Mallea is not primarily religious faith, his concept of its attainment and its constructive power is reminiscent at once of Kierkegaard and Unamuno243.
Definite parallels exist between Mallea and Maurice Barrès, who, in novels like Les Déracinés and Le Jardin de Bérénice, deals with problems of personal and national fulfillment. Like Mallea, he seeks the solution of these problems in the dedication of self to an ideal, in communion with and service to the authentic nation244. Mallea's isolated and sensitive protagonists often resemble Joyce's Stephen Dedalus (A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man); and Kafka, particularly in Das Schloss and Der Prozess, explores themes that interest Mallea also: man's position with respect to the infinite, his isolation, and his inability to establish communication. In Kafka's novels, however, communication is unattainable even on a superficial level, and his protagonists are crushed in the end, whereas the most significant of Mallea's characters are allowed to glimpse the possibility of salvation. The similarities between the two writers are nevertheless sufficient to establish their spiritual kinship245.
Mallea himself tells us of the influence on his early thinking of Pascal, Saint Augustine, and similar writers, whom he terms «atormentados». Such readings probably helped to awaken the concern for the fate of man which is evident throughout his work246. From these beginnings, Mallea has developed his own attitudes, sometimes agreeing with others and sometimes differing from them. He himself is the first to admit his indebtedness to the writers mentioned; and he can do so with impunity, for his work, though related to certain tendencies in thought and literature, is yet an original creation.
Mallea disagrees on fundamental points with the version of existentialism associated with Jean-Paul Sartre and popularized by him247. Sartre claims as the basic truth of his philosophy the Cartesian «Je pense, donc je suis»; Mallea is fundamentally Pascalian. Sartre seeks to establish a rationally sound system of thought; Mallea's philosophy is based on passion. Mallea does not, like Sartre, assume the nonexistence of God. Nor does he share the belief that «l'existence précède l'essence» and that man can be judged only on the basis of what he has actually done248. The characters of La bahía de silencio are, in the final pages, deemed to be worth while not because of their deeds but because of their potentialities. Further, while Mallea considers the individual responsible for his own fulfillment, he believes that in every individual there is an authentic nature (an essence, in other words) towards which he must strive. Man does not create this essence-he fulfills it249.
That these differences are not superficial is evidenced by Mallea's reaction to the attempted rationalism and patness of the «existentialist» system:
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Lo peor del existencialismo es que se trata de una filosofía cerrada. Una ontología sin posibilidad de consecuencias transformadoras, es peor que la muerte física, pues es una ontología sin trascendencia, y la trascendencia define la vida misma tanto en sus aspectos biológicos como en los superiores. Se vive en cuanto se trasciende. Un hombre que ha intensificado su substancia está en condiciones de comunicar esencias. Un árbol que recibe los vientos en lo alto de una colina, devuelve su experiencia en términos de expresión.250 |
Of Jean-Paul Sartre in particular, Mallea says:
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Sartre es un buen aceite en el que con ayuda de una sartén -la sartén existencialista- cualquier cosa se puede echar a freír. Todo resulta freíble. Viejos temas, pedazos de temas, desechos de temas, pasos de ensayo, trastos novelísticos -cualquier cosa puede ser frita en el aceite Sartre. Pero el buen estómago en seguida adivina que a ese aceite y a esa sartén les ha faltado fuego y que lo que cocinaron resulta fuera de punto, a veces crudo, a veces sin gusto, con lo que se prueba a la postre que un aceite, por bueno que sea, nunca suple el fuego original. Un brillo alocado comporta siempre desgracia, y la desgracia de Sartre consiste en haber dado categoría de «vedette», en haber llamado al tablado para hacerla girar fatuamente como bailadora de taberna, a la filosofía más trágica de cuantas hubo.251 |
It is his refusal to substitute system for reality and his concern with the problems of individual existence -the fire of his concern- that make Mallea an original thinker and a transcendent artist.