Mallea's fiction, as much as essays and autobiographical works, serves primarily as a vehicle for the expression of his thought; and the present chapter is designed to evaluate his creation of fictional beings and the presentation of his message through them. Our study will necessarily be limited to representative characters, roughly classified according to their functions in Mallea's works, and an analysis of the author's character presentation and description.
Most effective as the bearers of Mallea's ideological message are the characters whom we might call «acting characters», in the presentation of which the author's «life view... harmonizes with the lives of the fictional characters»252. These are the true «agonists» of Mallea's fiction, suffering in their lives the idea which their creator wishes to convey. The circumstances of their lives are directly related to the development of this idea, and likewise the idea is developed directly through the circumstances. Understandably, the concept of individual isolation appears to be best suited for this type of presentation, since it is less complex and more obviously applicable to the individual life than Mallea's theory of nationality.
The most extreme embodiment of isolation is Ágata Cruz, the heroine of Todo verdor perecerá. According to Mallea (p. 8), hers is «una causa perdida en la primera instancia»; but he develops the theme naturally, from Ágata's early childhood until the tragic climax. Thus, through the person of Ágata Cruz and the circumstances of her life, Mallea describes isolation in the paternal family, in marriage, and in the chance liaison. He need not discuss this isolation, since it is lived by his character. The barriers to Ágata's achievement of communication are given corporeal reality: incomprehension and spiritual sloth find expression in Dr. Reba, the heroine's father; pride, resentment, and lack of self-donation, in Nicanor; and superficiality, in Sotero, the opportunist.
Even the physical aspects of Ágata's life serve to develop the concept of isolation and to emphasize Mallea's treatment of it. Ágata's mounting anguish is expressed in her walking and eventually running in terror. She, who desperately wanted a child, remains barren through out her fifteen years of marriage, unfruitful physically as well as spiritually. And at the time of her crisis Ágata is thirty-five years old (p. 140), which emphasizes the incompleteness, the failure, of a woman whose development was arrested «nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita». The spiritual trajectory of Ágata, whose three attempts to achieve communication only return her to solitude, is paralleled by physical acts. She leaves Ingeniero White and her father's home to live in the country with Nicanor. After her husband's death, she goes to Bahía Blanca, where she meets Sotero. When the affair with Sotero is over, she returns to Ingeniero White and weeps on the steps of the house that was once her father's.
Mallea does not, however, present Ágata's isolation as resulting only from the opposition of others. Matching the resistance which the heroine meets is her own inner fault. This defect of character is her lack of compassion, her lack of charity. She has never loved Nicanor (pp. 36, 61). Neither she nor her husband was able to develop an attitude of tolerance and understanding; and neither was able to forget his own bitterness long enough to comprehend the suffering of the other. «Ya no padeció ella con él. Ella abrió por su lado su propia cuenta de padecimiento. Y esas dos amarguras ya no hicieron en adelante mas que bifurcar su camino» (p. 17). As Ágata approaches the end of her or deal, she vaguely realizes her culpability, thinking that if she and Nicanor had gone on together, they might have been reunited spiritually and might have conquered life together (p. 152). But Nicanor is dead and it is too late for Ágata. Symbolically, her reclusion within the self and her lack of charity appear again in the final scene of the novel (p. 162): «No tuvo noción ni sentido, por vago que fuera, ... de la imagen que estaba a unos pasos, ese bulto de madera que antecedía a la capilla y a cuyo pie estaba borrosamente escrito: Ego sum via, veritas et vita...»
The character which Mallea has chosen to live out his concept of isolation is a simple one, and through her the problem is simply presented. Ágata takes the only path possible for her; she must persist in her life with Cruz, since neither she nor her husband is able to conceive of the possibility of a separation (p. 68). When this life becomes unbearable for her, the only solution which Ágata can find is suicide. Although she is elated when her attempt fails and Nicanor dies instead, it apparently never occurs to her that she could have achieved the same result by leaving him years before.
More than in any of his other novels, Mallea here confines himself to a minimum of explanation and discussion; the facts of Ágata's existence speak for him and present his ideas. The interpretation of these facts is left to the reader, and the story of Ágata is thus, in a sense, a parable.
The limitation of the character, her consistent continuity of action and emotion, makes Ágata a living person within the novel. Each incident in her life serves the purpose of developing the idea of isolation253. Likewise, every element of Mallea's thought is expressed directly through some incident or circumstance of the heroine's life. This perfect integration of fictional and ideological content is the result of the author's withdrawal, his conscious limitation of his subject to fit the nature of the character, and his creation of a character to fit his subject.
In its development, Ágata's tragedy is classical. The character does not undergo significant change, but is forced by a relentless progression of events toward a climax which means her destruction. Her struggle against the incomprehension of others arouses pity, but the seed of her destruction is already present in the flaw of her own personality, her lack of charity. As in Greek tragedy, Ágata's pursuit by the Furies (in the form of the boys of Ingeniero White) ends in her madness and collapse254.
In La sala de espera Mallea gives a different version of the story of Ágata. Violeta Méndez, like Ágata, is the daughter of a widower and leads (in Bahía Blanca) a married life of barrenness and lack of communication. Apparently a more sophisticated character than Ágata, Violeta abandons her husband and seeks communion through three love affairs, all of which are based primarily on sensuality. While the carnal element is present also in Ágata's affair with Sotero, it is here more fully developed, emphasizing the futility of sexual relations when unaccompanied by a deeper communion.
As Violeta's decision to leave her husband is a variation of the story of Ágata Cruz, so also does it permit a variation in the solution of the problem: Violeta decides to return to her husband and attempt to reach an understanding with him. Mallea thus explores alternative developments in the situation which he had presented in Todo verdor perecerá, but he does no more than hint at the possibility of a satisfactory conclusion. Violeta's story could end either in tragedy or in successful communication; the latter possibility Mallea, with his characteristic emphasis on the problem rather than on the solution, has not been willing to explore.
La ciudad junto al rio inmóvil presents another lost case, that of Jacobo Uber. His tragedy, like Ágata's, is isolation, stemming also from an aspect of his own personality: unwillingness or inability to surrender himself to something greater -a passion, a faith, an order (pp. 163, 167). Again the character's final despair finds expression in running, which is the prelude to Uber's suicide.
«La causa de Jacobo Uber, perdida» differs from Todo verdor perecerá in developing the idea of isolation almost entirely within the main character. Carlota Morel and nameless other women are exterior elements in Uber's existence; they do not influence it. They emphasize Uber's withdrawal, and the failure of sensuality to replace intimate communication, but they do not acquire corporeal reality in the life of the protagonist, as Nicanor Cruz and Sotero. Uber's isolation stems largely from his conviction that «vivir hacia dentro era el modo más noble y generoso de vivir» (p. 156). No reason is given for this decision. The isolation which results from it makes Uber melancholy at first and then fills him with anguish (pp. 154, 161); yet this dissatisfaction with a self-created situation is presented as just as much of a fait accompli as the original desire for isolation.
While Uber's story is at times reminiscent of Kafka, it is chiefly a surface likeness. In Kafka's novels, the lack of motivation appears in the forces opposing the protagonist, whose problem is precisely the apparent inconsistency of the surrounding world. The protagonist himself, however, remains consistent in his efforts to cope with the situation; and his motivation is clearly established. In the story of Jacobo Uber, it is the protagonist himself who lacks consistent motivation. As a result, his life remains vague. Uber is supposed to live the situation of isolation in which Mallea has placed him. Actually, however, the character is forced to develop in accordance with the dictates of his creator's ideology. There is no fusion between ideological and fictional elements.
Isolation is again developed by Mallea in a separate and easily detached episode of La bahía de silencio. Gloria Bambil, like Ágata Cruz, was brought up by a widowed father, but one who was jealous of her youth and behaved with a sadism that caused her to reject life itself. Her withdrawal from human contact is given a psychological motivation capable of Freudian interpretation; and the character acquires a desperate, potentially abnormal, consistency.
Martín Tregua, the protagonist, attempts to persuade Gloria to accept life and the possibility of taking part in it. These attempts, however, result in the girl's suicide; and the significance of the «solution» remains at best ambiguous. Tregua says of Gloria (p. 552): «Quiso irse, se fue... Quizá ésta fue la sola que no quiso presenciar su deformación, su lento desastre, y prefirió cortar amarras cuando era todavía fiel a sí misma». He considers her (p. 435) «entera en sí misma, con esa resistente y rotunda, inapelable entrega de la planta que soporta aislada la intemperie». This implies that Gloria's suicide is the ultimate authenticity, the definitive refusal to abandon her way of being; but it might also be argued that her despair is an abandonment of resistance. While Mallea's characters generally fail to achieve communication, the author believes that such communication is possible; and his characters are kept in isolation not only by the hostility of the surrounding world but also by an inhibiting flaw in their personalities. Gloria's flaw can only be the same feature which makes Tregua admire her supposed resistance: her a priori resignation and despair of the possibility of achieving communication. This attitude, growing naturally out of Gloria's history, leads to her doom.
Tregua's interpretation of Gloria's suicide is made more questionable by her symbolic role in the novel: «Ella me parecía encarnar ese país digno y silencioso y orgulloso y sombrío y sobrio que yo había buscado siempre» (p. 466). Gloria's fate contradicts this symbolism, since Mallea can hardly propose suicide, literal or figurative, of the «authentic» elements of Argentina as a solution for the national problem. At the same time, the symbolic interpretation of the character tends to dilute her personal reality, as do Mallea's descriptions of her, such as the following (p. 466): «No estaba tallada en grande. Quizá nada en ella llamaba la admiración, pero todo en ella era de una íntima y disconforme, inquieta calidad». These adjectives serve only to place the character within the limits of a recognizable Mallean type, that of the authentic woman of quality. Although Gloria differs from other examples of this type in the motivation of her withdrawal (which is due to despair rather than repugnance at the «visible Argentina»), she shares its stereotyped features and lack of differentiation.
That the personality of Gloria Bambil preoccupies Mallea can be seen from her reappearance in «Los Rembrandts», a short novel255. Here the character is named Mona Vardiner and contains in essence all the elements of Gloria, although in this story the situation is not carried forward to a conclusion, tragic or otherwise. Mona also seems to have been raised by her father; she is characterized by a «falta absoluta de personalidad activa»256. Like Gloria, she desperately needs human contact but resists it from a conviction of her own inability to achieve it. As a result, she lives in premature rigor mortis, which Mallea describes in much the same words that he uses for Gloria:
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Cuando la abracé y la besé [Mona] era como si abrazara y besara a una muerta; a una muerta que temblara; a una muerta que no tuviera peso humano entre mis brazos apretados. Y era como si estuviera besando a una muerta [Gloria], salvo la temperatura de aquella boca y la densidad delicada de aquel cuerpo.257 |
The unreality of Mona is heightened by Mallea's identification of her with the locale of the action, Amsterdam. The Low Countries remind him of the metaphysical anguish of medieval man258. Although the presentation of a character devoid of active personality is difficult, it is more effectively accomplished with Mona than with Gloria, owing, no doubt, to the somewhat unnatural addition, in the latter, of symbolic overtones and an enigmatic conclusion.
In Mallea's more recent novel, Chaves, the author again incorporates in a character his idea of human isolation and the futility of words in overcoming that state. His repeated failure to communicate encloses Chaves in self-chosen silence; and thus his final situation is, like Ágata's, the natural outcome of his previous efforts. His silence, however, does not deny the possibility of a communication more profound than that of words; in fact, the power of Chaves' personality is increased by his withdrawal from the superficial, as is shown in his ability to calm and control the hysterical wife of his landlord. Since Chaves is presented as a simple character, perhaps even more simple than Ágata Cruz, he does not understand the implications of his life until he reaches the crisis of his wife's death. Thus Mallea refrains from commentary on the events of his character's existence, allowing them to speak simply and effectively for themselves.
Chaves probably has greater physical reality than any of Mallea's previous creations: «... el recién llegado era alto y cobrizo, de cara escuálida y regular, de pelo negro y labios anchos y quietos. El recién llegado parecía una estatua, inmóvil» (p. 12). The details of Chaves' appearance, in their commonness, seem to describe the «Juan Argentino», the man of the people, who concerns Martín Tregua in La bahía de silencio, while the second sentence introduces the immobility and apparent deadness of Mallea's other isolated characters. Chaves' silence when he is with his fellow workers emphasizes his physical being, particularly his tallness. Even in his youth he was a «caminador de calles» (p. 31), and later takes long walks with his wife. His emotion finds expression in the physical action of running, above all in his frantic search for a toy for his dying daughter. When he is surrounded by a hostile group of workers, Chaves pushes aside his attackers; and the official who comes to his rescue points out to the others the strength of Chaves' body and arms (p. 100). And, unlike many of Mallea's creations, Chaves has a well-defined job -physical labor in a sawmill. These details heighten the physical reality of the character and complement the logical development of his isolation.
One other «acting character» in the works of Mallea deserves mention, because through him the author has tried to present a concept other than personal isolation. Román Ricarte appears in Las Águilas and La torre, though chiefly in the former novel. As opposed to his son Roberto, who is an example of the preocupado, Román is a segment of the «visible Argentina». Mallea does not present him as evil but as weak and soft, partly because he has been dominated by his dynamic father, don León Ricarte (also, incidentally, a widower). «La impertinencia le parecía ilegítima siempre [to Román]. La protesta, el grito, la salida de tono: feos, injustificables. ... Era el hijo de un domador y había nacido con el alma domada». «Piensa, ahora, que el espíritu de lucha es quizá to que más odió en el mundo»259. Román is completely in the power of his wife, Emilia Islas, whose mundane ambitions and extravagance cause the financial ruin of the family. Román is ineffectual in everything; he is a dilettante in law as he is in history and in the management of a family. For his wife, he is an instrument for the achievement of social position and social revenge; she, in turn, is an intermediary between him and the concrete things of life, with which he has no direct relation260. Every family decision is made by Emilia as Román sinks step by step into the complete abulia to which he is predisposed by his relationship with his father.
Mallea contrasts Román's somnolent acquiescence with the persistent searchings of his son Roberto. While Román is not hostile to Roberto's thoughts, he fears anything which will upset the ordered stagnation of his life; and the sort of national regeneration envisaged by the younger Ricarte cannot fail to strike him as a «salida de tono». In Roberto the father sees a projection of his own sensitive temperament, but without his weakness; and he admires Roberto's quiet resistance to the domination of Emilia to which he himself has succumbed261. Although the relations between father and son are cordial, Román realizes his own ineffectuality and knows that the triumph of Roberto's life consists of a liberation from him. The knowledge of his failure as a father, of being out of place in his son's life and thought, hurts and mutilates him262.
The linking of Román's personal problem with its broader national implications is another instance of Mallea's ability to state his idea in the character's own terms. Román's story is developed consistently through a natural progression from childhood to middle age; Mallea thus manages to show in action the origin of one species of the «visible Argentine», allowing the significance of Román's character to emerge naturally from the events of his life and his relation to his son. Surprisingly, this portrayal of Román, besides being vivid, is sympathetic; and at the conclusion of Las Águilas Mallea suggests that his character has understood the values of the «authentic Argentina»263. At this point, however, Román recedes into the background; and in La torre Mallea concerns himself chiefly with Roberto Ricarte.
All these characters, from Ágata Cruz to Román Ricarte, are «acting characters» in the sense that Mallea has avoided excessive discussion of their predicament, attempting instead to express his ideas through their lives. His success depends on the extent to which he has been able to integrate these lives with his ideological message. Since this message is already well defined in Mallea's writings, its fusion with a character demands the creation of a consistently motivated personality whose life will make the idea evident. The forcing of a character into situations or acts not consistent with his personality as established by the author, or the failure to establish this personality clearly and independently of the idea, will destroy the character's authenticity and impair the effective presentation of the author's message. From this point of view, Jacobo Uber is probably the weakest of Mallea's «acting characters», since he remains vague and his development is established primarily by the author's assertions. By contrast, Ágata Cruz, Chaves, and Román Ricarte are probably the most effective. They are clearly established, consistently motivated, logically developed -in a word, human. In them, more than in any other of his creatures, Mallea achieves the fusion of idea with flesh-and-blood being that Güiraldes achieves in Don Segundo Sombra. From the standpoint of the presentation of ideology, the author reaches maximum efficiency in the portrayal of Ágata Cruz through simplicity, restraint, and the granting of independent life to the character.
That this is not true of all Mallea's creations can be seen in another type of character, whose function is primarily verbal. Mallea uses such «talking characters» chiefly in the exploration of national problems, the possible solutions for which are, if anything, even more vague than those open to the individual.
The most conspicuous «talking character» is the hero of La bahía de silencio, Martín Tregua. Through Tregua in his wanderings about Buenos Aires and Europe, Mallea is able to observe the «visible Argentina», the decay of the Old World, and some glimpses of the «invisible Argentina». Through him also he attacks the unauthentic aspects of national life and explores the theme of national regeneration. The actual circumstances of Tregua's life are unimportant in the novel; only his presence, which enables him to absorb and to transmit his impressions to the reader, is necessary. Tregua reacts; he does not act264.
The relative unimportance of Tregua's life apart from being a spokesman for his creator is demonstrated by a series of minor inconsistencies. At first he is a poor student (p. 16); then we discover that he has a small private income (p. 125); and soon thereafter we find him comfortably installed in an elegant club (pp. 129-130). He appears first as an aspiring writer; but he is soon able to hear others discussing his book (p. 58). While these details may be unimportant in themselves, they show a lack of concern for the reality of the character.
Tregua's incipient life is almost at once swallowed up by that of his creator. He comes from Río Negro in the South (p. 16); Mallea's home is Bahía Blanca. He shares Mallea's concern as to the nature of his country, its role in the world, and the position in it of the authentic individual. From his vague academic career he soon emerges as a writer; and in this capacity he experiences the same frustration, the same struggle to express, the same doubts and self-deprecation as Mallea (pp. 102-103, 303-304). Even the details of his physical itinerary, from the provinces to Buenos Aires, thence to Europe and once more to Buenos Aires, parallel Mallea's own travels. Comparison of La bahía de silencio with Historia de una pasión argentina will show the extent to which Tregua, in the novel, is merely a transplanted Mallea.
Tregua lacks a significant life of his own. In a novel of almost six hundred pages, only one event -Tregua's journey to Europe- has an appreciable bearing on his intellectual development (or, rather, the author's development of ideology through him). His encounters with the Señora de Cárdenas only bear out his previously existing ideas on Argentina and authenticity. Speaking of the characters of La bahía de silencio in general, Bernardo Canal Feijóo makes a comment that is equally true of Tregua: «Son, en el fondo y pese a cierto callejero peripatetismo, extremadamente sedentarios y verbosos; como además ceden irresistiblemente a las sensualidades de mesa, y están dotados de una admirable lucidez en el discurso, bien merecerían ser denominados platónicos»265. Mallea himself is aware of this. In Notas de un novelista he tells of his difficulties in describing a tragic old man. Observation and interpretation of the subject's movements do not matter to him only his «estado de alma». «No le soy espectador, sino adicto» (p. 10). In La bahía de silencio this empathic relation is carried to the extreme; but since Tregua is only a creature of fiction, he is absorbed by his creator -if, indeed, he was not meant from the beginning to be an image of his creator.
Mallea realizes his character's lack of vitality and he makes Gloria Bambil tell him that because he has led a calm and uneventful life he seeks «en los problemas el accidente que le falta»266. Tregua's apology, at the end of the novel, for the ineffectuality of his friends is certainly also his own apology. La bahía de silencio contains violent action in the form of a beating administered to the husband of Inés Boll, who has a strong emotional relationship with one of the characters; but Tregua participates in this action only vicariously through his friends Anselmi and Jiménez. Tregua's own vital outlet is purely cerebral and literary: he confines himself to writing for the ill-fated newspaper «Basta» and creating episodes for his book, «Las cuarenta noches de Juan Argentino»267. The latter in particular, representing the travails of the «authentic Argentine», replaces for Tregua the action of which he is organically incapable.
Whether this character really embodies the ideas which he is supposed to represent is made questionable by discrepancies between his life and thought. Tregua stresses the importance of intangible and transcendental values as against superficial physical appearances. Yet he maintains for some time a relationship with Mercedes Miró, a woman opposed to all his theories of love and self-surrender -but an attractive woman. Conversely, when he meets a girl who is intelligent but ugly, he quickly disposes of her (p. 225): «Me gustaba hablar con ella y me desagradaba físicamente: sus facciones eran demasiado rudas y secas; esta conciencia libre tenía una cara de jansenista. Pronto la dejé de ver». Canal Feijóo has said of Tregua and his friends:
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Son en cierto modo, fantásmicos. No sabrían manejarse en lo que podría llamarse «términos de realidad»; tienen necesidad de hacerlo en «términos de erudición», de lecturas extranjeras, generalmente en otra lengua. En definitiva, sólo son capaces de comprender lo que ven escrito o pintado; el mundo inmediato les es indescifrable, o no les atrae la atención.268 |
And, in fact, Tregua compares Gloria Bambil's «resistance» to that of the plant, and he is acquainted, as is Mallea, with Whitman's trees; but he also confesses to Gloria (p. 459): «Nunca sé los nombres de los árboles ni de los pájaros».
Tregua, for all his insistence on the necessity of communication, fails to establish a lasting emotional relationship with even one person. His connection with the Señora de Cárdenas is a highly abstract and one-sided relationship of which he alone is aware. In the realm of national problems and national regeneration, also, Tregua's actions contrast with his speeches. They consist, in fact, only of his writings. His novel does not seem to have any effect; his newspaper is a failure, the men who organized it disband, and Tregua loses or avoids further contact with them. His personal tastes and those of his friends, in spite of their search for the «true» Argentina, demand Flemish paintings and champagne. These characters, all porteños, are not really tied to the land at all; and the ascetic discipline which their creed demands does not seem to be excessively severe269.
In sum, the character Tregua is unreal, inconsistent, and static. His situation with respect to his unsolved problems is exactly the same at the end of the novel as it was at the beginning. He acquires an illusory reality from the interesting ideas he discusses with such fervor; but an analysis of him as a character reveals not Martín Tregua but Eduardo Mallea. The disguise is too thin to establish Tregua as a creature capable of independent and authentic life.
A similar figure is Roberto Ricarte. Roberto, like his father, appears in Las Águilas and La torre, in the latter novel as the protagonist, and in the former as an ideological counterweight to Román. Like Tregua, Roberto has an apparent reality, derived not only from the ideological interest of the novel but also from the reality of the minor characters and of the land which Mallea describes so lyrically. Actually, however, Roberto is once more a «talking character»; and he is, within La torre, Mallea's representative in the exploration of ideas and contact with the land.
Roberto's situation is somewhat more complex than Tregua's, since in him the need for personal authenticity and for faith has become more pressing270. At the same time, he is concerned with the problem of the «authentic Argentina» and seeks personal identification with the land. Both problems, individual and national, are involved in his relation to the father-figure, which for him is don León Ricarte, his grandfather. Roberto feels the need to equal spiritually the achievements of this ancestor who created the fortune of the Ricartes out of the soil271. Mallea claims that Roberto, in La torre, is shown in his passage from vacillation to action. He seeks his path, escaping from restrictions, but always doubtful, developing more and more scruples. Only in the third volume of the projected series dealing with the Ricartes will he undo his chains; the true action will then begin as the protagonist struggles directly with his destiny272. Roberto, in the course of La torre, comes to know the land and its people more intimately. He withdraws from the life of Buenos Aires and tries to cut or diminish his emotional ties to Calila Montes. Ignoring material possessions, he feels eventually that, in another way, he has reached the level of his grandfather, whose portrait he can now for the first time look squarely in the eye. The conclusion shows him alone, face to face with the land (pp. 419, 421).
When we examine the life of this character, however, we find that it often lacks connection with the ideological plane on which the novel moves. Roberto does indeed leave Buenos Aires and go to the country, but his contact with the land is not direct. It is established through sensory appreciation and through simple assertions such as the following:
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¡Qué amor tenía él por todo eso! Un amor que venía desde antes que él, y que la tierra, al enterrarlo, prolongaría todavía. Una necesidad de confesión, de claridad, de limpieza, y de lisura, que debía ser como la fuente misma de su propio país, ahondada como estaba en el corazón de su suelo y en el epitelio de su herbaje sensible. Una especie de comunión sanguínea mucho más fuerte que los parentescos físicos de la sangre, que lo hubiera hecho llorar, culpable, si allí, librado a lo que su alma deseaba, hubiera podido olvidar convenciones y gritar al aire todo lo viejo que traía en su interior por ser dicho, y que de años no decía.273 |
Contrasting this with a previous description of Roberto («... estaba cada vez más distraído de conversaciones, de teorías, de abstracciones, cada vez más vuelto a estas dos cosas fundamentales: la tierra, el apetito de autenticidad, las vocaciones verdaderamente humanas»274), we note the preponderance of abstractions in Roberto's relation to the land. We note also in Roberto the same aversion to «el grito, la salida de tono», that characterizes his father. Even in the countryside, Roberto's regard for conventions is stronger than his passion for the land.
In his attempt to achieve personal authenticity through withdrawal, Roberto does not hesitate to reject the love of Calila Montes. Apparently this relationship would entail an undesirable distraction from the contemplation of his own problems. Although Roberto is capable of jealousy when Calila seems interested in Hernán Torres, he pushes her aside when she comes to depend emotionally on him (Roberto). He rationalizes this attitude by claiming that his actions are for the girl's own good, that she must consolidate her personality before entering any emotional relationship. But this projection of Roberto's own attitude into the situation of another implies either an unfortunate dogmatism on his part or a forcing of the character's life on the part of the author to suit his theories on the achievement of personal authenticity.
Other contradictions and traits in Roberto reflect the same divorce between life and thought that marks the personality of Tregua. Roberto is a lawyer; but it soon develops that his chief legal interest is the writing of a book on law, and most of his professional activity is devoted to this effort. Struggling to create, he works through the night and falls from exhaustion275. For the sake of his book he has neglected his practice and refused a diplomatic post, and is faced by an economic problem. This problem, however, is much like Tregua's: Roberto's poverty seems to deprive him of nothing. We soon find that Roberto, too, has a small but convenient private income276; and he is able to relax with his friend Ricardo Nielo in smug and delightful comfort:
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¡Y cuando después de salir juntos a caminar por las calles, de vuelta de algunos barrios severos y nobles, con los ojos vigilantes a las circunstancias menos obvias, volvían a la biblioteca de su casa [Roberto's] para entretenerse charlando, repantigados en los sillones de cuero, con el mundo atrás y adelante, y ellos más conscientes del mundo que el mundo de ellos...!277 |
In literature as well, Roberto displays the same easy elegance and sufficiency. He has, of course, read Dante, Torres Villarroel, Manrique, and Goethe -«pero no por el mero culto supersticioso de esas obras, sino buscando penetrar con cuidado en el hondo trabajo de edificación que para la arquitectura del alma supusieron. Ahora ya no leía»278. He is de vuelta de la literatura, not to say blasé.
This contradictory character fluctuates easily between pessimism and optimism. Like his father in Las Águilas, Roberto goes to the country because he is sick of his life in the capital. For several hundred pages he makes no significant progress in the solution of his problems; but the offer of Juan Mota, the Ricartes' tenant, to cultivate jointly some new land fills Roberto with sudden optimism. He decides to take his whole family to Las Águilas and construct a new life there279. Naturally Roberto will not himself cultivate the soil; but the idea of being associated in the action of another is enough, as for Martín Tregua, to give him a sense of achievement and purpose. The purely verbal reaffirmation of hope takes the place of constructive action. Were it not for the extremely serious nature of the problems which concern Roberto, we might consider him childish.
Mallea himself describes Roberto as «un tímido rebelde» in whom «la conciencia poseía... mayor solidez y densidad que toda otra manifestación de su ser»280. But he does allow him one moment of direct action, when he administers a brutal beating to Julián Vargas, who has insulted his sister. No doubt this is an immediate response to a strong emotional stimulus, but the relation of the act to his general outlook on life is problematic. No aspect of Roberto's thought has been powerful enough to impel him to take positive action. The most significant element in Roberto's life -his intellect- finds vital expression only in the decision to leave Buenos Aires and in the rejection of Calila- both negative actions.
Thus Roberto is, like Tregua, diffuse as a character, and tends to be absorbed by his creator, though to a lesser degree than Tregua. Roberto's explorations are more precisely motivated by their relation to the figure of don León and by the actual presence of the protagonist in a non-abstract country. But again the expression of ideas in the actual life of the hero is held to a minimum, and such progress as Roberto makes in the solution of his problems is mainly verbal or negative. Essentially, like Tregua, he serves as mouthpiece and observer for Mallea.
Tregua and Roberto Ricarte are only two of the «talking characters» which appear in the works of Mallea, though they are the most important and the most extensively developed. The type is common in Mallea's fiction, always partaking of the author's personality and characteristics. In La sala de espera Francisco Díaz, while not exactly a «talking character», is another version of the literary man seeking to express himself and undergoing the agony of creation. In the stories of La ciudad junto al río inmóvil the type is more abundant. The protagonist of «Los jóvenes hombres muertos», who has no name, is preoccupied with the question of authenticity and carries this concern with him in travels and in visits to museums and bars. Durcal, who appears in «Encuentro en lo de Parcolevine», is a writer281 in search of passion and life. In this search he experiences anguish and a feeling of sterility, and withdraws in order to reconstitute his being. Solves («Solves, o la inmadurez») also is seeking authenticity, and Mallea tells us that «pese a la vieja tradición liberal de su familia, era lo contrario de un demócrata, espíritu de "élite", dignamente alojado en sus abstracciones elusivas»282. Like Roberto Ricarte, he withdraws from emotional contact with a woman, Cristiana, in order to leave himself free for authentic development.
The painter Lintas, of Fiesta en noviembre, falls within the same category. He also is active in the arts. He also has gone to Europe and returned to Buenos Aires. He is incapable of reacting to life and is absorbed by his reflections and preoccupations. These are, however, brought to an «estado de humanidad» by his emotional reaction to the murder of a bookseller in his barrio (pp. 122 ff.). Significantly, action for this character is outside his own personality; it finds cerebral echoes within him, but it does not proceed from him. Once more, Mallea realizes that his character is devoid of substance; and through Marta Rague he warns him that all his attitudes may be only pose and rhetoric (pp. 132-134).
The ultimate in this intellectualization of the character and his absorption by the author is achieved in Nocturno europeo. Its protagonist, Adrián, appears vaguely to be a writer, like so many of Mallea's characters. He is traveling in Europe, though he is an Argentine; in other words, he is the fictional image of Mallea in Europe. Adrián is deliberately stripped of personal reality. He has no last name, and he has no personal expression: almost the entire novel is written in indirect style. Adrián exists only to observe and comment; he is denied even that degree of self-assertion which might come from letting him speak to another character in his own words.
The primary reason for the profusion of autobiographic characters in Mallea's novels is stated by the author himself:
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Todo cuanto en este libro [«una obra definitivamente inconclusa»] he escrito forma, un poco, como la materia de algunos anteriores, parte de mi vida. Esto no es un privilegio; al contrario, un gran dolor. Supone un trasiego -ah- inútil de reservas que directamente aplicadas a la vida pudieron dar nacimiento a resultados menos efímeros y a frutos menos perdidos.283 |
Mallea's autobiographic characters carry on the same process of which their creator complains: they, too, apply their energies to something other than their lives. The result of this concentration on ideological speculation is to weaken the impact on the reader's imagination.
Guillermo Díaz-Plaja gives a less pessimistic explanation of this feature of Mallea's fiction. He recognizes the autobiographic nature of much of Mallea's writing and his frequent avoidance of direct expression except in concentrated and forceful passages. «Mallea se desdobla apenas; su lenguaje se transmite al de sus entes de ficción». Díaz-Plaja sees in this Mallea's desire to impose a personal order on the reality he portrays, his need to give artistic interest to that reality, and his aversion to the histrionic. Indirect style, according to Díaz-Plaja, places Mallea inside the character and maintains a balance and an artistic tension between the biological life (the narration) and the field of personal ideas (pp. 199-200, 204-207).
While this interpretation of Mallea's motivation is probably correct, the use of indirect style is given excessive importance. Such writing does convey the impression of the author's being inside the character, but no such stylistic device can by itself maintain a balance between biological and intellectual development. A large part of Todo verdor perecerá is written in this fashion; yet the balance of life and idea here derives from something else-from the deliberate and specific relation established between the two elements. In Nocturno europeo the balance is not maintained, in spite of indirect style.
The «talking character» is an undeniable component of Mallea's fiction, particularly in his treatment of national problems, which are obviously less suitable for incarnation in one personality than are the problems of the individual. The character is almost inevitably destroyed by the overly active presence of the author. The verbosity which the discussion of ideology demands and the relative unimportance of the biological life of the character lead to his being vague, undefined, unreal. Lacking personal reality apart from his verbal role, the character ceases to interest the reader, who follows the novel intellectually but not emotionally. Developed to a logical extreme, the «talking character» becomes the nameless man of Meditación en la costa, who meditates, writes, and remembers in the name of Mallea -the quasi fictional mouthpiece of an essay. Consistently reflecting the author's life and thought, the protagonists become repetitious and their possibilities are exhausted. Mallea seems, in his latest works, to have made an effort to avoid further utilization of this type. In Notas de un novelista (pp. 84-85), he writes that in the creation of Los enemigos del alma he has tried to repulse «los viles mercenarios de mis antiguas manías» and to let his characters develop naturally. Owing to the more abstract nature of his philosophy of nationality, it will be difficult for him to express it in a work comparable to Todo verdor perecerá.
Apart from the two classifications already made of Mallea's characters, there is a third one, consisting of personages whose function is chiefly auxiliary: they help to develop the main theme of the novel, but they do not embody it and are not entrusted with its verbal exploration. Most of them are secondary characters; they serve either as symbols or, by their assistance or opposition, as aids to the clearer definition of Mallea's thought through his main characters.
The most obviously symbolic character is the Señora de Cárdenas, a figure not actually present in La bahía de silencio except in one short incident, but reappearing throughout in the indirect news which Tregua has of her and in his «asides» to her. She represents for Tregua «una suma de mis aspiraciones profundas en cuanto al hombre de esta tierra» (p. 561), an ideal of a system of values and a hierarchy based on authentic aristocracy. Cárdenas, her husband, turns out to be an inferior creature, a man of the «visible Argentina», who enriches himself by his dealings with men of «Saxon names». The wife reacts against this betrayal by withdrawing from him into her inner and silent self (pp. 277 ff.).
Physically, this woman is an incarnation of dignified elegance; and on seeing her for the first time, Tregua, «que había buscado en las fisonomías y en las almas la expresión de una dignidad, acababa de encontrar ese rostro, ese gesto, esa expresión» (p. 37). He is attracted by her cold reserve, her aristocratic pride (p. 18), apparently to the extent of following her about the streets. And he sees her again on the streets, always the same, always coolly elegant: «Este año yo la había visto tres veces: la primera vestía usted un traje sastre negro con blusa negra y pequeño cuello blanco; la segunda vez -llovía- un impermeable incoloro, vítreo y transparente; la tercera, un traje parecido al de ahora, sencillo, sobrio, personalísimo» (p. 15). Physically and morally, the Señora de Cárdenas is a stereotype; as a symbol, she can not be given too concrete a physical appearance or reality; by her very vagueness, she fulfills her function in the novel284. Unfortunately, in her only direct contact with Tregua, her behavior is not what might be expected of an «authentic Argentine». Tregua has been knocked down by a car; and the lady, who is passing, is alarmed and several times exclaims, «God bless you» (pp. 128-129). This «authentic Argentine» is hardly the Good Samaritan, though Tregua derives a feeling of intimacy from her words, apparently without being troubled by the fact that his ideal chooses to express her sentiments in English, and in a phrase that seems quite inadequate under the circumstances.
Similar characters appear in some of Mallea's other novels, though without the openly symbolic significance of the Señora de Cárdenas. In Los enemigos del alma, Consuelo Ortigosa, while not exactly representing the «authentic Argentine», resembles Tregua's ideal in character and position. Once more, the woman is superior to her shallow and unauthentic husband. She had considered it her mission in life to redeem him, but his confession of a previous affair with Sara Gradi shatters her illusions and causes her to withdraw into the same wounded dignity that shelters the Señora de Cárdenas. After Mario Guillén's attempt to seduce her, she rediscovers her true and lasting self. Her customary attitude of superiority verges on bored elegance or elegant boredom: «Luego, agitando apenas las manos ahiladas en los guantes de cabritilla, pasaba a otro negocio para elegir, con similar apatía, un libro nuevo o una revista literaria» (p. 257). Consuelo, however, plays a more active part than the lady of La bahía de silencio. She frequently appears in the novel, and her effect on Mario Guillén and the possibility of his success in his designs on her cause Débora Guillén to precipitate the violent denouement285.
Two characters in La torre resemble Consuelo in their apathy and withdrawal, their quiet dignity in sorrow. Lidia, Roberto's sister, and Nieves Baradoz are further examples of a recognizable Mallean type: the suffering and superior woman.
Quite different is Débora Guillén, one of the principal figures in Los enemigos del alma. Though she is not a secondary character, she is included here among the «auxiliary characters» because she is not the sole bearer of Mallea's message in this novel. Débora, like Ágata Cruz, moves along an interior trajectory from an untenable position to a crisis. Shut up all her life in Villa Rita with her brother and sister, Mario and Cora, the representatives of worldliness and carnality, she feels that she, in comparison, has no real being, but is only a vacuum in which the actions of others echo (p. 342). She seeks to fill the emptiness of her life with pride-not the serene pride of a Consuelo Ortigosa, based on superiority, but a resentful pride, based on the knowledge of her nothingness and her unwillingness to surrender herself (pp. 199-200):
Débora has one opportunity of making contact with a person outside the circle of Villa Rita, but rejects it because of her pride. She hates not so much the satisfaction which her brother and sister derive from their sinful activities as their liberty to choose these activities (p. 337). She is hurt by what others have and what she, in her isolation, cannot have; she loves only her pride and, like one given up to an unworthy love, comes to hate herself for her pride and hatred (pp. 186-187). Débora is sustained only by her conviction that sooner or later Mario and Cora will arrive at the same state (p. 50).
In her vicious circle of hatred and frustration, Débora represents the devil; but the actual importance of this in the novel is secondary286. The important thing is that her character is portrayed with an extraordinary degree of consistency and psychological tenability. Her life is uneventful, and her psychology is based on exactly this. Thus Mallea has found a way to make the absence of life psychologically and ideologically meaningful in his novel. The success and power of Débora as a character derive from a close integration of her existence (or nonexistence) and the thought expressed through her, and from the limitation of this thought to what this particular character is capable of expressing.
Like Ágata Cruz, Débora Guillén recurs in La sala de espera. Isolina Navarro, also, is isolated in her sterility and her inability to take part in the life of others. Her isolation results from her pride, which has led her to reject the one opportunity of overcoming it. But Isolina was isolated originally by her ugliness, for which her pride is in part a compensation. As with Violeta Méndez and the other characters of La sala de espera, Mallea does not carry Isolina's situation through to a conclusion or crisis.
Quite different from Débora Guillén, a provincial character, is Mercedes Miró, a woman of Tregua's acquaintance in La bahía de silencio. Like most of the other personages of this work, she serves a purpose in relation to the protagonist: her function is one of opposition, allowing Tregua to define his attitudes more clearly. Mercedes is actually a type in Mallea's novels: the physically attractive, elegant, and cultured woman who is unwilling to give herself to anything or anybody in an emotional relationship. She considers love to be a denial of individuality and an undesirable fusion of the personality with something other than itself. Tregua reproaches her for this attitude and because of it eventually ends their relationship. While this reproach may seem unjustified in view of Tregua's own failure to achieve any lasting intimacy, he does devote himself, in theory at least, to his national ideal, and is not opposed on principle to close human association.
Mercedes' type is repeated in Blanche Alost, a Belgian woman appearing in the same novel, in the American Ira Dardington of Nocturno europeo, and to some extent also in Calila Montes, of La torre; but Calila, while similar to Mercedes in appearance, does seek contact with the protagonist, Roberto, and is rejected by him. Of all these women, she is the most convincing. She alone is pathetic in her desperate need for human warmth and companionship, when she tries to obtain these from the unwilling Roberto.
The most superficial and unauthentic aspect of the «visible Argentina» is represented by Mallea in mundane and self-satisfied characters. Perhaps the best example of this type is Mario Guillén, supposedly the incarnation of the world, one of the three enemies of the soul. His arrogant self-sufficiency is the opposite of Mallea's belief in salvation through self-surrender:
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-Yo no creo en lo que me sobrepasa -aclaró, y parecía enamorado del relumbre de lo que decía-. Lo que me sobrepasa me excede. No. No creo en Dios -no creo en nada. Soy un hombre absoluto. Un hombre total es total en sí mismo. ¡La credulidad cuesta tanto! Las ideas sublimes nos arrancan pedazos. Nos desconciertan, nos sacan de nosotros, nos arrebatan el centro, y debido a ellas parecemos muñecos de nosotros mismos: fragmentarios, débiles seguidores de excesos. ¡Yo soy un hombre en mí; y en mí me consumo! ¿Qué falta me hace deformarme en otras medidas, en otras desmesuras así como qué falta les hace a nuestros trajes ser estirados por cuerpos que no son los nuestros?287 |
Mario is an admirer of Nietzsche and thinks of himself as beyond good and evil288. He sees the beauty of lies, of astuteness, of possession of the flesh, all as means in the game of life, the aim of which is to triumph289. Thus Mario lacks the sacramental concept of life, «la exaltación severa de la vida»; he is unable or unwilling to place his life at the service of an ideal that transcends it. He embodies the worst sort of deformation, that of life itself into something base and sterile. Mallea's emphasis on this function of Mario leads him to make of the character almost a caricature. The physical description of Mario approaches that of a darting, lizard-like reptile. He wears a fantastic ring which portrays a snake surrounding a human face, which in turn has a reptilian tongue290. Thus Mallea represents symbolically the vanity and evil of the words of the mundane man, trapped in the circle of his own deceptions.
A type resembling Mario is found in an earlier work, «Rapsodia del alegre malhechor», one of the stories comprising La ciudad junto al río inmóvil. Carlos Oro, a superficial writer enjoying a facile success, descends on Buenos Aires to revel in its more sordid aspects. He, too, thinks of life as a game in which the end is to win, and ruse and treachery are permissible means. He, too, gives the impression of something rapid, darting, animal-like: «Su nariz, dilatada, olía la fragancia de la mañana, sus ojos brillaban, su boca parecía sorber también ruidos, colores, el ralo aire amarillo y solar. Sonreía» (p. 86).
The type recurs in Sotero, Ágata's lover in Todo verdor perecerá. He, like the others, is physically attractive, with an impressive appearance of virility and thoughtfulness. But his concept of life is that of a game of skill and cunning. «Y esa era en verdad su vocación y su culto: la profesión de la vida; la vida subyugada por una fácil, mecánica técnica» (p. 104). He believes that life consists only of the present, that neither the past nor the future counts, and that each moment must be enjoyed to the full before passing on to the next (p. 113). He practices this philosophy in his relationship with Ágata, using her for his own purposes until the moment dedicated to her has passed and his business calls him elsewhere. He thus embodies in the development of Ágata's situation that resistance to profound communication which stems from an ignorance of its possibility and a lack of concern. In Sotero's life, calculatedly superficial and self-contained, transcendence through such communion is unthinkable. Apart from this, Sotero also embodies Ortega's definition of the mass-man, which Mallea might have had in mind when he made him exclaim: «Y ahora mismo, ¿acaso me diferencio de alguien? Soy un tipo común. ¡Y a Dios gracias!» (p. 121). But Sotero is less exaggerated than Mario Guillén, and from this and from the very real plane on which his relation with Ágata is presented he derives a degree of concreteness superior to that of the other characters of this type.
The female counterparts of Sotero and Carlos Oro orient their lives solely toward material gain and social triumph; but, since their sex restricts their possibilities of action, they seek to achieve their ends through their husbands , whom they dominate completely. These strong willed women use everything and everyone as tools for the furtherance of their purposes; for them, as for the males of the same species, life is not a sacrament but a game or a struggle. Among them, Emilia Islas attains the fullest development; in the story of Román Ricarte, she is the driving force which brings him to the brink of financial and moral ruin. Another example is the Señora de Rague in Fiesta en noviembre. Both women are, to a certain extent, caricatures; their domineering harshness is so strongly emphasized that it almost obliterates other aspects of their personalities.
Among the rural characters, the most lifelike is Nicanor Cruz, who lives a tragedy within the tragedy of Ágata and at the same time contributes to her isolation and despair. His downfall is occasioned by his male pride and inability to accept with charity the separate existence of his wife.
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... se aferraba a sus defensas, se hacía uno consigo mismo, no por amor de sí, mas por un error previsible: el de, ante aquella mujer a quien quería, hacerse más consistente, más él. Lo más precario que encierran ciertas virilidades rudimentarias es el creerse más poderosos cuanto más se adueñan de sí, cuanto más se agarrotan. De ese modo, cuando más aman, cuando quieren salvar, no hacen otra cosa que asesinar; a hierro se tratan y a hierro matan y mueren.291 |
Nicanor's emphasis on his own identity is not, then, comparable to the self-sufficiency of a Mario Guillén, since it does not arise from self-love. Nicanor's mistake lies partly in his belief that he can achieve union with his wife by locking himself within the limits of his own being, and also in his premature withdrawal when he discovers that he cannot have immediate access to all of Ágata's soul292. Feeling that he is unwelcome in her life and that she looks down upon his simple nature, he is tortured and deformed by a conviction of inferiority293; and since his only solution consists of further withdrawal and further assertion of his maleness, incomprehension becomes permanent. Nicanor, like Ágata, lacks the charity which alone could lessen the sufferings of both; his only answer to his own suffering is to make his wife suffer also. Even on his deathbed, he still tries to force from her a confession of her own misery: «No podés más. Confesá que te harta»294. Nicanor resembles Ágata in his simple psychological structure and inner consistency. His progression into bitterness and isolation starts from an attitude perfectly natural in him; and his tragedy parallels that of Ágata, each emphasizing and strengthening the other, each caused by the same flaw of character.
Minor rural figures are among those most vividly portrayed by Mallea, a city man. The stoicism of Juan Mota, in La torre, is expressed in simple language appropriate to his character and slightly proverbial in tone.
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Yo no le exijo, yo no le pido nada; yo sólo pido poder seguir unos años así. Después... Y yo, pedir, no pido nada. No ruego. Tengo este pedacito de tierra, tengo mujer, tengo olla. Señor, ¡lo demás es tanta música! El pensamiento se le fue más allá, pero miró al hijo de Román Ricarte y no dijo sino, sentencioso: -¡Mucho que tener, mucho que perder!295 |
In the same novel, Cande is shown in the simple dignity of his sorrow at the death of his child -a vivid figure of the Argentine campesino in his resistance to the vicissitudes of life296. These characters, psychologically simple, impose their reality on the reader because they are living an ideal. Mallea has reduced them to the exact dimensions of his purpose, allowing them to express their feelings in suitable language with a minimum of rhetoric. While they are presented in only one aspect of their being, this aspect is so vital that we are able to sense a greater depth beneath it.
In contrast, most of the «auxiliary characters» of La bahía de silencio tend toward inconsistency, exaggeration, and caricature. Like the protagonist of this novel, they appear to lead no real lives. Their function, more than the incarnation of thought, is its expression; and in this capacity they serve as foils to Martín Tregua, who is able to develop his ideology by contrast and argument with them.
The most strongly overdrawn character is Jazmín Guerrero, whose very name is a ridiculous contrast. His admiration for de Maistre and his advocacy of theocratic monarchy represent the grotesque in the ideological panorama of the novel. Baron Morgen is a sinister little man who wishes to help bring on the fire and death which, he believes, are humanity's fate (pp. 248-249). He is supposed to be a Czech baron (p. 245), although there are no Czech barons; and he shows a deplorable ignorance of his country's geography when he tells Tregua that «los eslovenos quieren su autonomía frente a los checos» (p. 251)297. A stereotyped young American couple appears in the same novel, gay, fast-moving, hard drinkers. Nor is their English much superior to the baron's geography; they send Tregua a postcard advising him to «Take it easy. Not worth of more» (p. 245). Denis Atkinson, the English aristocrat whom Tregua meets in Brussels, is banal to the point of vulgarity; one of his favorite pastimes is visiting houses of prostitution only, however, to talk to the inmates and feel their tragedy (pp. 360 ff.). Tregua is much attracted to Atkinson, perhaps because of the similarity of their natures: neither seems able to experience life directly, but must approach it vicariously. These characters -and they are not all foreigners- do not seem to interest Mallea beyond their relation to Tregua; and we find in La bahía de silencio such instances of forgetfulness as the following: the hungry girl who on page 24 «always accompanies» the student Galí, two pages later «eternally accompanies» the student Villegas.
Thus the vital intensity of the «auxiliary characters» depends, like that of the principal characters, on the degree to which they are allowed to live their ideological function in the novel. Their development is naturally less complete than that of the protagonists; but Mallea is able to establish their authentic existence whenever he succeeds in bringing his ideological exuberance into conformity with their nature. His success is greatest with simple rural characters whose psyche he is able to penetrate and whose inner motivations are clear to him. He prefers to define his other characters through exaggeration, or simply uses them for his immediate purpose without further definition.
All the characters have common features deriving from Mallea's manner of presenting them. The protagonists usually appear in the first or second page of a novel, already engaged in the situation or intellectual pursuit which is to constitute their story. Their nature is revealed almost at once, through action or speech or the author's description. Thus we first find Ágata Cruz living in isolation with her husband. Her situation is immediately brought to our attention: «Ágata Cruz, en el cuarto grande, miró la hora: eran las doce; Nicanor iba a llegar; su corazón se cerró»298. Tregua introduces himself in his relationship with the Señora de Cárdenas. Roberto Ricarte comes to Las Águilas preoccupied and pale299. Román Ricarte is immediately defined: «Aun en la negativa, de esa voz la energía estaba ausente»300. In Fiesta en noviembre (p. 52), Lintas arrives on the scene later than is usual with Mallea's characters; but this lateness helps to define him, as he rushes in, anxious, preoccupied, contemptuous of the merely medical science of his doctor.
In some characters, like Martín Tregua, further development is accomplished through speech; the concept we form of these characters is largely an intellectual one. They lack vitality partly because their state of mind is not expressed in significant acts. Other characters are more fully presented through their actions, as Ágata Cruz's mood is expressed in her mechanical way of performing household tasks, and her obstinate silence. When Débora Guillén is insulted by Mario or Cora, her manner of walking is affected, and her legs, like her soul, grow rigid301. In Fiesta en noviembre (pp. 20-23), the recorded history lessons to which Rague listens are a perfect indication of the foolish superficiality of his life and his attempt to appear to be what he is not. Likewise, the intellectual fraud of Jazmín Guerrero is apparent in his anger at bumping into a blind man, contrasting with his speeches on Catholic charity302. The futility of Gerardo Durán, in «El vínculo» (p. 24), is synthesized in his article on the Napoleonic Code: his discussion of whether a certain part is to read «a» or «en» turns out to rest on an error in translation. In another instance, the description of the character is given greater depth by changing the perspective from which he is viewed. This Mallea does in Los enemigos del alma (pp. 167 ff.) when he describes Mario, then gives us the character's own concept of himself, and finally allows us to see him through the eyes of the newcomer Ortigosa.
In theory, Mallea prefers indirect description of a character to a direct adjectival one303. In practice, however, his use of adjectives is frequent and repetitious, and many of his personages are stereotypes. In Cuentos para una inglesa desesperada, Mallea's earliest published book, this tendency is already noticeable: «... esta Arabella inconstante, rubia, insoportable, orgullosa, snob, instruida muy poco en geografía, absolutamente nada en historia sagrada y demasiado en francés»304. Later works present easily recognizable feminine types, described in adjectives which have primarily moral implications and remain vague. Serena Barcos, for example, was «una mujer hermosa, naturalmente distinguida de actitudes y naturaleza... Serena Barcos tenía el pelo castaño, era delgada, no muy alta, de miembros finos y largos»305. Similarly, the male preocupado, like Tregua's friend Acevedo, is «sobriamente elegante, espontáneamente natural y distinguido»306. On the spiritual plane, these characters, especially when representing Mallea and his point of view, are almost inevitably described as «inquietos», «preocupados», «huraños». The last adjective is a favorite of Mallea's: the hero of «Los jóvenes hombres muertos» has «una naturaleza huraña y respetada»; Ana Borel is «bella, áspera, huraña»; Pura, Chaves' wife, has «ojos huraños»; Lintas and Marta Rague «eran naturalezas hurañas, categóricamente reservadas»; and Mona Vardiner lives «en el fondo de su hurañía»307. Sometimes the adjective is turned into a noun, and this moral quality then comes to represent the character's whole being: Calila Montes is a «gran huraña»308.
If physical appearance is mentioned at all, it is done as briefly as possible, as with Chaves and Serena Barcos, and usually in vague terms indicative of spiritual qualities rather than physical characteristics. In fact, Mallea seems to blend physical and moral traits; and the «authentic» character is, like Acevedo, almost always elegant and distinguished in appearance. When Mallea tells us, in La bahía de silencio, (p. 20), that Jiménez is fragile and fine, while Anselmi is corpulent and impulsive, he feels it necessary to defend the latter, because «cualquiera se adelantaría a deducir de este contraste un saldo intelectual y espiritualmente favorable para Jiménez».
The author concentrates on details which are of special interest to him and to which be returns again and again. Thus we find a continual emphasis on the eyes, generally fixed and unblinking309, which express interior isolation or anguish. Similar importance is given to hands. Mallea, through Martín Tregua, tells us that he has always attached special significance to the hands and voices of people; and Tregua, as well as other characters, is shown in contemplation of his own hands. The simplicity and solidity of Juan Mota are emphasized by his having «dedos de uña roma». The hand of the Señora de Rague, clawlike, symbolizes her ambitious and grasping personality. Cora Guillén, the incarnation of sensuality, has «dedos de una blancura anémica»310. Mallea's aristocratic characters have fine, slender hands311. Both hands and eyes are emphasized in Mallea's description of a rural wake, forming the leitmotivs of resignation, resistance, and helplessness:
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Y Cande, nudoso, óseo, mirándolo sin necesidad de mirarlo, bajos los ojos, aceptó el pésame, sin contestar, sin gesto ni signo visible de cambio, hundido en congoja milenaria... No revelaba ninguna protesta; su dolor, más que dolor, era soportación... Todas las mujeres vestían trajes de percal vistoso, con pañuelos contrastantes de tonos sombríos en el cuello o en la cabeza; y sus pobres manos parecían descansar sobre las faldas, tan pesadas y muertas como la carne del niño dormido... Cande bajó los ojos, observó con extrañeza tímida a todas aquellas personas; las dos manos se le juntaron, cruzadas, y parecían doloridas hasta en sus surcos y vetas. Mirándolo bien, Roberto observó que aquel hombre ostentaba una dignidad particular, muy profunda, muy interior, con su mutismo de criollo, sus ojos lentos de alzarse y fijos para mirar... Casi no se movía sino para los gestos necesarios, para cambiar la actitud del cuerpo o para extender la mano derecha; y su figura parecía estable y fija, imposible de ser alterada por las premuras o sofocaciones del mundo.312 |
Mallea's characters are habitual walkers; and walking is, in his novels, symptomatic of preoccupation, as running is of despair. Chaves, Tregua, Solves, and Roberto Ricarte, among others, like to walk; and running plays a symbolic role in the conclusions of Todo verdor perecerá, Los enemigos del alma, «La causa de Jacobo Uber, perdida», and «Sumersión».
In their speech Mallea's creatures usually adopt the style of the author. This is most noticeable with the «talking characters», who mirror the ideological persuasion of Mallea himself. When the characters are, like Ágata Cruz, by their nature incapable of his form of expression, Mallea allows them to speak in their own language, occasionally even permitting Argentine colloquialisms313; but he then limits their direct speech to the strictly necessary by the use of indirect discourse.
Other similarities among the characters are their family and social situations. A large number of them are motherless and have been «reared by an unsatisfactory father»314. Ágata, Violeta, and Gloria are all in this position; and the image of the father given in Mallea's different works is remarkably consistent. In La bahía de silencio (pp. 16-17), Tregua's father is shown as an independent, intense man who dominates his son. Gloria Bambil's father carries his domination to sadistic extremes. In «Los Rembrandts», Mona Vardiner and her ineffectual father live with the latter's brother, who, as head of the household, is a tyrannical father-figure315. A similar substitution occurs with Roberto Ricarte, for whom the figure of his grandfather, don León, has replaced the weak Román:
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No sólo era [Don León], al fin, el expediente unitivo de esos destinos actualmente dispares, tal vez el único agente -aunque retrospectivo- de unión; sino una especie de censor tutelar o de juez ante quien él, él en especial, se sentía responsable. No era sólo el antepasado: era el inexorable. El último ojo, aquel de quien no se podía escapar. Dios era otra cosa, Dios podía perdonar; pero aquél no. Aquél era el más potente y el más imperioso, entre todos los juicios.316 |
Socially, Mallea's characters belong in the main to two definite classes: the upper bourgeoisie, living, if not in luxury, in an atmosphere of comfort and culture; and the peasantry, the group of Nicanor Cruz and Juan Mota. The bourgeois characters are the class with which the author is best acquainted; they have literary and artistic interests, a broad and cosmopolitan culture, and an intellectual manner of e pressing themselves.
Each character has a definite role to play in the development of the author's fiction. Even in La bahía de silencio, with its profusion of secondary figures, each has a specific function in the ideological structure of the novel. The characters themselves, however, are of unequal worth, if independent individuality is to be considered the standard of success in this respect. Mallea has achieved creation to the full only in the characters in which his «life view... harmonizes with the live of the fictional characters»317. This implies not only the creation of a suitable character, but also the limitation of ideological content to concepts that a character is capable of expressing. Ágata Cruz is probably the best example of such fusion. Other figures -chiefly those in whom the embodiment of an idea, usually concerned with nationality, is particularly difficult- are of questionable validity. The portrayal of characters like Martín Tregua suffers from the author's too obvious intrusion; but Mallea insists on developing his ideas to the maximum, regardless of the artistic consequences. The lives of his characters are therefore distorted and neglected in favor of ideology; the author's views, interesting as they may be in themselves, do not gain in effective presentation. Ideas tend to be weakened and diluted as they form the subject for conversations among the characters and are incessantly repeated. The fact that the reader's interest can be maintained in spite of these adverse factors attests to the stimulating nature of Mallea's thought.