By EMILIA PARDO BAZÁN
Translated from the Spanish by ALANI HICKS-BARTLETT
The piece appears below in both English and the original Spanish.
Translator’s Note
Emilia Pardo Bazán’s short story “A secreto agravio…,” which I have translated here as “For A Secret Grievance…,” emerges, in part, from Pardo Bazán’s vibrant and perspicacious reimagining of another important work: “A secreto agravio, secreta venganza” [“For a Secret Grievance, a Secret Vengeance”], an Early Modern play written by the Spanish playwright and priest, Pedro Calderón de la Barca (1600-1681), and printed in 1637. Calderón’s tragedy, one of an unfortunate “trilogy” of wife-murder plays he authored featuring a fatal confluence of jealousy, suspicion, and problems of fidelity that led to the wife’s unjustifiable death, was hugely popular on the premodern stage while also being in dialogue with a wider genre of plays featuring uxoricide and conflicts of honor and faith (we might think of “Othello,” for example).
By renegotiating Calderón’s play from even its title alone, which she truncates and delivers as a partial refrain, Pardo Bazán asserts herself as a pointed interlocutor in a larger, diachronic conversation about women’s agency in marriage while offering a critique of domestic violence and control. Indeed, she sheds light on the traditional understandings of marriage and the vilification and reification of women on the Calderonian stage, by giving especial attention to the problematic agency of the male character. This is a dynamic not always cleanly acknowledged in Calderón’s plays, wherein doubtful husbands struggle to discern the truth of their wife’s fidelity (or lack thereof) and so embroil themselves in confusion and epistemological impasses that the tragic dénouement almost becomes the cathartic exigency of the play. In “For A Secret Grievance…,” however, Pardo Bazán avoids the long narration of doubt and uncertainty often used to exonorate the husband, and instead entwines in her narrative arc many of protofeminist arguments that she articulates more explicitly in her essays on women, domesticity, and forms of gendered subjugation. Pardo Bazán is extremely popular amongst Hispanophone readers, yet her important work still remains undertranslated and thus underappreciated by Anglophone audiences.
“For a Secret Grievance…”
That corner shop on Main Street was a treat for the eyes as well as the pride of the city’s residents, who, after showing visitors their two or three Romanesque monuments and their docks, could not keep from adding: “Go take a look at Ríopardo’s shop, which rivals all the best abroad.”
And it did indeed rival them. The large glass windows, the white marble display cases, the gleaming scales, the gilded brass taps, the wood-paneled ceiling, the banquettes lined with plush, green Utrecht velvet, the sparkling tins of canned food stacked in pyramids, the ripe pineapples and bananas triumphantly arranged; the rich spread of liquor bottles, with unique shapes and glossy labels—everything illuminated by clusters of incandescent lights, made the shop a sumptuous palace of epicurean desires.
Just like in Madrid, how women go out to peruse the latest styles, in the sleepy provincial capital they went out “to see what Ríopardo has in that’s new.” Going to Ríopardo’s replaced the theater and all of civilization’s other delights; and the nougat candies and cheeses, like the Smyrna figs, became the sweet peccadillo of the indolent housewives and their sedentary husbands—reason for which there was no dearth of ill-humored and pretentious naysayers who accused Ríopardo of having corrupted tradition and having transformed the patriarchal simplicity of mealtime into a Babylonian indulgence.
Meanwhile, the establishment was prospering, and Ríopardo, swarthy, stylishly groomed, smartly attired, acquired that aplomb that goes hand in hand with prosperity. Business was going as smooth as silk, and he was hoping to die a capitalist, just like other businessmen from the same town square who had even more humble beginnings than his own… But today it was in his interest to work and take advantage of the vigor of his thirty years and his iron-solid health. During the day, starting at six in the morning, he was already on the frontlines, getting the cleaning and tidying up underway, weighing, serving customers, ringing them up; the nights he spent certifying records, copying receipts, answering letters… and so he went on like this, having nary a moment for rest nor any break longer than the time that a short trip to Barcelona and Madrid would entail.
After one of these trips, Ríopardo came back a married man; his wife, a beautiful girl, and the daughter of a perfumier, made her appearance in the store from the very first day of their return, helping her husband and the store clerk in the shop. María’s youthful face and her refined Castilian speech were yet another lure for the clientele. Without being particularly industrious or hard-working like her husband, María was charismatic and solicitous, and it was delightful to watch her—tightly girded in her corset, with her thick cloud of hair—as she used her small white hand and slender fingers to cut a wedge of Gruyère or a few slices of sausage as thin as communion wafers, weighing them delicately, and wrapping them in silk papers tied with blue ribbon. The store was radiant, animated by the fluttering of her buoyant skirts, and no one else was able to placate a dissatisfied lady parishioner, or gain the favor of a demanding male customer, or gift a picture card to a child, or slide a handful of dates in the apron of a scowling cook quite like María could.
María’s exemplarity, her charm, her agreeableness had an effect upon the store clerk, Germán. While he was alone with Ríopardo, he was surly, indifferent, and awkward; he didn’t move; he was unkempt. María cleaned his room for him—since he lived with his employers on the second floor—and provided him with a sturdy washbasin and towels; she ironed his white linens and bought him appropriate collars and cuffs, the totality of which helped the clerk cut a very fine figure, his blond hair gracefully curled over his temple. And then, the servants and even their mistresses began shopping in the establishment with greater gusto, since, after all, people prefer to buy delicious food from people who are tidy, appealing, and not unattractive… “You also eat with your eyes,” they would say.
One evening, almost at dusk, upon returning from settling some urgent matters regarding imports, Ríopardo opted to enter his house through the back door, which opened towards the marina, thus saving himself some ten minutes of unnecessary travel, since, in addition to being a man of action, he was also frugal with his time. He had the small key in his pocket; he opened up, went down a corridor, and pushed against the door of the store, which swung wide open without creaking. Crammed with vats of petrol, large casks of liquor and oil, and sacks of rice and flour, was completely dark, and there, way in the back, Ríopardo believed he heard a muffled sound, soft and murmuring. He froze, shielded by a large barrel and watched. At first, when coming from outside, nothing can be seen when there is so little light; but once three minutes go by, one’s sight begins to adjust and something starts to become perceptible. Ríopardo was able to make out two people. Suddenly, one of them, Germán, said out loud: “Someone is in the store.” And the way in which they drew apart from each other, so abruptly, so alarmed, was even more revealing than the proximity of their two shadowy forms…
Ríopardo drew back; he went out the same way he had come in, and, no longer concerned about saving time, he entered the house through the store. He closed up shop at the usual hour; the three of them dined together: husband, wife, and clerk, and then María and Germán calmly retreated to their respective bedrooms. Then Ríopardo went back downstairs, as it was that time of the day when he went over his accounts and settled the books. He took along his bull’s-eye lantern, which he always used to scan the store in case of fire; and as soon as he was inside the huge storeroom, he started blocking the door that led to the corridor and testing the bolts on the door that connected to the store.
Then he set himself to a peculiar task: he opened a good number of oil drums and tilted them so that the liquid would spread across the floor; next, soaking a large broom in the puddles that formed, he meticulously varnished a specific part of the ceiling, continually swabbing it with thick coats of oil. He brought armloads of straw, paper and scraps of wood, and leftover bottle-packaging materials from where they were all stacked in the corner—and he heaped them together until they formed a pyramid, which, with the help of the ladder, went all the way up to the ceiling’s rafters, to precisely the spot he had smeared with oil. Once he had finished this, he continued unsealing cans of oil and then opened the tap of a massive barrel of alcohol. All of his efforts had been taxing; Ríopardo felt an ice-cold sweat pouring from his head. He rested a moment and looked at the clock; it was a quarter to one. Then, he took off his shoes, unlocked the front door, leaving it tightly shut, and furtively crept up the stairs, not stopping until he reached his bedroom. María was sleeping, or appeared to be serenely sleeping. The bedroom did not have any windows. With extraordinary carefulness, Ríopardo then placed chairs, armchairs, clothes, a trunk, and as many other objects that he was able to move without making noise in front of the door.
He continued his retreat, and on the way out he bolted and locked the office door that communicated with the bedroom’s alcove. He went down to the store once again, he went into the storeroom, and struck a match; he lit a short wick, and laid it on the ground soaked in mineral oil. The intense flames that sprang up singed his eyelashes and hair. He just barely had time to escape from the store. It didn’t even take three minutes until the entire store had turned into a raging inferno.
The husband, impassively, put on his shoes, then cleaned his hands, and then thundered up the stairs. He knocked on Germán’s bedroom door, and Germán emerged, naked, and terrified. “I think there’s a fire… It smells like smoke… No, before we ask for help, we need to double check!” Germán rushed downstairs wearing little more than loose slacks and slippers. He was still not yet fully awake after the first real dream of his twenty years of life, and he hardly understood what was happening. Ríopardo went ahead of him, carrying the indispensable lantern.
Both the store and the doorway were filled with acrid, suffocating smoke. “You go first, try to see where it is coming from…” The clerk hesitated, stunned and astonished; Ríopardo shoved him into the furnace, no longer pretending, and yet, he still had enough strength left to slide the bolts and flee, going through the door and to the street. Once on the street he breathed with great satisfaction, making sure that there was no watchman around, and that no one else was nearby, and he probably would have kept himself occupied in this way for the requisite quarter of an hour…
But nevertheless, after just ten minutes the smoke was so great that Ríopardo himself shouted, fearful that he would soon see the windows forced open and hear helping voices. When the first helpers arrived, the house, especially the lower and the main floors, could not be called anything other than a bonfire. People tried to protect the neighboring houses and used ladders to try to save the inhabitants living on the second and third floors. Fate—the townspeople observed—had orchestrated things such that the fire started in the part of the store that shared a wall with the bedroom of Ríopardo’s wife, who, asphyxiated by smoke, was not even able to get out of bed to ask for help. She was found, burnt beyond recognition, just like the store clerk who was presumed guilty of fatal recklessness for smoking in the store.
Since the store’s provisions were not insured, no suspicions fell upon the owner—just profound compassion. Almost completely ruined, there was no lack of people, who, recognizing his business acumen, his industriousness, would have easily given him money to open another shop; but Ríopardo responds sadly to his former, loyal clientele, saying:
-I have not a single hope left… A wife and a clerk like the two I lost, can simply never be found again!
A secreto agravio…
Aquella tienda de ultramarinos de la calle Mayor regocijaba los ojos y era orgullo de los moradores de la ciudad, quienes, después de mostrar a los forasteros sus dos o tres monumentos románicos y sus docks, no dejaban de añadir: «Fíjese usted en el establecimiento de Ríopardo, que compite con los mejores del extranjero.»
Y competía. Los amplios vidrios, los escaparates de blanco mármol, las relucientes balanzas, los grifos de dorado latón, el artesonado techo, las banquetas forradas de rico terciopelo verde de Utrecht, las brillantes latas de conservas formando pirámides, las piñas y plátanos maduros en trofeo; las baterías de botellas de licor, de formas raras y charoladas etiquetas, todo alumbrado por racimos de bombillas eléctricas, hacían del establecimiento un suntuoso palacio de la golosina. Así como en Madrid salen las señoras a revolver trapos, en la apacible capital de provincia salían a «ver qué tiene Ríopardo de nuevo». Ríopardo sustituía al teatro y a otros goces de la civilización; y los turrones y los quesos, y los higos de Esmirna eran el pecadillo dulce de las pacíficas amas de casa y sus sedentarios maridos, por lo cual no faltaban censores malhumorados y flatulentos que acusasen a Ríopardo de haber corrompido las costumbres y trocado la patriarcal sencillez de las comidas en fausto babilónico…
Entre tanto, el establecimiento medraba, y Ríopardo, moreno, afeitado, lucio, adquiría ese aplomo que acompaña a la prosperidad. Los negocios iban como una seda, y esperaba morir capitalista, a semejanza de otros negociantes de la misma plaza que habían tenido comienzos más humildes aún… Hoy convenía trabajar, aprovechando el vigor de los treinta años y la salud férrea. De día, desde las seis de la mañana, al pie del cañón, haciendo limpiar y asear, pesando, despachando, cobrando; de noche, compulsando registros, copiando facturas, contestando cartas…, y así, sin descanso ni más intervalo que el de algún corto viaje a Barcelona y Madrid.
De uno de estos volvió casado Ríopardo; su mujer, linda muchacha, hija de un perfumista, apareció en la tienda desde el primer día, ayudando en el despacho a su marido y al dependiente. La cara juvenil y la fina habla castellana de María fueron otro aliciente más para la clientela. Sin ser activa ni laboriosa como su esposo, María era zalamera y solícita, y daba gozo verla, bien ceñida de corsé, muy fosca de peinado, cortar con su blanca manecita de afinados dedos una rebanada de Gruyère o una serie de rajas de salchichón, sutiles como hostias, pesarlas pulcramente y envolverlas en papeles de seda, atados con cinta azul. La tienda sonreía, animada por el revuelo de unas faldas ligeras, y nadie como María para aplacar a una parroquiana descontenta, para halagar a un parroquiano exigente, para regalar un cromo a un niño o deslizar un puñado de dátiles en el delantal de una cocinera gruñona.
El ejemplo de María, su atractivo, su complacencia habían influido en el dependiente Germán. Mientras estuvo solo con Ríopardo, Germán era hosco, indiferente y torpe; no se mudaba, no se rasuraba. María le arregló el cuarto -porque Germán vivía con sus patronos en el piso principal-, le surtió de un buen lavabo, de toallas; le repasó la ropa blanca y le compró cuellos y puños, con lo cual el dependiente sacó a luz su figura adamada, su rubio pelo rizado con gracia sobre la sien, y las criadas y las mismas señoras compraron de mejor gana en el establecimiento, que al fin las cosas de bucólica gusta recibirlas de gente aseada, moza y no fea… «También se come con la vista», solían decir.
Una tarde, casi anochecido, Ríopardo, volviendo de arreglar asuntos urgentes en la Aduana, prefirió entrar en su casa por la puerta trasera, que caía a la Marina, ahorrándose así diez minutos de callejeo inútil, pues era, a fuer de hombre de acción, avaro de tiempo. Tenía en el bolsillo el llavín; abrió, salvó un pasadizo y empujó la puerta del almacén que cedió sin rechinar. El almacén, atestado de latas de petróleo, bocoyes de aguardiente y aceite, y sacas de arroz y harina, estaba a oscuras, y allá a su extremidad, Ríopardo creyó percibir un cuchicheo ahogado y suave. Se detuvo, resguardado por una gran barrica y miró. Al pronto no se ve nada viniendo de afuera, cuando la luz es poca; pero a los tres minutos la vista se acostumbra y algo se percibe. Ríopardo logró distinguir dos personas. De pronto, una de ellas, Germán, dijo en alta voz: «Está alguien en la tienda» Y el modo de separarse, brusco, azorado, fue más inequívoco aún que la proximidad de los dos bultos…
Retrocedió Ríopardo; salió por donde había entrado y sin cuidarse ya de economizar tiempo, penetró por la tienda en su casa. Cerróse ésta a la hora habitual; cenaron los tres: marido, mujer y dependiente, y se recogieron en paz a sus respectivos dormitorios María y Germán, Ríopardo volvió a bajar; era el momento de repasar las cuentas y manejar libros. Llevaba su linterna sorda, que le servía para registrar el almacén, en precisión de un incendio; y ya dentro del vasto recinto empezó por atrancar la puerta que daba al pasadizo y probar los cerrojos de la que con la tienda comunicaba.
Después, entregóse a una faena extraña: abrió buen número de latas de petróleo y las inclinó para que el mineral corriese por el suelo; en seguida, ensopando una gran escoba en los charcos que se formaban, barnizó bien un punto determinado del techo, rociándolo de continuo con hisopazos fuertes. De un rincón trajo brazadas de paja, papeles y astillas -residuos de los embalajes de las botellas-, y los hacinó hasta formar una pirámide, que con ayuda de una escalera subió a la altura de las vigas del techo, en el mismo punto en que las había untado de petróleo. Hecho esto, siguió destapando latas y dio la vuelta al grifo de un inmenso barril de alcohol. El trajín había sido largo; Ríopardo sentía que un sudor helado brotaba de sus cabellos. Descansó un instante y miró el reloj: era la una menos cuarto. Entonces se descalzó, abrió la puerta exterior, dejándola arrimada, subió furtivamente la escalera y no paró hasta su alcoba. María dormía o aparentaba dormir serenamente. La alcoba no tenía ventana. Ríopardo, con maravilloso silencio, colocó delante de la vidriera sillas, butacas, ropas, un cofre, cuantos objetos pudo trasladar sin hacer ruido.
Retiróse, y al salir echó por fuera cerrojo y llave a la puerta del gabinete que comunicaba con la alcoba. Descendió otra vez a la tienda, metióse en el almacén, raspó un fósforo, encendió una mecha corta y la aplicó al suelo encharcado de aceite mineral. La llamarada súbita que se alzó le chamuscó pestañas y cabellos. Solo tuvo tiempo de huir a la tienda. El almacén no tardaría tres minutos en ser un brasero enorme.
El marido, con flema, se calzó, se limpió las manos y subió pisando recio. Golpeó la puerta del dormitorio de Germán que salió medio desnudo, despavorido. «Creo que hay fuego… Huele a humo… Baje usted… ¡No, antes de pedir socorro hay que cerciorarse!» Germán se precipitó sin más ropas que unos pantalones vestidos a escape y babuchas. Mal despierto aún del primer sueño de los veinte años, casi no comprendía lo que pasaba. Le precedía Ríopardo con la indispensable linterna.
Tienda y portal estaban llenos de un humo acre, asfixiante. «Pase usted; mire a ver dónde es…» Titubeaba el dependiente, ciego y atónito; Ríopardo le empujó, le precipitó, ya sin disimular, dentro del horno, y aún tuvo fuerzas para correr los cerrojos y huir, saliendo al portal y a la calle. En ella respiró con delicia, cerciorándose de qué por allí no andaba el sereno ni pasaba nadie, y probablemente sucedería lo mismo durante el cuarto de hora necesario…
Sin embargo, a los diez minutos el humo era tal, que temeroso de ver abrirse las ventanas y oír voces de socorro, el mismo Ríopardo gritó. Al llegar los primeros auxilios, la casa, sobre todo el bajo y el principal, no formaban más que una hoguera. Se atendió a aislar las casas vecinas y a salvar con escalas a los inquilinos del segundo y tercero. La fatalidad -observaron las gentes- quiso que el fuego se iniciase en la parte del almacén que correspondía con el dormitorio de la esposa de Ríopardo, la cual, asfixiada por el humo, ni pudo levantarse a pedir socorro. Apareció carbonizada, lo mismo que el dependiente, presunto reo de imprudencia temeraria por fumar en el almacén.
No estando aseguradas las existencias del establecimiento, sobre el dueño no recayeron sospechas, sino gran lástima. Arruinado casi completamente, no faltó quien, estimando sus cualidades mercantiles, su laboriosidad, le adelantase dinero para abrir otra lonja; pero Ríopardo dice tristemente a su antigua y fiel clientela:
-Ya no tengo ilusión… ¡Una esposa y un dependiente como los que perdí no he de encontrarlos nunca!
Born in 1851, in Galicia, Spain, Emilia Pardo Bazán y de la Rúa-Figueroa, Countess of Pardo Bazán (d.1921), is one of the indisputable titans of the Hispanophone literary tradition. An engaged and prolific writer across all genres, she showed great expertise in prose, in particular, writing numerous novels, short stories, journalistic interventions, and essays, in addition to making several remarkable contributions to theatre, poetry, and the professoriat. Recognized as a protofeminist author, with a unique and independent voice, Pardo Bazán was deeply invested in representing women’s experience and exploring the interiority of the self, while promoting women’s rights to education and access.
Alani Rosa Hicks-Bartlett is a writer and translator who loves the invective genre, most of all, followed by lyric and epic poetry. She enjoys translating from multiple languages, and has won awards for her poetry and translations, including the University of California Berkeley’s Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Lyric Poetry Prize, Dorothy Rosenberg Memorial Prize in Lyric Poetry, and the Emily Chamberlain Cook Prize. Her recent work has appeared in carte blanche, ANMLY, cagibi, The Stillwater Review, Broad River Review, La Piccioletta Barca, The Fourth River, and Mantis: A Journal of Poetry, Criticism, and Translation, among others. She is currently working a collection of villanelles and longer translations from Medieval French, Portuguese, and Italian.
