At the end of March 1906, a pediment was inaugurated in Madrid that, at night, became varieties: the central-Kursaal. He was on Tetuán street, near the new Café de Levante, where a group of writers and painters headed by what Corpus Barga calls in The delights of The steps counted his “old bakers.” Barga, who ended up shortened by economics and republicanism (her full name was Andrés Rafael Cayetano Corpus García de la Barga and Gómez de la Serna), had been raised in the neighborhood and, as she saw them as a child in a street bakery From mercy, I had them associated with her. They were “the lord of hair and quevedos, the one who limited the cane” and “the hair like a brush,” according to his description; “All who already know what they are called, starting with Valle-Inclán and themselves, Ricardo and Pío Baroja.” It was Ricardo who invited him to join the gathering when “she could go to bed late”, because Barga was only nineteen years old; and the young man, who had already written and destroyed an entire poems (Songs) and published a compilation of stories and articles (Clara Babel) He joined right away. There coincided with Alejandro Sawa, Gutiérrez Solana, Silverio Lanza, Romero de Torres, Rafael de Penagos and others who entered and left, such as Rubén Darío, Picasso, Azorín and Diego Rivera; But, among his usual acquaintances, he was also “the one who cried for an eye,” Leandro Oroz, who in April 1906 was painting the portrait of his girlfriend, Victoria Delgado, sister of Anita Delgado.
The Levante group had begun to go to the central-Kursaal for the ticket price, which was quite cheap. As Juan Antonio concrete recalled in his monumental Valle-Inclán: Chronological and epistolary biographysat at a table near the box where the dancers rested and chatted with Pastora Empire, Argentina, Bella Belén, La Fornarina, Mata-Hari and the Sisre Hermanas Delgado, whom they had special affection. Anita had already noticed a type of blue turban, sweet look and whipping teeth that had taken her eye, but did not discover the identity of her new admirer until the end of May, when she finished acting and received a bouquet of camelias sent by The Marajá de Kapurtala, one of the guests at the wedding of Alfonso XIII with Victoria Eugenia de Battenberg. The news reached the ears of the group and, according to Corpus Barga, Valle-Inclán decided to support his still non-existent relationship: «Anita will be the preferred woman of the Marajá, and from her union the heir of the Principality will be born, and this prince, who will be a gypsy Indian, will be the head of the rebellion of India against England ». The rest, almost a legend, happened in the course of a few weeks: the resistance of Anita’s parents, worried about “the honor” of the girl; The insistent letters of the Marajá and the frighteningly poorly written and full of spelling faults that the cabarete wrote and read Oroz, who made it known to his co-religionists and caused Valle-Inclán to write another letter in substitution. “I don’t remember how I stay,” Ricardo Baroja wrote in people of 98, “but we did seem to a piece chosen from a chateaubriandesca anthology,” that is, just what was needed so that the love It would link a sovereign of the Punjab state with a high and Malaga brunette who charged a few cents per function.
The concept of Bohemia, so vilified by bourgeois sensitivity, had those things; “High politics,” said the second most important manco in our history. There was talk in the gatherings, there was talk later and acted in multiple directions; But, in the same way that no reasonable chronicler would have reduced the social life of the city to the revolt of the actors when the authorities wanted They lasted until two or three in the morning), the essentials of those was not among the leaflets of the Central-Kursaal and other similar premises, but in artistic creation and the defense of critical thinking. Without leaving Valle-Inclán, and for even emphasizing the importance of his group, Rivas Cherif and Baroja themselves would later appeal to his undisputed and strangely modest statement that the new coffee of Levante had had more influence on art and art Contemporary literature that “a couple” of universities and academies and “all Spanish professors of literature and theory of fine arts.” Those days of 1906 saw several relevant events that demonstrate it indirectly; Among them, the attack by Mateo Morral against the monarch, which by the way caused the flight of Marajá, and the censorship of Julio Romero de Torres, José Bermejo and Antonio Fillol for his works Living of love, Nana and The satyrrespectively. From the gaze of the 21st century-at least, as it has begun-it may seem incredible that a “passenger towards its end” was “in our gathering the last night” (Valle-Inclán, prologue to The pedigreeby Ricardo Baroja); Probably, it is not even understood that the prisoner of Bohemia lights with whom Max Estrella agrees in the dungeon of the Ministry of the Interior; But perhaps it is better understood than the academic world dared to censor “immoral” to the three painters mentioned, a usual situation that could only be counteracted from the solidarity of the artists, as happened in that case (organizing a parallel exhibition) and , of course, from their temples: coffees, variety theaters, the street.
One day, after leaving their gathering, Valle-Inclán and Corpus Barga decided to take a walk to El Prado, and stopped in a garden where a “statuet of Cervantes was” locked up “, as protecting him from some lions players who were not far, willing to jump with their balls, each with theirs under the leg »(The executionersIV part of The steps counted). The image of the Lions of Congress and the physical situation of the author of Quijote is sufficiently explicit from a political and cultural point of view. Cervantes ended up statues, but never left precariousness; Valle-Inclán, who lived long seasons of “coffee with milk” and roasted half Tyran Banderasin obvious punishment to his republican faith, it was barely a tiny detail. In the official narrative, poverty is Sawa; No Galdós, who also died ruined. In the official narrative, there were always those who reward the talent, but even the books were frequently published thanks to personal interventions such as Juan Ramón Jiménez with Barga, when the first decided to edit on account of his pocket the chronicles of one of the great of the great Aeronautical adventures of the second (Paris-Madrid. A trip in the year 19). In the official narrative, Unamuno does not speak until the “you will not convince” of Salamanca, but had always been in the spotlight for his opinions contrary to Primo de Rivera and Alfonso XIII. «What is our good friend’s crime? Luis Araquistáin was wondering in the weekly Spain after the arrest in San Sebastián de Corpus Barga. He doesn’t know, nobody knows. Here is the danger, precisely. In our country, innocence is full of risks ». Except, perhaps, in places such as the Central-Kursaal and the new Café de Levante.
#steps #counted
