Life Embitters by Josep Pla

Author:Josep Pla [Pla, Josep]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-914671-14-5
Publisher: Steerforth Press
Published: 2015-05-04T16:00:00+00:00

Meanwood, Leeds, Yorkshire

The papers that follow were discovered among those left by my friend Albert Santianol. They refer to his stay in Meanwood, a suburb of Leeds, in Yorkshire, England.

The happenstance of a journey, writes Santaniol, led me to make the acquaintance of a very pleasant family in Leeds, who, in the course of conversation, offered me full board in their house at a rate that seemed more than reasonable. I accepted in principle and told them I’d go to see them towards the end of summer. However, I arrived, in fact, in early October when everything was already Novembering, to put it like Robert Burns.

Leeds is an old town surrounded by a huge suburban sprawl from the Victorian era. It grew so quickly, the suburbs are so invasive, that everything seems suburban. It is a dirty brick place, with lots of ups and downs, because it is a sad and somber place set on small hills. The streets from the era of the industrial revolution – that are over a hundred years old – give an impression of monotony and lack of character under lofty factory chimneys. The stone houses off the central streets are sooty black and the official buildings solemn and dignified. The only cheerful thing is a modest old Catholic church with cloisters straight out of a Romantic novel. Filthy water from a tannery ribbons its way through the center of the town, greasy water brimming with all manner of residues and patches of acid. Fortunately, I found that the house where I went to live was on the outskirts, on Meanwood Road, almost four kilometers from the city. Leeds is surrounded by huge parks that must have been well maintained when the bourgeoisie was at the height of its success. When I explored them, they were already in decay, because they were extremely expensive to keep up and their owners preferred the town council to take charge. In any case, the textiles and coal bourgeois classes were still very important and the atmosphere very rarified.

One feels at ease with the English. Their sense of comfort is relative but they have such a natural way of accepting your presence in the world, that, even if they had no other qualities, that would make them infinitely appealing. If you have ever lived abroad, you will have noticed that people always act as if you are a rare species. One must be fair to England: they don’t think foreigners are important. After buying a couple of tons of coal we all join in the struggle against the cold with the gritty perseverance that has always been the hallmark of the inhabitants of Yorkshire. And thus we began the winter alternating days the color of pea soup with days the color of potato purée, by the side of a coal fire that makes blue flames.

During those first weeks, when the weather was fine, what I liked best was to cut the grass with a lawn mower. The grass was

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.