Translator's Preface

To the North American reader interested in the contemporary novel, Carmen Martín Gaite is a well-known figure. Her appointment to Barnard College (New York) as visiting lecturer in the Fall semester of 1980 sparked a keen interest in her fiction. The perceptive introduction of From Fiction to Metafiction: Essays in Honor of Carmen Martín Gaite focuses upon a salient characteristic of this writer's stance toward her readers: her writings are "not so much texts as 'utterances,' for throughout her pages the human voice is heard in rising and falling cadences, telling tales and weaving magic spells."^[1] Anyone who has had the good fortune of conversing with Carmen Martín Gaite will recognize in these words a perfect description of the interlocutor and the sympathetic listener that she is.

With this translation of Usos amorosos del dieciocho en España , I introduce Gaite as historian and essayist. In this work she functions as a listener and interpreter of the whispered conversational mode of eighteenth-century Spain, as practiced by upper-class ladies and their escorts. She is historian in that she draws evidence from archival documents to provide the socioeconomic and political background of the eighteenth-century custom known as the cortejo . She is essayist in that she interprets and comments on literary texts in the light of these archival documents.

As historian and essayist, Gaite has other outstanding works to attest to her perceptions of events past and present. No scholar specializing in the Spanish eighteenth century can justifiably omit the reading of her El proceso de Macanaz . This work clarifies the role of a theretofore inadequately researched key figure of the first half of the eighteenth century. In this study, Gaite gives voice and feeling to the Inquisitional, life-draining case of Macanaz, minister to the Bourbon king of Spain, Philip V. She does this through skillful narration and exacting analysis of related documents.^[2]El proceso de Macanaz nonetheless is not a work to be appreciated only by schol-

ars. When I first bought it in a bookstore in Madrid more than twenty years ago, the sales clerk remarked: "I enjoy Carmen Martín Gaite's stories, but the one that really kept me in suspense is this history of Macanaz."

Among her essays, the most extensive and original is El cuento de nunca acabar (The Never-Ending Story).^[3] This essay is, in a very general sense, her wry answer to often cumbersome and labyrinthine theories of narration. It begins roadblocked by seven prologues abounding in the writer's desire to tell her tale. Despite its witty approach, the essay offers Gaite's views on the existential meaning of narration. She examines what prompts narration and how it springs from and draws upon a cultural substratum peculiar to the language in which it is presented. This "metaessay" would demand linguistic skill and creative ingenuity if it were to be elegantly rendered in English.

As translator of Usos amorosos del dieciocho en España I hope to have conveyed some of the original work's vividness and unique qualities. The main theme itself makes the book unique. This treats the purport of an ambiguous code of companionship and escorting, accompanied by a whispered conversation. To be more specific, the code had to do with noblemen allowing their wives to become friends with a member of the opposite sex. Apparently, the male friend who frequented the lady's house was never to overstep the limits of platonic love; in practice, this may not always have been so. Wife and "friend" were allowed to sit together enjoying a whispered conversation. The substance of their talk was to focus upon such trivial topics as fashions and gossip. Such a mode of conversation might in itself elicit interest in modern readers so steeped in different techniques of communication.

Another unique feature of this work is its extension of the theme. Gaite analyzes the significance of this custom to the eighteenthcentury woman, in terms of her perceptions of herself, her relationships with members of the opposite sex, and her ambiance. Finally, the method employed by Gaite makes the book unique. She presents both an analysis of archival documents and an interpretation of literary texts in the light cast by these documents.

With respect to historical perspective, Gaite has employed a wide range of resources, incorporating more than simply eighteenthcentury sources. The author has searched for the root of this custom involving extramarital companionship and devotion by following

its meanderings from Spain to Italy and France, and back to Spain. The term used to describe it was chichisveo (from the Italian cicisbeo = whisper , but also escort ). Gaite also studies specific political and dynastic events as factors favoring the custom, despite conflicts with traditional religious precepts (confession, above all) relating to the individual's conscience. Chapter 6 deals at length with the bewilderment at aspects of this custom. It deals with the half-flunky, half-escort fashionable abbés, with the silencing measures of the Inquisition, and also with the overall quenching of a social phenomenon that neither its defenders nor its detractors had the courage to face squarely.

Gaite also demonstrates that although this custom of the chichisveo (later known as cortejo ), had from its onset retained an elitist aura, it had significant repercussions on other classes. For the middle class it served as a coveted model to be imitated, as associated as it was with idleness and leisure. In the urban lower classes, it instigated a marked xenophobic reaction: an abhorrence of fashions and trends from abroad. In the Madrilenian lower class, it led to an intriguing reverse phenomenon in the second half of the eighteenth century. The nobility adopted, as the latest fashion, the styles, mannerisms and patterns of speech of the majos and majas , as the young people of the lower-class districts of Madrid were called. Gaite highlights Goya's aristocratic model (supposedly la maja desnuda and la maja vestida ), the Duchess of Alba, as the one who launched these trends. Gaite also delves into the motivation that propelled the nobility's imitation of such fashions.

From the beginning, the custom of the cortejo created a rift between the traditionalists, who had misgivings about the chastity of a companionship enjoyed in the husband's absence, and the moderns, who hailed it as a fashion which helped to cast off the sacralized image of woman as sustaining the family honor. What distressed the traditionalists most was that this custom eroded the image of woman's virtue as the cornerstone of the ancient code of honor.

Neither faction detected in what they called "the new fashion" its Spanish origin. They saw the cortejo as an import, along with luxury items, hedonistic ideas, and other new ways. The moderns saw in such trends evidence of an ever-widening horizon, extending Spain outward toward more progressive countries. In contrast, the traditionalists, and within their midst, the moralists in particular,

perceived these as temptations which undermined morality. Sermons had always linked luxury with sinfulness, but in the age of enlightenment that link grew weak under the pressure of philosophical trends exalting worldly happiness. Prayers and spiritual exercises seemingly inspired by devotion were all a sham.

Appearances were all-important in the dawn of an era emphasizing possession. The urge to expand, to spend, and to impress others with one's good and possibly lavish taste was barely restrained by the lip service the upper class gave to the Church. In this context, Gaite's analysis of the subversion of values taking place in that era is of particular interest. In this analysis, she focuses upon the conflicted position of women, caught between traditional values and new trends. In addition to the impossible task of making religious precepts compatible with luxury, women were confronted with another contradiction, one inherent in the policies of the government itself. Monarchs and ministers praised austerity and economy on the one hand, while on the other they carried out projects to intensify national industry and commerce. For these, naturally enough, they needed private investments and consumers to buy the manufactured items. At the government level, this contradiction among Spanish "enlightened despots" who condemned spending as immoral, had probably much to do with competition from abroad. According to testimonials of the period, the willful members of the upper class, particularly women, preferred imported luxury items to the detriment of nationally manufactured goods. Be that as it may, the financial burden of supporting a wife in the manner that she and her family demanded was enough to discourage many suitors from marrying, especially when the maidens' dowries fell short of men's expectations. At this critical moment for the institution of marriage, the cortejo became for the escort a surrogate for marriage. From the husband's point of view, it may have been considered an expedient method to ease household expenses; articles such as the indispensable fans, ribbons, and lace could be accepted as presents from the escort.

If verbal exchange was the aim of the cortejo, what could a woman and her escort talk about? Gaite lends an attentive ear to the voices of the past by studying the literary texts, tastes, and levels of education attained by women. She shows that the intellectual yield of those conversations was meager. Could it have been other-

wise? Gaite's work in studying this custom adds to the story of the faltering steps of women in their efforts to partake of the Enlightenment. Women followed a dimly-lit path, but one on which they slowly moved ahead.

Gaite's pattern of offering literary discourse interwoven with the content of archival documents serves a considerable range of functions. First of all, it supplies further documentation for this period, adding to that provided by the literature. Excerpts from the writings of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century moralists such as Luis de León, Luis de Granada, Mateo Alemán, and the preacher Pedro de Calatayud provide evidence of writings that enforced certain customs and traditions. Such customs and traditions guided the lives of men and women, especially the latter, not only in those days but also in the eighteenth century. Similarly, excerpts from the dramatic works of Lope de Vega function as genre literature, illustrating the attitudes prevalent in those days. In light of the main theme of her book, Gaite chooses passages from Lope de Vega that show attitudes toward love as emotion and as promoter of the fantasies that moralists were preaching against. Thus, these excerpts also serve as a counterfoil to the distress felt by those grave men, always, it seems, obsessed by women's frailties. Gaite cites one-act plays and farces by Ramón de la Cruz, a quick and witty observer of the fads and foibles of his contemporaries. She also includes letters, memoirs, and travel journals as other valuable testimonials. She uses a foreign traveler's point of view to illustrate the Spanish people's opinions of themselves and their surroundings. By the use of these quotations throughout Usos amorosos del dieciocho en España , Gaite offers the reader a wide historical vision of the period in which the cortejo was practiced.

Finally, Gaite employs literary texts as sources reflecting the dynamics of change through semantic variation. Emphasis on the use of some words at the expense of others falling in disuse, the introduction of neologisms, and different shifts of meaning are easily detectable by the scholar of a given period. But in her work Gaite goes farther. She shows, in her subtle analysis of texts, how language could become a disguise for behavior of a questionable nature. In this analysis, she illustrates the conflict that existed between the cortejo and religious practices, and the tension between the striving for pleasure and the principles of austerity. Gaite finds that

the cunning use of language could protect its users only to a certain point, because the Inquisition silenced and where possible destroyed the slightest evidence pro or con of this worrisome custom.

In this translation I have condensed a few paragraphs of the text and certain footnotes that would, in my opinion, interest only the specialist. I have also omitted the section entitled "Linguistic Conclusions," because, in my view, the Spanish idioms within it cannot be adequately rendered in English. For the sources actually written in English that Gaite translated into Spanish (Joseph Townsend and William Beckford), I have quoted directly from the English originals.

By making Gaite's vivid and penetrating analysis of the "whispering code of love" accessible to the English reader, I hope to make known her significant contribution in shedding light on the social customs of eighteenth-century Spain. Her work is not one, I believe, that should be spoken of only in whispers.