Cultural and linguistic communication

HORTENSIA PAPADAT-BENGESCU AND THE REFLECTION OF THE HUMAN OBSERVATION

Ilie ZANFIR1

1Prof., „V. A. Urechia” Library, Galaţi, Romania Corresponding author: Ilie Zanfir; e-mail: [email protected]

Abstract worked as a volunteer nurse at the Red Cross, In this article, the author attempts an overview on the the experience being then narrated in the novel place occupied by the work of Hortensia Papadat Bengescu, “The Dragon”. From 1919 she begins to remarkable representative of the "psychological novel", in collaborate with the cenacle of the critic Eugen the Romanian prose and on the way in which her writings were received by the literary criticism. Lovinescu and to publish in his magazine, Keywords: psychological novel, objective prose, decadence „Sburătorul”. From now on, Eugen Lovinescu, one of the few supporters of women writers, has The great European prose writer, the one who the decisive role in the orientation of the novelist was considered to be the founder of the Romanian towards the modern European novel. All her psychological novel, Hortensia Papadat- novels will be first read in the cenacle and then Bengescu - of whose writing I have been in love published. The writer’s favorite writer is Marcel since high school, whose work I met much better Proust, whose method of creation we find, more in the student amphitheatres and through the or less, in her novels. The author writes and study and the researches I often used to carry out publishes several volumes of short stories. It was as a student in letters in the reading rooms of the called the “Great European” as an Bucharest Central University Library - has acknowledgment of her obvious merits in the entered an shade cone! modernization of the Romanian novel and its In the “Dictionary” I have achieved, of the synchronization with the European one. writers of Galaţi, the record is ... almost unfair to At Eugen Lovinescu’s exhortation, she evolves her literary achievements: Born on the 8th of towards an “objective” prose, as it will be seen December, in Iveşti, Galaţi, deceased on the 5th in the Hallip’s Cycle (“The Dishevelled Virgins,” of March 1955, in Bucharest. She was the daughter “Bach Music Concert,” “The Hidden of General D. Bengescu and professor Zoe. She Road”,”Roots”). From 1933, she settles in the married in 1896, in Turnu-Magurele, the capital, where she also publishes “The Fiancée” magistrate Nicolae N. Papadat. The literary (1933), and in 1946 he is awarded the National career is postponed due to her husband’s Prose Award. The rest of the novel projects transfers from one city to another (passing remain unfinished. Prohibited by the Communist through Turnu-Magurele, Buzău, Focşani, regime and living, at old age,almost inhumanly, Constanţa) and the maternal care shown to her without any means of subsistence, Hortensia children. She begins in the cultural press with Papadat-Bengescu died completely in oblivion articles in French (1912). She also writes poems of her colleagues and literary critics, on the 5th in this language. In 1913, she published in the March 1955, in Bucharest at the age of 79 . After “Romanian Life” magazine, her shaping as a 1965 she was gradually reintegrated into the writer being marked by the personality of literary and academic circuit. Garabet Ibraileanu, the one who helps her to Reading almost all of her work, you can not debut. Editorial, this happens in 1919, with the exclaim, starting not from the monsters she volume “Deep Waters”, praised by Garabet discovers, describing them, among her characters, Ibraileanu. During the First World War she that Hortensia Papadat-Bengescu is a SACRED

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MONSTER, who must be known much more and opinion is divided in the most contradictory that is why I also advocate and promote so much, way. For E. Lovinescu, for the “Prousens” in both for the opening of that branch of the V.A. general, for those who are allow to be influenced Urechia Library and for the achievement of a statue without deep examination by an attitude, H- P.- or at least a bust to adorn one of Galati’s parks! Bengescu is a great novelist, she is the creator of Obviously, here I am referring to the etymology the Romanian city novel, she is a profound of the word “monster”, which in Latin would analyst of the invisible soul. For others ( and here mean worthwhile to be shown! It is not accidental gather almost all the readers who ask from a that Florin Mihăilescu, in the “General Dictionary book “truth, clarity, common sense,” that is most of Romanian Literature”, coordinated by my of the readers) H- P.- Bengescu is an author of teacher, Eugen Simion, wrote that H. Papadat- volumes impossible to read. Of course, an Bengescu “is a female Goya of Romanian experienced critic is not to be intimidated by the literature, she is, to put it in other words, in the resistance of the immediate contemporaries. But most precious and original substance of her today, after a lengthy passage time useful to work, beyond surgical objectivity, a bitter observation, examining without prejudice the reminder of the precariousness and inauthenticity writer’s literature and using the broadest aesthetic of the human being. “1 understanding, we must recognize that both My inner structure, much more optimistic, readers’ reactions have, if not one justification, at can only partially agree with this vision, although, least one explanation. There are pages in this with all her lucidity, Hortensia Papadat- work that suggest to the critic a possible depth, Bengescu, after, for example, was a nurse in which excites even by what we think it could World War I, taking care of the wounded and achieve. It is no less true that then we fall into closing the eyes of so many dying men, after she absolutely arid areas, of frustration that discourage raised her children, after she had endured so us. H.-ei P.-Bengescu’s work is composed of great many hardships from her husband who did not promises and defeats and the determination of its understand the wife’s creative side too well, the value must be made taking into account the negative aspects of her work may also be aesthetic significance of this inequality. 4“ reflected, but I do not think that it is only about As it can be seen, the Great European may not the “bitterness”, the “precariousness and the have been to George Calinescu’s own liking, the inauthenticity of the human being”! synthesis in the “Compendium” starting with more In fact, a certain duality of the writer has long than a depreciative direction, the emphasis specific been noticed, but I believe that she is under the to the proletariat criticism, is also to be found: sign of coincidentia oppositorum, under the “After a production of vaporous diary pages, mystery of the act of creation. Since the beginning interesting for psychology, and especially for the of her literary work, the “Great European”has physiology of women, Hortensia Papadat- been preoccupied with her understanding of Bengescu has dedicated herself to a series of how to report to the world, beyond any “Prousian novels” (n.n: to notice the quotes!). dichotomy, but resulting, as Ion Bogdan Lefter2 However much as it may be said that the woman notes, a mask game present both in the short is not the most suitable for objective observation, prose, and in her novels. Hortensia Papadat-Bengescu undoubtedly brings If you look for, you will always find in her work a richer material than any other novelist, which is an aphoristic temptation, which, among other explained by the female condition itself. The things, demonstrates the ambivalence of life. She writer believes in social values, lives and writes in “To Don Juan, in eternity ...”3: “Even scrutinizes them, descends to that infinite little water is not two days the same ... and neither you which is the great matter of the novel. The respect with it.” Of course, the Writer is not only Heraclitic for the conventional world makes her give in expression, but the problem of the reception of importance to the snob society, thus approaching her work has been questioned since the beginning. the intimate formula of Proust’s novels that George Călinescu masterly synthesizes this transcribe the lives consumed in mundane crisis of reception in his “History”: “the critical nothings, the imperceptible tragedies of the

108 Volume 7 • Issue 2, April / June 2017 • HORTENSIA PAPADAT-BENGESCU AND THE REFLECTION OF THE HUMAN OBSERVATION parlour. By definition, Hortensia Papadat- Could it be a mask game, either conscious or Bengescu writes a pure urban novel, devoted unconscious? But how much of a life is actually exclusively to unnecessary processes of a class found in a writing, how many mistakes in life exempted from the harsh problems of existence. time can you assume in your own literature? The heroes are rich. Above all, leaving aside the In fact, by returning to those letters, from good observer position, the writer’s literature them too there comes the urge to write, even deeply breathes femininity. First we notice in it before literary critics such as Ibraileanu or the horror of the promiscuous and the degenerated, Lovinescu being the Friends! How much they hence a whole gallery of physical and moral count in a literature! Let us remember as it should disabled (paralytics, hystericals, twins, hybrids, of Eminescu and Creanga! illegitimate children). The characterology is In this spirit, Ion Bogdan Lefter concluded, replaced by medical examination. The heroes are regarding the importance of biography and self- well-born or degenerate, healthy or sick. The biography in literature: disease is especially the climate in which the “The main data of the creation process in characters live, and the favourite place for Hortensia Papadat-Bengescu approach are: the development - the sanatorium. Cerebral raw material, confessive, sincere, was in excess; congestion, neurasthenia, septicemia, tuberculosis, but it had to be masked up, dissimulated. All the cancer, stomach ulcer, pernicious anemia, here are prose that followed was nothing but a continuous some of the diseases around which the intrigues search for solutions to “alter” the subjectivity, to come together. “5 disguise the overflowing self-confession. (...) The dual personality, which was one of the From this perspective, we will have to re-examine sources of her work, leads to a same dual perception. all her literature from the perspective of the When the family life seemed to be faint, degree of processing the original confessional disappointing, the only rescue seemed to her the matter. We might – then - find out that the long letters to friends, understood as a opposition subjectivity-objectivity is in fact rebelliousness (as a matter of fact, her marriage inadequate and that the work evolved according was an act of rebelliousness against the parents to an internal logic. “7 who refused to allow her to continue her Whatever the problem, perhaps a young man university studies), but which were like a true nowadays might be convinced to approach the school for writing: “letters in which impressions work of the great writer starting from the “Bach and thoughts pass into a cataract mixture. Their Music Concert”. There are many critics and content, then even re-read, would have seemed literary historians who think so. Such as George surprising to my passivity ... Neither do I regret Calinescu: it - but always the passionate concern of not “The best novel remains the “Bach Music confronting one with the other the two lives. “ Concert”, a painting of a society on the way to Hardly a debutant in “The Romanian Life”, the aristocratic perfection, for the moment only in the Great European was speaking to Garabet snobbish phase, whose typical exponents are Ibrăileanu, her first great mentor, the author of the Prince Maxenţiu and Elena. Maxenţiu, immortal “Adela”, a novel,the kind, no longer consumptive, suffers from a very particular drama. written today, when the swearing the and violence He is not afraid of the disease, in the gravity of about „la double vie” are praised. Even in the which he does not believe. He is bored with the opening of her writing entitled “Autobiography” fear of the disqualification that such a proletarian it is stated without theoretical pretensions: suffering could bring to the world. Elena is mad “Unity and dual personality: I live my artistic about the protocol. She sets up a concert from existance with my life every single moment of Bach, in her home, to which only select guests will my life, yet no one has isolated more absolutely take part. All her work is reduced to preparing the the artistic ego/self from the cursive experience. concert and editing the guest list.“ Even in the moments of total identification, an The same titled Calinescu considered the instinct shelters in me carefully, one from the following: “What alienates, and unfairly, many other, the two inseparable conflicts. 6“ of Hortensia Papadat-Bengescu’s literature is the

International Journal of Communication Research 109 Ilie ZANFIR prolix styleand even annoying, finally, a style of they seemed so obliging, and as they did not conversation, according to matter.” touch Lenora, Lina would tell them: “Boor boys,” A tried, as if sensing the clichés and they were invited to the table.” that would gather concerning the hermeneutics Attentive to all that is human (who may not of Hortensia Papadat-Bengescu, to nuance: know what a soul is, with its divine side, as Lica “As you can not do more injustice to Mr. Gh. did not know!), the writer does not forget that Brăescu than when compared to I.L.Caragiale - the Beautiful can still master the human with its an author who has given his measure towards unnatural side: an author in full creative activity - I think it can “Music had fallen as a indictment. They not be done a greater injustice to Mrs. Bengescu always wondered in suspicious thoughts: Are than comparing her with Marcel Proust. Although they those who killed her? And at any movement Mrs. Bengescu in the last two novels - “Unworthy of Rim, they moved into his shadow, inseparable Virgins” and the present day, the “Bach Music accomplices and spectators of misfortune. So Concert” - depicts a world of the aristocracy of hidden, they escaped the ceremony of the good money and culture of the country, apparently bye from Sia. Besides, no one now. As a matter related to the aristocratic families described by of fact, no one besides the priests was concerned Proust, it differs profoundly from this novelist, with the last salutation. Once the hypnosis of as a means of expression as well as psychological music scattered, they were all sneaking smoothly material. We will not insist here on these towards the exit. They were quick to rejoice in differences; suffice it to remind us that any the joy of the wonderful day. Indifferent to the attempt of comparison is at the expense of our ceremony, they quickly forgot it and started like writer, who does not need any unit of measure a gentle band towards the spring. The cars were to recognize his value. “8 waiting lazely. No engine noise, no car horn What I also confirm, being, I believe, convincing, honks, stirred the silence. Outside the church, through two fragments of the most cherished the assistants stopped in the green courtyard in novel for me, “Music Concert by Bach”: silent groups talking about the sun, the heat, the “Hallipa twins, without being at all stupid, music. “ but consistent with their double birth, had to be And as if we were all waiting, after the last content with half of any kind of value. But they sentence of the novel, the beginning of Bach’s wonderfully completed each other in one person, “Fugi” or “Tocatea”, a sign that beauty exists, it which was not at all ordinary. Very meagre, , really exists, there beyond human ... with wide, transparent ears, and narrow, sly And I can assert that, beyond all the eyes, they were ugly, but so indebted and shortcomings of the human societies grasped in talkative, that you had to welcome them as good. her books, Hortensia Papadat-Bengescu sought Hardly arrived, they undertook a great trial the Eternal Beauty. Even though, for example, against Doru Hallipa, their father, for a diversion quite recently, in a volume titled “Decadence of wealth, a process in which they had a joint and decadentism” written by Angelo Mitchievici, attitude, so repulsive, that they were considered the chapter devoted to the writer is titled infamous at the Palace of Justice, where there “Decadence in the school of psychoanalysis”, the was still the habit of looking at infamy. They end of this chapter overturning somewhat the were following the process in their private life perspective, approaching what I want to prove, too through an active propaganda of calumny; by way, of any coincidentia oppositorum: all their acquaintances and relatives were filled “The Bach music concert around which is with their wishes. At the sound of their slander, centered the action of the second novel of the Nory jumped, ready to beat them, and Mini took cycle, which was issued in 1927, plays an exception indignantly. Now they became important role in defining the relationships of assidous in the Rim’s house either prostrating this bourgeoisie, being a means of legitimacy in themselves in front of the teacher or flattering defining relations according the typically the good Lina, in front of whom the slander was aristocratic one, and the bourgeoisie rebuilds the changing into the lamentations of victims. As French aristocratic parlour tradition. Decadence

110 Volume 7 • Issue 2, April / June 2017 • HORTENSIA PAPADAT-BENGESCU AND THE REFLECTION OF THE HUMAN OBSERVATION aquires here an affirmative role too, it is included while at Mrs. Papadat-Bengescu it is subject to the in the noble escutcheon blazon and you can not incisive scalpel and the enlarging lenses of the recommend yourself without it. Music, art must analysis until it is transformed into bright be the factor of cohesion, they temporarily knowledge. also notes, in “The suspend dissensions, as the modern ceremonial Romanian Prose Writers”: euphemizes the brutality of certain accidents or “Along with the subconscious fermentations, inadequacies. Hortensia Papadat-Bengescu the writer’s novels and short stories reserve a great manages to bring the pathology and the place for the man suffering, to all kinds of physical decadence into a bourgeois climate, adapting and mental illnesses, to the great episodes of the them to modern necessities the post World War clinic, the consumption of the prince Maxenţiu in One civilization. Decadence is, in this case, an the” Bach Music Concert “, 1927, or that of Ana in indispensable complement not only of mondiness The Fiance, 1935, the myocarditis with its dramatic but also of modernity, blamed on its degenerative, outcome in “The Hidden Road”, 1932, the hereditary side, aesthetically accepted as nevropaphis with psychoanalytic origins in “The sophistication and aristocraticemblem, Unbraided Virgins”, etc. With all these there enters cultivation of sensibilities and of art. “9 the writer’s style the richest medical terminology As we can see, there is also the… the “beauty” ever known in literature. The physiological man of of decadence, which from Baudelaire and naturalism is presented once more, but with a Arghezi until now, would somehow be somewhat technical competence, from the angle of synonymous with some sort of perception of the a biologist and a clinician, who also knows that any aesthetics of uglyness, which is, forcing the limits suffering of the body is also a disease of the soul, of logic, the beautiful but turned upside down. a principle of moral dissolution, mercelessly After all, why would the “unbraided virgins” tackled, objectively and accurately. “ be something ugly, despite the fact that, morally So, though emphasizing the psychoanalytic speaking, as Ov. S. Crohmălniceanu notes, my novelty of Hortensia’s prose, she is also a late dear fellow from Galati, the phrase “unbraided Zolist. Elena Zaharia-Filipaş nuances, but in the virgins” would be attached to women who had almost the same conception: “The humanity in the an adulterous relationship, resulting in a Halli’s cycle is devoid of intelligence and morality. foundling, considered incovenient for the A bourgeois world recently come in wealth and conventions of bourgeois ethics. Of course, ethics luxury, with a gloss education, mimicking the and morality are often confused with aesthetics, interest in art. A world attentive to social the quality literature does not always judge, it behaviour, to the group’s opinion, always in only notes and describes letting the reader to competition and rivalry on the field of mondiness, give the verdict. Moreover, even indirectly, the watching its entrances on and exits outof stage, writer does not blame the foundling, but the man the errors of clothing, the signs of weakness. The who arrives, for example Mika-Lé, who through complexity of the analytical discourse does not early sexual emancipation and the seductive come from within the fabula, like ’s instrumentalization of her charms, as observed or Holban’s, where the intelligence is a prerequisite by the same A. Mitchievici, at p. 565 , leads to the and an existential condition. The analytical introduction of a principle of dissolution in the refinement of the author is often applied to low family that wants to integrate it, but has to isolate areas of existence, instinct, reprehensible acts, low it, at least to preserve appearances. impulses, and hidden dirt under luxury. As very well Tudor Vianu observes, it is a jump Hortensia Papadat-Bengescu often “works in the “obscure life of consciousness.” Comparing on” her characters with a technique of her with , another titan of our incisiveness, a mixture of irony and sarcasm, literature, to whom I am closely attached, even if which mercilessly reveals vulgarity, vices, malice only through a monography I dedicated to the under the mask of modern customs. (...) novels, Vianu writes that the writer’s “obscure life Even from her early writings, H. Papadat- of consciousness” plays an important role, but it Bengescu shows a true attraction-repulsion to is accepted as such, described, but not enlightened, physical and moral anomalies. The retarded,

International Journal of Communication Research 111 Ilie ZANFIR rudimentary beings, possessed by primal she settled in Bucharest, Cotroceni, only after motions, exert upon her a fascination just as 1933, at the retirement of her husband. We meet illnesses and vices do (...) “10 her in a 1927 footage of Camil Petrescu linked More than interesting is a fragment from the to a past episode, Eftimiu’s despicable behavior, same autobiography I have already mentioned, who would leave the writer waiting in vain interesting and emotional, revealing something while he, the director, would leave (“would of what was the impulse to write, but also aspects flee”) on a side door. Later, Camil Petrescu that led to that unity of the oppositions to which mentions it, indirectly, in a statement about the I resorted. The father encourages her to write priority of the one who imposed the urban while at an early age (it seems that the first novel. In Lovinescu’s “Agendas” the writer “composition” was when she was five years old, appears often, but always telegraphic, at the mother’s advice, a small text, of a few lines, mentioning her passing through Bucharest, about the seasons), but the father would have visits or readings in the cenacle. Şuluţiu, still a liked a writing that would present “ pleasant pupil, then a fresh student, writes in the diary shapes and colors, placed in select frames. “ the reading of Hortenia Papadat-Bengescu’s H. Papadat-Bengescu writes, not necessarily books and makes a detailed critical study plan, from the spirit of fronde towards the parent, but and Anton Holban asks in a letter the novel scandalizing him in a way: “Hidden Roads” (sic!) to publish later in “I have understood to decompose and “Literary Romania” in 1932 the article “Life and recompose shapes and colors to prove them and to Death in the Opera of Mrs. Hortensia Papadat- give away their essence. So much my writing Bengescu”. Rebreanu does not miss any scared him. He was, however, a revolutionary opportunity to place her among the great within the tradition, for I remember him in vivid novelists of the moment, and her name appears controversy on church dogmas with a priest whom remembered with admiration in numerous he was astonished and strained. He had faith, but literary surveys and inquiries. “13 he wanted to understand. And I myself come to In 2002, when Ioana Pârvulescu published everything with faith, but I want to understand. “11 that article, she expressed her surprise that “it is When her first book as writer appeared, her incredible that after more than a century and a father combined satisfaction with “a moving quarter from the birth of our only” classical deception (in voice, in spaces between words) to my “writer, that is to say, fully settled in the nude of thinking. But I do not know if his torment consciousness of the reader, her journal is still was bigger or mine, from the same weird decency. not published, although it exists. “, Although, I could not have dedicated worshiped him-whom I knowingly, she had aesthetic reserves. cherished so highly - this first book; but if it had been Finally, as a literary historian, I can only express possible, would not have known my book, out of a my perplexity too, these texts being essential for strange wildness that can not be subjected to any the continuation of the research work on her life judgment, so instinctive was, so personal. “12 and work in this era of the IT revolution. Almost, in other words, we can say that the Ioana Pârvulescu also writes, almost “like whole life of Hortensia Papadat-Bengescu was among women: “The diary of this almost elderly under the sign of a duality: let us not forget that woman who inspired respect the interwar world she made her debut relatively late, at almost 43 of young men should be an entrancing document. years old, practically almost half of life she Unfortunately, although it was written - dedicated to the family, barely the other half disorderly, with great interruptions, with either devoted to the art of words. long notes, or almost stenographic, as I learned As Ioana Pârvulescu notes, in an article from Mr. Dimitrie Stamatiadi - he has not published in “Literary Romania” (no.7 / 2002), published his yet. The transcription work would her work as a whole was quite discreet, at least require an effort similar to that one which was at first, until her novels appeared: made for Lovinescu’s “Agendas”. “ “In the journals of the time Hortensia, Papadat- I wonder, rhetorically, who has finally Bengescu is a sporadic presence, perhaps because committed to this effort?

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