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2023-08-09 09:19:01
Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) never counted on her diary and personal letters coming to light. In her suicide note, she asked her husband, Leonard Woolf, to destroy his papers. But with the greats of literature this is a forecast that is not always fulfilled. She spent with Kafka, with Dickinson… Woolf recorded her intimacy as a way of freeing himself from that “intoxication” that writing fiction entailed. The journal was “the most delightful and entertaining alternative,” she said, and she maintained that discipline even when she was away on the road.
a new book, ‘Travel’ (Nordic), addresses this facet of the author of works as important as ‘Mrs. Dalloway’ or ‘A room of one’s own’; that of a nib that distrusted the genre of travel writing, but instead enjoyed traveling. And when she did, she “wrote her diary and also letters to her sister and her friends,” she says. Patricia Diaz Pereda, in charge of editing the work: «His were not distant or exotic trips; he never crossed the Atlantic or traveled to other continents. […] The farthest it got was Constantinople and its radius of action was Europe.
Within this route, Spain occupied a privileged place. “Without a doubt, this is the best country I have ever seen,” she went on to say. It was in 1912, during their honeymoon, following having married Leonard Woolf. «We go from city to city, we investigate the alleys, the rivers and the markets; at night we wander the avenues until we find a place to drink something. We’ve seen ten cities since we started; they are becoming more and more remarkable and colorful,” she told him in a letter to Katherine Cox, a friend of her group from Bloomsbury. Tarragona, Madrid, Zaragoza and Toledo were part of that itinerary.
Woolf’s first time in Spain, however, was in April 1905, when she embarked with her brother Adrian on a voyage to the Iberian Peninsula. They visited Lisbon, Seville and Granada, and the first impression with the Spanish territory was not so satisfactory. From her journey by train through Extremadura and Andalusia she kept the beauty of the names – “splendid!” – But “the landscape was not pretty; for the most part flat, without trees and with a strong sun. Once in Seville, following climbing the Giralda, she noted that from the tower one might see the “white houses with brown roofs” of the city, although the cathedral did not seem “really pretty, although it was impressive.”
The Sevillians made him less funny. “People became unbearable, as they thought it necessary to be friendly and talkative. Our return ship only takes three days, so they won’t have time to bore us,” she told her friend. Violet Dickinson. She was 23 years old. Here people prepare for the party. They’ve put up huge wax figures in the cathedral—I don’t know why—and they’re putting up dais. There are bullfighting posters everywhere. I’m glad we missed it.”
Seven years later, and following having passed through Athens and its “overwhelming” Parthenon, it was when he surrendered to Spain. “I think Spain is by far the most magnificent country I have ever seen,” he told Saxon Sidney-Turner in a letter. «We plan to buy a large Spanish mule; Leonard thinks if we had one, we might tour the country. The mule would carry our beds and lag behind. […] The only defect that we have found in our trip is that it was very hot in Madrid and in Toledo, and that these southern skies are invariably blue. And that was September…
From top to bottom: Cattle market at the San Miguel Fair (Seville, 1905), a level crossing (Zaragoza, 1912) and festivities at the Puente de Vallecas (Madrid, 1912) ARCHIVE ABC
A year later, Woolf attempted suicide. Long ago, he would already have suffered another nervous breakdown due to the death of his father. The writer suffered from bipolar disorder. The crisis of 1913, between improvements and her relapses, lasted until 1915. And in 1923, in her first departure from England since her honeymoon, the author went with her husband once more to Spain. «We have been wandering around Madrid following the figure of a Christ in a purple robe. The Last Supper, the Crucifixion and so on, and we’re half dazed by the noise, but it’s all very exciting – the countryside, as we drove through Spain yesterday, was unbelievably beautiful. Tomorrow we leave for Granada».
From the Andalusian city he wrote to his sister Vanesa: «Leonard and Gerald are in a bullfight. I’m afraid no one is going to offer me a cup of tea.” A few days later, on April 15, from Murcia, sitting in a cafe where they played dominoes and sold lottery tickets, she would reaffirm: “There is no more charming country.” Drinking coffee on a balcony overlooking lemon and orange trees, walking among cypresses and palm trees, eating rice, bacon, olive oil, figs for lunch… all this made him “roll with happiness.” They were the last impressions that Woolf left in writing of her travels through Spain.
Over the years, she would return to France or Italy, where she was terrified by the fascists, and even flirted with the idea of traveling to Latin America. “On another occasion? I hope so”. There was no chance. In 1941, when she was 59 years old, Ella Woolf jumped into the river with the pockets of her coat full of stones. “I have lost everything,” she put it on her suicide letter. Her inner demons killed even that feeling of release she felt from her when she left her beloved London. “I love to ride, even in the rain, road following road,” she said. “As I spin the roads, I reshape my life.”
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