Negrures, by Salvador Galmés, takes place on the Llevant Coast of Mallorca.
The smuggler reached the shore. The waves pounded the rocks, soaking them in their salty spittle. The weather was the same. Only slightly above the horizon, the blackness of a floating cloud, devoid of light, covered the moon, so that below it handfuls of disparate rays could escape, like a great and shining palm. In the distance it looked like dusk; far way, the sea reflected the moon's light, like the reflection from a school of anchovies. The smuggler, after having fruitlessly laboured at untying a boat, began to follow the coast: firstly to west, then to the east. He walked with care, nervously, obsessively. Seeing no trace, he sat on a flat rock, took off his hat and secured it with a stone, took out a box of small cigars and lit one.
Negrures, 1908
Translated by Richard Mansell. Performed by Sebastià Perelló.
(Sant Llorenç des Cardassar, 1876 – 1951). Galmés’s rural origins gave him real-life experiences of agriculture and the wild which filled his narrative work with authenticity. In 1890 he entered the seminary where Llorenç Riber also studied, and had Antoni M. Alcover and Miquel Costa i Llobera as teachers. Alcover’s influence drew him towards the use and defence of Catalan as a language of learned expression. He worked with him on Alcover’s dictionary, and the First Conference of the Catalan Language. He began to take part in the Jocs Florals literary competition and also translated some Latin authors for the Bernat Metge collection, as well as starting the publication of Ramon Llull’s works, of whom he also published a biography. His narrative works constitutes one of the most interesting contributions to Catalan narrative in the early 20th century and was not published as a single volume until the 1940s-1950s: Flor de card (Thistle flower, 1949), Novel·letes rurals (Rural novellas, 1953), Quadrets i pinzellades (Paintings and brushstrokes, 1956). He also wrote in the regional press to defend historical and artistic heritage, and also to argue for greater autonomy for the Balearic Islands. In the post-war years he was named corresponding member of the Acadèmia de Bones Lletres in Barcelona and the Institute of Catalan Studies, which at that point was in hiding.
Negrures (Blacknesses) is a story that takes place on Majorca’s eastern coast, a land of smugglers, a difficult job that was only for determined, strong, hardened people, capable of blending in to the harsh landscape of cliffs and caves.
Negrures won a prize at the 1908 "Jocs Florals" in Barcelona. Galmés's view of rurality contrasted sharply with the idealisations of Alcover and Costa, as well as the majority of Majorcan writers. The stories that have the intimate drama of their protagonist as a leitmotif are where Galmés best weaves a tragedy in all of its depth and meaning. He distances himself, however, from realism and heads towards the current of modernism that looks for effect in contrast and suggestion. In the story "Negrures" this contrast is established between the unfolding tragedy and the indifference of the character who indirectly causes it. Another modernist feature is the influence of the environment on characters, in this case the landscape of the eastern coastline, where kermes oaks were omnipresent, from Capdepera to Santanyí. These are lands with little soil where the fight for survival demanded other means of life, such as poaching (in "El garriguer d'Infern") or smuggling in the case of "Negrures". Galmés employs a measured use of elements from popular culture, set phrase and folk tales, and uses a style where a mix of dialect and learned language is ideal for the precision and effectiveness of his stories.
