A Non-Imperial Eye/I: Europe as «Contact Zone» in Eugenio Cambaceres's Música sentimental

J. P. Spicer-Escalante

Without a doubt, the study of travel and travel writing as areas of epistemological inquiry, as evinced by the quantity of recent scholarly production on these areas, has reached new heights over the past two decades. Much of this is due to the fact, as Peter Hulme and Tim Youngs point out in The Cambridge Companion to Travel Writing, that the «academic disciplines of literature, history, geography, and anthropology have all over come their previous reluctance to take travel writing seriously and have begun to produce a body of interdisciplinary criticism which will allow the full historical complexity of the genre to be appreciated» (1). The publication in 1992 of Mary Louise Pratt's seminal interdisciplinary work Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation is a clear example of both the existence and relevance of this phenomenon and of the validity of travel writing as a serious genre. Pratt's lucid analysis of the ideological implications of the travel text in the post-colonial world invites critical eyes to train evermore on travel writing and the «imperial meaning-making» (4) apparatus that it constitutes¹. In fact, recognition of the existence of this component of the travel genre has assisted in redefining not only the post-colonial experience through the medium that is the travel text, but also helps to define the limits of post-colonial cultural hegemony in its myriad shapes, forms, and locales. Likewise an integral element of Pratt's work, beyond its fundamental characterization and careful consideration of the intersection between travel literature and ideology, has been to determine the playing field on which travel writing has been -and continues to be- played out. That is, beyond, the ideological component of her work, an important and interrelated aspect of her effort has been to define the limits of the terrain, both geographical and literary, that the travel genre traverses.

The key element of her critical rapprochement to the breadth of locales that travel texts span is Pratt's notion of the existence of «contact zones» which are «social spaces where disparate cultures meet and clash, and grapple with each other, often in highly asymmetrical relations of domination and subordination» (4). Given this particular wording one could be easily seduced into believing, however, that the «contact zone» must necessarily be the locus of the vanquished, of the imperially subjugated: Africa, Latin America, Asia, or any other of the liminal spaces and places of post-colonial dealings. Yet this is an argument that the author does not make. On the contrary, although she considers that this term is frequently «synonymous with "colonial frontier"» (6), she opens the metaphorical door to a much broader discussion of this concept by also stating that her characterization of this space of cultural interaction is «an attempt to invoke the spatial and temporal copresence of subjects previously separated by geographic and historical disjunctures, and whose trajectories now intersect» (7). In other words the breadth of the post-colonial experience is not necessarily granted any sense of exclusivity in her broad sweeping characterization of the locale of engagement between diverse subjects «whose trajectories [...] intersect» and is made manifest through travel writing (7). On the contrary Paris, London or Madrid are as likely to be «contact zones» as Dakar, Mumbai or Buenos Aires in Pratt's all-encompassing designation of the common nature of the diverse locales of intersecting subjectivities -man/woman, native/foreign, gay/straight, among a plethora of others- commonly found in travel writing.

This distinction is particularly important in the ongoing saga that is Latin American travel writing from Independence to the present where such contact has been noticeably more intense². Indisputably, as European travel writing has played a significant role in the cultural, social, political and economic envisioning of the Americas, the presence of Europe -the Metropolis, the Old World, the Madre Patria- and European «haute culture» also looms large in the Latin American imagination. Travel writing -from Europe and on Europe, but from a Latin American travel writer's point of view- has played an important and undeniable role in the intimate and ongoing cultural dialectic between the continents, especially since the mid-nineteenth century³. Thus it is not surprising that this particular form of cultural production not only finds a curious audience in Latin America but that it also radically informs Latin American perspectives on its own identities and relationships with European metropolitan culture. However it is no less surprising that travel writing sanctions Latin American writers to respond to the metropolitan center in a contestatory gesture that brings to mind the clever title of Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin's influential 1989 work, The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures, which suggests that the subordinate colonial or post-colonial «other» becomes empowered by the pen, initiating an often undesired and/or painful critical dialogue with the Metropolis. Indeed, as Argentine critic David Viñas implies in his Literatura argentina y realidad política: de Sarmiento a Cortázar, travel writing is a phenomenon that truly becomes a two-way street in the from the Independence period onward (149-190).

Due to easier travel conditions beginning during the early nineteenth century travel to Europe for Latin Americans was also a question of conquest -albeit, of counter-conquest- and travel literature a means of textually appropriating a distant yet tempting and desireable continent. As a result for Viñas, the travel writing experience is not just an opportunity for Europeans to represent and dominate new lands, and their terrains' inhabitants and customs, what has been called the «prehistory» of travel writing in Latin America populated by conquistadores and gentlemen-adventurers (Spicer-Escalante, «Güiraldes» 9-11). In a noteworthy role reversal he also points out that Latin Americans from the end of the colonial period on initiate their own textual subjugations of European soil, documenting them via the travelogue in a variety of types of European voyage (Viñas 149-190), thus leading to a surreptitious shifting of the «contact zone» from Latin American climes to European soil⁴. It can therefore be argued that nineteenth-century Latin American travel writings are much more than innocent travelogues of pilgrimages with clearly utilitarian objectives -the acquisition of educational, industrial or cultural knowledge, for example- as in the case of Sarmiento's education mission to Europe in the name of the Chilean government. Viñas's reflections also open the door to the potential of Latin Americans creating important contestatory social texts based on the travel experience, aimed at demystifying the prevailing hegemonic notion -both in Europe and in Latin America- of the superiority of metropolitan civilization vis-à- vis non-European cultural traditions.

This realization leads us to the work fin-de-siècle Argentine naturalist writer, Eugenio Cambaceres -«naturalist» like Darwin, but in the sense of the critical discourse of literary naturalism which is inspired by the pseudo-scientific premises of the reigning organizational philosophy of positivism- who negotiates the waters of the travel genre in his second novel, Música sentimental, written in 1884⁵. In this approach to this author's work and inspired by the intersection of ideology and spatial representation that Pratt has discussed, I shall demonstrate that Cambaceres demonstrates a critical naturalist discourse via the travel-writing genre in general and the novel's narrator in particular to discredit European cultural hegemony by using a contestatory narrative «non-imperial eye/I» to demystify European culture, thus further establishing the dialogic nature of the Latin American travel test⁶.

Although traditional criticism paid scant critical attention to Cambaceres' works in general contemporary critical thinking has begun to take a different look at his novels. A case in point are the highly lucid efforts of Gabriela Nouzeilles and Josefina Ludmer whose respective works -Ficciones somáticas: naturalismo, nacionalismo y políticas médicas del cuerpo (Argentina 1800-1910) and El cuerpo del delito: un manual- grant ample consideration to Argentine naturalism in general and Cambaceres' novels in particular. However, the analysis of Cambaceres' novelistic production is still overshadowed by his works -Sin rumbo (1885) and En la sangre (1887)- which undoubtedly brought him much more fame than his initial two novels⁷. This tendency is most likely due to the fact that literary naturalism -unfortunately sandwiched between romanticism and «modernismo», although the chronological spectrum is far from perfect given overlapping tendencies- is often ignored by many critics in spite of its noteworthy analysis of the modern Latin American nation-state and the moral consciousness of an emerging Latin American society during the period of national consolidation. This critical voice was all important in the fin-de-siècle period in Argentine history due to the fact that Argentine oligarchs and ideologues alike frequently rejected or displaced autochthonous manifestations of culture, while praising and readily importing European culture and epistemology. A case in point is the development of the city of Buenos Aires, after national consolidation in 1880, under the auspices of Mayor Marcelo T. de Alvear who tried earnestly to recreate Paris on Argentine soil⁸. The critical naturalist discourse of Cambaceres' novel, however, stands these beliefs on end, as seen through the tale of the young Argentine cultural «parvenu» Pablo Larmont's journey of acculturation to fin-de-siècle France. Narrated by a more mature and experienced Argentine travel companion named Lucas Gómez -the «non-imperial eye/I» who acts as an experienced cultural lazarillo guide of sorts to the work's young protagonist, Pablo Larmont- Larmont's trip slowly becomes a downwardly-spiraling bildungsroman where first the narrator, then the protagonist, expose the limitations of European society, customs, and moral virtues⁹.

The demystification begins in Música sentimental with the characterization of the diverse shipboard travelers who journey to Europe on the «Orénoque», a ship of French nationality from the «Messagerie Maritimes» line¹⁰. As the ship weighs anchor after its trans-Atlantic crossing at Pauillac, France, Gómez establishes his non-imperial identity with respect to his shipboard companions in an inverted form of what Gayatri Spivak has called «othering»¹¹. In an initial contextualization of his later perceptions the narrator typifies the ship's cargo as «mercaderías humanas procedentes del Río de la Plata y escalas del Brasil» (95). With a lexicon that recalls Sarmiento's famed «civilización y barbarie» dichotomy the narrator unequivocally defines the passengers by nationality with a dehumanizing terminology that speaks of both their quantification and their specific characteristics which are, for Gómez, related to their varied origins. The Basques, returning to Europe in first class cabins as petty capitalists after ten to fifteen years of «labor bestial» (95) in Argentina, are described as «lotes [...], hacienda cerril atracada por montones, en tropa [...] pero siempre tan groseros y bárbaros como Dios los echó al mundo» (95). Likewise the Portuguese and Brazilians on board are characterized -in a nationality continuum with no particular distinction- in a roughly quantifiable, but individually indistinguishable, sense. They are «Surtidos de portugueses y brasileños alzados en Río, Bahía y Pernambuco» (95). In qualitative terms they are perceived by Gómez as docile, weak-spirited, and sickly, not unlike the flaccid nature of their native tongue: «Gentes blandujas y fofas como la lengua que hablan [...] la casi totalidad enferma, es vulgar, dejada y sucia» (95)¹². Gómez's non-imperial gaze also falls upon the «Tenderos franceses y almaceneros españoles en busca de sus respectivas pacotillas» and the «media docena de arrastradas» who accompany them, characterized as «albañales de detritus humanos» (95). In a final summarizing «coup de grace», Gómez depicts the shipboard masses who are trying to go ashore as a pestilent, global amalgam: «Toda esta masa híbrida del gusano-rey se [...] agita, se codea, se empuja y se agolpa confundida por entre altos baúles y maletas, en una atmósfera de entrepuente amasada con peste de bodega, aceite rancio de máquina y agrio de sudor» (95). In a form of counterpoint vis-à-vis the other passengers Gómez fixes his sights on the protagonist of his story, Pablo Larmont. He is described as a wealthy young man who has inherited «veinte mil duros de renta y de la suerte, un alma adocenada y un físico atrayente» (95) and who is now off to discover Europe and European culture. In this sense, he seeks to know Europe and European culture via the «viaje consumidor» in Viñas' nomenclature (176)¹³.

Distinguishing both himself and the young Argentine from the fetid masses who surround them -«Entre los presentes estoy yo y está el héroe de mi cuento» (95)- Gómez characterizes both the young man's motives for going to Paris and the interrelated notions of his physical traits and genetic origins. Unlike most of the other passengers who are returning home to Europe, Larmont is heading to Paris to «liquidar sus capitales en ese mercado gigantesco de carne viva que se llama París» (95). In terms of the intersection between his physical characteristics and his genetic make-up Pablo is an exemplary cross between an Argentine mother and a French father, a mix of «criolla con sangre pura bretón [...] un ejemplar mestizo notable por la belleza robusta de las formas del norte bronceadas al fuego del mediodía» (95). That is, his vigorous European genetic stock has been slowly roasted -tempered- by the warm fires of the «Zona Tórrida», and he is now ready to take Paris by storm. Gómez foreshadows his experience, however, by stating that the protagonist is on the verge of submerging himself, head-first, in «los bajos fondos mundanos» (95), an allusion to what Emile Zola describes in his 1873 masterpiece, La ventre de Paris.

On their way to shore the previous references to the term «albañal» -a sort of channel- and the notion of Pablo's future -«zambullirse de cabeza» (95) into the human cloaca of Paris- become more semantically and lexically relevant, and explain Gómez' role as unofficial cultural lazarillo guide to the young Argentine. Pablo's excited ship-deck insistence upon seeing the sights of the newly-discovered land before his eyes provokes a response from Gómez who compares the river's shoreline to the Paraná river in Argentina: «es un pedazo del Paraná, angosto y con agua sucia. Se diría que necesitando tierra, aquí donde ya no caben, le hubieran revuelto el fondo al apretarlo» (96). Pablo comes to accept his interlocutor's vision of the poverty of the river and its surroundings as he contemplates the conditions of the aging boat in which they travel: «el vehículo este estaría bueno, cuando más, para las alturas de Goya o Asunción, pero que no se explica entre gente que tiene fama de entender la biblia» (96). The comparison between upstream river cities, not Buenos Aires, and the notion that Europeans are civilized -they are «cristianos», long held in Argentina as a term that reflects a degree of civilization- also serves as a foreshadowing of Pablo's experience in Europe. Gómez's response -«Precisamente porque éstos [...] entienden mejor que nadie y son muy prácticos [...] es que no nos tratan como a cristianos, sino que nos echan a tierra en cuenta de bestias, metidos en una especie de chiquero viejo» (96)- plays off Larmont's «cristiano» observation and reiterates the notion that Cambaceres puts forth in the work's introductory descriptions which focus on the inhumane conditions to which the travelers find themselves subjected, surrounded by what Gómez characterizes as in another Sarmiento-like moment, an «invasión de bárbaros» (96). Gómez's retort also allows for him to qualify himself as a cultural connoisseur, for he has 25 years of European travel experience under his belt which allow him to cast some light on the nature of European culture which he finds as highly utilitarian. Once again referring to the boat in which they travel to shore, an infectious cave for the narrator, Gómez points out the utilitarian mode of the European shipping company, declaring: «Ni una silla en que poder sentarse, ni una lona sobre cubierta, ni un palmo de aire potable en esta cueva infecta y sofocada. Pero ¿qué le importa a la empresa del pasajero con quien trafica [...]?» (96). His specific suggestion to Larmont points out the existence of the exploitative nature of European culture and warns the young man of what he should expect in his dealings in Europe where the environment is one of moral corruption:

In other words Gómez's view of modern European culture is one in which everything reduces to a common denominator: a corrupting, money-centered ethos that permeates modern, bourgeois European society¹⁴. He sums up his view of the continent by describing it as «la latitud del globo, donde más echada a perder está la vida» (96). Thus, Cambaceres' moralizing criticism of European culture -seen through his «non-imperial eye/I», the narrator Gómez- sets a tone for the work in general by broadly simultaneously characterizing Europe as a «contact zone», and foreshadowing the future experiences that the young protagonist will face while on extended holiday in Europe. For the author, Larmont has, in fact, entered into a corrupting maelstrom from which he will not escape alive.

Pablo's impressions on arrival in Paris confirm the narrator's previously stated critical stance. Finding himself out of place in tumultuous Paris the young ingenue seeks out his guide, Gómez, since he is consumed by «El ruido, la confusión, la gente, el tumultuoso vaivén» (96-97) of the «maremagnum» (97) that is the City of Light. Larmont thus characterizes his situation as a disoriented «recién llegado»: «No sé qué rumbo agarrar y tengo miedo de enderezar por donde no es comida. Estoy, en una palabra, hecho un bodoque arribeño que sueltan, como nuevo en Buenos Aires» (97)¹⁵. Finding himself in these challenging straits, he seeks out Gómez's advice as a sort of cultural guide to Paris, a city which he foreshadows as «infernal»: «En tan fieros aprietos vengo a pedir a usted, hombre práctico, que me tienda una mano protectora, que me haga el servicio de endilgarme en este infierno» (97). Gómez's suggestions -what he calls ciceronear (97)- endorse an appropriative stance vis-à-vis European social codes. In regards to proper dress, his current garb, European-made but purchased in Buenos Aires, is passé «Desde luego, mi buen señor, tiene usted una figura imposible; zapatería de Fabre, sastrería de Bazille, sombrería de Gire [...]. Muy correcto en Buenos Aires; pero aquí, donde uno es siempre lo que parece, no cuela, raya con eso» (97). His specific suggestions are:

Beyond his garb-related advice, Gómez also advises Larmont on means of transport and living quarters: «¡Ah! me olvidaba decirle que trate un coupé y alquile un appartement En el boulevard Haussman, a la altura de la Opera, los hay habitables por mil francos mensuales» (97)¹⁶. The results of his acquisition of new attire are, however, still lacking in Gómez's mind. Upon returning from his shopping spree, Gómez notes the lack of social legitimacy in his young charge. Speaking of Pablo, Gómez states: «Su individuo trasudaba [...] un quién sabe qué a flamante, un falso aire de tienda de tapicero o casa recién puesta. Dorados y barnices que están diciendo a gritos: aquí hay plata, pero falta el roce del uso que delustra, las arrugas de la costumbre que quitan el olor a parvenu» (97). In sum, Pablo's recognition of his lack of cultural and social expertise point to the true nature of the «Viaje consumidor»: to gain -acquire- an epistemological understanding of European high culture. Yet, Gómez' suggestions are necessary to remedy his social lacking -to provide the needed «roce del uso» (97)- by introducing him to Parisian cultural life, to delve into the depths of the «escuela mundana» (Viñas 176) that is Europe where knowledge and consumption coincide. Thus, Gómez's first act of epistemological gain is not a visit to the Louvre but to a théâtre which is nothing more than a veiled bawdy house.

The illusory sense of the theatre locale is seen in the way in which Gómez describes its disposition in all of its incongruous glory: «La vieja araña colgaba del cielorraso, con sus picos a media fuerza y sus facetas de vidrio pardo, lo bañaba en una semiluz polvorienta y avara que blasfemaba con el oro de un decorado de cargazón» (97). The true nature of theater -both literal and figurative- is made patent in the way Gómez's description prefigures a future word-play where farce will provide a noticeable double entendre. «El teatro empezaba a despertar de su sueño de veinte horas en un ambiente mohoso de encerrado, para presenciar por la centésima vez la representación de la misma farsa» (97)¹⁷. The notion of the farse that Gómez describes is exemplified by the fact that for the actresses -courtesans, in all reality- the milieu is hardly a center of «high art»: «Para esas señoras, el arte no es una carrera, sino un medio de hacer carrera; el teatro, una feria y el proscenio una barraca de saltimbanquis, un mostrador donde exhiben desnuda su mercancía que venden a la mejor postura y dinero de contado» (99)¹⁸. At this juncture, Cambaceres' moralizations -spoken through Gómez, his non-imperial prophet- turn rapidly towards the misogyny so common in his novels. The actresses «Rodeadas del prestigio de la escena [...] atmósfera de artificio donde el gas y la pintura tapan hasta los ojos de las viruelas», go to the theater in search of clients, not unlike Parisian streetwalkers: «las otras de la misma estofa, tan degradadas como ellas, pero más feas, más brutas, o más sin suerte» (98) who have their marketplace «en los veredones del boulevard o en los fondos de barro de los lupanares, donde bajan en procura de una pieza de cinco francos» (98). Overall, in Gómez's words, these women are only «[i]nstrumentos de placer, títeres de cuerda, muñecas vivas» (98) both created -and destroyed- by Paris: «París las hace, París las rompe» (99). Therefore, once again, the European milieu corrupts in Cambaceres' mindset. This corruption has dire consequences for Pablo, however, because it is in the theatre that he meets his lover, Loulou de Préville, a highly coveted Parisian actress/courtesan. The theatrical space -in essence, an allegorical representation of fin-de-siècle Europe- thus serves as the location of a culture whose corrupted -and corrupting- sexual mores presage what will lead to Pablo's eventual ruin.

In an outing arranged by Gómez with Loulou and another actress to the «Maison Dorée» that evening Gómez' gaze once again demystifies. The restaurant, whose name is in all reality an irony, is richly outfitted with fine carpets and furniture which are in an obvious state of decay:

The establishment's world-weary look does not, however, seem to immediately influence Larmont's fantasy. On the contrary, it appears to foment a desire for excess which does not impede him from feeling that he has been transported into a world composed of a sensual «cuento de hadas» (100) where his 20-year old mind is possessed by thoughts of mundane consumption, prefaced by the characters' actual ingestion of all sorts of epicurean and aphrodisiac delicacies: «ostras para empezar, otras verdes; luego un moc-tortue del verdadero, se entiende; unas écrevisses bordelaises, pollo trufado; camembert, frutas, y, como vino, Roederer desde el principio hasta el fin» (100). As Gómez astutely notes, Pablo's possession is motivated by lust. He is overcome by an insatiable fever «de vida, hambre de gozar, he ahí lo que se siente; mujeres que la aplaquen, he ahí lo que se busca; impúdicas que la harten, he ahí lo que se prefiere» (100). Justifying Larmont's libertine desire, Gómez adds that what attracts the young man most is «el brillo de la impura que se vende, su teatro, su alcoba, su orgía, pueden más en la cabeza de veinte años, que la posesión arrobadora, pero ignorada y oscura, de la virgen o de la matrona que se da toda entera en un abrazo, pero que se da sólo envuelta entre las sombras del silencio» (100). His characterization of Larmont's lust foretells Pablo's sexual infatuation with Loulou, a «hija del azar» (99) in the narrator's words¹⁹.

Cambaceres foreshadows Pablo's eventual realization of the limits of European culture via the medium that is his sexual -and later existential- satiation. Gómez reflects on how the «marasmo libidinoso del alma, esa bacanal de la carne» eventually translates, for any man, into an «inaguantable hastío de la existencia» (100). Yet the initial effect of Loulou on Pablo is profound. After one night with her his worldview is radically changed. He boldly states «¡[...] estoy loco de gusto! Esto es vivir, ¡qué noche la que he pasado, me parece un sueño, qué mujer, qué trato, qué cosa!» (108). At this stage of his experience Loulou acts as a sort of positive metaphorical representation of European culture. In Pablo's words she is «una mujer riquísima, llena de gracia y de encantos» (108) who placates his lust for cultural -and carnal- knowledge²⁰. This representation changes, however, quite quickly, as Gómez's insights have already foretold²¹.

Pablo's initial momentary fascination and physical desire for Loulou -just as in the case of Paris, whose fall slowly turn towards winter- quickly wanes²². Leaving the City of Light the initial «región del vicio [...] aquel hervidero de corrupción» -the «ogro enorme» that devours «vidas y haciendas» (111)- for warmer climes, Pablo ventures to Monte Carlo which doubles as a second site of vice. In Monaco the young Argentine's life begins a downward spiral: he gambles and disinterestedly loses heavily, and despite Loulou's constant manifestations of affection Pablo comes to see her as nothing more than an annoyance²³. Upon discussing his lot with Gómez the protagonist states what have become his true intentions for going to Europe, a sort of pleasure-driven rite of passage: «Yo no he venido aquí buscando amor sino placer, yo no quiero que me quieran, sino que me diviertan, que me engañen, que me exploten, que se rían de mí, pero que me hagan gozar, que me den pour mon argent» (118). Via the metaphor of the palate, a concept initially presented in the «Maison Dorée» in Paris, Larmont axiomatically juxtaposes Argentine and European cultures: «Mi cabeza soñaba con otros horizontes, mis pulmones necesitaban otro aire, mi paladar y mi estómago me pedían otros manjares que puchero y asado y dulce de leche. Se me hacía agua la boca al pensar en el bisque de Bignon; por eso vine» (118)²⁴. In other words, Pablo sought out something new that was much more exciting, exotic than common, plebeian Argentine cuisine (léase «culture»). In return for his money, however, he received Loulou, whom he sees as a nuisance to the fulfillment of his desires: «¡qué clavo, amigo, qué gancho! Usted me la pintó como una sanguijuela capaz de dejarme enjuto. Qué sanguijeula, ni qué nada. La mujer esta es algo peor, es un saguaipé que se ha prendido, no en el bolsillo, sino en el corazón y que me está chupando la paciencia» (117)²⁵. Pablo, thus, sees her as an «aguafiestas» and muses over how he will rid himself of her: «Desgraciadamente [...] la mujer esta con su amor de cuerno está embarullándome el juego [...]. En la primera ocasión que se presente la avento a los infiernos» (118). Larmont, however, does not live long enough to carry out his plan. Although he survives, victorious, an honor duel sparked by Loulou, the slow recovery from his wounds eventually reveals a case of fatal tertiary syphilis: in the words of Larmont's doctor to Gómez, «Lo que hay [...] es que [...] su amigo tiene la sangre envenenada, que corre por sus venas el virus ponzoñoso de la sífilis constitucional» (146)²⁶. Upon returning to Paris the disease eventually leads to the protagonist's rapid demise and the novel's denouement: «El veneno implacable acababa su tarea [...]. Postrado, inconsciente, inerte, sin saber, sin sentir, sin sufrir, como un montón de materia muerta ya, dejó de vivir al fin» (151). Although the exact agent of Pablo's contagion is unknown at the end of the novel, Loulou's past, her obsessive and idolatrous desire to care for his every death-bed whim to expurgate any potential sins -in spite of the repulsion of Pablo's fetid, rotting flesh- most definitely implicate her as the agent of his death. Beyond her annual visits to a graveyard to «desyuyar» (151) Pablo's tomb, her eventual return to the theater as a «horizontal de marca» (151) seems to imply -taking into consideration Cambaceres' ambivalent and misogynistic descriptions of her as a mixture of angel and whore- that her true profession is not that of a loving, care-giving nurse, but as a pseudo-actress/courtesan.

Thus ends Pablo's «aventura» in Europe, bringing into a whole new light the notion of travel as an epistemological experience. The cultural ingénue who arrives first at Pauillac in search of high culture eventually finds his own destruction, finally becoming a permanent expatriot in a Parisian cemetery. Nonetheless, as can be seen through Larmont's experience -and through the iconoclastic non-imperial eyes of Gómez that the author creates- Cambaceres uses the ever-popular travel genre in Música sentimental as more than just a warning against sexual antics abroad but also as a medium to demystify European society, customs, and moral virtues. Cambaceres' novel -through the roving non-imperial eye/I that is Gómez- discredits both Europe as an attractive and hegemonic «contact zone» and the concept of epistemological gain via the requisite expedition to the Old World due to his questioning of what he perceives as decadent European values that tempt the young protagonist and lead him on his road to perdition. Cambaceres appears to find that European culture -a product of a far different contact zone than much of Latin American travel writing- should not be deemed the panacea that it was by fin-de-siècle Argentines in search of a cultural awakening. In sum, he «others» Europe as European travel writers had «othered» Latin America for centuries, and lays bare Europe as a «contact zone».

Curiously enough, part of the process of «othering» in Música sentimental involves the dovetailing of the notions of culture and misogyny which forms an important component of the contestatory nature of this travel text. In this case, Pablo comes to see Loulou, symbolic of fin-de-siècle European culture in terms of her textual representation, as nothing more than an object to be used, a good to be purchased and, in the spirit of his «viaje consumidor», to be consumed in a ritualistic orgy and summarily discarded. Cambaceres's clearly misogynistic message is, thus, clear: dirty women, like decadent culture are dangerous -even deadly- and must be avoided. Thus, this text serves as a word of warning aimed squarely at bourgeois nineteenth-century Hispanic American readers and travelers consumed by the taste for all things «European»: not only is the quest for foreign cultural parameters potentially an exercise in futility, it is much more perilous than ever imagined.

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