Youth and Egolatry Part 18

X

AS A VILLAGE DOCTOR

I returned to Burjasot, a small town near Valencia, where my family lived at the time, a full-fledged doctor. We had a tiny house, besides a garden containing pear, peach and pomegranate trees.

I pa.s.sed some time there very pleasantly.

My father was a contributor to the _Voz de Guipuzcoa_ of San Sebastian, so he always received the paper. One day I read--or it may have been one of the family--that the post of official physician was vacant in the town of Cestona.

I decided to apply for the place, and dispatched a letter accompanied by a copy of my diploma. It turned out that I was the only applicant, and so the post was awarded to me.

I set out for Madrid, where I pa.s.sed the night, and then proceeded to San Sebastian, receiving a letter from my father upon my arrival, informing me that there was another physician at Cestona who was receiving a larger salary than that which had been offered to me, and recommending that perhaps it would be better not to put in appearance too soon, until I was better advised as to the prospects.

I hesitated.

"In any event," I thought, "I shall learn what the town is like. If I like it, I shall stay; if not, I shall return to Burjasot."

I took the diligence, which goes by the name of "La Vascongada," and made the trip from San Sebastian to Cestona, which proved to be long enough in all conscience, as we were five or six hours late. I got off at a posada, or small inn, at Alcorta, to get something to eat. I dined sumptuously, drank bravely, and, encouraged by the good food, made up my mind to remain in the village. I talked with the other doctor and with the alcalde, and soon everything was arranged that had to be arranged.

As night was coming on, the priest and the doctor recommended that I go to board at the house of the Sacristana, as she had a room vacant, which had formerly been occupied by a notary.

DOLORES, LA SACRISTANA

Dolores, my landlady and mistress of the Sacristy, was an agreeable, exceedingly energetic, exceedingly hard-working woman, who was a p.r.o.nounced conservative.

I have met few women as good as she. In spite of the fact that she soon discovered that I was not at all religious, she did not hold it against me, nor did I harbour any resentment against her.

I often read her the _a.n.a.lejo_, or church calendar, which is known as the _Gallofa_, or beggars' mite, in the northern provinces, in allusion to the ancient custom of making pilgrimages to Santiago, and I cooked sugar wafers over the fire with her on the eve of feast days, at which times her work was especially severe.

I realized in Cestona my childish ambitions of having a house of my own, and a dog, which had lain in my mind ever since reading _Robinson Crusoe_ and _The Mysterious Island_.

I also had an old horse named Juanillo, which I borrowed from a coachman in San Sebastian, but I never liked horses.

The horse seems to me to be a militaristic, antipathetic animal. Neither Robinson Crusoe nor Cyrus Harding rode horse-back.

I committed no blunders while I was a village doctor. I had already grown prudent, and my sceptical temperament was a bar to any great mistakes.

I first began to realize that I was a Basque in Cestona, and I recovered my pride of race there, which I had lost.

XI

AS A BAKER

I have been asked frequently: "How did you ever come to go into the baking business?" I shall now proceed to answer the question, although the story is a long one.

My mother had an aunt, Juana Nessi, who was a sister of her father's.

This lady was reasonably attractive when young, and married a rich gentleman just returned from America, whose name was Don Matias Lacasa.

Once settled in Madrid, Don Matias, who deemed himself an eagle, when, in reality, he was a common barnyard rooster, embarked upon a series of undertakings that failed with truly extraordinary unanimity. About 1870, a physician from Valencia by the name of Marti, who had visited Vienna, gave him an account of the bread they make there, and of the yeast they use to raise it, enlarging upon the profits which lay ready to hand in that line.

Don Matias was convinced, and he bought an old house near the Church of the Descalzas upon Marti's advice. It stood in a street which boasted only one number--the number 2. I believe the street was, and still is, called the Calle de la Misericordia.

Marti set up ovens in the old building by the Church of the Descalzas, and the business began to yield fabulous profits. Being a devotee of the life of pleasure, Marti died three or four years after the business had been established, and Don Matias continued his gallinaceous evolutions until he was utterly ruined, and had p.a.w.ned everything he possessed, remaining at last with the bakery as his only means of support.

He succeeded in entangling and ruining that, too, before he died. My aunt then wrote my mother requesting that my brother Ricardo come up to Madrid.

My brother remained in Madrid for some time, when he grew tired and left; then I went, and later we were both there together, making an effort to improve the business and to push it ahead. Times were bad: there was no way of pus.h.i.+ng ahead. Surely the proverb "Where flour is lacking, everything goes packing," could never have been applied with more truth. And we could get no flour.

When the bakery was just about to do better, the Conde de Romanones, who was our landlord in those days, notified us that the building was to be torn down.

Then our troubles began. We were obliged to move elsewhere, and to undertake alterations, for which money was indispensable, but we had no money. In that predicament, we began to speculate upon the Exchange, and the Exchange proved a kind mother to us; it sustained us until we were on our feet again. As soon as we had established ourselves upon another site, we proceeded to lose money, so we withdrew.

It is not surprising, therefore, that I have always regarded the Stock Exchange as a philanthropic inst.i.tution, or that, on the other hand, a church has always seemed a sombre place in which a black priest leaps forth from behind a confessional to seize one by the throat in the dark, and to throttle him.

MY FATHER'S DISILLUSIONMENT

My father was endowed with a due share of the romantic fervour which distinguished men of his epoch, and set great store by friends.h.i.+p. More particularly, he was wrapped up in his friends in San Sebastian.

When we discovered that we were in trouble, before throwing ourselves into the loving arms of the Bourse, my father spoke to two intimate friends of his who were from San Sebastian. They made an appointment to meet me in the Cafe Suizo. I explained the situation to them, after which they made me certain propositions, which were so usurious, so outrageously extortionate, that they took my breath away. They offered to advance us the money we needed for fifty per cent of the gross receipts, while we were to meet the running expenses out of our fifty per cent, receiving no compensation whatever for our services in taking care of the business.

I was astonished, and naturally did not accept. The episode was a great blow to my father. I frequently came face to face with one of our friends at a later date, but I never bowed to him. He was offended. I was tempted to approach him and say: "The reason that I do not bow to you is because I know you are a rascal."

If either of these friends of ours were alive, I should proceed to mention their names, but, as they are dead, it will serve no useful purpose.

INDUSTRY AND DEMOCRACY

The bakery has been brandished against me in literature.