Chapter IX: Epilogue

When I sat down to begin these pages, somewhat at random, my intention was to write an autobiography, accompanying it with such comments as might suggest themselves. Looking continually to the right and to the left, I have lost my way, and this book is the result.

I have not attempted to correct or embellish it. So many books, trimmed up nicely and well-padded, go to their graves every year to be forgotten forever, that it has hardly seemed worth while to bedeck this one. I am not a believer in _maquillage_ for the dead.

Now one word more as to the subject of the book, which is I.

If I were to live two hundred years at the very least, I might be able to realize, by degrees, the maximum programme which I have laid down for my life. As it scarcely seems possible that a man could live to such an age, which is attained only by parrots, I find myself with no alternative but to limit myself to a small portion of the introductory section of my minimum programme, and this, as a matter of fact, I am content to do.

With hardship and effort, and the scanty means at my command, I have succeeded in acquiring a house and garden in my own country, a comfortable retreat which is sufficient for my needs. I have gathered a small library in the house, which I hope will grow with time, besides a few manuscripts and some curious prints. I do not believe that I have ever harmed any man deliberately, so my conscience does not trouble me. If my ideas are fragmentary and ill-considered, I have done my best to make them sound, clear, and complete, so that it is not my fault if they are not so.

I have become independent financially. I not only support myself, but I am able to travel occasionally upon the proceeds of my pen.

A Russian publishing house, another in Germany, and another in the United States are bringing out my books, paying me, moreover, for the right of translation; and I am satisfied. I have friends of both sexes in Madrid and in the Basque provinces, who seem already like old friends, because I have grown fond of them. As I face old age, I feel that I am walking upon firmer ground than I did in my youth.

In a short time, what a few years ago the sociologists used to call involution--that is, a turning in--will begin to take place in my brain; the cranial sutures will become petrified, and an automatic limitation of the mental horizon will soon come.

I shall accept involution, petrification of the sutures and limitation with good grace. I have never rebelled against logic, nor against nature, against the lightning or the thunder storm. No sooner does one gain the crest of the hill of life than at once he begins to descend rapidly. We know a great deal the moment that we realize that nobody knows anything. I am a little melancholy now and a little rheumatic; it is time to take salicylates and to go out and work in the garden--a time for meditation and for long stories, for watching the flames as they flare upward under the chimney piece upon the hearth.

I commend myself to the event. It is dark outside, but the door of my house stands open. Whoever will, be he life or be he death, let him come in.

PALINODE AND FRESH OUTBURST OF IRE

A few days ago I left the house with the manuscript of this book, to which I have given the name of _Youth and Egolatry_, on my way to the post office.

It was a romantic September morning, swathed in thick, white mist. A blue haze of thin smoke rose upward from the shadowy houses of the neighbouring settlement, vanishing in the mist. Meanwhile, the birds were singing, and a rivulet close by murmured in the stillness.

Under the influence of the homely, placid country air, I felt my spirit soften and grow more humble, and I began to think that the manuscript which I carried in my hand was nothing more than a farrago of foolishness and vulgarity.

The voice of prudence, which was also that of cowardice, cautioned me:

"What is the good of publishing this? Will it bring you reputation?"

"Certainly not."

"Have you anything to gain by it?"

"Probably not either."

"Then, why irritate and offend this one and that by saying things which, after all, are nobody's business?"

To the voice of prudence, however, my habitual self replied:

"But what you have written is sincere, is it not? What do you care, then, what they think about it?"

But the voice of prudence continued:

"How quiet everything is about you, how peaceful! This is life, after all, and the rest is madness, vanity and vain endeavour."

There was a moment when I was upon the point of tossing my manuscript into the air, and I believe I should have done so, could I have been sure that it would have dematerialized itself immediately like smoke; or I would have thrown it into the river, if I had felt certain that the current would have swept it out to sea.

* * * * *

This afternoon I went to San Sebastian to buy paper and salicylate of soda, which is less agreeable.

A number of public guards were riding together in the car on the way over, along the frontier. They were discussing bull fighters, El Gallo and Belmonte, and also the disorders of the past few days.

"Too bad that Maura and La Cierva are not in power," said one of them, who was from Murcia, smiling and exhibiting his decayed teeth. "They would have made short work of this."

"They are in reserve for the finish," said another, with, the solemnity of a pious scamp.

Returning from San Sebastian, I happened on a family from Madrid in the same car. The father was weak, jaundiced and sour-visaged; the mother was a fat brunette, with black eyes, who was loaded down with jewels, while her face was made up until it was brilliant white, in colour like a stearin candle. A rather good looking daughter of between fifteen and twenty was escorted by a lieutenant who apparently was engaged to her. Finally, there was another girl, between twelve and fourteen, flaccid and lively as a still-life on a dinner table. Suddenly the father, who was reading a newspaper, exclaimed:

"Nothing is going to be done, I can see that; they are already applying to have the revolutionists pardoned. The Government will do nothing."

"I wish they would kill every one of them," broke in the girl who was engaged to the lieutenant. "Think of it! Firing on soldiers! They are bandits."

"Yes, and with such a king as we have!" exclaimed the fat lady, with the paraffine hue, in a mournful tone. "It has ruined our summer. I wish they would shoot every one of them."

"And they are not the only ones," interrupted the father. "The men who are behind them, the writers and leaders, hide themselves, and then they throw the first stones."

Upon entering the house, I found that the final proofs of my book had just arrived from the printer, and sat down to read them.

The words of that family from Madrid still rang in my ears: "I wish they would kill every one of them!"

However one may feel, I thought to myself, it is impossible not to hate such people. Such people are natural enemies. It is inevitable.

Now, reading over the proofs of my book, it seems to me that it is not strident enough. I could wish it were more violent, more anti-middle class.

I no longer hear the voice of prudence seducing me, as it did a few days since, to a palinode in complicity with a romantic morning of white mist.

The zest of combat, of adventure stirs in me again. The sheltered harbour seems a poor refuge in my eyes,--tranquillity and security appear contemptible.

"Here, boy, up, and throw out the sail! Run the red flag of revolution to the masthead of our frail craft, and forth to sea!"

Itzea, September, 1917.

APPENDICES

SPANISH POLITICIANS

ON BAROJA'S ANARCHISTS

NOTE

SPANISH POLITICIANS

The Spanish alternating party system has prevailed as a national institution since the restoration of the monarchy under Alfonso XII. Ostensibly it is based upon manhood suffrage, and in the cities this is the fact, but in the more remote districts the balloting plays but small part in the returns. Upon the dissolution of the Cortes and the resignation of a ministry, one of the two great parties--the liberal party and the conservative party--automatically retires from power, and the other succeeds it, always carrying the ensuing elections by convenient working majorities.

Spain is a poor country. During the half century previous to the restoration of the Bourbons, she was a victim of internecine strife and factional warfare. She is not poor naturally, but her energy has been drawn off; she has been bled white, and needs time to recuperate. The Spaniards are a practical people. They realize this condition. Even the lower classes are tired of fine talking. No people have heard more, and none have profited less by it. The country is not like Russia, a fertile field for the agitator; it looks coldly upon reform. Such response as has been obtained by the radical has come from the labour centres under the stimulus of foreign influences, and more particularly from Barcelona, where the problem is political even before it is an individual one.

For this reason the Spanish Republicans are in large part theorists. The land has been disturbed sufficiently. They would hesitate to inaugurate radical reforms, if power were to be placed in their hands, while the possession of power itself might prove not a little embarrassing. Behind the monarchy lies the republic of 1873, behind Cánovas and Castelar, Pí y Margall; the republic has merged into and was, in a sense, the foundation of the constitutional system of today. Even popular leaders such as Lerroux are quick to recognize this fact, and govern themselves accordingly. The lack of general education today, would render any attempt at the establishment of a thorough-going democracy insecure.

Francisco Ferrer, although idealized abroad, has been no more than a symptom in Spain. Such men even as Angel Guimerá, the dramatist, a Catalan separatist who has been under surveillance for years, or Pere Aldavert, who has suffered imprisonment in Barcelona because of his opinions, while they speak for the proletariat, nevertheless have had scant sympathy for Ferrer's ideas. It would be interesting to know just to what extent these commend themselves to Pablo and Emiliano Iglesias and the professed political Socialists.

Of the existing parties, the Liberal, being more or less an association of groups tending to the left, is the least homogeneous. Its most prominent leader of late years has been the Conde de Romanones, who may scarcely be said to represent a new era. He has shared responsibility with Eduardo Dato.

Among Conservatives, the chief figure has long been Antonio Maura. He is not a young man. Politically, he represents very much what the cordially detested Weyler did in the military sphere. But Maurism today is a very different thing from the Maurism of fifteen years ago, or of the moat of Montjuich. The name of Maura casts a spell over the Conservative imagination. It is the rallying point of innumerable associations of young men of reactionary, aristocratic and clerical tendencies throughout the country, while to progressives it symbolizes the oppressiveness of the old régime.

ON BAROJA'S ANARCHISTS

Baroja's memoirs afford convincing proof of his contact with radicals of all sorts and classes, from stereotyped republicans such as Barriovero, or the Argentine Francisco Grandmontagne, correspondent of _La Prensa_ of Buenos Aires, to active anarchists of the type of Mateo Morral.

Morral was an habitué of a cafe in the Calle de Alcalá at Madrid, where Baroja was accustomed to go with his friends to take coffee, and, in the Spanish phrase, to attend his _tertulia_. Morral would listen to these conversations. After his attempt to assassinate the King and Queen in the Calle Mayor on their return from the Royal wedding ceremony, Baroja went to view Morral's body, but was refused admittance. A drawing of Morral was made at the time, however, by Ricardo Baroja.

In this connection, José Nakens, to whom the author pays his compliments on an earlier page, was subjected to an unusual experience. Nakens, who was a sufficiently mild gentleman, had taken a needy radical into his house, and had given him shelter. This personage made a point of inveighing to Nakens continually against Cánovas del Castillo, proposing to make way with him. When the news of the assassination of Cánovas was cried through the city, Nakens knew for the first that his visitor had been in earnest. He was none other than the murderer Angiolillo.

This anecdote became current in Madrid. Years afterwards when the prime minister Canalejas was shot to death, the assassin recalled it to mind, and repaired to the house of Nakens, who saw in dismay for the second time his radical theories put to violent practical proof. The incident proved extremely embarrassing.

The crime of Morral forms the basis of Baroja's novel _La Dama Errante_. He has also dealt with anarchism in _Aurora Roja_ (Red Dawn).

The mutiny on the ship "Numancia," referred to in the text, was an incident of the same period of unrest, which was met with severe repressive measures.

NOTE

The Madrid Ateneo is a learned society maintaining a house on the Calle del Prado, in which is installed a private library of unusual excellence. It has been for many years the principal depository of modern books in Spain, and a favourite resort of scholars and research-workers of the capital.

THE WORKS OF PÍO BAROJA

Pío Baroja, recognized by the best critics as the foremost living Spanish novelist, is without doubt the chief exponent of that ferment of political and social thought in Spain which had its inception in the cataclysm of 1898, and which gave rise to the new movement in Spanish literature.

Of course this "modern movement" was not actually born in 1898. It dates back as far as Galdós, who is in spirit a modern. But it marked the turning point. Benavente the dramatist, Azorín the critic, Rubén Darío the poet, Pío Baroja the novelist, all date from this period, belonging to and of the new generation, and, together with the Valencian Blasco Ibáñez, form the A B C of modern Spanish culture.

"Baroja stands for the modern Spanish mind at its most enlightened," says H. L. Mencken. "He is the Spaniard of education and worldly wisdom, detached from the mediaeval imbecilities of the old regime and yet aloof from the worse follies of the demagogues who now rage in the country ... the Spaniard who, in the long run, must erect a new structure of society upon the half archaic and half Utopian chaos now reigning in the peninsular."

Pío Baroja was born in 1872 at San Sebastian, the most fashionable summer resort of Spain, the Spanish "Summer Capital." Baroja's father was a noted mining engineer, and while without reputation as a man of letters he was an occasional contributor to various periodicals and dailies. He had destined his son for the medical profession, and Pío studied at Valencia and Madrid, where he received his degree. He started practice in the small town of Cestona, the type of town which figures largely in his novels.

But the young doctor soon wearied of his profession, and laying aside his stethoscope forever, he returned to Madrid, where, in partnership with an older brother, he opened a bakery. However he was no more destined to be a cook than a doctor, so, encouraged by interested friends, he succeeded in getting a few articles and stories accepted by various Madrid papers. It was not long before he won distinction as a journalist, and he presently abandoned baking entirely, devoting all his energies to writing.

His first novel, _Camino de Perfección_, published in 1902, was received with but little enthusiasm. However he closely followed it with several others, and Spain soon realized that she had a new writer of unusual merit. Today he is pre-eminent among contemporary Spanish authors. His books have been translated into French, German, Italian and English.

Alfred A. Knopf, Señor Baroja's authorized publisher in the English-speaking countries, has published to date two of the novels:

THE CITY OF THE DISCREET. Translated by Jacob S. Fassett, Jr. $2.00 net. Around Cordova, the fascinating and romantic "city of the discreet," Baroja has spun an adventurous tale. He gives you a vivid picture of the city with her tortuous streets, ancient houses with their patios and tiled roofs and of her "discreet" inhabitants. In a style that is polished where Ibáñez' is crudely vigorous, and with sympathy and understanding, he portrays Quentin, the natural son of a Marquis and a woman of humble birth; Pacheco, the ambitious bandit chief; Don Gil Sabadia, the garrulous and convivial antiquarian, and a host of other characters.

"Unforgettable pictures are spread in a rich background for the action--Cordova at twilight, with its spires showing against the violet sky, the narrow streets with white houses leaning toward each other, its squares with sturdy beggars squatting around and its gardens heavy with the scent of orange blossoms, where old fountains quietly drip."-- _Indianapolis News_.

"This fine novel ... shows us the best features of the modern Spanish realistic school."--_The Bookman_.

CAESAR OR NOTHING. Translated by Louis How. $2.00 net.

This is the story of Caesar Moncada, a brilliantly clever young Spaniard, who sets out to reform his country, to modernize it and its government. In depicting Caesar's preparation in Rome, where his uncle is a Cardinal, for the career he has planned for himself, Señor Baroja etches vividly and entertainingly a typical cosmopolitan society--witty, worldly, prosperous and cynical. The second part of the book describes Caesar's political fight in Castro Duro.

"Not only Spain's greatest novelist, but his greatest book. It is the most important translation that has come out of Spain in our time in the field of fiction and it will be remembered as epochal."--JOHN GARRETT UNDERHILL, Representative in America of the Society of Spanish Authors of Madrid.

"Ranks Baroja as a master of fiction, with a keen sense of character, constructive power and an active, dynamic style."--_Philadelphia Ledger_.

"I read _Caesar or Nothing_ with a profound admiration for its power and skill. It is a great novel, which you deserve our thanks for publishing."--HAROLD J. LASKI, of Harvard University.

"A brilliant book--amazingly clever and humorous in its earlier chapters, gradually accumulating depth as it moves along until it becomes the stuff of tragedy at the close. The character he has created in Caesar Moncada is one of the few really notable portrayals in recent fiction."--_Chicago Post_.

Translations of three other novels by Baroja are in preparation in the competent hands of Dr. Isaac Goldberg. The first, _LA DAMA ERRANTE_, will be ready in the Fall of 1920. Probable price, $2.00.