Youth and Egolatry by Pio Baroja
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Pio Baroja >> Youth and Egolatry
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And this took place in the heyday of Conservative power.
THE STERNNESS OF THE LAW
There are men who believe that the State, as at present constituted, is
the end and culmination of all human effort. According to this view, the
State is the best possible state, and its organization is considered so
perfect that its laws, discipline and formulae are held to be sacred and
immutable in men's eyes. Maura and all conservatives must be reckoned in
this group, and Lerroux too, appears to belong with them, as he holds
discipline in such exalted respect.
On the other hand, there are persons who believe that the entire legal
structure is only a temporary scaffolding, and that what is called
justice today may be thought savagery tomorrow, so that it is the part
of wisdom not to look so much to the rule of the present as to the
illumination of the future.
Since it is impossible to effect in practice automatic enforcement of
the law, especially in the sphere of political crimes, because of the
unlimited power of pardon vested in the hands of our public men, it
would seem judicious to err upon the side of mercy rather than upon that
of severity. Better fail the law and pardon a repulsive, bloody beast
such as Chato de Cuqueta, than shoot an addle-headed unfortunate such as
Clemente Garcia, or a dreamer like Sanchez Moya, whose hands were
innocent of blood.
It was pointed out a long time ago that laws are like cobwebs; they
catch the little flies, and let the big ones pass through.
How very severe, how very determined our politicians are with the little
flies, but how extremely affable they are with the big ones!
XVII
MILITARY GLORY
No, I have not made up my mind upon the issues of this war. If it were
possible to determine what is best for Europe, I should of course desire
it, but this I do not know, and so I am uncertain. I am preoccupied by
the consequences which may follow the war in Spain. Some believe that
there will be an increase of militarism, but I doubt it.
Many suppose that the crash of the present war will cause the prestige
of the soldier to mount upward like the spray, so that we shall have
nothing but uniforms and clanking of spurs throughout the world very
shortly, while the sole topics of conversation will be mortars,
batteries and guns.
In my judgment those who take this standpoint are mistaken. The present
conflict will not establish war in higher favour.
Perhaps its glories may not be diminished utterly. It may be that man
must of necessity kill, burn, and trample under foot, and that these
excesses of brutality are symptoms of collective health.
Even if this be so, we may be sure that military glory is upon the eve
of an eclipse.
Its decline began when the professional armies became nothing more than
armed militia, and from the moment that it became apparent that a
soldier might be improvised from a countryman with marvellous rapidity.
THE OLD-TIME SOLDIER
Formerly, a soldier was a man of daring and adventure, brave and
audacious, preferring an irregular life to the narrowing restraints of
civil existence.
The old time soldier trusted in his star without scruple and without
fear, and imagined that he could dominate fate as the gambler fancies
that he masters the laws of chance.
Valour, recklessness, together with a certain rough eloquence, a certain
itch to command, lay at the foundation of his life. His inducements were
pay, booty, showy uniforms and splendid horses. The soldier's life was
filled with adventure, he conquered wealth, he conquered women, and he
roamed through unknown lands.
Until a few years ago, the soldier might have been summed up in three
words: he was brave, ignorant and adventurous.
The warrior of this school passed out of Europe about the middle of the
19th Century. He became extinct in Spain at the conclusion of our Second
Civil War.
Since that day there has been a fundamental change in the life of the
soldier.
War has taken on greater magnitude, while the soldier has become more
refined, and it is not to be denied that both war and the fighting man
are losing their traditional prestige.
DOWN GOES PRESTIGE
The causes of this diminution of prestige are various. Some are moral,
such as the increased respect for human life, and the disfavour with
which the more aggressive, crueler qualities have come to be regarded.
Others, however, and perhaps these are of more importance, are purely
esthetic. Through a combination of circumstances, modern warfare,
although more tragic than was ancient warfare, and even more deadly,
nevertheless has been deprived of its spectacular features.
Capacity for esthetic appreciation has its limits. Nobody is able to
visualize a battle in which two million men are engaged; it can only be
imagined as a series of smaller battles. In one of these modern battles,
substantially all the traditional elements which we have come to
associate with war, have disappeared. The horse, which bulks so largely
in the picture of a battle as it presents itself to our minds, scarcely
retains any importance at all; for the most part, automobiles, bicycles
and motor cycles have taken its place. These contrivances may be useful,
but they do not make the same appeal to the popular imagination.
SCIENCE AND THE PICTURESQUE
Upon taking over warfare, science stripped it of its picturesqueness.
The commanding general no longer cavorts upon his charger, nor smiles as
the bullets whistle about him, while he stands surrounded by an
ornamental general staff, whose breasts are covered with ribbons and
medals representing every known variety of hardware, whether monarchical
or republican.
Today the general sits in a room, surrounded by telephones and telegraph
apparatus. If he smiles at all, it is only before the camera.
An officer scarcely ever uses a sword, nor does he strut about adorned
with all his crosses and medals, nor does he wear the resplendent
uniforms of other days. On the contrary, his uniform is ugly and dirt
coloured, and innocent of devices.
This officer is without initiative, he is subordinated to a fixed
general plan; surprises on either one side or the other, are almost out
of the question.
The plan of battle is rigid and detailed. It permits neither originality
nor display of individuality upon the part of the generals, the lesser
officers, or the private soldiers. The individual is swallowed up by the
collective force. Outstanding types do not occur; nobody develops the
marked personality of the generals of the old school.
Besides this, individual bravery, when not reinforced by other
qualities, is of less and less consequence. The bold, adventurous youth
who, years ago, would have been an embryo Murat, Messina, Espartero or
Prim, would be rejected today to make room for a mechanic who had the
skill to operate a machine, or for an aviator or an engineer who might
be capable of solving in a crisis a problem of pressing danger.
The prestige of the soldier, even upon the battle field, has fallen
today below that of the man of science.
WHAT WE NEED TODAY
There are still some persons of a romantic turn of mind who imagine that
none but the soldier who defends his native land, the priest who
appeases the divine wrath and at the same time inculcates the moral law,
and the poet who celebrates the glories of the community, are worthy to
be leaders of the people.
But the man of the present age does not desire any leaders.
He has found that when someone wears red trousers or a black cassock, or
is able to write shorter lines than himself, it is no indication that he
is any better, nor any braver, nor any more moral, nor capable of deeper
feeling than he.
The man of today will have no magicians, no high priests and no
mysteries. He is capable of being his own priest, his own soldier when
it is necessary, and of fighting for himself; he requires no specialists
in courage, in morals, nor in the realm of sentiment and feeling. What
we need today are good men and wise men.
OUR ARMIES
Prussian militarism has been explained upon the theory that it was a
development consequent upon a realization of the benefits which had
accrued to Prussia through war. As a matter of fact, however, it is not
possible to explain all militarism in this way. Certainly in Spain
neither wars nor the army have been of the slightest benefit to the
country.
If we consider the epoch which goes by the name of contemporary history,
that is to say from the French Revolution to the present time, we shall
perceive immediately that we have not been over fortunate.
The French Republic declared war upon us in 1793. A campaign of
astuteness, a tactical warfare was waged by us upon the frontiers, upon
occasion not without success, until finally the French army grew strong
enough to sweep us back, and to cross the Ebro.
We took part in the battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Spain presented a fine
appearance, she made a mighty gesture with her Gravinas, her Churrucas
and her Alavas, but the battle itself was a disaster.
In 1808 the War of Independence broke out, providing another splendid
exhibition of popular fervour. In this war, the regular Army was the
force which accomplished least. The war took its character from the
guerrillas, from the dwellers in the towns. The campaign was directed by
Englishmen. The Spanish army suffered more defeats than it won
victories, while its administrative and technical organization was
deplorable. The intervention of Angouleme followed in 1823. The Army was
composed of liberal officers, but it contained no troops, so that all
they ever did was to retire before the enemy, as he was more numerous
and more powerful.
The Spanish cause in America was hopeless before the fighting began. The
land was enormous, troops were few, and in large measure composed of
Indians. What the English were never able to do in the fulness of their
power, was not to be accomplished by Spaniards in their decadence. Our
First Civil War, which was fierce, terrible, and waged without quarter,
called into being a valorous liberal army, and soldiers sprang up of the
calibre of Espartero, Zurbano and Narvaez, but simultaneously a powerful
Carlist army was organized under leaders of military genius, such as
Zumalacarregui and Cabrera. Victory for either side was impossible, and
the war ended in compromise.
The Second Civil War also resulted in a system of pacts and compromises
far more secret than the Convention of Vergara. The Cuban war and the
war in the Philippines, as afterwards the war with the United States,
were calamitous, while the present campaign in Morocco has not one
redeeming feature.
From the War of the French Revolution to this very day, the African War
has been the only one in which our forces have met with the slightest
success.
Nevertheless, our soldiers aspire to a position of dominance in the
country equal to that attained by the French soldiers subsequent to
Jena, and by the Germans after Sedan.
A WORD FROM KUROKI, THE JAPANESE
"Gentlemen," said General Kuroki, speaking at a banquet tendered to him
in New York, "I cannot aspire to the applause of the world, because I
have created nothing, I have invented nothing. I am only a soldier."
If these are not his identical words, they convey the meaning of them.
This victorious, square-headed Mongolian had gotten into his head what
the dolichocephalic German blond, who, according to German
anthropologists is the highest product of Europe, and the brachycephalic
brunette of Gaul and the Latin and the Slav have never been able to
understand.
Will they ever be able to understand it? Perhaps they never will be
able.
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 Canovas and Castelar, Pi
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 Guimera, 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 regime.
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 habitue of a cafe in the Calle de Alcala 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, Jose 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 Canovas del Castillo, proposing
to make way with him. When the news of the assassination of Canovas 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.
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