I am an anti-militarist by inheritance. The Basques have never been good
soldiers in the regular army. My great-grandfather Nessi probably fled
from Italy as a deserter. I have always loathed barracks, messes, and
officers profoundly.
One day, when I was studying therapeutics with Don Benito Hernando, my
brother opened the door of the class-room and motioned for me to come
out.
I did so, at the cost, by the way, of a furious scene with Don Benito,
who shattered several test tubes in his wrath.
The cause of my brother's appearance was to advise me that the Alcaldía
del Centro, or Town Council of the Central District, had given notice to
the effect that if I did not present myself for the draft, I was to be
declared in default. As I had already laid before the Board a copy of a
royal decree in which my name was set down as exempt from the draft
because my father had served as a Liberal Volunteer in the late war, and
because, in addition, I was born in the Basque provinces, I had supposed
that the matter had been disposed of. One of those ill-natured,
dictatorial officials who held sway in the offices of the Board, took it
upon himself to rule that the exemption held good only in the Basque
provinces, but not in Madrid, and so, in fact, for the time it proved to
be. In spite of my furious protests, I was compelled to report and
submit to have my measurements taken, and was well nigh upon the point
of being marched off to the barracks.
"I am no soldier," I thought to myself. "If they insist, I shall run
away."
I went at once from the Alcaldía to the Ministry and called upon a
Guipúzcoan politician, as my father had previously advised me to do; but
the man was a political mastodon, puffed up with huge pretensions, who,
perhaps, might have been a stevedore in any other country. So he did
nothing. Finally, it occurred to me to go and see the Conde de
Romanones, who had just been appointed Alcalde del Centro, having
jurisdiction over the district.
When I entered his office, Romanones appeared to be in a jovial frame of
mind. He wore a flower in his button-hole. Two persons were with him,
one of whom was no other than the Secretary of the Board, my enemy.
I related what had happened to Romanones with great force. The Secretary
then answered.
"The young man is right," said the Count. "Bring me the roll of the
draft."
The roll was brought. Romanones took his pen and crossed my name off
altogether. Then he turned to me with a smile:
"Don't you care to be a soldier?"
"No, sir."
"But what are you, a student?"
"Yes, sir."
"In which branch?"
"Medicine."
"Good! Very good. You may go now."
I would willingly have been anything to have escaped becoming a soldier,
and so be obliged to live in barracks, eat mess, and parade.