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 Matías Lacasa.
Once settled in Madrid, Don Matías, 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 Martí, 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 Matías was convinced, and he bought an old house near the Church of
the Descalzas upon Martí'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.
Martí 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, Martí died three or four years after the business had
been established, and Don Matías continued his gallinaceous evolutions
until he was utterly ruined, and had pawned 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 pushing 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 institution, 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.