The trials and tribulations of the literary life, its feuds and its
backbitings are a common topic of conversation. However, I have never
experienced anything of the kind in literature. The trouble with
literature is that there is very little money in it, which renders the
writer's existence both mean and precarious.
Nothing compares for vexation with the life of the petty tradesman,
especially when that tradesman is a baker. Upon occasion, I have
repeated to my friends the series of outrages to which we were obliged
to submit, in particular at the hands of the municipal authorities.
Sometimes it was through malice, but more often through sheer insentient
imbecility.
When my brother and I moved to the new site, we drew up a plan and
submitted it to the _Ayuntamiento_, or City Government. A clerk
discovered that no provision had been made for a stall for a mule to run
the kneading machine, and so rejected it. When we learned that our
application had not been granted, we inquired the reason and explained
to the clerk that no provision had been made for the mule because we had
no mule, as our kneading machine was operated by an electric motor.
"That makes no difference, no difference whatever," replied the clerk
with the importance and obtuseness of the bureaucrat. "The ordinance
requires that there be a stall for one."
Another of the thousand instances of official barbarity was perpetrated
at our expense while Sánchez de Toca was Alcalde. This gentleman is a
Siamese twin of Maura's when it comes to garrulousness and muddy
thinking, and he had resolved to do away with the distribution of bread
by public delivery, and to license only deliveries by private bakeries.
The order was arbitrary enough, but the manner in which it was put into
effect was a masterpiece. It was reported that plates bearing license
numbers would be given out at the _Ayuntamiento_ to the delivery
men from the bakeries. So we repaired to the _Ayuntamiento_ and
questioned a clerk:
"Where do they give out the numbers?
"There are no numbers."
"What will happen tomorrow then, when we make our deliveries?"
"How do I know?"
The next day when the delivery men began their rounds, a policeman
accosted them:
"Have you your numbers?"
"No, sir; they are not ready yet."
"Well, come with me then, to the police station."
And that was the last of our bread.
The Caid of Mechuar in Morocco favoured his subjects in some such
fashion several years since, but the Moors, being men of spirit, fell on
him one day, and left him at death's door on a dung heap. Meanwhile,
Sánchez de Toca continues to talk nonsense in these parts, and is
considered by some to be one of the bulwarks of the country.
I could spin many a tale of tyranny in high places, and almost as many,
no doubt, of the pettinesses of workingmen. But what is the good? Why
stir up my bile? In progressive incarnations, I have now passed through
those of baker and petty tradesman. I am no longer an employer who
exploits the workingman, nor can I see that I ever did so. If I have
exploited workers merely because I employed them, all that was some time
ago. I support myself by my writings now, although it is quite proper to
state that I live on very little.