Although a man may never have amounted to anything, and will probably
continue in much the same case, that is to say never amounting to
anything, yet there are persons who will take pride in having given him
his start in the world--in short, upon having made him known. Señor
Ruiz Contreras has set up some such absurd claim in regard to me.
According to Ruiz Contreras, he brought me into public notice through a
review which he published in 1899, under the title _Revista Nueva_.
Thus, according to Ruiz Contreras, I am known, and have been for
eighteen years! Although it may seem scarcely worth while to expose such
an obvious joke, I should like to clear up this question for the benefit
of any future biographers. Why should I not indulge the hope of having
them?
In 1899, Ruiz Contreras invited my co-operation in a weekly magazine, in
which I was to be both stockholder and editor. Those days already seem a
long way off. At first I refused, but he insisted; at length we agreed
that I should write for the magazine and share in meeting the expenses,
in company with Ruiz Contreras, Reparaz, Lassalle and the novelist
Matheu.
I made two or three payments, and moved down some of my pictures and
furniture to the office in consequence, until the time came when I began
to feel that it was humorous for me to be paying for publishing my
articles, when I was perfectly well able to dispose of them to any other
sheet. Upon my cutting off payments, Ruiz Contreras informed me that a
number of the stockholders, among whom was Icaza, who had replaced
Reparaz, took the position that if I did not pay, I should not be
permitted to write for the magazine.
"Very well, I shall not write." And I ceased to write.
Previous to my connection with the _Revista Nueva_, I had contributed
articles to _El Liberal_, _El Pais_, _El Globo_, _La Justicia_, and
_La Voz de Guipúzcoa_, as well as to other publications.
A year after my contributions to the _Revista Nueva_, I brought out
_Sombre Lives_, which scarcely sold one hundred copies, and, then,
a little later, _The House of Aizgorri_, the sale of which fell
short of fifty.
At this time, Martínez Ruiz published a comedy, _The Power of
Love_, for which I provided a prologue, and I went about with the
publisher, Rodríguez Serra, through the bookshops, peddling the book. In
a shop on the Plaza de Santa Ana, Rodríguez Serra asked the proprietor,
not altogether without a touch of malice:
"What do you think of this book?"
"It would be all right," answered the proprietor, who did not know me,
"if anybody knew who Martínez Ruiz was; and who is this Pío Baroja?"
Señor Ruiz Contreras says that he made me known, but the fact is that
nobody knew me in those days; Señor Ruiz Contreras flatters himself that
he did me a great favour by publishing my articles, at a cost to me, at
the very least, of two or three _duros_ apiece.
If this is to be a patron of letters, I should like to patronize half
the planet.
As for literary influence, Ruiz Contreras never had any upon me. He was
an admirer of Arsène Houssage, Paul Bourget, and other novelists with a
sophisticated air, who never meant anything to me. The theatre also
obsessed him, a malady which I have never suffered, and he was a devotee
of the poet, Zorrilla, in which respect I was unable to share his
enthusiasm, nor can I do so today. Finally, he was a political
reactionary, while I am a man of radical tendencies.