THE
CITY OF THE DISCREET

THE BORZOI
SPANISH TRANSLATIONS

ITHE CABIN (LA BARRACA)
By V. Blasco Ibáñez
IITHE CITY OF THE DISCREET
By Pío Baroja
IIIMARTIN RIVAS
By Alberto Blest-Gana
Other volumes in preparation

COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY
ALFRED A. KNOPF
Published October, 1917
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

INTRODUCTION

IN San Sebastián, a beautiful watering place on the northern coast of Guipúzcoa, Spain, Don Pío Baroja y Nessi was born on the 28th day of December, 1872. There, wandering among the foothills of the Pyrenees, listening to the talk of the hardy Basque peasants, playing on the beautiful crescent of the playa, sailing about the pretty land-locked harbour, he spent his childhood. In those early days he became thoroughly conversant with the Basque tongue—that mysterious and impossibly difficult language of whose true origin students are still in doubt.