"What is that?"
"No, sir."
"But aren't you Pío Baroja?"
"I am not, sir."
Dicenta turned on his heel and marched back to his seat.
Sometime later, Dicenta and I became friends, although we were never very intimate, because he felt that I did not appreciate him at his full worth. And it was the truth.
THE POSTHUMOUS ENMITY OF SAWA
I met Alejandro Sawa one evening at the Café Fornos, where I had gone with a friend.
As a matter of fact, I had never read anything which he had written, but his appearance impressed me. Once I followed him in the street with the intention of speaking to him, but my courage failed at the last moment. A number of months later, I met him one summer afternoon on the Recoletos, when he was in the company of a Frenchman named Cornuty. Cornuty and Sawa were conversing and reciting verses; they took me to a wine-shop in the Plaza de Herradores, where they drank a number of glasses, which I paid for, whereupon Sawa asked me to lend him three pesetas. I did not have them, and told him so.
"Do you live far from here?" asked Alejandro, in his lofty style.