"M…." and walked out of the café.
Some time passed before Alejandro heard that I had put him into one of my novels and he conceived a certain dislike for me, in spite of which we saw each other now and then, always conversing affectionately.
One day he sent for me to come and see him. He was living in the Calle del Conde Duque. He was in bed, already blind. His spirit was as high as before, while his interest in literary matters remained the same. His brother, Miguel, who was present, happened to say during the conversation that the hat I wore, which I had purchased in Paris a few days previously, had a flatter brim than was usual. Alejandro asked to examine it, and busied himself feeling of the brim.
"This is a hat," he exclaimed enthusiastically, "that a man can wear with long hair." Some months subsequent to his death a book of his, Light Among the Shadows, was published, in which Alejandro spoke ill of me, although he had a good word for Sombre Lives.
He called me a country-man, said that my bones were misshapen, and then stated that glory does not go hand in hand with tuberculosis. Poor Alejandro! He was sound at heart, an eloquent child of the Mediterranean, born to orate in the lands of the sun, but he took it into his head that it was his duty to make himself over into the likeness of one of the putrid products of the North.
SEMI-HATRED ON THE PART OF SILVERIO LANZA
A mutual friend, Antonio Gil Campos, introduced me to Silverio Lanza.
Silverio Lanza was a man of great originality, endowed with an enormous fund of thwarted ambition and pride, which was only natural, as he was a notably fine writer who had not yet met with success, nor even with the recognition which other younger writers enjoyed.
The first time that I saw Lanza, I remember how his eyes sparkled when I told him that I liked his books. Nobody ever paid any attention to him in those days.
Silverio Lanza was a singular character. At times he seemed benevolent, and then again there were times when he would appear malignant in the extreme.