Making our entrance into the world of letters hurling contradictions right and left, the young men of our generation were received by the writers of established reputation with unfriendly demonstrations. As was natural, this was not only the attitude of the older writers, but it extended to our contemporaries in years as well, even to those who were most modern. THE ENMITY OF DICENTA Among those who cherished a deadly hatred of me was Dicenta. It was an antipathy which had its origin in the realm of ideas, and it was accentuated subsequently by an article which I contributed to _El Globo_ upon his drama _Aurora_, in which I maintained that Dicenta was not a man of new or broad ideas, but completely preoccupied with the ancient conceptions of honesty and honour. One night in the Café Fornos--I am able to vouch for the truth of this incident because, years afterwards, he told me the story himself--Dicenta accosted a young man who was sitting at an adjacent table taking supper, and attempted to draw him into discussion, under the impression that it was I. The young man was so frightened that he never dared to open his mouth. "Come," shouted Dicenta, "we shall settle this matter at once." "I have nothing to settle with you," replied the young man. "Yes, sir, you have; you have stated in an article that my ideas are not revolutionary." "I never stated anything of the kind." "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. "No, near by." "Very well then, you can go home and bring me the money." He issued this command with such an air of authority that I went home and brought him the money. He came to the door of the wine-shop, took it from me, and then said: "You may go now." This was the way in which insignificant bourgeois admirers were treated in the school of Baudelaire and Verlaine.