I was paralyzed with fear. It proved to be a fat, greasy
canon, by name Don Tirso Larequi.
"What is your name?" he shouted, shaking me vigorously.
I could not answer because of my fright.
"What is his name?" the priest demanded of the other boys.
"His name is Antonio Garcia," replied my brother Ricardo, coolly.
"Where does he live?"
"In the Calle de Curia, Number 14."
There was no such place, of course.
"I shall see your father at once," shouted the priest, and he rushed out
of the cathedral like a bull.
My brother and I then made our escape through the cloister.
This red-faced priest, fat and ferocious, rushing out of the dark to
choke a nine-year-old boy, has always been to me a symbol of the
Catholic religion.
This experience of my boyhood partly explains my anti-clericalism. I
recall Don Tirso with an undying hate, and were he still alive--I have
no idea whether he is or not--I should not hesitate to climb up to the
roof of his house some dark night, and shout down his chimney in a
cavernous voice: "Don Tirso! You are a damned villain!"
A VISIONARY ROWDY
I was something of a rowdy as a boy and rather quarrelsome. The first
day I went to school in Pamplona, I came out disputing with another boy
of my own age, and we fought in the street until we were separated by a
cobbler and the blows of a leather strap, to which he added kicks.
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