Don Matias was convinced, and he bought an old house near the Church of
the Descalzas upon Marti's advice. It stood in a street which boasted
only one number--the number 2. I believe the street was, and still is,
called the Calle de la Misericordia.
Marti set up ovens in the old building by the Church of the Descalzas,
and the business began to yield fabulous profits. Being a devotee of the
life of pleasure, Marti died three or four years after the business had
been established, and Don Matias continued his gallinaceous evolutions
until he was utterly ruined, and had pawned everything he possessed,
remaining at last with the bakery as his only means of support.
He succeeded in entangling and ruining that, too, before he died. My
aunt then wrote my mother requesting that my brother Ricardo come up to
Madrid.
My brother remained in Madrid for some time, when he grew tired and
left; then I went, and later we were both there together, making an
effort to improve the business and to push it ahead. Times were bad:
there was no way of pushing ahead. Surely the proverb "Where flour is
lacking, everything goes packing," could never have been applied with
more truth. And we could get no flour.
When the bakery was just about to do better, the Conde de Romanones, who
was our landlord in those days, notified us that the building was to be
torn down.
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