A little while after arriving in the city, and after he had built up a better than average practice and had acquired the reputation of a serious, careful, painstaking and well-endowed doctor, a local journal published his first story, a story half-way between fantasy and humor, without descriptive writing and without a moral. Two days later I found him very upset; when I asked the reason, he burst forth: “Do you think I’m going to be able to resist the overwhelming pressure of the idiocy prevailing here? Tell me, do you think so? It’s the same thing all over again, exactly the same as in my town, the very same! And just as happened there, I’ll end by becoming known as a madman. I, who am a marvel of calm! And my patients will gradually drop away, and I’ll lose my practice. Then the dismal days will come again. days filled with despair, disgust, and bad temper, and 1 will have to leave here just as I had to leave my own town!”
“But what has happened?” I was finally able to ask.
“What has happened? Simply that five people have already approached me to ask what I meant by writing the piece of fiction I just published, what I intended to say, and what bearing did it have. Idiots, idiots, and thrice idiots! They’re worse than children who break dolls to find out what’s inside. This town has no hope of salvation, my friend; it’s simply condemned to seriousness and silliness, two blood sisters. People here have the souls of school teachers. They believe no one could write except to prove some-thing, or defend or attack some proposition, or from an ulterior motive. One of these blockheads asked me the meaning of my story and by way of reply I asked him: ‘Did it amuse you?’ And he answered: ‘As far as that goes, it certainly did; as a matter of fact, I found it quite amusing; but…’ I left the last word in his mouth, because as soon as he reached this point in the conversation, I turned my back on him and walked away. That a piece of writing is amusing wasn’t enough for this monster. They have the souls of school teachers, the souls of school teachers!”
“But, now…” I ventured to take up the argument.
“Listen,” he interrupted, “don’t you come at me with any more ‘buts.’ Don’t bother. The infectious disease, the itch of our Spanish literature is the urge to preach. Everywhere a sermon, and a bad sermon at that. Every little Christ sets himself up to dispense advice, and does it with a poker-face. I remember picking up the Moral Epistle to Fabian and being unable to get beyond the first three verses; I simply couldn’t stomach it. This breed of men is totally devoid of imagination, and so all their madness is merely silly. An oyster-like breed—there’s no use of your denying it—; oysters, that’s what they are, nothing but oysters. Everything here savors of oyster beds, or ground-muck. I feel like I’m living among human tubers. And they don’t even break through the ground, or lift their heads up, like regular tubers.”
In any case, Dr. Montarco did not take heed, and he went and published another story, more satirical and fantastic than the first.
From “The Madness of Dr. Montarco” by Miguel de Unamuno; trans. by Anthony Kerrigan.
Biblioklept 