Many other vivid memories of Pamplona remain with me, never to be forgotten. I remember a lad of our own age who died, leaping from the wall, and then there were our adventures along the river.

Another terrible memory was associated with the cathedral. I had begun my first year of Latin, and was exactly nine at the time.

We had come out of the Institute, and were watching a funeral.
Afterwards, three or four of the boys, among whom were my brother
Ricardo and myself, entered the cathedral. The echo of the responses was
ringing in my ears and I hummed them, as I wandered about the aisles.

Suddenly, a black shadow shot from behind one of the confessionals, pounced upon me and seized me around the neck with both hands, almost choking me. 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 GarcÍa," 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!"