64 Modem Spanish Literature
came in bringing a beautifully chiseled sword, and withdrew,
locking the door after them. D’Annunzio took the sword
in his hand and fondled the blade, all the time gazing fixedly
at his guest. Then he said: “You know I have suddenly
conceived the idea of cutting your head off,” and then he
stopped and waited for the effect his words would have on
his guest, who drew back nervously saying to himself : “I
don’t know what may happen; with this mad poet anything
would be possible, and if he cuts my head off probably
Europe wouldn’t care,” and he drew back. After a few
minutes of silence D’Annunzio said: “I don’t know what’s
wrong with me tonight; I am not in form; I will put it off
until another day,” and the two footmen carried away the
sword. That story is a striking example of D’Annunzio’s
play-acting for the purpose of seeing the effect on his guest.
I think that is also characteristic of del Valle-Inclan—his
grotesque sense of humor and his play-acting. He compares
himself to Cervantes. He lost an arm, not at Lepanto but
in a duel which he fought with a critic in Madrid and as the
wound went septic his arm had to be removed. Del Valle-
Inclan has a very interesting personality. But what a con-
trast to Ibanez and Unamuno. You cannot include any of
them in a school, for they are too rebellious. In Spain there
is no such thing as a literary school. We find there the striv-
ing individual, but they are all solitary figures. Everything
in Spanish literature, even today, as in the days of old,
counts according to its individual worth. We do not think
of a political or literary movement, but we think of the
political or literary individual. Nothing is more typical of
Spain than the discussions or tertulias. The iertulias are
groups that meet in the cafés around Madrid, where a writer
draws around him his special friends and admirers to discuss
literature, politics, and more often his rivals and enemies.