“Well, you know how I write, constantly and often throughout the night. I try to squeeze out a few more hours at the fountain of creativity each day by wearing wet towels stuffed with ice from my ice box around my neck. But your sweets will be far more effective to keep the juices of the Muses flowing. You know, I am just a channel for the Muses, just their poor servant ever. The Muses are everything, I am nothing. I just write what the Muses tell me, I never edit, or review, or change, or tamper—it just comes out like a stream, a cascade, a torrent. Any change would be a sin, a cardinal sin, a mortal sin.”
Albert ignored her harping about the “Muses” with aplomb.
“So how is the book progressing?”
She placed a new cigarette in the long, curved, black cigarette holder,
“Well, I am making progress, but with all the events in Europe, it is a little distracting. But I am sure this trip to Spain will be worth the trouble. I have checked and re-checked my premises and found them all to be entirely and completely sound. I found it very interesting to observe Spain on the train from Portugal. Thank God the communists have been defeated, but I am afraid the Spanish have replaced one horror with another—Christianity is just the kindergarten of communism. And it seems the new leader is very communistic in his own way, regardless of how he professes to hate the Left—a central government council that stymies creativity and innovation by taxes and government thugs with guns, and this could go on for decades, long after he is dead. The Caudillo seems to be using the standard approach of all dictatorships of the Left and Right by telling the people they need to work together, ‘for the common good,’ that ‘we need protect the weak.’ What utter hogwash. He is bribing them. No, no, that is too vague. Actually, he is drugging them with a cascade of entitlements created solely by the transient power of his currency’s printing presses. He seems to be copying precisely what Roosevelt is doing, so lazy losers are elevated at the expense of producers. You know, I saw one poster at a train station that exhorted, ‘Prison To Those Elements Who Demean Spanish Sustenance Tickets.’ When I asked a fellow passenger, he explained Sustenance Tickets were food tickets given to people who did not work. I suppose there is no better way to generate unemployment than these Sustenance Tickets—why work when the government encourages you to take handouts from government moochers? And one pack of moochers encourages another. The American President certainly has a lot to answer for. Who with any honor would demean themselves by taking such dreck as these Sustenance Tickets? I mean, what noble and honorable producer would stoop so low? Only the moochers would do this, am I correct, dear Albert? With this collectivist nonsense sooner or later the producers will go on strike—why should they work when the fruits of their sweat and their efforts are stolen from them? And the gentleman on the train explained another weird, collectivist insanity. In 1938, the Caudillo required all Spanish government mortgage institutions to approve 30% of all mortgages from poor people who did not qualify, people who the banks would—quite intelligently and reasonably—not lend to because their credit was unacceptable; last year he raised it to 55%. The overt reason was to ‘help the poor;’ for the sake of Saint Peter, what a crock. The way to help the poor is to show them the way not to be poor through thrift and self-reliance, concepts gone from this planet now. The real effect of this government meddling, of course, was to create a bonanza for the looters, who did precisely what the government told them to do and fabricated millions of phony mortgage applications, which the mortgage institutions were delighted to approve—after all they were just doing what the government told them to do. According to my gentleman, the stock market is reaching new highs every day as these bogus loans are packaged into tranches and are happily sold to even happier banks throughout Iberia and South America. Now, the looters are valuing beach shacks in Spanish Morocco for 10 or 20 or 100 times their actual value. But—at least for the moment—everyone is happy to live in this Fool’s Paradise as the looters get to print free money (citizens of Spain are forbidden to hold gold); the government struts it success; the bankers, like all leeches worldwide, are happy to get their commissions selling the tranches; the investing banks get a glorious return; and God is in His heaven. Well, that is, until this house of cards collapses. Think Dutch tulips, but just no pretty flowers. I am surprised the Americans have not thought of this diddle, as they tend to be at the forefront of government thievery, as America now has the humorless fascist Roosevelt as emperor, albeit sans clothes—‘Washington’ should be probably be renamed ‘Moocherton.’
“For part of the same train journey, I shared a compartment with two men. And these two men could not be more different. One was tall and thin and a natural athlete; he told me that he favored the decathlon and the marathon; he spoke approvingly of the purity of athletic competition, of how athletes require discipline and self-denial. The other man was his opposite—short, very fat, and seeming to be jolly, as so many fat men seem, at least at first blush. But just beneath the surface of this superficial conviviality was a bitter man who loved power solely as a compensation for his fatness and laziness; instantly, I could sense he was a moocher, but I was willing to give the very fat man the benefit of doubt. But then they started speaking and all was suddenly clear. Both were of the Right, not that I think there is much of the Left in Iberia these day. But the handsome athlete was modest and disciplined and even-handed, while his companion just barely hid his vitriol, but after a few minutes the very fat man’s hatred became apparent. Whereas the athlete advocated self-discipline and had the gall to suggest that government was ‘thugs with guns’ (as you know one of my favorite phrases), the very fat man vehemently disagreed and was most earnest in his advocating of government and government surveillance as both good and necessary, that individual liberty was a sin and at the cost of the collective good. How could a man who professed to be of the Right even contemplate such a transgression—that government was more important than the individual? He went on to state—most emphatically—that every time there was a storm the government should compensate the victims who had so stupidly built their houses too close to the shore. Albert, is there any better way to encourage reckless and immoderate behavior—well, is there? The very fat man is a lawyer for the government while the thin man is a doctor, specializing in diseases of the eye. I smiled to myself at this natural contradiction between the moocher and the producer. The journey was a long one—the total time was 15 hours—so we three children of philosophy had bags of time to check and re-check our premises and to review the position of our opponent. But suddenly, just before ten that evening, the very fat man became extremely agitated and suddenly ejaculated that the dining car was about the close and that he must have his dinner. At this outburst, the thin athlete calmly asked if the ethereal mind was not more important than the baseness of the belly. The very fat man’s lawyerly coarseness emerged and he said it was unhealthy not to eat. The athlete asked the very fat man if the very fat man lacked the discipline to withstand a modicum of discomfort. The very fat man did not reply. At which the athlete asked the very fat man how many pushups the very fat man had done that morning. The very fat man looked startled and was about to speak, but the athlete beat him to the punch (the fat man sparring seemed then, as it does now, ridiculous). ‘I did my daily one hundred pushups, how many did you do?’ The very fat man’s mouth opened but no sound was emitted. ‘You see, all you fat people are lazy, and as lazy people you want to be given government pork and this so-called social contract makes you feel superior.’ The very fat man looked at this opponent with spitting hatred in his eyes. He stood up and finally exclaimed, ‘The government will find you and prosecute all the people like you, the people who are—ipso facto—anti-government. You know we will find you, all you people who promulgate these insane notions of personal freedom and liberty, these crazy and outmoded and insane ideas. Now, I will leave you two anti-government idiots and take my dinner; I do hope I am not too late.’ With that he stood and waddled out. In complete silence, I looked at the athlete and he looked at me. Then suddenly we both burst out laughing at the same time. Water was coming from my eyes I was laughing so hard. For a moment I feared I was going to destroy my ladylike composure. Fortunately, this embarrassing event was avoided. After we calmed down, the athlete said to me, ‘You know, my rule is that love of authority is directly proportional to weight—my slogan is ‘Thin People Love Freedom, Fat People Loathe Freedom.’ And as countries become fatter, so too will the moochers thrive.’ I looked at him and saw his premise was correct. And you know how intelligent men excite me so, and therefore we locked the door to prevent the return of the moocher pig and I had him take me and to take me roughly and without end and with no regard and with pain that slowly changed into pleasure and a pleasure that was sublime in its radiant purity.”