Mariano José de Larra

Vuelva Usted manana Come Back Tomorrow

The first man who called laziness a mortal sin

must have been a great person. We, who were
more serious in one of our preceding articles
than we ever intended to be, will not enter now
upon a long and profound discussion of the
history of this sin, however much we may realize
that there are sins that border on the historical
and that the history of sin would be rather
intriguing. Let us agree to say only that laziness
has closed - and will continue to close - the
gates of Heaven to more than one Christian.

I happened to be thinking along these lines a few

days ago, when there appeared at my house one
of those foreigners who, for good or ill, must
always have exaggerated ideas about our
country one of those who believe either that men
here are still the splendid, generous, frank and
chivalrous caballeros they were in the
seventeenth century, or else that they are still
nomadic tribesmen from beyond the Atlas
Mountains in North Africa. In the first case, they
keep imagining that our national character has
been conserved intact, like our ruins; in the
second, they go trembling along the roads and
asking whether the members of some military
unit established specifically to protect them from
the hazards of the highway - common to all
countries are brigands out to despoil them.

The truth is that our country is not one of those

that you can get to know at first - or even at
second - sight. And if we were not afraid of being
called bold we might easily compare it to one of
those feats of legerdemain which are surprising
and unfathomable to one who does not know the
trick (usually based upon the merest trifle) and
which, after it is known, leaves the very one who
was racking his brains looking for weird
explanations astonished at his lack of
observation. Many times the lack of an obvious
cause of things makes us believe that it must be
deep to be hidden from our penetrating mind.
Such is the pride of man, who would rather
declare in a loud voice that something is
incomprehensible if he cannot understand it,
than to confess that his ignorance of it may be
the result of his own mental sluggishness.

Despite this, and because there are many of us

Spaniards who are really ignorant of our basic
characteristics, we have no right to think it
strange that foreigners cannot understand us
easily.

It was one of these foreigners who came to my

house bearing proper letters of recommendation
addressed to me. Complicated family matters,
legal claims to be made, and even vast plans
thought up in Paris about investing his abundant
capital here in some industrial or business
venture, were the motives that brought him to
our country.

Accustomed to the active pace of our northern

neighbors, he assured me seriously that he
intended to remain here a very short time,
especially if he did not soon find something safe
in which to invest his money. It seemed to me
that this foreigner was worthy of consideration,
and I quickly made friends with him. Full of pity, I
tried to persuade him to go home right away if
the object of his visit was anything except a
vacation. He was astonished at my suggestion,
and I had to explain myself more clearly.

I said to him, "Look, Monsieur Sans-Delai," for

this was his name, "you have decided to spend
two weeks here to settle your affairs?"

"Certainly," he answered me. "Two weeks will be

more than enough. Tomorrow morning we look
up a genealogist to take care of my family affairs;
in the afternoon he searches through his books
for my ancestors, and by evening I find out who I
am. As for my claims of an inheritance, the day
after tomorrow I present them, based on the
genealogist's data, notarized in compliance with
the law; and as it will be a clear-cut case of
undeniable justice (since only thus will I assert
my rights), on the third day the matter is up for
judgment, and I have my property. As for the
business venture in which I intend to invest my
capital, on the fourth day I shall present my
proposals; these may be good or bad, and
accepted or rejected immediately, and that
makes five days. On the sixth, seventh and
eighth days I see the sights in Madrid. On the
ninth, I rest. On the tenth day, I take my seat on
the stage coach if I do not feel like spending
more time here, and I return to my home. I still
have five days left over.

When M. Sans-Delai reached this point, I tried to

repress a laugh that had been about to split my
sides for some timev lV1y upbringing succeeded
in stifling my untimely mirth, but it was unable to
prevent a slight smile of astonishment and pity
from springing to my lips, brought there against
my will by his efficient plans.

"Permit me, Monsieur Sans-Delai," I said to him

half in jest and half in earnest, "permit me to
invite you to dine with me on the day you have
spent fifteen months in Madrid."
"What do you mean?"
"You will still be here in Madrid fifteen months
from now."
"Are you joking?"
"Certainly not!"
"I shall not be able to leave here when I please?
The idea strikes me as very funny indeed!"
"You should realize that you are not in your
bustling, businesslike country."
"Ah, you Spaniards who have traveled abroad
have acquired the habit of speaking ill of your
country so that you can feel superior to your
compatriots."
"I assure you that during the two weeks you are
planning to devote to these matters, you will not
even be able to speak to a single one of the
people whose cooperation you need."
"What exaggeration! My energy will rub off on all
of them."
"Their inertia will rub off on you!"

I realized that M. Sans-Delai was in no mood to

be convinced except by experience, so I kept still
for the moment, quite sure that the facts would
soon bear me out.

Very early the next day we went out together to

look for a genealogist, which could be done only
by asking one friend or acquaintance after
another. Finally we found one, and the good
man, stunned by our haste, declared frankly that
he needed some time for this; we pressed him,
and he finally told us as a great favor that we
should come around in a few days. I smiled, and
we left. Three days passed, and we returned.

"Come back tomorrow," the maid told us. "The

master is not up yet."
"Come back tomorrow," she told us the next day.
"The master has just gone out."
"Come back tomorrow," she said on the following
day. "The master is taking his siesta.
"Come back tomorrow," she answered the next
Monday. "Today he has gone to the bullfight." At
what time can one see a Spaniard?
Finally we saw him.
"Come back tomorrow," he told us, "because I
have forgotten the document."
"Come back tomorrow, because the final copy
needs touching up."

At the end of two weeks it was ready. But M.

Sans-Delai had asked him for a report on the
name Diez, while he had understood my French
friend to say Diaz, and the information was of no
use. While waiting for new evidence I said
nothing to my friend, who was now in despair
about ever learning about his family tree.
Obviously, without this as a basis his legal claims
were groundless.

For the proposals he brought concerning several

very useful business enterprises that he intended
to establish, it was necessary to find a translator.
With the translator we had to go through the
same rigamarole as with the genealogist: what
with one "mañana" after another, it took us until
the end of the month. We discovered that the
translator was urgently in need of money, even
for his daily meals, but he never found that the
time was right for working. The office clerk was
the same about making copies of the translation,
for there just aren't any copyists in this country
who know how to write well.
And matters did not stop there. A tailor took
twenty days to make him a coat which he had
promised within twenty-four hours. The
bootmaker, with all his dallying, obliged my friend
to buy a ready-made pair. The laundress took
two weeks to wash and iron a dress shirt for him,
and the hatter, to whom he had sent his hat for a
slight adjustment of the brim, kept it for two days,
so he could not go out of the house - unless he
went bareheaded.
His friends and acquaintances did not show up
for a single appointment, failed to notify him
when they could not come, and did not reply to
his inquiries. What manners! What punctuality!
"What do you think of this country now, Monsieur
Sans-Delai?" I asked him when these proofs of
my opinion became evident.
"It seems to me that these men are rather
unusual. . . ."
"Well, that's the way they all are. They won't
even eat, so as to avoid having to raise the food
to their mouths."
In the course of time, however, he made a
proposal to install improvements in a certain
government department which I shall not name,
since it is highly regarded. In four days we
returned to learn whether our plan had been
approved.

"Come back tomorrow," the doorman said. "The

Chief Clerk did not come in today."
"Something very important must have detained
him," I said to myself.
We went out for a walk in Retiro Park, and we
met - what a coincidence! - the Chief Clerk, very
busy taking a stroll with his wife beneath the
bright sun of Madrid's clear winter skies.
The next day was Tuesday, and the doorman
said to us:

"Come back tomorrow, because the Honorable

Chief Clerk isn't seeing anyone today."
"Some very important business must have come
up," I said.

And since I'm an impish devil, I sought an

opportunity to look through the keyhole. His
Honor was tossing a cigar butt into the fire, and
had in his hand a puzzle from the Daily Mail
which he must have been having some difficulty
in solving.
"It is impossible to see him today," I said to my
companion. "His Honor is indeed very busy."

The following Wednesday he granted us an

interview, and - what a misfortune! - the
document had been referred, unfortunately, to
the only person opposed to the plan, because he
was the one who would come out the loser. The
document stayed under investigation for two
months, and came back as well investigated as
you might expect. The truth is that we had been
unable to obtain any influence with a certain
person who was very friendly with the
investigator. This person had very pretty eyes
which doubtless might have convinced him,
during his free time, about the justice of our
case.

When it came back from the investigation it

suddenly dawned on the blessed office that that
document did not belong in that department! This
slight error had to be rectified: it went to the
proper department, bureau and desk, and there
we were after three months, still chasing our
document around like a weasel chasing a rabbit,
without being able to get it out of the hole dead
or alive! It seems that at this point the document
left the original office and never reached the
other one.
In the first, they told us:

"It left here on such-and-such a date." And in the

other they said: "It never reached us here.
"I swear!" I said to M. Sans-Delai. "Do you know,
our document must be floating around in the air
like a lost soul, and must now be perched like a
pigeon on some roof in this busy town?"

We had to draw up another document. Back to

the petitioning and the hurrying around! What a
madhouse!

"It is absolutely necessary," said the official in a

pompous voice, "that these matters go through
regular channels."

That is to say, the requirement was - as in the

army - that our document should spend so many
years in the service. Finally, after almost six
months of going upstairs and downstairs, waiting
for signatures or for further investigation, or for
approval, or to this office or that desk and always
waiting for "mañana," it came back with a
notation in the margin which said: "Despite the
legality and usefulness of the proposal, petition
denied."

"Ah, Monsieur Sans-Delai," I exclaimed, laughing

loudly, "this is the way we handle things!"

But M. Sans-Delai, cursing all bureaucrats, flew

into a towering rage:

"For this I took such a long journey? After six

months, the only thing I have achieved is to have
everyone everywhere say every day, `Come
back tomorrow.' And when this blessed
`tomorrow' finally arrives, they turn us down with
a resounding negative! And I am here to invest
money with them? And I am here to do them a
favor? A very complex intrigue must be afoot to
hinder our plans.

"An intrigue, Monsieur Sans-Delai? No man here

is capable of staying with an intrigue for two
consecutive hours. The real `intrigue' is laziness.
I assure you there is no other; that is the great,
hidden motive: it is easier to deny something
than to become informed about it." At this point I
should not like to leave unmentioned some of the
reasons they gave me for the aforementioned
denial of the petition, even though I may be
digressing slightly:

"That man is going to bankrupt himself," a very

serious and patriotic person told me.
"That's not the reason," I replied. "If he bankrupts
himself, you will have lost nothing in granting him
what he requests: he will suffer the
consequences of his own recklessness or his
ignorance."
"How will he succeed in his plans?"
"And suppose he wants to throw away his
money and ruin himself? Can't a person even die
around here without a permit from the Chief
Clerk?"
"But he might harm those who have done in a
different way the very things the foreign
gentleman wants to do."
"Those who have done them differently? By that
you mean they have done them less efficiently?"
"Yes, but at least they got them done!"
"What a pity it would be if things stopped being
done badly! So then, because things have
always been done in the worst possible way,
must you be considerate of those who would
perpetuate these inefficient methods? You might
better consider whether old-fashioned people will
harm up-to-date ones!"
"That is the regulation, that is the way things
have been done until now, and that is the way
we shall keep on doing them."
"By that token, you should still be fed baby-food
as you were as an infant."
"After all, Señor Figaro, he is a foreigner."
"Then why not have native Spaniards put his
plan into operation r
"That's just the kind of trick they use to bleed us
of our money."
"My dear sir," I exclaimed, finally out of patience,
"you are making an error that is all too
widespread. You are like many others who have
a diabolical mania for placing obstacles in the
path of any good idea - and let someone just try
to surmount them! Here in Spain we are madly
proud of knowing nothing, of wanting to guess at
everything, and of refusing to learn from
masters. Nations without technical skill that have
had the desire to acquire it, have found no better
method than to turn to those who know more
about these things.

"A foreigner," I continued, "who goes to an

unfamiliar country to risk his capital there, puts
new money into circulation and aids a society to
which he is contributing his talent and his funds.
If he meets failure, it is an heroic one; if he
succeeds, it is quite proper that he should reap
the reward of his efforts, since he is bringing us
benefits we could not acquire by ourselves. A
foreigner who sets up an establishment in this
country is not coming to bleed us of our money,
as you suppose; he must settle down here, and
within a half-dozen years he is no longer a
foreigner by any means: his dearest interests
and his family bind him to his newly-adopted
country. He comes to love the land in which he
has made his fortune, and the people from whom
he has perhaps chosen a wife; his children are
Spanish, and his grandchildren will be Spaniards
also. Instead of taking money out, he came and
left capital that he brought with him, investing it
and putting it to work. And he has left another
kind of capital - talent, which is worth at least as
much as money. He has provided a living for the
native Spaniards he has had to employ, he has
made improvements, and has even contributed
toward an increase in the population with his
new family.

Convinced of these important truths, all wise and

prudent governments have welcomed foreigners.
France owes her high degree of prosperity to her
great hospitality; Russia owes to foreigners from
all the world the fact that she has become a
great power in much less time than it has taken
other nations to become so. The United States
owes to its foreign immigration . . . But I see by
your expression," I concluded, interrupting
myself at an appropriate moment, "that it is very
difficult to convince someone who has made up
his mind not to be convinced. If you were in
control of the government, we could certainly
look forward to great things from you!"
And having delivered myself of this philippic, I
went out to look for M. Sans-Delai.
"I am leaving, Señor Figaro," he told me.
"Nobody has any time in this country to attend to
anything. I shall limit myself to seeing the most
noteworthy things here in the capital." "Ah, my
friend," I said to him, "you had better leave in
peace if you don't want to lose what little
patience you still have left; the majority of our
national treasures cannot be seen." "Is that
possible?" "Aren't you ever going to believe me?
Remember what I said about those fifteen
days....”
An expression on the face of M. Sans-Delai
indicated that the recollection was an unpleasant
one.

"Come back tomorrow," they told us everywhere,

"because we hive no visiting hours today. Fill out
a slip so you can get special permission."
You should have seen my friend's face when he
heard this about permission slips! In his mind's
eye he was picturing the document, the petition,
the six months, and . . . He said only:

"I am a foreigner." A fine recommendation for my

kind compatriots to hear!

My friend became more and more bewildered,

and understood us less and less. We had to wait
days on end to see the few rare relics we have
preserved. Finally, after six long months (if there
can be one six-month period longer than
another) my protégé returned to his own country,
cursing Spain and agreeing that I was correct in
the first place. He took back with him excellent
impressions of our customs: he said especially
that all he had been able to do in six months was
always to "come back tomorrow," and that at the
end of all those "mañanas" that never came, the
best thing - or, rather, the only good thing - he
had been able to do was to leave the country.

Can he be right, leisurely reader (if you have

reached this point in what I am writing), can the
good M. Sans-Delai be right in speaking poorly
of us and our laziness? Is it likely that he will
return with pleasure the day after tomorrow to
visit our homeland?

Let us leave this question for tomorrow, because

you are probably tired of reading today; and if
tomorrow, or some other day, you are not too
lazy - as you usually are - to come back to the
bookshop, too lazy to take out your purse, and
too lazy to open your eyes to leaf through the
pages I still have for you to read, I shall tell you
how it happened (and I see and understand all
this, and leave a lot untold) that I have many
times, led by this same influence which is born of
the climate and many other factors, lost out in
more than one amorous adventure just because
I was lazy; how I gave up more than one project I
had begun, and the expectation of more than
one job that would have been perhaps
obtainable, if I had shown a little more activity; or
how, in short, I gave up - just because I was too
lazy to pay a call I owed or should have made -
social connections that might have helped me a
good deal during my life.

I shall confess to you that I do nothing today that

can be put off until tomorrow; I shall tell you that I
get up at eleven in the morning, and take a
siesta in the afternoon; and that I spend seven
and eight hours at a stretch loafing at a table in a
cafe, talking - or snoring - like a good Spaniard. I
shall add that when the cafe is closed I drag
myself slowly to my daily appointment (because
out of laziness I make only one), and that I can
be found glued to a chair smoking one cigarette
after another and yawning continually until
twelve or one o'clock in the morning; that many
evenings I do not dine because I am too lazy,
and that I am even too lazy to. go to bed! In
short, my dear reader, I shall state that despite
the many times I have been in despair during my
life, I have never hanged myself - and it was
always due to sheer laziness.

Let me conclude for today by confessing that for

more than three months I have had the title of
this feature story - "Come Back Tomorrow" - at
the head of a piece of notepaper, and that during
this time I have wanted to write something on it
every evening and many afternoons. But every
night I would put out my light, promising myself
with the most childish faith in my own willpower,
"Ah, well, I'll write it tomorrow!"
Thank Heaven this "mañana" finally came, and it
isn't too bad. But alas for that "mañana" that will
never come!