Explore "Youth and Egolatry" by Pio Baroja on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I was something of a rowdy as a boy and rather quarrelsome. The first day I went to school in Pamplona, I came out disputing with another boy of my own age, and we fought in the street until we were separated by a cobbler and the blows of a leather strap, to which he added kicks. Later, I foolishly quarrelled and fought whenever the other boys set me on. In our stone-throwing escapades on the outskirts of the town, I was always the aggressor, and quite indefatigable.
When I began to study medicine, I found that my aggressiveness had departed completely. One day after quarrelling with another student in the cloisters of San Carlos, I challenged him to fight. When we got out on the street, it struck me as foolish to goad him to hit me in the eye or else to land on my nose with his fist, and I slipped off and went home. I lost my morale as a bully then and there. Although I was a fighter from infancy, I was also something of a dreamer, and the two strains scarcely make a harmonious blend.