The above is the opening paragraph of Ink and Sulfur, a lighthearted piece bursting with irony, written by Víctor Mataix in 1933 and presumably inspired by the misfortunes of his friend and colleague David Martín.

Víctor Mataix, who was worth his salt and that of a few others, came across his own Mephistopheles one day in the autumn of 1937.

If living off literature had already been a tightrope act until then, the outbreak of the war swept away what was left of the precarious publishing business that had provided Mataix with his purpose and upkeep. People still wrote and published, but the genre that now prevailed was propaganda, pamphlets, and eulogies at the service of grandiose causes soaked in noise and blood. In a matter of months Mataix found himself, like so many others, with no other way of making a living but from other people’s charity and through chance, and the odds were usually short in those days.

His last publishers, to whom he had entrusted the series of novels called The Labyrinth of the Spirits, were two shrewd gentlemen named Revells and Badens. Badens, a noted gourmand and connoisseur of fine foods and products of the land, had retired temporarily to his farmhouse in the Ampurdán to grow tomatoes and study the secrets of truffles, while awaiting for the madness of the times to abate. He was a born optimist: squabbles made him sick, and he wanted to believe that the conflict would last no longer than two or three months, after which Spain would return to its natural state of chaos and absurdity, where there was always room for literature, good food, and business. Revells, a fine scholar of power games and political theater, had chosen to stay in Barcelona and keep his offices open, even if barely idling. The literature section had been relegated to an uncertain limbo, and the bulk of the business now concentrated on printing speeches, leaflets, and exemplary stories that exalted the heroes of the moment, who varied from week to week thanks to inside struggles and the intimations of a hidden civil war within the declared civil war that affected the Republican side. Less optimistic than his partner, who continued to send him crates of splendid tomatoes and garden vegetables, Revells suspected that the situation was going to drag on for some time yet and end worse than badly.

Revells and Badens, however, still paid Mataix a small salary out of their savings, as an advance on future works. Despite his reservations, Mataix accepted it reluctantly. Revells ignored his objections and insisted. When the discussion inevitably drifted into scruples, or what the publisher called “a load of bullshit from someone who hasn’t really gone hungry yet,” he smiled ironically. “Víctor,” he reassured him, “don’t weep on our account: you’ll make it up to us one day, I’ll make sure you do.”