Stabbings of 1908

I'm writing a book about Juli Vallmitjana, Isidre Nonell, and the Gypsies, and I spend a good part of my day in 1900. It's fascinating to delve into such a remote era, to begin to understand it, to decipher when something you read really happened or is a fabrication. I've been fortunate that a guy I'd never met—the jazz trumpeter Joan Mar Sauqué—is working on the same topic. We've established a competitive complicity that is a rarity in the world of philology, to the point that we're looking for a way to co-author the book. Most scholars withhold information. Over many years of research, I've come to the conclusion that talking about what you're working on facilitates new discoveries. I've never seen it so clearly as I do now. Joan Mar is a genius, he finds wonders, and I'm stretched like a champion. We had a hell of a time, it must be said.

On Wednesday, I arrived in Arbúcies around seven-thirty. I had some free time—a rare occurrence—and reread a few pages of Juli Vallmitjana's novel, Sota Montjuïc (1908). A man has been stabbed; four people take him to the clinic, where he dies. The following night, in a dormitory, a controversy erupts because a newspaper, which a beggar is laboriously reading, refers to the poor as "underworld people." Stop! Let's see if I can find the newspaper. On October 30, 1908, La Publicidad published a news item titled "Underworld Crimes," which describes a murder that closely resembles the Sota Montjuïc murder. At the Arc del Teatre, two thugs were leaving the La Bola de Oro recreational society . The recreational society was a brothel, of course. A fight broke out, and Juan Jiménez Nano stabbed another man three times, whose name was never revealed. "The victim staggered until he fell into a large pool of blood. He was then taken, bleeding to death, to the first aid center on Barbará Street with his attacker, where he died a few moments later, unable to speak."

'Recreational Society' The Golden Ball: the 'recreational society' was a brothel, of course

There are similarities and differences between Vallmitjana's description and the newspaper report: Vallmitjana speaks only of a knife wound and says the body was left in the middle of the street, bloodless. He also says the detainee wasn't the culprit and that the investigation lasted several days in the barracks surrounding the Creu Coberta. I've been looking at where the expression "people of the underworld" was most frequently published between 1905 and 1908, and this article from La Publicidad is the one that best fits the story. " Sota Montjuïc " was distributed in early 1909. The crime at the Arc del Teatre took place in October 1908. We have an interesting lead: Vallmitjana wrote rapidly, based on current events, which he recreated in his own way. Was he in Chinatown that night? Could any of his acquaintances have told him what happened? The more you find, the more there is to discover.