He looked fixedly at me, and answered coldly: “Large streets, fine shops, handsome palaces, fine offices—and all clean.”
With this he appeared to think that he had said all that could be said in our honor.
“Did you see nothing else that was handsome and good?” I asked.
He looked at me as if to inquire what I supposed he was likely to have found.
“Is it possible” (I insisted) “that a reasonable man like yourself, who has seen countries so wonderfully different and superior to his own, does not speak of them at least with astonishment, at least with the vivacity with which a boy from a duar would speak of a pashà’s palace? What does astonish you then in the world? What kind of people are you? Who can comprehend you?”
“Perdóne Usted,” he answered, coldly; “in my turn I do not understand you. When I have told you every thing in which I think you superior to us, what do you wish more? Do you wish me to say what I do not think? I tell you that your streets are wider than ours, your shops finer, your palaces richer; it seems to me that I have said all. I will say one thing more: that you know more than we do, because you have books and read.”
I made a gesture of impatience.
“Do not be impatient, caballero,” he went on quietly; “you will acknowledge that the first duty of a man, the first thing which renders him estimable, and that in which it is of the utmost importance that a country should be superior to other countries, is honesty; will you not? Very well, in the matter of honesty I do not at all believe that you are superior to us. And that is one thing.”
“Gently. Explain first what you mean by honesty.”
“Honesty in trade, caballero. The Moors, for example, in trade sometimes deceive the Europeans, but you Europeans deceive us Moors much more often.”