“It is true,” he answered, with an ironical accent; “it is true. Sun? Parasol. Rain? Umbrella. Dust? Gloves. To walk? A stick. To look? An eye-glass. To take the air? A carriage. To sit down? Elastic cushions. To eat? Music. A scratch? The doctor. Death? A statue: Eh! how many things you have need of! What men, por Dios! What children!”
In short, he would not leave me any thing. He even laughed at our architecture.
“Che! che!” said he, when I talked of the comfort of our houses. “There are three hundred of you living in one house, all a-top of one another, and then you go up, and up, and up—and there is no air, and no light, and no garden!”
Then I spoke of laws, of government, of liberty, and the like; and as he was a man of intelligence, I think I succeeded, if not in making him understand all the differences in these respects between his country and ours, at least, in introducing some gleams of light into his mind. Seeing that he could not meet me on this ground, he suddenly changed the subject, and looking at me from head to foot, said, smiling, “Mal vestidos” (badly dressed).
I replied that dress was of small importance, and asked him if he did not recognize our superiority in this, that instead of sitting for hours idly, with our legs crossed on a mattress, we employed our time in many useful and amusing ways.
He gave me a more subtle answer than I had expected. He said that it did not appear to him a good sign to have need of so many ways of passing the time. Life alone, then, was for us a punishment that we could not rest an hour doing nothing, without amusement, without wearing ourselves out in the search for entertainment? Were we afraid of ourselves? Had we something in us which tormented us?
“But see,” I said, “what a dull spectacle your city presents, what solitude, what silence, what misery. You have been in Paris. Compare the streets of Paris with the streets of Fez.”
Here he was sublime. He sprang to his feet laughing, and, more in gesture than in words, gave a jesting description of the spectacle which is presented by our city streets: “Come, go, run; carts here, wheelbarrows there; a deafening noise; drunken men staggering along; gentlemen buttoning up their coats to save their purses; at every step a guard, who looks as if at every step he saw a thief; old people and children who are in constant danger of being crushed by the carriages of the rich; impudent women, and even girls, horror! who give provoking glances, and even nudge the young men with their elbows; everybody with a cigar in his mouth; on every side people going into shops, to eat, to drink, to have their hair dressed, to look in mirrors, to put on gloves; and dandies planted before the doors of the cafés to whisper in the ears of other people’s wives who are passing; and that ridiculous manner of saluting, and walking on the toes, and swinging and jumping about; and then, good heavens, what womanish curiosity!” And touching this point he grew warm, and told how one day, in an Italian city, having gone out in his Moorish dress, in a moment there had gathered a crowd, who ran before and behind him, shouting and laughing, and would scarcely let him walk, so that he had to go back to his hotel and change his dress. “And that is the way they act in your country!” he went on. “That they do so here is not surprising, for they never see a Christian; but in your country, where they know how we are dressed, because they have pictures of us, and send their painters here with machines to take our portraits; among you who know so much, do you think that such things ought to happen?”
After which he smiled courteously, as if to say, “All this is no reason why we should not be friends.”
Then the conversation turned upon European manufactures, railways, telegraphs, and great works of public utility; and of these he allowed me to talk without interruption, assenting from time to time with a nod.