“I do not know that—and then the baron bores me.”
“You must avow your ignorance. Do you not know that this man is capable of publishing your answer in his ‘Travels in Spain?’ ”
“What does it matter to us?”
“It matters, my niece, that I do not like that they speak evil of my country.”
“Yes,” interposed the general, with bitterness, “arrest the stream that overflows. It is not astonishing that foreigners calumniate our country, when we are the first to slander it, without remembering the proverb: ‘It is vile to believe one’s self vile.’ Marchioness, my sister, you ought also to reprimand this fool of a Raphael, for having replied to the baron—who put to him a question of the same kind, relative to the cross of the robbers, near to the Cartago—that this cross bore that name because it was there the robbers came to pray to God to bless their enterprises.”
“And the baron believed it?”
“As firmly as I believe that he is not a baron.”
“It was poor wit. This cross was raised in memory of a miracle which led to the conversion of a troop of bandits. I will severely reprimand this crackbrain.” And she called Raphael, to whom his cousin Gracia said:
“I am full of joy. What delightful moments we are to pass with this Mariquita!”
“It will not be for long, countess,” said the colonel. “They assure me that the duke is to take the new Malibran to Madrid.”