The Doña laughed softly: “But it is so unjust that Don Juan Tenorio is supposed only to be found in Spain!”
“No more unjust than that Jesus Christ should be looked upon as a Jew.”
“Guy!”
“That is really the comble to the insults we have put upon that unfortunate people.”
“Guy! I will not have you speaking like that in my house,” said the Doña very sternly.
“I beg your pardon,” he muttered, in some confusion; and then took up his shrill monologue: “As a matter of fact, Don Juan is the greatest glory of Spain; he is own brother to Sancho Panza—a superb pair; they are the true αὐτόχθων, made of the mud of this planet, and they understand life as it is meant to be lived down here. The rest of us shriek, like Coleridge, for a ‘bread not made of wheat’.... Yes, we behave idiotically, like creatures in some fable that has not yet been written, when we want cheese for supper, we take our bow and arrows and go and shoot at the moon—the moon, which is the cradle of the English race....” On and on went his voice, the others sitting round in silence, to conceal their embarrassment or boredom.
“To return to Don Juan, I see there is a new theory that he is an Eniautos Daimon—one of those year-spirits that die every winter and vegetation dies with them, and are born again in spring with the crops and things ... seeds, and crops and souls dying and springing up again with Don Juan. So there is hope for us all, sic itur ad astra—rakes during our life, manure afterwards; so horticultural! I wonder if our friend Mr. Munroe would make a good year-spirit?”
This time they had beaten her: the blood rushed to Teresa’s cheeks.
“I expect he would only be able to make oats grow—‘man’s food in Scotland,’” laughed Concha, as if it were merely the ordinary Plasencia bandying of conceits; “I think Dad would make a better one,” she added; “he’s so good about flowers and crops and things, and the farmers and people say he has ‘green fingers,’ because everything he plants is sure to grow.”