“A butcher’s sponge, like you, won’t make me.”
“We shall see.”
“A man would be unclean,” Sard said, “even for spitting at you.”
“Unclean?” Sagrado answered. “There are various conceptions of cleanliness, but all have to do with consecrations and devotions. I am called unclean by you, who serve men, who are a servant in a ship. Other flunkeys serve the state. I am myself, unspotted from these flunkeydoms and slaveries. If I serve, I serve evil, the master of this world.”
“It is something,” Sard said, “to have a master as dirty as the servant.”
“It is much,” Sagrado answered, “to have a power commensurate with your philosophy.”
“I have not seen any power in you yet,” Sard said.
“No?” Sagrado said. “Yet I stand free, while you are bound, you and your romantic one. Which of us has the power, Margarita?”
“He has,” she answered. “And you know it.”
“I do not know it,” he said, “nor do events show it. I wanted you in my hands by a certain day: there was nothing that you wanted less. Yet you came to my hands, to the very moment planned. This sailor, or second mate, if I understand him, has wanted you for fifteen years: there was nothing that you wanted more, if I overheard correctly. Are you in his hands, or arms, or in mine? Which of us has the power over you?”