“No. He’s coarse, but good at heart. What are you going to do?”
“I! I don’t know. We live in such a contemptible epoch. If I had been born in Napoleon’s time! God! I’d either be dead by now or else on the road to a generalship.”
“Would you have enlisted with Napoleon?”
“Rather!”
“And would you have fought against your own country?”
“Against the whole world.”
“But not against Spain.”
“Especially against Spain. It would be pretty nice to enter these towns defended by their walls and their conventionalities against everything that is noble and human, and raze them to the ground. To shoot all these flat-nosed, pious fakers and poor quality hidalgos; to set fire to all of the churches, and to violate all the nuns....”
“You’ve been drinking, Quentin.”
“I? I’m as calm as a bean plant, which is the calmest vegetable there is, according to the botanists.”