“Pale-faced, rings under their eyes, weak, badly nourished....”
“Will you deny their wit, too?” asked Springer.
“Yes,” answered Quentin. “They make a lot of gestures, and have a fantastic manner of speech that is overloaded with imagery. It’s a sort of negro talk. I always notice that when María Lucena tells something, she compares everything, whether material or not, with something material: ‘it’s better than bread,’ or ‘it has less taste than a squash’ ... everything must be materialized; if not, I don’t believe she would understand it.... She is like a child ... like an impertinent child.”
“What a portrait!” exclaimed the Swiss, laughing.
“Then she makes divisions and subdivisions of everything; every object has twenty names. There is a little bottle of cherry brandy in the house—of that cherry brandy that I hold as something sacred; well, sometimes María calls it ‘the parrot,’ sometimes ‘the greenfinch,’ and sometimes, ‘the green bird.’... And that isn’t all. The other day, pointing to the bottle, she called to her mother from her bed: ‘Mother, bring me that what’s-its-name.’... So you see, for that class of people, language is not language—it is nothing.”
“Doesn’t that indicate inventive genius?” asked the Swiss.
“But what do I want of inventive genius, Springer?” exclaimed Quentin loudly. “Why, a woman doesn’t need inventive genius! All she needs is to be pretty and submissive, and nothing else....”
“You are tremendous,” said the Swiss. “So that for you, a woman’s intelligence is of no account?”
“But that isn’t intelligence! That is to intelligence what the movement of those men who go hopping about nodding to one and talking to another, is to real activity. The former is not intelligence nor is the latter activity. The thing is to have a nucleus of big, strong ideas that direct your life.... As the English have.”
“I have an antipathy for the English,” said the Swiss. “As for Andalusia, I believe that if this country had more culture, it would constitute one of the most comprehensive and enthusiastic of peoples. Other Spaniards are constantly bargaining with their appreciation and admiration; the national vice of Spain is envy. Not so with the Andalusians. They are ready to admire anything.”