“But among all this rabble of lawyers and soldiers and priests and pawn-brokers, do you believe there is one person who is the least bit sane?” asked Quentin.
“I think not,” the father broke in. “There are no elements of progress here; there are no men who are pushing on, as there are in my country.”
“I think there are,” replied his son; “but those who are, and they stand alone, end by not seeing the reality of things, and even turn pernicious. It is as if in our shop here, we found the wheel of a tower clock among the wheels of pocket watches. It would be no good at all to us; it would not be able to fit in with any other wheel. Take the Marquis of Adarve, who was a good and intelligent man; well, now he passes for a half-wit, and he is, partly—because as a reaction against the others, he reached the other extreme. He carries an automatic umbrella, a mechanical cigar-case, and a lot of other rare trifles. The people call him a madman.”
“All you have to be here,” said the older Springer, “is either a farmer or a money-lender.”
“The vocations in which you don’t have to work,” Quentin asserted. “The Spaniard’s ideal is: to work like a Moor, and to earn money like a Jew. That is also my ideal,” he said for his own benefit.
“As we were saying before,” added the younger Springer; “it is an archaic life, directed by romantic, hidalguesque ideas....”
“Ah, no!” replied Quentin. “You are absolutely wrong there. There is none of your romance, nor of your hidalgos; it is prose, pure prose. There is more romance in the head of one Englishman, than in the heads of ten Spaniards, especially if those Spaniards are Andalusians. They are very discreet, friend Springer; we are very discreet, if you like that better. A great deal of eloquence, a lot of enthusiastic and impetuous talk, a great deal of flourish; a superficial aspect of ingenuous and candid confusion; but back of it all, a sure, straight line. Men and women;—most discreet. Believe me! There is exaltation without, and coldness within.”
It was time to work, and the two Springers went down to their shop.
“Do you see?” said the Swiss to Quentin, as he sat in his chair and fastened his lens to his eye, “perhaps you are right in what you say, but I like to think otherwise. I am romantic, and like to imagine that I am living among hidalgos and fine ladies.... There you have me—a poor Swiss plebeian. And I am so accustomed to it, that when I go away from Cordova, I immediately feel homesick for my shop, my books, and the little concerts my mother and I have in which we play Beethoven and Mozart.”
Quentin gazed at Springer as at a strange and absurd being, and began to walk up and down the store. Suddenly he paused before his friend.