“Certainly. I’ll accompany you.”
The baroness arose, then Horacio; Manuel joined them.
“What a mob of creatures, eh?” said the baroness with that peculiar, ingenuous laugh of hers, once they were in the street.
“That’s amorality, as they say nowadays,” replied Horacio. “We Spaniards aren’t immoral. The fact is that we simply have no notion of morality. When I got up to take a little air, the colonel said to me, ‘You see, you see, they’ve cut down my pay: reduced it from eighty to seventy. So clearly enough I have to find other sources of income. That’s why soldiers’ daughters have to become dancers ... and all the rest.’”
“Did he say that to you? What a barbarian!”
“What? Does that shock you? Not me. It’s just a natural and necessary consequence of our race. We’ve degenerated. We are a race of the lowest class.”
“Why?”
“Because we are. All you’ve got to do is look around you. Did you see the head on the colonel’s shoulders?”
“No. Has he anything in his head?” asked the baroness jokingly.