“On the other hand, I,” went on Horacio, “have no fear of dying in a hospital. Look at my head; see that jaw; tokens of a most brutal instinct of acquisitiveness. I’m a Berber by race,—a Euro-African. And fortunately, I may add, I have been influenced by the ideas of Lord Bacon’s pragmatic philosophy. If it weren’t for that, I’d now be dancing tangoes in Cuba or Puerto Rico.”
“So that, thanks to this Lord, you’re a civilized man?”
“Relatively civilized. I don’t pretend to compare myself to an Englishman. Can I be certain that I’m an Aryan? Am I, perhaps, a Celt or Saxon? I don’t deceive myself. I am of an inferior race. What am I going to do about it? I wasn’t born in Manchester, but in Camagüey, and I was brought up in Málaga. Just imagine that!”
“And what has that to do with the case?”
“Everything, my dear. Civilization comes with rainfall. It is in the moist, rainy countries that the most civilized types are nurtured, and the most beautiful as well. Types such as your daughter, with those blue eyes of hers, her fair complexion and her blond hair.”
“And how about me? What am I?” asked the baroness. “A little of what you said before?”
“A tiny bit Berber, you mean?”
“Yes. I think that was it. A tiny bit Berber, eh?”
“In character, perhaps, but not in type. You’re pure Aryan; your ancestors must have come from India, from the meseta of Pamir or the valley of Cabul, but they did not pass through Africa. You may rest easy on that score.”
The baroness eyed her cousin with a somewhat enigmatical expression. After a short while the cousins and Manuel left the café.