Part 30 (2/2)
Vulgar creatures, lackeys that they are!”
”My brother is a demagogue,” said Laura ironically.
”Yes,” added Kennedy; ”he doesn't like categories.”
”But each thing has its value whether he likes it or not.”
”I do not deny different values, or even categories. There are things of great value in life; some natural, like youth, beauty, strength; others more artificial, like money, social position; but this idea of distinction, of aristocratic fineness, is a farce. It is a literary legend in the same style as the one current in novels, which tells us that the aristocrats of old families close their doors to rich Americans, or like that other story Mrs. Marchmont was talking to us of, about the Jewish ladies who were crazy to become Catholics.”
”I don't see what you are trying to prove by all this,” said Laura.
”I am trying to prove that all there is underneath distinguished society is money, for which reason it doesn't matter if it is destroyed. The cleverest and finest man, if he has no money, will die of hunger in a corner. Smart society, which thinks itself superior, will never receive him, because being really superior and intelligent is of no value on the market. On the other hand, when it is a question of some very rich brute, he will succeed in being accepted and feted by the aristocrats, because money has a real value, a quotable value, or I'd better say, it is the only thing that has a quotable value.”
”What you are saying isn't true. A man doesn't go with the best people merely because he is rich.”
”No, certainly; not immediately. There is a preparatory process. He begins by robbing people in some miserable little shop, and feels himself democratic. Then he robs in a bank, and at that period he feels that he is a Liberal and begins to experience vaguely aristocratic ideas. If business goes splendidly, the aristocratic ideas get crystallized. Then he can come to Rome and go into ecstasies over all the humbugs of Catholicism; and after that, one is authorized to acknowledge that the religion of our fathers is a beautiful religion, and one finishes by giving a tip to the Pope, and another to Cardinal Verry, so that they will make him Prince of the Ec.u.menical Council or Marquis of the Holy Crusade.”
”What very stupid and false ideas,” exclaimed Laura. ”Really I appreciate having a brother who talks in such a vulgar way.”
”You are an aristocrat and the truth doesn't please you. But such are the facts. I can see the chief of the bureau of Papal t.i.tles. What fun he must have thinking up the most appropriate t.i.tle for a magnate of Yankee tinned beef or for an ill.u.s.trious Andean general! How magnificent it would be to gather all the Bishops _in partibus infidelium_ and all the people with Papal t.i.tles in one drawing-room! The Bishop of Nicaea discussing with the Marquis of the Holy Roman Empire; the Marchioness of Easter Sunday flirting with the Bishop of Sion, while the Patriarchs of Thebes, Damascus, and Trebizond played bridge with the sausage manufacturer, Mr. Smiles, the pork king, or with the ill.u.s.trious General Perez, the hero of Guachinanguito. What a moving spectacle it would be!”
”You are a clown!” said Laura.
”He is a finished satirist,” added Kennedy.
_CaeSAR'S PLAN_
After lunch, Laura, Kennedy, and Caesar went into the salon, and Laura introduced the Englishman to the San Martino girls and the Countess Brenda. They stayed there chatting until four o'clock, at which time the San Martinos got ready to go out in a motor car, and Laura, with the Countess and her daughter, in a carriage.
Caesar and Kennedy went into the street together.
”You are awfully well fixed here,” said Kennedy, ”with no Americans, no Germans, or any other barbarians.”
”Yes, this hotel is a hive of petty aristocrats.”
”Your sister was telling me that you might pick out a very rich wife here, among the girls.”
”Yes, my sister would like me to live here, in a foreign country, in cowlike tranquillity, looking at pictures and statues, and travelling pointlessly. That wouldn't be living for me; I am not a society man. I require excitement, danger.... Though I warn you that I am not in the least courageous.”
”You're not?”
”Not at all. Not now. At moments I believe I could control myself and take a trench without wavering.”
”But you have some fixed plan, haven't you?”
”Yes, I expect to go back to Spain, and work there.”
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