“People like us, men like my unfortunate Santiago, who wasn't just anybody, no sir … a Flores of Segovia, no less!”

All the tenants of doña Nicasia, from the curate on down, then waxed indignant. Illuminated with holy rage, they menacingly shook their fists and belched to the four winds insults so foul and resourceful that the small group gathered in the humble parlor of the boarding house seemed to have studied the dictionary for hours in order to create each one. It was the bitterness of disappointment, the incurable illness that afflicts Spaniards who, after a brief residence in the continent that had once been their colony, inexplicably fail to become very rich. América, they snarl, this América that now only tolerates them without distinguishing them from other outsiders, this América that actually requires that they labor, and sometimes, do dirty work in order to live! And in their bilious envy and ire they exaggerate the defects of Mexico (already great enough and numerous enough without exaggeration), the natural product, in their view, of Indian savagery, past and present, while the county's rare virtues, on the other hand, were mere importations for which they take immediate and full responsibility. And to think that this petty republic actually denied its debt to them, pretended not to recognize it, refused them fair compensation!

They sighed, and their spirits became still bitterer as they turned to the nostalgic contemplation of their distant homeland, to the towns and provinces where each of them had been born. Now the ancient local rivalries and hatreds of the Iberian Peninsula burst forth in full force: Navarre! No, Valencia! No, Santander!

Doña Nicasia, because she was from Aragón (to her mind, an obviously superior part of Spain) considered the dispute that roiled around her to be beneath her dignity, and because she was the owner of the boarding house, the boarders generally left her out of this curious melee that so divided and so incensed them. This town, that village, this city, that province! Each was an example, a disgrace, or, to the contrary, an exception! Rivers, forests, mountains, crops were brandished like weapons in attack, held up like shields in defense. And the same people who, moments before, had joined in disparaging América, now turned on one another and tore apart Spain, their beloved homeland.

“You people,” shouted each of them at the others, “don't contribute a thing to the country!”

“Well, if you ask me, the all the products of your province don't amount to a hill of beans!”

But once they had insulted each other quite thoroughly, once their hands had fluttered in the air for emphasis and landed with a thump, like birds shot dead in the air, on the backs of chairs, on table tops, and on each other's knees—calm gradually returned. Four or five unsteady cigarettes were lit in the flame of a single match, and those accustomed, in normal situations, to address each other familiarly as tú, did so once more. Together, they recovered the spirit of unity and solidarity that makes them strong in this foreign land, the spirit that every Spaniard carries latent within him, ready to express itself in the service of every other Spaniard. Calm returned, and two thousand leagues away Spain continued to be Spain, its rivers running the same as ever, its mountain ranges in their place, the lion and towers on its coat of arms, all wrapped in a mantel of fleurs-de-lis, flowers of glory and greatness, still alive after so many years, across so many centuries, like the light of a star of the first magnitude that, even after it has burned itself out, continues to shine for millennia in our heavens.