"You, I mean," indicating Lucia
once more. Angela pouted, and turned her back on this bad, bad man. Pancho
never even noticed her. The more opulent beauty of Lucia appealed to the
sensuous in him. "You," he repeated. "Tell me, senora, 'ave you never been
to a free country?"
Lucia was surprised at his question.
"A free country?" she said.
"Yes; like Mexico, for instance."
"Don't you call the United States a free country?" Lucia asked him.
He almost roared his head off. "The United--Bah! Ees the most unfree
country what is. Every man, every woman, is slave--slave to law, slave to
custom, slave to everysing. You get up such time; eat such time," his hands
went out in Latin frenzy. "Every day you work such time, every night go to
bed such time. And, _Madre di Dios_, every week you take bath such time!"
This was, to him, the ultimate joke. "An' you call it a free country! Ees
only one free country. Ees one in which man does as she damn please. Like
Mexico!" he ended.
The women were astounded. They had always thought of Mexico as a land of
rough-and-tumble, comic-opera revolutions; a place where one must forever
be on the lookout for trouble; where robbers were rife and the days were
nothing but a chain of abominations.
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