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SAN ANTONIO 213
self. He banged his knuckles on the table and roared
at me, saying that if I ever repeated that word again he
would not be responsible for his actions.
“If you must speak of this animal, then be so kind as
to say el bicho largo (the large insect). That’s what
I have been saying ever since I crept out of my
mother’s womb!”
I was not very popular in the company that evening
and hastened to retire. Beppa told me next morning
that San Antonio had fallen down during the night.
I wondered whether any other religion than Catholi-
cism would be suitable for these people? I doubt
it; and the foreign creeds which make an effort to
establish themselves here lead a pitiable existence with-
out exception. In spite of all his arbitrary use of the
imagination and the reasoning powers, the Andalusian
does not like to think of matters which are not accessi-
ble to his senses. He will not protest if you maintain
that you can see a fly crawling on the surface of the
church-steeple a mile away, or hear her buzzing; but if
you discuss with him a being that is invisible, and omni-
present, and enduring from eternity to eternity—in
other words, God—he will shrug his shoulders, if he
does not go so far as to indulge in blasphemous lan-
guage. He has no use for expressions that hang loosely
in the air, and long ago he found a use to which he put
divine properties—as devices for indicating the superla-
tive degree. The word “invisible” to him means some-
thing very small, let us say a dwarf. ‘“Omnipresent”’ he
would use for a swift, active creature. “Omnipotent,”
“omniscient,” “‘all-wise,”’ these words are for himself.
He can subscribe to the Doctrine of the Infallibility of
the Pope without a single scruple, for he begins with
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