"That is what charity is for," declared Don Inocencio. "Apart from that,
Orbajosa is not a poor town. You are already aware that the best garlic
in all Spain is produced here. There are more than twenty rich families
living among us."

"It is true," said Dona Perfecta, "that the last few years have been
wretched, owing to the drought; but even so, the granaries are not
empty, and several thousands of strings of garlic were recently carried
to market."

"During the many years that I have lived in Orbajosa," said the priest,
with a frown, "I have seen innumerable persons come here from the
capital, some brought by the electoral hurly-burly, others to visit some
abandoned site, or to see the antiquities of the cathedral, and they
all talk to us about the English ploughs and threshing-machines and
water-power and banks, and I don't know how many other absurdities. The
burden of their song is that this place is very backward, and that it
could be improved. Let them keep away from us, in the devil's name!
We are well enough as we are, without the gentlemen from the capital
visiting us; a great deal better off without hearing that continual
clamor about our poverty and the grandeurs and the wonders of other
places. The fool in his own house is wiser than the wise man in
another's. Is it not so, Senor Don Jose? Of course, you mustn't imagine,
even remotely, that I say this on your account. Not at all! Of course
not! I know that we have before us one of the most eminent young men of
modern Spain, a man who would be able to transform into fertile lands
our arid wastes. And I am not at all angry because you sing us the same
old song about the English ploughs and arboriculture and silviculture.
Not in the least. Men of such great, such very great merit, may be