He had gained a quarter of an hour without making any reply to the previous speech whatever, and literally burying his illustrious antagonist in flowers. Su senoria was noteworthy firstly, because, secondly, because, fourteenthly, because ...  Nay more, he had accomplished this, performed that, endeavored the other thing—­“But”—­and with this but, alas, Rafael must begin to loosen up on a little of what he had prepared in advance. Su senoria was an “ideologue” of immense talent, but ever removed from reality; he would govern peoples in accordance with theories dug out of books, without paying any attention to practical considerations, to the individual and indestructible character possessed by every nation!...

And it was worth sitting an afternoon even in that Chamber to hear the slighting tone of scorn with which the member from Alcira emphasized that word ideologue and that phrase about “theories dug out of books” and “living removed from reality!”

“Good, fine.  That’s the way to give it to him,” his comrades encouraged, nodding their sleek bald-pates in indignation against anybody who tried to live apart from reality.  Those ideologues needed somebody to tell them what was what!

And the minister, Rafael’s friend, the only auditor left on the Blue Bench, pressing his huge paunch against the desk, turned his head—­an owlish, hairy head with a sharp beak—­to smile indulgently on the young man.

The orator continued, his confidence increasing as he went on, fortified by these signs of approval.  He spoke of the patient, deliberate study the committee had made of this matter of the ecclesiastical bud-gets.  He was the most modest, the least among them, but there were his comrades—­they were there, in truth, solemn gentlemen in English frock-coats, with their hair parted in the middle, from their foreheads to the napes of their necks—­studious young men—­who had flattered him with the honor of speaking for them—­and if they had not been more economical, it was because greater economy had been impossible.

And the heads of the committee-men nodded as they murmured gratefully: 

“Say, this fellow Brull can make quite a speech!”

The government was ready to exercise any economy that should prove prudent and feasible, without prejudice to the dignity of the nation; but Spain was an eminently religious country, favored by God in all her crises; and no government loyal to the national genius could ever touch a centimo of the ecclesiastical appropriation.  Never!  Never!...

On the word never his voice resounded with the melancholy echo that rings in empty houses.  Rafael looked in anguish at the clock.  Half an hour.  Half an hour gained, and still he had not really damaged his outline.  His talk was going so well that he was sorry the Chamber was far from crowded!...  Before him, in the shadows of the diplomatic gallery, that fan kept fluttering.  Pesky woman!  Why couldn’t she keep quiet and not spoil his speech!