All this reading and travelling has turned your head.

At first I was indignant, thinking you were among those who wished for another revolution to take away the little that is left to us, proclaiming the republic and suppressing all ecclesiastical things, but I see that you go much beyond this, that you conform to nothing, and that everything seems to you the worst; and this rather pleases me, because I see you are not a terrible enemy to be feared as you fire from too far.

It seems to me that your head is as much affected as your chest.

But do all these revolutions we have had seem as nothing to you?
Do you think the country is still as savage as you have described it in past years?
But I," continued the priest ironically, "hear a great deal said about the progress of the country, and I know that we have railways, and that the long chimneys are arising in all the town suburbs, and many of the impious are delighted at this, comparing them to the church belfries." "Bah!" exclaimed Gabriel indifferently.

"There is a little of this progress; the revolutions have placed Spain in touch with other countries, the progressive current has caught this country and is carrying it along as the Asiatics and others are carried; no one can escape it nowadays.