Any criticism against the present times delighted the priest.
"This country is drained, Don Antolin, nothing remains standing.

The number of towns which have vanished since our decadence commenced is incalculable.

In other countries ruins are carefully preserved, as so many stone pages of their history; they are cleaned, preserved, supported and strengthened, and paths opened round them so that all can examine them.

Here, where Roman, Byzantine and Arab art have passed, and also the Mudejar, the Gothic and the Renaissance--in fact, all the styles of Europe--the ruins in the country are hidden and disfigured by herbage and creepers, and in the towns they are mutilated and disfigured by the vandalism of the people.

They are constantly thinking of the past, and yet they despise its remains; what a country of dreams and desolation! Spain is no longer a country, it is an ill-arranged and dusty museum, full of old things that attract all the curious of Europe, but in which even the ruins are ruined." The eyes of Don Martin, the young curate, fastened themselves on Gabriel.