"Calderón" that I carried under my arm and asked me:

— Which play are you reading?

— "The Physician of His Honor."

— And what do you think of it?

— I find it startling. There are notions in it utterly foreign to our modern conceptions.

— What notions?

— The question of honor. We come upon it in so many of the Spanish tragedies. It is what drives a man of honor to kill his wife without emotion if she betrays him, or even if her conduct — however blameless — causes some scandal.

My host said:

— That is in the Spanish blood, whether the foreigner acknowledges it or not.

— Ah! Much water has flowed down the Guadalquivir since Calderón's day. You cannot maintain, all the same, that one must act on that pattern today.

— On the contrary, I maintain that even today, if a husband finds himself in a shameful situation, he can recover some measure of dignity only by killing the guilty woman.

He smiled ironically, then said:

— Have you heard of Don Pedro Aguria?

— No.

— The name is not unknown in the history of Spain: one member of this family was an admiral in the reign of King Philip II, and another was the intimate friend of King Philip IV. The painter Velázquez made a portrait of him by royal command.

"Under the five kings who bore the name Philip, the Agurias