Another time a Great Thinker was to appear, a profound sage, with
whom Wilhelm would be delighted, thoroughly versed in German
philosophy, a critic of immense and independent spirit. But what
Wilhelm really saw was a slovenly, pock-marked man, with a very
arrogant manner, who smoked cigarettes without intermission, and
preserved an obstinate silence, behind which one was naturally free
to imagine the profoundest thoughts, if one wished it; and who, when
Pilar tried to lead him on to air his opinions on German philosophy,
answered sententiously: "I do not care for Kant; his was not a
republican spirit." A man who was said to be famed for his wit
perpetrated such atrocious puns that even Pilar was forced to admit
after he left that he had had a surprisingly bad day. An
aristocratic member of the Jockey Club, "a truly distinguished
being"--when Pilar wished to give any one the highest praise she
always alluded to them as "a being"--"and not superficial like the
most of his class," talked for two consecutive hours of the coming
elections to the Jockey Club, and of the attempt to bring in the
wearing of bracelets as a fashion among gentlemen. The only figure
in this gallery which made anything like a favorable impression on
Wilhelm was a Catalonian, naturalized in France, a professor at a
Paris lycee.
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