Читать книгу The Plumed Serpent. Historical Novel - Life and Love after the Mexico Revolution онлайн

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‘The Hotel San Remo? Where is that?’

‘In the Avenida del Peru. Won’t you come and see us there, and meet my cousin and Mr Thompson?’

‘Thank you! Thank you! I hardly ever go out. But I will call if I may, and then perhaps you will all come to see me at the house of my friend, Señor Ramón Carrasco.’

‘We should like to,’ said Kate.

‘Very well. And shall I call, then?’

She told him a time, and added:

‘You mustn’t be surprised at the hotel. It IS small, and nearly all Italians. But we tried some of the big ones, and there is such a feeling of lowness about them, awful! I can’t stand the feeling of prostitution. And then the cheap insolence of the servants. No, my little San Remo may be rough, but it’s kindly and human, and it’s not rotten. It is like Italy as I always knew it, decent, and with a bit of human generosity. I do think Mexico City is evil, underneath.’

‘Well,’ he said, ‘the hotels are bad. It is unfortunate, but the foreigners seem to make the Mexicans worse than they are naturally. And Mexico, or something in it, certainly makes the foreigners worse than they are at home.’