Civilization and Barbarism

"The only civilized people on the beach at Albufeira are those peasants who, dressed in black in the torrid sun, with their odd way of wearing their hats, pulled far down over their eyes and raised above the nape of the neck, sometimes descend from their plots of fig and almond trees and stand gazing in slightly astonished silence, but with dignity and indulgence and wisdom, at the tourists who, disguised as frogs skinned alive in the glare, surrounded by bags of towels, greased like firearms, have disembarked from moving vehicles come from the north and are now baking on the sand, reading Die Welt, The Times, Le Monde, and introducing into that beautiful place, unawares, the first signs of barbarism."

--Julio Ramón Ribeyro, Prosas apátridas