ughter-in-law to the Inca is not compatible
with the tastes of a pig. [He attempts to take back the brooch.]

ERMYNTRUDE [rising and retreating behind her chair with the brooch].
Here! you let that brooch alone. You presented it to me on behalf of the
Inca. It is mine. You said my appearance was satisfactory.

THE INCA. Your appearance is not satisfactory. The Inca would not allow
his son to marry you if the boy were on a desert island and you were the
only other human being on it [he strides up the room.]

ERMYNTRUDE [calmly sitting down and replacing the case on the table].
How could he? There would be no clergyman to marry us. It would have to
be quite morganatic.

THE INCA [returning]. Such an expression is out of place in the mouth of
a princess aspiring to the highest destiny on earth. You have the morals
of a dragoon. [She receives this with a shriek of laughter. He struggles
with his sense of humor.] At the same time [he sits down] there is a
certain coarse fun in the idea which compels me to smile [he turns up
his moustache and smiles.]

ERMYNTRUDE. When I marry the Inca's son, Captain, I shall make the Inca
order you to cut off that moustache. It is too irresistible. Doesn't it
fascinate everyone in Perusalem?

THE INCA [leaning forward to her energetically]. By all the thunders of
Thor, madam, it fascinates the whole world.

ERMYNTRUDE. What I like about you, Captain Duval, is your modesty.

THE INCA [straightening up suddenly]. Woman, do not be a fool.

ERMYNTRUDE [indignant]. Well!

THE INCA. You must look facts in the face. This moustache is an exact
copy of the Inca's moustache. Well, does the world occupy itself with
the Inca's moustache or does it not? Does it ever occupy itself with
anything else? If that is the truth, does its recognition constitute
the Inca a coxcomb? Other potentates have moustaches: even beards
and moustaches. Does the world occupy itself with those beards and
moustaches? Do the hawkers in the streets of every capital on the
civilized globe sell ingenious cardboard representations of their faces
on which, at the pulling of a simple string, the moustaches turn up and
down, so--[he makes his moustache turn, up and down several times]? No!
I say No. The Inca's moustache is so watched and studied that it has
made his face the political barometer of the whole continent. When that
moustache goes up, culture rises with it. Not what you call culture;
but Kultur, a word so much m