THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE

(Los Cuatro Jinettes del Apocalipsis)

by Vicente Blasco Ibanez

Translated by Charlotte Brewster Jordan

CONTENTS

PART I

CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V

PART II

CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI

PART III

CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

PART I

CHAPTER I

THE TRYST

(In the Garden of the Chapelle Expiatoire)

They were to have met in the garden of the Chapelle Expiatoire at five
o’clock in the afternoon, but Julio Desnoyers with the impatience of a
lover who hopes to advance the moment of meeting by presenting himself
before the appointed time, arrived an half hour earlier. The change of the
seasons was at this time greatly confused in his mind, and evidently
demanded some readjustment.

Five months had passed since their last interview in this square had
afforded the wandering lovers the refuge of a damp, depressing calmness
near a boulevard of continual movement close to a great railroad station.
The hour of the appointment was always five and Julio was accustomed to
see his beloved approaching by the reflection of the recently lit street
lamps, her figure enveloped in furs, and holding her muff before her face
as if it were a half-mask. Her sweet voice, greeting him, had breathed
forth a cloud of vapor, white and tenuous, congealed by the cold. After
various hesitating interviews, they had abandoned the garden. Their love
had acquired the majestic importance of acknowledged fact, and from five
to seven had taken refuge in the fifth floor of the rue de la Pompe where
Julio had an artist’s studio. The curtains well drawn over the double
glass windows, the cosy hearth-fire sending forth its ruddy flame as the
only light of the room, the monotonous song of the samovar bubbling near
the cups of tea—all the seclusion of life isolated by an idolizing
love—had dulled their perceptions to the fact that the afternoons
were growing longer, that outside the sun was shining later and later into
the pearl-covered depths of the clouds, and that a timid and pallid Spring
was beginning to show its green finger tips in the buds of the branches
suffering the last nips of Winter—that wild, black boar who so often
turned on his tracks.

Then Julio had made his trip to Buenos Aires, encountering in the other
hemisphere the last smile of Autumn and the first icy winds from the
pampas. And just as his mind was becoming reconciled to the fact that for
him Winter was an eternal season—since it always came to meet him in
his change of domicile from one extreme of the planet to the other—lo,
Summer was unexpectedly confronting him in this dreary garden!

A swarm of children was racing and screaming through the short avenues
around the monument. On entering the place, the first thing that Julio
encountered was a hoop which came rolling toward his legs, trundled by a
childish hand. Then he stumbled over a ball. Around the chestnut trees was
gathering the usual warm-weather crowd, seeking the blue shade perforated
with points of light. Many nurse-maids from the neighboring houses were
working and chattering here, following with indifferent glances the rough
games of the children confided to their care. Near them were the men who
had brought their papers down into the garden under the impression that
they could read them in the midst of peaceful groves. All of the benches
were full. A few women were occupying camp stools with that feeling of
superiority which ownership always confers. The iron chairs, “pay-seats,”
were serving as resting places for various suburban dames, loaded down
with packages, who were waiting for straggling members of their families
in order to take the train in the Gare Saint Lazare. . . .

And Julio, in his special delivery letter, had proposed meeting in this
place, supposing that it would be as little frequented as in former times.
She, too, with the same thoughtlessness, had in her reply, set the usual
hour of five o’clock, believing that after passing a few minutes in the
Printemps or the Galeries on the pretext of shopping, she would be able to
slip over to the unfrequented garden without risk of being seen by any of
her numerous acquaintances.

Desnoyers was enjoying an almost forgotten sensation, that of strolling
through vast spaces, crushing as he walked the grains of sand under his
feet. For the past twenty days his rovings had been upon planks, following
with the automatic precision of a riding school the oval promenade on the
deck of a ship. His feet accustomed to insecure ground, still were keeping
on terra firma a certain sensation of elastic unsteadiness. His goings and
comings were not awakening the curiosity of the people seated in the open,
for a common preoccupation seemed to be monopolizing all the men and
women. The groups were exchanging impressions. Those who happened to have
a paper in their hands, saw their neighbors approaching them with a smile
of interrogation. There had suddenly disappeared that distrust and
suspicion which impels the inhabitants of large cities mutually to ignore
one another, taking each other’s measure at a glance as though they were
enemies.

“They are talking about the war,” said Desnoyers to himself. “At this
time, all Paris speaks of nothing but the possibility of war.”

Outside of the garden he could see also the same anxiety which was making
those around him so fraternal and sociable. The venders of newspapers were
passing through the boulevard crying the evening editions, their furious
speed repeatedly slackened by the eager hands of the passers-by contending
for the papers. Every reader was instantly surrounded by a group begging
for news or trying to decipher over his shoulder the great headlines at
the top of the sheet. In the rue des Mathurins, on the other side of the
square, a circle of workmen under the awning of a tavern were listening to
the comments of a friend who accompanied his words with oratorical
gestures and wavings of the paper. The traffic in the streets, the general
bustle of the city was the same as in other days, but it seemed to Julio
that the vehicles were whirling past more rapidly, that there was a
feverish agitation in the air and that people were speaking and smiling in
a different way. The women of the garden were looking even at him as if
they had seen him in former days. He was able to approach them and begin a
conversation without experiencing the slightest strangeness.

“They are talking of the war,” he said again but with the commiseration of
a superior intelligence which foresees the future and feels above the
impressions of the vulgar crowd.

He knew exactly what course he was going to follow. He had disembarked at
ten o’clock the night before, and as it was not yet twenty-four hours
since he had touched land, his mentality was still that of a man who comes
from afar, across oceanic immensities, from boundless horizons, and is
surprised at finding himself in touch with the preoccupations which govern
human communities. After disembarking he had spent two hours in a cafe in
Boulogne, listlessly watching the middle-class families who passed their
time in the monotonous placidity of a life without dangers. Then the
special train for the passengers from South America had brought him to
Paris, leaving him at four in the morning on a platform of the Gare du
Nord in the embrace of Pepe Argensola, the young Spaniard whom he
sometimes called “my secretary” or “my valet” because it was difficult to
define exactly the relationship between them. In reality, he was a mixture
of friend and parasite, the poor comrade, complacent and capable in his
companionship with a rich youth on bad terms with his family, sharing with
him the ups and downs of fortune, picking up the crumbs of prosperous
days, or inventing expedients to keep up appearances in the hours of
poverty.

“What about the war?” Argensola had asked him before inquiring about the
result of his trip. “You have come a long ways and should know much.”

Soon he was sound asleep in his dear old bed while his “secretary” was
pacing up and down the studio talking of Servia, Russia and the Kaiser.
This youth, too, skeptical as he generally was about everything not
connected with his own interests, appeared infected by the general
excitement.

When Desnoyers awoke he found her note awaiting him, setting their meeting
at five that afternoon and also containing a few words about the
threatened danger which was claiming the attention of all Paris. Upon
going out in search of lunch the concierge, on the pretext of welcoming
him back, had asked him the war news. And in the restaurant, the cafe and
the street, always war . . . the possibility of war with Germany. . . .

Julio was an optimist. What did all this restlessness signify to a man who
had just been living more than twenty days among Germans, crossing the
Atlantic under the flag of the Empire?

He had sailed from Buenos Aires in a steamer of the Hamburg line, the
Koenig Frederic August. The world was in blessed tranquillity when the
boat left port. Only the whites and half-breeds of Mexico were
exterminating each other in conflicts in order that nobody might believe
that man is an animal degenerated by peace. On the rest of the planet, the
people were displaying unusual prudence. Even aboard the transatlantic
liner, the little world of passengers of most diverse nationalities
appeared a fragment of future society implanted by way of experiment in
modern times—a sketch of the hereafter, without frontiers or race
antagonisms.

One morning the ship band which every Sunday had sounded the Choral of
Luther, awoke those sleeping in the first-class cabins with the most
unheard-of serenade. Desnoyers rubbed his eyes believing himself under the
hallucinations of a dream. The German horns were playing the Marseillaise
through the corridors and decks. The steward, smiling at his astonishment,
said, “The fourteenth of July!” On the German steamers they celebrate as
their own the great festivals of all the nations represented by their
cargo and passengers. Their captains are careful to observe scrupulously
the rites of this religion of the flag and its historic commemoration. The
most insignificant republic saw the ship decked in its honor, affording
one more diversion to help combat the monotony of the voyage and further
the lofty ends of the Germanic propaganda. For the first time the great
festival of France was being celebrated on a German vessel, and whilst the
musicians continued escorting a racy Marseillaise in double quick time
through the different floors, the morning groups were commenting on the
event.

“What finesse!” exclaimed the South American ladies. “These Germans are
not so phlegmatic as they seem. It is an attention . . . something very
distinguished. . . . And is it possible that some still believe that they
and the French might come to blows?”

The very few Frenchmen who were travelling on the steamer found themselves
admired as though they had increased immeasurably in public esteem. There
were only three;—an old jeweller who had been visiting his branch
shops in America, and two demi-mondaines from the rue de la Paix, the most
timid and well-behaved persons aboard, vestals with bright eyes and
disdainful noses who held themselves stiffly aloof in this uncongenial
atmosphere.

At night there was a gala banquet in the dining room at the end of which
the French flag and that of the Empire formed a flaunting, conspicuous
drapery. All the German passengers were in dress suits, and their wives
were wearing low-necked gowns. The uniforms of the attendants were as
resplendent as on a day of a grand review.

During dessert the tapping of a knife upon a glass reduced the table to
sudden silence. The Commandant was going to speak. And this brave mariner
who united to his nautical functions the obligation of making harangues at
banquets and opening the dance with the lady of most importance, began
unrolling a string of words like the noise of clappers between long
intervals of silence. Desnoyers knew a little German as a souvenir of a
visit to some relatives in Berlin, and so was able to catch a few words.
The Commandant was repeating every few minutes “peace” and “friends.” A
table neighbor, a commercial commissioner, offered his services as
interpreter to Julio, with that obsequiousness which lives on
advertisement.

“The Commandant asks God to maintain peace between Germany and France and
hopes that the two peoples will become increasingly friendly.”

Another orator arose at the same table. He was the most influential of the
German passengers, a rich manufacturer from Dusseldorf who had just been
visiting his agents in America. He was never mentioned by name. He bore
the title of Commercial Counsellor, and among his countrymen was always
Herr Comerzienrath and his wife was entitled Frau Rath. The Counsellor’s
Lady, much younger than her important husband, had from the first
attracted the attention of Desnoyers. She, too, had made an exception in
favor of this young Argentinian, abdicating her title from their first
conversation. “Call me Bertha,” she said as condescendingly as a duchess
of Versailles might have spoken to a handsome abbot seated at her feet.
Her husband, also protested upon hearing Desnoyers call him “Counsellor,”
like his compatriots.

“My friends,” he said, “call me ‘Captain.’ I command a company of the
Landsturm.” And the air with which the manufacturer accompanied these
words, revealed the melancholy of an unappreciated man scorning the honors
he has in order to think only of those he does not possess.

While he was delivering his discourse, Julio was examining his small head
and thick neck which gave him a certain resemblance to a bull dog. In
imagination he saw the high and oppressive collar of a uniform making a
double roll of fat above its stiff edge. The waxed, upright moustaches
were bristling aggressively. His voice was sharp and dry as though he were
shaking out his words. . . . Thus the Emperor would utter his harangues,
so the martial burgher, with instinctive imitation, was contracting his
left arm, supporting his hand upon the hilt of an invisible sword.

In spite of his fierce and oratorical gesture of command, all the
listening Germans laughed uproariously at his first words, like men who
knew how to appreciate the sacrifice of a Herr Comerzienrath when he
deigns to divert a festivity.

“He is saying very witty things about the French,” volunteered the
interpreter in a low voice, “but they are not offensive.”

Julio had guessed as much upon hearing repeatedly the word Franzosen. He
almost understood what the orator was saying—“Franzosen—great
children, light-hearted, amusing, improvident. The things that they might
do together if they would only forget past grudges!” The attentive Germans
were no longer laughing. The Counsellor was laying aside his irony, that
grandiloquent, crushing irony, weighing many tons, as enormous as a ship.
Then he began unrolling the serious part of his harangue, so that he
himself, was also greatly affected.

“He says, sir,” reported Julio’s neighbor, “that he wishes France to
become a very great nation so that some day we may march together against
other enemies . . . against OTHERS!”

And he winked one eye, smiling maliciously with that smile of common
intelligence which this allusion to the mysterious enemy always awakened.

Finally the Captain-Counsellor raised his glass in a toast to France.
“Hoch!” he yelled as though he were commanding an evolution of his
soldierly Reserves. Three times he sounded the cry and all the German
contingent springing to their feet, responded with a lusty Hoch while the
band in the corridor blared forth the Marseillaise.

Desnoyers was greatly moved. Thrills of enthusiasm were coursing up and
down his spine. His eyes became so moist that, when drinking his
champagne, he almost believed that he had swallowed some tears. He bore a
French name. He had French blood in his veins, and this that the gringoes
were doing—although generally they seemed to him ridiculous and
ordinary—was really worth acknowledging. The subjects of the Kaiser
celebrating the great date of the Revolution! He believed that he was
witnessing a great historic event.

“Very well done!” he said to the other South Americans at the near tables.
“We must admit that they have done the handsome thing.”

Then with the vehemence of his twenty-seven years, he accosted the
jeweller in the passage way, reproaching him for his silence. He was the
only French citizen aboard. He should have made a few words of
acknowledgment. The fiesta was ending awkwardly through his fault.

“And why have you not spoken as a son of France?” retorted the jeweller.

“I am an Argentinian citizen,” replied Julio.

And he left the older man believing that he ought to have spoken and
making explanations to those around him. It was a very dangerous thing, he
protested, to meddle in diplomatic affairs. Furthermore, he had not
instructions from his government. And for a few hours he believed that he
had been on the point of playing a great role in history.

Desnoyers passed the rest of the evening in the smoking room attracted
thither by the presence of the Counsellor’s Lady. The Captain of the
Landsturm, sticking a preposterous cigar between his moustachios, was
playing poker with his countrymen ranking next to him in dignity and
riches. His wife stayed beside him most of the time, watching the goings
and comings of the stewards carrying great bocks, without daring to share
in this tremendous consumption of beer. Her special preoccupation was to
keep vacant near her a seat which Desnoyers might occupy. She considered
him the most distinguished man on board because he was accustomed to
taking champagne with all his meals. He was of medium height, a decided
brunette, with a small foot, which obliged her to tuck hers under her
skirts, and a triangular face under two masses of hair, straight, black
and glossy as lacquer, the very opposite of the type of men about her.
Besides, he was living in Paris, in the city which she had never seen
after numerous trips in both hemispheres.

“Oh, Paris! Paris!” she sighed, opening her eyes and pursing her lips in
order to express her admiration when she was speaking alone to the
Argentinian. “How I should love to go there!”

And in order that he might feel free to tell her things about Paris, she
permitted herself certain confidences about the pleasures of Berlin, but
with a blushing modesty, admitting in advance that in the world there was
more—much more—that she wished to become acquainted with.

While pacing around the Chapelle Expiatoire, Julio recalled with a certain
remorse the wife of Counsellor Erckmann. He who had made the trip to
America for a woman’s sake, in order to collect money and marry her! Then
he immediately began making excuses for his conduct. Nobody was going to
know. Furthermore he did not pretend to be an ascetic, and Bertha Erckmann
was certainly a tempting adventure in mid ocean. Upon recalling her, his
imagination always saw a race horse—large, spare, roan colored, and
with a long stride. She was an up-to-date German who admitted no defect in
her country except the excessive weight of its women, combating in her
person this national menace with every known system of dieting. For her
every meal was a species of torment, and the procession of bocks in the
smoking room a tantalizing agony. The slenderness achieved and maintained
by will power only made more prominent the size of her frame, the powerful
skeleton with heavy jaws and large teeth, strong and dazzling, which
perhaps suggested Desnoyers’ disrespectful comparison. “She is thin, but
enormous, nevertheless!” was always his conclusion.

But then, he considered her, notwithstanding, the most distinguished woman
on board—distinguished for the sea—elegant in the style of
Munich, with clothes of indescribable colors that suggested Persian art
and the vignettes of mediaeval manuscripts. The husband admired Bertha’s
elegance, lamenting her childlessness in secret, almost as though it were
a crime of high treason. Germany was magnificent because of the fertility
of its women. The Kaiser, with his artistic hyperbole, had proclaimed that
the true German beauty should have a waist measure of at least a yard and
a half.

When Desnoyers entered into the smoking room in order to take the seat
which Bertha had reserved for him, her husband and his wealthy hangers-on
had their pack of cards lying idle upon the green felt. Herr Rath was
continuing his discourse and his listeners, taking their cigars from their
mouths, were emitting grunts of approbation. The arrival of Julio provoked
a general smile of amiability. Here was France coming to fraternize with
them. They knew that his father was French, and that fact made him as
welcome as though he came in direct line from the palace of the Quai
d’Orsay, representing the highest diplomacy of the Republic. The craze for
proselyting made them all promptly concede to him unlimited importance.

“We,” continued the Counsellor looking fixedly at Desnoyers as if he were
expecting a solemn declaration from him, “we wish to live on good terms
with France.”

The youth nodded his head so as not to appear inattentive. It appeared to
him a very good thing that these peoples should not be enemies, and as far
as he was concerned, they might affirm this relationship as often as they
wished: the only thing that was interesting him just at that time was a
certain knee that was seeking his under the table, transmitting its gentle
warmth through a double curtain of silk.

“But France,” complained the manufacturer, “is most unresponsive towards
us. For many years past, our Emperor has been holding out his hand with
noble loyalty, but she pretends not to see it. . . . That, you must admit,
is not as it should be.”

Just here Desnoyers believed that he ought to say something in order that
the spokesman might not divine his more engrossing occupation.

“Perhaps you are not doing enough. If, first of all, you would return that
which you took away from France!” . . .

Stupefied silence followed this remark, as if the alarm signal had sounded
through the boat. Some of those who were about putting their cigars in
their mouths, remained with hands immovable within two inches of their
lips, their eyes almost popping out of their heads. But the Captain of the
Landsturm was there to formulate their mute protest.

“Return!” he said in a voice almost extinguished by the sudden swelling of
his neck. “We have nothing to return, for we have taken nothing. That
which we possess, we acquire by our heroism.”

The hidden knee with its agreeable friction made itself more insinuating,
as though counselling the youth to greater prudence.

“Do not say such things,” breathed Bertha, “thus only the republicans,
corrupted by Paris, talk. A youth so distinguished who has been in Berlin,
and has relatives in Germany!” . . .

But Desnoyers felt a hereditary impulse of aggressiveness before each of
her husband’s statements, enunciated in haughty tones, and responded
coldly:—

“It is as if I should take your watch and then propose that we should be
friends, forgetting the occurrence. Although you might forget, the first
thing for me to do would be to return the watch.”

Counsellor Erckmann wished to retort with so many things at once that he
stuttered horribly, leaping from one idea to the other. To compare the
reconquest of Alsace to a robbery. A German country! The race . . . the
language . . . the history! . . .

“But when did they announce their wish to be German?” asked the youth
without losing his calmness. “When have you consulted their opinion?”

The Counsellor hesitated, not knowing whether to argue with this insolent
fellow or crush him with his scorn.

“Young man, you do not know what you are talking about,” he finally
blustered with withering contempt. “You are an Argentinian and do not
understand the affairs of Europe.”

And the others agreed, suddenly repudiating the citizenship which they had
attributed to him a little while before. The Counsellor, with military
rudeness, brusquely turned his back upon him, and taking up the pack,
distributed the cards. The game was renewed. Desnoyers, seeing himself
isolated by the scornful silence, felt greatly tempted to break up the
playing by violence; but the hidden knee continued counselling
self-control, and an invisible hand had sought his right, pressing it
sweetly. That was enough to make him recover his serenity. The
Counsellor’s Lady seemed to be absorbed in the progress of the game. He
also looked on, a malignant smile contracting slightly the lines of his
mouth as he was mentally ejaculating by way of consolation, “Captain,
Captain! . . . You little know what is awaiting you!”

On terra firma, he would never again have approached these men; but life
on a transatlantic liner, with its inevitable promiscuousness, obliges
forgetfulness. The following day the Counsellor and his friends came in
search of him, flattering his sensibilities by erasing every irritating
memory. He was a distinguished youth belonging to a wealthy family, and
all of them had shops and business in his country. The only thing was that
he should be careful not to mention his French origin. He was an
Argentinian; and thereupon, the entire chorus interested itself in the
grandeur of his country and all the nations of South America where they
had agencies or investments—exaggerating its importance as though
its petty republics were great powers, commenting with gravity upon the
deeds and words of its political leaders and giving him to understand that
in Germany there was no one who was not concerned about the future of
South America, predicting for all its divisions most glorious prosperity—a
reflex of the Empire, always, provided, of course, that they kept under
Germanic influence.

In spite of these flatteries, Desnoyers was no longer presenting himself
with his former assiduity at the hour of poker. The Counsellor’s wife was
retiring to her stateroom earlier than usual—their approach to the
Equator inducing such an irresistible desire for sleep, that she had to
abandon her husband to his card playing. Julio also had mysterious
occupations which prevented his appearance on deck until after midnight.
With the precipitation of a man who desires to be seen in order to avoid
suspicion, he was accustomed to enter the smoking room talking loudly as
he seated himself near the husband and his boon companions.

The game had ended, and an orgy of beer and fat cigars from Hamburg was
celebrating the success of the winners. It was the hour of Teutonic
expansion, of intimacy among men, of heavy, sluggish jokes, of off-color
stories. The Counsellor was presiding with much majesty over the
diableries of his chums, prudent business men from the Hanseatic ports who
had big accounts in the Deutsche Bank or were shopkeepers installed in the
republic of the La Plata, with an innumerable family. He was a warrior, a
captain, and on applauding every heavy jest with a laugh that distended
his fat neck, he fancied that he was among his comrades at arms.

In honor of the South Americans who, tired of pacing the deck, had dropped
in to hear what the gringoes were saying, they were turning into Spanish
the witticisms and licentious anecdotes awakened in the memory by a
superabundance of beer. Julio was marvelling at the ready laugh of all
these men. While the foreigners were remaining unmoved, they would break
forth into loud horse-laughs throwing themselves back in their seats. And
when the German audience was growing cold, the story-teller would resort
to an infallible expedient to remedy his lack of success:—

“They told this yarn to the Kaiser, and when the Kaiser heard it he
laughed heartily.”

It was not necessary to say more. They all laughed then. Ha, ha, ha! with
a spontaneous roar but a short one, a laugh in three blows, since to
prolong it, might be interpreted as a lack of respect to His Majesty.

As they neared Europe, a batch of news came to meet the boat. The
employees in the wireless telegraphy office were working incessantly. One
night, on entering the smoking room, Desnoyers saw the German notables
gesticulating with animated countenances. They were no longer drinking
beer. They had had bottles of champagne uncorked, and the Counsellor’s
Lady, much impressed, had not retired to her stateroom. Captain Erckmann,
spying the young Argentinian, offered him a glass.

“It is war,” he shouted with enthusiasm. “War at last. . . . The hour has
come!”

Desnoyers made a gesture of astonishment. War! . . . What war? . . . Like
all the others, he had read on the news bulletin outside a radiogram
stating that the Austrian government had just sent an ultimatum to Servia;
but it made not the slightest impression on him, for he was not at all
interested in the Balkan affairs. Those were but the quarrels of a
miserable little nation monopolizing the attention of the world,
distracting it from more worthwhile matters. How could this event concern
the martial Counsellor? The two nations would soon come to an
understanding. Diplomacy sometimes amounted to something.

“No,” insisted the German ferociously. “It is war, blessed war. Russia
will sustain Servia, and we will support our ally. . . . What will France
do? Do you know what France will do?” . . .

Julio shrugged his shoulders testily as though asking to be left out of
all international discussions.

“It is war,” asserted the Counsellor, “the preventive war that we need.
Russia is growing too fast, and is preparing to fight us. Four years more
of peace and she will have finished her strategic railroads, and her
military power, united to that of her allies, will be worth as much as
ours. It is better to strike a powerful blow now. It is necessary to take
advantage of this opportunity. . . . War. Preventive war!”

All his clan were listening in silence. Some did not appear to feel the
contagion of his enthusiasm. War! . . . In imagination they saw their
business paralyzed, their agencies bankrupt, the banks cutting down credit
. . . a catastrophe more frightful to them than the slaughters of battles.
But they applauded with nods and grunts all of Erckmann’s ferocious
demonstrations. He was a Herr Rath, and an officer besides. He must be in
the secrets of the destiny of his country, and that was enough to make
them drink silently to the success of the war.

Julio thought that the Counsellor and his admirers must be drunk. “Look
here, Captain,” he said in a conciliatory tone, “what you say lacks logic.
How could war possibly be acceptable to industrial Germany? Every moment
its business is increasing, every month it conquers a new market and every
year its commercial balance soars upward in unheard of proportions. Sixty
years ago, it had to man its boats with Berlin hack drivers arrested by
the police. Now its commercial fleets and war vessels cross all oceans,
and there is no port where the German merchant marine does not occupy the
greatest part of the docks. It would only be necessary to continue living
in this way, to put yourselves beyond the exigencies of war! Twenty years
more of peace, and the Germans would be lords of the world’s commerce,
conquering England, the former mistress of the seas, in a bloodless
struggle. And are they going to risk all this—like a gambler who
stakes his entire fortune on a single card—in a struggle that might
result unfavorably?” . . .

“No, war,” insisted the Counsellor furiously, “preventive war. We live
surrounded by our enemies, and this state of things cannot go on. It is
best to end it at once. Either they or we! Germany feels herself strong
enough to challenge the world. We’ve got to put an end to this Russian
menace! And if France doesn’t keep herself quiet, so much the worse for
her! . . . And if anyone else . . . ANYONE dares to come in against us, so
much the worse for him! When I set up a new machine in my shops, it is to
make it produce unceasingly. We possess the finest army in the world, and
it is necessary to give it exercise that it may not rust out.”

He then continued with heavy emphasis, “They have put a band of iron
around us in order to throttle us. But Germany has a strong chest and has
only to expand in order to burst its bands. We must awake before they
manacle us in our sleep. Woe to those who then oppose us! . . .”

Desnoyers felt obliged to reply to this arrogance. He had never seen the
iron circle of which the Germans were complaining. The nations were merely
unwilling to continue living, unsuspecting and inactive, before boundless
German ambition. They were simply preparing to defend themselves against
an almost certain attack. They wished to maintain their dignity,
repeatedly violated under most absurd pretexts.

“I wonder if it is not the others,” he concluded, “who are obliged to
defend themselves because you represent a menace to the world!”

An invisible hand sought his under the table, as it had some nights
before, to recommend prudence; but now he clasped it forcibly with the
authority of a right acquired.

“Oh, sir!” sighed the sweet Bertha, “to talk like that, a youth so
distinguished who has . . .”

She was not able to finish, for her husband interrupted. They were no
longer in American waters, and the Counsellor expressed himself with the
rudeness of a master of his house.

“I have the honor to inform you, young man,” he said, imitating the
cutting coldness of the diplomats, “that you are merely a South American
and know nothing of the affairs of Europe.”

He did not call him an “Indian,” but Julio heard the implication as though
he had used the word itself. Ah, if that hidden handclasp had not held him
with its sentimental thrills! . . . But this contact kept him calm and
even made him smile. “Thanks, Captain,” he said to himself. “It is the
least you can do to get even with me!”

Here his relations with the German and his clientele came to an end. The
merchants, as they approached nearer and nearer to their native land,
began casting off that servile desire of ingratiating themselves which
they had assumed in all their trips to the new world. They now had more
important things to occupy them. The telegraphic service was working
without cessation. The Commandant of the vessel was conferring in his
apartment with the Counsellor as his compatriot of most importance. His
friends were hunting out the most obscure places in order to talk
confidentially with one another. Even Bertha commenced to avoid Desnoyers.
She was still smiling distantly at him, but that smile was more of a
souvenir than a reality.

Between Lisbon and the coast of England, Julio spoke with her husband for
the last time. Every morning was appearing on the bulletin board the
alarming news transmitted by radiograph. The Empire was arming itself
against its enemies. God would punish them, making all manner of troubles
fall upon them. Desnoyers was motionless with astonishment before the last
piece of news—“Three hundred thousand revolutionists are now
besieging Paris. The suburbs are beginning to burn. The horrors of the
Commune have broken out again.”

“My, but these Germans have gone mad!” exclaimed the disgusted youth to
the curious group surrounding the radio-sheet. “We are going to lose the
little sense that we have left! . . . What revolutionists are they talking
about? How could a revolution break out in Paris if the men of the
government are not reactionary?”

A gruff voice sounded behind him, rude, authoritative, as if trying to
banish the doubts of the audience. It was the Herr Comerzienrath who was
speaking.

“Young man, these notices are sent us by the first agencies of Germany . .
. and Germany never lies.”

After this affirmation, he turned his back upon them and they saw him no
more.

On the following morning, the last day of the voyage. Desnoyers’ steward
awoke him in great excitement. “Herr, come up on deck! a most beautiful
spectacle!”

The sea was veiled by the fog, but behind its hazy curtains could be
distinguished some silhouettes like islands with great towers and sharp,
pointed minarets. The islands were advancing over the oily waters slowly
and majestically, with impressive dignity. Julio counted eighteen. They
appeared to fill the ocean. It was the Channel Fleet which had just left
the English coast by Government order, sailing around simply to show its
strength. Seeing this procession of dreadnoughts for the first time,
Desnoyers was reminded of a flock of marine monsters, and gained a better
idea of the British power. The German ship passed among them, shrinking,
humiliated, quickening its speed. “One might suppose,” mused the youth,
“that she had an uneasy conscience and wished to scud to safety.” A South
American passenger near him was jesting with one of the Germans, “What if
they have already declared war! . . . What if they should make us
prisoners!”

After midday, they entered Southampton roads. The Frederic August hurried
to get away as soon as possible, and transacted business with dizzying
celerity. The cargo of passengers and baggage was enormous. Two launches
approached the transatlantic and discharged an avalanche of Germans
residents in England who invaded the decks with the joy of those who tread
friendly soil, desiring to see Hamburg as soon as possible. Then the boat
sailed through the Channel with a speed most unusual in these places.

The people, leaning on the railing, were commenting on the extraordinary
encounters in this marine boulevard, usually frequented by ships of peace.
Certain smoke lines on the horizon were from the French squadron carrying
President Poincare who was returning from Russia. The European alarm had
interrupted his trip. Then they saw more English vessels patrolling the
coast line like aggressive and vigilant dogs. Two North American
battleships could be distinguished by their mast-heads in the form of
baskets. Then a Russian battleship, white and glistening, passed at full
steam on its way to the Baltic. “Bad!” said the South American passengers
regretfully. “Very bad! It looks this time as if it were going to be
serious!” and they glanced uneasily at the neighboring coasts on both
sides. Although they presented the usual appearance, behind them, perhaps,
a new period of history was in the making.

The transatlantic was due at Boulogne at midnight where it was supposed to
wait until daybreak to discharge its passengers comfortably. It arrived,
nevertheless, at ten, dropped anchor outside the harbor, and the
Commandant gave orders that the disembarkation should take place in less
than an hour. For this reason they had quickened their speed, consuming a
vast amount of extra coal. It was necessary to get away as soon as
possible, seeking the refuge of Hamburg. The radiographic apparatus had
evidently been working to some purpose.

By the glare of the bluish searchlights which were spreading a livid
clearness over the sea, began the unloading of passengers and baggage for
Paris, from the transatlantic into the tenders. “Hurry! Hurry!” The seamen
were pushing forward the ladies of slow step who were recounting their
valises, believing that they had lost some. The stewards loaded themselves
up with babies as though they were bundles. The general precipitation
dissipated the usual exaggerated and oily Teutonic amiability. “They are
regular bootlickers,” thought Desnoyers. “They believe that their hour of
triumph has come, and do not think it necessary to pretend any longer.” .
. .

He was soon in a launch that was bobbing up and down on the waves near the
black and immovable hulk of the great liner, dotted with many circles of
light and filled with people waving handkerchiefs. Julio recognized Bertha
who was waving her hand without seeing him, without knowing in which
tender he was, but feeling obliged to show her gratefulness for the sweet
memories that now were being lost in the mystery of the sea and the night.
“Adieu, Frau Rath!”

The distance between the departing transatlantic and the lighters was
widening. As though it had been awaiting this moment with impunity, a
stentorian voice on the upper deck shouted with a noisy guffaw, “See you
later! Soon we shall meet you in Paris!” And the marine band, the very
same band that three days before had astonished Desnoyers with its
unexpected Marseillaise, burst forth into a military march of the time of
Frederick the Great—a march of grenadiers with an accompaniment of
trumpets.

That had been the night before. Although twenty-four hours had not yet
passed by, Desnoyers was already considering it as a distant event of
shadowy reality. His thoughts, always disposed to take the opposite side,
did not share in the general alarm. The insolence of the Counsellor now
appeared to him but the boastings of a burgher turned into a soldier. The
disquietude of the people of Paris, was but the nervous agitation of a
city which lived placidly and became alarmed at the first hint of danger
to its comfort. So many times they had spoken of an immediate war, always
settling things peacefully at the last moment! . . . Furthermore he did
not want war to come because it would upset all his plans for the future;
and the man accepted as logical and reasonable everything that suited his
selfishness, placing it above reality.

“No, there will not be war,” he repeated as he continued pacing up and
down the garden. “These people are beside themselves. How could a war
possibly break out in these days?” . . .

And after disposing of his doubts, which certainly would in a short time
come up again, he thought of the joy of the moment, consulting his watch.
Five o’clock! She might come now at any minute! He thought that he
recognized her afar off in a lady who was passing through the grating by
the rue Pasquier. She seemed to him a little different, but it occurred to
him that possibly the Summer fashions might have altered her appearance.
But soon he saw that he had made a mistake. She was not alone, another
lady was with her. They were perhaps English or North American women who
worshipped the memory of Marie Antoinette and wished to visit the Chapelle
Expiatoire, the old tomb of the executed queen. Julio watched them as they
climbed the flights of steps and crossed the interior patio in which were
interred the eight hundred Swiss soldiers killed in the attack of the
Tenth of August, with other victims of revolutionary fury.

Disgusted at his error, he continued his tramp. His ill humor made the
monument with which the Bourbon restoration had adorned the old cemetery
of the Madeleine, appear uglier than ever to him. Time was passing, but
she did not come. Every time that he turned, he looked hungrily at the
entrances of the garden. And then it happened as in all their meetings.
She suddenly appeared as if she had fallen from the sky or risen up from
the ground, like an apparition. A cough, a slight rustling of footsteps,
and as he turned, Julio almost collided with her.

“Marguerite! Oh, Marguerite!” . . .

It was she, and yet he was slow to recognize her. He felt a certain
strangeness in seeing in full reality the countenance which had occupied
his imagination for three months, each time more spirituelle and shadowy
with the idealism of absence. But his doubts were of short duration. Then
it seemed as though time and space were eliminated, that he had not made
any voyage, and but a few hours had intervened since their last interview.

Marguerite divined the expansion which might follow Julio’s exclamations,
the vehement hand-clasp, perhaps something more, so she kept herself calm
and serene.

“No; not here,” she said with a grimace of repugnance. “What a ridiculous
idea for us to have met here!”

They were about to seat themselves on the iron chairs, in the shadow of
some shrubbery, when she rose suddenly. Those who were passing along the
boulevard might see them by merely casting their eyes toward the garden.
At this time, many of her friends might be passing through the
neighborhood because of its proximity to the big shops. . . . They,
therefore, sought refuge at a corner of the monument, placing themselves
between it and the rue des Mathurins. Desnoyers brought two chairs near
the hedge, so that when seated they were invisible to those passing on the
other side of the railing. But this was not solitude. A few steps away, a
fat, nearsighted man was reading his paper, and a group of women were
chatting and embroidering. A woman with a red wig and two dogs—some
housekeeper who had come down into the garden in order to give her pets an
airing—passed several times near the amorous pair, smiling
discreetly.

“How annoying!” groaned Marguerite. “Why did we ever come to this place!”

The two scrutinized each other carefully, wishing to see exactly what
transformation Time had wrought.

“You are darker than ever,” she said. “You look like a man of the sea.”

Julio was finding her even lovelier than before, and felt sure that
possessing her was well worth all the contrarieties which had brought
about his trip to South America. She was taller than he, with an elegantly
proportioned slenderness. “She has the musical step,” Desnoyers had told
himself, when seeing her in his imagination; and now, on beholding her
again, the first thing that he admired was her rhythmic tread, light and
graceful as she passed through the garden seeking another seat. Her
features were not regular but they had a piquant fascination—a true
Parisian face. Everything that had been invented for the embellishment of
feminine charm was used about her person with the most exquisite
fastidiousness. She had always lived for herself. Only a few months before
had she abdicated a part of this sweet selfishness, sacrificing reunions,
teas, and calls in order to give Desnoyers some of the afternoon hours.

Stylish and painted like a priceless doll, with no loftier ambition than
to be a model, interpreting with personal elegance the latest confections
of the modistes, she was at last experiencing the same preoccupations and
joys as other women, creating for herself an inner life. The nucleus of
this new life, hidden under her former frivolity, was Desnoyers. Just as
she was imagining that she had reorganized her existence—adjusting
the satisfactions of worldly elegance to the delights of love in intimate
secrecy—a fulminating catastrophe (the intervention of her husband
whose possible appearance she seemed to have overlooked) had disturbed her
thoughtless happiness. She who was accustomed to think herself the centre
of the universe, imagining that events ought to revolve around her desires
and tastes, had suffered this cruel surprise with more astonishment than
grief.

“And you, how do you think I look?” Marguerite queried.

“I must tell you that the fashion has changed. The sheath skirt has passed
away. Now it is worn short and with more fullness.”

Desnoyers had to interest himself in her apparel with the same devotion,
mixing his appreciation of the latest freak of the fashion-monger with his
eulogies of Marguerite’s beauty.

“Have you thought much about me?” she continued. “You have not been
unfaithful to me a single time? Not even once? . . . Tell me the truth;
you know I can always tell when you are lying.”

“I have always thought of you,” he said putting his hand on his heart, as
if he were swearing before a judge.

And he said it roundly, with an accent of truth, since in his infidelities—now
completely forgotten—the memory of Marguerite had always been
present.

“But let us talk about you!” added Julio. “What have you been doing all
the time?”

He had brought his chair nearer to hers, and their knees touched. He took
one of her hands, patting it and putting his finger in the glove opening.
Oh, that accursed garden which would not permit greater intimacy and
obliged them to speak in a low tone, after three months’ absence! . . . In
spite of his discretion, the man who was reading his paper raised his head
and looked irritably at them over his spectacles as though a fly were
distracting him with its buzzing. . . . The very idea of talking
love-nonsense in a public garden when all Europe was threatened with
calamity!

Repelling the audacious hand, Marguerite spoke tranquilly of her existence
during the last months.

“I have passed my life the best I could, but I have been greatly bored.
You know that I am now living with mama, and mama is a lady of the old
regime who does not understand our tastes. I have been to the theatres
with my brother. I have made many calls on the lawyer in order to learn
the progress of my divorce and hurry it along . . . and nothing else.”

“And your husband?”

“Don’t let’s talk about him. Do you want to? I pity the poor man! So good
. . . so correct. The lawyer assures me that he agrees to everything and
will not impose any obstacles. They tell me that he does not come to
Paris, that he lives in his factory. Our old home is closed. There are
times when I feel remorseful over the way I have treated him.”

“And I?” queried Julio, withdrawing his hand.

“You are right,” she returned smiling. “You are Life. It is cruel but it
is human. We have to live our lives without taking others into
consideration. It is necessary to be selfish in order to be happy.”

The two remained silent. The remembrance of the husband had swept across
them like a glacial blast. Julio was the first to brighten up.

“And you have not danced in all this time?”

“No, how could I? The very idea, a woman in divorce proceedings! . . . I
have not been to a single chic party since you went away. I wanted to
preserve a certain decorous mourning fiesta. How horrible it was! . . . It
needed you, the Master!”

They had again clasped hands and were smiling. Memories of the previous
months were passing before their eyes, visions of their life from five to
seven in the afternoon, dancing in the hotels of the Champs Elysees where
the tango had been inexorably associated with a cup of tea.

She appeared to tear herself away from these recollections, impelled by a
tenacious obsession which had slipped from her mind in the first moments
of their meeting.

“Do you know much about what’s happening? Tell me all. People talk so
much. . . . Do you really believe that there will be war? Don’t you think
that it will all end in some kind of settlement?”

Desnoyers comforted her with his optimism. He did not believe in the
possibility of a war. That was ridiculous.

“I say so, too! Ours is not the epoch of savages. I have known some
Germans, chic and well-educated persons who surely must think exactly as
we do. An old professor who comes to the house was explaining yesterday to
mama that wars are no longer possible in these progressive times. In two
months’ time, there would scarcely be any men left, in three, the world
would find itself without money to continue the struggle. I do not recall
exactly how it was, but he explained it all very clearly, in a manner most
delightful to hear.”

She reflected in silence, trying to co-ordinate her confused
recollections, but dismayed by the effort required, added on her own
account.

“Just imagine what war would mean—how horrible! Society life
paralyzed. No more parties, nor clothes, nor theatres! Why, it is even
possible that they might not design any more fashions! All the women in
mourning. Can you imagine it? . . . And Paris deserted. . . . How
beautiful it seemed as I came to meet you this afternoon! . . . No, no, it
cannot be! Next month, you know, we go to Vichy. Mama needs the waters.
Then to Biarritz. After that, I shall go to a castle on the Loire. And
besides there are our affairs, my divorce, our marriage which may take
place the next year. . . . And is war to hinder and cut short all this!
No, no, it is not possible. My brother and others like him are foolish
enough to dream of danger from Germany. I am sure that my husband, too,
who is only interested in serious and bothersome matters, is among those
who believe that war is imminent and prepare to take part in it. What
nonsense! Tell me that it is all nonsense. I need to hear you say it.”

Tranquilized by the affirmations of her lover, she then changed the trend
of the conversation. The possibility of their approaching marriage brought
to mind the object of the voyage which Desnoyers had just made. There had
not been time for them to write to each other during their brief
separation.

“Did you succeed in getting the money? The joy of seeing you made me
forget all about such things. . . .”

Adopting the air of a business expert, he replied that he had brought back
less than he expected, for he had found the country in the throes of one
of its periodical panics; but still he had managed to get together about
four hundred thousand francs. In his purse he had a check for that amount.
Later on, they would send him further remittances. A ranchman in
Argentina, a sort of relative, was looking after his affairs. Marguerite
appeared satisfied, and in spite of her frivolity, adopted the air of a
serious woman.

“Money, money!” she exclaimed sententiously. “And yet there is no
happiness without it! With your four hundred thousand and what I have, we
shall be able to get along. . . . I told you that my husband wishes to
give me back my dowry. He has told my brother so. But the state of his
business, and the increased size of his factory do not permit him to
return it as quickly as he would like. I can’t help but feel sorry for the
poor man . . . so honorable and so upright in every way. If he only were
not so commonplace! . . .”

Again Marguerite seemed to regret these tardy spontaneous eulogies which
were chilling their interview. So again she changed the trend of her
chatter.

“And your family? Have you seen them?” . . .

Desnoyers had been to his father’s home before starting for the Chapelle
Expiatoire. A stealthy entrance into the great house on the avenue Victor
Hugo, and then up to the first floor like a tradesman. Then he had slipt
into the kitchen like a soldier sweetheart of the maids. His mother had
come there to embrace him, poor Dona Luisa, weeping and kissing him
frantically as though she had feared to lose him forever. Close behind her
mother had come Luisita, nicknamed Chichi, who always surveyed him with
sympathetic curiosity as if she wished to know better a brother so bad and
adorable who had led decent women from the paths of virtue, and committed
all kinds of follies. Then Desnoyers had been greatly surprised to see
entering the kitchen with the air of a tragedy queen, a noble mother of
the drama, his Aunt Elena, the one who had married a German and was living
in Berlin surrounded with innumerable children.

“She has been in Paris a month. She is going to make a little visit to our
castle. And it appears that her eldest son—my cousin, ‘The Sage,’
whom I have not seen for years—is also coming here.”

The home interview had several times been interrupted by fear. “Your
father is at home, be careful,” his mother had said to him each time that
he had spoken above a whisper. And his Aunt Elena had stationed herself at
the door with a dramatic air, like a stage heroine resolved to plunge a
dagger into the tyrant who should dare to cross the threshold. The entire
family was accustomed to submit to the rigid authority of Don Marcelo
Desnoyers. “Oh, that old man!” exclaimed Julio, referring to his father.
“He may live many years yet, but how he weighs upon us all!”

His mother, who had never wearied of looking at him, finally had to bring
the interview to an end, frightened by certain approaching sounds. “Go, he
might surprise us, and he would be furious.” So Julio had fled the
paternal home, caressed by the tears of the two ladies and the admiring
glances of Chichi, by turns ashamed and proud of a brother who had caused
such enthusiasm and scandal among her friends.

Marguerite also spoke of Senor Desnoyers. A terrible tyrant of the old
school with whom they could never come to an understanding.

The two remained silent, looking fixedly at each other. Now that they had
said the things of greatest urgency, present interests became more
absorbing. More immediate things, unspoken, seemed to well up in their
timid and vacillating eyes, before escaping in the form of words. They did
not dare to talk like lovers here. Every minute the cloud of witnesses
seemed increasing around them. The woman with the dogs and the red wig was
passing with greater frequency, shortening her turns through the square in
order to greet them with a smile of complicity. The reader of the daily
paper was now exchanging views with a friend on a neighboring bench
regarding the possibilities of war. The garden had become a thoroughfare.
The modistes upon going out from their establishments, and the ladies
returning from shopping, were crossing through the square in order to
shorten their walk. The little avenue was a popular short-cut. All the
pedestrians were casting curious glances at the elegant lady and her
companion seated in the shadow of the shrubbery with the timid yet
would-be natural look of those who desire to hide themselves, yet at the
same time feign a casual air.

“How exasperating!” sighed Marguerite. “They are going to find us out!”

A girl looked at her so searchingly that she thought she recognized in her
an employee of a celebrated modiste. Besides, some of her personal friends
who had met her in the crowded shops but an hour ago might be returning
home by way of the garden.

“Let us go,” she said rising hurriedly. “If they should spy us here
together, just think what they might say! . . . and just when they are
becoming a little forgetful!”

Desnoyers protested crossly. Go away? . . . Paris had become a shrunken
place for them nowadays because Marguerite refused to go to a single place
where there was a possibility of their being surprised. In another square,
in a restaurant, wherever they might go—they would run the same risk
of being recognized. She would only consider meetings in public places,
and yet at the same time, dreaded the curiosity of the people. If
Marguerite would like to go to his studio of such sweet memories! . . .

“To your home? No! no indeed!” she replied emphatically “I cannot forget
the last time I was there.”

But Julio insisted, foreseeing a break in that firm negative. Where could
they be more comfortable? Besides, weren’t they going to marry as soon as
possible? . . .

“I tell you no,” she repeated. “Who knows but my husband may be watching
me! What a complication for my divorce if he should surprise us in your
house!”

Now it was he who eulogized the husband, insisting that such watchfulness
was incompatible with his character. The engineer had accepted the facts,
considering them irreparable and was now thinking only of reconstructing
his life.

“No, it is better for us to separate,” she continued. “Tomorrow we shall
see each other again. You will hunt a more favorable place. Think it over,
and you will find a solution for it all.”

But he wished an immediate solution. They had abandoned their seats, going
slowly toward the rue des Mathurins. Julio was speaking with a trembling
and persuasive eloquence. To-morrow? No, now. They had only to call a
taxicab. It would be only a matter of a few minutes, and then the
isolation, the mystery, the return to a sweet past—to that intimacy
in the studio where they had passed their happiest hours. They would
believe that no time had elapsed since their first meetings.

“No,” she faltered with a weakening accent, seeking a last resistance.
“Besides, your secretary might be there, that Spaniard who lives with you.
How ashamed I would be to meet him again!”

Julio laughed. . . . Argensola! How could that comrade who knew all about
their past be an obstacle? If they should happen to meet him in the house,
he would be sure to leave immediately. More than once, he had had to go
out so as not to be in the way. His discretion was such that he had
foreseen events. Probably he had already left, conjecturing that a near
visit would be the most logical thing. His chum would simply go wandering
through the streets in search of news.

Marguerite was silent, as though yielding on seeing her pretexts
exhausted. Desnoyers was silent, too, construing her stillness as assent.
They had left the garden and she was looking around uneasily, terrified to
find herself in the open street beside her lover, and seeking a
hiding-place. Suddenly she saw before her the little red door of an
automobile, opened by the hand of her adorer.

“Get in,” ordered Julio.

And she climbed in hastily, anxious to hide herself as soon as possible.
The vehicle started at great speed. Marguerite immediately pulled down the
shade of the window on her side, but, before she had finished and could
turn her head, she felt a hungry mouth kissing the nape of her neck.

“No, not here,” she said in a pleading tone. “Let us be sensible!”

And while he, rebellious at these exhortations, persisted in his advances,
the voice of Marguerite again sounded above the noise of the rattling
machinery of the automobile as it bounded over the pavement.

“Do you really believe that there will be no war? Do you believe that we
will be able to marry? . . . Tell me again. I want you to encourage me . .
. I need to hear it from your lips.”

CHAPTER II

MADARIAGA, THE CENTAUR

In 1870 Marcelo Desnoyers was nineteen years old. He was born in the
suburbs of Paris, an only child; his father, interested in little building
speculations, maintained his family in modest comfort. The mason wished to
make an architect of his son, and Marcelo was in the midst of his
preparatory studies when his father suddenly died, leaving his affairs
greatly involved. In a few months, he and his mother descended the slopes
of ruin, and were obliged to give up their snug, middle-class quarters and
live like laborers.

When the fourteen-year-old boy had to choose a trade, he learned wood
carving. This craft was an art related to the tastes awakened in Marcelo
by his abandoned studies. His mother retired to the country, living with
some relatives while the lad advanced rapidly in the shops, aiding his
master in all the important orders which he received from the provinces.
The first news of the war with Prussia surprised him in Marseilles,
working on the decorations of a theatre.

Marcelo was opposed to the Empire like all the youths of his generation.
He was also much influenced by the older workmen who had taken part in the
Republic of ‘48, and who still retained vivid recollections of the Coup
d’Etat of the second of December.

One day he saw in the streets of Marseilles a popular manifestation in
favor of peace which was practically a protest against the government. The
old republicans in their implacable struggle with the Emperor, the
companies of the International which had just been organized, and a great
number of Italians and Spaniards who had fled their countries on account
of recent insurrections, composed the procession. A long-haired,
consumptive student was carrying the flag. “It is peace that we want—a
peace which may unite all mankind,” chanted the paraders. But on this
earth, the noblest propositions are seldom heard, since Destiny amuses
herself in perverting them and turning them aside.

Scarcely had the friends of peace entered the rue Cannebiere with their
hymn and standard, when war came to meet them, obliging them to resort to
fist and club. The day before, some battalions of Zouaves from Algiers had
disembarked in order to reinforce the army on the frontier, and these
veterans, accustomed to colonial existence and undiscriminating as to the
cause of disturbances, seized the opportunity to intervene in this
manifestation, some with bayonets and others with ungirded belts. “Hurrah
for War!” and a rain of lashes and blows fell upon the unarmed singers.
Marcelo saw the innocent student, the standard-bearer of peace, knocked
down wrapped in his flag, by the merry kicks of the Zouaves. Then he knew
no more, since he had received various blows with a leather strap, and a
knife thrust in his shoulder; he had to run the same as the others.

That day developed for the first time, his fiery, stubborn character,
irritable before contradiction, even to the point of adopting the most
extreme resolution. “Down with War!” Since it was not possible for him to
protest in any other way, he would leave the country. The Emperor might
arrange his affairs as best he could. The struggle was going to be long
and disastrous, according to the enemies of the Empire. If he stayed, he
would in a few months be drawn for the soldiery. Desnoyers renounced the
honor of serving the Emperor. He hesitated a little when he thought of his
mother. But his country relatives would not turn her out, and he planned
to work very hard and send her money. Who knew what riches might be
waiting for him, on the other side of the sea! . . . Good-bye, France!

Thanks to his savings, a harbor official found it to his interest to offer
him the choice of three boats. One was sailing to Egypt, another to
Australia, another to Montevideo and Buenos Aires, which made the
strongest appeal to him? . . . Desnoyers, remembering his readings, wished
to consult the wind and follow the course that it indicated, as he had
seen various heroes of novels do. But that day the wind blew from the sea
toward France. He also wished to toss up a coin in order to test his fate.
Finally he decided upon the vessel sailing first. Not until, with his
scanty baggage, he was actually on the deck of the next boat to anchor,
did he take any interest in its course—“For the Rio de la Plata.” .
. . And he accepted these words with a fatalistic shrug. “Very well, let
it be South America!” The country was not distasteful to him, since he
knew it by certain travel publications whose illustrations represented
herds of cattle at liberty, half-naked, plumed Indians, and hairy cowboys
whirling over their heads serpentine lassos tipped with balls.

The millionaire Desnoyers never forgot that trip to America—forty-three
days navigating in a little worn-out steamer that rattled like a heap of
old iron, groaned in all its joints at the slightest roughness of the sea,
and had to stop four times for repairs, at the mercy of the winds and
waves.

In Montevideo, he learned of the reverses suffered by his country and that
the French Empire no longer existed. He felt a little ashamed when he
heard that the nation was now self-governing, defending itself gallantly
behind the walls of Paris. And he had fled! . . . Months afterwards, the
events of the Commune consoled him for his flight. If he had remained,
wrath at the national downfall, his relations with his co-laborers, the
air in which he lived—everything would surely have dragged him along
to revolt. In that case, he would have been shot or consigned to a
colonial prison like so many of his former comrades.

So his determination crystallized, and he stopped thinking about the
affairs of his mother-country. The necessities of existence in a foreign
land whose language he was beginning to pick up made him think only of
himself. The turbulent and adventurous life of these new nations compelled
him to most absurd expedients and varied occupations. Yet he felt himself
strong with an audacity and self-reliance which he never had in the old
world. “I am equal to everything,” he said, “if they only give me time to
prove it!” Although he had fled from his country in order not to take up
arms, he even led a soldier’s life for a brief period in his adopted land,
receiving a wound in one of the many hostilities between the whites and
reds in the unsettled districts.

In Buenos Aires, he again worked as a woodcarver. The city was beginning
to expand, breaking its shell as a large village. Desnoyers spent many
years ornamenting salons and facades. It was a laborious existence,
sedentary and remunerative. But one day he became tired of this slow
saving which could only bring him a mediocre fortune after a long time. He
had gone to the new world to become rich like so many others. And at
twenty-seven, he started forth again, a full-fledged adventurer, avoiding
the cities, wishing to snatch money from untapped, natural sources. He
worked farms in the forests of the North, but the locusts obliterated his
crops in a few hours. He was a cattle-driver, with the aid of only two
peons, driving a herd of oxen and mules over the snowy solitudes of the
Andes to Bolivia and Chile. In this life, making journeys of many months’
duration, across interminable plains, he lost exact account of time and
space. Just as he thought himself on the verge of winning a fortune, he
lost it all by an unfortunate speculation. And in a moment of failure and
despair, being now thirty years old, he became an employee of Julio
Madariaga.

He knew of this rustic millionaire through his purchases of flocks—a
Spaniard who had come to the country when very young, adapting himself
very easily to its customs, and living like a cowboy after he had acquired
enormous properties. The country folk, wishing to put a title of respect
before his name, called him Don Madariaga.

“Comrade,” he said to Desnoyers one day when he happened to be in a good
humor—a very rare thing for him—“you must have passed through
many ups and downs. Your lack of silver may be smelled a long ways off.
Why lead such a dog’s life? Trust in me, Frenchy, and remain here! I am
growing old, and I need a man.”

After the Frenchman had arranged to stay with Madariaga, every landed
proprietor living within fifteen or twenty leagues of the ranch, stopped
the new employee on the road to prophesy all sorts of misfortune.

“You will not stay long. Nobody can get along with Don Madariaga. We have
lost count of his overseers. He is a man who must be killed or deserted.
Soon you will go, too!”

Desnoyers did not doubt but that there was some truth in all this.
Madariaga was an impossible character, but feeling a certain sympathy with
the Frenchman, had tried not to annoy him with his irritability.

“He’s a regular pearl, this Frenchy,” said the plainsman as though trying
to excuse himself for his considerate treatment of his latest acquisition.
“I like him because he is very serious. . . . That is the way I like a
man.”

Desnoyers did not know exactly what this much-admired seriousness could
be, but he felt a secret pride in seeing him aggressive with everybody
else, even his family, whilst he took with him a tone of paternal
bluffness.

The family consisted of his wife Misia Petrona (whom he always called the
China) and two grown daughters who had gone to school in Buenos Aires, but
on returning to the ranch had reverted somewhat to their original
rusticity.

Madariaga’s fortune was enormous. He had lived in the field since his
arrival in America, when the white race had not dared to settle outside
the towns for fear of the Indians. He had gained his first money as a
fearless trader, taking merchandise in a cart from fort to fort. He had
killed Indians, was twice wounded by them, and for a while had lived as a
captive with an Indian chief whom he finally succeeded in making his
staunch friend. With his earnings, he had bought land, much land, almost
worthless because of its insecurity, devoting it to the raising of cattle
that he had to defend, gun in hand, from the pirates of the plains.

Then he had married his China, a young half-breed who was running around
barefoot, but owned many of her forefathers’ fields. They had lived in an
almost savage poverty on their property which would have taken many a
day’s journey to go around. Afterwards, when the government was pushing
the Indians towards the frontiers, and offering the abandoned lands for
sale, considering it a patriotic sacrifice on the part of any one wishing
to acquire them, Madariaga bought and bought at the lowest figure and
longest terms. To get possession of vast tracts and populate it with
blooded stock became the mission of his life. At times, galloping with
Desnoyers through his boundless fields, he was not able to repress his
pride.

“Tell me something, Frenchy! They say that further up the country, there
are some nations about the size of my ranches. Is that so?” . . .

The Frenchman agreed. . . . The lands of Madariaga were indeed greater
than many principalities. This put the old plainsman in rare good humor
and he exclaimed in the cowboy vernacular which had become second nature
to him—“Then it wouldn’t be absurd to proclaim myself king some day?
Just imagine it, Frenchy;—Don Madariaga, the First. . . . The worst
of it all is that I would also be the last, for the China will not give me
a son. . . . She is a weak cow!”

The fame of his vast territories and his wealth in stock reached even to
Buenos Aires. Every one knew of Madariaga by name, although very few had
seen him. When he went to the Capital, he passed unnoticed because of his
country aspect—the same leggings that he was used to wearing in the
fields, his poncho wrapped around him like a muffler above which rose the
aggressive points of a necktie, a tormenting ornament imposed by his
daughters, who in vain arranged it with loving hands that he might look a
little more respectable.

One day he entered the office of the richest merchant of the capital.

“Sir, I know that you need some young bulls for the European market, and I
have come to sell you a few.”

The man of affairs looked haughtily at the poor cowboy. He might explain
his errand to one of the employees, he could not waste his time on such
small matters. But the malicious grin on the rustic’s face awoke his
curiosity.

“And how many are you able to sell, my good man?”

“About thirty thousand, sir.”

It was not necessary to hear more. The supercilious merchant sprang from
his desk, and obsequiously offered him a seat.

“You can be no other than Don Madariaga.”

“At the service of God and yourself, sir,” he responded in the manner of a
Spanish countryman.

That was the most glorious moment of his existence.

In the outer office of the Directors of the Bank, the clerks offered him a
seat until the personage the other side of the door should deign to
receive him. But scarcely was his name announced than that same director
ran to admit him, and the employee was stupefied to hear the ranchman say,
by way of greeting, “I have come to draw out three hundred thousand
dollars. I have abundant pasturage, and I wish to buy a ranch or two in
order to stock them.”

His arbitrary and contradictory character weighed upon the inhabitants of
his lands with both cruel and good-natured tyranny. No vagabond ever
passed by the ranch without being rudely assailed by its owner from the
outset.

“Don’t tell me any of your hard-luck stories, friend,” he would yell as if
he were going to beat him. “Under the shed is a skinned beast; cut and eat
as much as you wish and so help yourself to continue your journey. . . .
But no more of your yarns!”

And he would turn his back upon the tramp, after giving him a few dollars.

One day he became infuriated because a peon was nailing the wire fencing
too deliberately on the posts. Everybody was robbing him! The following
day he spoke of a large sum of money that he would have to pay for having
endorsed the note of an acquaintance, completely bankrupt. “Poor fellow!
His luck is worse than mine!”

Upon finding in the road the skeleton of a recently killed sheep, he was
beside himself with indignation. It was not because of the loss of the
meat. “Hunger knows no law, and God has made meat for mankind to eat. But
they might at least have left the skin!” . . . And he would rage against
such wickedness, always repeating, “Lack of religion and good habits!” The
next time, the bandits stripped the flesh off of three cows, leaving the
skins in full view, and the ranchman said, smiling, “That is the way I
like people, honorable and doing no wrong.”

His vigor as a tireless centaur had helped him powerfully in his task of
populating his lands. He was capricious, despotic and with the same
paternal instincts as his compatriots who, centuries before when
conquering the new world, had clarified its native blood. Like the
Castilian conquistadors, he had a fancy for copper-colored beauty with
oblique eyes and straight hair. When Desnoyers saw him going off on some
sudden pretext, putting his horse at full gallop toward a neighboring
ranch, he would say to himself, smilingly, “He is going in search of a new
peon who will help work his land fifteen years from now.”

The personnel of the ranch often used to comment on the resemblance of
certain youths laboring here the same as the others, galloping from the
first streak of dawn over the fields, attending to the various duties of
pasturing. The overseer, Celedonio, a half-breed thirty years old,
generally detested for his hard and avaricious character, also bore a
distant resemblance to the patron.

Almost every year, some woman from a great distance, dirty and bad-faced,
presented herself at the ranch, leading by the hand a little mongrel with
eyes like live coals. She would ask to speak with the proprietor alone,
and upon being confronted with her, he usually recalled a trip made ten or
twelve years before in order to buy a herd of cattle.

“You remember, Patron, that you passed the night on my ranch because the
river had risen?”

The Patron did not remember anything about it. But a vague instinct warned
him that the woman was probably telling the truth. “Well, what of it?”

“Patron, here he is. . . . It is better for him to grow to manhood by your
side than in any other place.”

And she presented him with the little hybrid. One more, and offered with
such simplicity! . . . “Lack of religion and good habits!” Then with
sudden modesty, he doubted the woman’s veracity. Why must it necessarily
be his? . . . But his wavering was generally short-lived.

“If it’s mine, put it with the others.”

The mother went away tranquilly, seeing the youngster’s future assured,
because this man so lavish in violence was equally so in generosity. In
time there would be a bit of land and a good flock of sheep for the
urchin.

These adoptions at first aroused in Misia Petrona a little rebellion—the
only ones of her life; but the centaur soon reduced her to terrified
silence.

“And you dare to complain of me, you weak cow! . . . A woman who has only
given me daughters. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

The same hand that negligently extracted from his pocket a wad of bills
rolled into a ball, giving them away capriciously without knowing just how
much, also wore a lash hanging from the wrist. It was supposed to be for
his horse, but it was used with equal facility when any of his peons
incurred his wrath.

“I strike because I can,” he would say to pacify himself.

One day, the man receiving the blow, took a step backward, hunting for the
knife in his belt.

“You are not going to beat me, Patron. I was not born in these parts. . .
. I come from Corrientes.”

The Patron remained with upraised thong. “Is it true that you were not
born here? . . . Then you are right; I cannot beat you. Here are five
dollars for you.”

When Desnoyers came on the place, Madariaga was beginning to lose count of
those who were under his dominion in the old Latin sense, and could take
his blows. There were so many that confusion often reigned.

The Frenchman admired the Patron’s expert eye for his business. It was
enough for him to contemplate for a few moments a herd of cattle, to know
its exact number. He would go galloping along with an indifferent air,
around an immense group of horned and stamping beasts, and then would
suddenly begin to separate the different animals. He had discovered that
they were sick. With a buyer like Madariaga, all the tricks and sharp
practice of the drovers came to naught.

His serenity before trouble was also admirable. A drought suddenly strewed
his plains with dead cattle, making the land seem like an abandoned
battlefield. Everywhere great black hulks. In the air, great spirals of
crows coming from leagues away. At other times, it was the cold; an
unexpected drop in the thermometer would cover the ground with dead
bodies. Ten thousand animals, fifteen thousand, perhaps more, all
perished!

“WHAT a knock-out!” Madariaga would exclaim with resignation. “Without
such troubles, this earth would be a paradise. . . . Now, the thing to do
is to save the skins!”

And he would rail against the false pride of the emigrants, against the
new customs among the poor which prevented his securing enough hands to
strip the victims quickly, so that thousands of hides had to be lost.
Their bones whitened the earth like heaps of snow. The peoncitos (little
peons) went around putting the skulls of cows with crumpled horns on the
posts of the wire fences—a rustic decoration which suggested a
procession of Grecian lyres.

“It is lucky that the land is left, anyway!” added the ranchman.

He loved to race around his immense fields when they were beginning to
turn green in the late rains. He had been among the first to convert these
virgin wastes into rich meadow-lands, supplementing the natural pasturage
with alfalfa. Where one beast had found sustenance before, he now had
three. “The table is set,” he would chuckle, “we must now go in search of
the guests.” And he kept on buying, at ridiculous prices, herds dying of
hunger in others’ uncultivated fields, constantly increasing his opulent
lands and stock.

One morning Desnoyers saved his life. The old ranchman had raised his lash
against a recently arrived peon who returned the attack, knife in hand.
Madariaga was defending himself as best he could, convinced from one
minute to another that he was going to receive the deadly knife-thrust—when
Desnoyers arrived and, drawing his revolver, overcame and disarmed the
adversary.

“Thanks, Frenchy,” said the ranchman, much touched. “You are an all-round
man, and I am going to reward you. From this day I shall speak to you as I
do to my family.”

Desnoyers did not know just what this familiar talk might amount to, for
his employer was so peculiar. Certain personal favors, nevertheless,
immediately began to improve his position. He was no longer allowed to eat
in the administration building, the proprietor insisting imperiously that
henceforth Desnoyers should sit at his own table, and thus he was admitted
into the intimate life of the Madariaga family.

The wife was always silent when her husband was present. She was used to
rising in the middle of the night in order to oversee the breakfasts of
the peons, the distribution of biscuit, and the boiling of the great black
kettles of coffee or shrub tea. She looked after the chattering and lazy
maids who so easily managed to get lost in the nearby groves. In the
kitchen, too, she made her authority felt like a regular house-mistress,
but the minute that she heard her husband’s voice she shrank into a
respectful and timorous silence. Upon sitting down at table, the China
would look at him with devoted submission, her great, round eyes fixed on
him, like an owl’s. Desnoyers felt that in this mute admiration was
mingled great astonishment at the energy with which the ranchman, already
over seventy, was continuing to bring new occupants to live on his
demesne.

The two daughters, Luisa and Elena, accepted with enthusiasm the new
arrival who came to enliven the monotonous conversations in the dining
room, so often cut short by their father’s wrathful outbursts. Besides, he
was from Paris. “Paris!” sighed Elena, the younger one, rolling her eyes.
And Desnoyers was henceforth consulted in all matters of style every time
they ordered any “confections” from the shops of Buenos Aires.

The interior of the house reflected the different tastes of the two
generations. The girls had a parlor with a few handsome pieces of
furniture placed against the cracked walls, and some showy lamps that were
never lighted. The father, with his boorishness, often invaded this room
so cherished and admired by the two sisters, making the carpets look
shabby and faded under his muddy boot-tracks. Upon the gilt centre-table,
he loved to lay his lash. Samples of maize scattered its grains over a
silk sofa which the young ladies tried to keep very choice, as though they
feared it might break.

Near the entrance to the dining room was a weighing machine, and Madariaga
became furious when his daughters asked him to remove it to the offices.
He was not going to trouble himself to go outside every time that he
wanted to know the weight of a leather skin! . . . A piano came into the
ranch, and Elena passed the hours practising exercises with desperate good
will. “Heavens and earth! She might at least play the Jota or the Perican,
or some other lively Spanish dance!” And the irate father, at the hour of
siesta, betook himself to the nearby eucalyptus trees, to sleep upon his
poncho.

This younger daughter whom he dubbed La Romantica, was the special victim
of his wrath and ridicule. Where had she picked up so many tastes which he
and his good China never had had? Music books were piled on the piano. In
a corner of the absurd parlor were some wooden boxes that had held
preserves, which the ranch carpenter had been made to press into service
as a bookcase.

“Look here, Frenchy,” scoffed Madariaga. “All these are novels and poems!
Pure lies! . . . Hot air!”

He had his private library, vastly more important and glorious, and
occupying less space. In his desk, adorned with guns, thongs, and chaps
studded with silver, was a little compartment containing deeds and various
legal documents which the ranchman surveyed with great pride.

“Pay attention, now and hear marvellous things,” announced the master to
Desnoyers, as he took out one of his memorandum books.

This volume contained the pedigree of the famous animals which had
improved his breeds of stock, the genealogical trees, the patents of
nobility of his aristocratic beasts. He would have to read its contents to
him since he did not permit even his family to touch these records. And
with his spectacles on the end of his nose, he would spell out the
credentials of each animal celebrity. “Diamond III, grandson of Diamond I,
owned by the King of England, son of Diamond II, winner in the races.” His
Diamond had cost him many thousands, but the finest horses on the ranch,
those which brought the most marvellous prices, were his descendants.

“That horse had more sense than most people. He only lacked the power to
talk. He’s the one that’s stuffed, near the door of the parlor. The girls
wanted him thrown out. . . . Just let them dare to touch him! I’d chuck
them out first!”

Then he would continue reading the history of a dynasty of bulls with
distinctive names and a succession of Roman numbers, the same as kings—animals
acquired by the stubborn ranchman in the great cattle fairs of England. He
had never been there, but he had used the cable in order to compete in
pounds sterling with the British owners who wished to keep such valuable
stock in their own country. Thanks to these blue-blooded sires that had
crossed the ocean with all the luxury of millionaire passengers, he had
been able to exhibit in the concourses of Buenos Aires animals which were
veritable towers of meat, edible elephants with their sides as fit and
sleek as a table.

“That book amounts to something! Don’t you think so, Frenchy? It is worth
more than all those pictures of moons, lakes, lovers and other gewgaws
that my Romantica puts on the walls to catch the dust.”

And he would point out, in contrast, the precious diplomas which were
adorning his desk, the metal vases and other trophies won in the fairs by
the descendants of his blooded stock.

Luisa, the elder daughter, called Chicha, in the South American fashion,
was much more respected by her father. “She is my poor China right over
again,” he said, “the same good nature, and the same faculty for work, but
more of a lady.” Desnoyers entirely agreed with him, and yet the father’s
description seemed to him weak and incomplete. He could not admit that the
pale, modest girl with the great black eyes and smile of childish mischief
bore the slightest resemblance to the respectable matron who had brought
her into existence.

The great fiesta for Chicha was the Sunday mass. It represented a journey
of three leagues to the nearest village, a weekly contact with people
unlike those of the ranch. A carriage drawn by four horses took the senora
and the two senoritas in the latest suits and hats arrived, via Buenos
Aires, from Europe. At the suggestion of Chicha, Desnoyers accompanied
them in the capacity of driver.

The father remained at home, taking advantage of this opportunity to
survey his fields in their Sunday solitude, thus keeping a closer
oversight on the shiftlessness of his hands. He was very religious—“Religion
and good manners, you know.” But had he not given thousands of dollars
toward building the neighboring church? A man of his fortune should not be
submitted to the same obligations as ragamuffins!

During the Sunday lunch the young ladies were apt to make comments upon
the persons and merits of the young men of the village and neighboring
ranches, who had lingered at the church door in order to chat with them.

“Don’t fool yourselves, girls!” observed the father shrewdly. “You believe
that they want you for your elegance, don’t you? . . . What those
shameless fellows really want are the dollars of old Madariaga, and once
they had them, they would probably give you a daily beating.”

For a while the ranch received numerous visitors. Some were young men of
the neighborhood who arrived on spirited steeds, performing all kinds of
tricks of fancy horsemanship. They wanted to see Don Julio on the most
absurd pretexts, and at the same time improved the opportunity to chat
with Chicha and Luisa. At other times they were youths from Buenos Aires
asking for a lodging at the ranch, as they were just passing by. Don
Madariaga would growl—

“Another good-for-nothing scamp who comes in search of the Spanish
ranchman! If he doesn’t move on soon . . . I’ll kick him out!”

But the suitor did not stand long on the order of his going, intimidated
by the ominous silence of the Patron. This silence, of late, had persisted
in an alarming manner, in spite of the fact that the ranch was no longer
receiving visitors. Madariaga appeared abstracted, and all the family,
including Desnoyers, respected and feared this taciturnity. He ate,
scowling, with lowered head. Suddenly he would raise his eyes, looking at
Chicha, then at Desnoyers, finally fixing them upon his wife as though
asking her to give an account of things.

His Romantica simply did not exist for him. The only notice that he ever
took of her was to give an ironical snort when he happened to see her
leaning at sunset against the doorway, looking at the reddening glow—one
elbow on the door frame and her cheek in her hand, in imitation of the
posture of a certain white lady that she had seen in a chromo, awaiting
the knight of her dreams.

Desnoyers had been five years in the house when one day he entered his
master’s private office with the brusque air of a timid person who has
suddenly reached a decision.

“Don Julio, I am going to leave and I would like our accounts settled.”

Madariaga looked at him slyly. “Going to leave, eh? . . . What for?” But
in vain he repeated his questions. The Frenchman was floundering through a
series of incoherent explanations—“I’m going; I’ve got to go.”

“Ah, you thief, you false prophet!” shouted the ranchman in stentorian
tones.

But Desnoyers did not quail before the insults. He had often heard his
Patron use these same words when holding somebody up to ridicule, or
haggling with certain cattle drovers.

“Ah, you thief, you false prophet! Do you suppose that I do not know why
you are going? Do you suppose old Madariaga has not seen your languishing
looks and those of my dead fly of a daughter, clasping each others’ hands
in the presence of poor China who is blinded in her judgment? . . . It’s
not such a bad stroke, Frenchy. By it, you would be able to get possession
of half of the old Spaniard’s dollars, and then say that you had made it
in America.”

And while he was storming, or rather howling, all this, he had grasped his
lash and with the butt end kept poking his manager in the stomach with
such insistence that it might be construed in an affectionate or hostile
way.

“For this reason I have come to bid you good-bye,” said Desnoyers
haughtily. “I know that my love is absurd, and I wish to leave.”

“The gentleman would go away,” the ranchman continued spluttering. “The
gentleman believes that here one can do what one pleases! No, siree! Here
nobody commands but old Madariaga, and I order you to stay. . . . Ah,
these women! They only serve to antagonize men. And yet we can’t live
without them!” . . .

He took several turns up and down the room, as though his last words were
making him think of something very different from what he had just been
saying. Desnoyers looked uneasily at the thong which was still hanging
from his wrist. Suppose he should attempt to whip him as he did the peons?
. . . He was still undecided whether to hold his own against a man who had
always treated him with benevolence or, while his back was turned, to take
refuge in discreet flight, when the ranchman planted himself before him.

“You really love her, really?” he asked. “Are you sure that she loves you?
Be careful what you say, for love is blind and deceitful. I, too, when I
married my China was crazy about her. Do you love her, honestly and truly?
. . . Well then, take her, you devilish Frenchy. Somebody has to take her,
and may she not turn out a weak cow like her mother! . . . Let us have the
ranch full of grandchildren!”

In voicing this stock-raiser’s wish, again appeared the great breeder of
beasts and men. And as though he considered it necessary to explain his
concession, he added—“I do all this because I like you; and I like
you because you are serious.”

Again the Frenchman was plunged in doubt, not knowing in just what this
greatly appreciated seriousness consisted.

At his wedding, Desnoyers thought much of his mother. If only the poor old
woman could witness this extraordinary stroke of good fortune! But she had
died the year before, believing her son enormously rich because he had
been sending her sixty dollars every month, taken from the wages that he
had earned on the ranch.

Desnoyers’ entrance into the family made his father-in-law pay less
attention to business.

City life, with all its untried enchantments and snares, now attracted
Madariaga, and he began to speak with contempt of country women, poorly
groomed and inspiring him with disgust. He had given up his cowboy attire,
and was displaying with childish satisfaction, the new suits in which a
tailor of the Capital was trying to disguise him. When Elena wished to
accompany him to Buenos Aires, he would wriggle out of it, trumping up
some absorbing business. “No; you go with your mother.”

The fate of his fields and flocks gave him no uneasiness. His fortune,
managed by Desnoyers, was in good hands.

“He is very serious,” again affirmed the old Spaniard to his family
assembled in the dining roam—“as serious as I am. . . . Nobody can
make a fool of him!”

And finally the Frenchman concluded that when his father-in-law spoke of
seriousness he was referring to his strength of character. According to
the spontaneous declaration of Madariaga, he had, from the very first day
that he had dealings with Desnoyers, perceived in him a nature like his
own, more hard and firm perhaps, but without splurges of eccentricities.
On this account he had treated him with such extraordinary circumspection,
foreseeing that a clash between the two could never be adjusted. Their
only disagreements were about the expenses established by Madariaga during
his regime. Since the son-in-law was managing the ranches, the work was
costing less, and the people working more diligently;—and that, too,
without yells, and without strong words and deeds, with only his presence
and brief orders.

The old man was the only one defending the capricious system of a blow
followed by a gift. He revolted against a minute and mechanical
administration, always the same, without any arbitrary extravagance or
good-natured tyranny. Very frequently some of the half-breed peons whom a
malicious public supposed to be closely related to the ranchman, would
present themselves before Desnoyers with, “Senor Manager, the old Patron
say that you are to give me five dollars.” The Senor Manager would refuse,
and soon after Madariaga would rush in in a furious temper, but measuring
his words, nevertheless, remembering that his son-in-law’s disposition was
as serious as his own.

“I like you very much, my son, but here no one overrules me. . . . Ah,
Frenchy, you are like all the rest of your countrymen! Once you get your
claws on a penny, it goes into your stocking, and nevermore sees the light
of day, even though they crucify you. . . ! Did I say five dollars? Give
him ten. I command it and that is enough.”

The Frenchman paid, shrugging his shoulders, whilst his father-in-law,
satisfied with his triumph, fled to Buenos Aires. It was a good thing to
have it well understood that the ranch still belonged to Madariaga, the
Spaniard.

From one of these trips, he returned with a companion, a young German who,
according to him, knew everything and could do everything. His son-in-law
was working too hard. This Karl Hartrott would assist him in the
bookkeeping. Desnoyers accepted the situation, and in a few days felt
increasing esteem for the new incumbent.

Although they belonged to two unfriendly nations, it didn’t matter. There
are good people everywhere, and this Karl was a subordinate worth
considering. He kept his distance from his equals, and was hard and
inflexible toward his inferiors. All his faculties seemed concentrated in
service and admiration for those above him. Scarcely would Madariaga open
his lips before the German’s head began nodding in agreement, anticipating
his words. If he said anything funny, his clerk’s laugh would break forth
in scandalous roars. With Desnoyers he appeared more taciturn, working
without stopping for hours at a time. As soon as he saw the manager
entering the office he would leap from his seat, holding himself erect
with military precision. He was always ready to do anything whatever.
Unasked, he spied on the workmen, reporting their carelessness and
mistakes. This last service did not especially please his superior
officer, but he appreciated it as a sign of interest in the establishment.

The old man bragged triumphantly of the new acquisition, urging his
son-in-law also to rejoice.

“A very useful fellow, isn’t he? . . . These gringoes from Germany work
well, know a good many things and cost little. Then, too, so disciplined!
so servile! . . . I am sorry to praise him so to you because you are a
Frenchy, and your nation has in them a very powerful enemy. His people are
a hard-shelled race.”

Desnoyers replied with a shrug of indifference. His country was far away,
and so was Germany. Who knew if they would ever return! . . . They were
both Argentinians now, and ought to interest themselves in present affairs
and not bother about the past.

“And how little pride they have!” sneered Madariaga in an ironical tone.
“Every one of these gringoes when he is a clerk at the Capital sweeps the
shop, prepares the meals, keeps the books, sells to the customers, works
the typewriter, translates four or five languages, and dances attendance
on the proprietor’s lady friend, as though she were a grand senora . . .
all for twenty-five dollars a month. Who can compete with such people!
You, Frenchy, you are like me, very serious, and would die of hunger
before passing through certain things. But, mark my words, on this very
account they are going to become a terrible people!”

After brief reflection, the ranchman added:

“Perhaps they are not so good as they seem. Just see how they treat those
under them! It may be that they affect this simplicity without having it,
and when they grin at receiving a kick, they are saying inside, ‘Just wait
till my turn comes, and I’ll give you three!’”

Then he suddenly seemed to repent of his suspicions.

“At any rate, this Karl is a poor fellow, a mealy-mouthed simpleton who
the minute I say anything opens his jaws like a fly-catcher. He insists
that he comes of a great family, but who knows anything about these
gringoes? . . . All of us, dead with hunger when we reach America, claim
to be sons of princes.”

Madariaga had placed himself on a familiar footing with his Teutonic
treasure, not through gratitude as with Desnoyers, but in order to make
him feel his inferiority. He had also introduced him on an equal footing
in his home, but only that he might give piano lessons to his younger
daughter. The Romantica was no longer framing herself in the doorway—in
the gloaming watching the sunset reflections. When Karl had finished his
work in the office, he was now coming to the house and seating himself
beside Elena, who was tinkling away with a persistence worthy of a better
fate. At the end of the hour the German, accompanying himself on the
piano, would sing fragments from Wagner in such a way that it put
Madariaga to sleep in his armchair with his great Paraguay cigar sticking
out of his mouth.

Elena meanwhile was contemplating with increasing interest the singing
gringo. He was not the knight of her dreams awaited by the fair lady. He
was almost a servant, a blond immigrant with reddish hair, fat, heavy, and
with bovine eyes that reflected an eternal fear of disagreeing with his
chiefs. But day by day, she was finding in him something which rather
modified these impressions—his feminine fairness, except where he
was burned by the sun, the increasingly martial aspect of his moustachios,
the agility with which he mounted his horse, his air of a troubadour,
intoning with a rather weak tenor voluptuous romances whose words she did
not understand.

One night, just before supper, the impressionable girl announced with a
feverish excitement which she could no longer repress that she had made a
grand discovery.

“Papa, Karl is of noble birth! He belongs to a great family.”

The plainsman made a gesture of indifference. Other things were vexing him
in those days. But during the evening, feeling the necessity of venting on
somebody the wrath which had been gnawing at his vitals since his last
trip to Buenos Aires, he interrupted the singer.

“See here, gringo, what is all this nonsense about nobility which you have
been telling my girl?”

Karl left the piano that he might draw himself up to the approved military
position before responding. Under the influence of his recent song, his
pose suggested Lohengrin about to reveal the secret of his life. His
father had been General von Hartrott, one of the commanders in the war of
‘70. The Emperor had rewarded his services by giving him a title. One of
his uncles was an intimate councillor of the King of Prussia. His older
brothers were conspicuous in the most select regiments. He had carried a
sword as a lieutenant.

Bored with all this grandeur, Madariaga interrupted him. “Lies . . .
nonsense . . . hot air!” The very idea of a gringo talking to him about
nobility! . . . He had left Europe when very young in order to cast in his
lot with the revolting democracies of America, and although nobility now
seemed to him something out-of-date and incomprehensible, still he stoutly
maintained that the only true nobility was that of his own country. He
would yield first place to the gringoes for the invention of machinery and
ships, and for breeding priceless animals, but all the Counts and
Marquises of Gringo-land appeared to him to be fictitious characters.

“All tomfoolery!” he blustered. “There isn’t any nobility in your country,
nor have you five dollars all told to rub against each other. If you had,
you wouldn’t come over here to play the gallant to women who are . . . you
know what they are as well as I do.”

To the astonishment of Desnoyers, the German received this onslaught with
much humility, nodding his head in agreement with the Patron’s last words.

“If there’s any truth in all this twaddle about titles,” continued
Madariaga implacably, “swords and uniforms, what did you come here for?
What in the devil did you do in your own country that you had to leave
it?”

Now Karl hung his head, confused and stuttering.

“Papa, papa,” pleaded Elena. “The poor little fellow! How can you
humiliate him so just because he is poor?”

And she felt a deep gratitude toward her brother-in-law when he broke
through his usual reserve in order to come to the rescue of the German.

“Oh, yes, of course, he’s a good-enough fellow,” said Madariaga, excusing
himself. “But he comes from a land that I detest.”

When Desnoyers made a trip to Buenos Aires a few days afterward, the cause
of the old man’s wrath was explained. It appeared that for some months
past Madariaga had been the financial guarantor and devoted swain of a
German prima donna stranded in South America with an Italian opera
company. It was she who had recommended Karl—an unfortunate
countryman, who after wandering through many parts of the continent, was
now living with her as a sort of gentlemanly singer. Madariaga had
joyously expended upon this courtesan many thousands of dollars. A
childish enthusiasm had accompanied him in this novel existence midst
urban dissipations until he happened to discover that his Fraulein was
leading another life during his absence, laughing at him with the
parasites of her retinue; whereupon he arose in his wrath and bade her
farewell to the accompaniment of blows and broken furniture.

The last adventure of his life! . . . Desnoyers suspected his abdication
upon hearing him admit his age, for the first time. He did not intend to
return to the capital. It was all false glitter. Existence in the country,
surrounded by all his family and doing good to the poor was the only sure
thing. And the terrible centaur expressed himself with the idyllic
tenderness and firm virtue of seventy-five years, already insensible to
temptation.

After his scene with Karl, he had increased the German’s salary, trying as
usual, to counteract the effects of his violent outbreaks with generosity.
That which he could not forget was his dependent’s nobility, constantly
making it the subject of new jests. That glorious boast had brought to his
mind the genealogical trees of the illustrious ancestry of his prize
cattle. The German was a pedigreed fellow, and thenceforth he called him
by that nickname.

Seated on summer nights under the awning, he surveyed his family around
him with a sort of patriarchal ecstasy. In the evening hush could be heard
the buzzing of insects and the croaking of the frogs. From the distant
ranches floated the songs of the peons as they prepared their suppers. It
was harvest time, and great bands of immigrants were encamped in the
fields for the extra work.

Madariaga had known many of the hard old days of wars and violence. Upon
his arrival in South America, he had witnessed the last years of the
tyranny of Rosas. He loved to enumerate the different provincial and
national revolutions in which he had taken part. But all this had
disappeared and would never return. These were the times of peace, work
and abundance.

“Just think of it, Frenchy,” he said, driving away the mosquitoes with the
puffs of his cigar. “I am Spanish, you French, Karl German, my daughters
Argentinians, the cook Russian, his assistant Greek, the stable boy
English, the kitchen servants Chinas (natives), Galicians or Italians, and
among the peons there are many castes and laws. . . . And yet we all live
in peace. In Europe, we would have probably been in a grand fight by this
time, but here we are all friends.”

He took much pleasure in listening to the music of the laborers—laments
from Italian songs to the accompaniment of the accordion, Spanish guitars
and Creole choruses, wild voices chanting of love and death.

“This is a regular Noah’s ark,” exulted the vainglorious patriarch.

“He means the tower of Babel,” thought Desnoyers to himself, “but it’s all
the same thing to the old man.”

“I believe,” he rambled on, “that we live thus because in this part of the
world there are no kings and a very small army—and mankind is
thinking only of enjoying itself as much as possible, thanks to its work.
But I also believe that we live so peacefully because there is such
abundance that everyone gets his share. . . . How quickly we would spring
to arms if the rations were less than the people!”

Again he fell into reflective silence, shortly after announcing the result
of his meditations.

“Be that as it may be, we must recognize that here life is more tranquil
than in the other world. Men are taken for what they are worth, and mingle
together without thinking whether they came from one country or another.
Over here, fellows do not come in droves to kill other fellows whom they
do not know and whose only crime is that they were born in an unfriendly
country. . . . Man is a bad beast everywhere, I know that; but here he
eats, owns more land than he needs so that he can stretch himself, and he
is good with the goodness of a well-fed dog. Over there, there are too
many; they live in heaps getting in each other’s way, and easily run
amuck. Hurrah for Peace, Frenchy, and the simple life! Where a man can
live comfortably and runs no danger of being killed for things he doesn’t
understand—there is his real homeland!”

And as though an echo of the rustic’s reflections, Karl seated at the
piano, began chanting in a low voice one of Beethoven’s hymns—

Peace! . . . A few days afterward Desnoyers recalled bitterly the old
man’s illusion, for war—domestic war—broke loose in this
idyllic stage-setting of ranch life.

“Run, Senor Manager, the old Patron has unsheathed his knife and is going
to kill the German!” And Desnoyers had hurried from his office, warned by
the peon’s summons. Madariaga was chasing Karl, knife in hand, stumbling
over everything that blocked his way. Only his son-in-law dared to stop
him and disarm him.

“That shameless pedigreed fellow!” bellowed the livid old man as he
writhed in Desnoyers’ firm clutch. “Half famished, all he thinks he has to
do is to come to my house and take away my daughters and dollars. . . .
Let me go, I tell you! Let me loose that I may kill him.”

And in order to free himself from Desnoyers, he tried further to explain
the difficulty. He had accepted the Frenchman as a husband for his
daughter because he was to his liking, modest, honest . . . and serious.
But this singing Pedigreed Fellow, with all his airs! . . . He was a man
that he had gotten from . . . well, he didn’t wish to say just where! And
the Frenchman, though knowing perfectly well what his introduction to Karl
had been, pretended not to understand him.

As the German had, by this time, made good his escape, the ranchman
consented to being pushed toward his house, talking all the time about
giving a beating to the Romantica and another to the China for not having
informed him of the courtship. He had surprised his daughter and the
Gringo holding hands and exchanging kisses in a grove near the house.

“He’s after my dollars,” howled the irate father. “He wants America to
enrich him quickly at the expense of the old Spaniard, and that is the
reason for so much truckling, so much psalm-singing and so much nobility!
Imposter! . . . Musician!”

And he repeated the word “musician” with contempt, as though it were the
sum and substance of everything vile.

Very firmly and with few words, Desnoyers brought the wrangling to an end.
While her brother-in-law protected her retreat, the Romantica, clinging to
her mother, had taken refuge in the top of the house, sobbing and moaning,
“Oh, the poor little fellow! Everybody against him!” Her sister meanwhile
was exerting all the powers of a discreet daughter with the rampageous old
man in the office, and Desnoyers had gone in search of Karl. Finding that
he had not yet recovered from the shock of his terrible surprise, he gave
him a horse, advising him to betake himself as quickly as possible to the
nearest railway station.

Although the German was soon far from the ranch, he did not long remain
alone. In a few days, the Romantica followed him. . . . Iseult of the
white hands went in search of Tristan, the knight.

This event did not cause Madariaga’s desperation to break out as violently
as his son-in-law had expected. For the first time, he saw him weep. His
gay and robust old age had suddenly fallen from him, the news having
clapped ten years on to his four score. Like a child, whimpering and
tremulous, he threw his arms around Desnoyers, moistening his neck with
tears.

“He has taken her away! That son of a great flea . . . has taken her
away!”

This time he did not lay all the blame on his China. He wept with her, and
as if trying to console her by a public confession, kept saying over and
over:

“It is my fault. . . . It has all been because of my very, very great
sins.”

Now began for Desnoyers a period of difficulties and conflicts. The
fugitives, on one of his visits to the Capital, threw themselves on his
mercy, imploring his protection. The Romantica wept, declaring that only
her brother-in-law, “the most knightly man in the world,” could save her.
Karl gazed at him like a faithful hound trusting in his master. These
trying interviews were repeated on all his trips. Then, on returning to
the ranch, he would find the old man ill-humored, moody, looking fixedly
ahead of him as though seeing invisible power and wailing, “It is my
punishment—the punishment for my sins.”

The memory of the discreditable circumstances under which he had made
Karl’s acquaintance, before bringing him into his home, tormented the old
centaur with remorse. Some afternoons, he would have a horse saddled,
going full gallop toward the neighboring village. But he was no longer
hunting hospitable ranches. He needed to pass some time in the church,
speaking alone with the images that were there only for him—since he
had footed the bills for them. . . . “Through my sin, through my very
great sin!”

But in spite of his self-reproach, Desnoyers had to work very hard to get
any kind of a settlement out of the old penitent. Whenever he suggested
legalizing the situation and making the necessary arrangements for their
marriage, the old tyrant would not let him go on. “Do what you think best,
but don’t say anything to me about it.”

Several months passed by. One day the Frenchman approached him with a
certain air of mystery. “Elena has a son and has named him ‘Julio’ after
you.”

“And you, you great useless hulk,” stormed the ranchman, “and that weak
cow of a wife of yours, you dare to live tranquilly on without giving me a
grandson! . . . Ah, Frenchy, that is why the Germans will finally
overwhelm you. You see it, right here. That bandit has a son, while you,
after four years of marriage . . . nothing. I want a grandson!—do
you understand THAT?”

And in order to console himself for this lack of little ones around his
own hearth, he betook himself to the ranch of his overseer, Celedonio,
where a band of little half-breeds gathered tremblingly and hopefully
about him.

Suddenly China died. The poor Misia Petrona passed away as discreetly as
she had lived, trying even in her last hours to avoid all annoyance for
her husband, asking his pardon with an imploring look for any trouble
which her death might cause him. Elena came to the ranch in order to see
her mother’s body for the last time, and Desnoyers who for more than a
year had been supporting them behind his father-in-law’s back, took
advantage of this occasion to overcome the old man’s resentment.

“Well, I’ll forgive her,” said the ranchman finally. “I’ll do it for the
sake of my poor wife and for you. She may remain on the ranch, and that
shameless gringo may come with her.”

But he would have nothing to do with him. The German was to be an employee
under Desnoyers, and they could live in the office building as though they
did not belong to the family. He would never say a word to Karl.

But scarcely had the German returned before he began giving him orders
rudely as though he were a perfect stranger. At other times he would pass
by him as though he did not know him. Upon finding Elena in the house with
his older daughter, he would go on without speaking to her.

In vain his Romantica transfigured by maternity, improved all
opportunities for putting her child in his way, calling him loudly by
name: “Julio . . . Julio!”

“They want that brat of a singing gringo, that carrot top with a face like
a skinned kid to be my grandson? . . . I prefer Celedonio’s.”

And by way of emphasizing his protest, he entered the dwelling of his
overseer, scattering among his dusky brood handfuls of dollars.

After seven years of marriage, the wife of Desnoyers found that she, too,
was going to become a mother. Her sister already had three sons. But what
were they worth to Madariaga compared to the grandson that was going to
come? “It will be a boy,” he announced positively, “because I need one so.
It shall be named Julio, and I hope that it will look like my poor dead
wife.”

Since the death of his wife he no longer called her the China, feeling
something of a posthumous love for the poor woman who in her lifetime had
endured so much, so timidly and silently. Now “my poor dead wife” cropped
out every other instant in the conversation of the remorseful ranchman.

His desires were fulfilled. Luisa gave birth to a boy who bore the name of
Julio, and although he did not show in his somewhat sketchy features any
striking resemblance to his grandmother, still he had the black hair and
eyes and olive skin of a brunette. Welcome! . . . This WAS a grandson!

In the generosity of his joy, he even permitted the German to enter the
house for the baptismal ceremony.

When Julio Desnoyers was two years old, his grandfather made the rounds of
his estates, holding him on the saddle in front of him. He went from ranch
to ranch in order to show him to the copper-colored populace, like an
ancient monarch presenting his heir. Later on, when the child was able to
say a few words, he entertained himself for hours at a time talking with
the tot under the shade of the eucalyptus tree. A certain mental failing
was beginning to be noticed in the old man. Although not exactly in his
dotage, his aggressiveness was becoming very childish. Even in his most
affectionate moments, he used to contradict everybody, and hunt up ways of
annoying his relatives.

“Come here, you false prophet,” he would say to Julio. “You are a
Frenchy.”

The grandchild protested as though he had been insulted. His mother had
taught him that he was an Argentinian, and his father had suggested that
she also add Spanish, in order to please the grandfather.

“Very well, then; if you are not a Frenchy, shout, ‘Down with Napoleon!’”

And he looked around him to see if Desnoyers might be near, believing that
this would displease him greatly. But his son-in-law pursued the even
tenor of his way, shrugging his shoulders.

“Down with Napoleon!” repeated Julio.

And he instantly held out his hand while his grandfather went through his
pockets.

Karl’s sons, now four in number, used to circle around their grandparent
like a humble chorus kept at a distance, and stare enviously at these
gifts. In order to win his favor, they one day when they saw him alone,
came boldly up to him, shouting in unison, “Down with Napoleon!”

“You insolent gringoes!” ranted the old man. “That’s what that shameless
father has taught you! If you say that again, I’ll chase you with a
cat-o-nine-tails. . . . The very idea of insulting a great man in that
way!”

While he tolerated this blond brood, he never would permit the slightest
intimacy. Desnoyers and his wife often had to come to their rescue,
accusing the grandfather of injustice. And in order to pour the vials of
his wrath out on someone, the old plainsman would hunt up Celedonio, the
best of his listeners, who invariably replied, “Yes, Patron. That’s so,
Patron.”

“They’re not to blame,” agreed the old man, “but I can’t abide them!
Besides, they are so like their father, so fair, with hair like a shredded
carrot, and the two oldest wearing specs as if they were court clerks! . .
. They don’t seem like folks with those glasses; they look like sharks.”

Madariaga had never seen any sharks, but he imagined them, without knowing
why, with round, glassy eyes, like the bottoms of bottles.

By the time he was eight years old, Julio was a famous little equestrian.
“To horse, peoncito,” his grandfather would cry, and away they would race,
streaking like lightning across the fields, midst thousands and thousands
of horned herds. The “peoncito,” proud of his title, obeyed the master in
everything, and so learned to whirl the lasso over the steers, leaving
them bound and conquered. Upon making his pony take a deep ditch or creep
along the edge of the cliffs, he sometimes fell under his mount, but
clambered up gamely.

“Ah, fine cowboy!” exclaimed the grandfather bursting with pride in his
exploits. “Here are five dollars for you to give a handkerchief to some
china.”

The old man, in his increasing mental confusion, did not gauge his gifts
exactly with the lad’s years; and the infantile horseman, while keeping
the money, was wondering what china was referred to, and why he should
make her a present.

Desnoyers finally had to drag his son away from the baleful teachings of
his grandfather. It was simply useless to have masters come to the house,
or to send Julio to the country school. Madariaga would always steal his
grandson away, and then they would scour the plains together. So when the
boy was eleven years old, his father placed him in a big school in the
Capital.

The grandfather then turned his attention to Julio’s three-year-old
sister, exhibiting her before him as he had her brother, as he took her
from ranch to ranch. Everybody called Chicha’s little girl Chichi, but the
grandfather bestowed on her the same nickname that he had given her
brother, the “peoncito.” And Chichi, who was growing up wild, vigorous and
wilful, breakfasting on meat and talking in her sleep of roast beef,
readily fell in with the old man’s tastes. She was dressed like a boy,
rode astride like a man, and in order to win her grandfather’s praises as
“fine cowboy,” carried a knife in the back of her belt. The two raced the
fields from sun to sun, Madariaga following the flying pigtail of the
little Amazon as though it were a flag. When nine years old she, too,
could lasso the cattle with much dexterity.

What most irritated the ranchman was that his family would remember his
age. He received as insults his son-in-law’s counsels to remain quietly at
home, becoming more aggressive and reckless as he advanced in years,
exaggerating his activity, as if he wished to drive Death away. He
accepted no help except from his harum-scarum “Peoncito.” When Karl’s
children, great hulking youngsters, hastened to his assistance and offered
to hold his stirrup, he would repel them with snorts of indignation.

“So you think I am no longer able to help myself, eh! . . . There’s still
enough life in me to make those who are waiting for me to die, so as to
grab my dollars, chew their disappointment a long while yet!”

Since the German and his wife were kept pointedly apart from the family
life, they had to put up with these allusions in silence. Karl, needing
protection, constantly shadowed the Frenchman, improving every opportunity
to overwhelm him with his eulogies. He never could thank him enough for
all that he had done for him. He was his only champion. He longed for a
chance to prove his gratitude, to die for him if necessary. His wife
admired him with enthusiasm as “the most gifted knight in the world.” And
Desnoyers received their devotion in gratified silence, accepting the
German as an excellent comrade. As he controlled absolutely the family
fortune, he aided Karl very generously without arousing the resentment of
the old man. He also took the initiative in bringing about the realization
of Karl’s pet ambition—a visit to the Fatherland. So many years in
America! . . . For the very reason that Desnoyers himself had no desire to
return to Europe, he wished to facilitate Karl’s trip, and gave him the
means to make the journey with his entire family. The father-in-law had no
curiosity as to who paid the expenses. “Let them go!” he said gleefully,
“and may they never return!”

Their absence was not a very long one, for they spent their year’s
allowance in three months. Karl, who had apprised his parents of the great
fortune which his marriage had brought him, wished to make an impression
as a millionaire, in full enjoyment of his riches. Elena returned radiant,
speaking with pride of her relatives—of the baron, Colonel of
Hussars, of the Captain of the Guard, of the Councillor at Court—asserting
that all countries were most insignificant when compared with her
husband’s. She even affected a certain condescension toward Desnoyers,
praising him as “a very worthy man, but without ancient lineage or
distinguished family—and French, besides.”

Karl, on the other hand, showed the same devotion as before, keeping
himself submissively in the background when with his brother-in-law who
had the keys of the cash box and was his only defense against the
browbeating old Patron. . . . He had left his two older sons in a school
in Germany. Years afterwards they reached an equal footing with the other
grandchildren of the Spaniard who always begrudged them their existence,
“perfect frights, with carroty hair, and eyes like a shark.”

Suddenly the old man became very lonely, for they had also carried off his
second “Peoncito.” The good Chicha could not tolerate her daughter’s
growing up like a boy, parading ‘round on horseback all the time, and
glibly repeating her grandfather’s vulgarities. So she was now in a
convent in the Capital, where the Sisters had to battle valiantly in order
to tame the mischievous rebellion of their wild little pupil.

When Julio and Chichi returned to the ranch for their vacations, the
grandfather again concentrated his fondness on the first, as though the
girl had merely been a substitute. Desnoyers was becoming indignant at his
son’s dissipated life. He was no longer at college, and his existence was
that of a student in a rich family who makes up for parental parsimony
with all sorts of imprudent borrowings.

But Madariaga came to the defense of his grandson. “Ah, the fine cowboy!”
. . . Seeing him again on the ranch, he admired the dash of the good
looking youth, testing his muscles in order to convince himself of their
strength, and making him to recount his nightly escapades as ringleader of
a band of toughs in the Capital. He longed to go to Buenos Aires himself,
just to see the youngster in the midst of this gay, wild life. But alas!
he was not seventeen like his grandson; he had already passed eighty.

“Come here, you false prophet! Tell me how many children you have. . . .
You must have a great many children, you know!”

“Father!” protested Chicha who was always hanging around, fearing her
parent’s bad teachings.

“Stop nagging at me!” yelled the irate old fellow in a towering temper. “I
know what I’m saying.”

Paternity figured largely in all his amorous fancies. He was almost blind,
and the loss of his sight was accompanied by an increasing mental upset.
His crazy senility took on a lewd character, expressing itself in language
which scandalized or amused the community.

“Oh, you rascal, what a pretty fellow you are!” he said, leering at Julio
with eyes which could no longer distinguish things except in a shadowy
way. “You are the living image of my poor dead wife. . . . Have a good
time, for Grandpa is always here with his money! If you could only count
on what your father gives you, you would live like a hermit. These
Frenchies are a close-fisted lot! But I am looking out for you. Peoncito!
Spend and enjoy yourself—that’s what your Granddaddy has piled up
the silver for!”

When the Desnoyers children returned to the Capital, he spent his lonesome
hours in going from ranch to ranch. A young half-breed would set the water
for his shrub-tea to boiling on the hearth, and the old man would wonder
confusedly if she were his daughter. Another, fifteen years old, would
offer him a gourd filled with the bitter liquid and a silver pipe with
which to sip it. . . . A grandchild, perhaps—he wasn’t sure. And so
he passed the afternoons, silent and sluggish, drinking gourd after gourd
of shrub tea, surrounded by families who stared at him with admiration and
fear.

Every time he mounted his horse for these excursions, his older daughter
would protest. “At eighty-four years! Would it not be better for him to
remain quietly at home. . . .” Some day something terrible would happen. .
. . And the terrible thing did happen. One evening the Patron’s horse came
slowly home without its rider. The old man had fallen on the sloping
highway, and when they found him, he was dead. Thus died the centaur as he
had lived, with the lash hanging from his wrist, with his legs bowed by
the saddle.

A Spanish notary, almost as old as he, produced the will. The family was
somewhat alarmed at seeing what a voluminous document it was. What
terrible bequests had Madariaga dictated? The reading of the first part
tranquilized Karl and Elena. The old father had left considerable more to
the wife of Desnoyers, but there still remained an enormous share for the
Romantica and her children. “I do this,” he said, “in memory of my poor
dead wife, and so that people won’t talk.”

After this, came eighty-six legacies. Eighty-five dark-hued individuals
(women and men), who had lived on the ranch for many years as tenants and
retainers, were to receive the last paternal munificence of the old
patriarch. At the head of these was Celedonio whom Madariaga had greatly
enriched in his lifetime for no heavier work than listening to him and
repeating, “That’s so, Patron, that’s true!” More than a million dollars
were represented by these bequests in lands and herds. The one who
completed the list of beneficiaries was Julio Desnoyers. The grandfather
had made special mention of this namesake, leaving him a plantation “to
meet his private expenses, making up for that which his father would not
give him.”

“But that represents hundreds of thousands of dollars!” protested Karl,
who had been making himself almost obnoxious in his efforts to assure
himself that his wife had not been overlooked in the will.

The days following the reading of this will were very trying ones for the
family. Elena and her children kept looking at the other group as though
they had just waked up, contemplating them in an entirely new light. They
seemed to forget what they were going to receive in their envy of the much
larger share of their relatives.

Desnoyers, benevolent and conciliatory, had a plan. An expert in
administrative affairs, he realized that the distribution among the heirs
was going to double the expenses without increasing the income. He was
calculating, besides, the complications and disbursements necessary for a
judicial division of nine immense ranches, hundreds of thousands of
cattle, deposits in the banks, houses in the city, and debts to collect.
Would it not be better for them all to continue living as before? . . .
Had they not lived most peaceably as a united family? . . .

The German received this suggestion by drawing himself up haughtily. No;
to each one should be given what was his. Let each live in his own sphere.
He wished to establish himself in Europe, spending his wealth freely
there. It was necessary for him to return to “his world.”

As they looked squarely at each other, Desnoyers saw an unknown Karl, a
Karl whose existence he had never suspected when he was under his
protection, timid and servile. The Frenchman, too, was beginning to see
things in a new light.

“Very well,” he assented. “Let each take his own. That seems fair to me.”

CHAPTER III

THE DESNOYERS FAMILY

The “Madariagan succession,” as it was called in the language of the legal
men interested in prolonging it in order to augment their fees—was
divided into two groups, separated by the ocean. The Desnoyers moved to
Buenos Aires. The Hartrotts moved to Berlin as soon as Karl could sell all
the legacy, to re-invest it in lands and industrial enterprises in his own
country.

Desnoyers no longer cared to live in the country. For twenty years, now,
he had been the head of an enormous agricultural and stock raising
business, overseeing hundreds of men in the various ranches. The
parcelling out of the old man’s fortune among Elena and the other legatees
had considerably constricted the radius of his authority, and it angered
him to see established on the neighboring lands so many foreigners, almost
all Germans, who had bought of Karl. Furthermore, he was getting old, his
wife’s inheritance amounted to about twenty millions of dollars, and
perhaps his brother-in-law was showing the better judgment in returning to
Europe.

So he leased some of the plantations, handed over the superintendence of
others to those mentioned in the will who considered themselves
left-handed members of the family—of which Desnoyers as the Patron
received their submissive allegiance—and moved to Buenos Aires.

By this move, he was able to keep an eye on his son who continued living a
dissipated life without making any headway in his engineering studies.
Then, too, Chichi was now almost a woman—her robust development
making her look older than she was—and it was not expedient to keep
her on the estate to become a rustic senorita like her mother.

Dona Luisa had also tired of ranch life, the social triumphs of her sister
making her a little restless. She was incapable of feeling jealous, but
material ambitions made her anxious that her children should not bring up
the rear of the procession in which the other grandchildren were cutting
such a dashing figure.

During the year, most wonderful reports from Germany were finding their
way to the Desnoyers home in the Capital. “The aunt from Berlin,” as the
children called her, kept sending long letters filled with accounts of
dances, dinners, hunting parties and titles—many high-sounding and
military titles;—“our brother, the Colonel,” “our cousin, the
Baron,” “our uncle, the Intimate Councillor,” “our great-uncle, the Truly
Intimate.” All the extravagances of the German social ladder, which
incessantly manufactures new titles in order to satisfy the thirst for
honors of a people divided into castes, were enumerated with delight by
the old Romantica. She even mentioned her husband’s secretary (a nobody)
who, through working in the public offices, had acquired the title of
Rechnungarath, Councillor of Calculations. She also referred with much
pride to the retired Oberpedell which she had in her house, explaining
that that meant “Superior Porter.”

The news about her children was no less glorious. The oldest was the wise
one of the family. He was devoted to philology and the historical
sciences, but his sight was growing weaker all the time because of his
omnivorous reading. Soon he would be a Doctor, and before he was thirty, a
Herr Professor. The mother lamented that he had not military aspirations,
considering that his tastes had somewhat distorted the lofty destinies of
the family. Professorships, sciences and literature were more properly the
perquisites of the Jews, unable, because of their race, to obtain
preferment in the army; but she was trying to console herself by keeping
in mind that a celebrated professor could, in time, acquire a social rank
almost equal to that of a colonel.

Her other four sons would become officers. Their father was preparing the
ground so that they might enter the Guard or some aristocratic regiment
without any of the members being able to vote against their admission. The
two daughters would surely marry, when they had reached a suitable age
with officers of the Hussars whose names bore the magic “von” of petty
nobility, haughty and charming gentlemen about whom the daughter of Misia
Petrona waxed most enthusiastic.

The establishment of the Hartrotts was in keeping with these new
relationships. In the home in Berlin, the servants wore knee-breeches and
white wigs on the nights of great banquets. Karl had bought an old castle
with pointed towers, ghosts in the cellars, and various legends of
assassinations, assaults and abductions which enlivened its history in an
interesting way. An architect, decorated with many foreign orders, and
bearing the title of “Councillor of Construction,” was engaged to
modernize the mediaeval edifice without sacrificing its terrifying aspect.
The Romantica described in anticipation the receptions in the gloomy
salon, the light diffused by electricity, simulating torches, the
crackling of the emblazoned hearth with its imitation logs bristling with
flames of gas, all the splendor of modern luxury combined with the
souvenirs of an epoch of omnipotent nobility—the best, according to
her, in history. And the hunting parties, the future hunting parties! . .
. in an annex of sandy and loose soil with pine woods—in no way
comparable to the rich ground of their native ranch, but which had the
honor of being trodden centuries ago by the Princes of Brandenburg,
founders of the reigning house of Prussia. And all this advancement in a
single year! . . .

They had, of course, to compete with other oversea families who had
amassed enormous fortunes in the United States, Brazil or the Pacific
coast; but these were Germans “without lineage,” coarse plebeians who were
struggling in vain to force themselves into the great world by making
donations to the imperial works. With all their millions, the very most
that they could ever hope to attain would be to marry their daughters with
ordinary soldiers. Whilst Karl! . . . The relatives of Karl! . . . and the
Romantica let her pen run on, glorifying a family in whose bosom she
fancied she had been born.

From time to time were enclosed with Elena’s effusions brief, crisp notes
directed to Desnoyers. The brother-in-law continued giving an account of
his operations the same as when living on the ranch under his protection.
But with this deference was now mixed a badly concealed pride, an evident
desire to retaliate for his times of voluntary humiliation. Everything
that he was doing was grand and glorious. He had invested his millions in
the industrial enterprises of modern Germany. He was stockholder of
munition factories as big as towns, and of navigation companies launching
a ship every half year. The Emperor was interesting himself in these
works, looking benevolently on all those who wished to aid him. Besides
this, Karl was buying land. At first sight, it seemed foolish to have sold
the fertile fields of their inheritance in order to acquire sandy Prussian
wastes that yielded only to much artificial fertilizing; but by becoming a
land owner, he now belonged to the “Agrarian Party,” the aristocratic and
conservative group par excellence, and thus he was living in two different
but equally distinguished worlds—that of the great industrial
friends of the Emperor, and that of the Junkers, knights of the
countryside, guardians of the old traditions and the supply-source of the
officials of the King of Prussia.

On hearing of these social strides, Desnoyers could not but think of the
pecuniary sacrifices which they must represent. He knew Karl’s past, for
on the ranch, under an impulse of gratitude, the German had one day
revealed to the Frenchman the cause of his coming to America. He was a
former officer in the German army, but the desire of living ostentatiously
without other resources than his salary, had dragged him into committing
such reprehensible acts as abstracting funds belonging to the regiment,
incurring debts of honor and paying for them with forged signatures. These
crimes had not been officially prosecuted through consideration of his
father’s memory, but the members of his division had submitted him to a
tribunal of honor. His brothers and friends had advised him to shoot
himself as the only remedy; but he loved life and had fled to South
America where, in spite of humiliations, he had finally triumphed.

Wealth effaces the spots of the past even more rapidly than Time. The news
of his fortune on the other side of the ocean made his family give him a
warm reception on his first voyage home; introducing him again into their
world. Nobody could remember shameful stories about a few hundred marks
concerning a man who was talking about his father-in-law’s lands, more
extensive than many German principalities. Now, upon installing himself
definitely in his country, all was forgotten. But, oh, the contributions
levied upon his vanity . . . Desnoyers shrewdly guessed at the thousands
of marks poured with both hands into the charitable works of the Empress,
into the imperialistic propagandas, into the societies of veterans, into
the clubs of aggression and expansion organized by German ambition.

The frugal Frenchman, thrifty in his expenditures and free from social
ambitions, smiled at the grandeurs of his brother-in-law. He considered
Karl an excellent companion although of a childish pride. He recalled with
satisfaction the years that they had passed together in the country. He
could not forget the German who was always hovering around him,
affectionate and submissive as a younger brother. When his family
commented with a somewhat envious vivacity upon the glories of their
Berlin relatives, Desnoyers would say smilingly, “Leave them in peace;
they are paying very dear for their whistle.”

But the enthusiasm which the letters from Germany breathed finally created
an atmosphere of disquietude and rebellion. Chichi led the attack. Why
were they not going to Europe like other folks? all their friends had been
there. Even the Italian and Spanish shopkeepers were making the voyage,
while she, the daughter of a Frenchman, had never seen Paris! . . . Oh,
Paris. The doctors in attendance on melancholy ladies were announcing the
existence of a new and terrible disease, “the mania for Paris.” Dona Luisa
supported her daughter. Why had she not gone to live in Europe like her
sister, since she was the richer of the two? Even Julio gravely declared
that in the old world he could study to better advantage. America is not
the land of the learned.

Infected by the general unrest, the father finally began to wonder why the
idea of going to Europe had not occurred to him long before. Thirty-four
years without going to that country which was not his! . . . It was high
time to start! He was living too near to his business. In vain the retired
ranchman had tried to keep himself indifferent to the money market.
Everybody was coining money around him. In the club, in the theatre,
wherever he went, the people were talking about purchases of lands, of
sales of stock, of quick negotiations with a triple profit, of portentous
balances. The amount of money that he was keeping idle in the banks was
beginning to weigh upon him. He finally ended by involving himself in some
speculation; like a gambler who cannot see the roulette wheel without
putting his hand in his pocket.

His family was right. “To Paris!” For in the Desnoyers’ mind, to go to
Europe meant, of course, to go to Paris. Let the “aunt from Berlin” keep
on chanting the glories of her husband’s country! “It’s sheer nonsense!”
exclaimed Julio who had made grave geographical and ethnic comparisons in
his nightly forays. “There is no place but Paris!” Chichi saluted with an
ironical smile the slightest doubt of it—“Perhaps they make as
elegant fashions in Germany as in Paris? . . . Bah!” Dona Luisa took up
her children’s cry. “Paris!” . . . Never had it even occurred to her to go
to a Lutheran land to be protected by her sister.

“Let it be Paris, then!” said the Frenchman, as though he were speaking of
an unknown city.

He had accustomed himself to believe that he would never return to it.
During the first years of his life in America, the trip would have been an
impossibility because of the military service which he had evaded. Then he
had vague news of different amnesties. After the time for conscription had
long since passed, an inertness of will had made him consider a return to
his country as somewhat absurd and useless. On the other side, nothing
remained to attract him. He had even lost track of those country relatives
with whom his mother had lived. In his heaviest hours he had tried to
occupy his activity by planning an enormous mausoleum, all of marble, in
La Recoleta, the cemetery of the rich, in order to move thither the
remains of Madariaga as founder of the dynasty, following him with all his
own when their hour should come. He was beginning to feel the weight of
age. He was nearly seventy years old, and the rude life of the country,
the horseback rides in the rain, the rivers forded upon his swimming
horse, the nights passed in the open air, had brought on a rheumatism that
was torturing his best days.

His family, however, reawakened his enthusiasm. “To Paris!” . . . He began
to fancy that he was twenty again, and forgetting his habitual parsimony,
wished his household to travel like royalty, in the most luxurious
staterooms, and with personal servants. Two copper-hued country girls,
born on the ranch and elevated to the rank of maids to the senora and her
daughter, accompanied them on the voyage, their oblique eyes betraying not
the slightest astonishment before the greatest novelties.

Once in Paris, Desnoyers found himself quite bewildered. He confused the
names of streets, proposed visits to buildings which had long since
disappeared, and all his attempts to prove himself an expert authority on
Paris were attended with disappointment. His children, guided by recent
reading up, knew Paris better than he. He was considered a foreigner in
his own country. At first, he even felt a certain strangeness in using his
native tongue, for he had remained on the ranch without speaking a word of
his language for years at a time. He was used to thinking in Spanish, and
translating his ideas into the speech of his ancestors spattered his
French with all kinds of Creole dialect.

“Where a man makes his fortune and raises his family, there is his true
country,” he said sententiously, remembering Madariaga.

The image of that distant country dominated him with insistent obsession
as soon as the impressions of the voyage had worn off. He had no French
friends, and upon going into the street, his feet instinctively took him
to the places where the Argentinians gathered together. It was the same
with them. They had left their country only to feel, with increasing
intensity, the desire to talk about it all the time. There he read the
papers, commenting on the rising prices in the fields, on the prospects
for the next harvests and on the sales of cattle. Returning home, his
thoughts were still in America, and he chuckled with delight as he
recalled the way in which the two chinas had defied the professional
dignity of the French cook, preparing their native stews and other dishes
in Creole style.

He had settled the family in an ostentatious house in the avenida Victor
Hugo, for which he paid a rental of twenty-eight thousand francs. Dona
Luisa had to go and come many times before she could accustom herself to
the imposing aspect of the concierges—he, decorated with gold
trimmings on his black uniform and wearing white whiskers like a notary in
a comedy, she with a chain of gold upon her exuberant bosom, and receiving
the tenants in a red and gold salon. In the rooms above was ultra-modern
luxury, gilded and glacial, with white walls and glass doors with tiny
panes which exasperated Desnoyers, who longed for the complicated carvings
and rich furniture in vogue during his youth. He himself directed the
arrangement and furnishings of the various rooms which always seemed
empty.

Chichi protested against her father’s avarice when she saw him buying
slowly and with much calculation and hesitation. “Avarice, no!” he
retorted, “it is because I know the worth of things.”

Nothing pleased him that he had not acquired at one-third of its value.
Beating down those who overcharged but proved the superiority of the
buyer. Paris offered him one delightful spot which he could not find
anywhere else in the world—the Hotel Drouot. He would go there every
afternoon that he did not find other important auctions advertised in the
papers. For many years, there was no famous failure in Parisian life, with
its consequent liquidation, from which he did not carry something away.
The use and need of these prizes were matters of secondary interest, the
great thing was to get them for ridiculous prices. So the trophies from
the auction-rooms now began to inundate the apartment which, at the
beginning, he had been furnishing with such desperate slowness.

His daughter now complained that the home was getting overcrowded. The
furnishings and ornaments were handsome, but too many . . . far too many!
The white walls seemed to scowl at the magnificent sets of chairs and the
overflowing glass cabinets. Rich and velvety carpets over which had passed
many generations, covered all the compartments. Showy curtains, not
finding a vacant frame in the salons, adorned the doors leading into the
kitchen. The wall mouldings gradually disappeared under an overlay of
pictures, placed close together like the scales of a cuirass. Who now
could accuse Desnoyers of avarice? . . . He was investing far more than a
fashionable contractor would have dreamed of spending.

The underlying idea still was to acquire all this for a fourth of its
price—an exciting bait which lured the economical man into
continuous dissipation. He could sleep well only when he had driven a good
bargain during the day. He bought at auction thousands of bottles of wine
consigned by bankrupt firms, and he who scarcely ever drank, packed his
wine cellars to overflowing, advising his family to use the champagne as
freely as ordinary wine. The failure of a furrier induced him to buy for
fourteen thousand francs pelts worth ninety thousand. In consequence, the
entire Desnoyers family seemed suddenly to be suffering as frightfully
from cold as though a polar iceberg had invaded the avenida Victor Hugo.
The father kept only one fur coat for himself but ordered three for his
son. Chichi and Dona Luisa appeared arrayed in all kinds of silky and
luxurious skins—one day chinchilla, other days blue fox, marten or
seal.

The enraptured buyer would permit no one but himself to adorn the walls
with his new acquisitions, using the hammer from the top of a step-ladder
in order to save the expense of a professional picture hanger. He wished
to set his children the example of economy. In his idle hours, he would
change the position of the heaviest pieces of furniture, trying every kind
of combination. This employment reminded him of those happy days when he
handled great sacks of wheat and bundles of hides on the ranch. Whenever
his son noticed that he was looking thoughtfully at a monumental sideboard
or heavy piece, he prudently betook himself to other haunts.

Desnoyers stood a little in awe of the two house-men, very solemn, correct
creatures always in dress suit, who could not hide their astonishment at
seeing a man with an income of more than a million francs engaged in such
work. Finally it was the two coppery maids who aided their Patron, the
three working contentedly together like companions in exile.

Four automobiles completed the luxuriousness of the family. The children
would have been more content with one—small and dashing, in the very
latest style. But Desnoyers was not the man to let a bargain slip past
him, so one after the other, he had picked up the four, tempted by the
price. They were as enormous and majestic as coaches of state. Their
entrance into a street made the passers-by turn and stare. The chauffeur
needed two assistants to help him keep this flock of mastodons in order,
but the proud owner thought only of the skill with which he had gotten the
best of the salesmen, anxious to get such monuments out of their sight.

To his children he was always recommending simplicity and economy. “We are
not as rich as you suppose. We own a good deal of property, but it
produces a scanty income.”

And then, after refusing a domestic expenditure of two hundred francs, he
would put five thousand into an unnecessary purchase just because it would
mean a great loss to the seller. Julio and his sister kept protesting to
their mother, Dona Luisa—Chichi even going so far as to announce
that she would never marry a man like her father.

“Hush, hush!” exclaimed the scandalized Creole. “He has his little
peculiarities, but he is very good. Never has he given me any cause for
complaint. I only hope that you may be lucky enough to find his equal.”

Her husband’s quarrelsomeness, his irritable character and his masterful
will all sank into insignificance when she thought of his unvarying
fidelity. In so many years of married life . . . nothing! His faithfulness
had been unexceptional even in the country where many, surrounded by
beasts, and intent on increasing their flocks, had seemed to become
contaminated by the general animalism. She remembered her father only too
well! . . . Even her sister was obliged to live in apparent calmness with
the vainglorious Karl, quite capable of disloyalty not because of any
special lust, but just to imitate the doings of his superiors.

Desnoyers and his wife were plodding through life in a routine affection,
reminding Dona Luisa, in her limited imagination, of the yokes of oxen on
the ranch who refused to budge whenever another animal was substituted for
the regular companion. Her husband certainly was quick tempered, holding
her responsible for all the whims with which he exasperated his children,
yet he could never bear to have her out of his sight. The afternoons at
the hotel Drouot would be most insipid for him unless she was at his side,
the confidante of his plans and wrathful outbursts.

“To-day there is to be a sale of jewels; shall we go?”

He would make this proposition in such a gentle and coaxing voice—the
voice that Dona Luisa remembered in their first talks around the old home.
And so they would go together, but by different routes;—she in one
of the monumental vehicles because, accustomed to the leisurely carriage
rides of the ranch, she no longer cared to walk; and Desnoyers—although
owner of the four automobiles, heartily abominating them because he was
conservative and uneasy with the complications of new machinery—on
foot under the pretext that, through lack of work, his body needed the
exercise. When they met in the crowded salesrooms, they proceeded to
examine the jewels together, fixing beforehand, the price they would
offer. But he, quick to become exasperated by opposition, always went
further, hurling numbers at his competitors as though they were blows.
After such excursions, the senora would appear as majestic and dazzling as
a basilica of Byzantium—ears and neck decorated with great pearls,
her bosom a constellation of brilliants, her hands radiating points of
light of all colors of the rainbow.

“Too much, mama,” Chichi would protest. “They will take you for a
pawnbroker’s lady!” But the Creole, satisfied with her splendor, the
crowning glory of a humble life, attributed her daughter’s faultfinding to
envy. Chichi was only a girl now, but later on she would thank her for
having collected all these gems for her.

Already the home was unable to accommodate so many purchases. In the
cellars were piled up enough paintings, furniture, statues, and draperies
to equip several other dwellings. Don Marcelo began to complain of the
cramped space in an apartment costing twenty-eight thousand francs a year—in
reality large enough for a family four times the size of his. He was
beginning to deplore being obliged to renounce some very tempting
furniture bargains when a real estate agent smelled out the foreigner and
relieved him of his embarrassment. Why not buy a castle? . . .

The entire family was delighted with the idea. An historic castle, the
most historic that could be found, would supplement their luxurious
establishment. Chichi paled with pride. Some of her friends had castles.
Others, of old colonial family, who were accustomed to look down upon her
for her country bringing up, would now cry with envy upon learning of this
acquisition which was almost a patent of nobility. The mother smiled in
the hope of months in the country which would recall the simple and happy
life of her youth. Julio was less enthusiastic. The “old man” would expect
him to spend much time away from Paris, but he consoled himself by
reflecting that the suburban place would provide excuse for frequent
automobile trips.

Desnoyers thought of the relatives in Berlin. Why should he not have his
castle like the others? . . . The bargains were alluring. Historic
mansions by the dozen were offered him. Their owners, exhausted by the
expense of maintaining them, were more than anxious to sell. So he bought
the castle of Villeblanche-sur-Marne, built in the time of the religious
wars—a mixture of palace and fortress with an Italian Renaissance
facade, gloomy towers with pointed hoods, and moats in which swans were
swimming.

He could now live with some tracts of land over which to exercise his
authority, struggling again with the resistance of men and things.
Besides, the vast proportions of the rooms of the castle were very
tempting and bare of furniture. This opportunity for placing the overflow
from his cellars plunged him again into buying. With this atmosphere of
lordly gloom, the antiques would harmonize beautifully, without that cry
of protest which they always seemed to make when placed in contact with
the glaring white walls of modern habitations. The historic residence
required an endless outlay; on that account it had changed owners so many
times.

But he and the land understood each other beautifully. . . . So at the
same time that he was filling the salons, he was going to begin farming
and stock-raising in the extensive parks—a reproduction in miniature
of his enterprises in South America. The property ought to be made
self-supporting. Not that he had any fear of the expenses, but he did not
intend to lose money on the proposition.

The acquisition of the castle brought Desnoyers a true friendship—the
chief advantage in the transaction. He became acquainted with a neighbor,
Senator Lacour, who twice had been Minister of State, and was now
vegetating in the senate, silent during its sessions, but restless and
voluble in the corridors in order to maintain his influence. He was a
prominent figure of the republican nobility, an aristocrat of the new
regime that had sprung from the agitations of the Revolution, just as the
titled nobility had won their spurs in the Crusades. His great-grandfather
had belonged to the Convention. His father had figured in the Republic of
1848. He, as the son of an exile who had died in banishment, had when very
young marched behind the grandiloquent figure of Gambetta, and always
spoke in glowing terms of the Master, in the hope that some of his rays
might be reflected on his disciple. His son Rene, a pupil of the Ecole
Centrale regarded his father as “a rare old sport,” laughing a little at
his romantic and humanitarian republicanism. He, nevertheless, was
counting much on that same official protection treasured by four
generations of Lacours dedicated to the service of the Republic, to assist
him when he became an engineer.

Don Marcelo who used to look uneasily upon any new friendship, fearing a
demand for a loan, gave himself up with enthusiasm to intimacy with this
“grand man.” The personage admired riches and recognized, besides, a
certain genius in this millionaire from the other side of the sea
accustomed to speaking of limitless pastures and immense herds. Their
intercourse was more than the mere friendliness of a country neighborhood,
and continued on after their return to Paris. Finally Rene visited the
home on the avenida Victor Hugo as though it were his own.

The only disappointments in Desnoyers’ new life came from his children.
Chichi irritated him because of the independence of her tastes. She did
not like antiques, no matter how substantial and magnificent they might
be, much preferring the frivolities of the latest fashion. She accepted
all her father’s gifts with great indifference. Before an exquisite blonde
piece of lace, centuries old, picked up at auction, she made a wry face,
saying, “I would much rather have had a new dress costing three hundred
francs.” She and her brother were solidly opposed to everything old.

Now that his daughter was already a woman, he had confided her absolutely
to the care of Dona Luisa. But the former “Peoncito” was not showing much
respect for the advice and commands of the good natured Creole. She had
taken up roller-skating with enthusiasm, regarding it as the most elegant
of diversions. She would go every afternoon to the Ice Palace, Dona Luisa
chaperoning her, although to do this she was obliged to give up
accompanying her husband to his sales. Oh, the hours of deadly weariness
before that frozen oval ring, watching the white circle of balancing human
monkeys gliding by on runners to the sound of an organ! . . . Her daughter
would pass and repass before her tired eyes, rosy from the exercise,
spirals of hair escaped from her hat, streaming out behind, the folds of
her skirt swinging above her skates—handsome, athletic and
Amazonian, with the rude health of a child who, according to her father,
“had been weaned on beefsteaks.”

Finally Dona Luisa rebelled against this troublesome vigilance, preferring
to accompany her husband on his hunt for underpriced riches. Chichi went
to the skating rink with one of the dark-skinned maids, passing the
afternoons with her sporty friends of the new world. Together they
ventilated their ideas under the glare of the easy life of Paris, freed
from the scruples and conventions of their native land. They all thought
themselves older than they were, delighting to discover in each other
unsuspected charms. The change from the other hemisphere had altered their
sense of values. Some were even writing verses in French. And Desnoyers
became alarmed, giving free rein to his bad humor, when Chichi of
evenings, would bring forth as aphorisms that which she and her friends
had been discussing, as a summary of their readings and observations.—“Life
is life, and one must live! . . . I will marry the man I love, no matter
who he may be. . . .”

But the daughter’s independence was as nothing compared to the worry which
the other child gave the Desnoyers. Ay, that other one! . . . Julio, upon
arriving in Paris, had changed the bent of his aspirations. He no longer
thought of becoming an engineer; he wished to become an artist. Don
Marcelo objected in great consternation, but finally yielded. Let it be
painting! The important thing was to have some regular profession. The
father, while he considered property and wealth as sacred rights, felt
that no one should enjoy them who had not worked to acquire them.

Recalling his apprenticeship as a wood carver, he began to hope that the
artistic instincts which poverty had extinguished in him were, perhaps,
reappearing in his son. What if this lazy boy, this lively genius,
hesitating before taking up his walk in life, should turn out to be a
famous painter, after all! . . . So he agreed to all of Julio’s caprices,
the budding artist insisting that for his first efforts in drawing and
coloring, he needed a separate apartment where he could work with more
freedom. His father, therefore, established him near his home, in the rue
de la Pompe in the former studio of a well-known foreign painter. The
workroom and its annexes were far too large for an amateur, but the owner
had died, and Desnoyers improved the opportunity offered by the heirs, and
bought at a remarkable bargain, the entire plant, pictures and
furnishings.

Dona Luisa at first visited the studio daily like a good mother, caring
for the well-being of her son that he may work to better advantage. Taking
off her gloves, she emptied the brass trays filled with cigar stubs and
dusted the furniture powdered with the ashes fallen from the pipes.
Julio’s visitors, long-haired young men who spoke of things that she could
not understand, seemed to her rather careless in their manners. . . .
Later on she also met there women, very lightly clad, and was received
with scowls by her son. Wasn’t his mother ever going to let him work in
peace? . . . So the poor lady, starting out in the morning toward the rue
de la Pompe, stopped midway and went instead to the church of Saint Honore
d’Eylau.

The father displayed more prudence. A man of his years could not expect to
mingle with the chums of a young artist. In a few months’ time, Julio
passed entire weeks without going to sleep under the paternal roof.
Finally he installed himself permanently in his studio, occasionally
making a flying trip home that his family might know that he was still in
existence. . . . Some mornings, Desnoyers would arrive at the rue de la
Pompe in order to ask a few questions of the concierge. It was ten
o’clock; the artist was sleeping. Upon returning at midday, he learned
that the heavy sleep still continued. Soon after lunch, another visit to
get better news. It was two o’clock, the young gentleman was just arising.
So the father would retire, muttering stormily—“But when does this
painter ever paint?” . . .

At first Julio had tried to win renown with his brush, believing that it
would prove an easy task. In true artist fashion, he collected his friends
around him, South American boys with nothing to do but enjoy life,
scattering money ostentatiously so that everybody might know of their
generosity. With serene audacity, the young canvas-dauber undertook to
paint portraits. He loved good painting, “distinctive” painting, with the
cloying sweetness of a romance, that copied only the forms of women. He
had money, a good studio, his father was standing behind him ready to help—why
shouldn’t he accomplish as much as many others who lacked his
opportunities? . . .

So he began his work by coloring a canvas entitled, “The Dance of the
Hours,” a mere pretext for copying pretty girls and selecting buxom
models. These he would sketch at a mad speed, filling in the outlines with
blobs of multi-colored paint, and up to this point all went well. Then he
would begin to vacillate, remaining idle before the picture only to put it
in the corner in hope of later inspiration. It was the same way with his
various studies of feminine heads. Finding that he was never able to
finish anything, he soon became resigned, like one who pants with fatigue
before an obstacle waiting for a providential interposition to save him.
The important thing was to be a painter . . . even though he might not
paint anything. This afforded him the opportunity, on the plea of lofty
aestheticism, of sending out cards of invitation and asking light women to
his studio. He lived during the night. Don Marcelo, upon investigating the
artist’s work, could not contain his indignation. Every morning the two
Desnoyers were accustomed to greet the first hours of dawn—the
father leaping from his bed, the son, on his way home to his studio to
throw himself upon his couch not to wake till midday.

The credulous Dona Luisa would invent the most absurd explanations to
defend her son. Who could tell? Perhaps he had the habit of painting
during the night, utilizing it for original work. Men resort to so many
devilish things! . . .

Desnoyers knew very well what these nocturnal gusts of genius were
amounting to—scandals in the restaurants of Montmartre, and
scrimmages, many scrimmages. He and his gang, who believed that at seven a
full dress or Tuxedo was indispensable, were like a band of Indians,
bringing to Paris the wild customs of the plains. Champagne always made
them quarrelsome. So they broke and paid, but their generosities were
almost invariably followed by a scuffle. No one could surpass Julio in the
quick slap and the ready card. His father heard with a heavy heart the
news brought him by some friends thinking to flatter his vanity—his
son was always victorious in these gentlemanly encounters; he it was who
always scratched the enemy’s skin. The painter knew more about fencing
than art. He was a champion with various weapons; he could box, and was
even skilled in the favorite blows of the prize fighters of the slums.
“Useless as a drone, and as dangerous, too,” fretted his father. And yet
in the back of his troubled mind fluttered an irresistible satisfaction—an
animal pride in the thought that this hare-brained terror was his own.

For a while, he thought that he had hit upon a way of withdrawing his son
from such an existence. The relatives in Berlin had visited the Desnoyers
in their castle of Villeblanche. With good-natured superiority, Karl von
Hartrott had appreciated the rich and rather absurd accumulations of his
brother-in-law. They were not bad; he admitted that they gave a certain
cachet to the home in Paris and to the castle. They smacked of the
possessions of titled nobility. But Germany! . . . The comforts and
luxuries in his country! . . . He just wished his brother-in-law to admire
the way he lived and the noble friendships that embellished his opulence.
And so he insisted in his letters that the Desnoyers family should return
their visit. This change of environment might tone Julio down a little.
Perhaps his ambition might waken on seeing the diligence of his cousins,
each with a career. The Frenchman had, besides, an underlying belief in
the more corrupt influence of Paris as compared with the purity of the
customs in Patriarchal Germany.

They were there four months. In a little while Desnoyers felt ready to
retreat. Each to his own kind; he would never be able to understand such
people. Exceedingly amiable, with an abject amiability and evident desire
to please, but constantly blundering through a tactless desire to make
their grandeur felt. The high-toned friends of Hartrott emphasized their
love for France, but it was the pious love that a weak and mischievous
child inspires, needing protection. And they would accompany their
affability with all manner of inopportune memories of the wars in which
France had been conquered. Everything in Germany—a monument, a
railroad station, a simple dining-room device, instantly gave rise to
glorious comparisons. “In France, you do not have this,” “Of course, you
never saw anything like this in America.”

Don Marcelo came away fatigued by so much condescension, and his wife and
daughter refused to be convinced that the elegance of Berlin could be
superior to Paris. Chichi, with audacious sacrilege, scandalized her
cousins by declaring that she could not abide the corseted officers with
immovable monocle, who bowed to the women with such automatic rigidity,
blending their gallantries with an air of superiority.

Julio, guided by his cousins, was saturated in the virtuous atmosphere of
Berlin. With the oldest, “The Sage,” he had nothing to do. He was a poor
creature devoted to his books who patronized all the family with a
protecting air. It was the others, the sub-lieutenants or military
students, who proudly showed him the rounds of German joy.

Julio was accordingly introduced to all the night restaurants—imitations
of those in Paris, but on a much larger scale. The women who in Paris
might be counted by the dozens appeared here in hundreds. The scandalous
drunkenness here never came by chance, but always by design as an
indispensable part of the gaiety. All was grandiose, glittering, colossal.
The libertines diverted themselves in platoons, the public got drunk in
companies, the harlots presented themselves in regiments. He felt a
sensation of disgust before these timid and servile females, accustomed to
blows, who were so eagerly trying to reimburse themselves for the losses
and exposures of their business. For him, it was impossible to celebrate
with hoarse ha-has, like his cousins, the discomfiture of these women when
they realized that they had wasted so many hours without accomplishing
more than abundant drinking. The gross obscenity, so public and noisy,
like a parade of riches, was loathsome to Julio. “There is nothing like
this in Paris,” his cousins repeatedly exulted as they admired the
stupendous salons, the hundreds of men and women in pairs, the thousands
of tipplers. “No, there certainly was nothing like that in Paris.” He was
sick of such boundless pretension. He seemed to be attending a fiesta of
hungry mariners anxious at one swoop to make amends for all former
privations. Like his father, he longed to get away. It offended his
aesthetic sense.

Don Marcelo returned from this visit with melancholy resignation. Those
people had undoubtedly made great strides. He was not such a blind patriot
that he could not admit what was so evident. Within a few years they had
transformed their country, and their industry was astonishing . . . but,
well . . . it was simply impossible to have anything to do with them. Each
to his own, but may they never take a notion to envy their neighbor! . . .
Then he immediately repelled this last suspicion with the optimism of a
business man.

“They are going to be very rich,” he thought. “Their affairs are
prospering, and he that is rich does not hunt quarrels. That war of which
some crazy fools are always dreaming would be an impossible thing.”

Young Desnoyers renewed his Parisian existence, living entirely in the
studio and going less and less to his father’s home. Dona Luisa began to
speak of a certain Argensola, a very learned young Spaniard, believing
that his counsels might prove most helpful to Julio. She did not know
exactly whether this new companion was friend, master or servant. The
studio habitues also had their doubts. The literary ones always spoke of
Argensola as a painter. The painters recognized only his ability as a man
of letters. He was among those who used to come up to the studio of winter
afternoons, attracted by the ruddy glow of the stove and the wines
secretly provided by the mother, holding forth authoritatively before the
often-renewed bottle and the box of cigars lying open on the table. One
night, he slept on the divan, as he had no regular quarters. After that
first night, he lived entirely in the studio.

Julio soon discovered in him an admirable reflex of his own personality.
He knew that Argensola had come third-class from Madrid with twenty francs
in his pocket, in order to “capture glory,” to use his own words. Upon
observing that the Spaniard was painting with as much difficulty as
himself, with the same wooden and childish strokes, which are so
characteristic of the make-believe artists and pot-boilers, the routine
workers concerned themselves with color and other rank fads. Argensola was
a psychological artist, a painter of souls. And his disciple, felt
astonished and almost displeased on learning what a comparatively simple
thing it was to paint a soul. Upon a bloodless countenance, with a chin as
sharp as a dagger, the gifted Spaniard would trace a pair of nearly round
eyes, and at the centre of each pupil he would aim a white brush stroke, a
point of light . . . the soul. Then, planting himself before the canvas,
he would proceed to classify this soul with his inexhaustible imagination,
attributing to it almost every kind of stress and extremity. So great was
the sway of his rapture that Julio, too, was able to see all that the
artist flattered himself into believing that he had put into the owlish
eyes. He, also, would paint souls . . . souls of women.

In spite of the ease with which he developed his psychological creations,
Argensola preferred to talk, stretched on a divan, or to read, hugging the
fire while his friend and protector was outside. Another advantage this
fondness for reading gave young Desnoyers was that he was no longer
obliged to open a volume, scanning the index and last pages “just to get
the idea.” Formerly when frequenting society functions, he had been guilty
of coolly asking an author which was his best book—his smile of a
clever man—giving the writer to understand that he merely enquired
so as not to waste time on the other volumes. Now it was no longer
necessary to do this; Argensola would read for him. As soon as Julio would
see him absorbed in a book, he would demand an immediate share: “Tell me
the story.” So the “secretary,” not only gave him the plots of comedies
and novels, but also detailed the argument of Schopenhauer or of Nietzsche
. . . Dona Luisa almost wept on hearing her visitors—with that
benevolence which wealth always inspires—speak of her son as “a
rather gay young man, but wonderfully well read!”

In exchange for his lessons, Argensola received, much the same treatment
as did the Greek slaves who taught rhetoric to the young patricians of
decadent Rome. In the midst of a dissertation, his lord and friend would
interrupt him with—“Get my dress suit ready. I am invited out this
evening.”

At other times, when the instructor was luxuriating in bodily comfort,
with a book in one hand near the roaring stove, seeing through the windows
the gray and rainy afternoon, his disciple would suddenly appear saying,
“Quick, get out! . . . There’s a woman coming!”

And Argensola, like a dog who gets up and shakes himself, would disappear
to continue his reading in some miserable little coffee house in the
neighborhood.

In his official capacity, this widely gifted man often descended from the
peaks of intellectuality to the vulgarities of everyday life. He was the
steward of the lord of the manor, the intermediary between the pocketbook
and those who appeared bill in hand. “Money!” he would say laconically at
the end of the month, and Desnoyers would break out into complaints and
curses. Where on earth was he to get it, he would like to know. His father
was as regular as a machine, and would never allow the slightest advance
upon the following month. He had to submit to a rule of misery. Three
thousand francs a month!—what could any decent person do with that?
. . . He was even trying to cut THAT down, to tighten the band,
interfering in the running of his house, so that Dona Luisa could not make
presents to her son. In vain he had appealed to the various usurers of
Paris, telling them of his property beyond the ocean. These gentlemen had
the youth of their own country in the hollow of their hand and were not
obliged to risk their capital in other lands. The same hard luck pursued
him when, with sudden demonstrations of affection, he had tried to
convince Don Marcelo that three thousand francs a month was but a
niggardly trifle.

The millionaire fairly snorted with indignation. “Three thousand francs a
trifle!” And the debts besides, that he often had to pay for his son! . .
.

“Why, when I was your age,” . . . he would begin saying—but Julio
would suddenly bring the dialogue to a close. He had heard his father’s
story too many times. Ah, the stingy old miser! What he had been giving
him all these months was no more than the interest on his grandfather’s
legacy. . . . And by the advice of Argensola he ventured to get control of
the field. He was planning to hand over the management of his land to
Celedonio, the old overseer, who was now such a grandee in his country
that Julio ironically called him “my uncle.”

Desnoyers accepted this rebellion coldly. “It appears just to me. You are
now of age!” Then he promptly reduced to extremes his oversight of his
home, forbidding Dona Luisa to handle any money. Henceforth he regarded
his son as an adversary, treating him during his lightning apparitions at
the avenue Victor Hugo with glacial courtesy as though he were a stranger.

For a while a transitory opulence enlivened the studio. Julio had
increased his expenses, considering himself rich. But the letters from his
uncle in America soon dissipated these illusions. At first the remittances
exceeded very slightly the monthly allowance that his father had made him.
Then it began to diminish in an alarming manner. According to Celedonio,
all the calamities on earth seemed to be falling upon his plantation. The
pasture land was yielding scantily, sometimes for lack of rain, sometimes
because of floods, and the herds were perishing by hundreds. Julio
required more income, and the crafty half-breed sent him what he asked
for, but simply as a loan, reserving the return until they should adjust
their accounts.

In spite of such aid, young Desnoyers was suffering great want. He was
gambling now in an elegant circle, thinking thus to compensate for his
periodical scrimpings; but this resort was only making the remittances
from America disappear with greater rapidity. . . . That such a man as he
was should be tormented so for the lack of a few thousand francs! What
else was a millionaire father for?

If the creditors began threatening, the poor youth had to bring the
secretary into play, ordering him to see the mother immediately; he
himself wished to avoid her tears and reproaches. So Argensola would slip
like a pickpocket up the service stairway of the great house on the avenue
Victor Hugo. The place in which he transacted his ambassadorial business
was the kitchen, with great danger that the terrible Desnoyers might
happen in there, on one of his perambulations as a laboring man, and
surprise the intruder.

Dona Luisa would weep, touched by the heartrending tales of the messenger.
What could she do! She was as poor as her maids; she had jewels, many
jewels, but not a franc. Then Argensola came to the rescue with a solution
worthy of his experience. He would smooth the way for the good mother,
leaving some of her jewels at the Mont-de-Piete. He knew the way to raise
money on them. So the lady accepted his advice, giving him, however, only
jewels of medium value as she suspected that she might never see them
again. Later scruples made her at times refuse flatly. Suppose Don Marcelo
should ever find it out, what a scene! . . . But the Spaniard deemed it
unseemly to return empty-handed, and always bore away a basket of bottles
from the well-stocked wine-cellar of the Desnoyers.

Every morning Dona Luisa went to Saint-Honore-d’Eylau to pray for her son.
She felt that this was her own church. It was a hospitable and familiar
island in the unexplored ocean of Paris. Here she could exchange discreet
salutations with her neighbors from the different republics of the new
world. She felt nearer to God and the saints when she could hear in the
vestibule conversations in her language.

It was, moreover, a sort of salon in which took place the great events of
the South American colony. One day was a wedding with flowers, orchestra
and chanting chorals. With Chichi beside her, she greeted those she knew,
congratulating the bride and groom. Another day it was the funeral of an
ex-president of some republic, or some other foreign dignitary ending in
Paris his turbulent existence. Poor President! Poor General! . . .

Dona Luisa remembered the dead man. She had seen him many times in that
church devoutly attending mass and she was indignant at the evil tongues
which, under the cover of a funeral oration, recalled the shootings and
bank failures in his country. Such a good and religious gentleman! May God
receive his soul in glory! . . . And upon going out into the square, she
would look with tender eyes upon the young men and women on horseback
going to the Bois de Boulogne, the luxurious automobiles, the morning
radiant in the sunshine, all the primeval freshness of the early hours—realizing
what a beautiful thing it is to live.

Her devout expression of gratitude for mere existence usually included the
monument in the centre of the square, all bristling with wings as if about
to fly away from the ground. Victor Hugo! . . . It was enough for her to
have heard this name on the lips of her son to make her contemplate the
statue with a family interest. The only thing that she knew about the poet
was that he had died. Of this she was almost sure, and she imagined that
in life, he was a great friend of Julio’s because she had so often heard
her son repeat his name.

Ay, her son! . . . All her thoughts, her conjectures, her desires,
converged on him and her strong-willed husband. She longed for the men to
come to an understanding and put an end to a struggle in which she was the
principal victim. Would not God work this miracle? . . . Like an invalid
who goes from one sanitarium to another in pursuit of health, she gave up
the church on her street to attend the Spanish chapel on the avenue
Friedland. Here she considered herself even more among her own.

In the midst of the fine and elegant South American ladies who looked as
if they had just escaped from a fashion sheet, her eyes sought other
women, not so well dressed, fat, with theatrical ermine and antique
jewelry. When these high-born dames met each other in the vestibule, they
spoke with heavy voices and expressive gestures, emphasizing their words
energetically. The daughter of the ranch ventured to salute them because
she had subscribed to all their pet charities, and upon seeing her
greeting returned, she felt a satisfaction which made her momentarily
forget her woes. They belonged to those families which her father had so
greatly admired without knowing why. They came from the “mother country,”
and to the good Chicha were all Excelentisimas or Altisimas, related to
kings. She did not know whether to give them her hand or bend the knee, as
she had vaguely heard was the custom at court. But soon she recalled her
preoccupation and went forward to wrestle in prayer with God. Ay, that he
would mercifully remember her! That he would not long forget her son! . .
.

It was Glory that remembered Julio, stretching out to him her arms of
light, so that he suddenly awoke to find himself surrounded by all the
honors and advantages of celebrity. Fame cunningly surprises mankind on
the most crooked and unexpected of roads. Neither the painting of souls
nor a fitful existence full of extravagant love affairs and complicated
duels had brought Desnoyers this renown. It was Glory that put him on his
feet.

A new pleasure for the delight of humanity had come from the other side of
the seas. People were asking one another in the mysterious tones of the
initiated who wish to recognize a familiar spirit, “Do you know how to
tango? . . .” The tango had taken possession of the world. It was the
heroic hymn of a humanity that was suddenly concentrating its aspirations
on the harmonious rhythm of the thigh joints, measuring its intelligence
by the agility of its feet. An incoherent and monotonous music of African
inspiration was satisfying the artistic ideals of a society that required
nothing better. The world was dancing . . . dancing . . . dancing.

A negro dance from Cuba introduced into South America by mariners who
shipped jerked beef to the Antilles, conquered the entire earth in a few
months, completely encircling it, bounding victoriously from nation to
nation . . . like the Marseillaise. It was even penetrating into the most
ceremonious courts, overturning all traditions of conservation and
etiquette like a song of the Revolution—the revolution of frivolity.
The Pope even had to become a master of the dance, recommending the
“Furlana” instead of the “Tango,” since all the Christian world,
regardless of sects, was united in the common desire to agitate its feet
with the tireless frenzy of the “possessed” of the Middle Ages.

Julio Desnoyers, upon meeting this dance of his childhood in full swing in
Paris, devoted himself to it with the confidence that an old love
inspires. Who could have foretold that when as a student, he was
frequenting the lowest dance halls in Buenos Aires, watched by the police,
that he was really serving an apprenticeship to Glory? . . .

From five to seven, in the salons of the Champs d’Elysees where it cost
five francs for a cup of tea and the privilege of joining in the sacred
dance, hundreds of eyes followed him with admiration. “He has the key,”
said the women, appraising his slender elegance, medium stature, and
muscular springs. And he, in abbreviated jacket and expansive shirt bosom,
with his small, girlish feet encased in high-heeled patent leathers with
white tops, danced gravely, thoughtfully, silently, like a mathematician
working out a problem, under the lights that shed bluish tones upon his
plastered, glossy locks. Ladies asked to be presented to him in the sweet
hope that their friends might envy them when they beheld them in the arms
of the master. Invitations simply rained upon Julio. The most exclusive
salons were thrown open to him so that every afternoon he made a dozen new
acquaintances. The fashion had brought over professors from the other side
of the sea, compatriots from the slums of Buenos Aires, haughty and
confused at being applauded like famous lecturers or tenors; but Julio
triumphed over these vulgarians who danced for money, and the incidents of
his former life were considered by the women as deeds of romantic
gallantry.

“You are killing yourself,” Argensola would say. “You are dancing too
much.”

The glory of his friend and master was only making more trouble for him.
His placid readings before the fire were now subject to daily
interruptions. It was impossible to read more than a chapter. The
celebrated man was continually ordering him to betake himself to the
street. “A new lesson,” sighed the parasite. And when he was alone in the
studio numerous callers—all women, some inquisitive and aggressive,
others sad, with a deserted air—were constantly interrupting his
thoughtful pursuits.

One of them terrified the occupants of the studio with her insistence. She
was a North American of uncertain age, somewhere between thirty-two and
fifty-nine, with short skirts that whenever she sat down, seemed to fly up
as if moved by a spring. Various dances with Desnoyers and a visit to the
rue de la Pompe she seemed to consider as her sacred rights, and she
pursued the master with the desperation of an abandoned zealot. Julio had
made good his escape upon learning that this beauty of youthful elegance—when
seen from the back—had two grandchildren. “MASTER Desnoyers has gone
out,” Argensola would invariably say upon receiving her. And, thereupon
she would burst into tears and threats, longing to kill herself then and
there that her corpse might frighten away those other women who would come
to rob her of what she considered her special privilege. Now it was
Argensola who sped his companion to the street when he wished to be alone.
He had only to remark casually, “I believe that Yankee is coming,” and the
great man would beat a hasty retreat, oftentimes in his desperate flight
availing himself of the back stairs.

At this time began to develop the most important event in Julio’s
existence. The Desnoyers family was to be united with that of Senator
Lacour. Rene, his only son, had succeeded in awakening in Chichi a certain
interest that was almost love. The dignitary enjoyed thinking of his son
allied to the boundless plains and immense herds whose description always
affected him like a marvellous tale. He was a widower, but he enjoyed
giving at his home famous banquets and parties. Every new celebrity
immediately suggested to him the idea of giving a dinner. No illustrious
person passing through Paris, polar explorer or famous singer, could
escape being exhibited in the dining room of Lacour. The son of Desnoyers—at
whom he had scarcely glanced before—now inspired him with sudden
interest. The senator was a thoroughly up-to-date man who did not classify
glory nor distinguish reputations. It was enough for him that a name
should be on everybody’s lips for him to accept it with enthusiasm. When
Julio responded to his invitation, he presented him with pride to his
friends, and came very near to calling him “dear master.” The tango was
monopolizing all conversation nowadays. Even in the Academy they were
taking it up in order to demonstrate that the youth of ancient Athens had
diverted itself in a somewhat similar way. . . . And Lacour had dreamed
all his life of an Athenian republic.

At these reunions, Desnoyers became acquainted with the Lauriers. He was
an engineer who owned a motor-factory for automobiles in the outskirts of
Paris—a man about thirty-five, tall, rather heavy and silent, with a
deliberate air as though he wished to see deeply into men and things. She
was of a light, frivolous character, loving life for the satisfactions and
pleasures which it brought her, appearing to accept with smiling
conformity the silent and grave adoration of her husband. She could not
well do less with a man of his merits. Besides, she had brought to the
marriage a dowry of three hundred thousand francs, a capital which had
enabled the engineer to enlarge his business. The senator had been
instrumental in arranging this marriage. He was interested in Laurier
because he was the son of an old friend.

Upon Marguerite Laurier the presence of Julio flashed like a ray of
sunlight in the tiresome salon of Lacour. She was dancing the fad of the
hour and frequenting the tango teas where reigned the adored Desnoyers.
And to think that she was being entertained with this celebrated and
interesting man that the other women were raving about! . . . In order
that he might not take her for a mere middle-class woman like the other
guests at the senator’s party, she spoke of her modistes, all from the rue
de la Paix, declaring gravely that no woman who had any self-respect could
possibly walk through the streets wearing a gown costing less than eight
hundred francs, and that the hat of a thousand francs—but a few
years ago, an astonishing novelty—was nowadays a very ordinary
affair.

This acquaintanceship made the “little Laurier,” as her friends called her
notwithstanding her tallness, much sought by the master of the dance, in
spite of the looks of wrath and envy hurled at her by the others. What a
triumph for the wife of a simple engineer who was used to going everywhere
in her mother’s automobile! . . . Julio at first had supposed her like all
the others who were languishing in his arms, following the rhythmic
complications of the dance, but he soon found that she was very different.
Her coquetry after the first confidential words, but increased his
admiration. He really had never before been thrown with a woman of her
class. Those of his first social period were the habituees of the night
restaurants paid for their witchery. Now Glory was tossing into his arms
ladies of high position but with an unconfessable past, anxious for
novelties although exceedingly mature. This middle class woman who would
advance so confidently toward him and then retreat with such capricious
outbursts of modesty, was a new type for him.

The tango salons soon began to suffer a great loss. Desnoyers was
permitting himself to be seen there with less frequency, handing Glory
over to the professionals. Sometimes entire weeks slipped by without the
five-to-seven devotees being able to admire his black locks and his tiny
patent leathers twinkling under the lights in time with his graceful
movements.

Marguerite was also avoiding these places. The meetings of the two were
taking place in accordance with what she had read in the love stories of
Paris. She was going in search of Julio, fearing to be recognized,
tremulous with emotion, selecting her most inconspicuous suit, and
covering her face with a close veil—“the veil of adultery,” as her
friends called it. They had their trysts in the least-frequented squares
of the district, frequently changing the places, like timid birds that at
the slightest disturbance fly to perch a little further away. Sometimes
they would meet in the Buttes Chaumont, at others they preferred the
gardens on the left bank of the Seine, the Luxembourg, and even the
distant Parc de Montsouris. She was always in tremors of terror lest her
husband might surprise them, although she well knew that the industrious
engineer was in his factory a great distance away. Her agitated aspect,
her excessive precautions in order to slip by unseen, only served to
attract the attention of the passers-by. Although Julio was waxing
impatient with the annoyance of this wandering love affair which only
amounted to a few fugitive kisses, he finally held his peace, dominated by
Marguerite’s pleadings.

She did not wish merely to be one in the procession of his sweethearts; it
was necessary to convince herself first that this love was going to last
forever. It was her first slip and she wanted it to be the last. Ay, her
former spotless reputation! . . . What would people say! . . . The two
returned to their adolescent period, loving each other as they had never
loved before, with the confident and childish passion of
fifteen-year-olds.

Julio had leaped from childhood to libertinism, taking his initiation into
life at a single bound. She had desired marriage in order to acquire the
respect and liberty of a married woman, but feeling towards her husband
only a vague gratitude. “We end where others begin,” she had said to
Desnoyers.

Their passion took the form of an intense, reciprocal and vulgar love.
They felt a romantic sentimentality in clasping hands or exchanging kisses
on a garden bench in the twilight. He was treasuring a ringlet of
Marguerite’s—although he doubted its genuineness, with a vague
suspicion that it might be one of the latest wisps of fashion. She would
cuddle down with her head on his shoulder, as though imploring his
protection, although always in the open air. If Julio ever attempted
greater intimacy in a carriage, madame would repel him most vigorously. A
contradictory duality appeared to inspire her actions. Every morning, on
awaking, she would decide to yield, but then when near him, her
middle-class respectability, jealous of its reputation, kept her faithful
to her mother’s teachings.

One day she agreed to visit his studio with the interest that the haunts
of the loved one always inspires. “Promise that you will not take
advantage of me.” He readily promised, swearing that everything should be
as Marguerite wished. . . . But from that day they were no longer seen in
the gardens, nor wandering around persecuted by the winter winds. They
preferred the studio, and Argensola had to rearrange his existence,
seeking the stove of another artist friend, in order to continue his
reading.

This state of things lasted two months. They never knew what secret force
suddenly disturbed their tranquility. Perhaps one of her friends, guessing
at the truth, had told the husband anonymously. Perhaps it was she herself
unconsciously, with her inexpressible happiness, her tardy returns home
when dinner was already served, and the sudden aversion which she showed
toward the engineer in their hours alone, trying to keep her heart
faithful to her lover. To divide her interest between her legal companion
and the man she loved was a torment that her simple and vehement
enthusiasm could not tolerate.

While she was hurrying one night through the rue de la Pompe, looking at
her watch and trembling with impatience at not finding an automobile or
even a cab, a man stood in front of her. . . . Etienne Laurier! She always
shuddered with fear on recalling that hour. For a moment she believed that
he was going to kill her. Serious men, quiet and diffident, are most
terrible in their explosions of wrath. Her husband knew everything. With
the same patience that he employed in solving his industrial problems, he
had been studying her day by day, without her ever suspecting the
watchfulness behind that impassive countenance. Then he had followed her
in order to complete the evidence of his misfortune.

Marguerite had never supposed that he could be so common and noisy in his
anger. She had expected that he would accept the facts coldly with that
slight tinge of philosophical irony usually shown by distinguished men, as
the husbands of her friends had done. But the poor engineer who, outside
of his work, saw only his wife, loving her as a woman, and adoring her as
a dainty and superior being, a model of grace and elegance, could not
endure the thought of her downfall, and cried and threatened without
reserve, so that the scandal became known throughout their entire circle
of friends. The senator felt greatly annoyed in remembering that it was in
his exclusive home that the guilty ones had become acquainted; but his
displeasure was visited upon the husband. What lack of good taste! . . .
Women will be women, and everything is capable of adjustment. But before
the imprudent outbursts of this frantic devil no elegant solution was
possible, and there was now nothing to do but to begin divorce
proceedings.

Desnoyers, senior, was very indignant upon learning of this last escapade
of his son. He had always had a great liking for Laurier. That instinctive
bond which exists between men of industry, patient and silent, had made
them very congenial. At the senator’s receptions he had always talked with
the engineer about the progress of his business, interesting himself in
the development of that factory of which he always spoke with the
affection of a father. The millionaire, in spite of his reputation for
miserliness, had even volunteered his disinterested support if at any time
it should become necessary to enlarge the plant. And it was this good
man’s happiness that his son, a frivolous and useless dancer, was going to
steal! . . .

At first Laurier spoke of a duel. His wrath was that of a work horse who
breaks the tight reins of his laboring outfit, tosses his mane, neighs
wildly and bites. The father was greatly distressed at the possibility of
such an outcome. . . . One scandal more! Julio had dedicated the greater
part of his existence to the handling of arms.

“He will kill the poor man!” he said to the senator. “I am sure that he
will kill him. It is the logic of life; the good-for-nothing always kill
those who amount to anything.”

But there was no killing. The Father of the Republic knew how to handle
the clashing parties, with the same skill that he always employed in the
corridors of the Senate during a ministerial crisis. The scandal was
hushed up. Marguerite went to live with her mother and took the first
steps for a divorce.

Some evenings, when the studio clock was striking seven, she would yawn
and say sadly: “I must go. . . . I have to go, although this is my true
home. . . . Ah, what a pity that we are not married!”

And he, feeling a whole garden of bourgeois virtues, hitherto ignored,
bursting into bloom, repeated in a tone of conviction:

“That’s so; why are we not married!”

Their wishes could be realized. The husband was facilitating the step by
his unexpected intervention. So young Desnoyers set forth for South
America in order to raise the money and marry Marguerite.

CHAPTER IV

THE COUSIN FROM BERLIN

The studio of Julio Desnoyers was on the top floor, both the stairway and
the elevator stopping before his door. The two tiny apartments at the back
were lighted by an interior court, their only means of communication being
the service stairway which went on up to the garrets.

While his comrade was away, Argensola had made the acquaintance of those
in the neighboring lodgings. The largest of the apartments was empty
during the day, its occupants not returning till after they had taken
their evening meal in a restaurant. As both husband and wife were employed
outside, they could not remain at home except on holidays. The man,
vigorous and of a martial aspect, was superintendent in a big department
store. . . . He had been a soldier in Africa, wore a military decoration,
and had the rank of sub-lieutenant in the Reserves. She was a blonde,
heavy and rather anaemic, with bright eyes and a sentimental expression.
On holidays she spent long hours at the piano, playing musical reveries,
always the same. At other times Argensola saw her through the interior
window working in the kitchen aided by her companion, the two laughing
over their clumsiness and inexperience in preparing the Sunday dinner.

The concierge thought that this woman was a German, but she herself said
that she was Swiss. She was a cashier in a shop—not the one in which
her husband was employed. In the mornings they left home together,
separating in the Place d’Etoile. At seven in the evening they met here,
greeting each other with a kiss, like lovers who meet for the first time;
and then after supper, they returned to their nest in the rue de la Pompe.
All Argensola’s attempts at friendliness with these neighbors were
repulsed because of their self-centredness. They responded with freezing
courtesy; they lived only for themselves.

The other apartment of two rooms was occupied by a single man. He was a
Russian or Pole who almost always returned with a package of books, and
passed many hours writing near the patio window. From the very first the
Spaniard took him to be a mysterious man, probably a very distinguished
one—a true hero of a novel. The foreign appearance of this Tchernoff
made a great impression upon him—his dishevelled beard, and oily
locks, his spectacles upon a large nose that seemed deformed by a
dagger-thrust. There emanated from him, like an invisible nimbus, an odor
of cheap wine and soiled clothing.

When Argensola caught a glimpse of him through the service door he would
say to himself, “Ah, Friend Tchernoff is returning,” and thereupon he
would saunter out to the stairway in order to have a chat with his
neighbor. For a long time the stranger discouraged all approach to his
quarters, which fact led the Spaniard to infer that he devoted himself to
alchemy and kindred mysteries. When he finally was allowed to enter he saw
only books, many books, books everywhere—scattered on the floor,
heaped upon benches, piled in corners, overflowing on to broken-down
chairs, old tables, and a bed that was only made up now and then when the
owner, alarmed by the increasing invasion of dust and cobwebs, was obliged
to call in the aid of his friend, the concierge.

Argensola finally realized, not without a certain disenchantment, that
there was nothing mysterious in the life of the man. What he was writing
near the window were merely translations, some of them ordered, others
volunteer work for the socialist periodicals. The only marvellous thing
about him was the quantity of languages that he knew.

“He knows them all,” said the Spaniard, when describing their neighbor to
Desnoyers. “He has only to hear of a new one to master it. He holds the
key, the secret of all languages, living or dead. He speaks Castilian as
well as we do, and yet he has never been in a Spanish-speaking country.”

Argensola again felt a thrill of mystery upon reading the titles of many
of the volumes. The majority were old books, many of them in languages
that he was not able to decipher, picked up for a song at second-hand
shops or on the book stands installed upon the parapets of the Seine. Only
a man holding the key of tongues could get together such volumes. An
atmosphere of mysticism, of superhuman insight, of secrets intact for many
centuries appeared to emanate from these heaps of dusty volumes with
worm-eaten leaves. And mixed with these ancient tomes were others red and
conspicuous, pamphlets of socialistic propaganda, leaflets in all the
languages of Europe and periodicals—many periodicals, with
revolutionary titles.

Tchernoff did not appear to enjoy visits and conversation. He would smile
enigmatically into his black beard, and was very sparing with his words so
as to shorten the interview. But Argensola possessed the means of winning
over this sullen personage. It was only necessary for him to wink one eye
with the expressive invitation, “Do we go?” and the two would soon be
settled on a bench in the kitchen of Desnoyers’ studio, opposite a bottle
which had come from the avenue Victor Hugo. The costly wines of Don
Marcelo made the Russian more communicative, although, in spite of this
aid, the Spaniard learned little of his neighbor’s real existence.
Sometimes he would mention Jaures and other socialistic orators. His
surest means of existence was the translation of periodicals or party
papers. On various occasions the name of Siberia escaped from his lips,
and he admitted that he had been there a long time; but he did not care to
talk about a country visited against his will. He would merely smile
modestly, showing plainly that he did not wish to make any further
revelations.

The morning after the return of Julio Desnoyers, while Argensola was
talking on the stairway with Tchernoff, the bell rang. How annoying! The
Russian, who was well up in advanced politics, was just explaining the
plans advanced by Jaures. There were still many who hoped that war might
be averted. He had his motives for doubting it. . . . He, Tchernoff, was
commenting on these illusions with the smile of a flat-nosed sphinx when
the bell rang for a second time, so that Argensola was obliged to break
away from his interesting friend, and run to open the main door.

A gentleman wished to see Julio. He spoke very correct French, though his
accent was a revelation for Argensola. Upon going into the bedroom in
search of his master, who was just arising, he said confidently, “It’s the
cousin from Berlin who has come to say good-bye. It could not be anyone
else.”

When the three came together in the studio, Desnoyers presented his
comrade, in order that the visitor might not make any mistake in regard to
his social status.

“I have heard him spoken of. The gentleman is Argensola, a very deserving
youth.”

Doctor Julius von Hartrott said this with the self-sufficiency of a man
who knows everything and wishes to be agreeable to an inferior, conceding
him the alms of his attention.

The two cousins confronted each other with a curiosity not altogether free
from distrust. Although closely related, they knew each other very
slightly, tacitly admitting complete divergence in opinions and tastes.

After slowly examining the Sage, Argensola came to the conclusion that he
looked like an officer dressed as a civilian. He noticed in his person an
effort to imitate the soldierly when occasionally discarding uniform—the
ambition of every German burgher wishing to be taken for the superior
class. His trousers were narrow, as though intended to be tucked into
cavalry boots. His coat with two rows of buttons had the contracted waist
with very full skirt and upstanding lapels, suggesting vaguely a military
great coat. The reddish moustachios, strong jaw and shaved head completed
his would-be martial appearance; but his eyes, large, dark-circled and
near-sighted, were the eyes of a student taking refuge behind great thick
glasses which gave him the aspect of a man of peace.

Desnoyers knew that he was an assistant professor of the University, that
he had published a few volumes, fat and heavy as bricks, and that he was a
member of an academic society collaborating in documentary research
directed by a famous historian. In his lapel he was wearing the badge of a
foreign order.

Julio’s respect for the learned member of the family was not unmixed with
contempt. He and his sister Chichi had from childhood felt an instinctive
hostility toward the cousins from Berlin. It annoyed him, too, to have his
family everlastingly holding up as a model this pedant who only knew life
as it is in books, and passed his existence investigating what men had
done in other epochs, in order to draw conclusions in harmony with
Germany’s views. While young Desnoyers had great facility for admiration,
and reverenced all those whose “arguments” Argensola had doled out to him,
he drew the line at accepting the intellectual grandeur of this
illustrious relative.

During his stay in Berlin, a German word of vulgar invention had enabled
him to classify this prig. Heavy books of minute investigation were every
month being published by the dozens in the Fatherland. There was not a
professor who could resist the temptation of constructing from the
simplest detail an enormous volume written in a dull, involved style. The
people, therefore, appreciating that these near-sighted authors were
incapable of any genial vision of comradeship, called them Sitzfleisch
haben, because of the very long sittings which their works represented.
That was what this cousin was for him, a mere Sitzfleisch haben.

Doctor von Hartrott, on explaining his visit, spoke in Spanish. He availed
himself of this language used by the family during his childhood, as a
precaution, looking around repeatedly as if he feared to be heard. He had
come to bid his cousin farewell. His mother had told him of his return,
and he had not wished to leave Paris without seeing him. He was leaving in
a few hours, since matters were growing more strained.

“But do you really believe that there will be war?” asked Desnoyers.

“War will be declared to-morrow or the day after. Nothing can prevent it
now. It is necessary for the welfare of humanity.”

Silence followed this speech, Julio and Argensola looking with
astonishment at this peaceable-looking man who had just spoken with such
martial arrogance. The two suspected that the professor was making this
visit in order to give vent to his opinions and enthusiasms. At the same
time, perhaps, he was trying to find out what they might think and know,
as one of the many viewpoints of the people in Paris.

“You are not French,” he added looking at his cousin. “You were born in
Argentina, so before you I may speak the truth.”

“And were you not born there?” asked Julio smiling.

The Doctor made a gesture of protest, as though he had just heard
something insulting. “No, I am a German. No matter where a German may be
born, he always belongs to his mother country.” Then turning to Argensola—“This
gentleman, too, is a foreigner. He comes from noble Spain, which owes to
us the best that it has—the worship of honor, the knightly spirit.”

The Spaniard wished to remonstrate, but the Sage would not permit, adding
in an oracular tone:

“You were miserable Celts, sunk in the vileness of an inferior and mongrel
race whose domination by Rome but made your situation worse. Fortunately
you were conquered by the Goths and others of our race who implanted in
you a sense of personal dignity. Do not forget, young man, that the
Vandals were the ancestors of the Prussians of to-day.”

Again Argensola tried to speak, but his friend signed to him not to
interrupt the professor who appeared to have forgotten his former reserve
and was working up to an enthusiastic pitch with his own words.

“We are going to witness great events,” he continued. “Fortunate are those
born in this epoch, the most interesting in history! At this very moment,
humanity is changing its course. Now the true civilization begins.”

The war, according to him, was going to be of a brevity hitherto unseen.
Germany had been preparing herself to bring about this event without any
long, economic world-disturbance. A single month would be enough to crush
France, the most to be feared of their adversaries. Then they would march
against Russia, who with her slow, clumsy movements could not oppose an
immediate defense. Finally they would attack haughty England, so isolated
in its archipelago that it could not obstruct the sweep of German
progress. This would make a series of rapid blows and overwhelming
victories, requiring only a summer in which to play this magnificent role.
The fall of the leaves in the following autumn would greet the definite
triumph of Germany.

With the assurance of a professor who does not expect his dictum to be
refuted by his hearers, he explained the superiority of the German race.
All mankind was divided into two groups—dolicephalous and the
brachicephalous, according to the shape of the skull. Another scientific
classification divided men into the light-haired and dark-haired. The
dolicephalous (arched heads) represented purity of race and superior
mentality. The brachicephalous (flat heads) were mongrels with all the
stigma of degeneration. The German, dolicephalous par excellence, was the
only descendant of the primitive Aryans. All the other nations, especially
those of the south of Europe called “latins,” belonged to a degenerate
humanity.

The Spaniard could not contain himself any longer. “But no person with any
intelligence believes any more in those antique theories of race! What if
there no longer existed a people of absolutely pure blood, owing to
thousands of admixtures due to historical conquests!” . . . Many Germans
bore the identical ethnic marks which the professor was attributing to the
inferior races.

“There is something in that,” admitted Hartrott, “but although the German
race may not be perfectly pure, it is the least impure of all races and,
therefore, should have dominion over the world.”

His voice took on an ironic and cutting edge when speaking of the Celts,
inhabitants of the lands of the South. They had retarded the progress of
Humanity, deflecting it in the wrong direction. The Celt is
individualistic and consequently an ungovernable revolutionary who tends
to socialism. Furthermore, he is a humanitarian and makes a virtue of
mercy, defending the existence of the weak who do not amount to anything.

The illustrious German places above everything else, Method and Power.
Elected by Nature to command the impotent races, he possesses all the
qualifications that distinguish the superior leader. The French Revolution
was merely a clash between Teutons and Celts. The nobility of France were
descended from Germanic warriors established in the country after the
so-called invasion of the barbarians. The middle and lower classes were
the Gallic-Celtic element. The inferior race had conquered the superior,
disorganizing the country and perturbing the world. Celtism was the
inventor of Democracy, of the doctrines of Socialism and Anarchy. Now the
hour of Germanic retaliation was about to strike, and the Northern race
would re-establish order, since God had favored it by demonstrating its
indisputable superiority.

“A nation,” he added, “can aspire to great destinies only when it is
fundamentally Teutonic. The less German it is, the less its civilization
amounts to. We represent ‘the aristocracy of humanity,’ ‘the salt of the
earth,’ as our William said.”

Argensola was listening with astonishment to this outpouring of conceit.
All the great nations had passed through the fever of Imperialism. The
Greeks aspired to world-rule because they were the most civilized and
believed themselves the most fit to give civilization to the rest of
mankind. The Romans, upon conquering countries, implanted law and the rule
of justice. The French of the Revolution and the Empire justified their
invasions on the plea that they wished to liberate mankind and spread
abroad new ideas. Even the Spaniards of the sixteenth century, when
battling with half of Europe for religious unity and the extermination of
heresy, were working toward their ideals obscure and perhaps erroneous,
but disinterested.

All the nations of history had been struggling for something which they
had considered generous and above their own interests. Germany alone,
according to this professor, was trying to impose itself upon the world in
the name of racial superiority—a superiority that nobody had
recognized, that she was arrogating to herself, coating her affirmations
with a varnish of false science.

“Until now wars have been carried on by the soldiery,” continued Hartrott.
“That which is now going to begin will be waged by a combination of
soldiers and professors. In its preparation the University has taken as
much part as the military staff. German science, leader of all sciences,
is united forever with what the Latin revolutionists disdainfully term
militarism. Force, mistress of the world, is what creates right, that
which our truly unique civilization imposes. Our armies are the
representatives of our culture, and in a few weeks we shall free the world
from its decadence, completely rejuvenating it.”

The vision of the immense future of his race was leading him on to expose
himself with lyrical enthusiasm. William I, Bismarck, all the heroes of
past victories, inspired his veneration, but he spoke of them as dying
gods whose hour had passed. They were glorious ancestors of modest
pretensions who had confined their activities to enlarging the frontiers,
and to establishing the unity of the Empire, afterwards opposing
themselves with the prudence of valetudinarians to the daring of the new
generation. Their ambitions went no further than a continental hegemony .
. . but now William II had leaped into the arena, the complex hero that
the country required.

“Lamprecht, my master, has pictured his greatness. It is tradition and the
future, method and audacity. Like his grandfather, the Emperor holds the
conviction of what monarchy by the grace of God represents, but his vivid
and modern intelligence recognizes and accepts modern conditions. At the
same time that he is romantic, feudal and a supporter of the agrarian
conservatives, he is also an up-to-date man who seeks practical solutions
and shows a utilitarian spirit. In him are correctly balanced instinct and
reason.”

Germany, guided by this hero, had, according to Hartrott, been
concentrating its strength, and recognizing its true path. The
Universities supported him even more unanimously than the army. Why store
up so much power and maintain it without employment? . . . The empire of
the world belongs to the German people. The historians and philosophers,
disciples of Treitschke, were taking it upon themselves to frame the
rights that would justify this universal domination. And Lamprecht, the
psychological historian, like the other professors, was launching the
belief in the absolute superiority of the Germanic race. It was just that
it should rule the world, since it only had the power to do so. This
“telurian germanization” was to be of immense benefit to mankind. The
earth was going to be happy under the dictatorship of a people born for
mastery. The German state, “tentacular potency,” would eclipse with its
glory the most imposing empire of the past and present. Gott mit uns!

“Who will be able to deny, as my master says, that there exists a
Christian, German God, the ‘Great Ally,’ who is showing himself to our
enemies, the foreigners, as a strong and jealous divinity?” . . .

Desnoyers was listening to his cousin with astonishment and at the same
time looking at Argensola who, with a flutter of his eyes, seemed to be
saying to him, “He is mad! These Germans are simply mad with pride.”

Meanwhile, the professor, unable to curb his enthusiasm, continued
expounding the grandeur of his race. From his viewpoint, the providential
Kaiser had shown inexplicable weakenings. He was too good and too kind.
“Deliciae generis humani,” as had said Professor Lasson, another of
Hartrott’s masters. Able to overthrow everything with his annihilating
power, the Emperor was limiting himself merely to maintaining peace. But
the nation did not wish to stop there, and was pushing its leader until it
had him started. It was useless now to put on the brakes. “He who does not
advance recedes”;—that was the cry of PanGermanism to the Emperor.
He must press on in order to conquer the entire world.

“And now war comes,” continued the pedant. “We need the colonies of the
others, even though Bismarck, through an error of his stubborn old age,
exacted nothing at the time of universal distribution, letting England and
France get possession of the best lands. We must control all countries
that have Germanic blood and have been civilized by our forbears.”

Hartrott enumerated these countries. Holland and Belgium were German.
France, through the Franks, was one-third Teutonic blood. Italy. . . .
Here the professor hesitated, recalling the fact that this nation was
still an ally, certainly a little insecure, but still united by diplomatic
bonds. He mentioned, nevertheless, the Longobards and other races coming
from the North. Spain and Portugal had been populated by the ruddy Goth
and also belonged to the dominant race. And since the majority of the
nations of America were of Spanish and Portuguese origin, they should also
be included in this recovery.

“It is a little premature to think of these last nations just yet,” added
the Doctor modestly, “but some day the hour of justice will sound. After
our continental triumph, we shall have time to think of their fate. . . .
North America also should receive our civilizing influence, for there are
living millions of Germans who have created its greatness.”

He was talking of the future conquests as though they were marks of
distinction with which his country was going to favor other countries.
These were to continue living politically the same as before with their
individual governments, but subject to the Teutons, like minors requiring
the strong hand of a master. They would form the Universal United States,
with an hereditary and all-powerful president—the Emperor of Germany—receiving
all the benefits of Germanic culture, working disciplined under his
industrial direction. . . . But the world is ungrateful, and human badness
always opposes itself to progress.

“We have no illusions,” sighed the professor, with lofty sadness. “We have
no friends. All look upon us with jealousy, as dangerous beings, because
we are the most intelligent, the most active, and have proved ourselves
superior to all others. . . . But since they no longer love us, let them
fear us! As my friend Mann says, although Kultur is the spiritual
organization of the world, it does not exclude bloody savagery when that
becomes necessary. Kultur sanctifies the demon within us, and is above
morality, reason and science. We are going to impose Kultur by force of
the cannon.”

Argensola continued, saying with his eyes, “They are crazy, crazy with
pride! . . . What can the world expect of such people!”

Desnoyers here intervened in order to brighten this gloomy monologue with
a little optimism. War had not yet been positively declared. The diplomats
were still trying to arrange matters. Perhaps it might all turn out
peaceably at the last minute, as had so often happened before. His cousin
was seeing things entirely distorted by an aggressive enthusiasm.

Oh, the ironical, ferocious and cutting smile of the Doctor! Argensola had
never known old Madariaga, but it, nevertheless, occurred to him that in
this fashion sharks must smile, although he, too, had never seen a shark.

“It is war,” boomed Hartrott. “When I left Germany, fifteen days ago, I
knew that war was inevitable.”

The certainty with which he said this dissipated all Julio’s hope.
Moreover, this man’s trip, on the pretext of seeing his mother, disquieted
him. . . . On what mission had Doctor Julius von Hartrott come to Paris? .
. .

“Well, then,” asked Desnoyers, “why so many diplomatic interviews? Why
does the German government intervene at all—although in such a
lukewarm way—in the struggle between Austria and Servia. . . . Would
it not be better to declare war right out?”

The professor replied with simplicity: “Our government undoubtedly wishes
that the others should declare the war. The role of outraged dignity is
always the most pleasing one and justifies all ulterior resolutions,
however extreme they may seem. There are some of our people who are living
comfortably and do not desire war. It is expedient to make them believe
that those who impose it upon us are our enemies so that they may feel the
necessity of defending themselves. Only superior minds reach the
conviction of the great advancement that can be accomplished by the sword
alone, and that war, as our grand Treitschke says, is the highest form of
progress.”

Again he smiled with a ferocious expression. Morality, from his point of
view, should exist among individuals only to make them more obedient and
disciplined, for morality per se impedes governments and should be
suppressed as a useless obstacle. For the State there exists neither truth
nor falsehood; it only recognizes the utility of things. The glorious
Bismarck, in order to consummate the war with France, the base of German
grandeur, had not hesitated to falsify a telegraphic despatch.

“And remember, that he is the most glorious hero of our time! History
looks leniently upon his heroic feat. Who would accuse the one who
triumphs? . . . Professor Hans Delbruck has written with reason, ‘Blessed
be the hand that falsified the telegram of Ems!’”

It was convenient to have the war break out immediately, in order that
events might result favorably for Germany, whose enemies are totally
unprepared. Preventive war was recommended by General Bernhardi and other
illustrious patriots. It would be dangerous indeed to defer the
declaration of war until the enemies had fortified themselves so that they
should be the ones to make war. Besides, to the Germans what kind of
deterrents could law and other fictions invented by weak nations possibly
be? . . . No; they had the Power, and Power creates new laws. If they
proved to be the victors, History would not investigate too closely the
means by which they had conquered. It was Germany that was going to win,
and the priests of all cults would finally sanctify with their chants the
blessed war—if it led to triumph.

“We are not making war in order to punish the Servian regicides, nor to
free the Poles, nor the others oppressed by Russia, stopping there in
admiration of our disinterested magnanimity. We wish to wage it because we
are the first people of the earth and should extend our activity over the
entire planet. Germany’s hour has sounded. We are going to take our place
as the powerful Mistress of the World, the place which Spain occupied in
former centuries, afterwards France, and England to-day. What those people
accomplished in a struggle of many years we are going to bring about in
four months. The storm-flag of the Empire is now going to wave over
nations and oceans; the sun is going to shine on a great slaughter. . . .

“Old Rome, sick unto death, called ‘barbarians’ the Germans who opened the
grave. The world to-day also smells death and will surely call us
barbarians. . . . So be it! When Tangiers and Toulouse, Amberes and Calais
have become submissive to German barbarism . . . then we will speak
further of this matter. We have the power, and who has that needs neither
to hesitate nor to argue. . . . Power! . . . That is the beautiful word—the
only word that rings true and clear. . . . Power! One sure stab and all
argument is answered forever!”

“But are you so sure of victory?” asked Desnoyers. “Sometimes Destiny
gives us great surprises. There are hidden forces that we must take into
consideration or they may overturn the best-laid plans.”

The smile of the Doctor became increasingly scornful and arrogant.
Everything had been foreseen and studied out long ago with the most minute
Germanic method. What had they to fear? . . . The enemy most to be
reckoned with was France, incapable of resisting the enervating moral
influences, the sufferings, the strain and the privations of war;—a
nation physically debilitated and so poisoned by revolutionary spirit that
it had laid aside the use of arms through an exaggerated love of comfort.

“Our generals,” he announced, “are going to leave her in such a state that
she will never again cross our path.”

There was Russia, too, to consider, but her amorphous masses were slow to
assemble and unwieldy to move. The Executive Staff of Berlin had timed
everything by measure for crushing France in four weeks, and would then
lead its enormous forces against the Russian empire before it could begin
action.

“We shall finish with the bear after killing the cock,” affirmed the
professor triumphantly.

But guessing at some objection from his cousin, he hastened on—“I
know what you are going to tell me. There remains another enemy, one that
has not yet leaped into the lists but which all the Germans are waiting
for. That one inspires more hatred than all the others put together,
because it is of our blood, because it is a traitor to the race. . . . Ah,
how we loathe it!”

And in the tone in which these words were uttered throbbed an expression
of hatred and a thirst for vengeance which astonished both listeners.

“Even though England attack us,” continued Hartrott, “we shall conquer,
notwithstanding. This adversary is not more terrible than the others. For
the past century she has ruled the world. Upon the fall of Napoleon she
seized the continental hegemony, and will fight to keep it. But what does
her energy amount to? . . . As our Bernhardi says, the English people are
merely a nation of renters and sportsmen. Their army is formed from the
dregs of the nation. The country lacks military spirit. We are a people of
warriors, and it will be an easy thing for us to conquer the English,
debilitated by a false conception of life.”

The Doctor paused and then added: “We are counting on the internal
corruption of our enemies, on their lack of unity. God will aid us by
sowing confusion among these detested people. In a few days you will see
His hand. Revolution is going to break out in France at the same time as
war. The people of Paris will build barricades in the streets and the
scenes of the Commune will repeat themselves. Tunis, Algiers and all their
other possessions are about to rise against the metropolis.”

Argensola seized the opportunity to smile with an aggressive incredulity.

“I repeat it,” insisted Hartrott, “that this country is going to have
internal revolution and colonial insurrection. I know perfectly well what
I am talking about. . . . Russia also will break out into revolution with
a red flag that will force the Czar to beg for mercy on his knees. You
have only to read in the papers of the recent strikes in Saint Petersburg,
and the manifestations of the strikers with the pretext of President
Poincare’s visit. . . . England will see her appeals to her colonies
completely ignored. India is going to rise against her, and Egypt, too,
will seize this opportunity for her emancipation.”

Julio was beginning to be impressed by these affirmations enunciated with
such oracular certainty, and he felt almost irritated at the incredulous
Argensola, who continued looking insolently at the seer, repeating with
his winking eyes, “He is insane—insane with pride.” The man
certainly must have strong reasons for making such awful prophecies. His
presence in Paris just at this time was difficult for Desnoyers to
understand, and gave to his words a mysterious authority.

“But the nations will defend themselves,” he protested to his cousin.
“Victory will not be such a very simple thing as you imagine.”

“Yes, they will defend themselves, and the struggle will be fiercely
contested. It appears that, of late years, France has been paying some
attention to her army. We shall undoubtedly encounter some resistance;
triumph may be somewhat difficult, but we are going to prevail. . . . You
have no idea to what extent the offensive power of Germany has attained.
Nobody knows with certainty beyond the frontiers. If our foes should
comprehend it in all its immensity, they would fall on their knees
beforehand to beg for mercy, thus obviating the necessity for useless
sacrifices.”

There was a long silence. Julius von Hartrott appeared lost in reverie.
The very thought of the accumulated strength of his race submerged him in
a species of mystic adoration.

“The preliminary victory,” he suddenly exclaimed, “we gained some time
ago. Our enemies, therefore, hate us, and yet they imitate us. All that
bears the stamp of Germany is in demand throughout the world. The very
countries that are trying to resist our arms copy our methods in their
universities and admire our theories, even those which do not attain
success in Germany. Oftentimes we laugh among ourselves, like the Roman
augurs, upon seeing the servility with which they follow us! . . . And yet
they will not admit our superiority!”

For the first time, Argensola’s eyes and general expression approved the
words of Hartrott. What he had just said was only too true—the world
was a victim of “the German superstition.” An intellectual cowardice, the
fear of Force had made it admire en masse and indiscriminately, everything
of Teutonic origin, just because of the intensity of its glitter—gold
mixed with talcum. The so-called Latins, dazed with admiration, were, with
unreasonable pessimism, becoming doubtful of their ability, and thus were
the first to decree their own death. And the conceited Germans merely had
to repeat the words of these pessimists in order to strengthen their
belief in their own superiority.

With that Southern temperament, which leaps rapidly from one extreme to
another, many Latins had proclaimed that in the world of the future, there
would be no place for the Latin peoples, now in their death-agony—adding
that Germany alone preserved the latent forces of civilization. The French
who declaimed among themselves, with the greatest exaggeration,
unconscious that folks were listening the other side of the door, had
proclaimed repeatedly for many years past, that France was degenerating
rapidly and would soon vanish from the earth. . . . Then why should they
resent the scorn of their enemies. . . . Why shouldn’t the Germans share
in their beliefs?

The professor, misinterpreting the silent agreement of the Spaniard who
until then had been listening with such a hostile smile, added:

“Now is the time to try out in France the German culture, implanting it
there as conquerors.”

Here Argensola interrupted, “And what if there is no such thing as German
culture, as a celebrated Teuton says?” It had become necessary to
contradict this pedant who had become insufferable with his egotism.
Hartrott almost jumped from his chair on hearing such a doubt.

“What German is that?”

“Nietzsche.”

The professor looked at him pityingly. Nietzsche had said to mankind, “Be
harsh!” affirming that “a righteous war sanctifies every cause.” He had
exalted Bismarck; he had taken part in the war of ‘70; he was glorifying
Germany when he spoke of “the smiling lion,” and “the blond beast.” But
Argensola listened with the tranquillity of one sure of his ground. Oh,
hours of placid reading near the studio chimney, listening to the rain
beating against the pane! . . .

“The philosopher did say that,” he admitted, “and he said many other very
different things, like all great thinkers. His doctrine is one of pride,
but of individual pride, not that of a nation or race. He always spoke
against ‘the insidious fallacy of race.’”

Argensola recalled his philosophy word for word. Culture, according to
Nietzsche, was “unity of style in all the manifestations of life.” Science
did not necessarily include culture. Great knowledge might be accompanied
with great barbarity, by the absence of style or by the chaotic confusion
of all styles. Germany, according to the philosopher, had no genuine
culture owing to its lack of style. “The French,” he had said, “were at
the head of an authentic and fruitful culture, whatever their valor might
be, and until now everybody had drawn upon it.” Their hatreds were
concentrated within their own country. “I cannot endure Germany. The
spirit of servility and pettiness penetrates everywhere. . . . I believe
only in French culture, and what the rest of Europe calls culture appears
to me to be a mistake. The few individual cases of lofty culture that I
met in Germany were of French origin.”

“You know,” continued Argensola, “that in quarrelling with Wagner about
the excess of Germanism in his art, Nietzsche proclaimed the necessity of
mediterraneanizing music. His ideal was a culture for all Europe, but with
a Latin base.”

Julius von Hartrott replied most disdainfully to this, repeating the
Spaniard’s very words. Men who thought much said many things. Besides,
Nietzsche was a poet, completely demented at his death, and was no
authority among the University sages. His fame had only been recognized in
foreign lands. . . . And he paid no further attention to the youth,
ignoring him as though he had evaporated into thin air after his
presumption. All the professor’s attention was now concentrated on
Desnoyers.

“This country,” he resumed, “is dying from within. How can you doubt that
revolution will break out the minute war is declared? . . . Have you not
noticed the agitation of the boulevard on account of the Caillaux trial?
Reactionaries and revolutionists have been assaulting each other for the
past three days. I have seen them challenging one another with shouts and
songs as if they were going to come to blows right in the middle of the
street. This division of opinion will become accentuated when our troops
cross the frontier. It will then be civil war. The anti-militarists are
clamoring mournfully, believing that it is in the power of the government
to prevent the clash. . . . A country degenerated by democracy and by the
inferiority of the triumphant Celt, greedy for full liberty! . . . We are
the only free people on earth because we know how to obey.”

This paradox made Julio smile. Germany the only free people! . . .

“It is so,” persisted Hartrott energetically. “We have the liberty best
suited to a great people—economical and intellectual liberty.”

“And political liberty?”

The professor received this question with a scornful shrug.

“Political liberty! . . . Only decadent and ungovernable people, inferior
races anxious for equality and democratic confusion, talk about political
liberty. We Germans do not need it. We are a nation of masters who
recognize the sacredness of government, and we wish to be commanded by
those of superior birth. We possess the genius of organization.”

That, according to the Doctor, was the grand German secret, and the
Teutonic race upon taking possession of the world, would share its
discovery with all. The nations would then be so organized that each
individual would give the maximum of service to society. Humanity, banded
in regiments for every class of production, obeying a superior officer,
like machines contributing the greatest possible output of labor—there
you have the perfect state! Liberty was a purely negative idea if not
accompanied with a positive concept which would make it useful.

The two friends listened with astonishment to this description of the
future which Teutonic superiority was offering to the world. Every
individual submitted to intensive production, the same as a bit of land
from which its owner wishes to get the greatest number of vegetables. . .
. Mankind reduced to mechanics. . . . No useless operations that would not
produce immediate results. . . . And the people who heralded this awful
idea were the very philosophers and idealists who had once given
contemplation and reflection the first place in their existence! . . .

Hartrott again harked back to the inferiority of their racial enemies. In
order to combat successfully, it required self-assurance, an unquenchable
confidence in the superiority of their own powers.

“At this very hour in Berlin, everyone is accepting war, everyone is
believing that victory is sure, while HERE! . . . I do not say that the
French are afraid; they have a brave past that galvanizes them at certain
times—but they are so depressed that it is easy to guess that they
will make almost any sacrifices in order to evade what is coming upon
them. The people first will shout with enthusiasm, as it always cheers
that which carries it to perdition. The upper classes have no faith in the
future; they are keeping quiet, but the presentiment of disaster may
easily be conjectured. Yesterday I was talking with your father. He is
French, and he is rich. He was indignant against the government of his
country for involving the nation in the European conflict in order to
defend a distant and uninteresting people. He complains of the exalted
patriots who have opened the abyss between Germany and France, preventing
a reconciliation. He says that Alsace and Lorraine are not worth what a
war would cost in men and money. . . . He recognizes our greatness and is
convinced that we have progressed so rapidly that the other countries
cannot come up to us. . . . And as your father thinks, so do many others—all
those who are wrapped in creature comfort, and fear to lose it. Believe
me, a country that hesitates and fears war is conquered before the first
battle.”

Julio evinced a certain disquietude, as though he would like to cut short
the conversation.

“Just leave my father out of it! He speaks that way to-day because war is
not yet an accomplished fact, and he has to contradict and vent his
indignation on whoever comes near him. To-morrow he will say just the
opposite. . . . My father is a Latin.”

The professor looked at his watch. He must go; there were still many
things which he had to do before going to the station. The Germans living
in Paris had fled in great bands as though a secret order had been
circulating among them. That afternoon the last of those who had been
living ostensibly in the Capital would depart.

“I have come to see you because of our family interest, because it was my
duty to give you fair warning. You are a foreigner, and nothing holds you
here. If you are desirous of witnessing a great historic event, remain—but
it will be better for you to go. The war is going to be ruthless, very
ruthless, and if Paris attempts resistance, as formerly, we shall see
terrible things. Modes of offense have greatly changed.”

Desnoyers made a gesture of indifference.

“The same as your father,” observed the professor. “Last night he and all
your family responded in the same way. Even my mother prefers to remain
with her sister, saying that the Germans are very good, very civilized and
there is nothing to apprehend in their triumph.”

This good opinion seemed to be troubling the Doctor.

“They don’t understand what modern warfare means. They ignore the fact
that our generals have studied the art of overcoming the enemy and they
will apply it mercilessly. Ruthlessness is the only means, since it
perturbs the intelligence of the enemy, paralyzes his action and
pulverizes his resistance. The more ferocious the war, the more quickly it
is concluded. To punish with cruelty is to proceed humanely. Therefore,
Germany is going to be cruel with a cruelty hitherto unseen, in order that
the conflict may not be prolonged.”

He had risen and was standing, cane and straw hat in hand. Argensola was
looking at him with frank hostility. The professor, obliged to pass near
him, did so with a stiff and disdainful nod.

Then he started toward the door, accompanied by his cousin. The farewell
was brief.

“I repeat my counsel. If you do not like danger, go! It may be that I am
mistaken, and that this nation, convinced of the uselessness of defense,
may give itself up voluntarily. . . . At any rate, we shall soon see. I
shall take great pleasure in returning to Paris when the flag of the
Empire is floating over the Eiffel Tower, a mere matter of three or four
weeks, certainly by the beginning of September.”

France was going to disappear from the map. To the Doctor, her death was a
foregone conclusion.

“Paris will remain,” he admitted benevolently, “the French will remain,
because a nation is not easily suppressed; but they will not retain their
former place. We shall govern the world; they will continue to occupy
themselves in inventing fashions, in making life agreeable for visiting
foreigners; and in the intellectual world, we shall encourage them to
educate good actresses, to produce entertaining novels and to write witty
comedies. . . . Nothing more.”

Desnoyers laughed as he shook his cousin’s hand, pretending to take his
words as a paradox.

“I mean it,” insisted Hartrott. “The last hour of the French Republic as
an important nation has sounded. I have studied it at close range, and it
deserves no better fate. License and lack of confidence above—sterile
enthusiasm below.”

Upon turning his head, he again caught Argensola’s malicious smile.

“We know all about that kind of study,” he added aggressively. “We are
accustomed to examine the nations of the past, to dissect them fibre by
fibre, so that we recognize at a glance the psychology of the living.”

The Bohemian fancied that he saw a surgeon talking self-sufficiently about
the mysteries of the will before a corpse. What did this pedantic
interpreter of dead documents know about life? . . .

When the door closed, he approached his friend who was returning somewhat
dismayed. Argensola no longer considered Doctor Julius von Hartrott crazy.

“What a brute!” he exclaimed, throwing up his hands. “And to think that
they are at large, these originators of gloomy errors! . . . Who would
ever believe that they belong to the same land that produced Kant, the
pacifist, the serene Goethe and Beethoven! . . . To think that for so many
years, we have believed that they were forming a nation of dreamers and
philosophers occupied in working disinterestedly for all mankind! . . .”

The sentence of a German geographer recurred to him: “The German is
bicephalous; with one head he dreams and poetizes while with the other he
thinks and executes.”

Desnoyers was now beginning to feel depressed at the certainty of war.
This professor seemed to him even worse than the Herr Counsellor and the
other Germans that he had met on the steamer. His distress was not only
because of his selfish thought as to how the catastrophe was going to
affect his plans with Marguerite. He was suddenly discovering that in this
hour of uncertainty he loved France. He recognized it as his father’s
native land and the scene of the great Revolution. . . . Although he had
never mixed in political campaigns, he was a republican at heart, and had
often ridiculed certain of his friends who adored kings and emperors,
thinking it a great sign of distinction.

Argensola tried to cheer him up.

“Who knows? . . . This is a country of surprises. One must see the
Frenchman when he tries to remedy his want of foresight. Let that
barbarian of a cousin of yours say what he will—there is order,
there is enthusiasm. . . . Worse off than we were those who lived in the
days before Valmy. Entirely disorganized, their only defense battalions of
laborers and countrymen handling a gun for the first time. . . . But,
nevertheless, the Europe of the old monarchies could not for twenty years
free themselves from these improvised warriors!”

CHAPTER V

IN WHICH APPEAR THE FOUR HORSEMEN

The two friends now lived a feverish life, considerably accelerated by the
rapidity with which events succeeded each other. Every hour brought forth
an astonishing bit of news—generally false—which changed
opinions very suddenly. As soon as the danger of war seemed arrested, the
report would spread that mobilization was going to be ordered within a few
minutes.

Within each twenty-four hours were compressed the disquietude, anxiety and
nervous waste of a normal year. And that which was aggravating the
situation still more was the uncertainty, the expectation of the event,
feared but still invisible, the distress on account of a danger
continually threatening but never arriving.

History in the making was like a stream overflowing its banks, events
overlapping each other like the waves of an inundation. Austria was
declaring war with Servia while the diplomats of the great powers were
continuing their efforts to stem the tide. The electric web girdling the
planet was vibrating incessantly in the depths of the ocean and on the
peaks of the continents, transmitting alternate hopes and fears.

Russia was mobilizing a part of its army. Germany, with its troops in
readiness under the pretext of manoeuvres, was decreeing the state of
“threatened war.” The Austrians, regardless of the efforts of diplomacy,
were beginning the bombardment of Belgrade. William II, fearing that the
intervention of the Powers might settle the differences between the Czar
and the Emperor of Austria, was forcing the course of events by declaring
war upon Russia. Then Germany began isolating herself, cutting off
railroad and telegraphic communications in order to shroud in mystery her
invading forces.

France was watching this avalanche of events, temperate in its words and
enthusiasm. A cool and grave resolution was noticeable everywhere. Two
generations had come into the world, informed as soon as they reached a
reasonable age, that some day there would undoubtedly be war. Nobody
wanted it; the adversary imposed it. . . . But all were accepting it with
the firm intention of fulfilling their duty.

During the daytime Paris was very quiet, concentrating the mind on the
work in hand. Only a few groups of exalted patriots, following the
tricolored flag, were passing through the place de la Concorde, in order
to salute the statue of Strasbourg. The people were accosting each other
in a friendly way in the streets. Everybody seemed to know everybody else,
although they might not have met before. Eye attracted eye, and smiles
appeared to broaden mutually with the sympathy of a common interest. The
women were sad but speaking cheerily in order to hide their emotions. In
the long summer twilight, the boulevards were filling with crowds. Those
from the outlying districts were converging toward the centre of the city,
as in the remote revolutionary days, banding together in groups, forming
an endless multitude from which came shouts and songs. These
manifestations were passing through the centre under the electric lights
that were just being turned on, the processions generally lasting until
midnight, with the national banner floating above the walking crowds,
escorted by the flags of other nations.

It was on one of these nights of sincere enthusiasm that the two friends
heard an unexpected, astonishing piece of news. “They have killed Jaures!”
The groups were repeating it from one to another with an amazement which
seemed to overpower their grief. “Jaures assassinated! And what for?” The
best popular element, which instinctively seeks an explanation of every
proceeding, remained in suspense, not knowing which way to turn. The
tribune dead, at the very moment that his word as welder of the people was
most needed! . . .

Argensola thought immediately of Tchernoff. “What will our neighbors say?”
. . . The quiet, orderly people of Paris were fearing a revolution, and
for a few moments Desnoyers believed that his cousin’s auguries were about
to be fulfilled. This assassination, with its retaliations, might be the
signal for civil war. But the masses of the people, worn out with grief at
the death of their hero, were waiting in tragic silence. All were seeing,
beyond his dead body, the image of the country.

By the following morning, the danger had vanished. The laboring classes
were talking of generals and war, showing each other their little military
memorandums, announcing the date of their departure as soon as the order
of mobilization should be published. “I go the second day.” “I the first.”
Those of the standing army who were on leave were recalled individually to
the barracks. All these events were tending in the same direction—war.

The Germans were invading Luxembourg; the Germans were ordering their
armies to invade the French frontier when their ambassador was still in
Paris making promises of peace. On the day after the death of Jaures, the
first of August, the people were crowding around some pieces of paper,
written by hand and in evident haste. These papers were copies of other
larger printed sheets, headed by two crossed flags. “It has come; it is
now a fact!”. . . It was the order for general mobilization. All France
was about to take up arms, and chests seemed to expand with a sigh of
relief. Eyes were sparkling with excitement. The nightmare was at last
over! . . . Cruel reality was preferable to the uncertainty of days and
days, each as long as a week.

In vain President Poincare, animated by a last hope, was explaining to the
French that “mobilization is not necessarily war, that a call to arms may
be simply a preventive measure.” “It is war, inevitable war,” said the
populace with a fatalistic expression. And those who were going to start
that very night or the following day were the most eager and enthusiastic.—“Now
those who seek us are going to find us! Vive la France!” The Chant du
Depart, the martial hymn of the volunteers of the first Republic, had been
exhumed by the instinct of a people which seek the voice of Art in its
most critical moments. The stanzas of the conservative Chenier, adapted to
a music of warlike solemnity, were resounding through the streets, at the
same time as the Marseillaise:

The mobilization began at midnight to the minute. At dusk, groups of men
began moving through the streets towards the stations. Their families were
walking beside them, carrying the valise or bundle of clothes. They were
escorted by the friends of their district, the tricolored flag borne aloft
at the head of these platoons. The Reserves were donning their old
uniforms which presented all the difficulties of suits long ago forgotten.
With new leather belts and their revolvers at their sides, they were
betaking themselves to the railway which was to carry them to the point of
concentration. One of their children was carrying the old sword in its
cloth sheath. The wife was hanging on his arm, sad and proud at the same
time, giving her last counsels in a loving whisper.

Street cars, automobiles and cabs rolled by with crazy velocity. Nobody
had ever seen so many vehicles in the Paris streets, yet if anybody needed
one, he called in vain to the conductors, for none wished to serve mere
civilians. All means of transportation were for military men, all roads
ended at the railroad stations. The heavy trucks of the administration,
filled with sacks, were saluted with general enthusiasm. “Hurrah for the
army!” The soldiers in mechanic’s garb, on top of the swaying pyramid,
replied to the cheers, waving their arms and uttering shouts that nobody
pretended to understand.

Fraternity had created a tolerance hitherto unknown. The crowds were
pressing forward, but in their encounters, invariably preserved good
order. Vehicles were running into each other, and when the conductors
resorted to the customary threats, the crowds would intervene and make
them shake hands. “Three cheers for France!” The pedestrians, escaping
between the wheels of the automobiles were laughing and good-naturedly
reproaching the chauffeur with, “Would you kill a Frenchman on his way to
his regiment?” and the conductor would reply, “I, too, am going in a few
hours. This is my last trip.” As night approached, cars and cabs were
running with increasing irregularity, many of the employees having
abandoned their posts to take leave of their families and make the train.
All the life of Paris was concentrating itself in a half-dozen human
rivers emptying in the stations.

Desnoyers and Argensola met in a boulevard cafe toward midnight. Both were
exhausted by the day’s emotions and under that nervous depression which
follows noisy and violent spectacles. They needed to rest. War was a fact,
and now that it was a certainty, they felt no anxiety to get further news.
Remaining in the cafe proved impossible. In the hot and smoky atmosphere,
the occupants were singing and shouting and waving tiny flags. All the
battle hymns of the past and present were here intoned in chorus, to an
accompaniment of glasses and plates. The rather cosmopolitan clientele was
reviewing the European nations. All, absolutely all, were going to enroll
themselves on the side of France. “Hurrah! . . . Hurrah!” . . . An old man
and his wife were seated at a table near the two friends. They were
tenants, of an orderly, humdrum walk in life, who perhaps in all their
existence had never been awake at such an hour. In the general enthusiasm
they had come to the boulevards “in order to see war a little closer.” The
foreign tongue used by his neighbors gave the husband a lofty idea of
their importance.

“Do you believe that England is going to join us?” . . .

Argensola knew as much about it as he, but he replied authoritatively, “Of
course she will. That’s a sure thing!” The old man rose to his feet:
“Hurrah for England!” and he began chanting a forgotten patriotic song,
marking time with his arms in a spirited way, to the great admiration of
his old wife, and urging all to join in the chorus that very few were able
to follow.

The two friends had to take themselves home on foot. They could not find a
vehicle that would stop for them; all were hurrying in the opposite
direction toward the stations. They were both in a bad humor, but
Argensola couldn’t keep his to himself.

“Ah, these women!” Desnoyers knew all about his relations (so far
honorable) with a midinette from the rue Taitbout. Sunday strolls in the
suburbs of Paris, various trips to the moving picture shows, comments upon
the fine points of the latest novel published in the sheets of a popular
paper, kisses of farewell when she took the night train from Bois Colombes
in order to sleep at home—that was all. But Argensola was wickedly
counting on Father Time to mellow the sharpest virtues. That evening they
had taken some refreshment with a French friend who was going the next
morning to join his regiment. The girl had sometimes seen him with
Argensola without noticing him particularly, but now she suddenly began
admiring him as though he were another person. She had given up the idea
of returning home that night; she wanted to see how a war begins. The
three had dined together, and all her interest had centred upon the one
who was going away. She even took offense, with sudden modesty, when
Argensola tried as he had often done before, to squeeze her hand under the
table. Meanwhile she was almost leaning her head on the shoulder of the
future hero, enveloping him with admiring gaze.

“And they have gone. . . . They have gone away together!” said the
Spaniard bitterly. “I had to leave them in order not to make my hard luck
any worse. To have worked so long . . . for another!”

He was silent for a few minutes, then changing the trend of his ideas, he
added: “I recognize, nevertheless, that her behavior is beautiful. The
generosity of these women when they believe that the moment for sacrifice
has come! She is terribly afraid of her father, and yet she stays away
from home all night with a person whom she hardly knows, and whom she was
not even thinking of in the middle of the afternoon! . . . The entire
nation feels gratitude toward those who are going to imperil their lives,
and she, poor child, wishing to do something, too, for those destined for
death, to give them a little pleasure in their last hour . . . is giving
the best she has, that which she can never recover. I have sketched her
role poorly, perhaps. . . . Laugh at me if you want to, but admit that it
is beautiful.”

Desnoyers laughed heartily at his friend’s discomfiture, in spite of the
fact that he, too, was suffering a good deal of secret annoyance. He had
seen Marguerite but once since the day of his return. The only news of her
that he had received was by letter. . . . This cursed war! What an upset
for happy people! Marguerite’s mother was ill. She was brooding over the
departure of her son, an officer, on the first day of the mobilization.
Marguerite, too, was uneasy about her brother and did not think it
expedient to come to the studio while her mother was grieving at home.
When was this situation ever to end? . . .

That check for four hundred thousand francs which he had brought from
America was also worrying him. The day before, the bank had declined to
pay it for lack of the customary official advice. Afterward they said that
they had received the advice, but did not give him the money. That very
afternoon, when the trust companies had closed their doors, the government
had already declared a moratorium, in order to prevent a general
bankruptcy due to the general panic. When would they pay him? . . .
Perhaps when the war which had not yet begun was ended—perhaps
never. He had no other money available except the two thousand francs left
over from his travelling expenses. All of his friends were in the same
distressing situation, unable to draw on the sums which they had in the
banks. Those who had any money were obliged to go from shop to shop, or
form in line at the bank doors, in order to get a bill changed. Oh, this
war! This stupid war!

In the Champs Elysees, they saw a man with a broad-brimmed hat who was
walking slowly ahead of them and talking to himself. Argensola recognized
him as he passed near the street lamp, “Friend Tchernoff.” Upon returning
their greeting, the Russian betrayed a slight odor of wine. Uninvited, he
had adjusted his steps to theirs, accompanying them toward the Arc de
Triomphe.

Julio had merely exchanged silent nods with Argensola’s new acquaintance
when encountering him in the vestibule; but sadness softens the heart and
makes us seek the friendship of the humble as a refreshing shelter.
Tchernoff, on the contrary, looked at Desnoyers as though he had known him
all his life.

The man had interrupted his monologue, heard only by the black masses of
vegetation, the blue shadows perforated by the reddish tremors of the
street lights, the summer night with its cupola of warm breezes and
twinkling stars. He took a few steps without saying anything, as a mark of
consideration to his companions, and then renewed his arguments, taking
them up where he had broken off, without offering any explanation, as
though he were still talking to himself. . . .

“And at this very minute, they are shouting with enthusiasm the same as
they are doing here, honestly believing that they are going to defend
their outraged country, wishing to die for their families and firesides
that nobody has threatened.”

“Who are ‘they,’ Tchernoff?” asked Argensola.

The Russian stared at him as though surprised at such a question.

“They,” he said laconically.

The two understood. . . . THEY! It could not be anyone else.

“I have lived ten years in Germany,” he continued, connecting up his
words, now that he found himself listened to. “I was daily correspondent
for a paper in Berlin and I know these people. Passing along these
thronged boulevards, I have been seeing in my imagination what must be
happening there at this hour. They, too, are singing and shouting with
enthusiasm as they wave their flags. On the outside, they seem just alike—but
oh, what a difference within! . . . Last night the people beset a few
babblers in the boulevard who were yelling, ‘To Berlin!’—a slogan of
bad memories and worse taste. France does not wish conquests; her only
desire is to be respected, to live in peace without humiliations or
disturbances. To-night two of the mobilized men said on leaving, ‘When we
enter Germany we are going to make it a republic!’ . . . A republic is not
a perfect thing, but it is better than living under an irresponsible
monarchy by the grace of God. It at least presupposes tranquillity and
absence of the personal ambitions that disturb life. I was impressed by
the generous thought of these laboring men who, instead of wishing to
exterminate their enemies, were planning to give them something better.”

Tchernoff remained silent a few minutes, smiling ironically at the picture
which his imagination was calling forth.

“In Berlin, the masses are expressing their enthusiasm in the lofty
phraseology befitting a superior people. Those in the lowest classes,
accustomed to console themselves for humiliations with a gross
materialism, are now crying ‘Nach Paris! We are going to drink champagne
gratis!’ The pietistic burgher, ready to do anything to attain a new
honor, and the aristocracy which has given the world the greatest scandals
of recent years, are also shouting, ‘Nach Paris!’ To them Paris is the
Babylon of the deadly sin, the city of the Moulin Rouge and the
restaurants of Montmartre, the only places that they know. . . . And my
comrades of the Social-Democracy, they are also cheering, but to another
tune.—‘To-morrow! To St. Petersburg! Russian ascendency, the menace
of civilization, must be obliterated!’ The Kaiser waving the tyranny of
another country as a scarecrow to his people! . . . What a joke!”

And the loud laugh of the Russian sounded through the night like the noise
of wooden clappers.

“We are more civilized than the Germans,” he said, regaining his
self-control.

Desnoyers, who had been listening with great interest, now gave a start of
surprise, saying to himself, “This Tchernoff has been drinking.”

“Civilization,” continued the Socialist, “does not consist merely in great
industry, in many ships, armies and numerous universities that only teach
science. That is material civilization. There is another, a superior one,
that elevates the soul and does not permit human dignity to suffer without
protesting against continual humiliations. A Swiss living in his wooden
chalet and considering himself the equal of the other men of his country,
is more civilized than the Herr Professor who gives precedence to a
lieutenant, or to a Hamburg millionaire who, in turn, bends his neck like
a lackey before those whose names are prefixed by a von.”

Here the Spaniard assented as though he could guess what Tchernoff was
going to say.

“We Russians endure great tyranny. I know something about that. I know the
hunger and cold of Siberia. . . . But opposed to our tyranny has always
existed a revolutionary protest. Part of the nation is half-barbarian, but
the rest has a superior mentality, a lofty moral spirit which faces danger
and sacrifice because of liberty and truth. . . . And Germany? Who there
has ever raised a protest in order to defend human rights? What
revolutions have ever broken out in Prussia, the land of the great
despots?

“Frederick William, the founder of militarism, when he was tired of
beating his wife and spitting in his children’s plates, used to sally
forth, thong in hand, in order to cowhide those subjects who did not get
out of his way in time. His son, Frederick the Great, declared that he
died, bored to death with governing a nation of slaves. In two centuries
of Prussian history, one single revolution—the barricades of 1848—a
bad Berlinish copy of the Paris revolution, and without any result.
Bismarck corrected with a heavy hand so as to crush completely the last
attempts at protest—if such ever really existed. And when his
friends were threatening him with revolution, the ferocious Junker, merely
put his hands on his hips and roared with the most insolent of horse
laughs. A revolution in Prussia! . . . Nothing at all, as he knew his
people!”

Tchernoff was not a patriot. Many a time Argensola had heard him railing
against his country, but now he was indignant in view of the contempt with
which Teutonic haughtiness was treating the Russian nation. Where, in the
last forty years of imperial grandeur, was that universal supremacy of
which the Germans were everlastingly boasting? . . .

Excellent workers in science; tenacious and short-sighted academicians,
each wrapped in his specialty!—Benedictines of the laboratory who
experimented painstakingly and occasionally hit upon something, in spite
of enormous blunders given out as truths, because they were their own . .
. that was all! And side by side with such patient laboriosity, really
worthy of respect—what charlatanism! What great names exploited as a
shop sample! How many sages turned into proprietors of sanatoriums! . . .
A Herr Professor discovers the cure of tuberculosis, and the tubercular
keep on dying as before. Another labels with a number the invincible
remedy for the most unconfessable of diseases, and the genital scourge
continues afflicting the world. And all these errors were representing
great fortunes, each saving panacea bringing into existence an industrial
corporation selling its products at high prices—as though suffering
were a privilege of the rich. How different from the bluff Pasteur and
other clever men of the inferior races who have given their discoveries to
the world without stooping to form monopolies!

“German science,” continued Tchernoff, “has given much to humanity, I
admit that; but the science of other nations has done as much. Only a
nation puffed up with conceit could imagine that it has done everything
for civilization, and the others nothing. . . . Apart from their learned
specialists, what genius has been produced in our day by this Germany
which believes itself so transcendent? Wagner, the last of the
romanticists, closes an epoch and belongs to the past. Nietzsche took
pains to proclaim his Polish origin and abominated Germany, a country,
according to him, of middle-class pedants. His Slavism was so pronounced
that he even prophesied the overthrow of the Prussians by the Slavs. . . .
And there are others. We, although a savage people, have given the world
of modern times an admirable moral grandeur. Tolstoi and Dostoievsky are
world-geniuses. What names can the Germany of William II put ahead of
these? . . . His country was the country of music, but the Russian
musicians of to-day are more original than the mere followers of Wagner,
the copyists who take refuge in orchestral exasperations in order to hide
their mediocrity. . . . In its time of stress the German nation had men of
genius, before Pan-Germanism had been born, when the Empire did not exist.
Goethe, Schiller, Beethoven were subjects of little principalities. They
received influence from other countries and contributed their share to the
universal civilization like citizens of the world, without insisting that
the world should, therefore, become Germanized.”

Czarism had committed atrocities. Tchernoff knew that by experience, and
did not need the Germans to assure him of it. But all the illustrious
classes of Russia were enemies of that tyranny and were protesting against
it. Where in Germany were the intellectual enemies of Prussian Czarism?
They were either holding their peace, or breaking forth into adulation of
the anointed of the Lord—a musician and comedian like Nero, of a
sharp and superficial intelligence, who believed that by merely skimming
through anything he knew it all. Eager to strike a spectacular pose in
history, he had finally afflicted the world with the greatest of
calamities.

“Why must the tyranny that weighs upon my country necessarily be Russian?
The worst Czars were imitators of Prussia. Every time that the Russian
people of our day have attempted to revindicate their rights, the
reactionaries have used the Kaiser as a threat, proclaiming that he would
come to their aid. One-half of the Russian aristocracy is German; the
functionaries who advise and support despotism are Germans; German, too,
are the generals who have distinguished themselves by massacring the
people; German are the officials who undertake to punish the laborers’
strikes and the rebellion of their allies. The reactionary Slav is brutal,
but he has the fine sensibility of a race in which many princes have
become Nihilists. He raises the lash with facility, but then he repents
and oftentimes weeps. I have seen Russian officials kill themselves rather
than march against the people, or through remorse for slaughter committed.
The German in the service of the Czar feels no scruples, nor laments his
conduct. He kills coldly, with the minuteness and exactitude with which he
does everything. The Russian is a barbarian who strikes and regrets;
German civilization shoots without hesitation. Our Slav Czar, in a
humanitarian dream, favored the Utopian idea of universal peace,
organizing the Conference of The Hague. The Kaiser of culture, meanwhile,
has been working years and years in the erection and establishment of a
destructive organ of an immensity heretofore unknown, in order to crush
all Europe. The Russian is a humble Christian, socialistic, democratic,
thirsting for justice; the German prides himself upon his Christianity,
but is an idolator like the German of other centuries. His religion loves
blood and maintains castes; his true worship is that of Odin;—only
that nowadays, the god of slaughter has changed his name and calls
himself, ‘The State’!”

Tchernoff paused an instant—perhaps in order to increase the wonder
of his companions—and then said with simplicity:

“I am a Christian.”

Argensola, who already knew the ideas and history of the Russian, started
with astonishment, and Julio persisted in his suspicion, “Surely Tchernoff
is drunk.”

“It is true,” declared the Russian earnestly, “that I do not worry about
God, nor do I believe in dogmas, but my soul is Christian as is that of
all revolutionists. The philosophy of modern democracy is lay
Christianity. We Socialists love the humble, the needy, the weak. We
defend their right to life and well-being, as did the greatest lights of
the religious world who saw a brother in every unfortunate. We exact
respect for the poor in the name of justice; the others ask for it in the
name of charity. That only separates us. But we strive that mankind may,
by common consent, lead a better life, that the strong may sacrifice for
the weak, the lofty for the lowly, and the world be ruled by
brotherliness, seeking the greatest equality possible.”

The Slav reviewed the history of human aspirations. Greek thought had
brought comfort, a sense of well-being on the earth—but only for the
few, for the citizens of the little democracies, for the free men, leaving
the slaves and barbarians who constituted the majority, in their misery.
Christianity, the religion of the lowly, had recognized the right of
happiness for all mankind, but this happiness was placed in heaven, far
from this world, this “vale of tears.” The Revolution and its heirs, the
Socialists, were trying to place happiness in the immediate realities of
earth, like the ancients, but making all humanity participants in it like
the Christians.

“Where is the ‘Christianity of modern Germany? . . . There is far more
genuine Christian spirit in the fraternal laity of the French Republic,
defender of the weak, than in the religiosity of the conservative Junkers.
Germany has made a god in her own image, believing that she adores it, but
in reality adoring her own image. The German God is a reflex of the German
State which considers war as the first activity of a nation and the
noblest of occupations. Other Christian peoples, when they have to go to
war, feel the contradiction that exists between their conduct and the
teachings of the Gospel, and excuse themselves by showing the cruel
necessity which impels them. Germany declares that war is acceptable to
God. I have heard German sermons proving that Jesus was in favor of
Militarism.

“Teutonic pride, the conviction that its race is providentially destined
to dominate the world, brings into working unity their Protestants,
Catholics and Jews.

“Far above their differences of dogma is that God of the State which is
German—the Warrior God to whom William is probably referring as ‘my
worthy Ally.’ Religions always tend toward universality. Their aim is to
place humanity in relationship with God, and to sustain these relations
among mankind. Prussia has retrograded to barbarism, creating for its
personal use a second Jehovah, a divinity hostile to the greater part of
the human race who makes his own the grudges and ambitions of the German
people.”

Tchernoff then explained in his own way the creation of this Teutonic God,
ambitious, cruel and vengeful. The Germans were comparatively recent
Christians. Their Christianity was not more than six centuries old. When
the Crusades were drawing to a close, the Prussians were still living in
paganism. Pride of race, impelling them to war, had revived these dead
divinities. The God of the Gospel was now adorned by the Germans with
lance and shield like the old Teutonic god who was a military chief.

“Christianity in Berlin wears helmet and riding boots. God at this moment
is seeing Himself mobilized the same as Otto, Fritz and Franz, in order to
punish the enemies of His chosen people. That the Lord has commanded,
‘Thou shalt not kill,’ and His Son has said to the world, ‘Blessed are the
peacemakers,’ no longer matters. Christianity, according to its German
priests of all creeds, can only influence the individual betterment of
mankind, and should not mix itself in affairs of state. The Prussian God
of the State is ‘the old German God,’ the lineal descendant of the
ferocious Germanic mythology, a mixture of divinities hungry for war.”

In the silence of the avenue, the Russian evoked the ruddy figures of the
implacable gods, that were going to awake that night upon hearing the hum
of arms and smelling the acrid odor of blood. Thor, the brutal god with
the little head, was stretching his biceps and clutching the hammer that
crushed cities. Wotan was sharpening his lance which had the lightning for
its handle, the thunder for its blade. Odin, the one-eyed, was gaping with
gluttony on the mountain-tops, awaiting the dead warriors that would crowd
around his throne. The dishevelled Valkyries, fat and perspiring, were
beginning to gallop from cloud to cloud, hallooing to humanity that they
might carry off the corpses doubled like saddle bags, over the haunches of
their flying nags.

“German religiosity,” continued the Russian, “is the disavowal of
Christianity. In its eyes, men are no longer equal before God. Their God
is interested only in the strong, and favors them with his support so that
they may dare anything. Those born weak must either submit or disappear.
Neither are nations equal, but are divided into leaders and inferior races
whose destiny is to be sifted out and absorbed by their superiors. Since
God has thus ordained, it is unnecessary to state that the grand
world-leader is Germany.”

Argensola here interrupted to observe that German pride believed itself
championed not only by God but by science, too.

“I know that,” interposed the Russian without letting him finish—“generalization,
inequality, selection, the struggle for life, and all that. . . . The
Germans, so conceited about their special worth, erect upon distant ground
their intellectual monuments, borrowing of the foreigner their foundation
material whenever they undertake a new line of work. A Frenchman and an
Englishman, Gobineau and Chamberlain, have given them the arguments with
which to defend the superiority of their race. With the rubbish left over
from Darwin and Spencer, their old Haeckel has built up his doctrine of
‘Monism’ which, applied to politics, scientifically consecrates Prussian
pride and recognizes its right to rule the world by force.”

“No, a thousand times no!” he exclaimed after a brief silence. “The
struggle for existence with its procession of cruelties may be true among
the lower species, but it should not be true among human creatures. We are
rational beings and ought to free ourselves from the fatality of
environment, moulding it to our convenience. The animal does not know law,
justice or compassion; he lives enslaved in the obscurity of his
instincts. We think, and thought signifies liberty. Force does not
necessarily have to be cruel; it is strongest when it does not take
advantage of its power, and is kindly. All have a right to the life into
which they are born, and since among individuals there exist the haughty
and the humble, the mighty and the weak, so should exist nations, large
and small, old and young. The end of our existence is not combat nor
killing in order that others may afterwards kill us, and, perhaps, be
killed themselves. Civilized peoples ought unanimously to adopt the idea
of southern Europe, striving for the most peaceful and sweetest form of
life possible.”

A cruel smile played over the Russian’s beard.

“But there exists that Kultur, diametrically opposed to civilization,
which the Germans wish to palm off upon us. Civilization is refinement of
spirit, respect of one’s neighbor, tolerance of foreign opinion, courtesy
of manner. Kultur is the action of a State that organizes and assimilates
individuals and communities in order to utilize them for its own ends; and
these ends consist mainly in placing ‘The State’ above other states,
overwhelming them with their grandeur—or what is the same thing—with
their haughty and violent pride.”

By this time, the three had reached the place de l’Etoile. The dark
outline of the Arc de Triomphe stood forth clearly in the starry expanse.
The avenues extended in all directions, a double file of lights. Those
around the monument illuminated its gigantic bases and the feet of the
sculptured groups. Further up, the vaulted spaces were so locked in shadow
that they had the black density of ebony.

Upon passing under the Arch, which greatly intensified the echo of their
footsteps, they came to a standstill. The night breeze had a wintry chill
as it whistled past, and the curved masses seemed melting into the
diffused blue of space. Instinctively the three turned to glance back at
the Champs Elysees. They saw only a river of shadow on which were floating
rosaries of red stars among the two long, black scarfs formed by the
buildings. But they were so well acquainted with this panorama that in
imagination they mentally saw the majestic sweep of the avenue, the double
row of palaces, the place de la Concorde in the background with the
Egyptian obelisk, and the trees of the Tuileries.

“How beautiful it is!” exclaimed Tchernoff who was seeing something beyond
the shadows. “An entire civilization, loving peace and pleasure, has
passed through here.”

A memory greatly affected the Russian. Many an afternoon, after lunch, he
had met in this very spot a robust man, stocky, with reddish beard and
kindly eyes—a man who looked like a giant who had just stopped
growing. He was always accompanied by a dog. It was Jaures, his friend
Jaures, who before going to the senate was accustomed to taking a walk
toward the Arch from his home in Passy.

“He liked to come just where we are now! He loved to look at the avenues,
the distant gardens, all of Paris which can be seen from this height; and
filled with admiration, he would often say to me, ‘This is magnificent—one
of the most beautiful perspectives that can be found in the entire world.’
. . . Poor Jaures!”

Through association of ideas, the Russian evoked the image of his
compatriot, Michael Bakounine, another revolutionist, the father of
anarchy, weeping with emotion at a concert after hearing the symphony with
Beethoven chorals directed by a young friend of his, named Richard Wagner.
“When our revolution comes,” he cried, clasping the hand of the master,
“whatever else may perish, this must be saved at any cost!”

Tchernoff roused himself from his reveries to look around him and say with
sadness:

“THEY have passed through here!”

Every time that he walked through the Arch, the same vision would spring
up in his mind. THEY were thousands of helmets glistening in the sun,
thousands of heavy boots lifted with mechanical rigidity at the same time;
horns, fifes, drums large and small, clashing against the majestic silence
of these stones—the warlike march from Lohengrin sounding in the
deserted avenues before the closed houses.

He, who was a foreigner, always felt attracted by the spell exerted by
venerable buildings guarding the glory of a bygone day. He did not wish to
know who had erected it. As soon as its pride is flattered, mankind tries
immediately to solidify it. Then Humanity intervenes with a broader vision
that changes the original significance of the work, enlarges it and strips
it of its first egotistical import. The Greek statues, models of the
highest beauty, had been originally mere images of the temple, donated by
the piety of the devotees of those times. Upon evoking Roman grandeur,
everybody sees in imagination the enormous Coliseum, circle of butcheries,
or the arches erected to the glory of the inept Caesars. The
representative works of nations have two significations—the interior
or immediate one which their creators gave them, and the exterior or
universal interest, the symbolic value which the centuries have given
them.

“This Arch,” continued Tchernoff, “is French within, with its names of
battles and generals open to criticism. On the outside, it is the monument
of the people who carried through the greatest revolution for liberty ever
known. The glorification of man is there below in the column of the place
Vendome. Here there is nothing individual. Its builders erected it to the
memory of la Grande Armee and that Grand Army was the people in arms who
spread revolution throughout Europe. The artists, great inventors, foresaw
the true significance of this work. The warriors of Rude who are chanting
the Marseillaise in the group at the left are not professional soldiers,
they are armed citizens, marching to work out their sublime and violent
mission. Their nudity makes them appear to me like sans-culottes in
Grecian helmets. . . . Here there is more than the glory and egoism of a
great nation. All Europe is awake to new life, thanks to these Crusaders
of Liberty. . . . The nations call to mind certain images. If I think of
Greece, I see the columns of the Parthenon; Rome, Mistress of the World,
is the Coliseum and the Arch of Trajan; and revolutionary France is the
Arc de Triomphe.”

The Arch was even more, according to the Russian. It represented a great
historical retaliation; the nations of the South, called the Latin races,
replying, after many centuries, to the invasion which had destroyed the
Roman jurisdiction—the Mediterranean peoples spreading themselves as
conquerors through the lands of the ancient barbarians. Retreating
immediately, they had swept away the past like a tidal wave—the
great surf depositing all that it contained. Like the waters of certain
rivers which fructify by overflowing, this recession of the human tide had
left the soil enriched with new and generous ideas.

“If THEY should return!” added Tchernoff with a look of uneasiness. “If
they again should tread these stones! . . . Before, they were
simple-minded folk, stunned by their rapid good-fortune, who passed
through here like a farmer through a salon. They were content with money
for the pocket and two provinces which should perpetuate the memory of
their victory. . . . But now they will not be the soldiers only who march
against Paris. At the tail of the armies come the maddened
canteen-keepers, the Herr Professors, carrying at the side the little keg
of wine with the powder which crazes the barbarian, the wine of Kultur.
And in the vans come also an enormous load of scientific savagery, a new
philosophy which glorifies Force as a principle and sanctifier of
everything, denies liberty, suppresses the weak and places the entire
world under the charge of a minority chosen by God, just because it
possesses the surest and most rapid methods of slaughter. Humanity may
well tremble for the future if again resounds under this archway the tramp
of boots following a march of Wagner or any other Kapellmeister.”

They left the Arch, following the avenue Victor Hugo. Tchernoff walking
along in dogged silence as though the vision of this imaginary procession
had overwhelmed him. Suddenly he continued aloud the course of his
reflections.

“And if they should enter, what does it matter? . . . On that account, the
cause of Right will not die. It suffers eclipses, but is born again; it
may be ignored and trampled under foot, but it does not, therefore, cease
to exist, and all good souls recognize it as the only rule of life. A
nation of madmen wishes to place might upon the pedestal that others have
raised to Right. Useless endeavor! The eternal hope of mankind will ever
be the increasing power of more liberty, more brotherliness, more
justice.”

The Russian appeared to calm himself with this statement. He and his
friends spoke of the spectacle which Paris was presenting in its
preparation for war. Tchernoff bemoaned the great suffering produced by
the catastrophe, the thousands and thousands of domestic tragedies that
were unrolling at that moment. Apparently nothing had changed. In the
centre of the city and around the stations, there was unusual agitation,
but the rest of the immense city did not appear affected by the great
overthrow of its existence. The solitary street was presenting its usual
aspect, the breeze was gently moving the leaves. A solemn peace seemed to
be spreading itself through space. The houses appeared wrapped in slumber,
but behind the closed windows might be surmised the insomnia of the
reddened eyes, the sighs from hearts anguished by the threatened danger,
the tremulous agility of the hands preparing the war outfit, perhaps the
last loving greetings exchanged without pleasure, with kisses ending in
sobs.

Tchernoff thought of his neighbors, the husband and wife who occupied the
other interior apartment behind the studio. She was no longer playing the
piano. The Russian had overheard disputes, the banging of doors locked
with violence, and the footsteps of a man in the middle of the night,
fleeing from a woman’s cries. There had begun to develop on the other side
of the wall a regulation drama—a repetition of hundreds of others,
all taking place at the same time.

“She is a German,” volunteered the Russian. “Our concierge has ferreted
out her nationality. He must have gone by this time to join his regiment.
Last night I could hardly sleep. I heard the lamentations through the thin
wall partition, the steady, desperate weeping of an abandoned child, and
the voice of a man who was vainly trying to quiet her! . . . Ah, what a
rain of sorrows is now falling upon the world!”

That same evening, on leaving the house, he had met her by her door. She
appeared like another woman, with an old look as though in these agonizing
hours she had been suffering for fifteen years. In vain the kindly
Tchernoff had tried to cheer her up, urging her to accept quietly her
husband’s absence so as not to harm the little one who was coming.

“For the unhappy creature is going to be a mother,” he said sadly. “She
hides her condition with a certain modesty, but from my window, I have
often seen her making the dainty layette.”

The woman had listened to him as though she did not understand. Words were
useless before her desperation. She could only sob as though talking to
herself, “I am a German. . . . He has gone; he has to go away. . . .
Alone! . . . Alone forever!” . . .

“She is thinking all the time of her nationality which is separating her
from her husband; she is thinking of the concentration camp to which they
will take her with her compatriots. She is fearful of being abandoned in
the enemy’s country obliged to defend itself against the attack of her own
country. . . . And all this when she is about to become a mother. What
miseries! What agonies!”

The three reached the rue de la Pompe and on entering the house, Tchernoff
began to take leave of his companions in order to climb the service
stairs; but Desnoyers wished to prolong the conversation. He dreaded being
alone with his friend, still chagrined over the evening’s events. The
conversation with the Russian interested him, so they all went up in the
elevator together. Argensola suggested that this would be a good
opportunity to uncork one of the many bottles which he was keeping in the
kitchen. Tchernoff could go home through the studio door that opened on
the stairway.

The great window had its glass doors wide open; the transoms on the patio
side were also open; a breeze kept the curtains swaying, moving, too, the
old lanterns, moth-eaten flags and other adornments of the romantic
studio. They seated themselves around the table, near a window some
distance from the light which was illuminating the other end of the big
room. They were in the shadow, with their backs to the interior court.
Opposite them were tiled roofs and an enormous rectangle of blue shadow,
perforated by the sharp-pointed stars. The city lights were coloring the
shadowy space with a bloody reflection.

Tchernoff drank two glasses, testifying to the excellence of the liquid by
smacking his lips. The three were silent with the wondering and thoughtful
silence which the grandeur of the night imposes. Their eyes were glancing
from star to star, grouping them in fanciful lines, forming them into
triangles or squares of varying irregularity. At times, the twinkling
radiance of a heavenly body appeared to broaden the rays of light, almost
hypnotizing them.

The Russian, without coming out of his revery, availed himself of another
glass. Then he smiled with cruel irony, his bearded face taking on the
semblance of a tragic mask peeping between the curtains of the night.

“I wonder what those men up there are thinking!” he muttered. “I wonder if
any star knows that Bismarck ever existed! . . . I wonder if the planets
are aware of the divine mission of the German nation!”

And he continued laughing.

Some far-away and uncertain noise disturbed the stillness of the night,
slipping through some of the chinks that cut the immense plain of roofs.
The three turned their heads so as to hear better. . . . The sound of
voices cut through the thick silence of night—a masculine chorus
chanting a hymn, simple, monotonous and solemn. They guessed at what it
must be, although they could not hear very well. Various single notes
floating with greater intensity on the night wind, enabled Argensola to
piece together the short song, ending in a melodious, triumphant yell—a
true war song:

A new band of men was going away through the streets below, toward the
railway station, the gateway of the war. They must be from the outlying
districts, perhaps from the country, and passing through silence-wrapped
Paris, they felt like singing of the great national hope, that those who
were watching behind the dark facades might feel comforted, knowing that
they were not alone.

“Just as it is in the opera,” said Julio listening to the last notes of
the invisible chorus dying away into the night.

Tchernoff continued drinking, but with a distracted air, his eyes fixed on
the red cloud that floated over the roofs.

The two friends conjectured his mental labor from his concentrated look,
and the low exclamations which were escaping him like the echoes of an
interior monologue. Suddenly he leaped from thought to word without any
forewarning, continuing aloud the course of his reasoning.

“And when the sun arises in a few hours, the world will see coursing
through its fields the four horsemen, enemies of mankind. . . . Already
their wild steeds are pawing the ground with impatience; already the
ill-omened riders have come together and are exchanging the last words
before leaping into the saddle.”

“What horsemen are these?” asked Argensola.

“Those which go before the Beast.”

The two friends thought this reply as unintelligible as the preceding
words. Desnoyers again said mentally, “He is drunk,” but his curiosity
forced him to ask, “What beast is that?”

“That of the Apocalypse.”

There was a brief silence, but the Russian’s terseness of speech did not
last long. He felt the necessity of expressing his enthusiasm for the
dreamer on the island rock of Patmos. The poet of great and mystic vision
was exerting, across two thousand years, his influence over this
mysterious revolutionary, tucked away on the top floor of a house in
Paris. John had foreseen it all. His visions, unintelligible to the
masses, nevertheless held within them the mystery of great human events.

Tchernoff described the Apocalyptic beast rising from the depths of the
sea. He was like a leopard, his feet like those of a bear, his mouth like
the snout of a lion. He had seven heads and ten horns. And upon the horns
were ten crowns, and upon each of his heads the name of a blasphemy. The
evangelist did not say just what these blasphemies were, perhaps they
differed according to the epochs, modified every thousand years when the
beast made a new apparition. The Russian seemed to be reading those that
were flaming on the heads of the monster—blasphemies against
humanity, against justice, against all that makes life sweet and bearable.
“Might is superior to Right!” . . . “The weak should not exist.” . . . “Be
harsh in order to be great.” . . . And the Beast in all its hideousness
was attempting to govern the world and make mankind render him homage!

“But the four horsemen?” persisted Desnoyers.

The four horsemen were preceding the appearance of the monster in John’s
vision.

The seven seals of the book of mystery were broken by the Lamb in the
presence of the great throne where was seated one who shone like jasper.
The rainbow round about the throne was in sight like unto an emerald.
Twenty-four thrones were in a semicircle around the great throne, and upon
them twenty-four elders with white robes and crowns of gold. Four enormous
animals, covered with eyes and each having six wings, seemed to be
guarding the throne. The sounding of trumpets was greeting the breaking of
the first seal.

“Come and see,” cried one of the beasts in a stentorian tone to the
vision-seeing poet. . . . And the first horseman appeared on a white
horse. In his hand he carried a bow, and a crown was given unto him. He
was Conquest, according to some, the Plague according to others. He might
be both things at the same time. He wore a crown, and that was enough for
Tchernoff.

“Come forth,” shouted the second animal, removing his thousand eyes. And
from the broken seal leaped a flame-colored steed. His rider brandished
over his head an enormous sword. He was War. Peace fled from the world
before his furious gallop; humanity was going to be exterminated.

And when the third seal was broken, another of the winged animals bellowed
like a thunder clap, “Come and see!” And John saw a black horse. He who
mounted it held in his hand a scale in order to weigh the maintenance of
mankind. He was Famine.

The fourth animal saluted the breaking of the fourth seal with a great
roaring—“Come and see!” And there appeared a pale-colored horse. His
rider was called Death, and power was given him to destroy with the sword
and with hunger and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.

The four horsemen were beginning their mad, desolating course over the
heads of terrified humanity.

Tchernoff was describing the four scourges of the earth exactly as though
he were seeing them. The horseman on the white horse was clad in a showy
and barbarous attire. His Oriental countenance was contracted with hatred
as if smelling out his victims. While his horse continued galloping, he
was bending his bow in order to spread pestilence abroad. At his back
swung the brass quiver filled with poisoned arrows, containing the germs
of all diseases—those of private life as well as those which envenom
the wounded soldier on the battlefield.

The second horseman on the red steed was waving the enormous, two-edged
sword over his hair bristling with the swiftness of his course. He was
young, but the fierce scowl and the scornful mouth gave him a look of
implacable ferocity. His garments, blown open by the motion of his wild
race, disclosed the form of a muscular athlete.

Bald, old and horribly skinny was the third horseman bouncing up and down
on the rawboned back of his black steed. His shrunken legs clanked against
the thin flanks of the lean beast. In one withered hand he was holding the
scales, symbol of the scarcity of food that was going to become as
valuable as gold.

The knees of the fourth horseman, sharp as spurs, were pricking the ribs
of the pale horse. His parchment-like skin betrayed the lines and hollows
of his skeleton. The front of his skull-like face was twisted with the
sardonic laugh of destruction. His cane-like arms were whirling aloft a
gigantic sickle. From his angular shoulders was hanging a ragged, filthy
shroud.

And the furious cavalcade was passing like a hurricane over the immense
assemblage of human beings. The heavens showed above their heads, a livid,
dark-edged cloud from the west. Horrible monsters and deformities were
swarming in spirals above the furious horde, like a repulsive escort. Poor
Humanity, crazed with fear, was fleeing in all directions on hearing the
thundering pace of the Plague, War, Hunger and Death. Men and women, young
and old, were knocking each other down and falling to the ground
overwhelmed by terror, astonishment and desperation. And the white horse,
the red, the black and the pale, were crushing all with their relentless,
iron tread—the athletic man was hearing the crashing of his broken
ribs, the nursing babe was writhing at its mother’s breast, and the aged
and feeble were closing their eyes forever with a childlike sob.

“God is asleep, forgetting the world,” continued the Russian. “It will be
a long time before he awakes, and while he sleeps the four feudal horsemen
of the Beast will course through the land as its only lords.”

Tchernoff was overpowered by the intensity of his dramatic vision.
Springing from his seat, he paced up and down with great strides; but his
picture of the fourfold catastrophe revealed by the gloomy poet’s trance,
seemed to him very weak indeed. A great painter had given corporeal form
to these terrible dreams.

“I have a book,” he murmured, “a rare book.” . . .

And suddenly he left the studio and went to his own quarters. He wanted to
bring the book to show to his friends. Argensola accompanied him, and they
returned in a few minutes with the volume, leaving the doors open behind
them, so as to make a stronger current of air among the hollows of the
facades and the interior patio.

Tchernoff placed his precious book under the light. It was a volume
printed in 1511, with Latin text and engravings. Desnoyers read the title,
“The Apocalypse Illustrated.” The engravings were by Albert Durer, a
youthful effort, when the master was only twenty-seven years old. The
three were fascinated by the picture portraying the wild career of the
Apocalyptic horsemen. The quadruple scourge, on fantastic mounts, seemed
to be precipitating itself with a realistic sweep, crushing panic-stricken
humanity.

Suddenly something happened which startled the three men from their
contemplative admiration—something unusual, indefinable, a dreadful
sound which seemed to enter directly into their brains without passing
through their ears—a clutch at the heart. Instinctively they knew
that something very grave had just happened.

They stared at each other silently for a few interminable seconds.

Through the open door, a cry of alarm came up from the patio.

With a common impulse, the three ran to the interior window, but before
reaching them, the Russian had a presentiment.

“My neighbor! . . . It must be my neighbor. Perhaps she has killed
herself!”

Looking down, they could see lights below, people moving around a form
stretched out on the tiled floor. The alarm had instantly filled all the
court windows, for it was a sleepless night—a night of nervous
apprehension when everyone was keeping a sad vigil.

“She has killed herself,” said a voice which seemed to come up from a
well. “The German woman has committed suicide.”

The explanation of the concierge leaped from window to window up to the
top floor.

The Russian was shaking his head with a fatalistic expression. The unhappy
woman had not taken the death-leap of her own accord. Someone had
intensified her desperation, someone had pushed her. . . . The horsemen!
The four horsemen of the Apocalypse! . . . Already they were in the
saddle! Already they were beginning their merciless gallop of destruction!

The blind forces of evil were about to be let loose throughout the world.

The agony of humanity, under the brutal sweep of the four horsemen, was
already begun!

PART II

CHAPTER I

WHAT DON MARCELO ENVIED

Upon being convinced that war really was inevitable, the elder Desnoyers
was filled with amazement. Humanity had gone crazy. Was it possible that
war could happen in these days of so many railroads, so many merchant
marines, so many inventions, so much activity developed above and below
the earth? . . . The nations would ruin themselves forever. They were now
accustomed to luxuries and necessities unknown a century ago. Capital was
master of the world, and war was going to wipe it out. In its turn, war
would be wiped out in a few months’ time through lack of funds to sustain
it. His soul of a business man revolted before the hundreds of thousands
of millions that this foolhardy event was going to convert into smoke and
slaughter.

As his indignation had to fix upon something close at hand, he made his
own countrymen responsible for this insanity. Too much talk about la
revanche! The very idea of worrying for forty-four years over the two lost
provinces when the nation was mistress of enormous and undeveloped lands
in other countries! . . . Now they were going to pay the penalty for such
exasperating and clamorous foolishness.

For him war meant disaster writ large. He had no faith in his country.
France’s day had passed. Now the victors were of the Northern peoples, and
especially that Germany which he had seen so close, admiring with a
certain terror its discipline and its rigorous organization. The former
working-man felt the conservative and selfish instinct of all those who
have amassed millions. He scorned political ideals, but through class
interest he had of late years accepted the declarations against the
scandals of the government. What could a corrupt and disorganized Republic
do against the solidest and strongest empire in the world? . . .

“We are going to our deaths,” he said to himself. “Worse than ‘70! . . .
We are going to see horrible things!”

The good order and enthusiasm with which the French responded to their
country’s call and transformed themselves into soldiers were most
astonishing to him. This moral shock made his national faith begin to
revive. The great majority of Frenchmen were good after all; the nation
was as valiant as in former times. Forty-four years of suffering and alarm
had developed their old bravery. But the leaders? Where were they going to
get leaders to march to victory? . . .

Many others were asking themselves the same question. The silence of the
democratic government was keeping the country in complete ignorance of
their future commanders. Everybody saw the army increasing from hour to
hour: very few knew the generals. One name was beginning to be repeated
from mouth to mouth, “Joffre . . . Joffre.” His first pictures made the
curious crowds struggle to get a glimpse of them. Desnoyers studied them
very carefully. “He looks like a very capable person.” His methodical
instincts were gratified by the grave and confident look of the general of
the Republic. Suddenly he felt the great confidence that efficient-looking
bank directors always inspired in him. He could entrust his interests to
this gentleman, sure that he would not act impulsively.

Finally, against his will, Desnoyers was drawn into the whirlpool of
enthusiasm and emotion. Like everyone around him, he lived minutes that
were hours, and hours that were years. Events kept on overlapping each
other; within a week the world seemed to have made up for its long period
of peace.

The old man fairly lived in the street, attracted by the spectacle of the
multitude of civilians saluting the multitude of uniformed men departing
for the seat of war.

At night he saw the processions passing through the boulevards. The
tricolored flag was fluttering its colors under the electric lights. The
cafes were overflowing with people, sending forth from doors and windows
the excited, musical notes of patriotic songs. Suddenly, amidst applause
and cheers, the crowd would make an opening in the street. All Europe was
passing here; all Europe—less the arrogant enemy—and was
saluting France in her hour of danger with hearty spontaneity. Flags of
different nations were filing by, of all tints of the rainbow, and behind
them were the Russians with bright and mystical eyes; the English, with
heads uncovered, intoning songs of religious gravity; the Greeks and
Roumanians of aquiline profile; the Scandinavians, white and red; the
North Americans, with the noisiness of a somewhat puerile enthusiasm; the
Hebrews without a country, friends of the nation of socialistic
revolutions; the Italians, as spirited as a choir of heroic tenors; the
Spanish and South Americans, tireless in their huzzas. They were students
and apprentices who were completing their courses in the schools and
workshops, and refugees who, like shipwrecked mariners, had sought shelter
on the hospitable strand of Paris. Their cheers had no special
significance, but they were all moved by their desire to show their love
for the Republic. And Desnoyers, touched by the sight, felt that France
was still of some account in the world, that she yet exercised a moral
force among the nations, and that her joys and sorrows were still of
interest to humanity.

“In Berlin and Vienna, too,” he said to himself, “they must also be
cheering enthusiastically at this moment . . . but Germans only, no
others. Assuredly no foreigner is joining in their demonstrations.”

The nation of the Revolution, legislator of the rights of mankind, was
harvesting the gratitude of the throngs, but was beginning to feel a
certain remorse before the enthusiasm of the foreigners who were offering
their blood for France. Many were lamenting that the government should
delay twenty days, until after they had finished the operations of
mobilization, in admitting the volunteers. And he, a Frenchman born, a few
hours before, had been mistrusting his country! . . .

In the daytime the popular current was running toward the Gare de l’Est.
Crowded against the gratings was a surging mass of humanity stretching its
tentacles through the nearby streets. The station that was acquiring the
importance of a historic spot appeared like a narrow tunnel through which
a great human river was trying to flow with many rippling encounters and
much heavy pressure against its banks. A large part of France in arms was
coursing through this exit from Paris toward the battlefields at the
frontier.

Desnoyers had been in the station only twice, when going and coming from
Germany. Others were now taking the same road. The crowds were swarming in
from the environs of the city in order to see the masses of human beings
in geometric bodies, uniformly clad, disappearing within the entrance with
flash of steel and the rhythm of clanking metal. The crystal archways that
were glistening in the sun like fiery mouths were swallowing and
swallowing people. When night fell the processions were still coming on,
by light of the electric lamps. Through the iron grills were passing
thousands and thousands of draught horses; men with their breasts crossed
with metal and bunches of horsehair hanging from their helmets, like
paladins of bygone centuries; enormous cases that were serving as cages
for the aeronautic condors; strings of cannon, long and narrow, painted
grey and protected, by metal screens, more like astronomical instruments
than mouths of death; masses and masses of red kepis (military caps)
moving in marching rhythm, rows and rows of muskets, some black and stark
like reed plantations, others ending in bayonets like shining spikes. And
over all these restless fields of seething throngs, the flags of the
regiments were fluttering in the air like colored birds; a white body, a
blue wing, or a red one, a cravat of gold on the neck, and above, the
metal tip pointing toward the clouds.

Don Marcelo would return home from these send-offs vibrating with nervous
fatigue, as one who had just participated in a scene of racking emotion.
In spite of his tenacious character which always stood out against
admitting a mistake, the old man began to feel ashamed of his former
doubts. The nation was quivering with life; France was a grand nation;
appearances had deceived him as well as many others. Perhaps the most of
his countrymen were of a light and flippant character, given to excessive
interest in the sensuous side of life; but when danger came they were
fulfilling their duty simply, without the necessity of the harsh force to
which the iron-clad organizations were submitting their people.

On leaving home on the morning of the fourth day of the mobilization
Desnoyers, instead of betaking himself to the centre of the city, went in
the opposite direction toward the rue de la Pompe. Some imprudent words
dropped by Chichi, and the uneasy looks of his wife and sister-in-law made
him suspect that Julio had returned from his trip. He felt the necessity
of seeing at least the outside of the studio windows, as if they might
give him news. And in order to justify a trip so at variance with his
policy of ignoring his son, he remembered that the carpenter lived in the
same street.

“I must hunt up Robert. He promised a week ago that he would come here.”

This Robert was a husky young fellow who, to use his own words, was
“emancipated from boss tyranny,” and was working independently in his own
home. A tiny, almost subterranean room was serving him for dwelling and
workshop. A woman he called “my affinity” was looking carefully after his
hearth and home, with a baby boy clinging to her skirts. Desnoyers was
accustomed to humor Robert’s tirades against his fellow citizens because
the man had always humored his whimseys about the incessant rearrangement
of his furniture. In the luxurious apartment in the avenue Victor Hugo the
carpenter would sing La Internacional while using hammer and saw, and his
employer would overlook his audacity of speech because of the cheapness of
his work.

Upon arriving at the shop he found the man with cap over one ear, broad
trousers like a mameluke’s, hobnailed boots and various pennants and
rosettes fastened to the lapels of his jacket.

“You’ve come too late, Boss,” he said cheerily. “I am just going to close
the factory. The Proprietor has been mobilized, and in a few hours will
join his regiment.”

And he pointed to a written paper posted on the door of his dwelling like
the printed cards on all establishments, signifying that employer and
employees had obeyed the order of mobilization.

It had never occurred to Desnoyers that his carpenter might become a
soldier, since he was so opposed to all kinds of authority. He hated the
flics, the Paris police, with whom he had, more than once, exchanged
fisticuffs and clubbings. Militarism was his special aversion. In the
meetings against the despotism of the barracks he had always been one of
the noisiest participants. And was this revolutionary fellow going to war
naturally and voluntarily? . . .

Robert spoke enthusiastically of his regiment, of life among comrades with
Death but four steps away.

“I believe in my ideas, Boss, the same as before,” he explained as though
guessing the other’s thought. “But war is war and teaches many things—among
others that Liberty must be accompanied with order and authority. It is
necessary that someone direct that the rest may follow—willingly, by
common consent . . . but they must follow. When war actually comes one
sees things very differently from when living at home doing as one
pleases.”

The night that they assassinated Jaures he howled with rage, announcing
that the following morning the murder would be avenged. He had hunted up
his associates in the district in order to inform them what retaliation
was being planned against the malefactors. But war was about to break out.
There was something in the air that was opposing civil strife, that was
placing private grievances in momentary abeyance, concentrating all minds
on the common weal.

“A week ago,” he exclaimed, “I was an anti-militarist! How far away that
seems now—as if a year had gone by! I keep thinking as before! I
love peace and hate war like all my comrades. But the French have not
offended anybody, and yet they threaten us, wishing to enslave us. . . .
But we French can be fierce, since they oblige us to be, and in order to
defend ourselves it is just that nobody should shirk, that all should
obey. Discipline does not quarrel with Revolution. Remember the armies of
the first Republic—all citizens, Generals as well as soldiers, but
Hoche, Kleber and the others were rough-hewn, unpolished benefactors who
knew how to command and exact obedience.”

The carpenter was well read. Besides the papers and pamphlets of “the
Idea,” he had also read on stray sheets the views of Michelet and other
liberal actors on the stage of history.

“We are going to make war on War,” he added. “We are going to fight so
that this war will be the last.”

This statement did not seem to be expressed with sufficient clearness, so
he recast his thought.

“We are going to fight for the future; we are going to die in order that
our grandchildren may not have to endure a similar calamity. If the enemy
triumphs, the war-habit will triumph, and conquest will be the only means
of growth. First they will overcome Europe, then the rest of the world.
Later on, those who have been pillaged will rise up in their wrath. More
wars! . . . We do not want conquests. We desire to regain Alsace and
Lorraine, for their inhabitants wish to return to us . . . and nothing
more. We shall not imitate the enemy, appropriating territory and
jeopardizing the peace of the world. We had enough of that with Napoleon;
we must not repeat that experience. We are going to fight for our
immediate security, and at the same time for the security of the world—for
the life of the weaker nations. If this were a war of aggression, of mere
vanity, of conquest, then we Socialists would bethink ourselves of our
anti-militarism. But this is self-defense, and the government has not been
at fault. Since we are attacked, we must be united in our defensive.”

The carpenter, who was also anti-clerical, was now showing a more generous
tolerance, an amplitude of ideas that embraced all mankind. The day before
he had met at the administration office a Reservist who was just leaving
to join his regiment. At a glance he saw that this man was a priest.

“I am a carpenter,” he had said to him, by way of introduction, “and you,
comrade, are working in the churches?”

He employed this figure of speech in order that the priest might not
suspect him of anything offensive. The two had clasped hands.

“I do not take much stock in the clerical cowl,” Robert explained to
Desnoyers. “For some time I have not been on friendly terms with religion.
But in every walk of life there must be good people, and the good people
ought to understand each other in a crisis like this. Don’t you think so,
Boss?”

The war coincided with his socialistic tendencies. Before this, when
speaking of future revolution, he had felt a malign pleasure in imagining
all the rich deprived of their fortunes and having to work in order to
exist. Now he was equally enthusiastic at the thought that all Frenchmen
would share the same fate without class distinction.

“All with knapsacks on their backs and eating at mess.”

And he was even extending this military sobriety to those who remained
behind the army. War was going to cause great scarcity of provisions, and
all would have to come down to very plain fare.

“You, too, Boss, who are too old to go to war—you, with all your
millions, will have to eat the same as I. . . . Admit that it is a
beautiful thing.”

Desnoyers was not offended by the malicious satisfaction that his future
privations seemed to inspire in the carpenter. He was very thoughtful. A
man of his stamp, an enemy of existing conditions, who had no property to
defend, was going to war—to death, perhaps—because of a
generous and distant ideal, in order that future generations might never
know the actual horrors of war! To do this, he was not hesitating at the
sacrifice of his former cherished beliefs, all that he had held sacred
till now. . . . And he who belonged to the privileged class, who possessed
so many tempting things, requiring defense, had given himself up to doubt
and criticism! . . .

Hours after, he again saw the carpenter, near the Arc de Triomphe. He was
one of a group of workmen looking much as he did, and this group was
joining others and still others that represented every social class—well-dressed
citizens, stylish and anaemic young men, graduate students with worn
jackets, pale faces and thick glasses, and youthful priests who were
smiling rather shamefacedly as though they had been caught at some
ridiculous escapade. At the head of this human herd was a sergeant, and as
a rear guard, various soldiers with guns on their shoulders. Forward
march, Reservists! . . .

And a musical cry, a solemn harmony like a Greek chant, menacing and
monotonous, surged up from this mass with open mouths, swinging arms, and
legs that were opening and shutting like compasses.

Robert was singing the martial chorus with such great

energy that his eyes and Gallic moustachios were fairly trembling. In
spite of his corduroy suit and his bulging linen hand bag, he had the same
grand and heroic aspect as the figures by Rude in the Arc de Triomphe. The
“affinity” and the boy were trudging along the sidewalk so as to accompany
him to the station. For a moment he took his eyes from them to speak with
a companion in the line, shaven and serious-looking, undoubtedly the
priest whom he had met the day before. Now they were talking
confidentially, intimately, with that brotherliness which contact with
death inspires in mankind.

The millionaire followed the carpenter with a look of respect,
immeasurably increased since he had taken his part in this human
avalanche. And this respect had in it something of envy, the envy that
springs from an uneasy conscience.

Whenever Don Marcelo passed a bad night, suffering from nightmare, a
certain terrible thing—always the same—would torment his
imagination. Rarely did he dream of mortal peril to his family or self.
The frightful vision was always that certain notes bearing his signature
were presented for collection which he, Marcelo Desnoyers, the man always
faithful to his bond, with a past of immaculate probity, was not able to
pay. Such a possibility made him tremble, and long after waking his heart
would be oppressed with terror. To his imagination this was the greatest
disgrace that a man could suffer.

Now that war was overturning his existence with its agitations, the same
agonies were reappearing. Completely awake, with full powers of reasoning,
he was suffering exactly the same distress as when in his horrible dreams
he saw his dishonored signature on a protested document.

All his past was looming up before his eyes with such extraordinary
clearness that it seemed as though until then his mind must have been in
hopeless confusion. The threatened land of France was his native country.
Fifteen centuries of history had been working for him, in order that his
opening eyes might survey progress and comforts that his ancestors did not
even know. Many generations of Desnoyers had prepared for his advent into
life by struggling with the land and defending it that he might be born
into a free family and fireside. . . . And when his turn had come for
continuing this effort, when his time had arrived in the rosary of
generations—he had fled like a debtor evading payment! . . . On
coming into his fatherland he had contracted obligations with the human
group to whom he owed his existence. This obligation should be paid with
his arms, with any sacrifice that would repel danger . . . and he had
eluded the acknowledgment of his signature, fleeing his country and
betraying his trust to his forefathers! Ah, miserable coward! The material
success of his life, the riches acquired in a remote country, were
comparatively of no importance. There are failures that millions cannot
blot out. The uneasiness of his conscience was proving it now. Proof, too,
was in the envy and respect inspired by this poor mechanic marching to
meet his death with others equally humble, all kindled with the
satisfaction of duty fulfilled, of sacrifice accepted.

The memory of Madariaga came to his memory.

“Where we make our riches, and found a family—there is our country.”

No, the statement of the centaur was not correct. In normal times,
perhaps. Far from one’s native land when it is not exposed to danger, one
may forget it for a few years. But he was living now in France, and France
was being obliged to defend herself against enemies wishing to overpower
her. The sight of all her people rising en masse was becoming an
increasingly shameful torture for Desnoyers, making him think all the time
of what he should have done in his youth, of what he had dodged.

The veterans of ‘70 were passing through the streets, with the green and
black ribbon in their lapel, souvenirs of the privations of the Siege of
Paris, and of heroic and disastrous campaigns. The sight of these men,
satisfied with their past, made him turn pale. Nobody was recalling his,
but he knew it, and that was enough. In vain his reason would try to lull
this interior tempest. . . . Those times were different; then there was
none of the present unanimity; the Empire was unpopular . . . everything
was lost. . . . But the recollection of a celebrated sentence was fixing
itself in his mind as an obsession—“France still remained!” Many had
thought as he did in his youth, but they had not, therefore, evaded
military service. They had stood by their country in a last and desperate
resistance.

Useless was his excuse-making reasoning. Nobler thoughts showed him the
fallacy of this beating around the bush. Explanations and demonstrations
are unnecessary to the understanding of patriotic and religious ideals;
true patriotism does not need them. One’s country . . . is one’s country.
And the laboring man, skeptical and jesting, the self-centred farmer, the
solitary pastor, all had sprung to action at the sound of this conjuring
word, comprehending it instantly, without previous instruction.

“It is necessary to pay,” Don Marcelo kept repeating mentally. “I ought to
pay my debt.”

As in his dreams, he was constantly feeling the anguish of an upright and
desperate man who wishes to meet his obligations.

Pay! . . . and how? It was now very late. For a moment the heroic
resolution came into his head of offering himself as a volunteer, of
marching with his bag at his side in some one of the groups of future
combatants, the same as the carpenter. But the uselessness of the
sacrifice came immediately into his mind. Of what use would it be? . . .
He looked robust and was well-preserved for his age, but he was over
seventy, and only the young make good soldiers. Combat is but one incident
in the struggle. Equally necessary are the hardship and self-denial in the
form of interminable marches, extremes of temperature, nights in the open
air, shoveling earth, digging trenches, loading carts, suffering hunger. .
. . No; it was too late. He could not even leave an illustrious name that
might serve as an example.

Instinctively he glanced behind. He was not alone in the world; he had a
son who could assume his father’s debt . . . but that hope only lasted a
minute. His son was not French; he belonged to another people; half of his
blood was from another source. Besides, how could the boy be expected to
feel as he did? Would he even understand if his father should explain it
to him? . . . It was useless to expect anything from this lady-killing,
dancing clown, from this fellow of senseless bravado, who was constantly
exposing his life in duels in order to satisfy a silly sense of honor.

Oh, the meekness of the bluff Senor Desnoyers after these reflections! . .
. His family felt alarmed at seeing the humility and gentleness with which
he moved around the house. The two men-servants had gone to join their
regiments, and to them the most surprising result of the declaration of
war was the sudden kindness of their master, the lavishness of his
farewell gifts, the paternal care with which he supervised their
preparations for departure. The terrible Don Marcelo embraced them with
moist eyes, and the two had to exert themselves to prevent his
accompanying them to the station.

Outside of his home he was slipping about humbly as though mutely asking
pardon of the many people around him. To him they all appeared his
superiors. It was a period of economic crisis; for the time being, the
rich also were experiencing what it was to be poor and worried; the banks
had suspended operations and were paying only a small part of their
deposits. For some weeks the millionaire was deprived of his wealth, and
felt restless before the uncertain future. How long would it be before
they could send him money from South America? Was war going to take away
fortunes as well as lives? . . . And yet Desnoyers had never appreciated
money less, nor disposed of it with greater generosity.

Numberless mobilized men of the lower classes who were going alone toward
the station met a gentleman who would timidly stop them, put his hand in
his pocket and leave in their right hand a bill of twenty francs, fleeing
immediately before their astonished eyes. The working-women who were
returning weeping from saying good-bye to their husbands saw this same
gentleman smiling at the children who were with them, patting their cheeks
and hastening away, leaving a five-franc piece in their hands.

Don Marcelo, who had never smoked, was now frequenting the tobacco shops,
coming out with hands and pockets filled in order that he might, with
lavish generosity, press the packages upon the first soldier he met. At
times the recipient, smiling courteously, would thank him with a few
words, revealing his superior breeding—afterwards passing the gift
on to others clad in cloaks as coarse and badly cut as his own. The
mobilization, universally obligatory, often caused him to make these
mistakes.

The rough hands pressing his with a grateful clasp, left him satisfied for
a few moments. Ah, if he could only do more! . . . The Government in
mobilizing its vehicles had appropriated three of his monumental
automobiles, and Desnoyers felt very sorry that they were not also taking
the fourth mastodon. Of what use were they to him? The shepherds of this
monstrous herd, the chauffeur and his assistants, were now in the army.
Everybody was marching away. Finally he and his son would be the only ones
left—two useless creatures.

He roared with wrath on learning of the enemy’s entrance into Belgium,
considering this the most unheard-of treason in history. He suffered
agonies of shame at remembering that at first he had held the exalted
patriots of his country responsible for the war. . . . What perfidy,
methodically carried out after long years of preparation! The accounts of
the sackings, fires and butcheries made him turn pale and gnash his teeth.
To him, to Marcelo Desnoyers, might happen the very same thing that
Belgium was enduring, if the barbarians should invade France. He had a
home in the city, a castle in the country, and a family. Through
association of ideas, the women assaulted by the soldiery, made him think
of Chichi and the dear Dona Luisa. The mansions in flames called to his
mind the rare and costly furnishings accumulated in his expensive
dwellings—the armorial bearings of his social elevation. The old
folk that were shot, the women foully mutilated, the children with their
hands cut off, all the horrors of a war of terror, aroused the violence of
his character.

And such things could happen with impunity in this day and generation! . .
.

In order to convince himself that punishment was near, that vengeance was
overtaking the guilty ones, he felt the necessity of mingling daily with
the people crowding around the Gare de l’Est.

Although the greater part of the troops were operating on the frontiers,
that was not diminishing the activity in Paris. Entire battalions were no
longer going off, but day and night soldiers were coming to the station
singly or in groups. These were Reserves without uniform on their way to
enroll themselves with their companies, officials who until then had been
busy with the work of the mobilization, platoons in arms destined to fill
the great gaps opened by death.

The multitude, pressed against the railing, was greeting those who were
going off, following them with their eyes while they were crossing the
large square. The latest editions of the daily papers were announced with
hoarse yells, and instantly the dark throng would be spotted with white,
all reading with avidity the printed sheets. Good news: “Vive la France!”
A doubtful despatch, foreshadowing calamity: “No matter! We must press on
at all costs! The Russians will close in behind them!” And while these
dialogues, inspired by the latest news were taking place, many young girls
were going among the groups offering little flags and tricolored cockades—and
passing through the patio, men and still more men were disappearing behind
the glass doors, on their way to the war.

A sub-lieutenant of the Reserves, with his bag on his shoulder, was
accompanied by his father toward the file of policemen keeping the crowds
back. Desnoyers saw in the young officer a certain resemblance to his son.
The father was wearing in his lapel the black and green ribbon of 1870—a
decoration which always filled Desnoyers with remorse. He was tall and
gaunt, but was still trying to hold himself erect, with a heavy frown. He
wanted to show himself fierce, inhuman, in order to hide his emotion.

“Good-bye, my boy! Do your best.”

“Good-bye, father.”

They did not clasp hands, and each was avoiding looking at the other. The
official was smiling like an automaton. The father turned his back
brusquely, and threading his way through the throng, entered a cafe, where
for some time he needed the most retired seat in the darkest earner to
hide his emotion.

AND DON MARCELO ENVIED HIS GRIEF.

Some of the Reservists came along singing, preceded by a flag. They were
joking and jostling each other, betraying in excited actions, long halts
at all the taverns along the way. One of them, without interrupting his
song, was pressing the hand of an old woman marching beside him, cheerful
and dry-eyed. The mother was concentrating all her strength in order, with
feigned happiness, to accompany this strapping lad to the last minute.

Others were coming along singly, separated from their companies, but not
on that account alone. The gun was hanging from the shoulder, the back
overlaid by the hump of the knapsack, the red legs shooting in and out of
the turned-back folds of the blue cloak, and the smoke of a pipe under the
visor of the kepis. In front of one of these men, four children were
walking along, lined up according to size. They kept turning their heads
to admire their father, suddenly glorified by his military trappings. At
his side was marching his wife, affable and resigned, feeling in her
simple soul a revival of love, an ephemeral Spring, born of the contact
with danger. The man, a laborer of Paris, who a few months before was
singing La Internacional, demanding the abolishment of armies and the
brotherhood of all mankind, was now going in quest of death. His wife,
choking back her sobs, was admiring him greatly. Affection and
commiseration made her insist upon giving him a few last counsels. In his
knapsack she had put his best handkerchiefs, the few provisions in the
house and all the money. Her man was not to be uneasy about her and the
children; they would get along all right. The government and kind
neighbors would look after them.

The soldier in reply was jesting over the somewhat misshapen figure of his
wife, saluting the coming citizen, and prophesying that he would be born
in a time of great victory. A kiss to the wife, an affectionate hair-pull
for his offspring, and then he had joined his comrades. . . . No tears.
Courage! . . . Vive la France!

The final injunctions of the departing were now heard. Nobody was crying.
But as the last red pantaloons disappeared, many hands grasped the iron
railing convulsively, many handkerchiefs were bitten with gnashing teeth,
many faces were hidden in the arms with sobs of anguish.

AND DON MARCELO ENVIED THESE TEARS.

The old woman, on losing the warm contact of her son’s hand from her
withered one, turned in the direction which she believed to be that of the
hostile country, waving her arms with threatening fury.

“Ah, the assassin! . . . the bandit!”

In her wrathful imagination she was again seeing the countenance so often
displayed in the illustrated pages of the periodicals—moustaches
insolently aggressive, a mouth with the jaw and teeth of a wolf, that
laughed . . . and laughed as men must have laughed in the time of the
cave-men.

AND DON MARCELO ENVIED THIS WRATH!

CHAPTER II

NEW LIFE

When Marguerite was able to return to the studio in the rue de la Pompe,
Julio, who had been living in a perpetual bad humor, seeing everything in
the blackest colors, suddenly felt a return of his old optimism.

The war was not going to be so cruel as they all had at first imagined.
The days had passed by, and the movements of the troops were beginning to
be less noticeable. As the number of men diminished in the streets, the
feminine population seemed to have increased. Although there was great
scarcity of money, the banks still remaining closed, the necessity for it
was increasingly great, in order to secure provisions. Memories of the
famine of the siege of ‘70 tormented the imagination. Since war had broken
out with the same enemy, it seemed but logical to everybody to expect a
repetition of the same happenings. The storehouses were besieged by women
who were securing stale food at exorbitant prices in order to store it in
their homes. Future hunger was producing more terror than immediate
dangers.

For young Desnoyers these were about all the transformations that war was
creating around him. People would finally become accustomed to the new
existence. Humanity has a certain reserve force of adaptation which
enables it to mould itself to circumstances and continue existing. He was
hoping to continue his life as though nothing had happened. It was enough
for him that Marguerite should continue faithful to their past. Together
they would see events slipping by them with the cruel luxuriousness of
those who, from an inaccessible height, contemplate a flood without the
slightest risk to themselves.

This selfish attitude had also become habitual to Argensola.

“Let us be neutral,” the Bohemian would say. “Neutrality does not
necessarily mean indifference. Let us enjoy the great spectacle, since
nothing like it will ever happen again in our lifetime.”

It was unfortunate that war should happen to come when they had so little
money. Argensola was hating the banks even more than the Central Powers,
distinguishing with special antipathy the trust company which was delaying
payment of Julio’s check. How lovely it would have been with this sum
available, to have forestalled events by laying in every class of
commodity! In order to supplement the domestic scrimping, he again had to
solicit the aid of Dona Luisa. War had lessened Don Marcelo’s precautions,
and the family was now living in generous unconcern. The mother, like
other house mistresses, had stored up provisions for months and months to
come, buying whatever eatables she was able to lay hands on. Argensola
took advantage of this abundance, repeating his visits to the home in the
avenue Victor Hugo, descending its service stairway with great packages
which were swelling the supplies in the studio.

He felt all the joys of a good housekeeper in surveying the treasures
piled up in the kitchen—great tins of canned meat, pyramids of
butter crocks, and bags of dried vegetables. He had accumulated enough
there to maintain a large family. The war had now offered a new pretext
for him to visit Don Marcelo’s wine-vaults.

“Let them come!” he would say with a heroic gesture as he took stock of
his treasure trove. “Let them come when they will! We are ready for them!”

The care and increase of his provisions, and the investigation of news
were the two functions of his existence. It seemed necessary to procure
ten, twelve, fifteen papers a day; some because they were reactionary, and
the novelty of seeing all the French united filled him with enthusiasm;
others because they were radical and must be better informed of the news
received from the government. They generally appeared at midday, at three,
at four and at five in the afternoon. An half hour’s delay in the
publication of the sheet raised great hopes in the public, on the qui vive
for stupendous news. All the last supplements were snatched up; everybody
had his pockets stuffed with papers, waiting anxiously the issue of extras
in order to buy them, too. Yet all the sheets were saying approximately
the same thing.

Argensola was developing a credulous, enthusiastic soul, capable of
admitting many improbable things. He presumed that this same spirit was
probably animating everybody around him. At times, his old critical
attitude would threaten to rebel, but doubt was repulsed as something
dishonorable. He was living in a new world, and it was but natural that
extraordinary things should occur that could be neither measured nor
explained by the old processes of reasoning. So he commented with
infantile joy on the marvellous accounts in the daily papers—of
combats between a single Belgian platoon and entire regiments of enemies,
putting them to disorderly flight; of the German fear of the bayonet that
made them run like hares the instant that the charge sounded; of the
inefficiency of the German artillery whose projectiles always missed fire.

It was logical and natural that little Belgium should conquer gigantic
Germany—a repetition of David and Goliath—with all the
metaphors and images that this unequal contest had inspired across so many
centuries. Like the greater part of the nation, he had the mentality of a
reader of tales of chivalry who feels himself defrauded if the hero,
single-handed, fails to cleave a thousand enemies with one fell stroke. He
purposely chose the most sensational papers, those which published many
stories of single encounters, of individual deeds about which nobody could
know with any degree of certainty.

The intervention of England on the seas made him imagine a frightful
famine, coming providentially like a thunder-clap to torture the enemy. He
honestly believed that ten days of this maritime blockade would convert
Germany into a group of shipwrecked sailors floating on a raft. This
vision made him repeat his visits to the kitchen to gloat over his
packages of provisions.

“Ah, what they would give in Berlin for my treasures!” . . .

Never had Argensola eaten with greater avidity. Consideration of the great
privations suffered by the adversary was sharpening his appetite to a
monstrous capacity. White bread, golden brown and crusty, was stimulating
him to an almost religious ecstasy.

“If friend William could only get his claws on this!” he would chuckle to
his companion.

So he chewed and swallowed with increasing relish; solids and liquids on
passing through his mouth seemed to be acquiring a new flavor, rare and
divine. Distant hunger for him was a stimulant, a sauce of endless
delight.

While France was inspiring his enthusiasm, he was conceding greater credit
to Russia. “Ah, those Cossacks!” . . . He was accustomed to speak of them
as intimate friends. He loved to describe the unbridled gallop of the wild
horsemen, impalpable as phantoms, and so terrible in their wrath that the
enemy could not look them in the face. The concierge and the stay-at-homes
used to listen to him with all the respect due to a foreign gentleman,
knowing much of the great outside world with which they were not familiar.

“The Cossacks will adjust the accounts of these bandits!” he would
conclude with absolute assurance. “Within a month they will have entered
Berlin.”

And his public composed of women—wives and mothers of those who had
gone to war—would modestly agree with him, with that irresistible
desire which we all feel of placing our hopes on something distant and
mysterious. The French would defend the country, reconquering, besides the
lost territories, but the Cossacks—of whom so many were speaking but
so few had seen—were going to give the death blow. The only person
who knew them at first hand was Tchernoff, and to Argensola’s
astonishment, he listened to his words without showing any enthusiasm. The
Cossacks were for him simply one body of the Russian army—good
enough soldiers, but incapable of working the miracles that everybody was
expecting from them.

“That Tchernoff!” exclaimed Argensola. “Since he hates the Czar, he thinks
the entire country mad. He is a revolutionary fanatic. . . . And I am
opposed to all fanaticisms.”

Julio was listening absent-mindedly to the news brought by his companion,
the vibrating statements recited in declamatory tones, the plans of the
campaign traced out on an enormous map fastened to the wall of the studio
and bristling with tiny flags that marked the camps of the belligerent
armies. Every issue of the papers obliged the Spaniard to arrange a new
dance of the pins on the map, followed by his comments of bomb-proof
optimism.

“We have entered into Alsace; very good! . . . It appears now that we
abandon Alsace. Splendid! I suspect the cause. It is in order to enter
again in a better place, getting at the enemy from behind. . . . They say
that Liege has fallen. What a lie! . . . And if it does fall, it doesn’t
matter. Just an incident, nothing more! The others remain . . . the
others! . . . that are advancing on the Eastern side, and are going to
enter Berlin.”

The news from the Russian front was his favorite, but obliged him to
remain in suspense every time that he tried to find on the map the obscure
names of the places where the admired Cossacks were exhibiting their
wonderful exploits.

Meanwhile Julio was continuing the course of his own reflections.
Marguerite! . . . She had come back at last, and yet each time seemed to
be drifting further away from him. . . .

In the first days of the mobilization, he had haunted her neighborhood,
trying to appease his longing by this illusory proximity. Marguerite had
written to him, urging patience. How fortunate it was that he was a
foreigner and would not have to endure the hardship of war! Her brother,
an officer in the artillery Reserves, was going at almost any minute. Her
mother, who made her home with this bachelor son, had kept an astonishing
serenity up to the last minute, although she had wept much while the war
was still but a possibility. She herself had prepared the soldier’s outfit
so that the small valise might contain all that was indispensable for
campaign life. But Marguerite had divined her poor mother’s secret
struggles not to reveal her despair, in moist eyes and trembling hands. It
was impossible to leave her alone at such a time. . . . Then had come the
farewell. “God be with you, my son! Do your duty, but be prudent.” Not a
tear nor a sign of weakness. All her family had advised her not to
accompany her son to the railway station, so his sister had gone with him.
And upon returning home, Marguerite had found her mother rigid in her arm
chair, with a set face, avoiding all mention of her son, speaking of the
friends who also had sent their boys to the war, as if they only could
comprehend her torture. “Poor Mama! I ought to be with her now more than
ever. . . . To-morrow, if I can, I shall come to see you.”

When at last she returned to the rue de la Pompe, her first care was to
explain to Julio the conservatism of her tailored suit, the absence of
jewels in the adornment of her person. “The war, my dear! Now it is the
chic thing to adapt oneself to the depressing conditions, to be frugal and
inconspicuous like soldiers. Who knows what we may expect!” Her
infatuation with dress still accompanied her in every moment of her life.

Julio noticed a persistent absent-mindedness about her. It seemed as
though her spirit, abandoning her body, was wandering to far-away places.
Her eyes were looking at him, but she seldom saw him. She would speak very
slowly, as though wishing to weigh every word, fearful of betraying some
secret. This spiritual alienation did not, however, prevent her slipping
bodily along the smooth path of custom, although afterwards she would seem
to feel a vague remorse. “I wonder if it is right to do this! . . . Is it
not wrong to live like this when so many sorrows are falling on the
world?” Julio hushed her scruples with:

“But if we are going to marry as soon as possible! . . . If we are already
the same as husband and wife!”

She replied with a gesture of strangeness and dismay. To marry! . . . Ten
days ago she had had no other wish. Now the possibility of marriage was
recurring less and less in her thoughts. Why think about such remote and
uncertain events? More immediate things were occupying her mind.

The farewell to her brother in the station was a scene which had fixed
itself ineradicably in her memory. Upon going to the studio she had
planned not to speak about it, foreseeing that she might annoy her lover
with this account; but alas, she had only to vow not to mention a thing,
to feel an irresistible impulse to talk about it.

She had never suspected that she could love her brother so dearly. Her
former affection for him had been mingled with a silent sentiment of
jealousy because her mother had preferred the older child. Besides, he was
the one who had introduced Laurier to his home; the two held diplomas as
industrial engineers and had been close friends from their school days. .
. . But upon seeing the boy ready to depart, Marguerite suddenly
discovered that this brother, who had always been of secondary interest to
her, was now occupying a pre-eminent place in her affections.

“He was so handsome, so interesting in his lieutenant’s uniform! . . . He
looked like another person. I will admit to you that I was very proud to
walk beside him, leaning on his arm. People thought that we were married.
Seeing me weep, some poor women tried to console me saying, ‘Courage,
Madame. . . . Your man will come back.’ He just laughed at hearing these
mistakes. The only thing that was really saddening him was thinking about
our mother.”

They had separated at the door of the station. The sentries would not let
her go any further, so she had handed over his sword that she had wished
to carry till the last moment.

“It is lovely to be a man!” she exclaimed enthusiastically. “I would love
to wear a uniform, to go to war, to be of some real use!”

She tried not to say more about it, as though she suddenly realized the
inopportuneness of her last words. Perhaps she noticed the scowl on
Julio’s face.

She was, however, so wrought up by the memory of that farewell that, after
a long pause, she was unable to resist the temptation of again putting her
thought into words.

At the station entrance, while she was kissing her brother for the last
time, she had an encounter, a great surprise. “He” had approached, also
clad as an artillery officer, but alone, having to entrust his valise to a
good-natured man from the crowd.

Julio shot her a questioning look. Who was “he”? He suspected, but feigned
ignorance, as though fearing to learn the truth.

“Laurier,” she replied laconically, “my former husband.”

The lover displayed a cruel irony. It was a cowardly thing to ridicule
this man who had responded to the call of duty. He recognized his
vileness, but a malign and irresistible instinct made him keep on with his
sneers in order to discredit the man before Marguerite. Laurier a soldier!—He
must cut a pretty figure dressed in uniform!

“Laurier, the warrior!” he continued in a voice so sarcastic and strange
that it seemed to be coming from somebody else. . . . “Poor creature!”

She hesitated in her response, not wishing to exasperate Desnoyers any
further. But the truth was uppermost in her mind, and she said simply:

“No . . . no, he didn’t look so bad. Quite the contrary. Perhaps it was
the uniform, perhaps it was his sadness at going away alone, completely
alone, without a single hand to clasp his. I didn’t recognize him at
first. Seeing my brother, he started toward us; but then when he saw me,
he went his own way . . . Poor man! I feel sorry for him!”

Her feminine instinct must have told her that she was talking too much,
and she cut her chatter suddenly short. The same instinct warned her that
Julio’s countenance was growing more and more saturnine, and his mouth
taking a very bitter curve. She wanted to console him and added:

“What luck that you are a foreigner and will not have to go to the war!
How horrible it would be for me to lose you!” . . .

She said it sincerely. . . . A few moments before she had been envying
men, admiring the gallantry with which they were exposing their lives, and
now she was trembling before the idea that her lover might have been one
of these.

This did not please his amorous egoism—to be placed apart from the
rest as a delicate and fragile being only fit for feminine adoration. He
preferred to inspire the envy that she had felt on beholding her brother
decked out in his warlike accoutrement. It seemed to him that something
was coming between him and Marguerite that would never disappear, that
would go on expanding, repelling them in contrary directions . . . far . .
. very far, even to the point of not recognizing each other when their
glances met.

He continued to be conscious of this impalpable obstacle in their
following interviews. Marguerite was extremely affectionate in her speech,
and would look at him with moist and loving eyes. But her caressing hands
appeared more like those of a mother than a lover, and her tenderness was
accompanied with a certain disinterestedness and extraordinary modesty.
She seemed to prefer remaining obstinately in the studio, declining to go
into the other rooms.

“We are so comfortable here. . . . I would rather not. . . . It is not
worth while. I should feel remorse afterwards. . . . Why think of such
things in these anxious times!”

The world around her seemed saturated with love, but it was a new love—a
love for the man who is suffering, desire for abnegation, for sacrifice.
This love called forth visions of white caps, of tremulous hands healing
shell-riddled and bleeding flesh.

Every advance on Julio’s part but aroused in Marguerite a vehement and
modest protest as though they were meeting for the first time.

“It is impossible,” she protested. “I keep thinking of my brother, and of
so many that I know that may be dying at this very minute.”

News of battles were beginning to arrive, and blood was beginning to flow
in great quantities.

“No, no, I cannot,” she kept repeating.

And when Julio finally triumphed, he found that her thoughts were still
following independently the same line of mental stress.

One afternoon, Marguerite announced that henceforth she would see him less
frequently. She was attending classes now, and had only two free days.

Desnoyers listened, dumbfounded. Classes? . . . What were her studies? . .
.

She seemed a little irritated at his mocking expression. . . . Yes, she
was studying; for the past week she had been attending classes. Now the
lessons were going to be more regular; the course of instruction had been
fully organized, and there were many more instructors.

“I wish to be a trained nurse. I am distressed over my uselessness. . . .
Of what good have I ever been till now?” . . .

She was silent for a few moments as though reviewing her past.

“At times I almost think,” she mused, “that war, with all its horrors,
still has some good in it. It helps to make us useful to our fellowmen. We
look at life more seriously; trouble makes us realize that we have come
into the world for some purpose. . . . I believe that we must not love
life only for the pleasures that it brings us. We ought to find
satisfaction in sacrifice, in dedicating ourselves to others, and this
satisfaction—I don’t know just why, perhaps because it is new—appears
to me superior to all other things.”

Julio looked at her in surprise, trying to imagine what was going on in
that idolized and frivolous head. What ideas were forming back of that
thoughtful forehead which until then had merely reflected the slightest
shadow of thoughts as swift and flitting as birds? . . .

But the former Marguerite was still alive. He saw her constantly
reappearing in a funny way among the sombre preoccupations with which war
was overshadowing all lives.

“We have to study very hard in order to earn our diplomas as nurses. Have
you noticed our uniform? . . . It is most distinctive, and the white is so
becoming both to blondes and brunettes. Then the cap which allows little
curls over the ears—the fashionable coiffure—and the blue cape
over the white suit, make a splendid contrast. With this outfit, a woman
well shod, and with few jewels, may present a truly chic appearance. It is
a mixture of nun and great lady which is vastly becoming.”

She was going to study with a regular fury in order to become really
useful . . . and sooner to wear the admired uniform.

Poor Desnoyers! . . . The longing to see her, and the lack of occupation
in these interminable afternoons which hitherto had been employed so
delightfully, compelled him to haunt the neighborhood of the unoccupied
palace where the government had just established the training school for
nurses. Stationing himself at the corner, watching the fluttering skirts
and quick steps of the feminine feet on the sidewalk, he imagined that the
course of time must have turned backward, and that he was still but
eighteen—the same as when he used to hang around the establishments
of some celebrated modiste. The groups of women that at certain hours came
out of the palace suggested these former days. They were dressed extremely
quietly, the aspect of many of them as humble as that of the seamstresses.
But they were ladies of the well-to-do class, some even coming in
automobiles driven by chauffeurs in military uniform, because they were
ministerial vehicles.

These long waits often brought him unexpected encounters with the elegant
students who were going and coming.

“Desnoyers!” some feminine voices would exclaim behind him. “Isn’t it
Desnoyers?”

And he would find himself obliged to relieve their doubts, saluting the
ladies who were looking at him as though he were a ghost. They were
friends of a remote epoch, of six months ago—ladies who had admired
and pursued him, trusting sweetly to his masterly wisdom to guide them
through the seven circles of the science of the tango. They were now
scrutinizing him as if between their last encounter and the present moment
had occurred a great cataclysm, transforming all the laws of existence—as
if he were the sole survivor of a vanished race.

Eventually they all asked the same questions—“Are you not going to
the war? . . . How is it that you are not wearing a uniform?”

He would attempt to explain, but at his first words, they would interrupt
him:

“That’s so. . . . You are a foreigner.”

They would say it with a certain envy, doubtless thinking of their loved
ones now suffering the privations and dangers of war. . . . But the fact
that he was a foreigner would instantly create a vague atmosphere of
spiritual aloofness, an alienation that Julio had not known in the good
old days when people sought each other without considering nationality,
without feeling that disavowal of danger which isolates and concentrates
human groups.

The ladies generally bade him adieu with malicious suspicion. What was he
doing hanging around there? In search of his usual lucky adventure? . . .
And their smiles were rather grave, the smiles of older folk who know the
true significance of life and commiserate the deluded ones still seeking
diversion in frivolities.

This attitude was as annoying to Julio as though it were a manifestation
of pity. They were supposing him still exercising the only function of
which he was capable; he wasn’t good for anything else. On the other hand,
these empty heads, still keeping something of their old appearance, now
appeared animated by the grand sentiment of maternity—an abstract
maternity which seemed to be extending to all the men of the nation—a
desire for self-sacrifice, of knowing first-hand the privations of the
lowly, and aiding all the ills that flesh is heir to.

This same yearning was inspiring Marguerite when she came away from her
lessons. She was advancing from one overpowering dread to another,
accepting the first rudiments of surgery as the greatest of scientific
marvels. At the same time, she was astonished at the avidity with which
she was assimilating these hitherto unsuspected mysteries. Sometimes with
a funny assumption of assurance, she would even believe she had mistaken
her vocation.

“Who knows but what I was born to be a famous doctor?” she would exclaim.

Her great fear was that she might lose her self-control when the time came
to put her newly acquired knowledge into practice. To see herself before
the foul odors of decomposing flesh, to contemplate the flow of blood—a
horrible thing for her who had always felt an invincible repugnance toward
all the unpleasant conditions of ordinary life! But these hesitations were
short, and she was suddenly animated by a dashing energy. These were times
of sacrifice. Were not the men snatched every day from the comforts of
sensuous existence to endure the rude life of a soldier? . . . She would
be, a soldier in petticoats, facing pain, battling with it, plunging her
hands into putrefaction, flashing like a ray of sunlight into the places
where soldiers were expecting the approach of death.

She proudly narrated to Desnoyers all the progress that she was making in
the training school, the complicated bandages that she was learning to
adjust, sometimes over a mannikin, at others over the flesh of an
employee, trying to play the part of a sorely wounded patient. She, so
dainty, so incapable in her own home of the slightest physical effort, was
learning the most skilful ways of lifting a human body from the ground and
carrying it on her back. Who knew but that she might render this very
service some day on the battlefield! She was ready for the greatest risks,
with the ignorant audacity of women impelled by flashes of heroism. All
her admiration was for the English army nurses, slender women of nervous
vigor whose photographs were appearing in the papers, wearing pantaloons,
riding boots and white helmets.

Julio listened to her with astonishment. Was this woman really Marguerite?
. . . War was obliterating all her winning vanities. She was no longer
fluttering about in bird-like fashion. Her feet were treading the earth
with resolute firmness, calm and secure in the new strength which was
developing within. When one of his caresses would remind her that she was
a woman, she would always say the same thing,

“What luck that you are a foreigner! . . . What happiness to know that you
do not have to go to war!”

In her anxiety for sacrifice, she wanted to go to the battlefields, and
yet at the same time, she was rejoicing to see her lover exempt from
military duty. This preposterous lack of logic was not gratefully received
by Julio but irritated him as an unconscious offense.

“One might suppose that she was protecting me!” he thought. “She is the
man and rejoices that I, the weak comrade, should be protected from
danger. . . . What a grotesque situation!” . . .

Fortunately, at times when Marguerite presented herself at the studio, she
was again her old self, making him temporarily forget his annoyance. She
would arrive with the same joy in a vacation that the college student or
the employee feels on a holiday. Responsibility was teaching her to know
the value of time.

“No classes to-day!” she would call out on entering; and tossing her hat
on a divan, she would begin a dance-step, retreating with infantile
coquetry from the arms of her lover.

But in a few minutes she would recover her customary gravity, the serious
look that had become habitual with her since the outbreak of hostilities.
She spoke often of her mother, always sad, but striving to hide her grief
and keeping herself up in the hope of a letter from her son; she spoke,
too, of the war, commenting on the latest events with the rhetorical
optimism of the official dispatches. She could describe the first flag
taken from the enemy as minutely as though it were a garment of
unparalleled elegance. From a window, she had seen the Minister of War.
She was very much affected when repeating the story of some fugitive
Belgians recently arrived at the hospital. They were the only patients
that she had been able to assist until now. Paris was not receiving the
soldiers wounded in battle; by order of the Government, they were being
sent from the front to the hospitals in the South.

She no longer evinced toward Julio the resistance of the first few days.
Her training as a nurse was giving her a certain passivity. She seemed to
be ignoring material attractions, stripping them of the spiritual
importance which she had hitherto attributed to them. She wanted to make
Julio happy, although her mind was concentrated on other matters.

One afternoon, she felt the necessity of communicating certain news which
had been filling her mind since the day before. Springing up from the
couch, she hunted for her handbag which contained a letter. She wanted to
read it again to tell its contents to somebody with that irresistible
impulse which forestalls confession.

It was a letter which her brother had sent her from the Vosges. In it he
spoke of Laurier more than of himself. They belonged to different
batteries, but were in the same division and had taken part in the same
combats. The officer was filled with admiration for his former
brother-in-law. Who could have guessed that a future hero was hidden
within that silent and tranquil engineer! . . . But he was a genuine hero,
just the same! All the officials had agreed with Marguerite’s brother on
seeing how calmly he fulfilled his duty, facing death with the same
coolness as though he were in his factory near Paris.

He had asked for the dangerous post of lookout, slipping as near as
possible to the enemy’s lines in order to verify the exactitude of the
artillery discharge, rectifying it by telephone. A German shell had
demolished the house on the roof of which he was concealed, and Laurier,
on crawling out unhurt from the ruins, had readjusted his telephone and
gone tranquilly on, continuing the same work in the shelter of a nearby
grove. His battery, picked out by the enemy’s aeroplanes, had received the
concentrated fire of the artillery opposite. In a few minutes all the
force were rolling on the ground—the captain and many soldiers dead,
officers wounded and almost all the gunners. There only remained as chief,
Laurier, the Impassive (as his comrades nicknamed him), and aided by the
few artillerymen still on their feet, he continued firing under a rain of
iron and fire, so as to cover the retreat of a battalion.

“He has been mentioned twice in dispatches,” Marguerite continued reading.
“I do not believe that it will be long before they give him the cross. He
is valiant in every way. Who would have supposed all this a few weeks
ago?” . . .

She did not share the general astonishment. Living with Laurier had many
times shown her the intrepidity of his character, the fearlessness
concealed under that placid exterior. On that account, her instincts had
warned her against rousing her husband’s wrath in the first days of her
infidelity. She still remembered the way he looked the night he surprised
her leaving Julio’s home. His was the passion that kills, and,
nevertheless, he had not attempted the least violence with her. . . . The
memory of his consideration was awakening in Marguerite a sentiment of
gratitude. Perhaps he had loved her as no other man had.

Her eyes, with an irresistible desire for comparison, sought Julio’s,
admiring his youthful grace and distinction. The image of Laurier, heavy
and ordinary, came into her mind as a consolation. Certainly the officer
whom she had seen at the station when saying good-bye to her brother, did
not seem to her like her old husband. But Marguerite wished to forget the
pallid lieutenant with the sad countenance who had passed before her eyes,
preferring to remember him only as the manufacturer preoccupied with
profits and incapable of comprehending what she was accustomed to call
“the delicate refinements of a chic woman.” Decidedly Julio was the more
fascinating. She did not repent of her past. She did not wish to repent of
it.

And her loving selfishness made her repeat once more the same old
exclamation—“How fortunate that you are a foreigner! . . . What a
relief to know that you are safe from the dangers of war!”

Julio felt the usual exasperation at hearing this. He came very near to
closing his beloved’s mouth with his hand. Was she trying to make fun of
him? . . . It was fairly insulting to place him apart from other men.

Meanwhile, with blind irrelevance, she persisted in talking about Laurier,
commenting upon his achievements.

“I do not love him, I never have loved him. Do not look so cross! How
could the poor man ever be compared with you? You must admit, though, that
his new existence is rather interesting. I rejoice in his brave deeds as
though an old friend had done them, a family visitor whom I had not seen
for a long time. . . . The poor man deserved a better fate. He ought to
have married some other woman, some companion more on a level with his
ideals. . . . I tell you that I really pity him!”

And this pity was so intense that her eyes filled with tears, awakening
the tortures of jealousy in her lover. After these interviews, Desnoyers
was more ill-tempered and despondent than ever.

“I am beginning to realize that we are in a false position,” he said one
morning to Argensola. “Life is going to become increasingly painful. It is
difficult to remain tranquil, continuing the same old existence in the
midst of a people at war.”

His companion had about come to the same conclusion. He, too, was
beginning to feel that the life of a young foreigner in Paris was
insufferable, now that it was so upset by war.

“One has to keep showing passports all the time in order that the police
may be sure that they have not discovered a deserter. In the street car,
the other afternoon, I had to explain that I was a Spaniard to some girls
who were wondering why I was not at the front. . . . One of them, as soon
as she learned my nationality, asked me with great simplicity why I did
not offer myself as a volunteer. . . . Now they have invented a word for
the stay-at-homes, calling them Les Embusques, the hidden ones. . . . I am
sick and tired of the ironical looks shot at me wherever I go; it makes me
wild to be taken for an Embusque.”

A flash of heroism was galvanizing the impressionable Bohemian. Now that
everybody was going to the war, he was wishing to do the same thing. He
was not afraid of death; the only thing that was disturbing him was the
military service, the uniform, the mechanical obedience to bugle-call, the
blind subservience to the chiefs. Fighting was not offering any
difficulties for him but his nature capriciously resented everything in
the form of discipline. The foreign groups in Paris were trying to
organize each its own legion of volunteers and he, too, was planning his—a
battalion of Spaniards and South Americans, reserving naturally the
presidency of the organizing committee for himself, and later the command
of the body.

He had inserted notices in the papers, making the studio in the rue de la
Pompe the recruiting office. In ten days, two volunteers had presented
themselves; a clerk, shivering in midsummer, who stipulated that he should
be an officer because he was wearing a suitable jacket, and a Spanish
tavern-keeper who at the very outset had wished to rob Argensola of his
command on the futile pretext that he was a soldier in his youth while the
Bohemian was only an artist. Twenty Spanish battalions were attempted with
the same result in different parts of Paris. Each enthusiast wished to be
commander of the others, with the individual haughtiness and aversion to
discipline so characteristic of the race. Finally the future
generalissimos, decided to enlist as simple volunteers . . . but in a
French regiment.

“I am waiting to see what the Garibaldis do,” said Argensola modestly.
“Perhaps I may go with them.”

This glorious name made military service conceivable to him. But then he
vacillated; he would certainly have to obey somebody in this body of
volunteers, and he did not believe in an obedience that was not preceded
by long discussions. . . . What next!

“Life has changed in a fortnight,” he continued. “It seems as if we were
living in another planet; our former achievements are not appreciated.
Others, most obscure and poor, those who formerly had the least
consideration, are now promoted to the first ranks. The refined man of
complex spirituality has disappeared for who knows how many years! . . .
Now the simple-minded man climbs triumphantly to the top, because, though
his ideas are limited, they are sure and he knows how to obey. We are no
longer the style.”

Desnoyers assented. It was so; they were no longer fashionable. None knew
that better than he, for he who was once the sensation of the day, was now
passing as a stranger among the very people who a few months before had
raved over him.

“Your reign is over,” laughed Argensola. “The fact that you are a handsome
fellow doesn’t help you one bit nowadays. In a uniform and with a cross on
my breast, I could soon get the best of you in a rival love affair. In
times of peace, the officers only set the girls of the provinces to
dreaming; but now that we are at war, there has awakened in every woman
the ancestral enthusiasm that her remote grandmothers used to feel for the
strong and aggressive beast. . . . The high-born dames who a few months
ago were complicating their desires with psychological subtleties, are now
admiring the military man with the same simplicity that the maid has for
the common soldier. Before a uniform, they feel the humble and servile
enthusiasm of the female of the lower animals before the crests, foretops
and gay plumes of the fighting males. Look out, master! . . . We shall
have to follow the new course of events or resign ourselves to everlasting
obscurity. The tango is dead.”

And Desnoyers agreed that truly they were two beings on the other side of
the river of life which at one bound had changed its course. There was no
longer any place in the new existence for that poor painter of souls, nor
for that hero of a frivolous life who, from five to seven every afternoon,
had attained the triumphs most envied by mankind.

CHAPTER III

THE RETREAT

War had extended one of its antennae even to the avenue Victor Hugo. It
was a silent war in which the enemy, bland, shapeless and gelatinous,
seemed constantly to be escaping from the hands only to renew hostilities
a little later on.

“I have Germany in my own house,” growled Marcelo Desnoyers.

“Germany” was Dona Elena, the wife of von Hartrott. Why had not her son—that
professor of inexhaustible sufficiency whom he now believed to have been a
spy—taken her home with him? For what sentimental caprice had she
wished to stay with her sister, losing the opportunity of returning to
Berlin before the frontiers were closed?

The presence of this woman in his home was the cause of many compunctions
and alarms. Fortunately, the chauffeur and all the men-servants were in
the army. The two chinas received an order in a threatening tone. They
must be very careful when talking to the French maids—not the
slightest allusion to the nationality of Dona Elena’s husband nor to the
residence of her family. Dona Elena was an Argentinian. But in spite of
the silence of the maids, Don Marcelo was always in fear of some outburst
of exalted patriotism, and that his wife’s sister might suddenly find
herself confined in a concentration camp under suspicion of having
dealings with the enemy.

Frau von Hartrott made his uneasiness worse. Instead of keeping a discreet
silence, she was constantly introducing discord into the home with her
opinions.

During the first days of the war, she kept herself locked in her room,
joining the family only when summoned to the dining room. With tightly
puckered mouth and an absent-minded air, she would then seat herself at
the table, pretending not to hear Don Marcelo’s verbal outpourings of
enthusiasm. He enjoyed describing the departure of the troops, the moving
scenes in the streets and at the stations, commenting on events with an
optimism sure of the first news of the war. Two things were beyond all
discussion. The bayonet was the secret of the French, and the Germans were
shuddering with terror before its fatal, glistening point. . . . The ‘75
cannon had proved itself a unique jewel, its shots being absolutely sure.
He was really feeling sorry for the enemy’s artillery since its
projectiles so seldom exploded even when well aimed. . . . Furthermore,
the French troops had entered victoriously into Alsace; many little towns
were already theirs.

“Now it is as it was in the ‘70’s,” he would exult, brandishing his fork
and waving his napkin. “We are going to kick them back to the other side
of the Rhine—kick them! . . . That’s the word.”

Chichi always agreed gleefully while Dona Elena was raising her eyes to
heaven, as though silently calling upon somebody hidden in the ceiling to
bear witness to such errors and blasphemies.

The kind Dona Luisa always sought her out afterwards in the retirement of
her room, believing it necessary to give sisterly counsel to one living so
far from home. The Romantica did not maintain her austere silence before
the sister who had always venerated her superior instruction; so now the
poor lady was overwhelmed with accounts of the stupendous forces of
Germany, enunciated with all the authority of a wife of a great Teutonic
patriot, and a mother of an almost celebrated professor. According to her
graphic picture, millions of men were now surging forth in enormous
streams, thousands of cannons were filing by, and tremendous mortars like
monstrous turrets. And towering above all this vast machinery of
destruction was a man who alone was worth an army, a being who knew
everything and could do everything, handsome, intelligent, and infallible
as a god—the Emperor.

“The French just don’t know what’s ahead of them,” declared Dona Elena.
“We are going to annihilate them. It is merely a matter of two weeks.
Before August is ended, the Emperor will have entered Paris.”

Senora Desnoyers was so greatly impressed by these dire prophecies that
she could not hide them from her family. Chichi waxed indignant at her
mother’s credulity and her aunt’s Germanism. Martial fervor was flaming up
in the former Peoncito. Ay, if the women could only go to war! . . . She
enjoyed picturing herself on horseback in command of a regiment of
dragoons, charging the enemy with other Amazons as dashing and buxom as
she. Then her fondness for skating would predominate over her tastes for
the cavalry, and she would long to be an Alpine hunter, a diable bleu
among those who slid on long runners, with musket slung across the back
and alpenstock in hand, over the snowy slopes of the Vosges.

But the government did not appreciate the valorous women, and she could
obtain no other part in the war but to admire the uniform of her
true-love, Rene Lacour, converted into a soldier. The senator’s son
certainly looked beautiful. He was tall and fair, of a rather feminine
type recalling his dead mother. In his fiancee’s opinion, Rene was just “a
little sugar soldier.” At first she had been very proud to walk the
streets by the side of this warrior, believing that his uniform had
greatly augmented his personal charm, but little by little a revulsion of
feeling was clouding her joy. The senatorial prince was nothing but a
common soldier. His illustrious father, fearful that the war might cut off
forever the dynasty of the Lacours, indispensable to the welfare of the
State, had had his son mustered into the auxiliary service of the army. By
this arrangement, his heir need not leave Paris, ranking about as high as
those who were kneading the bread or mending the soldiers’ cloaks. Only by
going to the front could he claim—as a student of the Ecole Centrale—his
title of sub-lieutenant in the Artillery Reserves.

“What happiness for me that you have to stay in Paris! How delighted I am
that you are just a private! . . .”

And yet, at the same time, Chichi was thinking enviously of her friends
whose lovers and brothers were officers. They could parade the streets,
escorted by a gold-trimmed kepis that attracted the notice of the
passers-by and the respectful salute of the lower ranks.

Each time that Dona Luisa, terrified by the forecasts of her sister,
undertook to communicate her dismay to her daughter, the girl would rage
up and down, exclaiming:—

“What lies my aunt tells you! . . . Since her husband is a German, she
sees everything as he wishes it to be. Papa knows more; Rene’s father is
better informed about these things. We are going to give them a thorough
hiding! What fun it will be when they hit my uncle and all my snippy
cousins in Berlin! . . .”

“Hush,” groaned her mother. “Do not talk such nonsense. The war has turned
you as crazy as your father.”

The good lady was scandalized at hearing the outburst of savage desires
that the mere mention of the Kaiser always aroused in her daughter. In
times of peace, Chichi had rather admired this personage. “He’s not so
bad-looking,” she had commented, “but with a very ordinary smile.” Now all
her wrath was concentrated upon him. The thousands of women that were
weeping through his fault! The mothers without sons, the wives without
husbands, the poor children left in the burning towns! . . . Ah, the vile
wretch! . . . And she would brandish her knife of the old Peoncito days—a
dagger with silver handle and sheath richly chased, a gift that her
grandfather had exhumed from some forgotten souvenirs of his childhood in
an old valise. The very first German that she came across was doomed to
death. Dona Luisa was terrified to find her flourishing this weapon before
her dressing mirror. She was no longer yearning to be a cavalryman nor a
diable bleu. She would be entirely content if they would leave her, alone
in some closed space with the detested monster. In just five minutes she
would settle the universal conflict.

“Defend yourself, Boche,” she would shriek, standing at guard as in her
childhood she had seen the peons doing on the ranch.

And with a knife-thrust above and below, she would pierce his imperial
vitals. Immediately there resounded in her imagination, shouts of joy, the
gigantic sigh of millions of women freed at last from the bloody nightmare—thanks
to her playing the role of Judith or Charlotte Corday, or a blend of all
the heroic women who had killed for the common weal. Her savage fury made
her continue her imaginary slaughter, dagger in hand. Second stroke!—the
Crown Prince rolling to one side and his head to the other. A rain of
dagger thrusts!—all the invincible generals of whom her aunt had
been boasting fleeing with their insides in their hands—and bringing
up the rear, that fawning lackey who wished to receive the same things as
those of highest rank—the uncle from Berlin. . . . Ay, if she could
only get the chance to make these longings a reality!

“You are mad,” protested her mother. “Completely mad! How can a ladylike
girl talk in such a way?” . . .

Surprising her niece in the ecstasy of these delirious ravings, Dona Elena
would raise her eyes to heaven, abstaining thenceforth from communicating
her opinions, reserving them wholly for the mother.

Don Marcelo’s indignation took another bound when his wife repeated to him
the news from her sister. All a lie! . . . The war was progressing finely.
On the Eastern frontier the French troops had advanced through the
interior of Alsace and Lorraine.

“But—Belgium is invaded, isn’t it?” asked Dona Luisa. “And those
poor Belgians?”

Desnoyers retorted indignantly.

“That invasion of Belgium is treason. . . . And a treason never amounts to
anything among decent people.”

He said it in all good faith as though war were a duel in which the
traitor was henceforth ruled out and unable to continue his outrages.
Besides, the heroic resistance of Belgium was nourishing the most absurd
illusions in his heart. The Belgians were certainly supernatural men
destined to the most stupendous achievements. . . . And to think that
heretofore he had never taken this plucky little nation into account! . .
. For several days, he considered Liege a holy city before whose walls the
Teutonic power would be completely confounded. Upon the fall of Liege, his
unquenchable faith sought another handle. There were still remaining many
other Lieges in the interior. The Germans might force their way further
in; then we would see how many of them ever succeeded in getting out. The
entry into Brussels did not disquiet him. An unprotected city! . . . Its
surrender was a foregone conclusion. Now the Belgians would be better able
to defend Antwerp. Neither did the advance of the Germans toward the
French frontier alarm him at all. In vain his sister-in-law, with
malicious brevity, mentioned in the dining-room the progress of the
invasion, so confusedly outlined in the daily papers. The Germans were
already at the frontier.

“And what of that?” yelled Don Marcelo. “Soon they will meet someone to
talk to! Joffre is going to meet them. Our armies are in the East, in the
very place where they ought to be, on the true frontier, at the door of
their home. But they have to deal with a treacherous and cowardly opponent
that instead of marching face to face, leaps the walls of the corral like
sheep-stealers. . . . Their underhand tricks won’t do them any good,
though! The French are already in Belgium and adjusting the accounts of
the Germans. We shall smash them so effectually that never again will they
be able to disturb the peace of the world. And that accursed individual
with the rampant moustache we are going to put in a cage, and exhibit in
the place de la Concorde!”

Inspired by the paternal braggadocio, Chichi also launched forth
exultingly an imaginary series of avenging torments and insults as a
complement to this Imperial Exhibition.

These allusions to the Emperor aggravated Frau von Hartrott more than
anything else. In the first days of the war, her sister had surprised her
weeping before the newspaper caricatures and leaflets sold in the streets.

“Such an excellent man . . . so knightly . . . such a good father to his
family! He wasn’t to blame for anything. It was his enemies who forced him
to assume the offensive.”

Her veneration for exalted personages was making her take the attacks upon
this admired grandee as though they were directed against her own family.

One night in the dining room, she abandoned her tragic silence. Certain
sarcasms, shot by Desnoyers at her hero, brought the tears to her eyes,
and this sentimental indulgence turned her thoughts upon her sons who were
undoubtedly taking part in the invasion.

Her brother-in-law was longing for the extermination of all the enemy.
“May every barbarian be exterminated! . . . every one of the bandits in
pointed helmets who have just burned Louvain and other towns, shooting
defenceless peasants, old men, women and children!”

“You forget that I am a mother,” sobbed Frau von Hartrott. “You forget
that among those whose extermination you are imploring, are my sons.”

Her violent weeping made Desnoyers realize more than ever the abyss
yawning between him and this woman lodged in his own house. His
resentment, however, overleapt family considerations. . . . She might weep
for her sons all she wanted to; that was her right. But these sons were
aggressors and wantonly doing evil. It was the other mothers who were
inspiring his pity—those who were living tranquilly in their smiling
little Belgian towns when their sons were suddenly shot down, their
daughters violated and their houses burned to the ground.

As though this description of the horrors of war were a fresh insult to
her, Dona Elena wept harder than ever. What falsehoods! The Kaiser was an
excellent man. His soldiers were gentlemen, the German army was a model of
civilization and goodness. Her husband had belonged to this army, her sons
were marching in its ranks. And she knew her sons—well-bred and
incapable of wrong-doing. These Belgian calumnies she could no longer
listen to . . . and, with dramatic abandon, she flung herself into the
arms of her sister.

Senor Desnoyers raged against the fate that condemned him to live under
the same roof with this woman. What an unfortunate complication for the
family! . . . and the frontiers were closed, making it impossible to get
rid of her!

“Very well, then,” he thundered. “Let us talk no more about it. We shall
never reach an understanding, for we belong to two different worlds. It’s
a great pity that you can’t go back to your own people.”

After that, he refrained from mentioning the war in his sister-in-law’s
presence. Chichi was the only one keeping up her aggressive and noisy
enthusiasm. Upon reading in the papers the news of the shootings,
sackings, burning of cities, and the dolorous flight of those who had seen
their all reduced to ashes, she again felt the necessity of assuming the
role of lady-assassin. Ay, if she could only once get her hands on one of
those bandits! . . . What did the men amount to anyway if they couldn’t
exterminate the whole lot? . . .

Then she would look at Rene in his exquisitely fresh uniform,
sweet-mannered and smiling as though all war meant to him was a mere
change of attire, and she would exclaim enigmatically:

“What luck that you will never have to go to the front! . . . How fine
that you don’t run any risks!”

And her lover would accept these words as but another proof of her
affectionate interest.

One day Don Marcelo was able to appreciate the horrors of the war without
leaving Paris. Three thousand Belgian refugees were quartered
provisionally in the circus before being distributed among the provinces.
When Desnoyers entered this place, he saw in the vestibule the same
posters which had been flaunting their spectacular gayeties when he had
visited it a few months before with his family.

Now he noticed the odor from a sick and miserable multitude crowded
together—like the exhalation from a prison or poorhouse infirmary.
He saw a throng that seemed crazy or stupefied with grief. They did not
know exactly where they were; they had come thither, they didn’t know how.
The terrible spectacle of the invasion was still so persistent in their
minds that it left room for no other impression. They were still seeing
the helmeted men in their peaceful hamlets, their homes in flames, the
soldiery firing upon those who were fleeing, the mutilated women done to
death by incessant adulterous assault, the old men burned alive, the
children stabbed in their cradles by human beasts inflamed by alcohol and
license. . . . Some of the octogenarians were weeping as they told how the
soldiers of a civilized nation were cutting off the breasts from the women
in order to nail them to the doors, how they had passed around as a trophy
a new-born babe spiked on a bayonet, how they had shot aged men in the
very armchair in which they were huddled in their sorrowful weakness,
torturing them first with their jests and taunts.

They had fled blindly, pursued by fire and shot, as crazed with terror as
the people of the middle ages trying not to be ridden down by the hordes
of galloping Huns and Mongols. And this flight had been across the country
in its loveliest festal array, in the most productive of months, when the
earth was bristling with ears of grain, when the August sky was most
brilliant, and when the birds were greeting the opulent harvest with their
glad songs!

In that circus, filled with the wandering crowds, the immense crime was
living again. The children were crying with a sound like the bleating of
lambs; the men were looking wildly around with terrified eyes; the
frenzied women were howling like the insane. Families had become separated
in the terror of flight. A mother of five little ones now had but one. The
parents, as they realized the number missing, were thinking with anguish
of those who had disappeared. Would they ever find them again? . . . Or
were they already dead? . . .

Don Marcelo returned home, grinding his teeth and waving his cane in an
alarming manner. Ah, the bandits! . . . If only his sister-in-law could
change her sex! Why wasn’t she a man? . . . It would be better still if
she could suddenly assume the form of her husband, von Hartrott. What an
interesting interview the two brothers-in-law would have! . . .

The war was awakening religious sentiment in the men and increasing the
devotion of the women. The churches were filled. Dona Luisa was no longer
confining herself to those of her neighborhood. With the courage induced
by extraordinary events, she was traversing Paris afoot and going from the
Madeleine to Notre Dame, or to the Sacre Coeur on the heights of
Montmartre. Religious festivals were now thronged like popular assemblies.
The preachers were tribunes. Patriotic enthusiasm interrupted many sermon
with applause.

Each morning on opening the papers, before reading the war news, Senora
Desnoyers would hunt other notices. “Where was Father Amette going to be
to-day?” Then, under the arched vaultings of that temple, would she unite
her voice with the devout chorus imploring supernatural intervention.
“Lord, save France!” Patriotic religiosity was putting Sainte Genevieve at
the head of the favored ones, so from all these fiestas, Dona Luisa,
tremulous with faith, would return in expectation of a miracle similar to
that which the patron saint of Paris had worked before the invading hordes
of Attila.

Dona Elena was also visiting the churches, but those nearest the house.
Her brother-in-law saw her one afternoon entering Saint-Honoree d’Eylau.
The building was filled with the faithful, and on the altar was a sheaf of
flags—France and the allied nations. The imploring crowd was not
composed entirely of women. Desnoyers saw men of his age, pompous and
grave, moving their lips and fixing steadfast eyes on the altar on which
were reflected like lost stars, the flames of the candles. And again he
felt envy. They were fathers who were recalling their childhood prayers,
thinking of their sons in battle. Don Marcelo, who had always considered
religion with indifference, suddenly recognized the necessity of faith. He
wanted to pray like the others, with a vague, indefinite supplication,
including all beings who were struggling and dying for a land that he had
not tried to defend.

He was scandalized to see von Hartrott’s wife kneeling among these people
raising her eyes to the cross in a look of anguished entreaty. She was
begging heaven to protect her husband, the German who perhaps at this
moment was concentrating all his devilish faculties on the best
organization for crushing the weak; she was praying for her sons, officers
of the King of Prussia, who revolver in hand were entering villages and
farmlands, driving before them a horror-stricken crowd, leaving behind
them fire and death. And these orisons were going to mingle with those of
the mothers who were praying for the youth trying to check the onslaught
of the barbarians—with the petitions of these earnest men, rigid in
their tragic grief! . . .

He had to make a great effort not to protest aloud, and he left the
church. His sister-in-law had no right to kneel there among those people.

“They ought to put her out!” he growled indignantly. “She is compromising
God with her absurd entreaties.”

But in spite of his annoyance, he had to endure her living in his
household, and at the same time had taken great pains to prevent her
nationality being known outside.

It was a severe trial for Don Marcelo to be obliged to keep silent when at
table with his family. He had to avoid the hysterics of his sister-in-law
who promptly burst into sighs and sobs at the slightest allusion to her
hero; and he feared equally the complaints of his wife, always ready to
defend her sister, as though she were the victim. . . . That a man in his
own home should have to curb his tongue and speak tactfully! . . .

The only satisfaction permitted him was to announce the military moves.
The French had entered Belgium. “It appears that the Boches have had a
good set-back.” The slightest clash of cavalry, a simple encounter with
the advance troops, he would glorify as a decisive victory. “In Lorraine,
too, we are making great headway!” . . . But suddenly the fountain of his
bubbling optimism seemed to become choked up. To judge from the
periodicals, nothing extraordinary was occurring. They continued
publishing war-stories so as to keep enthusiasm at fever-heat, but nothing
definite. The Government, too, was issuing communications of vague and
rhetorical verbosity. Desnoyers became alarmed, his instinct warning him
of danger. “There is something wrong,” he thought. “There’s a spring
broken somewhere!”

This lack of encouraging news coincided exactly with the sudden rise in
Dona Elena’s spirits. With whom had that woman been talking? Whom did she
meet when she was on the street? . . . Without dropping her pose as a
martyr, with the same woebegone look and drooping mouth, she was talking,
and talking treacherously. The torment of Don Marcelo in being obliged to
listen to the enemy harbored within his gates! . . . The French had been
vanquished in Lorraine and in Belgium at the same time. A body of the army
had deserted the colors; many prisoners, many cannon were captured. “Lies!
German exaggerations!” howled Desnoyers. And Chichi with the derisive
ha-ha’s of an insolent girl, drowned out the triumphant communications of
the aunt from Berlin. “I don’t know, of course,” said the unwelcome lodger
with mock humility. “Perhaps it is not authentic. I have heard it said.”
Her host was furious. Where had she heard it said? Who was giving her such
news? . . .

And in order to ventilate his wrath, he broke forth into tirades against
the enemy’s espionage, against the carelessness of the police force in
permitting so many Germans to remain hidden in Paris. Then he suddenly
became quiet, thinking of his own behavior in this line. He, too, was
involuntarily contributing toward the maintenance and support of the foe.

The fall of the ministry and the constitution of a government of national
defense made it apparent that something very important must have taken
place. The alarms and tears of Dona Luisa increased his nervousness. The
good lady was no longer returning from the churches, cheered and
strengthened. Her confidential talks with her sister were filling her with
a terror that she tried in vain to communicate to her husband. “All is
lost. . . . Elena is the only one that knows the truth.”

Desnoyers went in search of Senator Lacour. He would know all the
ministers; no one could be better informed. “Yes, my friend,” said the
important man sadly. “Two great losses at Morhange and Charleroi, at the
East and the North. The enemy is going to invade French soil! . . . But
our army is intact, and will retreat in good order. Good fortune may still
be ours. A great calamity, but all is not lost.”

Preparations for the defense of Paris were being pushed forward . . .
rather late. The forts were supplying themselves with new cannon. Houses,
built in the danger zone in the piping times of peace, were now
disappearing under the blows of the official demolition. The trees on the
outer avenues were being felled in order to enlarge the horizon.
Barricades of sacks of earth and tree trunks were heaped at the doors of
the old walls. The curious were skirting the suburbs in order to gaze at
the recently dug trenches and the barbed wire fences. The Bois de Boulogne
was filled with herds of cattle. Near heaps of dry alfalfa steers and
sheep were grouped in the green meadows. Protection against famine was
uppermost in the minds of a people still remembering the suffering of
1870. Every night, the street lighting was less and less. The sky, on the
other hand, was streaked incessantly by the shafts from the searchlights.
Fear of aerial invasion was increasing the public uneasiness. Timid people
were speaking of Zeppelins, attributing to them irresistible powers, with
all the exaggeration that accompanies mysterious dangers.

In her panic, Dona Luisa greatly distressed her husband, who was passing
the days in continual alarm, yet trying to put heart into his trembling
and anxious wife. “They are going to come, Marcelo; my heart tells me so.
The girl! . . . the girl!” She was accepting blindly all the statements
made by her sister, the only thing that comforted her being the chivalry
and discipline of those troops to which her nephews belonged. The news of
the atrocities committed against the women of Belgium were received with
the same credulity as the enemy’s advances announced by Elena. “Our girl,
Marcelo. . . . Our girl!” And the girl, object of so much solicitude,
would laugh with the assurance of vigorous youth on hearing of her
mother’s anxiety. “Just let the shameless fellows come! I shall take great
pleasure in seeing them face to face!” And she clenched her right hand as
though it already clutched the avenging knife.

The father became tired of this situation. He still had one of his
monumental automobiles that an outside chauffeur could manage. Senator
Lacour obtained the necessary passports and Desnoyers gave his wife her
orders in a tone that admitted of no remonstrance. They must go to
Biarritz or to some of the summer resorts in the north of Spain. Almost
all the South American families had already gone in the same direction.
Dona Luisa tried to object. It was impossible for her to separate herself
from her husband. Never before, in their many years of married life, had
they once been separated. But a harsh negative from Don Marcelo cut her
pleadings short. He would remain. Then the poor senora ran to the rue de
la Pompe. Her son! . . . Julio scarcely listened to his mother. Ay! he,
too, would stay. So finally the imposing automobile lumbered toward the
South carrying Dona Luisa, her sister who hailed with delight this
withdrawal before the admired troops of the Emperor, and Chichi, pleased
that the war was necessitating an excursion to the fashionable beaches
frequented by her friends.

Don Marcelo was at last alone. The two coppery maids had followed by rail
the flight of their mistresses. At first the old man felt a little
bewildered by this solitude, which obliged him to eat uncomfortable meals
in a restaurant and pass the nights in enormous and deserted rooms still
bearing traces of their former occupants. The other apartments in the
building had also been vacated. All the tenants were foreigners, who had
discreetly decamped, or French families surprised by the war when
summering at their country seats.

Instinctively he turned his steps toward the rue de la Pompe gazing from
afar at the studio windows. What was his son doing? . . . Undoubtedly
continuing his gay and useless life. Such men only existed for their own
selfish folly.

Desnoyers felt satisfied with the stand he had taken. To follow the family
would be sheer cowardice. The memory of his youthful flight to South
America was sufficient martyrdom; he would finish his life with all the
compensating bravery that he could muster. “No, they will not come,” he
said repeatedly, with the optimism of enthusiasm. “I have a presentiment
that they will never reach Paris. And even if they DO come!” . . . The
absence of his family brought him a joyous valor and a sense of bold
youthfulness. Although his age might prevent his going to war in the open
air, he could still fire a gun, immovable in a trench, without fear of
death. Let them come! . . . He was longing for the struggle with the
anxiety of a punctilious business man wishing to cancel a former debt as
soon as possible.

In the streets of Paris he met many groups of fugitives. They were from
the North and East of France, and had escaped before the German advance.
Of all the tales told by this despondent crowd—not knowing where to
go and dependent upon the charity of the people—he was most
impressed with those dealing with the disregard of property. Shootings and
assassinations made him clench his fists, with threats of vengeance; but
the robberies authorized by the heads, the wholesale sackings by superior
order, followed by fire, appeared to him so unheard-of that he was silent
with stupefaction, his speech seeming to be temporarily paralyzed. And a
people with laws could wage war in this fashion, like a tribe of Indians
going to combat in order to rob! . . . His adoration of property rights
made him beside himself with wrath at these sacrileges.

He began to worry about his castle at Villeblanche. All that he owned in
Paris suddenly seemed to him of slight importance to what he had in his
historic mansion. His best paintings were there, adorning the gloomy
salons; there, too, the furnishings captured from the antiquarians after
an auctioneering battle, and the crystal cabinets, the tapestries, the
silver services.

He mentally reviewed all of these objects, not letting a single one escape
his inventory. Things that he had forgotten came surging up in his memory,
and the fear of losing them seemed to give them greater lustre, increasing
their size, and intensifying their value. All the riches of Villeblanche
were concentrated in one certain acquisition which Desnoyers admired most
of all; for, to his mind, it stood for all the glory of his immense
fortune—in fact, the most luxurious appointment that even a
millionaire could possess.

“My golden bath,” he thought. “I have there my tub of gold.”

This bath of priceless metal he had procured, after much financial
wrestling, from an auction, and he considered the purchase the culminating
achievement of his wealth. No one knew exactly its origin; perhaps it had
been the property of luxurious princes; perhaps it owed its existence to
the caprice of a demi-mondaine fond of display. He and his had woven a
legend around this golden cavity adorned with lions’ claws, dolphins and
busts of naiads. Undoubtedly it was once a king’s! Chichi gravely affirmed
that it had been Marie Antoinette’s, and the entire family thought that
the home on the avenue Victor Hugo was altogether too modest and plebeian
to enshrine such a jewel. They therefore agreed to put it in the castle,
where it was greatly venerated, although it was useless and solemn as a
museum piece. . . . And was he to permit the enemy in their advance toward
the Marne to carry off this priceless treasure, as well as the other
gorgeous things which he had accumulated with such patience Ah, no! His
soul of a collector would be capable of the greatest heroism before he
would let that go.

Each day was bringing a fresh sheaf of bad news. The papers were saying
little, and the Government was so veiling its communications that the mind
was left in great perplexity. Nevertheless, the truth was mysteriously
forcing its way, impelled by the pessimism of the alarmists, and the
manipulation of the enemy’s spies who were remaining hidden in Paris. The
fatal news was being passed along in whispers. “They have already crossed
the frontier. . . .” “They are already in Lille.” . . . They were
advancing at the rate of thirty-five miles a day. The name of von Kluck
was beginning to have a familiar ring. English and French were retreating
before the enveloping progression of the invaders. Some were expecting
another Sedan. Desnoyers was following the advance of the Germans, going
daily to the Gare du Nord. Every twenty-four hours was lessening the
radius of travel. Bulletins announcing that tickets would not be sold for
the Northern districts served to indicate how these places were falling,
one after the other, into the power of the invader. The shrinkage of
national territory was going on with such methodical regularity that, with
watch in hand, and allowing an advance of thirty-five miles daily, one
might gauge the hour when the lances of the first Uhlans would salute the
Eiffel tower. The trains were running full, great bunches of people
overflowing from their coaches.

In this time of greatest anxiety, Desnoyers again visited his friend,
Senator Lacour, in order to astound him with the most unheard-of
petitions. He wished to go immediately to his castle. While everybody else
was fleeing toward Paris he earnestly desired to go in the opposite
direction. The senator couldn’t believe his ears.

“You are beside yourself!” he exclaimed. “It is necessary to leave Paris,
but toward the South. I will tell you confidentially, and you must not
tell because it is a secret—we are leaving at any minute; we are all
going, the President, the Government, the Chambers. We are going to
establish ourselves at Bordeaux as in 1870. The enemy is surely
approaching; it is only a matter of days . . . of hours. We know little of
just what is happening, but all the news is bad. The army still holds
firm, is yet intact, but retreating . . . retreating, all the time
yielding ground. . . . Believe me, it will be better for you to leave
Paris. Gallieni will defend it, but the defense is going to be hard and
horrible. . . . Although Paris may surrender, France will not necessarily
surrender. The war will go on if necessary even to the frontiers of Spain
. . . but it is sad . . . very sad!”

And he offered to take his friend with him in that flight to Bordeaux of
which so few yet knew. Desnoyers shook his head. No; he wanted to go the
castle of Villeblanche. His furniture . . . his riches . . . his parks.

“But you will be taken prisoner!” protested the senator. “Perhaps they
will kill you!”

A shrug of indifference was the only response. He considered himself
energetic enough to struggle against the entire German army in the defense
of his property. The important thing was to get there, and then—just
let anybody dare to touch his things! . . . The senator looked with
astonishment at this civilian infuriated by the lust of possession. It
reminded him of some Arab merchants that he had once known, ordinarily
mild and pacific, who quarrelled and killed like wild beasts when Bedouin
thieves seized their wares. This was not the moment for discussion, and
each must map out his own course. So the influential senator finally
yielded to the desire of his friend. If such was his pleasure, let him
carry it through! So he arranged that his mad petitioner should depart
that very night on a military train that was going to meet the army.

That journey put Don Marcelo in touch with the extraordinary movement
which the war had developed on the railroads. His train took fourteen
hours to cover the distance normally made in two. It was made up of
freight cars filled with provisions and cartridges, with the doors stamped
and sealed. A third-class car was occupied by the train escort, a
detachment of provincial guards. He was installed in a second-class
compartment with the lieutenant in command of this guard and certain
officials on their way to join their regiments after having completed the
business of mobilization in the small towns in which they were stationed
before the war. The crowd, habituated to long detentions, was accustomed
to getting out and settling down before the motionless locomotive, or
scattering through the nearby fields.

In the stations of any importance all the tracks were occupied by rows of
cars. High-pressure engines were whistling, impatient to be off. Groups of
soldiers were hesitating before the different trains, making mistakes,
getting out of one coach to enter others. The employees, calm but
weary-looking, were going from side to side, giving explanations about
mountains of all sorts of freight and arranging them for transport. In the
convoy in which Desnoyers was placed the Territorials were sleeping,
accustomed to the monotony of acting as guard. Those in charge of the
horses had opened the sliding doors, seating themselves on the floor with
their legs hanging over the edge. The train went very slowly during the
night, across shadowy fields, stopping here and there before red lanterns
and announcing its presence by prolonged whistling.

In some stations appeared young girls clad in white with cockades and
pennants on their breasts. Day and night they were there, in relays, so
that no train should pass through without a visit. They offered, in
baskets and trays, their gifts to the soldiers—bread, chocolate,
fruit. Many, already surfeited, tried to resist, but had to yield
eventually before the pleading countenance of the maidens. Even Desnoyers
was laden down with these gifts of patriotic enthusiasm.

He passed a great part of the night talking with his travelling
companions. Only the officers had vague directions as to where they were
to meet their regiments, for the operations of war were daily changing the
situation. Faithful to duty, they were passing on, hoping to arrive in
time for the decisive combat. The Chief of the Guard had been over the
ground, and was the only one able to give any account of the retreat.
After each stop the train made less progress. Everybody appeared confused.
Why the retreat? . . . The army had undoubtedly suffered reverses, but it
was still united and, in his opinion, ought to seek an engagement where it
was. The retreat was leaving the advance of the enemy unopposed. To what
point were they going to retreat? . . . They who two weeks before were
discussing in their garrisons the place in Belgium where their adversaries
were going to receive their death blow and through what places their
victorious troops would invade Germany! . . .

Their admission of the change of tactics did not reveal the slightest
discouragement. An indefinite but firm hope was hovering triumphantly
above their vacillations. The Generalissimo was the only one who possessed
the secret of events. And Desnoyers approved with the blind enthusiasm
inspired by those in whom we have confidence. Joffre! . . . That serious
and calm leader would finally bring things out all right. Nobody ought to
doubt his ability; he was the kind of man who always says the decisive
word.

At daybreak Don Marcelo left the train. “Good luck to you!” And he clasped
the hands of the brave young fellows who were going to die, perhaps in a
very short time. Finding the road unexpectedly open, the train started
immediately and Desnoyers found himself alone in the station. In normal
times a branch road would have taken him on to Villeblanche, but the
service was now suspended for lack of a train crew. The employees had been
transferred to the lines crowded with the war transportation.

In vain he sought, with most generous offers, a horse, a simple cart drawn
by any kind of old beast, in order to continue his trip. The mobilization
had appropriated the best, and all other means of transportation had
disappeared with the flight of the terrified. He would have to walk the
eight miles. The old man did not hesitate. Forward March! And he began his
course along the dusty, straight, white highway running between an endless
succession of plains. Some groups of trees, some green hedges and the
roofs of various farms broke the monotony of the countryside. The fields
were covered with stubble from the recent harvest. The haycocks dotted the
ground with their yellowish cones, now beginning to darken and take on a
tone of oxidized gold. In the valleys the birds were flitting about,
shaking off the dew of dawn.

The first rays of the sun announced a very hot day. Around the hay stacks
Desnoyers saw knots of people who were getting up, shaking out their
clothes, and awaking those who were still sleeping. They were fugitives
camping near the station in the hope that some train would carry them
further on, they knew not where. Some had come from far-away districts;
they had heard the cannon, had seen war approaching, and for several days
had been going forward, directed by chance. Others, infected with the
contagion of panic, had fled, fearing to know the same horrors. . . .
Among them he saw mothers with their little ones in their arms, and old
men who could only walk with a cane in one hand and the other arm in that
of some member of the family, and a few old women, withered and motionless
as mummies, who were sleeping as they were trundled along in wheelbarrows.
When the sun awoke this miserable band they gathered themselves together
with heavy step, still stiffened by the night. Many were going toward the
station in the hope of a train which never came, thinking that, perhaps,
they might have better luck during the day that was just dawning. Some
were continuing their way down the track, hoping that fate might be more
propitious in some other place.

Don Marcelo walked all the morning long. The white, rectilinear ribbon of
roadway was spotted with approaching groups that on the horizon line
looked like a file of ants. He did not see a single person going in his
direction. All were fleeing toward the South, and on meeting this city
gentleman, well-shod, with walking stick and straw hat, going on alone
toward the country which they were abandoning in terror, they showed the
greatest astonishment. They concluded that he must be some functionary,
some celebrity from the Government.

At midday he was able to get a bit of bread, a little cheese and a bottle
of white wine from a tavern near the road. The proprietor was at the
front, his wife sick and moaning in her bed. The mother, a rather deaf old
woman surrounded by her grandchildren, was watching from the doorway the
procession of fugitives which had been filing by for the last three days.
“Monsieur, why do they flee?” she said to Desnoyers. “War only concerns
the soldiers. We countryfolk have done no wrong to anybody, and we ought
not to be afraid.”

Four hours later, on descending one of the hills that bounded the valley
of the Marne, he saw afar the roofs of Villeblanche clustered around the
church, and further on, beyond a little grove, the slatey points of the
round towers of his castle.

The streets of the village were deserted. Only on the outer edges of the
square did he see some old women sitting as in the placid evenings of
bygone summers. Half of the neighborhood had fled; the others were staying
by their firesides through sedentary routine, or deceiving themselves with
a blind optimism. If the Prussians should approach, what could they do to
them? . . . They would obey their orders without attempting any
resistance, and it is impossible to punish people who obey. . . . Anything
would be preferable to losing the homes built by their forefathers which
they had never left.

In the square he saw the mayor and the principal inhabitants grouped
together. Like the women, they all stared in astonishment at the owner of
the castle. He was the most unexpected of apparitions. While so many were
fleeing toward Paris, this Parisian had come to join them and share in
their fate. A smile of affection, a look of sympathy began to appear on
the rough, bark-like countenances of the suspicious rustics. For a long
time Desnoyers had been on bad terms with the entire village. He had
harshly insisted on his rights, showing no tolerance in matters touching
his property. He had spoken many times of bringing suit against the mayor
and sending half of the neighborhood to prison, so his enemies had
retaliated by treacherously invading his lands, poaching in his hunting
preserves, and causing him great trouble with counter-suits and involved
claims. His hatred of the community had even united him with the priest
because he was on terms of permanent hostility with the mayor. But his
relations with the Church turned out as fruitless as his struggles with
the State. The priest was a kindly old soul who bore a certain resemblance
to Renan, and seemed interested only in getting alms for his poor out of
Don Marcelo, even carrying his good-natured boldness so far as to try to
excuse the marauders on his property.

How remote these struggles of a few months ago now seemed to him! . . .
The millionaire was greatly surprised to see the priest, on leaving his
house to enter the church, greet the mayor as he passed, with a friendly
smile.

After long years of hostile silence they had met on the evening of August
first at the foot of the church tower. The bell was ringing the alarm,
announcing the mobilization to the men who were in the field—and the
two enemies had instinctively clasped hands. All French! This affectionate
unanimity also came to meet the detested owner of the castle. He had to
exchange greetings first on one side, then on the other, grasping many a
horny hand. Behind his back the people broke out into kindly excuses—“A
good man, with no fault except a little bad temper. . . .” And in a few
minutes Monsieur Desnoyers was basking in the delightful atmosphere of
popularity.

As the iron-willed old gentleman approached his castle he concluded that,
although the fatigue of the long walk was making his knees tremble, the
trip had been well worth while. Never had his park appeared to him so
extensive and so majestic as in that summer twilight, never so glistening
white the swans that were gliding double over the quiet waters, never so
imposing the great group of towers whose inverted images were repeated in
the glassy green of the moats. He felt eager to see at once the stables
with their herds of animals; then a brief glance showed him that the
stalls were comparatively empty. Mobilization had carried off his best
work horses; the driving and riding horses also had disappeared. Those in
charge of the grounds and the various stable boys were also in the army.
The Warden, a man upwards of fifty and consumptive, was the only one of
the personnel left at the castle. With his wife and daughter he was
keeping the mangers filled, and from time to time was milking the
neglected cows.

Within the noble edifice he again congratulated himself on the adamantine
will which had brought him thither. How could he ever give up such riches!
. . . He gloated over the paintings, the crystals, the draperies, all
bathed in gold by the splendor of the dying day, and he felt more than
proud to be their possessor. This pride awakened in him an absurd,
impossible courage, as though he were a gigantic being from another
planet, and all humanity merely an ant hill that he could grind under
foot. Just let the enemy come! He could hold his own against the whole
lot! . . . Then, when his common sense brought him out of his heroic
delirium, he tried to calm himself with an equally illogical optimism.
They would not come. He did not know why it was, but his heart told him
that they would not get that far.

He passed the following morning reconnoitering the artificial meadows that
he had made behind the park, lamenting their neglected condition due to
the departure of the men, trying himself to open the sluice gates so as to
give some water to the pasture lands which were beginning to dry up. The
grape vines were extending their branches the length of their supports,
and the full bunches, nearly ripe, were beginning to show their triangular
lusciousness among the leaves. Ay, who would gather this abundant fruit! .
. .

By afternoon he noted an extraordinary amount of movement in the village.
Georgette, the Warden’s daughter, brought the news that many enormous
automobiles and soldiers, French soldiers, were beginning to pass through
the main street. In a little while a procession began filing past on the
high road near the castle, leading to the bridge over the Marne. This was
composed of motor trucks, open and closed, that still had their old
commercial signs under their covering of dust and spots of mud. Many of
them displayed the names of business firms in Paris, others the names of
provincial establishments. With these industrial vehicles requisitioned by
mobilization were others from the public service which produced in
Desnoyers the same effect as a familiar face in a throng of strangers. On
their upper parts were the names of their old routes:—“Madeleine-Bastille,
Passy-Bourne,” etc. Probably he had travelled many times in these very
vehicles, now shabby and aged by twenty days of intense activity, with
dented planks and twisted metal, perforated like sieves, but rattling
crazily on.

Some of the conveyances displayed white discs with a red cross in the
center; others had certain letters and figures comprehensible only to
those initiates in the secrets of military administration. Within these
vehicles—the only new and strong motors—he saw soldiers, many
soldiers, but all wounded, with head and legs bandaged, ashy faces made
still more tragic by their growing beards, feverish eyes looking fixedly
ahead, mouths so sadly immobile that they seemed carven by agonizing
groans. Doctors and nurses were occupying various carriages in this convoy
escorted by several platoons of horsemen. And mingled with the slowly
moving horses and automobiles were marching groups of foot-soldiers, with
cloaks unbuttoned or hanging from their shoulders like capes—wounded
men who were able to walk and joke and sing, some with arms in splints
across their breasts, others with bandaged heads with clotted blood
showing through the thin white strips.

The millionaire longed to do something for these brave fellows, but he had
hardly begun to distribute some bottles of wine and loaves of bread before
a doctor interposed, upbraiding him as though he had committed a crime.
His gifts might result fatally. So he had to stand beside the road, sad
and helpless, looking after the sorrowful convoy. . . . By nightfall the
vehicles filled with the sick were no longer filing by.

He now saw hundreds of drays, some hermetically sealed with the prudence
that explosive material requires, others with bundles and boxes that were
sending out a stale odor of provisions. Then came great herds of cattle
raising thick, whirling clouds of dust in the narrow parts of the road,
prodded on by the sticks and yells of the shepherds in kepis.

His thoughts kept him wakeful all night. This, then, was the retreat of
which the people of Paris were talking, but in which many wished not to
believe—the retreat reaching even there and continuing its
indefinite retirement, since nobody knew what its end might be. . . . His
optimism aroused a ridiculous hope. Perhaps this was only the retreat of
the hospitals and stores which always follows an army. The troops, wishing
to be rid of impedimenta, were sending them forward by railway and
highway. That must be it. So all through the night, he interpreted the
incessant bustle as the passing of vehicles filled with the wounded, with
munitions and eatables, like those which had filed by in the afternoon.

Toward morning he fell asleep through sheer weariness, and when he awoke
late in the day his first glance was toward the road. He saw it filled
with men and horses dragging some rolling objects. But these men were
carrying guns and were formed in battalions and regiments. The animals
were pulling the pieces of artillery. It was an army. . . . It was the
retreat!

Desnoyers ran to the edge of the road to be more convinced of the truth.

Alas, they were regiments such as he had seen leaving the stations of
Paris. . . . But with what a very different aspect! The blue cloaks were
now ragged and yellowing garments, the trousers faded to the color of a
half-baked brick, the shoes great cakes of mud. The faces had a desperate
expression, with layers of dust and sweat in all their grooves and
openings, with beards of recent growth, sharp as spikes, with an air of
great weariness showing the longing to drop down somewhere forever,
killing or dying, but without going a step further. They were tramping . .
. tramping . . . tramping! Some marches had lasted thirty hours at a
stretch. The enemy was on their tracks, and the order was to go on and not
to fight, freeing themselves by their fleet-footedness from the involved
movements of the invader.

The chiefs suspected the discouraged exhaustion of their men. They might
exact of them complete sacrifice of life—but to order them to march
day and night, forever fleeing before the enemy when they did not consider
themselves vanquished, when they were animated by that ferocious wrath
which is the mother of heroism! . . . Their despairing expressions mutely
sought the nearest officers, the leaders, even the colonel. They simply
could go no further! Such a long, devastating march in such a few days,
and what for? . . . The superior officers, who knew no more than their
men, seemed to be replying with their eyes, as though they possessed a
secret—“Courage! One more effort! . . . This is going to come to an
end very soon.”

The vigorous beasts, having no imagination, were resisting less than the
men, but their aspect was deplorable. How could these be the same strong
horses with glossy coats that he had seen in the Paris processions at the
beginning of the previous month? A campaign of twenty days had aged and
exhausted them; their dull gaze seemed to be imploring pity. They were
weak and emaciated, the outline of their skeletons so plainly apparent
that it made their eyes look larger. Their harness, as they moved, showed
the skin raw and bleeding. Yet they were pushing on with a mighty effort,
concentrating their last powers, as though human demands were beyond their
obscure instincts. Some could go no further and suddenly collapsed from
sheer fatigue. Desnoyers noticed that the artillerymen rapidly unharnessed
them, pushing them out of the road so as to leave the way open for the
rest. There lay the skeleton-like frames with stiffened legs and glassy
eyes staring fixedly at the first flies already attracted by their
miserable carrion.

The cannons painted gray, the gun-carriages, the artillery equipment, all
that Don Marcelo had seen clean and shining with the enthusiastic friction
that man has given to arms from remote epochs—even more persistent
than that which woman gives to household utensils—were now dirty,
overlaid with the marks of endless use, with the wreckage of unavoidable
neglect. The wheels were deformed with mud, the metal darkened by the
smoke of explosion, the gray paint spotted with mossy dampness.

In the free spaces in this file, in the parentheses opened between battery
and regiment, were sandwiched crowds of civilians—miserable groups
driven on by the invasion, populations of entire towns that had
disintegrated, following the army in its retreat. The approach of a new
division would make them leave the road temporarily, continuing their
march in the adjoining fields. Then at the slightest opening in the troops
they would again slip along the white and even surface of the highway.
They were mothers who were pushing hand-carts heaped high with pyramids of
furniture and tiny babies, the sick who could hardly drag themselves
along, old men carried on the shoulders of their grandsons, old women with
little children clinging to their skirts—a pitiful, silent brood.

Nobody now opposed the liberality of the owner of the castle. His entire
vintage seemed to be overflowing on the highway. Casks from the last
grape-gathering were rolled out to the roadside, and the soldiers filled
the metal ladles hanging from their belts with the red stream. Then the
bottled wine began making its appearance by order of date, and was
instantly lost in the river of men continually flowing by. Desnoyers
observed with much satisfaction the effects of his munificence. The smiles
were reappearing on the despairing faces, the French jest was leaping from
row to row, and on resuming their march the groups began to sing.

Then he went to see the officers who in the village square were giving
their horses a brief rest before rejoining their columns. With perplexed
countenances and heavy eyes they were talking among themselves about this
retreat, so incomprehensible to them all. Days before in Guise they had
routed their pursuers, and yet now they were continually withdrawing in
obedience to a severe and endless order. “We do not understand it,” they
were saying. “We do not understand.” An ordered and methodical tide was
dragging back these men who wanted to fight, yet had to retreat. All were
suffering the same cruel doubt. “We do not understand.”

And doubt was making still more distressing this day-and-night march with
only the briefest rests—because the heads of the divisions were in
hourly fear of being cut off from the rest of the army. “One effort more,
boys! Courage! Soon we shall rest!” The columns in their retirement were
extending hundreds of miles. Desnoyers was seeing only one division.
Others and still others were doing exactly this same thing at that very
hour, their recessional extending across half of France. All, with the
same disheartened obedience, were falling back, the men exclaiming the
same as the officials, “We don’t understand. We don’t understand!”

Don Marcelo soon felt the same sadness and bewilderment as these soldiers.
He didn’t understand, either. He saw the obvious thing, what all were able
to see—the territory invaded without the Germans encountering any
stubborn resistance;—entire counties, cities, villages, hamlets
remaining in the power of the enemy, at the back of an army that was
constantly withdrawing. His enthusiasm suddenly collapsed like a pricked
balloon, and all his former pessimism returned. The troops were displaying
energy and discipline; but what did that amount to if they had to keep
retreating all the time, unable on account of strict orders to fight or
defend the land? “Just as it was in the ‘70’s,” he sighed. “Outwardly
there is more order, but the result is going to be the same.”

As though a negative reply to his faint-heartedness, he overheard the
voice of a soldier reassuring a farmer: “We are retreating, yes—only
that we may pounce upon the Boches with more strength. Grandpa Joffre is
going to put them in his pocket when and where he will.”

The mere sound of the Marshal’s name revived Don Marcelo’s hope. Perhaps
this soldier, who was keeping his faith intact in spite of the
interminable and demoralizing marches, was nearer the truth than the
reasoning and studious officers.

He passed the rest of the day making presents to the last detachments of
the column. His wine cellars were gradually emptying. By order of dates,
he continued distributing thousands of bottles stored in the subterranean
parts of the castle. By evening he was giving to those who appeared
weakest bottles covered with the dust of many years. As the lines filed by
the men seemed weaker and more exhausted. Stragglers were now passing,
painfully drawing their raw and bleeding feet from their shoes. Some had
already freed themselves from these torture cases and were marching
barefoot, with their heavy boots hanging from their shoulders, and
staining the highway with drops of blood. Although staggering with deadly
fatigue, they kept their arms and outfits, believing that the enemy was
near.

Desnoyers’ liberality stupefied many of them. They were accustomed to
crossing their native soil, having to struggle with the selfishness of the
producer. Nobody had been offering anything. Fear of danger had made the
country folk hide their eatables and refuse to lend the slightest aid to
their compatriots who were fighting for them.

The millionaire slept badly this second night in his pompous bed with
columns and plushes that had belonged to Henry IV—according to the
declarations of the salesmen. The troops no longer were marching past.
From time to time there straggled by a single battalion, a battery, a
group of horsemen—the last forces of the rear guard that had taken
their position on the outskirts of the village in order to cover the
retreat. The profound silence that followed the turmoil of transportation
awoke in his mind a sense of doubt and disquietude. What was he doing
there when the soldiers had gone? Was he not crazy to remain there? . . .
But immediately there came galloping into his mind the great riches which
the castle contained. If he could only take it all away! . . . That was
impossible now through want of means and time. Besides, his stubborn will
looked upon such flight as a shameful concession. “We must finish what we
have begun!” he said to himself. He had made the trip on purpose to guard
his own, and he must not flee at the approach of danger. . . .

The following morning, when he went down into the village, he saw hardly
any soldiers. Only a single detachment of dragoons was still in the
neighborhood; the horsemen were scouring the woods and pushing forward the
stragglers at the same time that they were opposing the advance of the
enemy. The troopers had obstructed the street with a barricade of carts
and furniture. Standing behind this crude barrier, they were watching the
white strip of roadway which ran between the two hills covered with trees.
Occasionally there sounded stray shots like the snapping of cords. “Ours,”
said the troopers. These were the last detachments of sharpshooters firing
at the advancing Uhlans. The cavalry of the rear guard had the task of
opposing a continual resistance to the enemy, repelling the squads of
Germans who were trying to work their way along to the retreating columns.

Desnoyers saw approaching along the highroad the last stragglers from the
infantry. They were not walking, they rather appeared to be dragging
themselves forward, with the firm intention of advancing, but were
betrayed by emaciated legs and bleeding feet. Some had sunk down for a
moment by the roadside, agonized with weariness, in order to breathe
without the weight of their knapsacks, and draw their swollen feet from
their leather prisons, and wipe off the sweat; but upon trying to renew
their march, they found it impossible to rise. Their bodies seemed made of
stone. Fatigue had brought them to a condition bordering on catalepsy so,
unable to move, they were seeing dimly the rest of the army passing on as
a fantastic file—battalions, more battalions, batteries, troops of
horses. Then the silence, the night, the sleep on the stones and dust,
shaken by most terrible nightmare. At daybreak they were awakened by
bodies of horsemen exploring the ground, rounding up the remnants of the
retreat. Ay, it was impossible to move! The dragoons, revolver in hand,
had to resort to threats in order to rouse them! Only the certainty that
the pursuer was near and might make them prisoners gave them a momentary
vigor. So they were forcing themselves up by superhuman effort,
staggering, dragging their legs, and supporting themselves on their guns
as though they were canes.

Many of these were young men who had aged in an hour and changed into
confirmed invalids. Poor fellows! They would not go very far! Their
intention was to follow on, to join the column, but on entering the
village they looked at the houses with supplicating eyes, desiring to
enter them, feeling such a craving for immediate relief that they forgot
even the nearness of the enemy.

Villeblanche was now more military than before the arrival of the troops.
The night before a great part of the inhabitants had fled, having become
infected with the same fear that was driving on the crowds following the
army. The mayor and the priest remained. Reconciled with the owner of the
castle through his unexpected presence in their midst, and admiring his
liberality, the municipal official approached to give him some news. The
engineers were mining the bridge over the Marne. They were only waiting
for the dragoons to cross before blowing it up. If he wished to go, there
was still time.

Again Desnoyers hesitated. Certainly it was foolhardy to remain there. But
a glance at the woods over whose branches rose the towers of his castle,
settled his doubts. No, no. . . . “We must finish what we have begun!”

The very last band of troopers now made their appearance, coming out of
the woods by different paths. They were riding their horses slowly, as
though they deplored this retreat. They kept looking behind, carbine in
hand, ready to halt and shoot. The others who had been occupying the
barricade were already on their mounts. The division reformed, the
commands of the officers were heard and a quick trot, accompanied by the
clanking of metal, told Don Marcelo that the last of the army had left.

He remained near the barricade in a solitude of intense silence, as though
the world were suddenly depopulated. Two dogs, abandoned by the flight of
their masters, leaped and sniffed around him, coaxing him for protection.
They were unable to get the desired scent in that land trodden down and
disfigured by the transit of thousands of men. A family cat was watching
the birds that were beginning to return to their haunts. With timid
flutterings they were picking at what the horses had left, and an
ownerless hen was disputing the banquet with the winged band, until then
hidden in the trees and roofs. The silence intensified the rustling of the
leaves, the hum of the insects, the summer respiration of the sunburnt
soil which appeared to have contracted timorously under the weight of the
men in arms.

Desnoyers was losing exact track of the passing of time. He was beginning
to believe that all which had gone before must have been a bad dream. The
calm surrounding him made what had been happening here seem most
improbable.

Suddenly he saw something moving at the far end of the road, at the very
highest point where the white ribbon of the highway touched the blue of
the horizon. There were two men on horseback, two little tin soldiers who
appeared to have escaped from a box of toys. He had brought with him a
pair of field glasses that had often surprised marauders on his property,
and by their aid he saw more clearly the two riders clad in greenish gray!
They were carrying lances and wearing helmets ending in a horizontal plate
. . . They! He could not doubt it: before his eyes were the first Uhlans!

For some time they remained motionless, as though exploring the horizon.
Then, from the obscure masses of vegetation that bordered the roadside,
others and still others came sallying forth in groups. The little tin
soldiers no longer were showing their silhouettes against the horizon’s
blue; the whiteness of the highway was now making their background,
ascending behind their heads. They came slowly down, like a band that
fears ambush, examining carefully everything around.

The advisability of prompt retirement made Don Marcelo bring his
investigations to a close. It would be most disastrous for him if they
surprised him here. But on lowering his glasses something extraordinary
passed across his field of vision. A short distance away, so that he could
almost touch them with his hand, he saw many men skulking along in the
shadow of the trees on both sides of the road. His surprise increased as
he became convinced that they were Frenchmen, wearing kepis. Where were
they coming from? . . . He examined more closely with his spy glass. They
were stragglers in a lamentable state of body and a picturesque variety of
uniforms—infantry, Zouaves, dragoons without their horses. And with
them were forest guards and officers from the villages that had received
too late the news of the retreat—altogether about fifty. A few were
fresh and vigorous, others were keeping themselves up by supernatural
effort. All were carrying arms.

They finally made the barricade, looking continually behind them, in order
to watch, in the shelter of the trees, the slow advance of the Uhlans. At
the head of this heterogeneous troop was an official of the police, old
and fat, with a revolver in his right hand, his moustache bristling with
excitement, and a murderous glitter in his heavy-lidded blue eyes. The
band was continuing its advance through the village, slipping over to the
other side of the barricade of carts without paying much attention to
their curious countryman, when suddenly sounded a loud detonation, making
the horizon vibrate and the houses tremble.

“What is that?” asked the officer, looking at Desnoyers for the first
time. He explained that it was the bridge which had just been blown up.
The leader received the news with an oath, but his confused followers,
brought together by chance, remained as indifferent as though they had
lost all contact with reality.

“Might as well die here as anywhere,” continued the official. Many of the
fugitives acknowledged this decision with prompt obedience, since it saved
them the torture of continuing their march. They were almost rejoicing at
the explosion which had cut off their progress. Instinctively they were
gathering in the places most sheltered by the barricade. Some entered the
abandoned houses whose doors the dragoons had forced in order to utilize
the upper floors. All seemed satisfied to be able to rest, even though
they might soon have to fight. The officer went from group to group giving
his orders. They must not fire till he gave the word.

Don Marcelo watched these preparations with the immovability of surprise.
So rapid and noiseless had been the apparition of the stragglers that he
imagined he must still be dreaming. There could be no danger in this
unreal situation; it was all a lie. And he remained in his place without
understanding the deputy who was ordering his departure with roughest
words. Obstinate civilian! . . .

The reverberation of the explosion had filled the highway with horsemen.
They were coming from all directions, forming themselves into the advance
group. The Uhlans were galloping around under the impression that the
village was abandoned.

“Fire!”

Desnoyers was enveloped in a rain of crackling noises, as though the
trunks of all the trees had split before his eyes.

The impetuous band halted suddenly. Some of their men were rolling on the
ground. Some were bending themselves double, trying to get across the road
without being seen. Others remained stretched out on their backs or face
downward with their arms in front. The riderless horses were racing wildly
across the fields with reins dragging, urged on by the loose stirrups.

And after this rude shock which had brought them surprise and death, the
band disappeared, instantly swallowed up by the trees.

CHAPTER IV

NEAR THE SACRED GROTTO

Argensola had found a new occupation even more exciting than marking out
on the map the manoeuvres of the armies.

“I am now devoting myself to the taube,” he announced. “It appears from
four to five with the precision a punctilious guest coming to take tea.”

Every afternoon at the appointed hour, a German aeroplane was flying over
Paris dropping bombs. This would-be intimidation was producing no terror,
the people accepting the visit as an interesting and extraordinary
spectacle. In vain the aviators were flinging in the city streets German
flags bearing ironic messages, giving accounts of the defeat of the
retreating army and the failures of the Russian offensive. Lies, all lies!
In vain they were dropping bombs, destroying garrets, killing or wounding
old men, women and babes. “Ah, the bandits!” The crowds would threaten
with their fists the malign mosquito, scarcely visible 6,000 feet above
them, and after this outburst, they would follow it with straining eyes
from street to street, or stand motionless in the square in order to study
its evolutions.

The most punctual of all the spectators was Argensola. At four o’clock he
was in the place de la Concorde with upturned face and wide-open eyes, in
most cordial good-fellowship with all the bystanders. It was as though
they were holding season tickets at the same theatre, becoming acquainted
through seeing each other so often. “Will it come? . . . Will it not come
to-day?” The women appeared to be the most vehement, some of them rushing
up, flushed and breathless, fearing that they might have arrived too late
for the show. . . . A great cry—“There it comes! . . . There it is!”
And thousands of hands were pointing to a vague spot on the horizon. With
field glasses and telescopes they were aiding their vision, the popular
venders offering every kind of optical instruments and for an hour the
thrilling spectacle of an aerial hunt was played out, noisy and useless.

The great insect was trying to reach the Eiffel Tower, and from its base
would come sharp reports, at the same time that the different platforms
spit out a fierce stream of shrapnel. As it zigzagged over the city, the
discharge of rifles would crackle from roof and street. Everyone that had
arms in his house was firing—the soldiers of the guard, and the
English and Belgians on their way through Paris. They knew that their
shots were perfectly useless, but they were firing for the fun of
retorting, hoping at the same time that one of their chance shots might
achieve a miracle; but the only miracle was that the shooters did not kill
each other with their precipitate and ineffectual fire. As it was, a few
passers-by did fall, wounded by balls from unknown sources.

Argensola would tear from street to street following the evolutions of the
inimical bird, trying to guess where its projectiles would fall, anxious
to be the first to reach the bombarded house, excited by the shots that
were answering from below. And to think that he had no gun like those
khaki-clad Englishmen or those Belgians in barrick cap, with tassel over
the front! . . . Finally the taube tired of manoeuvering, would disappear.
“Until to-morrow!” ejaculated the Spaniard. “Perhaps to-morrow’s show may
be even more interesting!”

He employed his free hours between his geographical observations and his
aerial contemplations in making the rounds of the stations, watching the
crowds of travellers making their escape from Paris. The sudden vision of
the truth—after the illusion which the Government had been creating
with its optimistic dispatches, the certainty that the Germans were
actually near when a week before they had imagined them completely routed,
the taubes flying over Paris, the mysterious threat of the Zeppelins—all
these dangerous signs were filling a part of the community with frenzied
desperation. The railroad stations, guarded by the soldiery, were only
admitting those who had secured tickets in advance. Some had been waiting
entire days for their turn to depart. The most impatient were starting to
walk, eager to get outside of the city as soon as possible. The roads were
black with the crowds all going in the same directions. Toward the South
they were fleeing by automobile, in carriages, in gardeners’ carts, on
foot.

Argensola surveyed this hegira with serenity. He would remain because he
had always admired those men who witnessed the Siege of Paris in 1870. Now
it was going to be his good fortune to observe an historical drama,
perhaps even more interesting. The wonders that he would be able to relate
in the future! . . . But the distraction and indifference of his present
audience were annoying him greatly. He would hasten back to the studio, in
feverish excitement, to communicate the latest gratifying news to
Desnoyers who would listen as though he did not hear him. The night that
he informed him that the Government, the Chambers, the Diplomatic Corps,
and even the actors of the Comedie Francaise were going that very hour on
special trains for Bordeaux, his companion merely replied with a shrug of
indifference.

Desnoyers was worrying about other things. That morning he had received a
note from Marguerite—only two lines scrawled in great haste. She was
leaving, starting immediately, accompanied by her mother. Adieu! . . . and
nothing more. The panic had caused many love-affairs to be forgotten, had
broken off long intimacies, but Marguerite’s temperament was above such
incoherencies from mere flight. Julio felt that her terseness was very
ominous. Why not mention the place to which she was going? . . .

In the afternoon, he took a bold step which she had always forbidden. He
went to her home and talked a long time with the concierge in order to get
some news. The good woman was delighted to work off on him the loquacity
so brusquely cut short by the flight of tenants and servants. The lady on
the first floor (Marguerite’s mother) had been the last to abandon the
house in spite of the fact that she was really sick over her son’s
departure. They had left the day before without saying where they were
going. The only thing that she knew was that they took the train in the
Gare d’Orsay. They were going toward the South like all the rest of the
rich.

And she supplemented her revelations with the vague news that the daughter
had seemed very much upset by the information that she had received from
the front. Someone in the family was wounded. Perhaps it was the brother,
but she really didn’t know. With so many surprises and strange things
happening, it was difficult to keep track of everything. Her husband, too,
was in the army and she had her own affairs to worry about.

“Where can she have gone?” Julio asked himself all day long. “Why does she
wish to keep me in ignorance of her whereabouts?”

When his comrade told him that night about the transfer of the seat of
government, with all the mystery of news not yet made public, Desnoyers
merely replied:

“They are doing the best thing. . . . I, too, will go tomorrow if I can.”

Why remain longer in Paris? His family was away. His father, according to
Argensola’s investigations, also had gone off without saying whither. Now
Marguerite’s mysterious flight was leaving him entirely alone, in a
solitude that was filling him with remorse.

That afternoon, when strolling through the boulevards, he had stumbled
across a friend considerably older than himself, an acquaintance in the
fencing club which he used to frequent. This was the first time they had
met since the beginning of the war, and they ran over the list of their
companions in the army. Desnoyers’ inquiries were answered by the older
man. So-and-so? . . . He had been wounded in Lorraine and was now in a
hospital in the South. Another friend? . . . Dead in the Vosges. Another?
. . . Disappeared at Charleroi. And thus had continued the heroic and
mournful roll-call. The others were still living, doing brave things. The
members of foreign birth, young Poles, English residents in Paris and
South Americans, had finally enlisted as volunteers. The club might well
be proud of its young men who had practised arms in times of peace, for
now they were all jeopardizing their existence at the front. Desnoyers
turned his face away as though he feared to meet in the eyes of his
friend, an ironical and questioning expression. Why had he not gone with
the others to defend the land in which he was living? . . .

“To-morrow I will go,” repeated Julio, depressed by this recollection.

But he went toward the South like all those who were fleeing from the war.
The following morning Argensola was charged to get him a railroad ticket
for Bordeaux. The value of money had greatly increased, but fifty francs,
opportunely bestowed, wrought the miracle and procured a bit of numbered
cardboard whose conquest represented many days of waiting.

“It is good only for to-day,” said the Spaniard, “you will have to take
the night train.”

Packing was not a very serious matter, as the trains were refusing to
admit anything more than hand-luggage. Argensola did not wish to accept
the liberality of Julio who tried to leave all his money with him. Heroes
need very little and the painter of souls was inspired with heroic
resolution, The brief harangue of Gallieni in taking charge of the defense
of Paris, he had adopted as his own. He intended to keep up his courage to
the last, just like the hardy general.

“Let them come,” he exclaimed with a tragic expression. “They will find me
at my post!” . . .

His post was the studio from which he could witness the happenings which
he proposed relating to coming generations. He would entrench himself
there with the eatables and wines. Besides he had the plan—just as
soon as his partner should disappear—of bringing to live there with
him certain lady-friends who were wandering around in search of a
problematical dinner, and feeling timid in the solitude of their own
quarters. Danger often gathers congenial folk together and adds a new
attractiveness to the pleasures of a community. The tender affections of
the prisoners of the Terror, when they were expecting momentarily to be
conducted to the guillotine, flashed through his mind. Let us drain Life’s
goblet at one draught since we have to die! . . . The studio of the rue de
la Pompe was about to witness the mad and desperate revels of a castaway
bark well-stocked with provisions.

Desnoyers left the Gare d’Orsay in a first-class compartment, mentally
praising the good order with which the authorities had arranged
everything, so that every traveller could have his own seat. At the
Austerlitz station, however, a human avalanche assaulted the train. The
doors were broken open, packages and children came in through the windows
like projectiles. The people pushed with the unreason of a crowd fleeing
before a fire. In the space reserved for eight persons, fourteen installed
themselves; the passageways were heaped with mountains of bags and valises
that served later travellers for seats. All class distinctions had
disappeared. The villagers invaded by preference the best coaches,
believing that they would there find more room. Those holding first-class
tickets hunted up the plainer coaches in the vain hope of travelling
without being crowded. On the cross roads were waiting from the day before
long trains made up of cattle cars. All the stables on wheels were filled
with people seated on the wooden floor or in chairs brought from their
homes. Every train load was an encampment eager to take up its march;
whenever it halted, layers of greasy papers, hulls and fruit skins
collected along its entire length.

The invaders, pushing their way in, put up with many annoyances and
pardoned one another in a brotherly way. “In war times, war measures,”
they would always say as a last excuse. And each one was pressing closer
to his neighbor in order to make a few more inches of room, and helping to
wedge his scanty baggage among the other bundles swaying most precariously
above. Little by little, Desnoyers was losing all his advantage as a first
comer. These poor people who had been waiting for the train from four in
the morning till eight at night, awakened his pity. The women, groaning
with weariness, were standing in the corridors, looking with ferocious
envy at those who had seats. The children were bleating like hungry kids.
Julio finally gave up his place, sharing with the needy and improvident
the bountiful supply of eatables with which Argensola had provided him.
The station restaurants had all been emptied of food.

During the train’s long wait, soldiers only were seen on the platform,
soldiers who were hastening at the call of the trumpet, to take their
places again in the strings of cars which were constantly steaming toward
Paris. At the signal stations, long war trains were waiting for the road
to be clear that they might continue their journey. The cuirassiers,
wearing a yellow vest over their steel breastplate, were seated with
hanging legs in the doorways of the stable cars, from whose interior came
repeated neighing. Upon the flat cars were rows of gun carriages. The
slender throats of the cannon of ‘75 were pointed upwards like telescopes.

Young Desnoyers passed the night in the aisle, seated on a valise, noting
the sodden sleep of those around him, worn out by weariness and
exhaustion. It was a cruel and endless night of jerks, shrieks and stops
punctuated by snores. At every station, the trumpets were sounding
precipitously as though the enemy were right upon them. The soldiers from
the South were hurrying to their posts, and at brief intervals another
detachment of men was dragged along the rails toward Paris. They all
appeared gay, and anxious to reach the scene of slaughter as soon as
possible. Many were regretting the delays, fearing that they might arrive
too late. Leaning out of the window, Julio heard the dialogues and shouts
on the platforms impregnated with the acrid odor of men and mules. All
were evincing an unquenchable confidence. “The Boches! very numerous, with
huge cannons, with many mitrailleuse . . . but we only have to charge with
our bayonets to make them run like rabbits!”

The attitude of those going to meet death was in sharp contrast to the
panic and doubt of those who were deserting Paris. An old and
much-decorated gentleman, type of a jubilee functionary, kept questioning
Desnoyers whenever the train started on again—“Do you believe that
they will get as far as Tours?” Before receiving his reply, he would fall
asleep. Brutish sleep was marching down the aisles with leaden feet. At
every junction, the old man would start up and suddenly ask, “Do you
believe that we will get as far as Bordeaux?” . . . And his great desire
not to halt until, with his family, he had reached an absolutely secure
refuge, made him accept as oracles all the vague responses.

At daybreak, they saw the Territorialists guarding the roads. They were
armed with old muskets, and were wearing the red kepis as their only
military distinction. They were following the opposite course of the
military trains.

In the station at Bordeaux, the civilian crowds struggling to get out or
to enter other cars, were mingling with the troops. The trumpets were
incessantly sounding their brazen notes, calling the soldiers together.
Many were men of darkest coloring, natives with wide gray breeches and red
caps above their black or bronzed faces.

Julio saw a train bearing wounded from the battles of Flanders and
Lorraine. Their worn and dirty uniforms were enlivened by the whiteness of
the bandages sustaining the wounded limbs or protecting the broken heads.
All were trying to smile, although with livid mouths and feverish eyes, at
their first glimpse of the land of the South as it emerged from the mist
bathed in the sunlight, and covered with the regal vestures of its
vineyards. The men from the North stretched out their hands for the fruit
that the women were offering them, tasting with delight the sweet grapes
of the country.

For four days the distracted lover lived in Bordeaux, stunned and
bewildered by the agitation of a provincial city suddenly converted into a
capital. The hotels were overcrowded, many notables contenting themselves
with servants’ quarters. There was not a vacant seat in the cafes; the
sidewalks could not accommodate the extraordinary assemblage. The
President was installed in the Prefecture; the State Departments were
established in the schools and museums; two theatres were fitted up for
the future reunions of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies. Julio was
lodged in a filthy, disreputable hotel at the end of a foul-smelling
alley. A little Cupid adorned the crystals of the door, and the
looking-glass in his room was scratched with names and unspeakable phrases—souvenirs
of the occupants of an hour . . . and yet many grand ladies, hunting in
vain for temporary residence, would have envied him his good fortune.

All his investigations proved fruitless. The friends whom he encountered
in the fugitive crowd were thinking only of their own affairs. They could
talk of nothing but incidents of the installation, repeating the news
gathered from the ministers with whom they were living on familiar terms,
or mentioning with a mysterious air, the great battle which was going on
stretching from the vicinity of Paris to Verdun. A pupil of his days of
glory, whose former elegance was now attired in the uniform of a nurse,
gave him some vague information. “The little Madame Laurier? . . . I
remember hearing that she was living somewhere near here. . . . Perhaps in
Biarritz.” Julio needed no more than this to continue his journey. To
Biarritz!

The first person that he encountered on his arrival was Chichi. She
declared that the town was impossible because of the families of rich
Spaniards who were summering there. “The Boches are in the majority, and I
pass a miserable existence quarrelling with them. . . . I shall finally
have to live alone.” Then he met his mother—embraces and tears.
Afterwards he saw his Aunt Elena in the hotel parlors, most enthusiastic
over the country and the summer colony.

She could talk at great length with many of them about the decadence of
France. They were all expecting to receive the news from one moment to
another, that the Kaiser had entered the Capital. Ponderous men who had
never done anything in all their lives, were criticizing the defects and
indolence of the Republic. Young men whose aristocracy aroused Dona
Elena’s enthusiasm, broke forth into apostrophes against the corruption of
Paris, corruption that they had studied thoroughly, from sunset to
sunrise, in the virtuous schools of Montmartre. They all adored Germany
where they had never been, or which they knew only through the reels of
the moving picture films. They criticized events as though they were
witnessing a bull fight. “The Germans have the snap! You can’t fool with
them! They are fine brutes!” And they appeared to admire this inhumanity
as the most admirable characteristic. “Why will they not say that in their
own home on the other side of the frontier?” Chichi would protest. “Why do
they come into their neighbor’s country to ridicule his troubles? . . .
Possibly they consider it a sign of their wonderful good-breeding!”

But Julio had not gone to Biarritz to live with his family. . . . The very
day of his arrival, he saw Marguerite’s mother in the distance. She was
alone. His inquiries developed the information that her daughter was
living in Pau. She was a trained nurse taking care of a wounded member of
the family. “Her brother . . . undoubtedly it is her brother,” thought
Julio. And he again continued his trip, this time going to Pau.

His visits to the hospitals there were also unavailing. Nobody seemed to
know Marguerite. Every day a train was arriving with a new load of
bleeding flesh, but her brother was not among the wounded. A Sister of
Charity, believing that he was in search of someone of his family, took
pity on him and gave him some helpful directions. He ought to go to
Lourdes; there were many of the wounded there and many of the military
nurses. So Desnoyers immediately took the short cut between Pau and
Lourdes.

He had never visited the sacred city whose name was so frequently on his
mother’s lips. For Dona Luisa, the French nation was Lourdes. In her
discussions with her sister and other foreign ladies who were praying that
France might be exterminated for its impiety, the good senora always
summed up her opinions in the same words:—“When the Virgin wished to
make her appearance in our day, she chose France. This country, therefore,
cannot be as bad as you say. . . . When I see that she appears in Berlin,
we will then re-discuss the matter.”

But Desnoyers was not there to confirm his mother’s artless opinions. Just
as soon as he had found a room in a hotel near the river, he had hastened
to the big hostelry, now converted into a hospital. The guard told him
that he could not speak to the Director until the afternoon. In order to
curb his impatience he walked through the street leading to the basilica,
past all the booths and shops with pictures and pious souvenirs which have
converted the place into a big bazaar. Here and in the gardens adjoining
the church, he saw wounded convalescents with uniforms stained with traces
of the combat. Their cloaks were greatly soiled in spite of repeated
brushings. The mud, the blood and the rain had left indelible spots and
made them as stiff as cardboard. Some of the wounded had cut their sleeves
in order to avoid the cruel friction on their shattered arms, others still
showed on their trousers the rents made by the devastating shells.

They were fighters of all ranks and of many races—infantry, cavalry,
artillerymen; soldiers from the metropolis and from the colonies; French
farmers and African sharpshooters; red heads, faces of Mohammedan olive
and the black countenances of the Sengalese, with eyes of fire, and thick,
bluish blubber lips; some showing the good-nature and sedentary obesity of
the middle-class man suddenly converted into a warrior; others sinewy,
alert, with the aggressive profile of men born to fight, and experienced
in foreign fields.

The city, formerly visited by the hopeful, Catholic sick, was now invaded
by a crowd no less dolorous but clad in carnival colors. All, in spite of
their physical distress, had a certain air of good cheer and satisfaction.
They had seen Death very near, slipping out from his bony claws into a new
joy and zest in life. With their cloaks adorned with medals, their
theatrical Moorish garments, their kepis and their African headdresses,
this heroic band presented, nevertheless, a lamentable aspect.

Very few still preserved the noble vertical carriage, the pride of the
superior human being. They were walking along bent almost double, limping,
dragging themselves forward by the help of a staff or friendly arm. Others
had to let themselves be pushed along, stretched out on the hand-carts
which had so often conducted the devout sick from the station to the
Grotto of the Virgin. Some were feeling their way along, blindly, leaning
on a child or nurse. The first encounters in Belgium and in the East, a
mere half-dozen battles, had been enough to produce these physical wrecks
still showing a manly nobility in spite of the most horrible outrages.
These organisms, struggling so tenaciously to regain their hold on life,
bringing their reviving energies out into the sunlight, represented but
the most minute part of the number mowed down by the scythe of Death. Back
of them were thousands and thousands of comrades groaning on hospital beds
from which they would probably never rise. Thousands and thousands were
hidden forever in the bosom of the Earth moistened by their death agony—fatal
land which, upon receiving a hail of projectiles, brought forth a harvest
of bristling crosses!

War now showed itself to Desnoyers with all its cruel hideousness. He had
been accustomed to speak of it heretofore as those in robust health speak
of death, knowing that it exists and is horrible, but seeing it afar off .
. . so far off that it arouses no real emotion. The explosion of the
shells were accompanying their destructive brutality with a ferocious
mockery, grotesquely disfiguring the human body. He saw wounded objects
just beginning to recover their vital force who were but rough skeletons
of men, frightful caricatures, human rags, saved from the tomb by the
audacities of science—trunks with heads which were dragged along on
wheeled platforms; fragments of skulls whose brains were throbbing under
an artificial cap; beings without arms and without legs, resting in the
bottom of little wagons, like bits of plaster models or scraps from the
dissecting room; faces without noses that looked like skulls with great,
black nasal openings. And these half-men were talking, smoking, laughing,
satisfied to see the sky, to feel the caress of the sun, to have come back
to life, dominated by that sovereign desire to live which trustingly
forgets present misery in the confident hope of something better.

So strongly was Julio impressed that for a little while he forgot the
purpose which had brought him thither. . . . If those who provoke war from
diplomatic chambers or from the tables of the Military Staff could but see
it—not in the field of battle fired with the enthusiasm which
prejudices judgments—but in cold blood, as it is seen in the
hospitals and cemeteries, in the wrecks left in its trail! . . .

To Julio’s imagination this terrestrial globe appeared like an enormous
ship sailing through infinity. Its crews—poor humanity—had
spent century after century in exterminating each other on the deck. They
did not even know what existed under their feet, in the hold of the
vessel. To occupy the same portion of the surface in the sunlight seemed
to be the ruling desire of each group. Men, considered superior human
beings, were pushing these masses to extermination in order to scale the
last bridge and hold the helm, controlling the course of the boat. And all
those who felt the overmastering ambition for absolute command knew the
same thing . . . nothing. Not one of them could say with certainty what
lay beyond the visible horizon, nor whither the ship was drifting. The
sullen hostility of mystery surrounded them all; their life was
precarious, necessitating incessant care in order to maintain it, yet in
spite of that, the crew for ages and ages, had never known an instant of
agreement, of team work, of clear reason. Periodically half of them would
clash with the other half. They killed each other that they might enslave
the vanquished on the rolling deck floating over the abyss; they fought
that they might cast their victims from the vessel, filling its wake with
cadavers. And from the demented throng there were still springing up
gloomy sophistries to prove that a state of war was the perfect state,
that it ought to go on forever, that it was a bad dream on the part of the
crew to wish to regard each other as brothers with a common destiny,
enveloped in the same unsteady environment of mystery. . . . Ah, human
misery!

Julio was drawn out of these pessimistic reflections by the childish glee
which many of the convalescents were evincing. Some were Mussulmans,
sharpshooters from Algeria and Morocco. In Lourdes, as they might be
anywhere, they were interested only in the gifts which the people were
showering upon them with patriotic affection. They all surveyed with
indifference the basilica inhabited by “the white lady,” their only
preoccupation being to beg for cigars and sweets.

Finding themselves regaled by the dominant race, they became greatly
puffed up, daring everything like mischievous children. What pleased them
most was the fact that the ladies would take them by the hand. Blessed war
that permitted them to approach and touch these white women, perfumed and
smiling as they appeared in their dreams of the paradise of the blest!
“Lady . . . Lady,” they would sigh, looking at them with dark, sparkling
eyes. And not content with the hand, their dark paws would venture the
length of the entire arm while the ladies laughed at this tremulous
adoration. Others would go through the crowds, offering their right hand
to all the women. “We touch hands.” . . . And then they would go away
satisfied after receiving the hand clasp.

Desnoyers wandered a long time around the basilica where, in the shadow of
the trees, were long rows of wheeled chairs occupied by the wounded.
Officers and soldiers rested many hours in the blue shade, watching their
comrades who were able to use their legs. The sacred grotto was
resplendent with the lights from hundreds of candles. Devout crowds were
kneeling in the open air, fixing their eyes in supplication on the sacred
stones whilst their thoughts were flying far away to the fields of battle,
making their petitions with that confidence in divinity which accompanies
every distress. Among the kneeling mass were many soldiers with bandaged
heads, kepis in hand and tearful eyes.

Up and down the double staircase of the basilica were flitting women, clad
in white, with spotless headdresses that fluttered in such a way that they
appeared like flying doves. These were the nurses and Sisters of Charity
guiding the steps of the injured. Desnoyers thought he recognized
Marguerite in every one of them, but the prompt disillusion following each
of these discoveries soon made him doubtful about the outcome of his
journey. She was not in Lourdes, either. He would never find her in that
France so immeasurably expanded by the war that it had converted every
town into a hospital.

His afternoon explorations were no more successful. The employees listened
to his interrogations with a distraught air. He could come back again;
just now they were taken up with the announcement that another hospital
train was on the way. The great battle was still going on near Paris. They
had to improvise lodgings for the new consignment of mutilated humanity.
In order to pass away the time until his return, Desnoyers went back to
the garden near the grotto. He was planning to return to Pau that night;
there was evidently nothing more to do at Lourdes. In what direction
should he now continue his search?

Suddenly he felt a thrill down his back—the same indefinable
sensation which used to warn him of her presence when they were meeting in
the gardens of Paris. Marguerite was going to present herself unexpectedly
as in the old days without his knowing from exactly what spot—as
though she came up out of the earth or descended from the clouds.

After a second’s thought he smiled bitterly. Mere tricks of his desire!
Illusions! . . . Upon turning his head he recognized the falsity of his
hope. Nobody was following his footsteps; he was the only being going down
the center of the avenue. Near him, in the diaphanous white of a guardian
angel, was a nurse. Poor blind man! . . . Desnoyers was passing on when a
quick movement on the part of the white-clad woman, an evident desire to
escape notice, to hide her face by looking at the plants, attracted his
attention. He was slow in recognizing her. Two little ringlets escaping
from the band of her cap made him guess the hidden head of hair; the feet
shod in white were the signs which enabled him to reconstruct the person
somewhat disfigured by the severe uniform. Her face was pale and sad.
There wasn’t a trace left in it of the old vanities that used to give it
its childish, doll-like beauty. In the depths of those great, dark-circled
eyes life seemed to be reflected in new forms. . . . Marguerite!

They stared at one another for a long while, as though hypnotized with
surprise. She looked alarmed when Desnoyers advanced a step toward her. No
. . . No! Her eyes, her hands, her entire body seemed to protest, to repel
his approach, to hold him motionless. Fear that he might come near her,
made her go toward him. She said a few words to the soldier who remained
on the bench, receiving across the bandage on his face a ray of sunlight
which he did not appear to feel. Then she rose, going to meet Julio, and
continued forward, indicating by a gesture that they must find some place
further on where the wounded man could not hear them.

She led the way to a side path from which she could see the blind man
confided to her care. They stood motionless, face to face. Desnoyers
wished to say many things; many . . . but he hesitated, not knowing how to
frame his complaints, his pleadings, his endearments. Far above all these
thoughts towered one, fatal, dominant and wrathful.

“Who is that man?”

The spiteful accent, the harsh voice with which he said these words
surprised him as though they came from someone else’s mouth.

The nurse looked at him with her great limpid eyes, eyes that seemed
forever freed from contractions of surprise or fear. Her response slipped
from her with equal directness.

“It is Laurier. . . . It is my husband.”

Laurier! . . . Julio looked doubtfully and for a long time at the soldier
before he could be convinced. That blind officer motionless on the bench,
that figure of heroic grief, was Laurier! . . . At first glance, he
appeared prematurely old with roughened and bronzed skin so furrowed with
lines that they converged like rays around all the openings of his face.
His hair was beginning to whiten on the temples and in the beard which
covered his cheeks. He had lived twenty years in that one month. . . . At
the same time he appeared younger, with a youthfulness that was radiating
an inward vigor, with the strength of a soul which has suffered the most
violent emotions and, firm and serene in the satisfaction of duty
fulfilled, can no longer know fear.

As Desnoyers contemplated him, he felt both admiration and jealousy. He
was ashamed to admit the aversion inspired by the wounded man, so sorely
wounded that he was unable to see what was going on around him. His hatred
was a form of cowardice, terrifying in its persistence. How pensive were
Marguerite’s eyes if she took them off her patient for a few seconds! . .
. She had never looked at him in that way. He knew all the amorous
gradations of her glance, but her fixed gaze at this injured man was
something entirely different, something that he had never seen before.

He spoke with the fury of a lover who discovers an infidelity.

“And for this thing you have run away without warning, without a word! . .
. You have abandoned me in order to go in search of him. . . . Tell me,
why did you come? . . . Why did you come?”. . .

“I came because it was my duty.”

Then she spoke like a mother who takes advantage of a parenthesis of
surprise in an irascible child’s temper, in order to counsel self-control,
and explained how it had all happened. She had received the news of
Laurier’s wounding just as she and her mother were preparing to leave
Paris. She had not hesitated an instant; her duty was to hasten to the aid
of this man. She had been doing a great deal of thinking in the last few
weeks; the war had made her ponder much on the values in life. Her eyes
had been getting glimpses of new horizons; our destiny is not mere
pleasure and selfish satisfaction; we ought to take our part in pain and
sacrifice.

She had wanted to work for her country, to share the general stress, to
serve as other women did; and since she was disposed to devote herself to
strangers, was it not natural that she should prefer to help this man whom
she had so greatly wronged? . . . There still lived in her memory the
moment in which she had seen him approach the station, completely alone
among so many who had the consolation of loving arms when departing in
search of death. Her pity had become still more acute on hearing of his
misfortune. A shell had exploded near him, killing all those around him.
Of his many wounds, the only serious one was that on his face. He had
completely lost the sight of one eye; and the doctors were keeping the
other bound up hoping to save it. But she was very doubtful about it; she
was almost sure that Laurier would be blind.

Marguerite’s voice trembled when saying this as if she were going to cry,
although her eyes were tearless. They did not now feel the irresistible
necessity for tears. Weeping had become something superfluous, like many
other luxuries of peaceful days. Her eyes had seen so much in so few days!
. . .

“How you love him!” exclaimed Julio.

Fearing that they might be overheard and in order to keep him at a
distance, she had been speaking as though to a friend. But her lover’s
sadness broke down her reserve.

“No, I love you. . . . I shall always love you.”

The simplicity with which she said this and her sudden tenderness of tone
revived Desnoyers’ hopes.

“And the other one?” he asked anxiously.

Upon receiving her reply, it seemed to him as though something had just
passed across the sun, veiling its light temporarily. It was as though a
cloud had drifted over the land and over his thoughts, enveloping them in
an unbearable chill.

“I love him, too.”

She said it with a look that seemed to implore pardon, with the sad
sincerity of one who has given up lying and weeps in foreseeing the injury
that the truth must inflict.

He felt his hard wrath suddenly dwindling like a crumbling mountain. Ah,
Marguerite! His voice was tremulous and despairing. Could it be possible
that everything between these two was going to end thus simply? Were her
former vows mere lies? . . . They had been attracted to each other by an
irresistible affinity in order to be together forever, to be one. . . .
And now, suddenly hardened by indifference, were they to drift apart like
two unfriendly bodies? . . . What did this absurdity about loving him at
the same time that she loved her former husband mean, anyway?

Marguerite hung her head, murmuring desperately:

“You are a man, I am a woman. You would never understand me, no matter
what I might say. Men are not able to comprehend certain of our mysteries.
. . . A woman would be better able to appreciate the complexity.”

Desnoyers felt that he must know his fate in all its cruelty. She might
speak without fear. He felt strong enough to bear the blow. . . . What had
Laurier said when he found that he was being so tenderly cared for by
Marguerite? . . .

“He does not know who I am. . . . He believes me to be a war-nurse, like
the rest, who pities him seeing him alone and blind with no relatives to
write to him or visit him. . . . At certain times, I have almost suspected
that he guesses the truth. My voice, the touch of my hands made him shiver
at first, as though with an unpleasant sensation. I have told him that I
am a Beigian lady who has lost her loved ones and is alone in the world.
He has told me his life story very sketchily, as if he desired to forget a
hated past. . . . Never one disagreeable word about his former wife. There
are nights when I think that he knows me, that he takes advantage of his
blindness in order to prolong his feigned ignorance, and that distresses
me. I long for him to recover his sight, for the doctors to save that
doubtful eye—and yet at the same time, I feel afraid. What will he
say when he recognizes me? . . . But no; it is better that he should see,
no matter what may result. You cannot understand my anxiety, you cannot
know what I am suffering.”

She was silent for an instant, trying to regain her self-control, again
tortured with the agony of her soul.

“Oh, the war!” she resumed. “What changes in our life! Two months ago, my
present situation would have appeared impossible, unimaginable. . . . I
caring for my husband, fearing that he would discover my identity and
leave me, yet at the same time, wishing that he would recognize me and
pardon me. . . . It is only one week that I have been with him. I disguise
my voice when I can, and avoid words that may reveal the truth . . . but
this cannot keep up much longer. It is only in novels that such painful
situations turn out happily.”

Doubt suddenly overwhelmed her.

“I believe,” she continued, “that he has recognized me from the first. . .
. He is silent and feigns ignorance because he despises me . . . because
he can never bring himself to pardon me. I have been so bad! . . . I have
wronged him so!”. . .

She was recalling the long and reflective silences of the wounded man
after she had dropped some imprudent words. After two days of submission
to her care, he had been somewhat rebellious, avoiding going out with her
for a walk. Because of his blind helplessness, and comprehending the
uselessness of his resistance, he had finally yielded in passive silence.

“Let him think what he will!” concluded Marguerite courageously. “Let him
despise me! I am here where I ought to be. I need his forgiveness, but if
he does not pardon me, I shall stay with him just the same. . . . There
are moments when I wish that he may never recover his sight, so that he
may always need me, so that I may pass my life at his side, sacrificing
everything for him.”

“And I?” said Desnoyers.

Marguerite looked at him with clouded eyes as though she were just
awaking. It was true—and the other one? . . . Kindled by the
proposed sacrifice which was to be her expiation, she had forgotten the
man before her.

“You!” she said after a long pause. “You must leave me. . . . Life is not
what we have thought it. Had it not been for the war, we might, perhaps,
have realized our dream, but now! . . . Listen carefully and try to
understand. For the remainder of my life, I shall carry the heaviest
burden, and yet at the same time it will be sweet, since the more it
weighs me down the greater will my atonement be. Never will I leave this
man whom I have so grievously wronged, now that he is more alone in the
world and will need protection like a child. Why do you come to share my
fate? How could it be possible for you to live with a nurse constantly at
the side of a blind and worthy man whom we would constantly offend with
our passion? . . . No, it is better for us to part. Go your way, alone and
untrammelled. Leave me; you will meet other women who will make you more
happy than I. Yours is the temperament that finds new pleasures at every
step.”

She stood firmly to her decision. Her voice was calm, but back of it
trembled the emotion of a last farewell to a joy which was going from her
forever. The man would be loved by others . . . and she was giving him up!
. . . But the noble sadness of the sacrifice restored her courage. Only by
this renunciation could she expiate her sins.

Julio dropped his eyes, vanquished and perplexed. The picture of the
future outlined by Marguerite terrified him. To live with her as a nurse
taking advantage of her patient’s blindness would be to offer him fresh
insult every day. . . . Ah, no! That would be villainy, indeed! He was now
ashamed to recall the malignity with which, a little while before, he had
regarded this innocent unfortunate. He realized that he was powerless to
contend with him. Weak and helpless as he was sitting there on the garden
bench, he was stronger and more deserving of respect than Julio Desnoyers
with all his youth and elegance. The victim had amounted to something in
his life; he had done what Julio had not dared to do.

This sudden conviction of his inferiority made him cry out like an
abandoned child, “What will become of me?” . . .

Marguerite, too—contemplating the love which was going from her
forever, her vanished hopes, the future illumined by the satisfaction of
duty fulfilled but monotonous and painful—cried out:

“And I. . . . What will become of me?” . . .

As though he had suddenly found a solution which was reviving his courage,
Desnoyers said:

“Listen, Marguerite: I can read your soul. You love this man, and you do
well. He is superior to me, and women are always attracted by superiority.
. . . I am a coward. Yes, do not protest, I am a coward with all my youth,
with all my strength. Why should you not have been impressed by the
conduct of this man! . . . But I will atone for past wrongs. This country
is yours, Marguerite; I will fight for it. Do not say no. . . .”

And moved by his hasty heroism, he outlined the plan more definitely. He
was going to be a soldier. Soon she would hear him well spoken of. His
idea was either to be stretched on the battlefield in his first encounter,
or to astound the world by his bravery. In this way the impossible
situation would settle itself—either the oblivion of death or glory.

“No, no!” interrupted Marguerite in an anguished tone. “You, no! One is
enough. . . . How horrible! You, too, wounded, mutilated forever, perhaps
dead! . . . No, you must live. I want you to live, even though you might
belong to another. . . . Let me know that you exist, let me see you
sometimes, even though you may have forgotten me, even though you may pass
me with indifference, as if you did not know me.”

In this outburst her deep love for him rang true—her heroic and
inflexible love which would accept all penalties for herself, if only the
beloved one might continue to live.

But then, in order that Julio might not feel any false hopes, she added:—“Live;
you must not die; that would be for me another torment. . . . But live
without me. No matter how much we may talk about it, my destiny beside the
other one is marked out forever.”

“Ah, how you love him! . . . How you have deceived me!”

In a last desperate attempt at explanation she again repeated what she had
said at the beginning of their interview. She loved Julio . . . and she
loved her husband. They were different kinds of love. She could not say
which was the stronger, but misfortune was forcing her to choose between
the two, and she was accepting the most difficult, the one demanding the
greatest sacrifices.

“You are a man, and you will never be able to understand me. . . . A woman
would comprehend me.”

It seemed to Julio, as he looked around him, as though the afternoon were
undergoing some celestial phenomenon. The garden was still illuminated by
the sun, but the green of the trees, the yellow of the ground, the blue of
the sky, all appeared to him as dark and shadowy as though a rain of ashes
were falling.

“Then . . . all is over between us?”

His pleading, trembling voice charged with tears made her turn her head to
hide her emotion. Then in the painful silence the two despairs formed one
and the same question, as if interrogating the shades of the future: “What
will become of me?” murmured the man. And like an echo her lips repeated,
“What will become of me?”

All had been said. Hopeless words came between the two like an obstacle
momentarily increasing in size, impelling them in opposite directions. Why
prolong the painful interview? . . . Marguerite showed the ready and
energetic decision of a woman who wishes to bring a scene to a close.
“Good-bye!” Her face had assumed a yellowish cast, her pupils had become
dull and clouded like the glass of a lantern when the light dies out.
“Good-bye!” She must go to her patient.

She went away without looking at him, and Desnoyers instinctively went in
the opposite direction. As he became more self-controlled and turned to
look at her again, he saw her moving on and giving her arm to the blind
man, without once turning her head.

He now felt convinced that he should never see her again, and became
oppressed by an almost suffocating agony. And could two beings, who had
formerly considered the universe concentrated in their persons, thus
easily be separated forever? . . .

His desperation at finding himself alone made him accuse himself of
stupidity. Now his thoughts came tumbling over each other in a tumultuous
throng, and each one of them seemed to him sufficient to have convinced
Marguerite. He certainly had not known how to express himself. He would
have to talk with her again . . . and he decided to remain in Lourdes.

He passed a night of torture in the hotel, listening to the ripple of the
river among its stones. Insomnia had him in his fierce jaws, gnawing him
with interminable agony. He turned on the light several times, but was not
able to read. His eyes looked with stupid fixity at the patterns of the
wall paper and the pious pictures around the room which had evidently
served as the lodging place of some rich traveller. He remained motionless
and as abstracted as an Oriental who thinks himself into an absolute lack
of thought. One idea only was dancing in the vacuum in his skull—“I
shall never see her again. . . . Can such a thing be possible?”

He drowsed for a few seconds, only to be awakened with the sensation that
some horrible explosion was sending him through the air. And so, with
sweats of anguish, he wakefully passed the hours until in the gloom of his
room the dawn showed a milky rectangle of light, and began to be reflected
on the window curtains.

The velvet-like caress of day finally closed his eyes. Upon awaking he
found that the morning was well advanced, and he hurried to the garden of
the grotto. . . . Oh, the hours of tremulous and unavailing waiting,
believing that he recognized Marguerite in every white-clad lady that came
along, guiding a wounded patient!

By afternoon, after a lunch whose dishes filed past him untouched, he
returned to the garden in search of her. Beholding her in the distance
with the blind man leaning on her arm, a feeling of faintness came over
him. She looked to him taller, thinner, her face sharper, with two dark
hollows in her cheeks and her eyes bright with fever, the lids drawn with
weariness. He suspected that she, too, had passed an anguished night of
tenacious, self-centred thought, of grievous stupefaction like his own, in
the room of her hotel. Suddenly he felt all the weight of insomnia and
listlessness, all the depressing emotion of the cruel sensations
experienced in the last few hours. Oh, how miserable they both were! . . .

She was walking warily, looking from one side to the other, as though
foreseeing danger. Upon discovering him she clung to her charge, casting
upon her former lover a look of entreaty, of desperation, imploring pity.
. . Ay, that look!

He felt ashamed of himself; his personality appeared to be unrolling
itself before him, and he surveyed himself with the eyes of a judge. What
was this seduced and useless man, called Julio Desnoyers, doing there,
tormenting with his presence a poor woman, trying to turn her from her
righteous repentance, insisting on his selfish and petty desires when all
humanity was thinking of other things? . . . His cowardice angered him.
Like a thief taking advantage of the sleep of his victim, he was stalking
around this brave and true man who could not see him, who could not defend
himself, in order to rob him of the only affection that he had in the
world which had so miraculously returned to him! Very well, Gentleman
Desnoyers! . . . Ah, what a scoundrel he was!

Such subconscious insults made him draw himself erect, in haughty, cruel
and inexorable defiance against that other I who so richly deserved the
judge’s scorn.

He turned his head away; he could not meet Marguerite’s piteous eyes; he
feared their mute reproach. Neither did he dare to look at the blind man
in his shabby and heroic uniform, with his countenance aged by duty and
glory. He feared him like remorse.

So the vanquished lover turned his back on the two and went away with a
firm step. Good-bye, Love! Goodbye, Happiness! . . . He marched quickly
and bravely on; a miracle had just taken place within him! he had found
the right road at last!

To Paris! . . . A new impetus was going to fill the vacuum of his
objectless existence.

CHAPTER V

THE INVASION

Don Marcelo was fleeing to take refuge in his castle when he met the mayor
of Villeblanche. The noise of the firing had made him hurry to the
barricade. When he learned of the apparition of the group of stragglers he
threw up his hands in despair. They were crazy. Their resistance was going
to be fatal for the village, and he ran on to beg them to cease.

For some time nothing happened to disturb the morning calm. Desnoyers had
climbed to the top of his towers and was surveying the country with his
field glasses. He couldn’t make out the highway through the nearest group
of trees, but he suspected that underneath their branches great activity
was going on—masses of men on guard, troops preparing for the
attack. The unexpected defense of the fugitives had upset the advance of
the invasion. Desnoyers thought despairingly of that handful of mad
fellows and their stubborn chief. What was their fate going to be? . . .

Focussing his glasses on the village, he saw the red spots of kepis waving
like poppies over the green of the meadows. They were the retreating men,
now convinced of the uselessness of their resistance. Perhaps they had
found a ford or forgotten boat by which they might cross the Maine, and so
were continuing their retreat toward the river. At any minute now the
Germans were going to enter Villeblanche.

Half an hour of profound silence passed by. The village lay silhouetted
against a background of hills—a mass of roofs beneath the church
tower finished with its cross and iron weather cock. Everything seemed as
tranquil as in the best days of peace. Suddenly he noticed that the grove
was vomiting forth something noisy and penetrating—a bubble of vapor
accompanied by a deafening report. Something was hurtling through the air
with a strident curve. Then a roof in the village opened like a crater,
vomiting forth flying wood, fragments of plaster and broken furniture. All
the interior of the house seemed to be escaping in a stream of smoke, dirt
and splinters.

The invaders were bombarding Villeblanche before attempting attack, as
though fearing to encounter persistent resistance in its streets. More
projectiles fell. Some passed over the houses, exploding between the
hamlet and the castle. The towers of the Desnoyers property were beginning
to attract the aim of the artillerymen. The owner was therefore about to
abandon his dangerous observatory when he saw something white like a
tablecloth or sheet floating from the church tower. His neighbors had
hoisted this signal of peace in order to avoid bombardment. A few more
missiles fell and then there was silence.

When Don Marcelo reached his park he found the Warden burying at the foot
of a tree the sporting rifles still remaining in his castle. Then he went
toward the great iron gates. The enemies were going to come, and he had to
receive them. While uneasily awaiting their arrival his compunctions again
tormented him. What was he doing there? Why had he remained? . . . But his
obstinate temperament immediately put aside the promptings of fear. He was
there because he had to guard his own. Besides, it was too late now to
think about such things.

Suddenly the morning stillness was broken by a sound like the deafening
tearing of strong cloth. “Shots, Master,” said the Warden. “Firing! It
must be in the square.”

A few minutes after they saw running toward them a woman from the village,
an old soul, dried up and darkened by age, who was panting from her great
exertion, and looking wildly around her. She was fleeing blindly, trying
to escape from danger and shut out horrible visions. Desnoyers and the
Keeper’s family listened to her explanations interrupted with hiccoughs of
terror.

The Germans were in Villeblanche. They had entered first in an automobile
driven at full speed from one end of the village to the other. Its
mitrailleuse was firing at random against closed houses and open doors,
knocking down all the people in sight. The old woman flung up her arms
with a gesture of terror. . . . Dead . . . many dead . . . wounded . . .
blood! Then other iron-plated vehicles had stopped in the square, and
behind them cavalrymen, battalions of infantry, many battalions coming
from everywhere. The helmeted men seemed furious; they accused the
villagers of having fired at them. In the square they had struck the mayor
and villagers who had come forward to meet them. The priest, bending over
some of the dying, had also been trodden under foot. . . . All prisoners!
The Germans were talking of shooting them.

The old dame’s words were cut short by the rumble of approaching
automobiles.

“Open the gates,” commanded the owner to the Warden. The massive iron
grill work swung open, and was never again closed. All property rights
were at an end.

An enormous automobile, covered with dust and filled with men, stopped at
the entrance. Behind them sounded the horns of other vehicles that were
putting on the brakes. Desnoyers saw soldiers leaping out, all wearing the
greenish-gray uniform with a sheath of the same tone covering the pointed
casque. The one who marched at their head put his revolver to the
millionaire’s forehead.

“Where are the sharpshooters?” he asked.

He was pale with the pallor of wrath, vengeance and fear. His face was
trembling under the influence of his triple emotion. Don Marcelo explained
slowly, contemplating at a short distance from his eyes the black circle
of the threatening tube. He had not seen any sharpshooters. The only
inhabitants of the castle were the Warden with his family and himself, the
owner of the castle.

The officer surveyed the edifice and then examined Desnoyers with evident
astonishment as though he thought his appearance too unpretentious for a
proprietor. He had taken him for a simple employee, and his respect for
social rank made him lower his revolver.

He did not, however, alter his haughty attitude. He pressed Don Marcelo
into the service as a guide, making him search ahead of him while forty
soldiers grouped themselves at his back. They advanced in two files to the
shelter of the trees which bordered the central avenue, with their guns
ready to shoot, and looking uneasily at the castle windows as though
expecting to receive from them hidden shots. Desnoyers marched tranquilly
through the centre, and the official, who had been imitating the
precautions of his men, finally joined him when he was crossing the
drawbridge.

The armed men scattered through the rooms in search of the enemy. They ran
their bayonets through beds and divans. Some, with automatic
destructiveness, slit the draperies and the rich bed coverings. The owner
protested; what was the sense in such useless destruction? . . . He was
suffering unbearable torture at seeing the enormous boots spotting the
rugs with mud, on hearing the clash of guns and knapsacks against the most
fragile, choicest pieces of furniture. Poor historic mansion! . . .

The officer looked amazed that he should protest for such trifling cause,
but he gave orders in German and his men ceased their rude explorations.
Then, in justification of this extraordinary respect, he added in French:

“I believe that you are going to have the honor of entertaining here the
general of our division.”

The certainty that the castle did not hold any hidden enemies made him
more amiable. He, nevertheless, persisted in his wrath against the
sharpshooters. A group of the villagers had opened fire upon the Uhlans
when they were entering unsuspiciously after the retreat of the French.

Desnoyers felt it necessary to protest. They were neither inhabitants nor
sharpshooters; they were French soldiers. He took good care to be silent
about their presence at the barricade, but he insisted that he had
distinguished their uniforms from a tower of the castle.

The official made a threatening face.

“You, too? . . . You, who appear a reasonable man, can repeat such yarns
as these?” And in order to close the conversation, he said, arrogantly:
“They were wearing uniforms, then, if you persist in saying so, but they
were sharpshooters just the same. The French Government has distributed
arms and uniforms among the farmers that they may assassinate us. . . .
Belgium did the same thing. . . . But we know their tricks, and we know
how to punish them, too!”

The village was going to be burned. It was necessary to avenge the four
German dead lying on the outskirts of Villeblanche, near the barricade.
The mayor, the priest, the principal inhabitants would all be shot.

By the time they reached the top floor Desnoyers could see floating above
the boughs of his park dark clouds whose outlines were reddened by the
sun. The top of the bell tower was the only thing that he could
distinguish at that distance. Around the iron weathercock were flying long
thin fringes like black cobwebs lifted by the breeze. An odor of burning
wood came toward the castle.

The German greeted this spectacle with a cruel smile. Then on descending
to the park, he ordered Desnoyers to follow him. His liberty and his
dignity had come to an end. Henceforth he was going to be an underling at
the beck and call of these men who would dispose of him as their whims
directed. Ay, why had he remained? . . . He obeyed, climbing into an
automobile beside the officer, who was still carrying his revolver in his
right hand. His men distributed themselves through the castle and
outbuildings, in order to prevent the flight of an imaginary enemy. The
Warden and his family seemed to be saying good-bye to him with their eyes.
Perhaps they were taking him to his death. . . .

Beyond the castle woods a new world was coming into existence. The short
cut to Villeblanche seemed to Desnoyers a leap of millions of leagues, a
fall into a red planet where men and things were covered with the film of
smoke and the glare of fire. He saw the village under a dark canopy
spotted with sparks and glowing embers. The bell tower was burning like an
enormous torch; the roof of the church was breaking into flames with a
crashing fury. The glare of the holocaust seemed to shrivel and grow pale
in the impassive light of the sun.

Running across the fields with the haste of desperation were shrieking
women and children. The animals had escaped from the stables, and driven
forth by the flames were racing wildly across the country. The cow and the
work horse were dragging their halters broken by their flight. Their
flanks were smoking and smelt of burnt hair. The pigs, the sheep and the
chickens were all tearing along mingled with the cats and the dogs. All
the domestic animals were returning to a brute existence, fleeing from
civilized man. Shots were heard and hellish ha-ha’s. The soldiers outside
of the village were making themselves merry in this hunt for fugitives.
Their guns were aimed at beasts and were hitting people.

Desnoyers saw men, many men, men everywhere. They were like gray ants,
marching in endless files towards the South, coming out from the woods,
filling the roads, crossing the fields. The green of vegetation was
disappearing under their tread; the dust was rising in spirals behind the
dull roll of the cannons and the measured trot of thousands of horses. On
the roadside several battalions had halted, with their accompaniment of
vehicles and draw horses. They were resting before renewing their march.
He knew this army. He had seen it in Berlin on parade, and yet it seemed
to have changed its former appearance. There now remained very little of
the heavy and imposing glitter, of the mute and vainglorious haughtiness
which had made his relatives-in-law weep with admiration. War, with its
realism, had wiped out all that was theatrical about this formidable
organization of death. The soldiers appeared dirty and tired, out. The
respiration of fat and sweaty bodies, mixed with the strong smell of
leather, floated over the regiments. All the men had hungry faces.

For days and nights they had been following the heels of an enemy which
was always just eluding their grasp. In this forced advance the provisions
of the administration would often arrive so late at the cantonments that
they could depend only on what they happened to have in their knapsacks.
Desnoyers saw them lined up near the road devouring hunks of black bread
and mouldy sausages. Some had scattered through the fields to dig up beet
roots and other tubers, chewing with loud crunchings the hard pulp to
which the grit still adhered. An ensign was shaking the fruit trees using
as a catch-all the flag of his regiment. That glorious standard, adorned
with souvenirs of 1870, was serving as a receptacle for green plums. Those
who were seated on the ground were improving this rest by drawing their
perspiring, swollen feet from high boots which were sending out an
insufferable smell.

The regiments of infantry which Desnoyers had seen in Berlin reflecting
the light on metal and leather straps, the magnificent and terrifying
Hussars, the Cuirassiers in pure white uniform like the paladins of the
Holy Grail, the artillerymen with breasts crossed with white bands, all
the military variations that on parade had drawn forth the Hartrotts’
sighs of admiration—these were now all unified and mixed together,
of uniform color, all in greenish mustard like the dusty lizards that,
slipping along, try to be confounded with the earth.

The persistency of the iron discipline was easily discernible. A word from
the chiefs, the sound of a whistle, and they all grouped themselves
together, the human being disappearing in the throngs of automatons; but
danger, weariness, and the uncertainty of triumph had for the time being
brought officers and men nearer together, obliterating caste distinction.
The officers were coming part way out of their overbearing, haughty
seclusion, and were condescending to talk with the lower orders so as to
revive their courage. One effort more and they would overwhelm both French
and English, repeating the triumph of Sedan, whose anniversary they were
going to celebrate in a few days! They were going to enter Paris; it was
only a matter of a week. Paris! Great shops filled with luxurious things,
famous restaurants, women, champagne, money. . . . And the men, flattered
that their commanders were stooping to chat with them, forgot fatigue and
hunger, reviving like the throngs of the Crusade before the image of
Jerusalem. “Nach Paris!” The joyous shout circulated from the head to the
tail of the marching columns. “To Paris! To Paris!”

The scarcity of their food supply was here supplemented by the products of
a country rich in wines. When sacking houses they rarely found eatables,
but invariably a wine cellar. The humble German, the perpetual beer
drinker, who had always looked upon wine as a privilege of the rich, could
now open up casks with blows from his weapons, even bathing his feet in
the stream of precious liquid. Every battalion left as a souvenir of its
passing a wake of empty bottles; a halt in camp sowed the land with glass
cylinders. The regimental trucks, unable to renew their stores of
provisions, were accustomed to seize the wine in all the towns. The
soldier, lacking bread, would receive alcohol. . . .

This donation was always accompanied by the good counsels of the officers—War
is war; no pity toward our adversaries who do not deserve it. The French
were shooting their prisoners, and their women were putting out the eyes
of the wounded. Every dwelling was a den of traps. The simple-hearted and
innocent German entering therein was going to certain death. The beds were
made over subterranean caves, the wardrobes were make-believe doors, in
every corner was lurking an assassin. This traitorous nation, which was
arranging its ground like the scenario of a melodrama, would have to be
chastised. The municipal officers, the priests, the schoolmasters were
directing and protecting the sharpshooters.

Desnoyers was shocked at the indifference with which these men were
stalking around the burning village. They did not appear to see the fire
and destruction; it was just an ordinary spectacle, not worth looking at.
Ever since they had crossed the frontier, smoldering and blasted villages,
fired by the advance guard, had marked their halting places on Belgian and
French soil.

When entering Villeblanche the automobile had to lower its speed. Burned
walls were bulging out over the street and half-charred beams were
obstructing the way, obliging the vehicle to zigzag through the smoking
rubbish. The vacant lots were burning like fire pans between the houses
still standing, with doors broken, but not yet in flames. Desnoyers saw
within these rectangular spaces partly burned wood, chairs, beds, sewing
machines, iron stoves, all the household goods of the well-to-do
countryman, being consumed or twisted into shapeless masses. Sometimes he
would spy an arm sticking out of the ruins, beginning to burn like a long
wax candle. No, it could not be possible . . . and then the smell of
cooking flesh began to mingle with that of the soot, wood and plaster.

He closed his eyes, not able to look any longer. He thought for a moment
he must be dreaming. It was unbelievable that such horrors could take
place in less than an hour. Human wickedness at its worst he had supposed
incapable of changing the aspect of a village in such a short time.

An abrupt stoppage of the motor made him look around involuntarily. This
time the obstruction was the dead bodies in the street—two men and a
woman. They had probably fallen under the rain of bullets from the machine
gun which had passed through the town preceding the invasion. Some
soldiers were seated a little beyond them, with their backs to the
victims, as though ignoring their presence. The chauffeur yelled to them
to clear the track; with their guns and feet they pushed aside the bodies
still warm, at every turn leaving a trail of blood. The space was hardly
opened before the vehicle shot through . . . a thud, a leap—the back
wheels had evidently crushed some very fragile obstacle.

Desnoyers was still huddled in his seat, benumbed and with closed eyes.
The horror around him made him think of his own fate. Whither was this
lieutenant taking him? . . .

He soon saw the town hall flaming in the square; the church was now
nothing but a stone shell, bristling with flames. The houses of the
prosperous villagers had had their doors and windows chopped out by
axe-blows. Within them soldiers were moving about methodically. They
entered empty-handed and came out loaded with furniture and clothing.
Others, in the upper stories, were flinging out various objects;
accompanying their trophies with jests and guffaws. Suddenly they had to
come out flying, for fire was breaking out with the violence and rapidity
of an explosion. Following their footsteps was a group of men with big
boxes and metal cylinders. Someone at their head was pointing out the
buildings into whose broken windows were to be thrown the lozenges and
liquid streams which would produce catastrophe with lightning rapidity.

Out of one of these flaming buildings two men, who seemed but bundles of
rags, were being dragged by some Germans. Above the blue sleeves of their
military cloaks Don Marcelo could distinguish blanched faces and eyes
immeasurably distended with suffering. Their legs were dragging on the
ground, sticking out between the tatters of their red pantaloons. One of
them still had on his kepis. Blood was gushing from different parts of
their bodies and behind them, like white serpents, were trailing their
loosened bandages. They were wounded Frenchmen, stragglers who had
remained in the village because too weak to keep up with the retreat.
Perhaps they had joined the group which, finding its escape cut off, had
attempted that insane resistance.