Los cuatro jinetes del apocalipsis 🏇💀 | Vicente Blasco Ibáñez

Los cuatro jinetes del apocalipsis 🏇💀 | Vicente Blasco Ibáñez

In this story, Vicente Blasco Ibáñez transports us to a world devastated by war, where the destinies of various characters intersect amidst tragedy. Through his deep and critical perspective, the author presents a story filled with emotions, internal struggles, and the consequences of war. Join us in this fascinating narrative, where the horrors of war become the backdrop for a tale of life, destiny, and humanity. PART ONE. Chapter 1. In the garden of the Expiatory Chapel. They were supposed to meet at five in the afternoon in the small garden of the Expiatory Chapel, but Julio Desnoyers arrived half an hour early, with the impatience of a lover who thinks he can hasten the date by showing up early. As he passed through the gate onto Boulevard Haussmann, he suddenly realized that in Paris, the month of July belongs to summer. The course of the seasons was, for him at that moment, somewhat confusing and demanding calculations. Five months had passed since their last interviews in this square, which offers wandering couples the refuge of a damp, funereal calm beside a constantly moving boulevard and in the vicinity of a large railway station. The time of the rendezvous was always five o’clock. Julio saw his beloved arrive in the light of the recently lit streetlights, her bust wrapped in furs and her muff pulled over her face like a mask. Her sweet voice, as she greeted him, dispersed her breath, frozen by the cold, a halo of tenuous white vapor. After several preparatory and hesitant interviews, they finally left the garden. Their love had acquired the majestic importance of a fait accompli, and he went to take refuge from five to seven in a fifth-floor apartment on the Rue de la Pompe, where Julio had his painting studio. The curtains tightly drawn over the large glass window, the blazing fireplace scattering purple pulses as the only light in the room, the monotonous song of the samovar boiling beside the teacups—all the contemplation of a life isolated by sweet selfishness—did not allow them to notice that the afternoons were growing longer, that outside the sun still shone intermittently at the bottom of the mother-of-pearl wells opened in the clouds, and that spring, a timid and pale spring, was beginning to show its green fingers in the buds of the branches, suffering the last bites of winter, a black boar retracing its steps. Then Julio had made a trip to Buenos Aires, encountering in the other hemisphere the last smiles of autumn and the first icy winds of the pampas. And just when he imagined that winter was the eternal season for him, as it crossed his path as he moved from one end of the planet to the other, summer unexpectedly appeared in this neighborhood garden. A swarm of children ran and shouted in the short avenues surrounding the expiatory monument. The first thing Julio saw upon entering was a hoop rolling toward his legs, pushed by a child’s hand. Then he tripped over a ball. Around the chestnut trees, the usual crowd of people on hot days gathered, seeking the blue shade riddled with points of light. They were maids from nearby houses , doing chores or chatting, following with indifferent gaze the violent games of the children entrusted to their care; bourgeois from the neighborhood who came down to the garden to read their newspapers, deluding themselves with the illusion that the peace of the woods surrounded them. All the benches were full. A few women sat on folding canvas stools with the aplomb that comes with property rights. The iron chairs, seats subject to payment, served as a refuge for several ladies laden with packages, bourgeois women from the outskirts of Paris who were waiting for other members of their family to take the train at the Gare Saint Lazare… And Julio had proposed in a pneumatic letter to meet at this place as in the past, considering it unfrequented . And she, with no less obliviousness to reality, fixed her She answered at the usual time, five o’clock, believing that, after spending a few minutes at the Printemps or the Galeries under the pretext of shopping, she could slip into the solitary garden without risk of being seen by any of her numerous acquaintances… Desnoyers enjoyed an almost forgotten voluptuousness—that of movement in a vast space—as she strolled, making the grains of sand crunch beneath her feet. For twenty days, her walks had been on planks, following the oval track of a ship’s deck with the automatism of a riding horse. Her feet, accustomed to an unsteady ground, still retained a certain sensation of elastic mobility on solid ground. Her comings and goings did not arouse the curiosity of the people sitting on the promenade. A common concern seemed to encompass everyone, men and women. The groups loudly exchanged their impressions. Those with a newspaper in their hands watched the neighbors approach with questioning smiles. The distrust and suspicion that drive the inhabitants of large cities to ignore one another, sizing each other up as if they were enemies, had suddenly disappeared . “They’re talking about war,” Desnoyers said to himself. “All of Paris at this hour is talking only about the possibility of war.” Outside the garden, the same anxiety was also noticeable, making the people fraternal and egalitarian. Newspaper vendors passed along the boulevard shouting the afternoon’s publications. Their furious rush was cut short by the eager hands of passersby vying for papers. Every reader was surrounded by a group asking for news or trying to decipher over their shoulders the thick and sensational headlines at the top of the page. On the Rue des Mathurins, across the square, a group of workers, under the awning of a tavern, listened to the comments of a friend, who accompanied his words by waving his newspaper with oratorical gestures. The traffic in the streets, the general bustle of the city, was the same as on other days, but it seemed to Jules that the vehicles were moving faster , that there was a thrill of fever in the air, that people spoke and smiled differently. Everyone seemed to know each other. The women in the garden looked at him as if they had seen him the previous days. He could approach them and start a conversation without them feeling surprised. “They’re talking about the war,” he repeated to himself, but with the compassion of a superior intelligence that knows the future and is above the impressions of the common people. He knew what to expect. He had disembarked at ten o’clock at night, having set foot on land less than twenty-four hours, and his mentality was that of a man who has come from afar, across the vast oceans, across unobstructed horizons, and finds himself assailed by the worries that govern human gatherings. Upon disembarking, he had spent two hours in a Boulogne café, watching bourgeois families pass the evening in the monotonous placidity of a life without danger. Then, the special train for the American travelers had taken him to Paris, leaving him at four in the morning on a platform at the Gare du Nord in the arms of Pepe Argensola, a young Spaniard he sometimes called “my secretary” and sometimes “my squire,” not knowing for sure what functions he performed around him. In reality, he was a mixture of friend and parasite, the poor, complacent, and active comrade who accompanies the young gentleman from a wealthy family with a poor understanding of his parents, participating in the vagaries of their fortune, collecting the crumbs of prosperous days and inventing expedients to keep up appearances in times of hardship. “What about the war?” Argensola had said before asking him about the outcome of his trip. “You come from abroad and you must know a lot. ” Then he had fallen asleep in his old bed, keeper of pleasant memories, while the “secretary” paced around the study talking about Serbia, Russia, and the Kaiser. This boy too, skeptical to Everything unrelated to his selfishness seemed infected by the general concern. When he awoke, her letter, summoning him for five o’clock in the afternoon, also contained a few words about the dreaded danger. Her amorous manner seemed to exude the concern of Paris. As he went out to get lunch, the concierge, under the pretext of welcoming him, had asked him for news. And in the restaurant, in the café, in the street, always the war… the possibility of a war with Germany… Desnoyers was optimistic. What could these anxieties mean for a man like him, who had just lived more than twenty days among Germans, crossing the Atlantic under the flag of the Empire? He had left Buenos Aires on a Hamburg steamer: the König Friedrich August. The world was in a state of holy tranquility when the ship left land. Only in Mexico did whites and mestizos exterminate each other in a revolutionary way, so that no one could believe that man is an animal degenerated by peace. The peoples of the rest of the planet demonstrated extraordinary sanity. Even on the ocean liner, the small world of passengers, of the most diverse nationalities, seemed a fragment of future society implanted as a rehearsal in the present, a sketch of the world of the future, without borders or racial antagonisms. One morning, the ship’s music, played every Sunday by Luther’s Chorale, awakened the sleepers in the first- class cabins with the most unprecedented of dawns. Desnoyers rubbed his eyes, believing he was still living in the hallucinations of sleep. German brass instruments roared the Marseillaise through the corridors and decks. The steward, smiling at his astonishment, finally explained the event: “July 14.” On German steamers, the great festivals of all the nations that provide cargo and passengers are celebrated as their own. Their captains scrupulously observe the rites of this religion of the flag and historical memory. The most insignificant republic sees the ship decorated in its honor. It’s another diversion, helping to combat the monotony of the voyage and serving the lofty purposes of German propaganda. For the first time, France’s great day was celebrated on a German ship; and while the musicians continued parading a galloping Marseillaise through the various floors, sweating and with their hair loose, the morning groups commented on the event. “What refinement!” the South American ladies said. “These Germans aren’t as ordinary as they seem. It’s a courtesy… something very distinguished. And there are still those who believe that they and France are going to come to blows?” The very few Frenchmen traveling on the ship looked amazed, as if they had grown out of all proportion in the face of public esteem. There were only three of them: an old jeweler who had just returned from visiting his branches in America, and two young commission agents from the Rue de la Paix, the most modest and timid people on board, Vestals with cheerful eyes and upturned noses, who kept to themselves, not allowing themselves the slightest vent in this unpleasant atmosphere. In the evening, there was a gala banquet. At the back of the dining room, the French flag and that of the Empire formed a colorful and absurd curtain. All the German passengers were in tails, and their ladies displayed the whiteness of their necklines. The servants’ uniforms shone as if on a grand parade. At dessert, the sound of a knife against a glass sounded, and silence fell. The commander was about to speak. And the brave sailor, who combined with his nautical duties the obligation of making speeches at banquets and opening the dances with the most respected lady, began to unfold a string of words resembling the rubbing of tablets, with long intervals of hesitant silence. Desnoyers knew a little German, as he remembered from his relations with his relatives in Berlin, and was able to catch a few words. The commander kept repeating “peace” and “friends.” A fellow passenger, a commercial agent, offered himself as interpreter, with the obsequiousness of one who He lives off propaganda. The commander prays to God to maintain peace between Germany and France and hopes that the two peoples will become increasingly friendly. Another speaker stood up at the same table as the sailor. He was the most respected of the German passengers, a wealthy industrialist from Düsseldorf who had come from visiting his correspondents in America. He was never referred to by name. He held the title of Councilor of Commerce, and to his compatriots he was Herr Comerzienrath, just as his wife called herself Frau Rath. The “lady councilor,” much younger than her important husband, had attracted Desnoyers’s attention from the beginning of the voyage. She, for her part, made an exception in favor of this young Argentinian, abdicating her title from the very first conversation. “My name is Bertha,” she said languidly, like a Duchess of Versailles to a handsome abbot sitting at her feet. The husband also protested upon hearing Desnoyers call him “counselor” like his compatriots: “My friends call me captain. I command a company of the Landsturm.” And the expression with which the industrialist accompanied these words revealed the melancholy of a misunderstood man, who disdains the honors he enjoys in order to think only of those he lacks. While delivering the speech, Julius examined his small head and his robust neck, which gave him a certain resemblance to a fighting dog. In his mind, he saw the high, oppressive collar of his uniform protruding from its edges, a double ridge of red grease. His erect, waxed mustache took on an aggressive stance. His voice was sharp and dry, as if shaking out the words… This is how the emperor must have delivered his harangues. And the bellicose bourgeois, with instinctive simulation, drew back his left arm, resting his hand on the hilt of an invisible saber . Despite his fierce expression and commanding oratory, all the German listeners laughed uproariously at the first words, like men who appreciate the sacrifice of a Herr Comerzienrath when he deigns to entertain a gathering. ” He says very funny things about the French,” the interpreter noted in a low voice. “But they’re not offensive.” Julius had guessed something of this when he heard the word “franzosen” repeatedly . He roughly understood what the speaker was saying: “Franzosen, big, cheerful, funny, improvident children. The things the Germans and they could do together if they forgot the grudges of the past!” The German listeners were no longer laughing. The councilor renounced his irony, a grandiose, crushing irony, weighing many tons, as enormous as the ship. Now he developed the serious part of his speech, and the commissioner himself seemed moved. “He says, sir,” he continued, “that he wishes France to be very great and that one day we will march together against other enemies—against others! ” And he winked, smiling maliciously, with the same smile of common intelligence that this allusion to the mysterious enemy aroused in everyone. Finally, the Captain-Counselor raised his glass to France. “Hoc!” he shouted, as if commanding an evolution to his reserve soldiers. Three times he shouted, and the entire German mass, rising, answered with a “Hoc!” resembling a roar, while the music, installed in the dining room, began to play the Marseillaise. Desnoyers was moved. A shiver of enthusiasm ran down his spine. His eyes moistened, and as he drank the champagne, he thought he had swallowed a few tears. He bore a French name, he had French blood, and what those gringos, who most of the time seemed ridiculous and vulgar to him, were doing was worthy of thanks. The Kaiser’s subjects celebrating the great day of the Revolution!… He thought he was witnessing a great historical event. “Very well!” he said to other South Americans sitting at the nearby tables. “You have to admit they were very courteous.” Then, with the vehemence of his twenty-seven years, he attacked the jeweler in the dining room, reproaching him for his silence. He was the only French citizen on board. He must have said four words . of gratitude. The party ended badly because of him. “And why didn’t you speak, since you’re the son of a Frenchman?” the other asked. ” I’m an Argentine citizen,” Julio replied. And he moved away from the jeweler, while the latter, thinking that “he could have spoken,” gave explanations to those around him. It was very dangerous to interfere in diplomatic affairs. Besides, he “had no instructions from his government.” And for a few hours he believed himself a man who had been about to play a great role in history. Desnoyers spent the rest of the evening in the smoking room, attracted by the presence of the “lady counselor.” The captain of the Landsturm, pushing an enormous cigar between his mustache, played poker with other compatriots who followed him in order of dignity and wealth. His companion remained at his side for much of the evening, witnessing the comings and goings of the waiters laden with bocks, without daring to intervene in this enormous consumption of beer. Her concern was to save an empty seat next to her for Desnoyers. She considered him the most “distinguished” man on board because he drank champagne at every meal. He was of medium height, dark-skinned, with a short foot that forced her to tuck hers under her skirts, and his forehead appeared like a triangle beneath two straight, black locks of hair, glossy like plates of lacquer. The exact opposite of the men around her. He also lived in Paris, in the city she had never seen, after numerous trips to both hemispheres. “Oh, Paris! Paris!” she would say, opening her eyes and pursing her lips in admiration when speaking alone with the Argentinian. “How I wish I could go there!” And so that he would tell her about Paris, she allowed herself certain confidences about the pleasures of Berlin, but with blushing modesty, admitting in advance that there was more to the world, much more, and that she longed to see it. Julio, as he strolled around the Expiatory Chapel, remembered with some remorse Councilor Erckmann’s wife. He had made the trip to America for a woman, to raise money and marry her! But he immediately found excuses for his behavior. No one would know what had happened. Besides, he was no ascetic, and Berta Erckmann represented a tempting friendship in the middle of the sea. When he remembered her, he imagined a large, lean, rabid racehorse with long strides. She was a modern German, who recognized no other flaw in her country than the heaviness of its women, combating this national danger in her own person with all kinds of nutritional methods. Food was a torment for her, and the parade of bocks in the smoking room a tantalizing torture. The slenderness achieved and maintained by this willpower made the robustness of her scaffolding more visible: her strong skeleton, with powerful jaws and large, healthy, dazzling teeth, perhaps giving rise to Desnoyers’s irreverent comparison. “She’s slim, yet enormous,” he would say upon examining her. But he also declared her the most distinguished woman on board; distinguished for the ocean, elegant in the Munich style, with dresses of indefinable colors reminiscent of Persian art and the vignettes of medieval manuscripts. Her husband admired Bertha’s elegance, secretly lamenting her sterility almost as if it were a crime of high treason. The German homeland was magnificent for the fertility of its women. The Kaiser, with his artistic hyperbole, had stated that true German beauty must have a waistline of five feet and over. When Desnoyers entered the smoking room to take the seat reserved for him by the counselor, the husband and his wealthy companions had their cards lying idle on the green tablecloth. Herr Rath continued his discourse amidst his friends, and the listeners took their cigars from their lips to utter grunts of approval. Jules’s presence provoked a smile of general friendliness. It was France who had come to fraternize with them. They knew that his father was French, and that was enough for him to They welcomed him as if he had arrived directly from the Quai d’ Orsay palace, representing the highest diplomacy of the Republic. The desire to proselytize caused them all to suddenly grant him an exaggerated importance. ” We,” the counselor continued, looking fixedly at Desnoyers as if expecting a solemn declaration from him, “wish to live in good friendship with France.” Young Jules nodded in agreement, so as not to appear inattentive. It seemed very good to him that people should not be enemies. For him, this friendship could be affirmed as much as they wished. The only thing that interested him at that moment was a certain knee that was seeking his under the table, transmitting its sweet warmth to him through a double curtain of silk. ” But France,” the industrialist continued plaintively, “is showing itself unfriendly toward us. For years our emperor has extended his hand to her with noble loyalty, and she pretends not to see it… You will admit that this is not correct.” Here Desnoyers felt he ought to say something, so that the speaker wouldn’t guess his true concerns. “Perhaps you aren’t doing enough. If you would give back, first of all, what you took from us!” There was a stupefied silence, as if the alarm signal had sounded on the ship. Some of those who were holding cigars to their lips stood with their hands motionless, two fingers from their mouths, their eyes wide open. But there was the captain of the Landsturm to give form to his silent protest. “Give back!” he said in a voice that seemed deafened by the sudden swelling of his neck. “We have no reason to give anything back, since we have taken nothing. What we possess we won through our heroism.” The hidden knee became more insinuating, as if advising the young man to be cautious with its gentle touches. ” Don’t say such things,” sighed Berta. “Only the corrupt republicans of Paris say that .” “Such a distinguished young man, who has been to Berlin and has relatives in Germany!” But Desnoyers, faced with every statement made in a haughty tone, felt a hereditary impulse of aggression, and said coldly: ” It’s as if I were to take your watch from you and then propose that we be friends, forgetting what had happened. Even if you could forget, the first thing I would do would be for me to give you back the watch.” Councilor Erckmann wanted to reply with so many things at once that he stammered, jumping from one idea to another: “To compare the reconquest of Alsace to a robbery!… A German land!… The race… the language… the history… But where does your will to be German appear?” asked the young man, without losing his calm. “When did you consult your opinion?” The councilor remained undecided, as if he were hesitating between falling upon the insolent man or crushing him with his contempt. ” Young man, you don’t know what you’re talking about,” he finally affirmed majestically. “You ‘re an Argentine and you don’t understand the things of Europe.” And the others agreed, suddenly stripping him of the citizenship they had attributed to him a short while before. The counselor, with military rudeness, had turned his back on him, and taking the deck, was dealing. The game resumed. Desnoyers, seeing himself isolated by this silent contempt, felt like interrupting the game with violence. But his hidden knee continued to counsel him to remain calm, and a no less invisible hand sought his right hand, gently squeezing it. This was enough to restore his composure. The “lady counselor” followed the game with fixed eyes. He looked too, and a malignant smile slightly contracted the corners of his mouth, while he said to himself, by way of consolation: “Captain, Captain! You don’t know what awaits you.” On dry land, he would have gotten no closer to these men; but life on a transatlantic liner, with its inevitable promiscuity, compels one to forget. The next day, the counselor and his friends went to look for him, going out of their way to erase all unpleasant memories. He was a “distinguished” young man, belonging to a wealthy family, and all of them owned shops and other businesses in their country. The only thing they cared about was It was not necessary to mention his French origins again. He was Argentine, and everyone in chorus was interested in the greatness of his nation and of all the nations of South America, where they had correspondents and businesses, exaggerating their importance as if they were great powers, commenting gravely on the deeds and words of their political figures, implying that there was no one in Germany who was not concerned about their future, predicting for all of them a future glory, a reflection of that of the Empire, as long as they remained under Germanic influence. Despite these flattering words, Desnoyers did not appear with the same assiduity as before at poker time. The counselor retired to her cabin earlier than usual. The proximity of the equinoctial line caused her to fall into irresistible sleep, abandoning her husband, who remained with his cards in his hand. Julio, for his part, had mysterious occupations that only allowed him to go on deck after midnight. With the haste of a man who wishes to be seen to avoid suspicion, he would enter the smoking room, speaking loudly, and come and sit next to his husband and his comrades. The game was over, and a riot of beer and thick Hamburg cigars served to celebrate the success of the winners. It was the hour of Germanic expansion, of intimacy between men, of slow and heavy jokes, of risqué tales. The counselor presided with all his grandeur over these pranks of friends, brainy businessmen from the Hanseatic ports who enjoyed large loans at Deutsche Bank or shopkeepers settled in the republics of the Plata River with countless families. He was a warrior, a captain, and as he celebrated each slow joke with a laugh that swelled his robust neck, he believed he was back in the bivouac among his comrades in arms. In honor of the South Americans who, tired of walking around the deck, came in to hear what the gringos were saying, the storytellers poured out into Spanish the jokes and licentious tales awakened in their memories by the abundant beer. Julio admired the easy laughter with which all these men were endowed. While the foreigners remained impassive, they laughed with resounding laughter, leaning back in their seats. And when the German audience remained cold, the storyteller resorted to an infallible expedient to remedy his lack of success. They told this story to the Kaiser, and when the Kaiser heard it, the Kaiser laughed aloud. He didn’t need to say more. Everyone laughed, “Ha ha ha!” with a spontaneous but brief laugh; a laugh in three bursts, since prolonging it could be interpreted as a lack of respect for His Majesty. Near Europe, a wave of news reached the ship. The wireless telegraph employees worked incessantly. One evening, when Desnoyers entered the smoking room, he saw the German notables waving their hands and with animated faces. They weren’t drinking beer: they had uncorked bottles of German champagne, and the Councillor, undoubtedly impressed by the events, refrained from going down to her cabin. Captain Erckmann, seeing the young Argentinian, offered him a glass. “It’s war,” he said enthusiastically, “the war that’s coming… It’s about time! ” Desnoyers made a gesture of astonishment. “War! What war is this?” He had read, like everyone else, on the bulletin board in the dining room a radiogram announcing that the Austrian government had just sent an ultimatum to Serbia, but this didn’t cause him the slightest emotion. He belittled the Balkan issues. These were quarrels between lousy nations, which captured the world’s attention, distracting it from more serious undertakings. How could this event interest the bellicose counselor? The two nations would eventually come to an understanding. Diplomacy is sometimes useful. “No,” the German insisted fiercely; “it’s war, blessed war. Russia will support Serbia, and we will support our ally… What will France do? Do you know what France will do?” Julius shrugged his shoulders sullenly, as if asking to be left alone . “It’s war,” the councilor continued, “the preventive war we need. Russia is growing too fast and preparing against us. Four more years of peace, and she will have completed her strategic railroads , and her military strength, united with that of her allies, will be worth as much as ours. It’s better to strike a blow now. We must seize the opportunity… War! Preventive war!” His entire clan listened to him in silence. Some didn’t seem to feel the contagion of his enthusiasm. “War!” In their imaginations, they saw businesses paralyzed, correspondents bankrupt, banks cutting off credit… a catastrophe more terrifying to them than the carnage of battle. But they approved with grunts and nods of their heads of Erckmann’s ferocious declamations. He was a Herr Rath, and an officer at that. He must be in on the secret of his country’s destiny, and this was enough for them to silently drink in the success of the war. The young man believed the counselor and his admirers were drunk. “Look, Captain,” he said conciliatorily, “what you’re saying may lack logic.” How could a war be beneficial to industrious Germany? Every moment it was expanding its reach: every month it was conquering a new market; every year its trade balance appeared to have increased to unprecedented proportions. Sixty years earlier, it had to man its few ships with Berlin coachmen punished by the police. Now its commercial and war fleets sailed all the oceans, and there was no port where German merchandise didn’t occupy a significant portion of the docks. It needed only to continue living this way, to stay away from war adventures. Twenty more years of peace, and the Germans would be masters of the world’s markets, defeating England, its former mistress, in this bloodless struggle. And were they going to expose all this like someone risking their entire fortune on a single card in a fight that could go unfavorably for them?… No; war, the counselor insisted furiously, a preventive war. We live surrounded by enemies, and this cannot continue. It’s better to end it once and for all. Either them or us! Germany feels strong enough to challenge the world. We must put an end to the Russian threat. And if France doesn’t keep quiet, so much the worse for her!… And if someone else… someone! dares to intervene against us, so much the worse for them! When I assemble a new machine in my workshops, it’s to make it produce and not let it rest. We have the largest army in the world, and we must keep it moving so that it doesn’t rust. Then he added with heavy irony: They’ve established an iron ring around us to suffocate us. But Germany has robust breasts, and all it takes is for her to swell them to break the corset. We must wake up before we find ourselves tied up while we sleep. Woe to anyone we find standing before us!… Desnoyers felt the need to respond to this arrogance. He had never seen the iron circle the Germans complained about. All the nations were doing was no longer living confidently and inactively in the face of Germanic immoderate ambition. They were simply preparing to defend themselves against an almost certain aggression. They wanted to sustain their dignity, continually trampled upon by the most unheard-of pretensions. “Aren’t other peoples,” he asked, “those who are forced to defend themselves, and you who represent a danger to the world?”… An invisible hand reached for his under the table, as it had some nights before, to advise him to be prudent. But now it gripped firmly, with the authority that comes with acquired rights. “Oh, sir!” sighed sweet Bertha. “To say such things, such a distinguished young man, and who has…” She couldn’t continue, because her husband cut her off. They were no longer in the American seas, and the counselor spoke with the rudeness of a householder. ” I had the honor of telling you, young man,” he said, imitating the cutting coldness of diplomats, “that you are nothing more than a South American, and ignorant of European affairs.” He didn’t call him “Indian,” but Julio heard the word internally as if the German had uttered it. Oh, if only that gentle, hidden grip hadn’t held him in its grip with its emotional twitchings! But this contact maintained his calm and even made him smile. “Thank you, Captain!” he said mentally. “It’s the least you can do to recover.” And here his relations with the counselor and his group ended. The
merchants, seeing themselves ever closer to their homeland, were shedding the servile desire to please that accompanied them on their voyages to the New World. They also had serious matters to attend to. The telegraph service was operating tirelessly. The ship’s commander conferred in his cabin with the counselor, as he was the most important compatriot. His friends sought out the most hidden places to talk among themselves. Even Berta began to flee from Desnoyers. She was still smiling at him from a distance, but her smile was directed more at memories than at the present reality. Between Lisbon and the shores of England, Julio spoke to her husband for the last time. Every morning, alarming news transmitted by radiographs appeared on the display board in the dining room. The Empire was arming against its enemies. God would punish them, bringing down all kinds of misfortunes upon them. Desnoyers was stupefied with astonishment at the latest news. “Three hundred thousand revolutionaries are besieging Paris at this moment. The outer suburbs are beginning to burn. The horrors of the Commune are being repeated.” ” But these Germans have gone mad!” the young man shouted at the radiogram, surrounded by a group of onlookers as astonished as he. ” We’re going to lose what little sense we have left… What kind of revolutionaries are these? What revolution can break out in Paris if the men in government aren’t reactionaries? ” A voice rose behind him, harsh, authoritarian, as if trying to quell any doubts in the audience. It was the Herr Counselor who was speaking. Young man, such news is sent by the first agencies in Germany… And Germany never lies. After this statement, he turned his back on him, and they never saw each other again. Early in the morning, the last day of the voyage, Desnoyers’s steward hurriedly woke him up. “Herr, come on deck: a beautiful sight.” The sea was veiled by fog, but among the hazy curtains, silhouettes resembling islands with sturdy towers and sharp minarets could be seen. The islands advanced slowly and majestically over the oily water, with a somber heaviness. Julio counted to eighteen. They seemed to fill the ocean. It was the English fleet, which had just left the coast of England by order of the government, sailing with no other purpose than to demonstrate its strength. For the first time, seeing this parade of dreadnoughts through the mist, evoking the image of a flock of prehistoric sea monsters, Desnoyers realized the full extent of British power. The German ship passed among them, dwarfed and humiliated, accelerating its speed. “One would say,” the young man thought, “that his conscience is troubled and he longs to escape .” Near him, a South American passenger joked with a German. “If only war had already been declared between them and you!… If only we were taken prisoner!” After midday, they entered the Southampton roadstead. The Friedrich August was in a hurry to leave as quickly as possible. The operations were carried out with dizzying speed. The cargo load was enormous: both people and luggage. Two packed steamers boarded the ocean liner. An avalanche of Germans living in England invaded the decks with the joy of those setting foot on friendly soil, eager to see Hamburg as soon as possible . The ship then moved forward through the canal with a speed unusual in these parts. People, leaning over the gunwales, were commenting on the extraordinary encounters on this maritime boulevard, ordinarily frequented by peacekeepers. Some smoke on the horizon was that of the French fleet carrying President Poincaré, who was returning from Russia. The European alarm had interrupted his voyage. Then they saw more English ships circling. off its coast like aggressive and vigilant dogs. Two North American battleships made themselves known by their basket-shaped masts . Then a Russian ship, white and lustrous from the masthead to the waterline , steamed past, bound for the Baltic . “Bad!” cried the travelers from America. “Very bad! It seems this time things are serious.” And they looked anxiously at the nearby coasts on either side. They presented the same appearance as always, but behind them, perhaps a new period of history was preparing. The ocean liner was supposed to arrive in Boulogne at midnight, waiting until dawn for the travelers to disembark comfortably. However , it arrived at ten, anchored far from the port, and the commander gave orders for the disembarkation to take place in less than an hour. To this end, he had accelerated his speed, wasting coal. He needed to get away as quickly as possible, in search of the refuge of Hamburg. The X-ray equipment worked for a reason. By the light of the blue spotlights, which scattered a pale clarity over the sea, the transfer of passengers and luggage bound for Paris began from the ocean liner to the tugboats. “Hurry! Hurry!” The sailors pushed the slow-moving ladies, who were counting their suitcases, thinking they’d lost some. The waiters carried the children as if they were parcels. The general rush made the exaggerated, unctuous Germanic friendliness disappear. “They’re like lackeys,” Desnoyers thought. They believe the hour of triumph is near and don’t consider it necessary to pretend…» He found himself on a tugboat dancing on the waves of the sea, opposite the black, motionless wall of the ocean liner, riddled with luminous circles and with the balconies of the decks packed with people waving handkerchiefs. Julio recognized Berta, who was waving a hand, but without seeing her, without knowing which tugboat she was on, out of a need to express his gratitude for the sweet memories that were about to be lost in the mystery of the sea and the night. «Goodbye, Counselor!» The distance between the departing ocean liner and the tugboats sailing toward the harbor entrance began to widen. As if it had been waiting for this moment of impunity, a stentorian voice emerged from the back deck, accompanied by boisterous laughter. «See you later! We’ll see each other soon in Paris!» And the brass band, the same band that thirteen days earlier had astonished Desnoyers with its unexpected Marseillaise, broke into a war march from the time of Frederick the Great, a grenadier march accompanied by trumpets. Thus, with the haste of flight and the insolence of an approaching revenge, the last German ocean liner to touch the French coast vanished into the shadows. This had been the night before. Not yet twenty-four hours had passed , but Desnoyers considered it a distant event of vague reality. His mind, always prone to contradiction, did not share the general alarm. The councilor’s arrogance now seemed to him the boasting of a bourgeois turned soldier. The anxieties of the people of Paris were the nervous shudders of a people who live placidly and become alarmed as soon as they glimpse a danger to their well-being. They had spoken of an immediate war so many times, only to have the conflict resolved at the last minute!… Besides, he didn’t want there to be a war, because war upset his plans for his future life, and man accepts as logical and reasonable everything that suits his selfishness, placing it above reality. No; there won’t be a war, he repeated as he strolled through the garden. These people seem crazy. How can a war break out in these times?… And after crushing his doubts, which would undoubtedly resurface shortly , he thought about the reality of the moment, consulting his watch. Five o’clock. She would arrive any moment now. He thought he recognized her from afar in a lady who was passing through the gate at the entrance to the rue Pasquier. She seemed somewhat different to him, but it occurred to him that summer fashions They could have changed their appearance. Before she approached, she realized her mistake. She wasn’t alone: ​​another lady had joined her. They were perhaps English or American, of the kind who pay a romantic cult to the memory of Marie Antoinette. They wished to visit the Expiatory Chapel, the former tomb of the executed queen. Jules saw them ascending the steps through the inner courtyard, in whose soil are buried eight hundred Swiss who died on August 10 , along with other victims of revolutionary anger. Discouraged by this disappointment, he continued strolling. His bad mood made him notice the ugliness of the monument with which the Bourbon restoration had adorned the old Madeleine cemetery considerably magnified . Time passed without her arriving. At each of her turns, she looked avidly toward the entrances to the garden. And what happened was what had happened in all their interviews. She appeared suddenly, as if she had fallen from on high or emerged from the ground, like an apparition. A cough, a slight sound of footsteps, and as he turned around, Jules almost collided with the arrival. “Marguerite!” Oh, Marguerite!… It was she, and yet he was slow to recognize her. He felt a certain strangeness at seeing in full reality this face that had occupied his imagination for three months, becoming ever more spiritual and vague with the idealism of absence. But his doubt lasted only a few moments. Then it seemed to him that time and space had been abolished, that he had not made a single journey, and that only a few hours had passed since their last meeting. Marguerite guessed the expansion that would follow Jules’s exclamations , the vehement clasp of his hands, perhaps something more, and she appeared cool and serene. “No; not here,” she said with a grimace of annoyance. “What an idea to have met us in this place!” They went to sit on the iron chairs, sheltered by a clump of plants, but she immediately stood up. Those passing by on the boulevard could see her if they merely turned their eyes toward the garden. At this hour, many of her friends must be around , due to the proximity of the department stores. They sought the shelter of a corner of the monument, wedging themselves between it and the Rue des Mathurins. Desnoyers placed two chairs next to a bed of vegetation, and when they sat down, they were invisible to those passing by on the other side of the fence. But they weren’t alone. A few feet away, a fat, nearsighted man was reading his newspaper; a group of women were chatting and doing some work. A lady with a red wig and two dogs—a neighbor who was going down to the garden to give her companions some air—passed several times in front of the amorous couple, smiling discreetly. “What a nuisance!” moaned Marguerite. “What a bad idea to have come here !” The two of them looked at each other attentively, as if they wanted to accurately understand the transformations wrought by time. ” You’re tanner,” she said. “You look like a seaman. ” Julio found her more beautiful than before, recognizing that her possession was well worth the setbacks that had caused his trip to America. She was taller than him, with an elegant and harmonious slenderness. “She has a musical step,” Desnoyers would say when evoking her image. And the first thing he admired upon seeing her again was the loose, playful, and graceful rhythm with which she marched through the garden looking for a new seat. Her face was not of regular features, but it had a piquant grace: the true face of a Parisian. Everything that the arts of feminine beautification could have invented was combined in her person, subjected to the most exquisite care. She had always lived for her. Only a few months before had she partially abdicated this sweet selfishness, sacrificing meetings, teas, and visits, to devote the afternoon hours to Desnoyers. Elegant and painted like a priceless doll, having as her supreme aspiration to be a mannequin that would enhance the inventions of the fashion designers with her bodily grace, she had ended up feeling the same worries and joys as other women, creating a life for herself interior. The nucleus of this new life, which remained hidden beneath her former frivolity, was Desnoyers. Then, just when she imagined she had definitively organized her existence, the satisfactions of elegance for the world and the joys of love in intimate secrecy, a sudden catastrophe, the intervention of her husband, whose presence she seemed to have forgotten, upset her unconscious happiness. She, who believed herself the center of the universe, imagining that events should unfold according to her desires and tastes, suffered the cruel surprise with more astonishment than pain. ” And you, how do you find me?” Marguerite continued. So that Jules would not make a mistake in her answer, she looked at her full skirt, adding: “I warn you that fashion has changed. The entravé skirt is finished. Now it is beginning to be worn short and full. ” Desnoyers had to occupy himself with the dress with as much passion as with her, mingling his appreciations of recent fashions with praise for Marguerite’s beauty. “Have you thought much of me?” He continued. “Haven’t you deceived me once ? Not even once? Tell the truth: look, I know very well when you lie. I’ve always thought of you,” he said, placing his hand over his heart as if swearing before a judge. And he said it firmly, with an accent of truth, for even in his infidelities, which were now completely forgotten, he had been accompanied by the memory of Margarita. “But let’s talk about you!” added Julio. “What have you been doing all this time?” He had brought his chair as close to hers as possible. Their knees were touching. He took one of her hands, caressing it, inserting a finger through the opening of her glove. That damned garden, which permitted no greater intimacy and forced them to speak in low voices after three months of absence!… Despite his discretion, the gentleman reading the newspaper raised his head to look at them irritably over his glasses, as if a fly were distracting him with its buzzing… To come and talk nonsense about love in a public garden, when all of Europe was threatened with catastrophe! Marguerite, repelling the audacious hand, spoke calmly of her existence during the last few months. I have entertained my life as best I could, boring myself a lot. You know I went to live with Mama, and Mama is an old-fashioned lady, who doesn’t understand our tastes. I have gone to the theater with my brother; I have visited the lawyer to find out about the progress of my divorce and hurry him along… And nothing more. And your husband?… Let’s not talk about him, shall we? I pity the poor thing. So good… so proper. The lawyer assures us he goes through everything and doesn’t want to put up any obstacles. They tell me he doesn’t come to Paris, that he lives in his factory. Our old house is closed. There are times I feel remorse when I think I’ve been mean to him. And me? said Julio, withdrawing his hand. ” You’re right,” she replied, smiling. “You are life. It’s cruel, but it’s human. We must live our lives without worrying about whether we bother others. We must be selfish to be happy. ” They both fell silent. The memory of her husband had passed between them like an icy breath. Julio was the first to revive. “And you haven’t danced all this time?” No; how was that possible? Just think, a lady who’s going through a divorce!… I haven’t gone to a single chic gathering since you left. I’ve wanted to observe a certain mourning for your absence. One day we were dancing the tango at a family party. How awful!… You were missing, maestro.” They had shaken hands again and were smiling. Memories of a few months earlier, when their love had begun , flashed before her eyes , from five to seven in the evening, dancing in the hotels on the Champs-Élysées, forging the indissoluble union of tango and a cup of tea. She seemed to be torn away from these memories by a tenacious obsession she had only forgotten in the first moments of their meeting. You who know so much, say: do you think there will be war? People talk so much! Don’t you think everything will eventually work out? Desnoyers supported her with his optimism. He didn’t believe in the possibility of war. It was absurd. I say the same. Ours is not a time of savages. I’ve known Germans, chic and well-educated people, who probably think the same as we do. An old professor on our way to the house was explaining to Mama yesterday that wars are no longer possible in these days of progress. In two months, there would hardly be any men left; in three, the world would run out of money to continue the fight. I don’t remember how this was, but he explained it palpably, in a way that was a pleasure to listen to. She reflected silently, trying to coordinate her confused memories; but frightened by the effort this would entail, she added on her own: Imagine a war. How horrible! Social life would be paralyzed. There would be no more meetings, no more suits, no more theaters. It’s even possible that no new fashions would be invented. All the women would be in mourning. Can you imagine that? And Paris deserted… So beautiful it seemed to me this afternoon when I came looking for you! No, it can’t be. Just imagine, next month we ‘re going to Vichy: Mama needs the waters; then to Biarritz. After that, I’ll go to a chateau on the Loire. And besides, there’s our business, my divorce, our marriage, which could take place next year… And all this would be hindered and cut short by a war! No, it’s not possible. These are the things of my brother and others like him, who dream of the danger from Germany. I’m sure that my husband, who only likes to occupy himself with serious and annoying things, is also one of those who believe war is imminent and is preparing for it. What nonsense! Tell me it’s nonsense. I need you to tell me. And reassured by her lover’s assurances, she changed the course of the conversation. The possibility of the new marriage she had mentioned evoked in her memory the purpose of Desnoyers’s trip. They had n’t had time to write to each other during their short separation. “Did you get any money? In the joy of seeing you, I’ve forgotten so many things…” He spoke with the air of a man experienced in business. He had less than he had expected. He had found the country in one of its periodic crises . But even so, he had managed to scrape together four hundred thousand francs. He kept a check for this amount in his wallet. More money would be sent to him later. A country gentleman, a relative of his, was looking after his affairs. Marguerite seemed satisfied. She, too, assumed the air of a serious woman, despite her frivolity. “Money is money,” she said sententiously, “and without it, there is no happiness . With your four hundred thousand and what I have, we can get by… I warn you that my husband wishes to give me my dowry. He has told my brother so . But the state of his affairs, the progress of his factory, do not allow him to make restitution as quickly as he would like . I pity the poor man… So honorable and upright in all his dealings.” If only he weren’t so vulgar! Once again, Marguerite seemed to regret these spontaneous and belated compliments that had chilled their conversation. Julio seemed annoyed to hear them. And again she changed the subject of her conversation. “And your family? Have you seen them?” Desnoyers had been to his parents’ house before heading to the Expiatory Chapel. A furtive entrance into the grand building on the Avenue Victor Hugo. He had climbed to the first floor by the servants’ stairs , like a caterer. Then he had slipped into the kitchen, like a soldier in love with one of the maids. There, his mother, poor Doña Luisa, had come to embrace him, weeping, covering him with frantic kisses, as if she thought she had lost him forever. Then Luisita, the one called Chichí, had appeared, always looking at him with sympathetic curiosity, as if she wanted to learn more about what a wicked and adorable brother is like, who leads decent women away from the path of virtue and lives a life of madness. Then, a great surprise for Desnoyers, for he saw his aunt Helena, the one married to the German, who lived in Berlin surrounded by countless children, enter the kitchen with the air of a solemn actress , a noble mother of tragedy. She has been in Paris for a month. She is going to spend a while in our castle. And it also seems that his eldest son, my cousin “the wise,” whom I haven’t seen for years, is around . The interview had been cut short repeatedly by fear. “The old man is at home; be careful,” his mother told him every time he raised his voice. And his aunt Elena walked toward the door with a dramatic gait, like a heroine determined to stab the tyrant if he crosses the threshold of her chamber. The entire family continued to be subjected to the rigid authority of Don Marcelo Desnoyers. “Oh, that old man!” exclaimed Julio, referring to his father. “May he live many years, but how he weighs heavily on us all!” His mother, who never tired of looking at him, had had to hurry up the end of the interview, frightened by certain noises. “Go away; he might surprise us, and the displeasure would be enormous.” And he had fled his father’s house, greeted by the tears of the two ladies and the admiring glances of Chichi, blushing and satisfied at the same time with a brother who caused scandal and enthusiasm among her friends. Margarita also spoke of Mr. Desnoyers. A terrible old man, a man of the old school, with whom they would never understand each other. The two remained silent, staring at each other. They had already said the most urgent things, the things that mattered to their future. But other, more immediate things remained inside them and seemed to appear in their eyes, timid and hesitant, before escaping in the form of words. They didn’t dare speak like lovers. The number of witnesses around them grew ever larger . The lady with the dogs and the red wig passed by more frequently, shortening their walks around the square to greet them with a knowing smile. The newspaper reader now had a neighbor at the bank to discuss the possibilities of war. The garden was becoming a street. The seamstresses, leaving their workshops, and the ladies, returning from the stores, crossed it to gain ground. The short avenue was an increasingly popular shortcut, and every passerby cast a curious glance at the elegant lady and her companion, sitting in the shelter of a clump of vegetation, with the withdrawn and falsely natural appearance of people who wish to hide while simultaneously feigning a carefree attitude. “What a nuisance!” moaned Marguerite. “They’re going to surprise us.” A girl stared at her, and she thought she recognized an employee of a famous couturier. Besides, some of the friends she had glimpsed an hour earlier in the crowd that filled the nearby department store might be crossing the garden . “Let’s go,” he continued. “If they saw us together! Imagine what they’d talk about… And now, when people have somewhat forgotten us!” Desnoyers protested sulkily. “Leave?”… Paris was too small for them because of Marguerite, who refused to return to the only place where they would be safe from any surprises. On another walk, in a restaurant, wherever they went, they ran the same risk of being recognized. She only accepted interviews in public places, and at the same time she was afraid of people’s curiosity. “If Marguerite would only go to his studio, with its such sweet memories!” ” No; not to your house,” she replied hastily. “I can’t forget the last day I was there.” But Jules insisted, sensing in her firm refusal the cracking of an initial hesitation. “Where would they be better off? Besides, weren’t they going to get married as soon as possible?” ” I tell you no,” she repeated. “Who knows if my husband is watching me! What a complication for my divorce if we were surprised in your house!” Now it was he who praised her husband, striving to show that this vigilance was incompatible with his character. The engineer had accepted the facts, judging them irreparable, and at that moment he was only thinking about rebuilding his life. No; it is better to separate, she continued. Tomorrow we will see each other. You will look for another, more discreet place. Think; you will find a solution. But he wanted an immediate solution. They had left their seats, heading slowly towards the rue des Mathurins. Julio was talking with A trembling and persuasive eloquence. Not tomorrow: now. They only had to call a rental car; a few minutes of running, and then isolation, mystery, a return to the sweet past, intimacy in that study that had seen its best hours. They would believe that no time had passed, that they were still in their first interviews. “No,” she said with a faint accent, seeking a last resistance. “Besides, your secretary will be there, that Spaniard who accompanies you. How embarrassing to run into him!” Julio laughed… “Argensola!” Could this comrade who knew her entire past be an obstacle? If they found him in the house, he would leave immediately. More than once she had forced him to leave the study so he wouldn’t get in the way. His discretion was such that it gave her a premonition of events. Surely he had gone out, sensing an imminent visit that couldn’t be more logical. He must have wandered the streets looking for news. Margarita fell silent, as if declaring herself defeated, seeing her pretexts exhausted. Desnoyers also fell silent, favorably accepting her silence. They had left the garden, and she looked around anxiously , frightened to find herself standing in the street next to her lover and seeking refuge. Suddenly, she saw before her a small red automobile door opened by her companion’s hand. ” Get in,” Jules ordered. And she got in hastily, anxious to hide as quickly as possible. The vehicle sped off. Margarita immediately lowered the curtain on the window next to her seat. But before she completed the operation and could turn her head, she felt an avid mouth caress the back of her neck. “No; not here,” he said in a pleading tone. “Let’s be serious.” And while he, rebellious to these exhortations, persisted in his passionate advances, Margarita’s voice sounded again over the clatter of old hardware that the automobile was sending bouncing across the pavement. “Do you really think there won’t be war?” Do you think we can get married? Tell me again. I need you to reassure me… I want to hear it from your mouth. Chapter 2. The Centaur Madariaga. In 1870, Marcelo Desnoyers was nineteen years old. He was born on the outskirts of Paris. He was an only child, and his father, involved in small-scale construction projects, supported the family in modest comfort. The bricklayer wanted to make his son an architect, and Marcelo was beginning his preparatory studies when his father died suddenly, leaving his business in turmoil. Within a few months, he and his mother descended the slope of ruin, forced to renounce their bourgeois comforts to live like working men. When he had to choose a trade at fourteen, he became a woodcarver. This trade was an art and was related to the interests awakened in Marcelo by his forced abandonment of studies. His mother retired to the countryside, seeking the protection of relatives. He advanced rapidly in the workshop, assisting his master in all the important projects he undertook in the provinces. The first news of the war with Prussia found him in Marseille working on a theater set. Marcellus was an enemy of the Empire, like all young men of his generation. He was also influenced by the older workers, who had participated in the Republic of ’48 and still retained vivid memories of the December 2nd coup d’état. One day, he saw a popular demonstration in the streets of Marseille in favor of peace, which amounted to a protest against the government. The old republicans engaged in an implacable struggle with the emperor, the comrades of the newly organized International, and a large number of Spaniards and Italians who had fled their countries due to recent insurrections made up the procession. A
long-haired, consumptive student carried the banner. “It is peace we desire; a peace that unites all men,” the demonstrators chanted. But on earth the noblest intentions are seldom heard, for fate delights in twisting and diverting them. Scarcely had the friends of peace entered the Cannebière with their hymn and their standard, it was war that confronted them, and they had to resort to fist and club. The day before, some battalions of Algerian Zouaves had landed to reinforce the frontier army, and these veterans, accustomed to a colonial existence, unscrupulous in the matter of abuses, thought it appropriate to intervene in the demonstration, some with bayonets, others with their belts unfastened. “Long live war!” And a shower of lashes and blows fell upon the singers. Marcellus could see how the candid student who had called for peace with priestly gravity rolled wrapped in his standard under the joyful stamping of the Zouaves. And he knew no more, for he received several blows from the belts, a slight stab wound in the shoulder, and had to run like the others. That day, his tenacious, haughty, irritable character in the face of contradiction, to the point of adopting the most extreme resolutions, was revealed for the first time. The memory of the blows he had received infuriated him as if calling for revenge. “Down with the war!” Since he could no longer protest in any other way, he would leave his country. The struggle was going to be long, disastrous, according to the enemies of the Empire. He would be entering his fifth year in a few months. The Emperor could arrange his affairs as he saw fit. Desnoyers renounced the honor of serving him. He hesitated a little when he remembered his mother. But his relatives in the countryside would not abandon her, and he intended to work hard to send her money. Who knows if riches awaited him across the sea! Goodbye, France! Thanks to his savings, a port broker offered him boarding without papers on three ships. One was bound for Egypt, another for Australia, another for Montevideo and Buenos Aires. Which seemed best to him?… Desnoyers, remembering his readings, wanted to consult the wind and follow the course it indicated, as he had seen several novel heroes do. But that day the wind was blowing from the sea, heading into France. He also wanted to toss a coin to indicate his destination. In the end, he decided on the ship that left first. Only when he was with his meager luggage on the deck of a steamer about to set sail did he become interested in knowing his course: “To the River Plate…” And he greeted these words with a fatalistic gesture. “Go for South America!” He didn’t dislike the country. He knew it from certain travel publications, whose illustrations depicted herds of free horses, naked and feathered Indians, and shaggy gauchos twirling serpentine lassos and leashes with balls over their heads. The millionaire Desnoyers always remembered his voyage to America: forty-three days at sea on a small, rickety steamer, which rattled like old iron, groaned at every joint at the slightest swell , and stopped four times due to engine fatigue, leaving him at the mercy of waves and currents. In Montevideo, he learned of the setbacks his homeland had suffered and that the Empire no longer existed. He felt ashamed to know that the nation governed itself, tenaciously defending itself behind the walls of Paris. And he had fled! Months later, the events of the Commune consoled him for his escape. Had he stayed there, his anger at the nation’s failures, his comradely relationships, the environment he lived in—everything would have dragged him into revolt. By then, he would have been shot or living in a colonial prison, like so many of his former comrades. He praised his resolve and stopped thinking about the affairs of his homeland. The need to earn a living in a foreign country, whose language he was beginning to learn, caused him to focus solely on himself. The hectic and adventurous life of the new towns dragged him through the most diverse trades and the most absurd improvisations. He felt strong, with a boldness and a poise he had never had in the old world. “I’m good for anything,” he said, “if they give me time to practice.” He was even a soldier, having fled his homeland for not taking up a rifle, and received a wound in one of the many battles between “whites” and “reds” of the Eastern Bank. In Buenos Aires, he returned to work as a carver. The city was beginning to transform, breaking away from its village-like appearance. Desnoyers spent several years decorating halls and facades. It was a laborious, sedentary, and rewarding existence. But one day he grew tired of this slow saving, which could only provide him with a mediocre fortune in the long run. He had gone to the New World to strike it rich like so many others. And at twenty-seven, he launched himself into adventure once again, fleeing the cities, hoping to wrest money from the depths of a virgin nature. He tried farming in the northern jungles, but locusts devastated them in a matter of hours. He was a cattle trader, herding troops of steers and mules with just two laborers, which he would transport to Chile or Bolivia through the snowy wilderness of the Andes. In this life, he lost all sense of time and space, embarking on journeys that lasted months across endless plains. One moment he considered himself close to fortune, another he lost it all at once due to an ill-fated speculation. And it was in one of these moments of ruin and despondency, when he was already thirty years old, that he entered the service of the wealthy rancher Julio Madariaga. He knew this rustic millionaire from his cattle purchases. He was a Spaniard who had arrived in the country at a very young age, happily adapting to its customs and living like a gaucho, after acquiring enormous properties. Generally, he was nicknamed Madariaga the Galician, due to his nationality, although he was born in Castile. The people of the countryside added to their surname the title of respect that precedes the given name, calling him Don Madariaga. ” Comrade,” he said to Desnoyers one day when he was in a good mood, which was unusual for him, “you’re in a lot of trouble. You can smell a lack of money from afar. ” Why do you continue leading that wicked life?… Believe me, Frenchman, and stay here. I’m getting old and I need a man. When the Frenchman made a deal with Madariaga, the nearby landowners , who lived fifteen or twenty leagues from the ranch, stopped the new employee on the roads to predict all kinds of misfortunes. You won’t last long. No one can resist Don Madariaga. We’ve lost count of his managers. He’s a man who should be killed or abandoned. You’ll be gone soon. Desnoyers was soon convinced that there was some truth in such gossip. Madariaga had an insufferable character; but, touched by a certain sympathy for the Frenchman, he tried not to annoy him with his irritability. “That Frenchman is a gem,” he said, as if excusing his displays of consideration. “I love him because he’s very serious… That’s how I like men.” Desnoyers himself wasn’t sure exactly what this seriousness so admired by his employer consisted of, but he felt a secret pride at seeing him aggressive with everyone, even his family, while speaking to him, he assumed a tone of paternal rudeness. The family consisted of his wife, Misiá Petrona, whom he called “la china,” and two daughters, now adults, who had attended school in Buenos Aires, but upon returning to the estancia, somewhat recovered their original rusticity. Madariaga’s fortune was enormous. He had lived in the countryside since his arrival in America, when white people didn’t dare settle outside the towns for fear of the fierce Indians. He earned his first money as a heroic merchant, transporting merchandise in a wagon from fort to fort. He killed Indians, was wounded by them twice, lived as a captive for a time, and eventually befriended a chieftain. With his earnings he bought land, a lot of land, unwanted because it was unsafe, dedicating himself to raising steers, which he had to defend, rifle in hand, from the prairie pirates. He then married his china, a young mestiza who went barefoot, but who had several fields belonging to her parents. They had lived in almost savage poverty on lands they owned that required several days of trotting to cover. Later, when the government was pushing the Indians towards He sold unclaimed territories, seeing it as patriotic self-sacrifice that someone would want to acquire them. Madariaga bought and bought at insignificant prices and with very long terms. Acquiring land and populating it with animals was his life’s mission. Sometimes, galloping in the company of Desnoyers through his endless fields, he couldn’t repress a feeling of pride: “Hello, gabacho. According to what they say, further upstream from your country there seem to be nations more or less the size of my estancias. Isn’t that so?” The Frenchman approved… Madariaga’s lands were larger than many principalities. This put the rancher in a good mood. Then it wouldn’t be crazy if one day I were to proclaim myself king. Imagine, gabacho. Don Madariaga first!… The bad thing is that he would also be the last, because the Chinese woman doesn’t want to give me a son… She’s a weakling. The fame of his vast territories and livestock wealth reached as far as Buenos Aires. Everyone knew Madariaga by name, although very few had ever seen him. When he went to the capital, he went unnoticed because of his rustic appearance, wearing the same leggings he wore in the countryside, his poncho rolled up like a scarf, the aggressive points of a tie sticking out over it , an adornment of torment imposed by his daughters, who in vain arranged it with loving hands to ensure it remained somewhat regular. One day he had entered the office of the richest businessman in the capital. “Sir, I know you need steers for Europe, and I’ve come to sell you a little bit.” The businessman looked haughtily at the poor gaucho. He could understand one of his employees; he didn’t waste time on small matters. But at the rustic’s malicious smile, he became curious. “And how many steers can you sell, good man? About thirty thousand, sir.” He didn’t need to hear any more of the character’s comment. He rose from his table and obsequiously offered him an armchair. You can be none other than Mr. Madariaga. To serve God and you. That moment was the most glorious of his existence. In the bank manager’s antechamber, the orderlies mercifully offered him a seat, doubting that the man on the other side of the door would deign to receive him. But as soon as his name was called inside, the manager himself rushed to open it. And the poor employee was stupefied as he heard the gaucho say, by way of greeting: “I’ve come for three hundred thousand pesos. I have abundant pasture, and I’d like to buy a little cattle to fatten.” His unequal and contradictory nature weighed on the inhabitants of his lands with a cruel and good-natured tyranny. Not a vagrant passed through the estancia who wasn’t rudely welcomed by him from his first words. “Stop the stories, my friend,” he shouted, as if he were going to hit him. “Under the shade lies a flayed cow. Cut and eat whatever you like, and with this, you can continue your journey… But no more stories!” And he turned his back on him after giving him a few pesos. One day he was furious because a laborer was driving the posts of a wire fence too slowly. Everyone was robbing him! The next day, with a good-natured smile, he spoke of a large sum he would have to pay for having guaranteed with his signature a completely insolvent “acquaintance”: “Poor fellow! His fate is worse than mine!” Finding the carcass of a freshly skinned sheep on the road, he seemed to go mad with rage. It wasn’t because of the meat. “Hunger has no law, and God made meat for men to eat.” But at least they should leave the skin! And he commented on such wickedness, always repeating: “Lack of religion and good morals.” At other times, the marauders would steal away the meat of three cows, leaving the hides in plain sight; and the rancher would say, smiling: “That’s how I like people: honest and who don’t do wrong.” His tireless centaur-like vigor had served him well in the endeavor to populate his lands. He was capricious, despotic, and very good at fatherhood, like his compatriots who, centuries before, By dominating the New World, they clarified the indigenous bloodline. He shared the same taste as the Castilian conquistadors for coppery beauty, with slanted eyes and coarse hair. When Desnoyers saw him turn away under any pretext and gallop his horse toward a nearby ranch, he would say, smiling, “He’s going to look for a new peon who will work his lands in fifteen years.” The ranch staff would comment on the physical resemblance of certain young men who worked the same as the others, galloping from dawn to perform the various tasks of herding. Their origins were the subject of disrespectful commentary. The foreman Celedonio, a thirty-year-old mestizo, generally hated for his harsh and avaricious nature, also bore a distant resemblance to his boss. Almost every year, a woman from far away, a dirty, sullen Chinese woman with drooping foreheads, would appear with an air of mystery , leading by the hand a mestizo boy with flame-colored eyes. She asked to speak alone with the owner; and upon seeing him face to face, she reminded him of a trip she had made ten or twelve years earlier to buy a herd of cattle. ” Do you remember, boss, that you spent the night at my ranch because the river was swollen? ” The boss couldn’t remember anything. Only a vague instinct seemed to tell him the woman was telling the truth. “Well, so what?” Boss, here he is… It’s better for him to become a man by your side than anywhere else. And she presented him with the little mestizo. One more, and offered with such simplicity! “Lack of religion and good morals.” With sudden modesty, she doubted the woman’s veracity. Why should he be hers of all people? Her hesitation didn’t last long, however. ” If he is, put him with the others.” The mother left peacefully, seeing the child’s future assured; because that man, so prodigal in violence, was also so prodigal in generosity. In the end, her son would certainly lack a piece of land and a good flock of sheep. These adoptions initially provoked a rebellion from Misiá Petrona, the only one she ever allowed herself. But the centaur imposed a silence of terror on her. And you still dare to speak, lazy cow?… A woman who has only known how to give me females! You should be ashamed. The same hand that carelessly pulled the crumpled bills from his pocket, giving them out at whim, without regard for the amount, carried a whip dangling from his wrist. It was used to beat the horse, but he easily lifted it when one of the farmhands incurred his wrath. ” I hit you because I can,” he would say as an excuse when he calmed down. One day, the beaten man took a step back, reaching for his knife in his belt. “You don’t hit me, boss. I wasn’t born in these parts… I ‘m from Corrientes. ” The boss stood with his whip raised. “Are you really not born here? Then you’re right; I can’t hit you. Here are five pesos.” When Desnoyers entered the ranch, Madariaga was beginning to lose count of those under his authority, in the old Latin usage, who could receive his blows. There were so many that he frequently made mistakes. The Frenchman admired his master’s expert eye for business. He only needed to contemplate a herd of thousands of cattle for a few minutes to know their exact number. He would gallop with an indifferent air around the immense, horned, kicking group and suddenly have several animals removed. He had discovered that they were sick. With a buyer like Madariaga, the tricks and artifices of the sellers were useless. His serenity in the face of misfortune was also admirable. A drought would suddenly scatter his meadows with dead cows. The plain looked like an abandoned battlefield. Everywhere, black masses; In the air, great whorls of crows flew in from miles around. Other times, it was the cold: an unexpected drop in the temperature covered the ground with corpses. Ten thousand animals, fifteen thousand, maybe more, had gone missing… “What can be done!” Madariaga said with resignation. Without such misfortunes, this land would be a paradise… Now what matters is knowing how to save the hides. He railed against the arrogance of the emigrants from Europe, against the new customs of the poor people, because he didn’t have enough hands to skin the victims quickly, and thousands of hides were lost as they rotted along with the flesh. The bones whitened the ground like drifts of snow. The farmhands placed cow skulls with twisted horns on the fence posts, a rustic adornment that evoked the image of a parade of Hellenic lyres. ” Luckily, the land remains,” the rancher added. He galloped across his immense fields, which were beginning to turn green under the new rains. He had been one of the first to convert virgin lands into meadows, replacing natural pasture with alfalfa. Where one steer had once lived, he now placed three. “The table is set,” he would say cheerfully. ” Let’s go in search of new guests. ” And he would buy the cattle that had died of hunger in the wild at ridiculous prices, taking them to be fattened quickly on his opulent lands. One morning, Desnoyers saved his life. He had raised his whip over a farmhand who had just entered the ranch, and the farmhand attacked him, knife in hand. Madariaga was defending himself with whiplash, convinced that he was about to receive the fatal blow at any moment, when the Frenchman arrived and, drawing his revolver, subdued and disarmed his adversary. “Thank you, Frenchman!” said the rancher, moved. “You’re quite a man, and I must reward you. From now on… I’ll address you informally. ” Desnoyers failed to understand what reward this familiarity could mean. That man was so strange! Some personal considerations , however, improved his condition. He no longer ate in the building where the administration was located. The owner imperatively demanded that from then on he would occupy a place at his own table. And so Desnoyers entered the intimacy of the Madariaga family. The wife was a silent figure when her husband was present. She would get up in the middle of the night to oversee the farmhands’ breakfast, the distribution of biscuits, and the boiling of the pots of coffee or mate . She herded the chatty, lazy maids, who easily disappeared into the woods near the house. She imposed the authority of a true landlady in the kitchen and its annexes; but as soon as her husband’s voice was heard, she seemed to shrink into a silence of respect and fear. When the Chinese woman sat down at the table, she contemplated him with her round eyes, fixed like an owl’s, revealing a devout submission. Desnoyers came to think that in this silent admiration lay much amazement at the energy with which the rancher, now approaching sixty, continued to improvise new settlers for his lands. The two daughters, Luisa and Elena, enthusiastically accepted the guest, who came to liven up their monotonous conversations in the dining room, often interrupted by their father’s anger. Besides, he was from Paris. “Paris!” sighed Elena, the youngest, rolling her eyes. And Desnoyers found himself consulted by them on matters of elegance every time they ordered something from the ready-made clothing stores in Buenos Aires. The interior of the house reflected the diverse tastes of the two generations. The girls had a parlor with rich furniture leaning against cracked walls and ostentatious lamps that were never lit. Their father, with his rudeness, disturbed this room, cared for and admired by the two sisters. The carpets seemed to grow sad and pale beneath the muddy footprints left by the centaur’s boots. The whip appeared on a gilded table. The corn samples scattered their kernels on the silk of a sofa, which only the young ladies occupied with a certain reverence, as if they feared breaking it. Next to the entrance to the dining room stood a scale, and Madariaga was furious when his daughters asked him to bring it into the living quarters. He wasn’t going to bother himself with a trip every time he decided to find out the weight of a loose hide… The piano entered the room, and Elena spent hours typing lessons with desperate good faith. “Wrath of God! If only she played the jota or the pericón!” And her father, at siesta time, would go to sleep on his poncho among the nearby eucalyptus trees. This youngest daughter, whom he nicknamed “the romantic,” was the object of his anger and mockery. Where had she come from, with tastes that he and his poor china never shared? Music books were piled on the piano. In a corner of the crazy living room, several boxes of preserved food, arranged like a library by the room’s carpenter, contained books. Look, gabacho, said Madariaga. All verses and novels. Pure lies!… Air! He had his library, more important and glorious, and which took up less space. On his desk, adorned with carbines, lassos, and silver-plated saddles, a small cabinet contained the property deeds and various files, which the rancher leafed through with proud glances. ” Pay attention and you’ll hear wonders,” he announced to Desnoyers, pulling out one of the notebooks. It was the history of the famous animals that had entered the ranch for the breeding and improvement of his livestock; the family tree, the letters of nobility of all the pedigree animals. He had to be the one to read the papers, since he wouldn’t allow even his family to touch them. And with his glasses on, he spelled out the story of each livestock hero. “Diamond III, grandson of Diamond I, who was the property of the King of England, and son of Diamond II, a winner in all competitions.” His Diamond had cost him many thousands; but the most handsome horses on the ranch, which sold at magnificent prices, were his descendants. He had more talent than some people. All he needed to do was speak. It’s the same one embalmed next to the parlor door. The girls want me to throw him out… Let them dare touch him! I’ll throw them out first! Then he continued reading the story of a dynasty of bulls, all with their own names and a Roman numeral after them, just like kings; animals acquired at the great fairs of England by the stubborn rancher. He had never been there, but he used the cable to fight for pounds sterling with British owners eager to preserve such prodigies for their homeland. Thanks to these breeding stock, which crossed the ocean with the same ease as a millionaire passenger, he had been able to parade his bulls in the Buenos Aires competitions , which were towers of meat; edible elephants, with square and smooth backs like a table. This represents something, don’t you think, Frenchy? This is worth more than all the pictures of moons, lakes, lovers, and other nonsense my “romantic” puts on the walls to gather dust. And he pointed to the honorary diplomas adorning the desk, the bronze cups, and other glorious jewelry won in competitions by the children of his pedigree. Luisa, the eldest daughter, called Chicha, in the American style, deserved more respect from her father. “She’s my poor China,” he said; the same kindness and the same drive for work, but with more dignity. Desnoyers accepted the dignity immediately, and even thought it an incomplete and weak expression. What he couldn’t accept was that this pale, modest girl, with large black eyes and a smile of childish malice, had the slightest physical resemblance to the respectable matron who had given him life. The big holiday for Chicha was Sunday mass. It represented a three-league journey to the nearest town, a weekly contact with people who were not the same as those from the estancia. A carriage pulled by four horses took the lady and the young ladies with the latest dresses and hats from Europe through the shops of Buenos Aires. At Chicha’s suggestion, Desnoyers went with them, taking the reins from the coachman. The father stayed behind to walk around his fields in the solitude of Sunday, learning more about the carelessness of his people. He was very religious: “Religion and good manners.” But he had given thousands of pesos for the construction of the nearby church, and a man of his fortune wasn’t going to be subject to the same obligations as the lowlifes. During Sunday lunch, the two young ladies commented on the personalities and merits of several young men from the town and nearby estancias who stopped at the church door to see them. “Fancy yourselves, girls!” the priest would say. “Do you think they want you for your beauty? What those scoundrels are after are old Madariaga’s pesos; and even if they had them, maybe they’d give you a daily beating.” The estancia received numerous visitors. Some were young men from the surrounding area, who arrived on spirited horses performing tricks . They wanted to see Don Julio under the most unlikely pretexts, and they took the opportunity to talk with Chicha and Elena. Other times, they were young gentlemen from Buenos Aires, asking for lodging at the estancia, saying they were just passing through. Don Madariaga would growl, “Another son of a bitch comes looking for the Galician’s pesos! If he doesn’t leave soon, I’ll kick him out.” But the suitor was soon to leave, intimidated by the host’s hostile silence. This silence continued alarmingly, even though the estancia no longer received visitors. Madariaga seemed abstracted; and everyone in the family, even Desnoyers, respected and feared his silence. He ate sulkily, with his head bowed. Suddenly he would raise his eyes to look at Chicha, then at Desnoyers, and finally fix them on his wife, as if he were going to demand an account. “Romance” didn’t exist for him. At most, he would give her an ironic snort when he saw her standing in the doorway at dusk , gazing at the horizon, bloodied by the dying sun, with one elbow on the threshold and one cheek in one hand, imitating the attitude of a certain white lady he had seen in a chromolithograph painting awaiting the arrival of the knight of his dreams. Desnoyers had been in the house for five years when one day he entered the master’s study with the brusque air of a timid person who has made a decision. “Don Julio, I’m leaving, and I wish to settle the score.” Madariaga looked at him sarcastically. “Leave? Why? But he repeated his questions in vain. The Frenchman got bogged down in a series of incoherent explanations. “I’m leaving; I must go.” ” Oh, thief, false prophet!” the rancher shouted in a stentorian voice. But Desnoyers was unfazed by the insult. He had heard his employer use the same words many times when he was commenting on something amusing or bargaining with the buyers of livestock. “Ah, thief, false prophet! Do you think I don’t know why you’re leaving? Do you imagine that old Madariaga hasn’t seen your little glances and the little glances of his daughter’s dead fly, when you and she were walking around hand in hand, in the presence of the poor Chinese woman, who is blinded by her understanding?… That’s not a bad coup, Frenchman. With it you’ll seize half the Galician’s pesos, and you can say you’ve made it big in America.” And while he was shouting this, or rather, howling it, he had taken hold of the whip, tapping the point of it against his steward’s stomach with an insistence that could have been affectionate or hostile. ” That’s why I’ve come to say goodbye,” Desnoyers said haughtily. “I know it’s an absurd passion, and I want to go. ‘The master is leaving!’ the rancher continued shouting. The gentleman thinks he can do whatever he wants here! No, sir; no one commands here but old Madariaga, and I order you to stay… Oh, women! They only serve to make men enemies. And we can’t live without them!… He paced silently around the room several times, as if his last words made him think of distant things, very different from what he had said until then. Desnoyers looked uneasily at the whip still clutched in his right hand. Would he try to hit him like he would a farmhand?… He was hesitating between standing up to a man who had always been his friend… treated with benevolence or resort to a discreet escape, taking advantage of one of her turns, when the rancher stood before him. “Do you really love her… really?” he asked. “Are you sure she loves you? Pay close attention to what you say, for in this matter of love there is much deceit and blindness. I too, when I got married, was crazy about my china. Do you really love each other? Very well; take her, you devilish Frenchman, since someone will have to take her, and don’t let a lazy cow like her turn out for you… Let’s see if you can fill the ranch with grandchildren. ” The great producer of men and beasts reappeared when he formulated this wish. And as if he considered it necessary to explain his attitude, he added: ” I’m doing all this because I love you; and I love you because you are serious.” Once again the Frenchman remained absorbed, not knowing what this much- prized seriousness consisted of. Desnoyers, upon his marriage, thought of his mother. If only the poor old woman could see this extraordinary leap in his fortune! But Mama had died a year before, believing her son to be enormously rich because he sent him one hundred and fifty pesos every month, a little over three hundred francs, taken from the salary he earned on the ranch. His entry into the Madariaga family served to make him less concerned about his business dealings. He was drawn to the city, attracted by its unknown charms. He spoke with disdain of the country women, poorly washed Chinese women, who now inspired him with repugnance. He had abandoned his country horseman’s clothes and displayed with childish satisfaction the outfits a tailor in the capital had dressed him in. When Elena wanted to accompany him to Buenos Aires, he defended himself by claiming troublesome business dealings. “No, you’ll go with your mother.” The fate of the fields and livestock did not inspire him with concern. His fortune, managed by Desnoyers, was in good hands. “This one is very serious,” he said in the dining room before the assembled family. “As serious as I am… No one laughs at this one.” And finally, the Frenchman was able to guess that his father-in-law, when speaking of seriousness, was alluding to strength of character. According to Madariaga’s spontaneous statement, from the first days he met Desnoyers, he could guess a temperament equal to his own, perhaps tougher and firmer, but without shouts or eccentricities. Because of this, he had treated him with extraordinary benevolence, sensing that a clash between the two would be irreparable . Their only disagreements arose over the expenses established by Madariaga in earlier times. Since his son-in-law took over the estates, the work cost less and the people were more active. And this without shouting, without harsh words, with only his presence and his brief orders. The old man was the only one who stood up to him and maintained the capricious system of the stick followed by the gift. He was revolted by the meticulous and mechanical order, always the same, without a trace of extravagant arbitrariness, of good-natured tyranny. Frequently, some of the mestizo peons, whom public malice presumed to be closely related to the rancher, would present themselves to Desnoyers. “Boss, my old boss says you should give me five pesos.” The boss would respond negatively, and shortly afterward Madariaga appeared, furious in expression, but measuring his words, considering that his son-in-law was as serious as he. ” I love you very much, son, but no one here commands more than I do… Ah, gabacho! You’re just like everyone else in your country: every cent you snatch goes into the stocking, and you’ll never see the light of day even if they crucify you… Did I say five pesos? You’ll give him ten. I’m the one who orders it, and that’s enough.” The Frenchman paid, shrugging his shoulders, while his father-in-law, satisfied with his triumph, fled to Buenos Aires. It was good to note that the estancia still belonged to the Galician Madariaga. He returned from one of his trips with a companion: a young German who, according to him, knew everything and was good at everything. His son-in-law worked too hard. Karl Hartrott would help him with the accounts. And Desnoyers accepted him, feeling a budding esteem for the new employee after a few days . That they belonged to two enemy nations meant nothing. In all There are good people everywhere, and this Karl was a subordinate worthy of appreciation. He kept his distance from his equals and was inflexible and harsh with those beneath him. All his faculties seemed to be concentrated on serving and earning the admiration of those above him. As soon as Madariaga opened his mouth, the German would nod his head, supporting his words in advance. If he said something amusing, his laugh was scandalously loud. With Desnoyers, he was taciturn and diligent, working without regard for hours. As soon as he saw him enter the administration, he would jump out of his seat, straightening up with military rigidity. He was ready to do anything. On his own, he spied on the staff, exposing their carelessness and defects. This service didn’t excite his immediate superior, but he appreciated it as a sign of interest in the establishment. The old rancher praised his acquisition as a triumph, hoping his son-in-law would celebrate it as well. A very useful lad, isn’t he? These gringos from Germany are good workers, know a lot of things, and cost little. Then again, so disciplined! So humble! I’m sorry to tell you, because you’re French; but you’ve made some bad enemies. They’re tough people to deal with. Desnoyers answered with a gesture of indifference. His homeland was far away, and so was the German’s. Who knows if they’d ever return to it! They were Argentines there, and they had to think about immediate things, without worrying about the past. Besides, they have so little pride! Madariaga continued ironically . Any of these gringos, when they work as a clerk in the capital, sweeps the store, cooks the meals, keeps the accounts, sells to the customers, types, translates from four to five languages, and, if necessary, accompanies the owner’s friend as if she were a great lady… all for twenty-five pesos a month. Who can fight with people like that? You, gabacho, are like me… very serious, and you would die of hunger before going through certain things. That’s why I tell you they are formidable. The rancher, after a brief reflection, added: ” Perhaps they are not as good as they seem. You should see how they treat those under them. Perhaps they act simple without being so, and when they smile after receiving a kick, they say to themselves: “Wait until mine comes, and I’ll give you three back.” Then he seemed to regret his words. ” Anyway, this Karl is a poor young man, a wretch, who as soon as I say anything, opens his mouth as if he were about to swallow flies. He claims to be from a large family, but who knows about these gringos! All of us starving people, when we come to America, we think we are the sons of princes. ” Madariaga had addressed him informally from the very beginning, not out of gratitude, as he had Desnoyers, but to make him feel his inferiority. She had also brought him into her house, but only to give piano lessons to her youngest daughter. “The Romantic” no longer stood at the door in the evening, gazing at the setting sun. Karl, once he’d finished his work at the administration, would come to the rancher’s house and sit next to Elena, who tapped away at the keys with a tenacity worthy of better fortune. Late in the day, the German, accompanying himself on the piano, would sing fragments of Wagner, which made Madariaga doze in an armchair, the strong Paraguayan cigar clinging to his lips. Elena, meanwhile, watched the singing gringo with growing interest. He wasn’t the dream knight awaited by the white lady. He was almost a servant, a blond, red-faced immigrant, fleshy, somewhat heavy, and with bovine eyes that reflected an eternal fear of displeasing his employers. But day by day, she discovered something in him that changed her first impressions: Karl’s feminine whiteness beyond his sun-tanned face and hands; the growing martial quality of his mustache; the ease with which he rode his horse; his troubadour-like air as he sang voluptuous ballads in a somewhat muffled tenor voice with words she couldn’t understand. One evening, at dinnertime, he couldn’t contain himself, and he spoke with the feverish vehemence of someone who has made a great discovery: Papa, Karl is a nobleman. He belongs to a great family. The rancher made a gesture of indifference. Other things were worrying him these days. But during the evening, he felt the need to vent on someone the inner anger that had been gnawing at him since his last trip to Buenos Aires, and he interrupted the singer. ” Hey, gringo: what’s this about your nobility and all that nonsense you’ve been telling the girl?” Karl left the piano to stand up and answer. Under the influence of his recent singing, there was something in his attitude reminiscent of Lohengrin at the moment of revealing the secret of his life. His father had been General von Hartrott, one of the secondary leaders of the war of ’70. The Emperor had rewarded him by ennobling him. One of his uncles was a close advisor to the King of Prussia. His older brothers were officers in the privileged regiments. He had carried a saber as a lieutenant. Madariaga interrupted him, tired of so much grandeur. “Lies… nonsense… air.” Talking to him about gringo nobility! He had left Europe at a very young age to immerse himself in the turbulent democracies of America, and although nobility seemed anachronistic and incomprehensible to him , he imagined that the only authentic and respectable one was that of his country. He granted the gringos first place in the invention of machines, for ships, for the breeding of valuable animals, but all the counts and marquises of the gringo world seemed like fakes to him . It was all farce, he repeated. “There is no nobility in your country, nor do you all have five pesos. If you had them, you wouldn’t come here to eat, nor would you send the women you send, who are… you know what they are as well as I do.” To Desnoyers’s astonishment, the German accepted this shower humbly, nodding his head at the boss’s last words. ” If all that nonsense about titles, sabers, and uniforms were true,” Madariaga continued relentlessly, “why did you come here? What the hell did you do in your country to have to leave? ” Now Karl hung his head, confused and stammering. “Dad… Dad,” Elena pleaded. “Poor thing! How they humiliated him because he was poor!” And she felt a deep gratitude toward her brother-in-law when she saw him break his silence to defend the German. “But I appreciate this young man!” Madariaga said, apologetically. “It’s the people from his homeland who make me angry.” When, a few days later, Desnoyers made a trip to Buenos Aires, the old man’s anger became clear. For several months, he had been the protector of a German-born soprano who had been forgotten in America by an Italian operetta troupe. She recommended Karl, a hapless compatriot who, after traveling through various American nations and working in various trades, lived next door to her as a gentleman singer. Madariaga had happily spent many thousands of pesos. A youthful enthusiasm accompanied him in this new existence of urban pleasures, until , upon discovering the second life the German woman led in his absences and how she laughed at him with the parasites in her entourage, he flew into a rage, saying goodbye forever, accompanied by blows and breaking furniture. The last adventure of his life! Desnoyers guessed this desire for self-denial when he heard her confess her age for the first time. She had no intention of returning to the capital. It was all a lie! Existence in the country, surrounded by family and doing much good for the poor, was the only certainty. And the terrible centaur expressed himself with an idyllic tenderness, with the firm virtue of a sixty-five-year-old, already insensitive to temptation. After his scene with Karl, he had increased Karl’s salary, appealing as always to generosity to make up for his violence. What he couldn’t forget was his nobility, which gave him cause for new jokes. That glorious tale had brought back to his mind the family trees of the ranch’s breeding stock. The German was a pedigree, and with this nickname he designated him from then on. Sitting on summer nights under a shed at the house, he would fall into patriarchal ecstasies contemplating his family around him. The night’s calm was filled with the buzzing of insects and the cluck of frogs. From the distant ranches came the songs of the peons preparing their supper. It was harvest time, and large bands of emigrants were billeted on the estancia for overtime work. Madariaga had known sad days of war and violence. He remembered the last years of Rosas’s tyranny, which he had witnessed upon arriving in the country. He enumerated the various national and provincial revolutions in which he had taken part, as he was no less than his neighbors, and which he referred to as “puebladas.” But all this had disappeared and would never be repeated. Times were of peace, work, and abundance. “Look here,” he said, waving away the mosquitoes circling around him with jets of smoke from his cigar. “I’m Spanish, you’re French, Karl is German, my girls are Argentinian, the cook is Russian, his assistant Greek, the stablehand English, the Chinese kitchen girls, some are from the country, others Galician or Italian, and among the farmhands there are people of all castes and laws… And we all live in peace! In Europe, perhaps , we would have come to blows by now; but here, we’re all friends.” And he delighted in listening to the workers’ music: laments of Italian songs accompanied by accordion, Spanish and Creole guitars supporting the brave voices singing of love and death. “This is Noah’s Ark,” the rancher declared. He meant the Tower of Babel, Desnoyers thought, but to the old man, it was all the same. “I believe,” he continued, “that we live this way because in this part of the world there are no kings and the armies are few, and men only think about having the best time possible thanks to their work . But I also believe we live in peace because there is plenty and everyone gets their share… What a mess there would be if the rations were fewer than the number of people!” He lapsed into a thoughtful silence again, adding a little later: ” Be that as it may, it must be admitted that life is more peaceful here than in the other world. Men value each other for what they are worth and they get together without thinking about whether they come from one land or another. Young men don’t go out in a herd to kill other young men they don’t know, and whose crime is having been born in the other town… Man is a mean beast everywhere , I recognize it; but here he eats, has plenty of land to lie down, and is good, with the kindness of a satiated dog.” There are too many of them there , they live in crowds, getting in each other’s way, food is scarce, and they become rabid easily. Long live peace, Frenchy, and a peaceful existence! Wherever one feels well and doesn’t run the risk of being killed for things one doesn’t understand, there lies one’s true home. And like an echo of the rustic personage’s reflections, Karl, sitting in the living room at the piano, intoned a Beethoven hymn in a low voice. “Let us sing of the joy of life; let us sing of freedom. Never lie and betray your fellow man, even if they offer you the highest throne on earth for it.” Peace!… A few days later, Desnoyers remembered the old man’s illusions with bitterness. It was war, a domestic war, that had broken out in the idyllic setting of the estancia. “Boss, run, the old boss has drawn a knife and wants to kill the German.” And Desnoyers had run out of his office, warned by the voices of a laborer. Madariaga, knife in hand, was chasing Karl, knocking down all those who tried to block his way. Only he could stop him, snatching the weapon from his grasp. “That scoundrel!” the old man shouted, his mouth livid, thrashing in his son-in-law’s arms. “All the starving people think that all they have to do is get to this house to take my daughters and my pesos… Let me go, I tell you! Let me go so I can kill him! ” And, longing to be free, he apologized to Desnoyers. He had accepted her as a son-in-law because he liked her, modest, honorable, and… serious. But that singing pedigree, with all his arrogance!… A man he had gotten… he didn’t want to say where! And the Frenchman, as well-informed as he was about his early relations with Karl, pretended not to understand him. Since the German had fled, the rancher ended up allowing himself to be pushed back to his house. He talked about beating “the romantic one” and the Chinese one again, for not knowing things. He had surprised his daughter holding hands with the gringo in a nearby copse and exchanging a kiss. “He’s coming for my pesos!” he howled. “He wants to make it in America soon at the expense of the Galician, and for this, he needs so much humility and so much singing and so much nobility. Liar!… Musician!” And he insistently repeated the “musician!” as if it were the concretization of all his contempt. Desnoyers, firm and sober in his words, brought a solution to the conflict. “The romantic,” clinging to her mother, took refuge in the upper floors of the house. Her brother-in-law had protected her retreat, but despite this, the sensitive Elena moaned through her tears, thinking of the German: “Poor thing! Everyone against him!” Meanwhile, Desnoyers’s wife kept her father in his office, appealing to all her influence as a judicious daughter. The Frenchman went in search of Karl, still barely recovered from the terrible surprise, and gave him a horse to take him immediately to the nearest railway station. He left the room, but he didn’t remain alone for long. After a few days, “the romantic” followed him… Iseo “with the white hands” went in search of the knight Tristán. Madariaga’s despair was not as violent and thunderous as his son-in-law had expected. For the first time, he saw him cry. His robust and cheerful old age vanished suddenly. In an hour he seemed to have lived ten years. Like a child, wrinkled and trembling, he embraced Desnoyers, wetting his neck with his tears. “He’s taken her! The son of a great flea… he’s taken her!” This time he didn’t place the responsibility on his Chinese wife. He wept beside her, and as if trying to console her with a public confession, he said repeatedly: ” For my sins… It’s all been for my very great sins.” A period of hardship and conflict began for Desnoyers. The fugitives sought him out on one of his visits to the capital, imploring his protection. “The romantic” wept, affirming that only her brother-in-law, “the most gentlemanly man in the world,” could save her. Karl looked at him like a faithful dog trusting its master. These interviews were repeated on all his travels. Then, upon returning to the ranch, he would find the old man sullen, silent, staring fixedly before him, as if contemplating something invisible to others, and suddenly saying: “It’s a punishment: the punishment for my sins.” The memory of his first relations with the German, before taking him to the ranch, tormented him like remorse. Some evenings he would have a horse saddled and set off at full gallop to the nearest village. He no longer went in search of hospitable ranches . He needed to spend some time in the church, to talk alone with the images, which were there just for him, since he was the one who had paid the purchase invoices… “It’s my fault, my very great fault.” But despite his repentance, Desnoyers had to work hard to extract a compromise from him. When he spoke of regularizing the situation of the fugitives, facilitating the necessary procedures for marriage, he wouldn’t let him continue. “Do what you want, but don’t speak to me about them.” Many months passed. One day, the Frenchman approached with a certain mystery. “Elena has a son, and they call him Julio like you.” And you, you great idiot, cried the rancher, and your lazy wife is living peacefully, without giving me a grandson… Ah, Frenchman! That’s why the Germans will end up getting on your backs. You see: that bandit has a son, and you, after four years of marriage… nothing. I need a grandson, do you understand? And to console herself for this lack of children in her home, she went to the ranch of the foreman Celedonio, where a band of young mestizos gathered, fearful and hopeful, around the old boss. Suddenly, the china woman died. Poor Miss Petrona left discreetly, as she had always done, trying in her last hour to avoid any displeasure to her husband, asking his forgiveness with her eyes for the inconvenience her death might cause him. Elena appeared at the ranch to see her mother’s body, and Desnoyers, who had been supporting the fugitives behind his father-in-law’s back for over a year, took advantage of the opportunity to overcome his anger. “I forgive her,” said the rancher after a long resistance. ” I do it for the poor deceased and for you. Let her stay on the ranch and let the shameless gringo come with her. No more dealings.” The German would be an employee under Desnoyers, and the couple would live in the Administration building, as if they weren’t part of the family. She would never speak to Karl. But as soon as she saw him arrive, she addressed him formally, giving him orders rudely, just like a stranger. Afterward, she always walked past him as if she didn’t know him. When she found Elena in his house accompanying her older sister, she would also move on. In vain, “the romantic,” transfigured by motherhood, took every opportunity to place her little one in front of him and loudly repeat his name: “Julio… Julio.” A son of the singing gringo, white as a skinned goat and with carrot hair, they want to be my grandson… I prefer Celedonio’s. And to make matters worse, she would enter the foreman’s house, handing out handfuls of pesos to the children. Seven years after their marriage, Desnoyers’s wife felt she was about to become a mother. Her sister already had three children. But what were these worth to Madariaga, compared to the grandchild who was about to arrive? “It will be a boy,” he said firmly, “because I need him that way. His name will be Julio, and I want him to resemble my poor deceased wife.” Ever since the death of his wife, who no longer called her “la china,” he felt something akin to posthumous love for that poor woman who had endured so much throughout her life, always shy and silent. “My poor deceased wife” cropped up constantly in the rancher’s conversations, with the obsession of remorse. His wishes were fulfilled. Luisa gave birth to a son, who was named Julio, and although his features, still in their infancy, did not bear a strong resemblance to his grandmother, he had black hair and eyes and a pale brown complexion. Welcome!… This was a grandson. And with the generosity of joy, he allowed the German into his house to attend his baptismal celebration. When Julio Desnoyers was four years old, his grandfather rode him around the ranch, placing him in the front of the saddle. He went from ranch to ranch to show him off to the copper-colored populace, like an elderly monarch presenting his heir. Later, when the grandson was able to speak freely, he amused himself by conversing with him for hours in the shade of the eucalyptus trees. A certain mental decline was beginning to show in the old man. He was not yet senile, but his aggressiveness was taking on a childish quality. Even in the greatest displays of affection, he resorted to contradictions, seeking to annoy those close to him. “Come here, false prophet!” he would say to his grandson. “You’re a Frenchman!” Julio protested as if he were being insulted. His mother had taught him he was Argentine, and his father recommended he add Spanish, to please his grandfather. “Well, if you’re not French,” the rancher continued, “he shouted: ‘Down with Napoleon!'” And he looked around to see if Desnoyers was nearby, thinking he would cause him great trouble. But the son-in-law continued, shrugging his shoulders. “Down with Napoleon!” Julio said. And he immediately offered his hand, while the grandfather searched his pockets. Karl’s sons, now four in number, milled around the grandfather. Like a humble choir kept at a distance, they contemplated these gifts with envy. To please him, one day when they saw him alone they resolutely approached, shouting in unison: “Down with Napoleon!” “Brazen gringos!” the old man roared. “That’s something your scoundrel of a father must have taught you. If you repeat that again, I’ll run you down with whiplash… Insulting a great man like that!” This blond offspring tolerated her, but without allowing her any intimacy. Desnoyers and his wife took up the defense of their nephews, accusing him of being unjust. And to vent their comments of dislike, they sought out Celedonio, the best of listeners, for he answered to everything: “Yes, boss.” “It shall be, boss.” ” They are not to blame,” said the old man, “but I cannot love them.” Besides, they looked so much like their father, so white, with hair like a threadbare carrot, and the two oldest wearing glasses like clerks!… They don’t look like people with those lenses: they look like sharks. Madariaga had never seen sharks, but he imagined them, without knowing why, with round glass eyes, like the bottoms of bottles. At the age of eight, Julio was a rider. “On horseback, little peon!” his grandfather would command. And they would gallop across the fields, passing like lightning among the thousands and thousands of horned cattle. The “peoncito,” proud of his title, obeyed his teacher in every way. And so he learned to lasso the bulls, leaving them trapped and defeated, to make his little horse jump over wire fences, to save a deep hole from a boat, to slide down ravines, not without rolling many times under his saddle. Ah, fine gaucho! The grandfather would say, proud of these exploits. “Here are five pesos so you can give a handkerchief to a Chinese woman.” The old man, in his growing mental confusion, didn’t fully understand the relationship between passions and age. And the childish rider, pocketing the money, wondered who that Chinese woman was and why he should give her a gift. Desnoyers had to tear his son away from his grandfather’s teachings. It was useless for him to arrange for teachers for Julio or to try to send him to the ranch school. Madariaga would kidnap his grandson, running away together to run wild in the fields. The father ended up placing the boy in a large school in the capital when he was already past eleven. Then the old man turned his attention to Julio’s sister, who was only three years old, taking her, like the other, from ranch to ranch on the front of his mount. Everyone called Chicha’s daughter Chichí, but her grandfather gave her the title of “peoncito” (little farmhand), like her brother. And Chichí, who grew up vigorous and rustic, eating meat for breakfast and talking in her sleep about barbecue, easily followed the old man’s interests. She dressed like a boy, rode like the men, and to deserve the title of “fine gaucho” conferred by her grandfather, carried a knife in the back of her belt. The two of them raced across the fields from dawn to dusk. Madariaga seemed to follow the rider’s waving braid like a flag. At nine years old, she was already skillfully lassoing the cattle. What irritated the rancher most was being reminded of his old age by his family. Desnoyers’s advice to keep him quiet at home was taken as insults. As he grew older, he became more aggressive and reckless, increasing his activity to the extreme, as if he wanted to scare away death. He only accepted help from his mischievous “little farmhand.” When Karl’s sons, who were already quite grown up, came to hold his stirrup, he repulsed them with snorts of indignation. “Do you think I can’t hold on any longer? I’ve still got a long way to go, and those who wait for me to die to grab my pesos will be disappointed. ” The German and his wife, kept apart from the life of the estancia, had to suffer these allusions in silence. Karl, needing protection, lived in the Frenchman’s shadow, taking every opportunity to overwhelm him with his praise. He could never thank him enough for what He was his only defender. He longed for an opportunity to show his gratitude: to die for him, if necessary. His wife admired her brother-in-law with great enthusiasm: “The most accomplished gentleman on earth.” And Desnoyers silently expressed his gratitude for this support, recognizing the German as an excellent companion. Since he had complete control of the family fortune, he generously helped Karl without the old man’s knowledge. He was the one who took the initiative to help them realize their greatest aspirations. The German dreamed of a visit to his country. So many years in America!… Desnoyers, for the same reason that he had no desire to return to Europe, wanted to facilitate this desire of his brothers-in-law, and gave Karl the means to make the trip with his entire family. The old man didn’t want to know who would pay the expenses. “Let them go,” he said happily, “and never come back.” Their absence wasn’t long. They spent in three months what they had brought in for a year. Karl, who had informed his relatives of the great fortune his marriage represented, wanted to present himself as a millionaire, in the full enjoyment of his riches. Elena returned transfigured, speaking proudly of her relatives: the baron, the colonel of hussars, the commander of the Guard, the court councilor, declaring that all nations were contemptible compared to her husband’s homeland. She even assumed a certain air of protection when praising Desnoyers, a good man, certainly, but “without birth,” “without race,” and French, to boot. Karl, on the other hand, displayed the same affection as before, remaining in submissive modesty behind his brother-in-law. He held the keys to the bank and was his only defense against the terrible old man… He had left his two eldest children in a school in Germany. Years later, the rancher’s other grandchildren, whom he considered unfriendly and unwelcome, “with carrot-like hair and shark-like eyes,” met a similar fate . The old man now found himself alone. His second “little peon” had been taken from him. The stern Chicha couldn’t tolerate her daughter growing up like a boy, riding all the time and repeating her grandfather’s harsh words. She was in a school in the capital, and the nuns who taught her had to struggle mightily to overcome the rebellions and malice of their ferocious pupil. When Julio and Chichí returned to the estancia during the holidays, the grandfather focused his favor on the former, as if the girl had only been a substitute. Desnoyers complained about his son’s somewhat disorderly behavior. He was no longer in school. His life was that of a student from a wealthy family who remedied his parents’ laxity with all kinds of imprudent loans. But Madariaga came to his grandson’s defense . “Ah, fine gaucho!” Seeing him on the estancia, he admired his handsome gentlemanly manner. He tried his arms to convince himself of his strength; He made him recount his nightly fights, like the valiant champion of one of the gangs of debauched boys, called patotas in the capital’s slang. He longed to go to Buenos Aires to admire this joyful life up close. But alas! He wasn’t sixteen like his grandson. He was already over eighty. “Come here, false prophet! Tell me how many children you have… Because you must have many children! ‘Dad!’ protested Chicha, who was always nearby, fearing her grandfather’s bad teachings. “Stop bothering yourself!” he shouted irritably. “I know what I’m talking about. Fatherhood inevitably figured in all his amorous fantasies. He was almost blind, and the dying of his eyes was accompanied by a growing mental disorder. His senile madness took on a lewd character, expressing itself in language that scandalized or made everyone on the ranch laugh. ‘Ah, thief, and how handsome you are!’ He said, looking at his grandson with eyes that only saw pale shadows. The spitting image of my poor deceased… Enjoy yourself, your grandfather is here with his money. If you only had to count on what your father gives you, you’d live like a hermit. The Frenchman is one of those with a firm fist: with him there’s no partying possible. But I I think of you, little farmhand. Spend and be successful, that’s what your old lady has saved up for. When the grandchildren left the ranch, he whiled away his solitude by going from ranch to ranch. A mature mestizo woman was boiling water on the stove for her mate. The old man thought, confusedly, that she could very well be his daughter. Another fifteen-year-old offered him the gourd of bitter liquid, along with its silver straw to sip from. A granddaughter perhaps, although he wasn’t sure. And so he spent the afternoons, motionless and silent, drinking mate after mate, surrounded by families who looked at him with admiration and fear. Every time he mounted his horse for these adventures, his eldest daughter protested. “At eighty-four years old! Wouldn’t it be better for him to stay quietly at home? Any day now they’d be mourning a misfortune…” And misfortune struck. The boss’s horse returned one evening, plodding along without a rider. The old man had rolled down a slope, and when they picked him up, he was dead… Thus ended the centaur, as he had always lived, with the whip hanging from his wrist and his legs bowed by the curve of the saddle. His will was kept by a Spanish notary in Buenos Aires, almost as old as he was. The family was frightened when they looked at the voluminous document. What terrible provisions had Madariaga dictated? Reading the first part reassured Karl and Elena. The old man had considerably improved Desnoyers’s wife’s condition; but even so, there was still a huge part for “the romantic one” and her family. “I do this,” he said, “in memory of my poor deceased wife and so that people don’t talk about it.” Eighty-six legacies followed, which formed as many chapters in the testamentary volume. Eighty-five swarthy men and women, who had lived on the ranch for many years as ranch hands and tenants, received the old man’s last paternal generosity. At the head of them was Celedonio, who, during Madariaga’s lifetime, had already become rich with no other effort than listening to him, repeating: “So be it, boss.” These bequests represented more than a million pesos in land and cattle. Completing the list of beneficiaries was Julio Desnoyers. His grandfather made special mention of him, bequeathing him a field “to cover his personal expenses, making up for what his father didn’t give him.” “But that represents hundreds of thousands of pesos!” protested Karl, who had become more demanding after realizing that his wife was not forgotten in the will. The days that followed this reading were painful for the family. Elena and her family looked at the other group as if they had just woken up, contemplating them in a new light, with a different aspect. They forgot what they were going to receive, only seeing the improvements their relatives had made. Desnoyers, benevolent and conciliatory, had a plan. An expert in the administration of these enormous estates, he knew that a division among the heirs would double the expenses without increasing the proceeds. He also calculated the complications and outlays of a judicial partition of nine considerable estates, hundreds of thousands of cattle, bank deposits, houses in the cities, and outstanding debts. Wasn’t it better to continue as before? Hadn’t they lived in the holy peace of a united family? The German, upon hearing his proposal, straightened proudly. No; each to his own. Each to live in his own sphere. He wanted to establish himself in Europe, freely disposing of the assets. He needed to return to “his world.” Desnoyers looked him in the eye, seeing an unknown Karl, a Karl whose existence he had never suspected when he lived under his protection, timid and servile. The Frenchman, too, thought he saw his surroundings in a new light. ” All right,” he said. “Each to his own. That seems fair to me.” Chapter 3. The Desnoyers Family. The “Madariaga succession” as the lawyers interested in prolonging it to increase their fees called it in their own language was divided into two groups separated by the sea. Desnoyers settled in Buenos Aires. The Hartrotts moved to Berlin after Karl had sold all his assets, to use the proceeds for industrial enterprises and land in his country. Desnoyers no longer wanted to live in the countryside. For twenty years, he had been the head of a vast agricultural and livestock holding, commanding hundreds of men on various ranches. Now the scope of his authority had been considerably restricted by the division of the old man’s fortune into Elena’s share and the numerous legacies. It infuriated him to see several foreigners, almost all Germans, who had bought them from Karl, established on the surrounding lands. Furthermore, he was getting older; his wife’s fortune amounted to some twenty million pesos, and his ambitious brother-in-law, by moving to Europe, perhaps showed better judgment than he did. He leased part of his land, entrusted the management of others to some of those favored by the will, who considered themselves family, always seeing Desnoyers as the boss, and moved to Buenos Aires. In this way, she could keep an eye on her son, who continued to lead a hectic life, failing to advance in his preparatory studies for engineering… Furthermore, Chichí was already a woman; her robustness gave her a precocious appearance, beyond her years, and it was not appropriate to keep her in the countryside to be a rustic young lady like her mother. Doña Luisa seemed equally tired of the estancia life. Her sister’s triumphs caused her a certain annoyance. She was incapable of feeling jealousy; but, out of maternal ambition, she wished that her children would not be left behind, shining and rising like the other sister’s children. For a year , the most astonishing news from Germany reached the house that Desnoyers had established in the capital. “The aunt from Berlin,” as Helena’s nephews called her, sent very long letters , with tales of balls, meals, hunts, and titles, many noble titles and military dignities: “our brother the colonel,” “our cousin the baron,” “our uncle the close advisor, ” “our second uncle, the truly close advisor.” All the extravagances of the German social hierarchy, which is constantly developing new titles to satisfy the thirst for honors of a people divided into castes, were enumerated with delight by the former “romantic.” She even spoke of her husband’s secretary, who was no ordinary person, having earned the title of Rechnungsrath, Councilor of Calculation, as a clerk in the public offices. She also proudly mentioned the retired Oberpedell she had in her house, explaining that this meant “senior porter.” The news concerning her children was no less glorious. The eldest was the wise man of the family. He devoted himself to philology and historical sciences; but his eyesight was becoming increasingly impaired due to his constant reading. He would soon become a doctor, and before he was thirty, a Herr Professor. His mother regretted that he did not become a soldier, considering his interests as something that distorted the family’s lofty destiny . Teaching, science, and literature were a refuge for Jews, whose origins prevented them from earning a military rank . But she consoled herself with the thought that a famous professor could eventually achieve social standing almost comparable to that of a colonel. His other four sons would become officers. Their father prepared the way for them to enter the Guard or some aristocratic regiment without their fellow officers voting against their admission. The two girls would surely marry, when they were old enough, hussar officers with a noble name, haughty and gracious gentlemen of whom Miss Petrona’s daughter spoke enthusiastically. The Hartrotts’ accommodation was worthy of their new acquaintances. In the Berlin house, the servants wore shorts and white wigs on nights of rich meals. Karl had bought an old castle, with pointed turrets, ghosts in the basement, and various legends. of murders, assaults, and rapes, which enlivened its history in an interesting way. An architect decorated with many foreign orders, who also held the title of ” Construction Councilor,” was in charge of modernizing the medieval building without losing its terrifying appearance. “The Romantic” described in advance the receptions in the gloomy hall, by the diffuse light of electric lamps imitating torches; the crackling of the heralded fireplace, with its fake logs bristling with gas flames; all the splendor of modern luxury allied with memories of an era of omnipotent nobility, the best, according to her, in history. Also, the hunts, the future hunts in an expanse of sandy, shifting land, with pine forests, nothing comparable to the rich soil of her native estancia, but which had had the honor of being trodden centuries earlier by the Marquises of Brandenburg, founders of the reigning House of Prussia. And all this progress, this rapid rise of the family, in just one year!… They had to contend with other overseas families who had amassed enormous fortunes in the United States, Brazil, or the Pacific coast. But they were Germans “without birth,” coarse commoners who struggled in vain to enter the big world by donating to imperial projects. With all their millions, the most they could aspire to was to marry their daughters to line infantry officers . While Karl!… Karl’s relatives!… And “the romantic” let her pen run wild, glorifying a family into whose bosom she believed she had been born. From time to time, along with Helena’s letters, short ones arrived addressed to Desnoyers. Her brother-in-law gave him an account of his dealings, just as he had when he lived on the ranch under his protection. But this deference was accompanied by a poorly concealed pride, a desire to make amends for his times of voluntary humiliation. Everything he did was grand and glorious. He had invested his millions in industrial enterprises in modern Germany. He was a shareholder in armament factories as huge as towns, in shipping companies that launched a ship every six months. The Emperor took an interest in these projects, looking with benevolence on those who wished to help him. Furthermore, Karl bought land. At first glance, it seemed like madness to have sold the opulent fields of his inheritance to acquire Prussian sandbanks that only produced through fertilizer. But being a landowner, he belonged to the “agrarian party,” the aristocratic and conservative group par excellence, and thus lived in two opposing but equally distinguished worlds: that of the great industrialists, friends of the Emperor, and that of the Junkers, country gentlemen, guardians of tradition, and suppliers of officers to the King of Prussia. When Desnoyers learned of this progress, he considered the financial sacrifices it represented. He knew Karl’s past. One day, at the ranch, out of gratitude, he had revealed to the Frenchman the reason for his trip to America. He was a former officer in his country’s army; but the desire to live ostentatiously, with no other resources than his salary, led him to commit reprehensible acts: embezzlement of regimental funds, unpaid sacred debts, and forgery of signatures. These crimes had not been officially prosecuted out of consideration for his father’s memory; but his comrades in the army brought him before a court of honor. His brothers and friends advised him to shoot himself as the only remedy; but he loved life and fled to America, where, at the cost of humiliation, he had finally triumphed. Wealth erases the stains of the past faster than time. The news of his fortune on the other side of the ocean led his family to welcome him on his first trip, introducing him back to “their world.” No one could recall embarrassing stories about hundreds of marks when a man spoke of his father-in-law’s lands, larger than many German principalities. Now, when he settled In the country, everything was definitely forgotten; but what contributions imposed on his vanity!… Desnoyers imagined the thousands of marks poured lavishly into the Empress’s charitable works, into imperialist propaganda, into veterans’ societies, into all the groups of aggression and expansion formed by Germanic ambitions. The Frenchman, a sober man, parsimonious in his spending, and devoid of ambition, smiled at his brother-in-law’s greatness. He considered Karl an excellent companion, albeit one with a childish pride. He remembered with satisfaction the years they had spent together in the countryside. He could not forget the German who hovered around him, affectionate and submissive, like a younger brother. When his family commented with somewhat envious vivacity on the glories of their Berlin relatives, he would say with a smile: “Leave them alone; they have a hard time.” But the enthusiasm that the letters from Germany inspired ended up creating an atmosphere of restlessness and rebellion around her. Chichí was the first to attack. Why weren’t they going to Europe, like the others? All her friends had been there. Families of Italian and Spanish shopkeepers were embarking on the journey, and she, the daughter of a Frenchman, hadn’t seen Paris! Oh, Paris! The doctors who treated the melancholic ladies declared the existence of a new and dreaded illness: “the Paris illness.” Doña Luisa supported her daughter. Why shouldn’t she live in Europe, like her sister, since she was richer? Even Julio gravely declared that she would study more effectively in the old world. America is not a land of scholars. And her father ended up asking himself the same question, wondering why he hadn’t thought of going to Europe before. Thirty-four years without leaving that country that wasn’t his own! It was time to leave. He lived too close to business. He tried in vain to maintain the indifference of a retired rancher. Everyone around him was making money. At the club, at the theater, wherever he went, people talked about land purchases, sales, quick deals with triple profits, and prodigious liquidations. The sums he kept idle in the banks were beginning to weigh heavily on him. He would eventually get mixed up in some speculation, like a gambler who can’t see the roulette wheel without reaching for his pocket. For this, it wasn’t worth abandoning the ranch. His family was right: “To Paris!” Because in the Desnoyers group, going to Europe meant going to Paris. “The aunt from Berlin” could sing all kinds of praises about her husband’s homeland. “Nonsense!” exclaimed Julio, who had made serious geographical and ethnic comparisons during his nights of adventure. “There’s only Paris.” Chichí greeted the slightest doubt about this with an ironic grimace: “Are elegant fashions invented in Germany?” Doña Luisa supported her children. “Paris!” It had never occurred to her to go to a Lutheran land to be protected by her sister. “Wow, Paris!” said the Frenchman, as if speaking of an unknown city. He had grown accustomed to believing he would never return. During his first years in America, this trip was impossible for him because he hadn’t done his military service. Later, he had vague news of various amnesties. Besides, plenty of time had passed before the statute of limitations expired. But a laziness of will made him consider returning to his homeland as something absurd and useless. Nothing remained on the other side of the sea to pull him back. He had even lost all ties with those country relatives who had sheltered his mother. In his sad hours , he planned to divert his activity by erecting an enormous mausoleum, all of marble, in Recoleta, the cemetery of the rich, to transfer the remains of Madariaga, as founder of a dynasty, to its crypt, followed by himself, and then all his family, when their time came. He was beginning to feel the weight of his old age. He was approaching sixty, and the harsh life of the countryside, the rides in the rain, The rivers forded on the swimming horse, the nights spent outdoors, had given him a rheumatism that embittered his best days. But his family finally communicated their enthusiasm. “To Paris!” He thought he was twenty. And, forgetting his usual slowness, he hoped his family would travel like a royal family, in luxurious cabins and with their own servants. Two copper-colored virgins born on the estate and elevated to the rank of maids to the lady and her daughter followed them on the journey, their slanted eyes never revealing any astonishment at the greatest novelty. Once in Paris, Desnoyers felt disoriented. He muddled street names and suggested visits to buildings that had long since disappeared. All his attempts to boast of his knowledge were met with failure. His children, guided by recent readings, knew Paris better than he did. He considered himself a foreigner in his own country. At first, he even felt a certain strangeness when using his native language. He had remained on the estancia for years without uttering a word of his own language. He thought in Spanish, and when he translated his thoughts into the language of his ancestors, he peppered French with all kinds of Creole expressions. ” Where a man makes his fortune and starts his family, there is his true homeland,” he would say sententiously, recalling Madariaga. The image of the distant country resurfaced in him with a domineering obsession as soon as the first impressions of the trip faded. He had no French friends, and when he went out, his steps instinctively led him toward the gathering places of the Argentines. The same thing happened to them. They had left their homeland to feel more intensely the desire to talk about it at all hours. He read the local newspapers, commenting on the rising prices of the fields, the importance of the upcoming harvest, the sale of steers. On the way home, he was equally haunted by the memory of America, thinking with delight that the two Chinese women had trampled on the professional dignity of the French cook, preparing a mazamorra, a carbonada, or a Creole-style stew. The family had settled into an ostentatious house on the Avenue Victor Hugo: renting twenty-eight thousand francs. Doña Luisa had to go in and out many times to get used to the imposing appearance of the doormen: he decorated, dressed in black, and with white sideburns, like a notary in a comedy; she majestic, with a gold chain over her luxuriant bosom, receiving the tenants in a red and gold salon. Upstairs, in the bedrooms, an ultramodern luxury, cold and icy to the eye, with white walls and small rectangular stained-glass windows, exasperated Desnoyers, who was enthusiastic about the intricate carvings and rich furniture of his youth. He himself oversaw the arrangement of the numerous rooms, which always seemed empty. Chichi protested against Papa’s avarice when he saw him buying slowly, with tentativeness and hesitation. “Avaricious,” he didn’t reply. “It’s just that I know the price of things. ” Objects only pleased him when he had acquired them for a third of their value. The deceitfulness he got away with represented a testament to the buyer’s superiority. Paris offered him a place of pleasure such as he couldn’t find in the rest of the world: the Hotel Drouot. He went there every evening when he couldn’t find in the newspapers advertisements for other important auctions. For several years, there wasn’t a famous shipwreck in Parisian life, with the consequent liquidation of the remains, from which he didn’t take a share. The utility and necessity of the acquisitions were of secondary interest; the important thing was to acquire them at ridiculously low prices. And the auctions flooded those rooms, which at first were furnished with excruciating slowness. Her daughter now complained that the house was becoming too crowded. The furniture and ornaments were rich, but so many… so many! The living rooms took on the look of an antique store. The white walls They seemed to detach themselves from the magnificent chairs and the overflowing display cases. Sumptuous, shaved carpets, over which several generations had walked, covered all floors. Ostentatious curtains, finding no empty space in the parlors, adorned the doors adjacent to the kitchen. The moldings on the walls disappeared under a paneling of paintings as tightly woven as the scales of a breastplate. Who could accuse Desnoyers of being miserly? He spent much more than if a fashionable furniture maker were his supplier. The thought that he acquired everything for a quarter of its price made him continue these thrifty spending spree. He could only sleep well when he imagined he had made a good deal that day. He bought thousands of bottles at auctions from bankruptcies. And he, who hardly drank, filled his caves, recommending that the family use champagne as ordinary wine. The ruin of a furrier led him to acquire fourteen thousand francs’ worth of furs, representing a value of ninety thousand. The entire Desnoyers group seemed to suddenly feel a glacial chill, as if the polar ice floes had invaded the Avenue Victor Hugo. The father limited himself to treating himself to a fur coat; but he ordered three for his son. Chichi and Doña Luisa appeared everywhere covered in silky and varied furs: one day chinchillas, another blue fox, pine marten, or sea lion. He himself adorned the walls with new batches of paintings, hammering at the top of a ladder, to save the expense of a laborer. He wanted to offer his children examples of economy. In his idle hours, he would rearrange the heaviest furniture, coming up with all sorts of combinations. It was a reminder of his good days, when he handled sacks of wheat and bales of hides on the ranch. His son, noticing him staring at a monumental display case, prudently took cover. Desnoyers felt a certain hesitation in front of his two servants, proper, solemn figures, always in tails, who didn’t hide their surprise at seeing a man with over a million dollars in income engaged in such duties. In the end, it was the two copper-colored maids who helped the owner, joining him with the familiarity of fellow exiles. Four automobiles completed the family’s luxury. The sons would have been content with just one, a small, brand-new one, displaying the latest fashion. But Desnoyers wasn’t a man to waste a good opportunity, and, one after the other, he had acquired all four, tempted by the price. They were enormous and majestic like antique carriages. Their entrance onto a street made passersby turn their heads. The chauffeur needed two assistants to attend to this herd of behemoths. But the owner only recalled the skill with which he believed he had deceived the vendors, anxious to lose sight of such monuments. He recommended modesty and economy to his children. ” We are less rich than you think. We have many possessions, but they produce little income.” And after refusing a household expense of two hundred francs, he spent five thousand on an unnecessary purchase, simply because it represented, in his opinion, a great loss for the vendor. Julio and his sister protested to Doña Luisa. Chichí went so far as to declare that she would never marry a man like her father. “Shut up!” the scandalized Creole woman said. “He has a temper, but he’s very good. He’s never given me a reason to complain. I wish you could find someone like him.” Her husband’s squabbles, his irritable temper, his domineering will, lost all importance to her when she thought of his fidelity. After so many years of marriage… nothing! She had been of unshakeable virtue, even in the countryside, where people, surrounded by beasts and enriched by their procreation, seem to be contaminated by the amorality of the herds. She who remembered her father so much! Her own sister must have lived less peacefully with the vain Karl, capable of being unfaithful without any desire, just to imitate the gestures of the Powerful. Desnoyers marched, joined by his wife in an affectionate routine. Doña Luisa, in her limited imagination, evoked memories of the teams on the ranch, which refused to move forward when a strange animal replaced the absent companion. Her husband became angry easily, holding her responsible for all the inconveniences his children afflicted him with , but he couldn’t go anywhere without her. The evenings at the Hotel Drouot seemed insipid to him when he didn’t have this confidante of his projects and his anger at his side. Today there’s a jewelry sale: shall we go? His proposal was made in a soft and insinuating voice, a voice that reminded Doña Luisa of her first conversations around her father’s house. And they went on different roads. She in one of her monumental vehicles, for she didn’t like walking, accustomed to the quietude of the ranch or to roaming the countryside on horseback. Desnoyers, the man with the four cars, hated them, being resistant to the dangers of novelty, out of modesty, and because he needed to walk, giving his body exercise to compensate for the lack of work. When they gathered in the crowded salesroom, they examined the jewels, deciding in advance what they intended to offer. But he, quick to be incensed by the contradiction, always went further, looking at his contenders as he threw out the figures, as if throwing punches. After such expeditions, the lady appeared majestic and dazzling, like a Byzantine basilica: her ears and neck studded with thick pearls, her breast studded with diamonds, her hands radiating needles of light in all the colors of the rainbow. Chichi protested: “Too much, Mama.” They were going to mistake her for a pawnbroker. But the Creole woman, satisfied with her splendor, which was the crowning glory of a humble life, attributed such complaints to envy. Her daughter was a young lady and couldn’t show off these precious things. But later she would thank him for having gathered them for her. The house was already insufficient to hold so many purchases. In the cellars were piled furniture, paintings, statues, and curtains to adorn many homes. Don Marcelo complained about the smallness of a twenty-eight-thousand-franc apartment that could serve as lodging for four families like his. He was beginning to think with regret about giving up so many tempting opportunities when a real estate agent, one of those who keep an eye on foreigners, got him out of this embarrassing situation. Why didn’t he buy a castle? The whole family accepted the idea. A historic castle, the most historic one could find, would complete his grandiose installation. Chichi paled with pride. Some of her friends had castles. Others, from old colonial families, accustomed to looking down on her for her peasant origins, would roar with envy upon learning of this acquisition, which almost represented an ennoblement. His mother smiled with the hope of several months in the country that would remind her of the simple and happy life of her youth. Julio was the least enthusiastic. The “old man” would have liked to have him away from Paris for long periods; but he ended up agreeing, thinking that this would provide an opportunity for frequent trips by car. Desnoyers remembered his relatives in Berlin. Why shouldn’t he have his castle, like the others? The opportunities were tempting. Dozens of historic mansions were offered to him. Their owners were eager to part with them, burdened by the costs of their upkeep. And he bought the castle of Villeblanche sur Marne, built during the Wars of Religion, a mixture of palace and fortress, with an Italian Renaissance façade, somber turrets with pointed hoods, and watery moats where swans swam. He couldn’t live without a piece of land over which he could exercise his authority, contending with the resistance of men and things. Furthermore, he was tempted by the vast proportions of the castle’s rooms, devoid of furniture. It was an opportunity to settle the surplus of his caves, indulging in new purchases. In this gloomy atmosphere Stately, the objects of the past would adapt easily, without the cry of protest they seemed to utter when they came into contact with the white walls of the modern rooms… The historic residence required considerable outlays; for good reason, it had changed owners many times. But he and the land knew each other perfectly… And at the same time that he filled the halls of the building, he attempted to grow crops and raise livestock in the extensive park, as a reduction of his ventures in America. The property had to be sustained by what it produced. It wasn’t because he was afraid of the expense: it was because he “wasn’t used to losing money.” The acquisition of the castle brought him an honorable friendship, which he saw as the greatest advantage of the business. He began a relationship with a neighbor, Senator Lacour, who had been a minister twice and was now vegetating in the Upper House, mute during the session, restless and verbose in the corridors, in order to maintain his influence. He was a leading figure of the republican nobility , an aristocrat of the regime, whose ancestry lay in the upheavals of the Revolution, just as parchment-clad nobles lay theirs in the Crusades. His great-grandfather had belonged to the Convention; his father had served in the Republic of 1848. As the son of an outlaw who died in exile, he marched from a very young age behind the grandiloquent figure of Gambetta, constantly speaking of the master’s glory so that a ray of it might be reflected on his disciple. His son René, a student at the École Centrale, found his father an “old joke,” slightly laughing at his romantic and humanitarian republicanism. But this did not prevent him from hoping, when he became an engineer, for the official protection amassed by four generations of Lacours dedicated to the service of the Republic. Don Marcello, who viewed every new friendship with trepidation, fearing a loan request, enthusiastically embraced the company of the “great man.” The man was an admirer of wealth, and for his part, he found a certain talent in this millionaire from across the sea, who spoke of boundless pastures and immense flocks. Their relationships went beyond the selfishness of a rural neighborhood, continuing in Paris. René eventually visited the house on Avenue Victor Hugo as if it were his own. The only setbacks in Desnoyers’s life came from his children. Chichi irritated him with the independence of her tastes. She disliked old things, no matter how solid and splendid. She preferred the frivolities of the latest fashion. She accepted all her father’s gifts coldly. Before a secular lace purchased at auction, she would grimace: “I’d rather like a new dress for three hundred francs.” Furthermore, she relied on her brother’s bad example to confront “the old folks.” Her father had entrusted her completely to Doña Luisa. The child was now a woman. But the former “peoncito” showed little respect for the advice and orders of the kind Creole woman. She had enthusiastically devoted herself to skating, considering it the most elegant of pastimes. Every afternoon she went to the Palais de Glace, and Doña Chicha followed her, denying herself the opportunity to accompany her husband on his purchases. Those hours of mortal boredom before the icy rink, watching the swaying human figures, singly or in a row, glide on knives around the white circle to the strains of an organ ! Her daughter , red with agitation, passed and passed before her eyes, tossing back the spirals of her hair that escaped from her hat, making the folds of her skirt clack behind her skates, beautiful, large, and strong, with the insolent health of a child who, according to her father, “had been weaned on steaks.” At last, Doña Luisa grew tired of this annoying vigilance. She preferred to accompany her husband in his hunt for cheap riches. Chichi went skating with one of the copper-colored maidens, spending the afternoon among her sporting friends, all from the New World. They shared their ideas in the dazzle of the easy life of Paris. Free from the scruples and worries of their homeland. All of them believed they had been born months earlier, recognizing themselves with previously unsuspected merits. The change of hemisphere had heightened their values. Some even wrote verses in French. And Desnoyers would be alarmed, giving vent to his bad temper, when at night Chichí would issue in the form of aphorisms what she and her companions had concocted as a summary of their readings and observations: “Life is life, and you have to live it.” “I’ll marry the man I like, whoever he is.” But these setbacks from her father were insignificant when compared to those brought to her by the other one. Oh, the other one!… Julio, upon arriving in Paris, had changed the course of his aspirations. He no longer thought of becoming an engineer: he wanted to be a painter. Don Marcelo resisted in astonishment, but finally gave in. Go for painting! The important thing was that he not lack a profession. He considered property and wealth sacred, but he considered those who had not worked unworthy of their joys. He also recalled his years as a carver. Perhaps the same faculties, stifled in him by poverty, were reborn in his descendant. Would this lazy boy, yet with a lively wit, who hesitated before embarking on his path in life , ever become a great painter ? He suffered all the whims of Jules, who, still in his first attempts at drawing and coloring, demanded a separate existence in order to work with more freedom. His father installed him near his home, in a studio on the Rue de la Pompe that had belonged to a foreign painter of some fame. The workshop and its annexes were too large for an apprentice. But the master had died, and Desnoyers took advantage of the favorable opportunity offered by the heirs, buying furniture and paintings en masse. Doña Luisa visited the studio daily, like a good mother who cares for her son’s well-being so that he might work better. Taking off her gloves, she emptied the bronze saucers filled with cigarette butts and wiped the fallen ash from the pipes on the furniture and carpets. Jules’s visitors, long-haired young men who talked about things she couldn’t understand, were somewhat careless in their manners… Later , she encountered scantily clad women and was received by her son with a bad attitude. Wouldn’t Mama allow him to work in peace? And the poor lady, leaving her house every morning, headed for the Rue de la Pompe, but stopped halfway, ducking into the Church of Saint Honorée d’Eylau. His father was more prudent. A man of his age couldn’t possibly mingle in the society of a young artist. A few months later, Jules spent weeks at a time without going to sleep at his father’s house. Finally, he settled into his studio, quickly passing by his house so the family would be convinced he still existed… Some mornings, Desnoyers would arrive at the Rue de la Pompe to question the caretaker. It was ten o’clock: the artist was asleep. When he returned at noon, the heavy sleep continued. After lunch, another visit to receive better news. It was two o’clock: the young gentleman was just getting up. And his father would storm off. But when did this painter paint?… At first, he had tried to gain a reputation with the brush, considering this an easy undertaking. Being an artist placed him above his friends, South American boys with no other occupation than enjoying life, scattering their money noisily so everyone would know how profligate they were. With serene audacity, he threw himself into painting . He loved beautiful, “distinguished,” elegant paintings; paintings as sweet as a ballad and that copied only the forms of women. He had money and a good studio; His father was behind him, ready to help him: why shouldn’t he do what so many others who lacked his means did?… And he undertook the task of daubing a canvas, giving it the title The Dance of the Hours: a pretext to copy good works. girls and choosing models. He drew with frantic speed, filling the interior of the contours with masses of color. So far, so good. But then he hesitated, remaining inactive before the painting, only to finally put it away and wait for better times. The same thing happened when he attempted several studies of female heads. He couldn’t finish anything, and this produced a certain despair. Then he resigned himself, like someone who lies wearily before an obstacle and waits for a providential intervention to help him save it. The important thing was to be a painter… even if he didn’t paint. This allowed him to give cards with highly aesthetic excuses to cheerful women, inviting them to his studio. He lived at night. Don Marcelo, when inquiring about the artist’s work, couldn’t contain his indignation. They both saw the first hours of light every morning: the father as he got out of bed; the son on his way to his studio, to crawl between the sheets and not wake up until mid-afternoon. The gullible Doña Luisa invented the most absurd explanations to defend her son. Who knows! Perhaps he painted at night, employing new methods. Men invent so many devilry things these days!… Desnoyers was familiar with these nocturnal activities: scandals in the restaurants of Montmartre, and fights, many fights. He and his gang, who at seven in the evening believed the tailcoat or dinner jacket was indispensable, were like a band of Indians implanting the violent customs of the desert in Paris. Champagne seemed to them like a fighting wine. They broke and paid, but their generosity was almost always followed by a battle. No one had the quickest slap and the ready card like Julio . His father accepted with sad expressions the news from certain friends who imagined they were flattering his vanity by telling him stories of chivalrous encounters in which his eldest son always tore the skin of his adversary. The painter understood fencing more than his art. He was a champion of several weapons, a boxer, and even possessed the favorite moves of the paladins who roam the fortifications. “Useless and dangerous like all drones,” the father protested. But he felt an irresistible satisfaction, an animal pride, throbbing in the depths of his mind at the thought that this fearsome bewilderment was his work. For a moment, he believed he had found a way to remove him from such an existence. The relatives from Berlin visited the Desnoyers at their chateau in Villeblanche. Karl von Hartrott appraised with kindly superiority his brother-in-law’s rich and somewhat absurd collections. They were not bad: he recognized a certain cachet in the Paris house and the chateau. They could serve to complete and give patina to a noble title. But Germany!… The comforts of his homeland!… He wanted his brother-in-law to admire in turn how he lived and the noble friendships that embellished his opulence. And he persisted in his letters so much that the Desnoyers made the trip. This change of environment could change Jules. Perhaps it would awaken his emulation, seeing up close the industriousness of his cousins, all with careers. Furthermore, the Frenchman believed in the corrupting influence of Paris and the purity of customs of patriarchal Germany. They were there for four months. Desnoyers soon felt the desire to flee. Each to his own; he would never be able to get along with those people. Very amiable, with a mellow kindness and a visible desire to please, but continually stumbling due to an irremediable lack of tact, due to a desire to make their greatness felt. The Hartrotts’ friends expressed their love for France: the pious love inspired by a mischievous and weak child in need of protection. And they accompanied this with all kinds of inopportune memories of the wars in which the French had been defeated. Everything from Germany, a monument, a railway station, a simple dining room object, gave rise to glorious comparisons: “In France you don’t have that.” “Undoubtedly, in America you have never seen anything like it.” Don Marcelo left, tired of so much protection. His wife and daughter had refused to accept that Berlin’s elegance was superior to that of Paris. Chichi, in the midst of sacrilegious audacity, scandalized his cousins ​​by declaring that he could not tolerate the junior officers with their corseted waistlines and unwavering monocles, who bowed to the young women with automatic rigidity, adding a sneer of superiority to their gallantry. Julio, under the guidance of his cousins, immersed himself in the virtuous atmosphere of Berlin. The eldest, “the wise one,” was not to be reckoned with. He was a wretch, devoted to his books, and who regarded the entire family with a protective sympathetic expression. The others, second lieutenants or sword-bearing students, proudly showed him the advances of Germanic gaiety. He discovered nightclubs that were imitations of those in Paris, but much larger. The women, who there numbered in the dozens, here numbered in the hundreds. Scandalous drunkenness wasn’t an incident, but something sought with complete will, as indispensable for joy. Everything was grand, brilliant, colossal. The revelers amused themselves in platoons, the public got drunk in companies, the mercenaries formed regiments. He felt a sense of disgust at the servile and timid women, accustomed to being taken advantage of, and eagerly seeking redress for the great bankruptcies and disappointments suffered in their trade. It was impossible to celebrate, like his cousins, with loud laughter the disillusionment of these women when they saw their hours lost, with nothing but abundant drink to be obtained. Furthermore, he was bothered by the coarse, noisy, publicized debauchery, like a display of wealth. “You don’t have this in Paris,” his companions said, admiring the enormous salons, with hundreds of couples and thousands of drinkers; “No, you don’t have this in Paris.” He was growing weary of so much immeasurable grandeur . He thought he was attending a party of starving sailors, eager to make up for all their previous privations in one fell swoop. And he felt the same desire to flee as his father. Marcel Desnoyers returned from this voyage with a melancholy resignation. These people had made great progress. He was not a blind patriot, and he recognized the obvious. In a few years, they had transformed their country; their industry was powerful… but they were irresistible to deal with. Each man in his own house, and hopefully it would never occur to them to envy their neighbor’s! But he immediately repelled this last suspicion with his businessman’s optimism. “They’re going to be very rich,” he thought. “Their affairs are going well, and a rich man has no desire to quarrel. The war that four madmen dream of is impossible.” Young Desnoyers resumed his Parisian existence, always living in his studio and occasionally appearing at his father’s house. Doña Luisa began to talk about a certain Argensola, a young Spaniard of great wisdom, recognizing that his advice could be very useful to her son. He wasn’t sure if the new companion was a friend, a teacher, or a servant. Visitors were equally uncertain. Literary aficionados spoke of Argensola as a painter; painters only recognized his superiority as a man of letters. She could never remember exactly where she had seen him for the first time. He was one of those who came up to her studio on winter evenings, attracted by the red glow of the stove and the wines secretly provided by his mother. The Spaniard thundered over the liberally renewed bottle and the open box of cigarettes on the table, speaking of everything with authority. One night he slept on a couch. He had no fixed address. And after that first night, he spent every night in the studio. Julio ended up admiring him as a reflection of his personality. How much that Argensola knew, having come from Madrid in third class and with twenty francs in his pocket to “rape glory,” as he put it ! Seeing that she painted with as much harshness as he did, using the same childish and clumsy drawing, he was moved. Only false artists, men “of trade,” thoughtless executors, care about it. of color and other rancidities. Argensola was a psychological artist, a painter of souls. And the disciple felt astonishment and spite upon learning how simple it was to paint a soul. On a bloodless face, with a chin as sharp as a dagger, the Spaniard drew almost round eyes , and to each pupil he delivered a white brushstroke, a point of light… the soul. Then, standing before the canvas, he classified this soul with his inexhaustible eloquence, attributing to it all sorts of conflicts and crises. And such was his power of obsession that Julio saw what the other imagined he had put into the round, owlish eyes. He, too, would paint souls… women’s souls. Though this work of psychic conception was so easy, Argensola liked to chat more, reclining on a couch, or reading by the stove while his friend and protector was away. Another advantage of this love of reading was for young Desnoyers. Upon opening a volume, he would go directly to the back pages or the index, wanting to “get an idea,” as he put it. Sometimes, in salons, he had confidently asked an author what his best book was. And his clever man’s smile suggested it was a precaution so as not to waste time on other volumes. Now he no longer needed to commit such blunders. Argensola would read for him. When she sensed his interest in a volume, she would immediately demand his participation: “Tell me the plot.” And the “secretary” not only summarized comedies and novels, but also communicated Schopenhauer’s “plot” or Nietzsche’s “plot”… Later, Doña Luisa almost shed tears upon hearing that the visitors treated her son with the benevolence that wealth inspires: “The lad is a bit of a devil, but how well prepared!…” In exchange for his lessons, Argensola received the same treatment as a Greek slave teaching rhetoric to the young patricians of decadent Rome. In the middle of an explanation, his master and friend would interrupt him: “Prepare me a tailcoat. I’m invited tonight.” At other times, when the teacher was experiencing a sensation of animal well-being, holding a book by the snoring stove, looking out at the gray, rainy afternoon through the glass, the disciple would suddenly appear : “Quick… out into the street! A woman is coming.” And Argensola, with the gesture of a dog shaking its wool, would go off to continue reading in some uncomfortable little cafe nearby. His influence descended from the heights of intellectuality to intervene in the vulgarities of material life. He was the employer’s steward; the mediator between his money and those who came to claim it, bill in hand. “Money,” he would say laconically at the end of the month. And Desnoyers would burst into complaints and curses. Where was he going to get it? The old man was strictly strict and wouldn’t tolerate the slightest advance over the next month. He kept him under a miserable regime. Three thousand francs a month: what could a decent person do with that? Eager to reduce his salary , he tightened the noose, directly intervening in the administration of his household so that Donna Luisa couldn’t make donations to her son. In vain, he had contacted several usurers in Paris, telling them about his property across the ocean. These gentlemen had the youth of the country at their fingertips and had no need to expose their capital to the other world. He suffered a similar failure when, with sudden displays of affection, he tried to convince Don Marcelo that three thousand francs a month were a pittance. The millionaire roared with indignation. Three thousand francs, a pittance! And then there were the son’s debts he had had to pay on several occasions!… When I was your age… he began. But Julio interrupted the conversation. He had heard his father’s story many times . Ah, you miserly old man! What he gave him every month was nothing more than the income from his grandfather’s legacy… And on Argensola’s advice, he dared to reclaim the land. The administration of that land thought entrusting her to Celedonio, the former foreman, who was now a household name, and whom he ironically called “my uncle.” Desnoyers greeted his rebellion coldly. “It seems fair to me. You’re already of age.” And after handing over the legacy, he became extremely vigilant with the household expenses, sparing Doña Luisa from any handling of money. From then on, she regarded her son as an adversary she needed to defeat, treating him during his brief appearances on Victor Hugo Avenue with icy courtesy, just like a stranger. A temporary opulence animated his studies for a time. Julio had increased his expenses, considering himself rich. But his uncle’s letters from America dispelled these illusions. At first, the money remittances barely exceeded the monthly amount his father gave him. Then they decreased alarmingly. All the calamities of the earth seemed to have fallen simultaneously on the countryside, according to Celedonio. Pastures were scarce: sometimes it was due to lack of rain, other times due to flooding, and cattle perished by the hundreds. Julio needed more income, and the cunning mestizo sent him what he asked for, but as a simple loan, reserving the collection for when the accounts were settled. Despite such aid, young Desnoyers suffered hardships. He now played in an elegant Circle, believing that this would compensate for his periodic shortages, and this served to make the sums received from America disappear more quickly… That a man like him should be tormented by the lack of a few thousand francs! What good was it to have a father with so many millions? If the creditors were threatening, he would turn to the “secretary.” He had to see Mama immediately: he wanted to avoid her tears and recriminations. And Argensola slipped like a thief up the service stairs of the mansion on the Avenue Victor Hugo. The place of their embassies was always the kitchen, with great danger that the terrible Desnoyers would arrive there in one of his industrious escapades, surprising the intruder. Doña Luisa wept, moved by the messenger’s dramatic words. What could she do! She was poorer than her maids; jewels, many jewels, but not a franc. It was Argensola who proposed a solution, worthy of his experience. He would save the good mother by taking some of her jewels to the Monte de Piedad. He knew the way. And the lady accepted his advice; but she only gave him jewels of moderate value, suspecting that she would never see them again. Belated scruples sometimes made her burst into outright refusals. Her Marcelo could know: how horrible! But the Spaniard considered it degrading to leave without taking something, and lacking money, he carried a basket of bottles from Desnoyers’s rich cellar. Every morning, Doña Luisa entered Saint-Honorée d’Eylau to pray for her son. She cherished this church as her own. It was a hospitable and familiar island in the uncharted ocean of Paris. She exchanged discreet greetings with the regular worshippers, people from the neighborhood from the various republics of the New World. She felt closer to God and the saints when she heard conversations in her own language in the atrium. Furthermore, it was like a salon where the great events of the South American colony took place. One day it was a wedding, with flowers, an orchestra, and hymns. She, with her Chichí at her side, greeted the acquaintances, then complimented the bride and groom. Another day it was the funeral of a former president of the Republic or some other overseas figure who ended his stormy life in Paris. Poor president! Poor general! Doña Luisa remembered the dead man. I had seen him in that church many times, devoutly listening to Mass, and I was indignant at the gossips who, like funeral orations, recalled the executions and liquidated banks back home. Such a good and religious man! May God have him in his glory! And when I went out into the square, I gazed with tender eyes at the horsemen and amazons heading for the Forest, the luxurious automobiles, the radiant morning. of sunshine, all the fresh childishness of the early hours of the day, recognizing that it is very beautiful to live. Her gaze of gratitude for what exists ended by caressing the monument in the center of the square, all bristling with wings, as if it were about to detach itself from the ground. Victor Hugo!… It was enough for her to have heard this name from her son’s mouth, to contemplate the statue with the interest of a family. The only thing she knew about the poet was that he was dead. Of that she was almost certain. But she imagined him in life to be a great friend of Jules, given how often he repeated his name. Ah, her son!… All her thoughts, her conjectures, her desires converged on him and on her irreducible husband. She longed for the two men to come to an understanding, to end a struggle in which she was the only victim. Wouldn’t God perform a miracle? Like a sick man changing sanatoriums, in pursuit of health, he would abandon the church on his street to frequent the Spanish Chapel on Friedland Avenue. Here he considered himself even more among his own kind. Across the South American women, fine and elegant, as if they had escaped from a fashion magazine , his eyes would admiringly seek out other ladies, less well-dressed, fat, with theatrical ermines and antique jewels. When these ladies met in the atrium, they spoke with loud voices and expressive hand gestures, energetically clipping their words. The rancher’s daughter dared to greet them, having subscribed to all their charitable works, and seeing her greeting returned, she felt a satisfaction that made her momentarily forget her troubles. They were one of those families her father admired without knowing why; They came from what they called “the motherland” on the other side of the sea, all of them most excellent and exalted in the eyes of good Doña Chicha, and related to kings. She didn’t know whether to shake their hands or bend a knee, as she had vaguely heard was the custom in courts. But suddenly she remembered her worries and went on to address her prayers to God. Oh, that he would remember her! That he wouldn’t forget her luxury for long!… It was glory that remembered Julio, embracing him in its luminous arms. He suddenly found himself with all the honors and advantages of celebrity. Fame cautiously surprises one along the most tortuous and unknown paths. Neither the painting of souls nor a troubled existence filled with costly love affairs and complicated duels brought young Desnoyers his renown. Glory took him by the feet. A new pleasure had come from the other side of the seas, for the happiness of mankind. People questioned each other in the salons with the mysterious tone of initiates seeking recognition: “Do you know how to tango?” The tango had taken over the world. It was the heroic anthem of a humanity that suddenly focused its aspirations on the harmonious swaying of the hips, measuring intelligence by the agility of the feet. An incoherent and monotonous music, of African inspiration, satisfied the artistic ideal of a society that needed nothing more. The world danced… danced… danced. A dance of black people from Cuba, introduced with beef jerky to the Antilles, conquered the entire earth in a few months, circling its orbit, leaping victorious from nation to nation… just like the Marseillaise. It penetrated even the most ceremonious courts, shattering the traditions of modesty and etiquette, like a song of revolution: the revolution of frivolity. The Pope had to become a dancing master, recommending the “furlana” against the “tango,” since the entire Christian world, regardless of sect, was united in the common desire to move their feet with a frenzy as tireless as that of the possessed of the Middle Ages. Julio Desnoyers, upon discovering this dance of his adolescence, sovereign and triumphant in the heart of Paris, gave himself over to it with the confidence inspired by an old lover. Who would have told him, when he was a student and frequented the most abject dances in Buenos Aires, watched by the police, that he was learning the Glory!… From five to seven, hundreds of eyes followed him admiringly in the salons of the Champs-Élysées, where a cup of tea cost five francs, including the right to participate in the sacred dance. “He’s got the figure,” the ladies would say, appreciating his slender body, of medium height and strong springs. And he, with his morning coat fitted at the waist and puffed out at the chest, his femininely small feet sheathed in patent leather and white canes on high heels, danced gravely, thoughtfully, silently, like a mathematician in the middle of a problem, while the lights blued the two dark, tightly woven, and shiny curtains of his locks. Women asked to be introduced to him, with the sweet hope that their friends would envy them seeing them in the master’s arms. Invitations rained down on Jules. The most inaccessible salons opened before him . Every afternoon he acquired a dozen friends. Fashion had brought professors from across the sea, compadritos from the slums of Buenos Aires, proud and confused to find themselves acclaimed in the same way as a famous tenor or lecturer. But over these dancers of an original vulgarity who commanded their pay, Julio Desnoyers triumphed. The incidents of his former life were commented on by the women as the exploits of a romantic gallant. ” You’re killing yourself,” Argensola would say. “You dance too much.” The fame of his friend represented new annoyances for him. His placid readings in front of the stove were now interrupted daily. It was impossible to read more than a chapter. The famous man urged him with his orders to go out into the street. “A new lesson,” the parasite would say. And when he was alone, numerous visitors, all women, some inquisitive and aggressive, others melancholic, with an air of abandonment, came to interrupt his reflective entertainment. One of these women terrified the studio’s inhabitants with her persistence . She was an American from the North, of a problematic age, between thirty-two and fifty-nine, always wearing short skirts that would indiscreetly gather when she sat down, as if moved by a spring. Several dances with Desnoyers and a visit to the Rue de la Pompe represented sacred acquired rights for her, and she pursued the teacher with the desperation of an abandoned believer. Julio had escaped upon learning that this beauty, with youthful slenderness seen from behind, had two grandchildren. “Master Desnoyers has left,” Argensola invariably said upon receiving her. And the grandmother wept, bursting into threats. She wanted to commit suicide right there, so that her corpse would frighten away the other women who came to take what she considered hers. Now it was Argensola who dismissed his companion when he wished to be alone. “I think the Yankee is coming,” he would say indifferently. And the great man fled, often using the back stairs. At this time, the most important event of his life began to unfold. The Desnoyers family was about to join that of Senator Lacour. René, the latter’s only son, had finally inspired in Chichí a certain interest that was almost love. The nobleman desired for his descendant the boundless fields, the immense herds, the description of which moved him like a marvelous tale, and the banquets. Every new celebrity immediately suggested to him the plan of a luncheon. There was no passing figure in Paris, no polar traveler, no famous singer who could escape without being exhibited in Lacour’s dining room. The son of Desnoyers, whom he had barely noticed until then, inspired a sudden sympathy in his heart. The senator was a modern man, and he did not classify fame or distinguish reputations. It was enough for him to hear a surname mentioned before him and he accepted it with enthusiasm. When Julio visited him, he proudly introduced him to his friends, almost calling him “dear maestro.” The tango dominated every conversation. Even the Academy had talked about it, to eloquently demonstrate that the youth of ancient Athens enjoyed something similar… And Lacour had dreamed of it all his life. an Athenian republic for his country. At these gatherings, young Desnoyers met the Laurier couple. He was an engineer who owned an automobile engine factory near Paris: a man of thirty-five, tall, somewhat heavy, silent, who cast a slow gaze around him , as if he wished to penetrate more deeply into men and things. Madame Laurier was ten years younger than her husband and seemed to detach herself from him by the force of a stark contrast. She was light-hearted, elegant, frivolous, and loved life for the pleasures and satisfactions it provided. She seemed to accept with smiling acquiescence her husband’s silent and grave adoration. He could do no less for a creature of her merits. In addition, she had brought a dowry of three hundred thousand francs to the marriage, capital that served the engineer to expand his business. The senator had intervened in the arrangement of this marital partnership. Laurier interested her because he was the son of a friend from his youth. Julio’s presence was a ray of sunshine for Marguerite Laurier in the dull Lacour salon. She danced the most fashionable dance, frequenting the “tea tangos” where Desnoyers was admired. To suddenly find herself at the side of this famous and interesting man over whom women vied!… So that she wouldn’t be thought of as a bourgeois like the senator’s other companions, she spoke of her dressmakers, all on the Rue de la Paix, gravely declaring that a self-respecting woman cannot go out in a dress costing less than eight hundred francs, and that a thousand-franc hat, an object of astonishment a few years ago, was now vulgar. This knowledge served to ensure that “little Laurier,” as her friends called her, despite her good height, found herself sought out by the maestro at balls, going out to dance with him amid looks of spite and envy. What a triumph for the wife of a simple engineer, who went everywhere in her mother’s car! At first, Julio felt the attraction of novelty. He had thought she was the same as all those who languished in his arms, following the complicated rhythm of the dance. Later, he found her different. Her resistance after their first verbal intimacies heightened his desire. In reality, he had never met a woman of her class. Those of his early days were patrons of nightclubs, who ended up getting paid. Now, celebrity brought to his arms ladies of high standing, but with an unspeakable past, eager for novelty and excessively mature. This bourgeois woman who marched towards him and at the moment of abandonment retreated with sudden resurgences of modesty represented something extraordinary. The tango salons suffered a great loss. Desnoyers was seen less frequently, abandoning his glory to the professionals. Entire weeks would pass without the devotees being able to admire her black locks and her polished little feet shining in the lights to the rhythm of her graceful movements. Marguerite Laurier also fled these places. Their meetings unfolded in the same way she had read in romance novels set in Paris. She would go in search of Jules , fearing recognition, trembling with emotion, choosing the most somber outfits, covering her face with a thick veil, “the veil of adultery,” as her friends called them. They would meet in the less frequented neighborhood squares, changing places like fearful birds, which at the slightest disturbance take flight to perch a great distance away. Sometimes they met at the Buttes Chaumont, other times they preferred the gardens on the left bank of the Seine, the Luxembourg, and even the remote Parc de Montsouris. She felt chills of terror at the thought that her husband might walk in on her while the hard-working engineer was at the factory, a vast distance from reality. His bewildered appearance, his excessive caution in trying to slip away unnoticed, ended up attracting the attention of passersby. Jules grew impatient with the annoyances of this errant love, which yielded nothing but a few furtive kisses. But he finally fell silent, dominated by Marguerite’s pleading words. He didn’t want to be his like so many others: he needed to convince himself that this love would last forever. It was his first mistake, and he wished it would be his last. Alas! His reputation, intact until then!… The fear of what people might say!… The two regressed to adolescence; they loved each other with the trusting, childish passion of fifteen-year-olds, which they had never known. Jules had leaped from childhood to the pleasures of debauchery, going through the entire initiation of life in one fell swoop. She had desired marriage to do like the others, to acquire the respect and freedom of a married woman, feeling only a vague gratitude toward her husband. “We end where others begin,” Desnoyers said. Her passion took all the forms of an intense, religious, and vulgar love. They were moved with a romantic sentimentality as they shook hands and exchanged kisses on a garden bench at dusk. He kept a lock of Marguerite’s hair, though doubting its authenticity, with the vague suspicion that it might well be one of the additions imposed by fashion. She would rest her head on one of his shoulders, huddle together, as if imploring his domination; but always in the open air. The moment he attempted a carriage, Madame vigorously repelled him. A contradictory duality seemed to inspire her actions. Every morning she awoke ready for final victory. But then, upon seeing herself next to him, the petite bourgeois woman would reappear, jealous of her reputation, faithful to her mother’s teachings. One day she agreed to visit the studio, with the interest inspired by places inhabited by a loved one. “Swear to me that you will respect me.” He took the oath easily, and he swore by everything Margarita wanted… And from that day on, they no longer saw each other in the gardens, nor did they wander, pursued by the winter wind. They remained in the studio, and Argensola had to modify her life, seeking out the stove of some painter friend to continue her reading. This situation lasted two months. They never knew what secret force suddenly shattered their tranquil happiness. Perhaps it was a friend of hers who, divining the events, made them known to her husband through an anonymous note; perhaps the wife herself had unconsciously betrayed herself, with her inexplicable joys, her late returns to the house when the meal was already on the table, and the sudden aversion she showed to the engineer during hours of marital intimacy, in order to remain faithful to the memory of each other. Sharing herself between her legal partner and her beloved man was a torment that her simple and vehement enthusiasm could not bear . As she was jogging one evening along the Rue de la Pompe, looking at her watch and trembling with impatience at not finding a car or even a simple fiacre, a man blocked her path… Étienne Laurier! She still shuddered with fear at recalling this tragic hour. For a moment, she thought he was going to kill her. Serious, timid, and submissive men are terrible in their outbursts of anger. Her husband knew everything. With the same patience he employed in the solution of her industrial problems, he had studied her day after day, without her being able to guess this vigilance in his impassive face. Then he had followed her until he acquired complete evidence of her misfortune. Marguerite had never imagined him so vulgar and noisy in his passions. She hoped he would accept the facts coolly, with a slight tinge of philosophical irony, as truly distinguished men do , as the husbands of many of her friends had done. But the poor engineer, who beyond his work only saw his wife, loving her as a woman and admiring her as a delicate and superior being, the epitome of all graces and elegance, could not resign himself, and shouted and threatened without restraint, causing the scandal to spread throughout his circle of friends. The senator She felt great annoyance when she remembered that it was in her respectable home that the culprits had met. But her anger was directed at her husband. What a lack of savoir-faire!… Women are women, and everything can be fixed. But after the imprudence of this madman, an elegant solution was no longer possible, and a divorce had to be filed. Old Desnoyers was irritated upon learning of his son’s latest exploit. Laurier inspired great affection in him. The instinctive solidarity that exists between hardworking, patient, and silent men had made them seek each other out. At the senator’s social gatherings, he would ask the engineer for news of his business, inquiring about the development of that factory, of which he spoke with the tenderness of a father. The millionaire, who enjoyed a reputation for being miserly, had gone so far as to offer him selfless support , in case he ever needed to expand his laborious activities. And this good man’s happiness had been stolen by his son, a frivolous and useless dancer!… Laurier, in his first moments, spoke of fighting. His anger was that of a workhorse that breaks the straps of its work machine, bristles its fur with mad whinnies, and bites. The father was outraged by his determination… One more scandal! Julius had dedicated the best part of his life to the handling of weapons. “He’ll kill him,” said the senator. “I’m sure he’ll kill him. It’s the logic of life: the useless always kill the useful. But no deaths occurred. The father of the Republic knew how to manipulate both sides with the same skill he displayed in the corridors of the Senate whenever a ministerial crisis arose. The scandal was hushed up. Marguerite went to live with her mother, and the first steps toward a divorce began. Some evenings, when the studio clock struck seven, she had said sadly, amid the stretching of her amorous weariness: ” Leave… Leave when this is my true home… Oh, why aren’t we married!” And he, who felt a whole garden of hitherto unknown bourgeois virtues blossoming in his soul, repeated with conviction: ” It’s true, why aren’t we married!” Her wishes could be realized. Her husband facilitated their passage with his unexpected intervention. And young Desnoyers left for America to save money and marry Margarita. Chapter 4. The Cousin from Berlin. Julio Desnoyers’s studio occupied the top floor above the street. The elevator and the main staircase ended at his door. Behind him, two small apartments received light from an interior courtyard, their only means of communication being the service staircase, which ascended to the attics. Argensola, staying in the studio during her companion’s trip, had sought the friendship of these apartment neighbors. The largest of the rooms was unoccupied during the day. Its owners only returned after lunch at the restaurant. They were a married couple who worked as employees and only stayed home on holidays. The man, vigorous and martial-looking, worked as an inspector in a department store. He had been a soldier in Africa, held a decoration, and held the rank of second lieutenant in the reserve army. She was a blonde, plump and somewhat anemic, with light eyes and a sentimental expression. On holidays, she would spend long hours at the piano, recalling her musical memories, always the same. Other times, Argensola would see her through an interior window working in the kitchen, helped by her partner, the two of them laughing at her clumsiness and inexperience in improvising Sunday lunch. The concierge considered this woman to be German, but she made it clear that she was Swiss. She worked as a cashier in a store that didn’t belong to her partner. In the mornings they would go out together, then part ways in the Plaza de la Estrella, each going in a different direction. At seven in the evening they would greet each other with a kiss in the street, like lovers meeting for the first time, and after their meal They returned to their nest on the Rue de la Pompe. Argensola found all his attempts at friendship repelled by the couple’s selfishness. They answered him with icy courtesy: they lived only for themselves. The other apartment, composed of two rooms, was occupied by a single man. He was a Russian or a Pole, who almost always returned with bundles of books and spent long hours writing by a window overlooking the courtyard. From the first moment, the Spaniard considered him a mysterious man who perhaps concealed enormous merits: a true novel character. He was impressed by Tchernoff’s exotic appearance: his unruly beard, his oily hair, his glasses on a wide nose that seemed deformed by a punch. Like an invisible halo , a certain stench of cheap wine and sweaty clothes surrounded him ; Argensola perceived it through the service door: “Friend Tchernoff returns.” And he went out onto the interior stairs to speak to his neighbor. He defended his access to his home for a long time. The Spaniard came to believe he was dedicated to alchemy and other mysterious operations. When he finally managed to enter, he saw books, many books, books everywhere, scattered on the floor, lined up on boards, stacked in corners, invading rickety chairs, old tables, and a bed that was only remade occasionally when the owner, alarmed by the growing invasion of dust and cobwebs, called for help from a friend of the caretaker. Argensola finally acknowledged with some disappointment that there was nothing mysterious about this man’s life. What he wrote by the window were translations: some commissioned, others voluntarily for the socialist newspapers. The only astonishing thing about him was the number of languages ​​he knew. “He knows them all,” he told Desnoyers when describing this neighbor. ” It only takes him hearing a new one to master it within a few days.” He holds the key, the secret of living and dead languages. He speaks Spanish like us and has never been in a Spanish-speaking country. The sensation of mystery returned to Argensola as she read the titles of many of the piled-up volumes. They were mostly old books, many of them in languages ​​he couldn’t decipher, collected at low prices from second-hand bookstores and from the bouquinistes’ boxes set up on the parapets of the Seine. Only that man, who held “the key to languages,” could acquire such volumes. An atmosphere of mysticism, of superhuman initiations, of secrets untouched through the centuries, seemed to emanate from these piles of dusty volumes, some with gnawed pages. And mixed in with the ancient books were others with brand-new, red covers : notebooks of socialist propaganda, pamphlets in every language of Europe, and newspapers, many newspapers, with titles evoking the revolution. Tchernoff didn’t seem to enjoy visits and conversations. He smiled enigmatically through his ogre-like beard, saving words to quickly end the interview. But Argensola had the means to overcome this unsociable character. All he had to do was wink with an expressive invitation. “Shall we?” And the two would settle down on a Desnoyers couch or in the study’s kitchen, in front of a bottle from the Avenue Victor Hugo. Don Marcelo’s precious wines moved the Russian, making him more communicative. But even with this aid, the Spaniard knew little about their existence. Sometimes he mentioned Jaurès and other socialist orators. His most reliable means of support was translating for party newspapers. On several occasions, he let slip the name of Siberia, declaring that he had been there for a long time. But he didn’t want to talk about the distant country he had visited against his will. He smiled modestly, not willing to make further revelations. The day after Julio Desnoyers’ arrival, Argensola was talking with Tchernoff on the landing of the service stairs in the morning when the doorbell of the study that led to the entrance rang. with the main staircase. A great disappointment. The Russian, who knew the progressive politicians, was giving him an account of Jaurès’s efforts to maintain peace. There were still many who were hopeful. He, Tchernoff, commented on these hopes with his flat sphinx-like smile. He had his reasons for doubting… But the bell rang again, and the Spaniard ran to open it, abandoning his friend. A gentleman wanted to see Julio. He spoke French well, but his accent was a revelation to Argensola. Entering the bedroom in search of his companion, who had just gotten up, he said with certainty: ” It’s your cousin from Berlin, come to say goodbye. It can’t be anyone else. ” The three men met in the study. Desnoyers introduced his comrade so that the newcomer wouldn’t be mistaken about his social status. ” I’ve heard of him. Monsieur Argensola is a young man of great merit.” And Dr. Julius von Hartrott said this with the self-sufficiency of a man who knows everything and wishes to please an inferior by granting him the alms of his attention. The two cousins ​​regarded each other with a curiosity not without suspicion. They were closely related, but knew very little of each other, sensing a complete divergence of opinions and tastes. When Argensola examined this scholar, she found him to have a certain air of an officer in civilian clothes. One could notice in his person a desire to imitate men of the sword when they occasionally adopt civilian clothes; the aspiration of every German bourgeois to be confused with those of a higher class. His trousers were narrow, as if they were designed to be slipped into riding boots. His jacket, with two rows of buttons, had a gathered waist, a wide and long tail, and very high lapels, vaguely imitating a military frock coat. His reddish mustache over a strong jaw and his close-cropped hair completed this feigned warlike demeanor. But his eyes, studious eyes with matte pupils, large, astonished, and myopic, hid behind thick-lensed glasses, giving him the appearance of a peaceful man. Desnoyers knew that he was an assistant professor at the university, that he had published several volumes, thick and heavy as bricks, and that he was listed among the collaborators of a “Historical Seminar,” an association for the research of documents directed by a famous historian. On one of his lapels, he displayed the rosette of a foreign Order. His respect for the wise man of the family was accompanied by a certain contempt. He and his sister Chichi had felt an instinctive hostility toward their cousins ​​from Berlin since childhood . It also bothered him to see this pedant, who only knew life through books and spent his life investigating what men had done in other eras and drawing conclusions in accordance with his German opinions, cited by his family as an example worthy of imitation. Julio had a great facility for admiration and revered all the writers whose “arguments” Argensola had told him, but he could not accept the intellectual greatness of his illustrious relative. During his stay in Berlin, a vulgarly invented German word had served to classify him. Books of meticulous and laborious research were published by the dozen every month. There was not a single professor who could fail to build his enormous volume, written in a clumsy and confusing manner, on the basis of a simple detail . And people, appreciating these short-sighted authors, incapable of a brilliant overall vision , called them “Sitzfleisch haben” (with a lot of meat on their behinds ), alluding to the extremely long stretches their works represented . This was his cousin to him : a Sitzfleisch haben. Dr. von Hartrott, in explaining his visit, spoke in Spanish. He used this language because it had been the family’s language during his childhood and at the same time out of caution, for he looked around repeatedly, as if afraid of being overheard. He had come to say goodbye to Julio. His mother had told him of his arrival, and he did not want to leave without seeing him. He was going to leave Paris in a few hours; the circumstances were pressing. “But do you think there will be war?” Desnoyers asked. ” War will happen tomorrow or the day after. There’s no one who can prevent it. It’s a necessary fact for the health of humanity.” A silence fell. Julio and Argensola looked in astonishment at this peaceful-looking man who had just spoken with bellicose arrogance. They both guessed that the doctor was making his visit out of a need to communicate his opinions and enthusiasms to someone. At the same time, perhaps he wanted to know what they thought and knew, like one of the many demonstrations of the Paris crowd. “You’re not French,” he added, turning to his cousin; “you were born in Argentina, and the truth can be told before you. And you weren’t born there?” Julio asked, smiling. The doctor made a protest, as if he had just heard something insulting. “No; I’m German. Wherever one of us is born, he always belongs to Mother Germany.” Then he continued, addressing Argensola: “The gentleman is also a foreigner. He comes from noble Spain, which owes us the best it has: the cult of honor, the spirit of chivalry.” The Spaniard wanted to protest, but the wise man didn’t let him, adding in a doctoral tone: “You were miserable Celts, immersed in the vileness of an inferior race and mixed by the Latinism of Rome, which made your situation even sadder. Fortunately, you were conquered by the Goths and other peoples of our race, who instilled in you the dignity of persons. Do not forget, young man, that the Vandals were the grandparents of today’s Prussians.” Argensola tried to speak again, but his friend signaled him not to interrupt the professor. The latter seemed to have forgotten his previous reserve , becoming enthusiastic about his own words. “We are going to witness great events,” he continued. “Blessed are those of us who were born in the present era, the most interesting in history. Humanity is changing course at this moment.” Now, true civilization begins. The coming war was going to be, according to him, of a brevity never seen before. Germany had prepared to carry out the decisive act without causing prolonged disruption to the world’s economic life. A month was enough to crush France, the most fearsome of its adversaries. Then it would march against Russia, which, slow in its movements, could not offer an immediate defense. Finally, it would attack proud England, isolating it in its archipelago, so that its preponderance would no longer hinder Germanic progress. This series of swift blows and lightning victories needed only the course of a summer to develop . The falling leaves would hail Germany’s definitive triumph the following autumn . With the certainty of a professor who does not expect to be refuted by his listeners, he explained the superiority of the Germanic race. Men were divided into two groups: dolichocephalic and brachycephalic, according to the conformation of their skulls. Another scientific distinction divided them into men with blond or black hair. The dolichocephalic represented racial purity and a superior mentality. The brachycephalic were mixed-race, with all the stigmata of degeneration. The Germanic, dolichocephalic par excellence, was the sole heir of the primitive Aryans. All other peoples, especially those of Southern Europe, called “Latins,” belonged to a degenerate humanity. The Spaniard could contain himself no longer. But these theories of racism were antiquities in which no one even remotely educated believed! There was no such thing as a pure people, since they all had a thousand mixtures in their blood after so much historical interbreeding! Many Germans displayed the same ethnic characteristics that the professor attributed to inferior races. ” There’s something to that,” Hartrott said. “But although the Germanic race is not pure, it is the least impure of all, and to it belongs the government of the world.” His voice took on an ironic and cutting edge when he spoke of the Celts, inhabitants of the southern lands. They had delayed the progress of humanity, launching it down a false path. The Celt is individualistic, and consequently, an ungovernable revolutionary who tends toward egalitarianism. Furthermore, he is humanitarian and makes piety a virtue, defending the existence of the weak and useless . The most noble German places order and strength above all else. Chosen by Nature to command the eunuch races, he possesses all the virtues that distinguish leaders. The French Revolution had been simply a clash between Germans and Celts. The nobles of France descended from the German warriors who had settled in the country after the so-called barbarian invasion. The bourgeoisie and the people represented the Gallo-Celtic element. The inferior race had defeated the superior, disorganizing the country and disturbing the world. Celticism was the inventor of democracy, of socialist doctrine, of anarchy. But the hour of Germanic revenge was about to strike, and the northern race would once again reestablish order, since God had favored it for this purpose, preserving its undisputed superiority. A people, he added, can only aspire to great destinies if it is fundamentally Germanic. The less Germanic it is, the lesser its civilization will be. We represent the aristocracy of humanity, “the salt of the earth,” as our William said. Argensola listened with astonishment to these proud assertions. All great peoples had suffered the fever of imperialism. The Greeks aspired to hegemony, being the most civilized and believing themselves most capable of bringing civilization to other men. The Romans, by conquering lands, established law and the rules of justice. The French of the Revolution and the Empire justified their invasions with the desire to liberate men and sow new ideas. Even the Spaniards of the 16th century, when battling with half of Europe for religious unity and the extermination of heresy, worked for an erroneous, obscure, but disinterested ideal. Everyone in history was driven by something they considered generous and above their own interests. Only the Germany of that professor attempted to impose itself on the world in the name of the superiority of its race, a superiority that no one had recognized, which it attributed to itself, giving its assertions a veneer of false science. ” Until now, wars have been of soldiers,” Hartrott continued. “The one that is now about to begin will be of soldiers and of professors. The university has played as much of a role in its preparation as the General Staff. Germanic science, the first of all, is forever linked to what the Latin revolutionaries disdainfully call militarism. Force, mistress of the world, is what creates law, what will impose our civilization, the only true one.” Our armies are the representatives of our culture, and in a few weeks they will free the world from its Celtic decadence, rejuvenating it. The immense future of his race made him express himself with lyrical enthusiasm . William I, Bismarck, all the heroes of past victories inspired him with veneration, but he spoke of them as dying gods , whose time had passed. They were glorious grandfathers, with modest aspirations, who limited themselves to expanding the borders, to achieving the unity of the Empire, then opposing with the prudence of valetudinarians all the audacity of the new generation. Their ambitions did not go beyond continental hegemony… But then William II emerged, the complex hero that the country needed. ” My master Lamprecht,” Hartrott said, “has painted the portrait of its greatness. It is tradition and the future, order and audacity.” He is convinced that he represents the monarchy by the grace of God, just like his grandfather. But his lively and brilliant intelligence recognizes and accepts modern innovations. At the same time, he is romantic, feudal, and A supporter of agrarian conservatives, he is a man of the day: he seeks practical solutions and displays a utilitarian spirit, à la American. In him, instinct and reason are balanced. Germany, guided by this hero, had been gathering its forces and recognizing its true path. The University acclaimed him with even more enthusiasm than its armies. Why store so much aggressive force and keep it unused?… The empire of the world belonged to the Germanic people. The historians and philosophers, disciples of Treitschke, were going to be in charge of forging the rights that would justify this world domination. And Lamprecht, the psychological historian , like the other professors, propounded the creed of the absolute superiority of the Germanic race. It was right that it should dominate the world, since it alone possesses the power. This “telluric Germanization” would result in immense benefits for mankind. The earth would be happy under the domination of a people born to rule. The German state, a “tentacular” power, would eclipse with its glory the most illustrious empires of the past and present. Gott mit uns God is with us. Who can deny that, as my teacher says, there exists a Germanic Christian God, the “Great Ally,” who manifests himself to our foreign enemies as a strong and jealous divinity?… Desnoyers listened in amazement to his cousin, while simultaneously looking at Argensola. The latter, with the movement of his eyes, seemed to be speaking to him. “He’s crazy,” he said. “These Germans are crazy with pride.” Meanwhile, the professor, unable to contain his enthusiasm, continued expounding on the greatness of his race. Faith suffers eclipses even in the most superior spirits. This was why the providential Kaiser had shown inexplicable weaknesses. He was too good and kind. “Delicious humankind,” as Professor Lasson, also Hartrott’s teacher, said. With its immense power capable of annihilating everything, it was limited to maintaining peace. But the nation refused to stop, and pushed the driver who had set it in motion. It was useless to apply the brakes. “He who does not advance, retreats”: such was the cry of Pan-Germanism to the Emperor. We had to go forward, until we conquered the entire earth. And war is coming, he continued. “We need the colonies of others, since Bismarck, due to a mistake in his stubborn old age, did not demand anything when it came to the division of the world, leaving England and France to take the best lands. We need all the countries that have Germanic blood and that have been civilized by our ancestors to belong to Germany.” Hartrott listed the countries. Holland and Belgium were German. France was also German because of the Franks: a third of its blood came from the Germans. Italy… here the professor paused, recalling that this nation was an ally, certainly not very secure, but still united by diplomatic commitments. However, he mentioned the Lombards and other races from the North. Spain and Portugal had been populated by the blond Goths, and they also belonged to the Germanic race. And since the majority of the nations of America were of Hispanic or Portuguese origin, they were included in this claim. ” It is still premature to think about them,” the doctor added modestly, ” but one day the hour of justice will strike. After our continental triumph, we will have time to consider their fate… North America must also receive our civilizing influence. There are millions of Germans there, who have created its greatness.” He spoke of future conquests as if they were signs of distinction with which his country was going to favor other peoples. These would continue to live politically as before, with their own governments, but subject to the direction of the Germanic race, like minors in need of the firm hand of a teacher. They would form the United States of the world, with a hereditary and all-powerful president, the Emperor of Germany, receiving the benefits of Germanic culture, working disciplined under their industrial direction… But the world is ungrateful, and human wickedness always opposes all progress. We have no illusions, said the professor with haughty sadness. We have no friends. Everyone looks at us with suspicion, as if we were dangerous beings, because we are the most intelligent, the most active, and we seem superior to the rest… But since they don’t love us, let them fear us. As my friend Mann says, Kultur is the spiritual organization of the world, but it does not exclude “bloody savagery” when it is necessary. Kultur sublimates the demonic within us and is above morality, reason, and science. We will impose Kultur with cannon fire. Argensola continued to express his thought with his eyes: “They are crazy, crazy with pride… What awaits the world with these people!” Desnoyers intervened to lighten the gloomy monologue with a bit of optimism . War had not yet been declared: diplomacy was negotiating. Perhaps everything would be settled peacefully at the last minute, as had happened before. His cousin saw things somewhat distorted by an aggressive enthusiasm. The doctor’s ironic, fierce, cutting smile! Argensola had never met old Madariaga, and yet it occurred to him that this was what sharks must smile like, although he had never seen a shark. ” It’s war,” Hartrott asserted. “When I left Germany two weeks ago, I already knew that war was imminent.” The certainty with which he said this dispelled all Julio’s hopes. Besides, he was worried about this man’s trip under the pretext of seeing his mother, from whom he had separated shortly before… “What had Dr. Julius von Hartrott come to Paris to do?” Desnoyers then asked, “Why so many diplomatic interviews?” Why is the German government intervening, however half -heartedly, in the conflict between Austria and Serbia? Wouldn’t it be better to openly declare war? The professor answered simply: ” Our government undoubtedly wants others to declare it. The role of the attacked is always the most pleasing and justifies all subsequent resolutions, no matter how extreme they may seem. There we have people there who live well and don’t want war. It’s convenient to make them believe that it is the enemies who impose it on us, so that they feel the need to defend themselves. Only superior minds come to the conviction that great advances are only achieved by the sword, and that war, as our great Treitschke said, is the highest form of progress.” Again he smiled with a ferocious expression. Morality, according to him, should exist among individuals, since it serves to make them more obedient and disciplined. But morality hinders governments and should be eliminated as a useless obstacle. For a state, there is no such thing as truth or falsehood: it only recognizes the convenience and usefulness of things. The glorious Bismarck, in order to achieve war with France, the basis of German greatness, had not hesitated to falsify a telegraph dispatch. And you will recognize that he is the greatest hero of our time. History looks kindly on his feat. Who can accuse the victor? Professor Hans Delbruck has rightly written: “Blessed be the hand that falsified the Ems telegram!” It was fitting that war should break out immediately, now that circumstances were favorable for Germany and its enemies were careless. It was the preventive war recommended by General Bernhardi and other illustrious compatriots. It was dangerous to wait for the enemies to be prepared and for them to declare it. Besides, what obstacles did law and other fictions invented by weak peoples to sustain themselves in their misery represent for the Germans? They had the power, and power creates new laws. If they emerged victorious, history would not hold them accountable for what they had done. It was Germany that struck, and the priests of all faiths would end up sanctifying the war with their hymns. Blessed, if it led to triumph. We do not wage war to punish the regicides of Serbs, nor to liberate the Poles and other oppressed people of Russia, resting afterward in the admiration of our selfless magnanimity. We want to wage war because we are the first people on earth and we must extend our activity over the entire planet. Germany’s hour has come. We are going to take our place as the world’s leading power, as Spain held it in other centuries, and France later, and England currently. What those peoples achieved with many years of preparation, we will achieve in four months. The stormy banner of the Empire will parade across seas and nations: the sun will illuminate great slaughter… Old Rome, sick with death, called the Germans who dug its grave barbarians. The world of today also smells of death, and will surely call us barbarians… So be it! When Tangier and Toulon, Antwerp and Calais, are subjected to Germanic barbarism, we will speak of this in more detail… We have strength, and he who possesses it neither argues nor pays attention to words… Strength! That is the beautiful thing: the only word that sounds bright and clear… Strength! One sure blow, and all arguments are answered. But are you so sure of victory? asked Desnoyers. Sometimes fate offers terrible surprises. There are hidden forces that we do not count on and that upset the best plans. The doctor’s smile now became one of sovereign contempt. Everything had been planned and studied long ago, with the meticulous Germanic method. What did they have before them? The most formidable enemy was France, incapable of resisting the enervating moral influences, the suffering, the efforts, and the privations of war; a physically weakened people , poisoned by the revolutionary spirit, who had been renouncing the use of arms out of an exaggerated love of well-being. Our generals continued, “They are going to leave it in such a state that it will never dare to cross our path.” There was still Russia, but its amorphous masses were slow to assemble and difficult to move. The Berlin General Staff had arranged everything chronometrically for the crushing of France in four weeks, then bringing its enormous forces against the Russian Empire before it could initiate action. ” We’ll finish off the bear, after having killed the rooster,” the professor declared victoriously. But sensing an objection from his cousin, he hastened to continue: ” I know what you’re going to tell me. There remains another enemy: one who hasn’t yet jumped into the arena, but whom all Germans await. This one inspires more hatred in us than the others because he is of our blood, because he is a traitor to the race… Ah, how we hate him!” And in the tone with which he spoke these words lay an expression of hatred and a desire for revenge that impressed both listeners. ” Even if England attacks us,” Hartrott continued, “we shall not fail to win. This adversary is no more fearsome than the others. It has reigned over the world for a century. When Napoleon fell, it reaped continental hegemony at the Congress of Vienna, and it will fight to retain it. But what is its energy worth? As our Bernhardi says, the English people are a people of rentiers and sportsmen. Their army is formed from the detritus of the nation. The country lacks a military spirit. We are a people of warriors, and it will be easy for us to defeat the English, weakened by a false conception of life.” The doctor paused and added: ” We also reckon with the internal corruption of our enemies, with their lack of unity. God will help us by sowing confusion among these odious peoples. Not many days will pass before His hand is seen.” The revolution is about to break out in France at the same time as the war. The people of Paris will erect barricades in the streets: the anarchy of the Commune will be repeated. Tunis, Algiers, and other possessions will rise against the mother country. Argensola thought it appropriate to smile with aggressive incredulity. “I repeat,” Hartrott insisted, “that this country is going to experience revolutions here and insurrections in its colonies. I know what I’m saying… Russia will also have its internal revolution, a revolution with a red flag, which will force the Tsar to beg us for mercy on his knees. You only have to read in the newspapers about the recent strikes in St. Petersburg, the demonstrations of the strikers under the pretext of President Poincaré’s visit… England will see its requests for support rejected by the colonies . India is going to revolt against her, and Egypt believes the time has come for its emancipation. ” Julio seemed impressed by these statements, formulated with the certainty of a doctor. He was almost irritated by the incredulous Argensola, who continued to look at the professor insolently and repeated with his eyes: “He’s crazy: crazy with pride.” That man must have had serious reasons for formulating such prophecies of misfortune. His presence in Paris, for the very reason that it was inexplicable to Desnoyers, gave his words a mysterious authority. But the nations will defend themselves, he argued to his cousin. Victory will not be as easy as you think. Yes, they will defend themselves. The fight will be tough. It seems that in recent years France has been preoccupied with its army. We will encounter a certain resistance; victory will be more difficult, but we will win… You do not know the extent of Germany’s offensive power. No one knows for sure beyond its borders. If our enemies knew it in all its intensity, they would fall to their knees, regardless of useless sacrifices. There was a long silence. Julius von Hartrott seemed abstracted. The memory of the elements of strength accumulated by his race plunged him into a kind of mystical adoration. The preliminary victory, he suddenly said, was long ago obtained . Our enemies abhor us, and yet they imitate us. Everything that bears the mark of Germany is sought after throughout the world. The same countries that try to resist our weapons copy our methods in their universities and admire our theories, even those that did not achieve success in Germany. We often laugh among ourselves, like the Roman augurs, when we appreciate the servility with which they follow us… And then they refuse to acknowledge our superiority! For the first time, Argensola approved Hartrott’s words with his eyes and gestures . Exactly what he said: the world was a victim of ” German superstition.” An intellectual cowardice, the fear of the strong, made people admire everything of Germanic origin, without any discernment, en bloc, for the intensity of its brilliance: gold mixed with talc. The so-called Latins, in surrendering to this admiration, doubted their own strength with an irrational pessimism. They were the first to decree their death. And the proud Germans had only to repeat the words of these pessimists to affirm their belief in their superiority. With the passion of the South, which leaps seamlessly from one extreme to the other, many Latins had proclaimed that in the future world there was no room for Latin societies, which were in their final throes, adding that only Germany retained latent civilizing forces. The French, who shout among themselves, incurring in the greatest exaggerations, unaware that there are those listening on the other side of the doors, had repeated for many years that France was in complete decomposition and marching toward its death. Why were they then indignant at the contempt of their enemies! How could they not share their beliefs! The professor, misinterpreting the silent approval of that young man who until then had listened to him with a hostile smile, added: ” It is time to test German culture in France, establishing it as victors. ” Here Argensola interrupted him: “And if German culture did not exist, as a famous German claims?” He needed to contradict this pedant who overwhelmed them with his pride. Hartrott almost jumped out of his seat at such a doubt. “What German is that? Nietzsche!” The professor looked at him with pity. Nietzsche had told men: “Be tough,” affirming that “a good war sanctifies every cause.” He had praised Bismarck; he had taken part in the war of ’70; he had glorified the German when he spoke of the “laughing lion” and the ” blond beast.” But Argensola listened to him with the tranquility of one on secure ground. “Oh, afternoons of placid reading by the study fireplace, listening to the rain pattering on the windowpanes!… The philosopher said that,” he replied, “and he has said other, different things, like all those who think a lot. His doctrine is one of pride, but of individual pride, not of pride of nation or race. He always spoke out against “the lying deception of races.” Argensola remembered his philosopher word for word. A culture, according to him, was “the unity of style in all manifestations of life.” Science does not presuppose culture. Great knowledge can be accompanied by great barbarism, due to the absence of style or the chaotic confusion of all styles. Germany, in Nietzsche’s opinion, had no culture of its own due to its lack of style. “The French, he had said, are at the head of an authentic and fertile culture, whatever its value, and until now we have all borrowed from it.” His hatred was focused on his own country. “I cannot bear life in Germany. The spirit of servility and pettiness permeates everywhere … I only believe in French culture, and everything else that is called cultured Europe seems to me to be a mistake. The rare cases of high culture that I have found in Germany were of French origin.” You already know, continued Argensola, that, when arguing with Wagner over the excessive Germanism in his art, he proclaimed the need to Mediterraneanize music. His ideal was a culture for all of Europe, but with a Latin base. Julius von Hartrott replied disdainfully, repeating the Spaniard’s own words. Men who think a lot say a lot of things. Besides, Nietzsche was a poet who had died in the throes of dementia, and he was not among the scholars of the University. His fame had been earned abroad… And he paid no further attention to that young man, as if he had evaporated after his daring objections. All his attention was now focused on Desnoyers. This country continues to carry death in its bowels. How can we doubt that a revolution will break out there as soon as war breaks out? You have not witnessed the unrest on the Boulevard during the Cailloux trial. Reactionaries and revolutionaries insulted each other up until three days ago. I have seen how they challenged each other with shouts and songs, how they struck each other in the middle of the street. And this division of opinions will become even more pronounced when our troops cross the borders. It will be civil war. The anti-militarists clamor, believing that it is in the hands of their government to avoid the clash… A country degenerated by democracy and by the inferiority of its triumphant Celticism, eager for all freedoms!… We are the only free people on earth, because we know how to obey. The paradox made Julio smile. “Germany, the only free people!”… ” That’s right,” von Hartrott asserted energetically. “We have the freedom that befits a great people: economic and intellectual freedom. And political freedom?” The professor greeted this question with a gesture of disdain. “Political freedom!” Only decadent and ungovernable peoples , inferior races, eager for equality and democratic confusion, speak of political freedom. We Germans don’t need it. We are a people of masters, who recognize hierarchies and desire to be commanded by those who were born superior. We have the genius for organization. This was, according to the doctor, the great German secret, and the Germanic race, by taking over the world, would make everyone a part of its discovery. Nations would be organized so that the individual would give his maximum performance to society. regimented for all kinds of production, obeying a higher direction like machines and providing the greatest possible amount of work: this was the perfect state. Freedom was a purely negative idea if it was not accompanied by a positive concept that made it useful. The two friends listened with amazement to the description of the future that Germanic superiority offered to the world. Each individual subjected to intensive production, like a piece of garden from which the owner wishes to extract the greatest number of vegetables… Man transformed into a mechanism… no more useless operations that do not provide an immediate result… And the people who proclaimed this gloomy ideal were the same as the philosophers and dreamers, who had given contemplation and reflection first place in their existence!… Hartrott again insisted on the inferiority of the enemies of his race. To fight, faith was needed, an unshakeable confidence in the superiority of one’s own forces. At this hour, in Berlin, everyone accepts the war, everyone believes victory is certain, while here!… I’m not saying the French feel fear. They have a brave past that galvanizes them at certain moments. But they are sad; one can see they would make any sacrifice to avoid what is coming. The people will shout with enthusiasm at first, as they always shout when they are led to their doom. The upper classes have no confidence in the future; they remain silent or lie, but one can sense in all of them the presentiment of disaster. Yesterday I spoke with your father. He is French and he is rich. He is indignant with the governments of his country because they involve him in European conflicts to defend distant and uninteresting peoples. He complains about the fervent patriots, who have kept the gulf between Germany and France open, preventing reconciliation. He says that Alsace and Lorraine are not worth what a war will cost in men and money… He recognizes our greatness: he assures us that we have progressed so rapidly that other nations will never be able to catch up with us… And many others think like your father: all those who are satisfied with their well-being and fear losing it. Believe me: a country that hesitates and fears war is defeated before the first battle. Julio showed a certain uneasiness, as if he wanted to cut short the conversation. Leave my father alone. Today he says that because war is not yet a fact, and he needs to contradict, to be indignant with everything within his reach. Tomorrow perhaps he will say the opposite… My father is a Latin. The professor looked at his watch. He had to leave: he still had many things to do before heading to the station. The Germans established in Paris had fled in large bands, as if a secret order were circulating among them . That afternoon, the last ones who still ostensibly remained in the capital were to leave . I have come to see you out of family affection, because it was my duty to give you a warning. You are a foreigner, and nothing keeps you here. If you wish to witness a great historical event, stay. But it would be better for you to leave. The war is going to be hard, very hard, and if Paris tries to resist as it did last time, we will witness terrible things. The means of offense have changed a lot. Desnoyers made a gesture of indifference. ” The same as your father,” the professor continued. “Last night, he and your family answered me in the same way. Even my mother prefers to stay with her sister, saying that the Germans are very good, very civilized , and nothing can be feared from them when they triumph.” The doctor seemed to be bothered by this positive opinion. ” They don’t realize what modern warfare is; they ignore that our generals have studied the art of quickly reducing the enemy and that they will employ it with a ruthless method. Terror is the only means, since it disturbs the intelligence of the enemy, paralyzes their action, pulverizes their resistance.” The fiercer the war, the shorter it will be: to punish harshly is to act humanely. And Germany will be cruel, with a cruelty never seen before, so that the war is not prolonged. struggle. He had left his seat, demanding his cane and straw hat . Argensola looked at him with frank hostility. The professor, as he passed by him, only gave a rigid and disdainful nod. Then he headed for the door, accompanied by his cousin. The farewell was brief. ” I repeat my advice. If you don’t love danger, leave. It may be that I am wrong, and these people, convinced that their defense is useless, will surrender themselves willingly… In any case, we will see each other soon. I will have the pleasure of returning to Paris when the flag of the Empire flies over the Eiffel Tower. A matter of three or four weeks. At the beginning of September, certainly. France was going to disappear; for the doctor, its death was beyond doubt. ” Paris will remain,” he added, “the French will remain, because a people is not easily suppressed; but they will take their rightful place.” We will rule the world: they will take care of inventing fashions, they will make life pleasant for the foreigners who visit them, and in the intellectual field we will encourage them to educate pretty actresses, produce entertaining novels, and concoct funny comedies… Nothing more. Desnoyers laughed as he shook his cousin’s hand, pretending to take his words as paradoxes. ” I speak seriously,” Hartrott continued. “The last hour of the French Republic as an important nation has arrived. I have seen it up close, and it deserves no other fate. Disorder and lack of confidence above; sterile enthusiasm below. ” Turning his head, he saw Argensola’s smile again. ” And we understand a little of this,” he added aggressively. “We are accustomed to examining the peoples that were, to studying them fiber by fiber, and we can know with a single glance the psychology of those who still live. ” The Bohemian thought he saw a surgeon speaking smugly about the mysteries of the will over a corpse. What did this pedantic interpreter of dead documents know of life ? When the door closed, he went to meet his friend, who was returning discouraged. Argensola no longer considered Dr. Julius von Hartrott a madman. “What a brute!” he exclaimed, raising his arms. “And to think that these fabricators of somber errors live at large! Who would have thought they came from the same land that produced Kant the pacifist, the serene Goethe, Beethoven… To have believed for so many years that they formed a nation of dreamers and philosophers occupied in working selflessly for all men… ” The farce of a German geographer revived in his memory like an explanation: “The German is two-headed. With one head he dreams and poetizes, while with the other he thinks and executes.” Desnoyers seemed desperate at the certainty of war. This professor seemed more formidable to him than the counselor and the other German bourgeois he had met on the ship. His sadness wasn’t only due to the selfish thought that the catastrophe would thwart the fulfillment of his and Marguerite’s wishes. He suddenly discovered, in this hour of uncertainty, that he loved France. He saw in it his father’s homeland and the country of the great Revolution… Although he had never been involved in political struggles, he was a republican and had often laughed at certain friends of his who adored kings and emperors, considering this a sign of distinction. Argensola tried to cheer him up. Who knows! This is a country of surprises. You have to see the Frenchman at the hour when he seeks to remedy his impromptu actions. Whatever your barbarian cousin may say , there is enthusiasm, there is order… Those who lived days before Valmy must have looked worse than us . Everything was in disarray: their only defense was battalions of workers and peasants who had taken up rifles for the first time. And yet, for twenty years, the Europe of the old monarchies was unable to free itself from these improvised warriors. Chapter 5. Wherein the Four Horsemen Appear. The two friends lived a feverish life in the following days, considerably magnified by the rapidity with which events unfolded . Every hour brought new developments, often false, that stirred public opinion with a harsh back-and-forth. No sooner had the danger of war appeared averted than word circulated that mobilization would be ordered within minutes. Twenty-four hours represented the anxieties, the anxiety, the nervous breakdown of a normal year. What further aggravated this situation was the uncertainty, the wait for the dreaded and still invisible event, the anguish of the danger that never quite arrived. History spread out beyond its limits, events following one another like the waves of a flood. Austria declared war on Serbia, while the diplomats of the great powers continued working to avoid conflict. The electrical grid stretched around the planet vibrated incessantly in the depths of the oceans and across the relief of the continents, transmitting hope or pessimism. Russia mobilized part of its army. Germany, which had its troops ready under the pretext of maneuvers, declared a state of “threat of war.” The Austrians, without waiting for diplomatic intervention , began the bombardment of Belgrade. Wilhelm II, fearing that the intervention of the powers would resolve the conflict between the Tsar and the Emperor of Austria, forced the course of events by declaring war on Russia. Then, Germany isolated itself, cutting railway and telegraph lines to secretly amass its invasion forces. France witnessed this avalanche of events, sober in words and displays of enthusiasm. A cold and grave resolve animated everyone internally. Two generations had come into the world, receiving, upon opening the eyes of reason, the image of a war that would inevitably come someday. No one wanted it: it was imposed by their adversaries… But everyone accepted it, with the firm determination to fulfill their duty. Paris fell silent during the day, sulking in its worries. Only a few groups of excited patriots, following the three colors of the flag, passed through the Place de la Concorde to cheer before the statue of Strasbourg. People approached each other in the streets in a friendly manner. Everyone knew one another without ever having met. Eyes attracted eyes; smiles seemed to connect with each other in the sympathy of a common idea. The women were sad, but spoke loudly to hide their emotions. In the long summer twilight, the boulevards filled with crowds. The outlying neighborhoods converged on the city center, as in the long-gone days of the revolutions. Groups gathered, forming an endless agglomeration, from which shouts and chants arose. The demonstrations passed through the center, under the newly ignited electric lamps. The parade lasted until midnight, and the national flag appeared above the marching crowd, escorted by the flags of other nations. It was on one of these nights of sincere enthusiasm that the two friends heard unexpected, absurd news: “Jaurès has been killed.” The groups repeated it with a bewilderment that seemed to overcome their grief: “Jaurès has been killed! And why?” Common sense, which instinctively seeks an explanation for every attempt, was suspended, unable to orient itself. The tribune was killed precisely at the moment when his words as a rouser of the crowd could be most useful! Argensola immediately thought of Tchernoff: “What will our neighbor say?” The people of order feared a revolution. Desnoyers believed for a moment that his cousin’s gloomy predictions were about to be fulfilled. This assassination, with its corresponding reprisals, could be the sign of a civil war. But the masses of the people, overcome with grief at the death of their hero, remained in tragic silence. Everyone saw beyond the corpse the image of the homeland. By the next morning, the danger had vanished. The workers They talked about generals and the war, showing each other their soldier’s books, announcing the date they were to leave as soon as the mobilization order was published: “I’m leaving on the second day.” “I’m leaving on the first.” Those in the active army who were on leave from home were called individually to their barracks. Events followed one another in a frenzy, all in the same direction: war. The Germans were invading Luxembourg; the Germans were allowing themselves to advance on the French border while their ambassador was still in Paris making promises of peace. The day after Jaurès’s death, on August 1st, in the middle of the afternoon, the crowd gathered around pieces of paper written by hand in visible haste. These papers preceded larger, printed pieces bearing two crossed flags at the top. “It has arrived; it is a fact…” It was the order for general mobilization. All of France was going to rush to arms. And their chests seemed to expand with a sigh of relief. Their eyes shone with satisfaction. The nightmare was over!… The cruel reality was preferable to the uncertainty of days and days that stretched them as if they were weeks. In vain, President Poincaré, encouraged by a last hope, addressed the French to explain that “mobilization is not war” and that a call to arms represented only a preventive measure. “It is war, the inevitable war,” the crowd said with a fatalistic expression. And those who were about to leave that same night or the next day were the most enthusiastic and spirited: “If they are looking for us, they will find us. Long live France!” The Song of Departure, the marching hymn of the volunteers of the First Republic, had been exhumed by the instinct of the people, who call upon art for its voice in critical moments . The verses of the conventional Chenier, set to music of warlike gravity, resounded in the streets at the same time as the Marseillaise. The Republic calls us, Saxons vain or Saxons perish; A Frenchman must live for them, For them a Frenchman must die. The mobilization began at midnight. From dusk, groups of men circulated through the streets heading for the stations. Their families marched with them, carrying suitcases or bundles of clothes. Neighborhood friends escorted them. A tricolor flag led these platoons. The reserve officers donned their uniforms, which offered all the inconveniences of long-forgotten suits. With their bellies pressed by their new belts and their revolvers at their sides, they walked in search of the railroad that would take them to the assembly point. One of her sons carried his saber hidden in a cloth sheath. The woman, leaning on his arm, sad and proud at the same time, directed her last words of advice in a loving whisper. Trams, automobiles, and carriages sped by. Never before had so many vehicles been seen on the streets of Paris. And yet, those who needed one called in vain for the drivers. No one wanted to serve the civilians. All means of transportation were for the military; all journeys ended at the railway stations. The heavy trucks of the Intendancy, filled with sacks, were greeted by general enthusiasm: “Long live the army!” The soldiers in mechanics’ uniforms, lying at the top of the rolling pyramid, responded to the acclamation by waving their arms and uttering cries that no one could understand. Fraternity had created a tolerance never before seen. The crowd jostled one another, maintaining an unwavering good manners in their encounters. Vehicles collided , and when the drivers, driven by habit, were about to insult each other, the crowd intervened and they ended up shaking hands. “Long live France!” The passersby escaping from between the wheels of the cars laughed, good-naturedly rebuking the chauffeur. “Killing a Frenchman who’s going to find his regiment!” And the driver replied: “I’ll also be leaving in a few hours. This is my last trip.” The trams and buses ran with increasing irregularity as the night drew on. Many employees had left their posts to say goodbye to their families and take the train. All of Paris’s life was concentrated in half a dozen human rivers that flowed into the stations. Desnoyers and Argensola met in a café on the boulevard around midnight. Both were fatigued by the day’s excitement, with the nervous depression that follows noisy and violent spectacles. They needed to rest. The war was a fact, and after this certainty, they felt no anxiety for new news. Staying in the café was intolerable. In the hot , smoky atmosphere, the customers sang and shouted, waving small flags. All the hymns, past and present, were sung in chorus, accompanied by cups and saucers. The somewhat cosmopolitan audience surveyed the nations of Europe to greet them with roars of enthusiasm. All, absolutely all, were going to be on France’s side. “Hurrah!… Hurrah!” An elderly couple sat at a table next to the two friends. They were rentiers, living orderly and mediocre lives, who perhaps couldn’t recall ever having been awake at such an hour. Carried away by enthusiasm, they had descended onto the boulevard to “see the war up close.” The foreign language the neighbors were using gave the husband a lofty idea of ​​his importance. “Do you think England will march with us?” Argensola knew as much as he did, but he answered with authority: “Surely; it’s a given. ” The old man stood up: “Hurrah for England!” And, caressed by his wife’s admiring eyes, he began to sing a forgotten patriotic song, marking the refrain with arm movements, which very few could follow. The two friends had to start their return home on foot. They couldn’t find a vehicle willing to accept them: everyone was going in the opposite direction, toward the stations. Both were in a bad mood, but Argensola couldn’t walk in silence. “Ah, women!” Desnoyers knew of her honest relationship, dating back several months, with a mistress from the rue Taitbout. Sunday walks around the outskirts of Paris, several trips to the cinema, comments on the sublimity of the latest novel published in the serial of a popular newspaper, kisses at farewell when she took the train to Bois Colombes in the evening to sleep at her parents’ house: that was all. But Argensola counted maliciously on time, which matures the most acidic virtues. That afternoon they had had an aperitif with a French friend who was leaving the following morning to join his regiment. The girl had seen him with him a few times , without him deserving special attention; But now she suddenly admired him , as if he were someone else. She had given up on returning to her parents’ house that evening: she wanted to see how a war began. The three of them ate together, and all her attention was paid to the one who was leaving. She even felt offended, with a sudden sense of modesty, because Argensola tried to exercise his right of first refusal by seeking her hand under the table. Meanwhile, she was almost dropping her head on the shoulder of the future hero, enveloping him in admiring glances. “And they’re gone! They’ve gone together!” she said spitefully. “I had to abandon them so as not to prolong my sad situation. To have worked so hard… for someone else!” She paused for a moment, and changing her thoughts, added: ” I admit, however, that their conduct is beautiful.” What generosity women have when they believe the moment has come to offer!… Her father inspires great fear in her because of his anger, and yet she stays out one night with someone she hardly knows and whom she had not thought of in the middle of the afternoon… The nation feels gratitude for those who are going to risk their lives, and she, the poor thing, also wishes to do something for those destined for death, to give them a little happiness in their last hour… and gives away the best he has, what can never be recovered. I made a bad impression… Laugh at me, but admit that this is beautiful. Desnoyers did laugh at his friend’s misfortune, even though he too was suffering great setbacks, kept secret. He hadn’t seen Marguerite again since the first interview. He only heard from her through several letters… Damned war! What a disturbance for happy people! Marguerite’s mother was ill. She was thinking about her son, who was an officer and was due to leave on the first day of mobilization. She was equally worried about her brother and thought it inappropriate to go to his studies while at home his mother was moaning. When would this situation end? She was also worried about that check for four hundred thousand francs brought from America. The day before, they had waived its payment at the bank for lack of notice. Then they declared that they had the notice, but they still didn’t give her the money. That afternoon, when the credit institutions were already closed, the government had issued a decree establishing a moratorium to avoid a general bankruptcy resulting from the financial panic. When would they pay him? Perhaps when the war, which had not yet begun, was over; perhaps never. He had no cash other than a scant two thousand francs left over from his trip. All his friends were in a desperate situation, deprived of the funds they had stashed in the banks. Those who had any money were forced to undertake a pilgrimage from shop to shop or queue at the bank doors to change a note. Ah, the war! The stupid war! In the middle of the Champs-Élysées, they saw a man wearing a broad-brimmed hat walking slowly ahead of them, talking to himself. Argensola recognized him as he passed by a lamppost: “Friend Tchernoff.” The Russian, returning the greeting, let a faint scent of wine escape from the depths of his beard. Without any invitation, he arranged his pace with them, following them toward the Arc de Triomphe. Julio had only exchanged silent greetings with this friend of Argensola’s when he met him in the hall of the house. But sadness softens the spirit and makes one seek, like a refreshing shadow, the friendship of the humble. Tchernoff, for his part, looked at Desnoyers as if he had known him all his life. He had interrupted his monologue, which was heard only by the masses of black vegetation, the solitary benches, the blue shadow pierced by the reddish tremor of the lanterns, the summer night with its dome of warm breaths and sidereal flickers. He took a few steps without speaking, as a sign of consideration for his companions, and then resumed his reasoning, picking up where he had left off, without giving any explanation, as if he were walking alone. …And at this time they will shout with enthusiasm the same as those here, they will believe in good faith that they are going to defend their provoked homeland, they will want to die for their families and homes that no one has threatened. “Who are those, Tchernoff?” asked Argensola. The Russian looked at him fixedly, as if he missed his question. ” Them,” he said laconically. Both understood him… “Them!” It could not be anyone else. ” I lived in Germany for ten years,” he continued, giving more meaning to his words when he saw he was being heard. “I was a newspaper correspondent in Berlin, and I know those people. As I passed by the boulevard filled with crowds, I have seen with my imagination what is happening there at this time. They are also singing and roaring with enthusiasm, waving flags. They are the same on the outside, but what a difference on the inside! Last night, on the boulevard, people chased some shouters who were shouting: “To Berlin!” It is a cry of bad memory and in worse taste. France does not want conquests; Their only wish is to be respected, to live in peace, without humiliation or unrest. Tonight, two mobilized protesters said as they left: “When we enter Germany, we will impose the Republic on them…” The Republic is not a perfect thing, my friends, but it represents something. Better than living under an irresponsible monarch, by the grace of God. At the very least, it implies tranquility and the absence of personal ambitions that would disturb life. And I was moved by the generous sentiment of these two workers who, instead of thinking about the extermination of their enemies, want to correct them by giving them what they consider best. Tchernoff paused for a few moments to smile ironically at the spectacle that presented itself to his imagination. In Berlin, the masses express their enthusiasm in a lofty manner, as befits a superior people. Those below, who console themselves for their humiliations with a crude materialism, are shouting at this hour: “To Paris! Let’s drink free champagne!” The pietistic bourgeoisie, capable of anything to achieve a new honor, and the aristocracy that has given the world the greatest scandals of recent years, are also shouting: “To Paris!” Paris is the Babylon of sin, the city of the Moulin Rouge and the restaurants of Montmartre, the only places they know… And my comrades of the Social Democrats also shout; but they have been taught another chant: “To Moscow! To Petersburg! We must crush Russian tyranny, danger to civilization!” The Kaiser wielding the tyranny of another country like a scarecrow for his people… how laughable! And the Russian’s laughter rang out in the silence of the night like a clatter. “We are more civilized than the Germans,” he said when he had stopped laughing. Desnoyers, who was listening with interest, made a movement of surprise and said to himself: “This Tchernoff has had something to drink.” Civilization, then, does not consist solely of large-scale industry, many ships, armies, and numerous universities that only teach science. That is a material civilization. There is another, higher one that elevates the soul and does not allow human dignity to suffer continual humiliation without protest. A Swiss citizen living in his wooden chalet, considering himself equal to other men in his country, is more civilized than the Herr Professor who has to give way to a lieutenant, or the rich man from Hamburg who kowtows like a lackey before someone who displays the word “von.” Here the Spaniard nodded, as if he guessed what Tchernoff was going to add. We Russians suffer great tyranny. I know something about this. I know the hunger and the cold of prison cells; I have lived in Siberia… But in the face of our tyranny, there has always existed a revolutionary protest. One part of the nation is half barbaric, but the rest has a superior mentality, a spirit of high morals that makes it brave dangers and sacrifices for freedom and truth… And Germany? Who has ever protested there to defend human rights? What revolutions have been known in Prussia, a land of great despots? The founder of militarism, Frederick William, when he grew tired of beating his wife and spitting on his children’s plates, would go out into the street, club in hand, to strike at subjects who didn’t flee in time. His son, Frederick the Great, declared that he was dying of boredom governing a people of slaves. In two centuries of Prussian history, there was only one revolution: the barricades of 1848, a poor Berlin copy of the Paris revolution, and to no avail. Bismarck tightened his grip to crush the last attempts at protest, if they really existed. And when his friends threatened him with a revolution, the ferocious Junker would throw up his hands, his flanks, bursting out in the most insolent laughter. A revolution in Prussia!… No one knew his people better than he did. Tchernoff was no patriot. Argensola had often heard him speak out against his country. But he was indignant when he considered the contempt with which German pride treated the Russian people. Where, in the last forty years of imperialist greatness, was the intellectual hegemony that the Germans boasted of?… Excellent pawns of science; tenacious and short-sighted scholars, each confined to his specialty; Benedictines of the laboratory, who worked hard and got some things right. “Sometimes through enormous errors presented as truths because they were theirs: that was all. And next to so much patient and respectable industriousness, what charlatanism! What great names exploited like a shop window! How many scholars turned into sanatorium hoteliers!… A Herr Professor discovered the cure for consumption, and consumptives continued to die as before. Another labeled with a number the remedy that conquered the most unspeakable of diseases, and genital plague continued to ravage the world. And all these errors represented considerable fortunes: each saving panacea gave rise to the constitution of an industrial society, the products being sold at high prices, as if pain were a privilege of the rich. How far from this bluff,” Pasteur and other scholars of lesser peoples, who shared their secrets with the world without lending themselves to monopolies! “German science,” continued Tchernoff, “has given much to humanity, I recognize; But the science of other nations has also given much. Only a people mad with pride can imagine that they are everything to civilization and the others are nothing… Apart from their learned specialists, what genius has this Germany, which believes itself to be universal, produced in our times ? Wagner is the last romantic; he closes an era and belongs to the past. Nietzsche was keen to demonstrate his Polish origins and abhorred Germany, a country, according to him, of pedantic bourgeois. His Slavicism was so pronounced that he even prophesied the crushing of the Germans by the Slavs… And there are no more of them left. We, a savage people, have recently given the world artists of admirable moral greatness. Tolstoy and Dostoevsky are universal. What names can Wilhelm II’s Germany place before them? Their country was the homeland of music, but the Russian musicians of today are more original than the followers of Wagnerism, who took refuge in the exasperations of the orchestra to hide their mediocrity. The German people had geniuses in their time of sorrow, when Pan-German pride had not yet been born, when the Empire did not exist. Goethe, Schiller, Beethoven, were subjects of small principalities. They were influenced by other countries, contributed to universal civilization as citizens of the world, without it occurring to them that the world should become Germanic because it was paying attention to their works. Tsarism had committed atrocities. Tchernoff knew this from experience and didn’t need the Germans to come and tell him. But all the educated classes of Russia were enemies of tyranny and rose up against it. Where in Germany were the intellectuals who were enemies of Prussian Tsarism? They either remained silent or burst into flattery for God’s anointed, a musician and comedian like Nero, with a lively and superficial intelligence, who, by mastering everything, believed he knew everything. Eager to achieve a leading role in history, he had ended up afflicting the world with the greatest of calamities. Why should the tyranny that weighs on my country be Russian? The worst tsars were imitators of Prussia. In our times, every time the Russian or Polish people have attempted to assert their rights, the reactionaries used the Kaiser as a threat, claiming he would come to their aid. Half of the Russian aristocracy is German; the generals who have most distinguished themselves by butchering the people are German; the officials who support and advise the tyranny are German; the officers who are in charge of punishing workers’ strikes and the rebellion of annexed peoples with massacres are German. The reactionary Slav is brutal, but he has the sentimentality of a race in which many princes become nihilists. He raises the whip with ease, but then regrets it and sometimes cries. I have seen Russian officers commit suicide for not marching against the people or from remorse for having carried out massacres. The German in the service of Tsarism feels no scruples and regrets his conduct: he kills coldly, with A meticulous and exact method, like everything he executes. The Russian is barbaric; he hits and repents; the civilized German shoots without hesitation. Our Tsar, in a Slavic humanitarian dream, cherished the generous utopia of universal peace, organizing the Hague conferences. The Kaiser of culture has worked for years and years to assemble and oil a destructive organism the likes of which no one has ever known, to crush all of Europe. The Russian is a humble, egalitarian, democratic Christian, thirsty for justice; the German boasts of Christianity, but is an idolater like the Germans of other centuries. His religion loves blood and upholds castes; his true cult is that of Odin, only now the god of slaughter has changed his name, and is called the State. Tchernoff paused for a moment, perhaps to better appreciate the astonishment of his companions, and then said simply: “I am a Christian.” Argensola, who was familiar with the Russian’s ideas and history, made a movement of astonishment. Julio persisted with his suspicions: ” This Tchernoff is definitely drunk.” ” It’s true,” he continued, “that I care little for God and don’t believe in dogmas, but my soul is Christian like that of all revolutionaries. The philosophy of modern democracy is a secular Christianity. We socialists love the humble, the needy, the weak. We defend their right to life and well-being, just like the great exalted figures of religion, who saw every unfortunate person as a brother or sister. We demand respect for the poor in the name of justice; others demand it in the name of piety. This is the only thing that separates us. But both of us seek for men to come together for a better life; for the strong to sacrifice themselves for the weak, the powerful for the humble, and for the world to be governed by brotherhood, seeking the greatest possible equality. The Slav summed up the history of human aspirations. Greek thought had placed well-being on earth, but only for a few, for the citizens of their small democracies, for free men, leaving slaves and barbarians, who constituted the majority, abandoned to their misery. Christianity, the religion of the humble, had recognized the right to happiness for all beings, but it placed this happiness in heaven, far from this world, the “valley of tears.” The Revolution and its heirs, the socialists, placed happiness in the immediate realities of the earth, just as the ancients had, and made all men share in it, just as Christians did. Where is the Christianity of present-day Germany? There is more Christian spirit in the socialism of the secular French Republic, defender of the weak, than in the religiosity of the conservative Junkers. Germany has created a God in its own image, and when it thinks it worships him, it is its own image it adores. The German God is a reflection of the German State, which considers war the first function of a people and the noblest of occupations. Other Christian peoples, when they have to wage war, feel the contradiction between their conduct and the Gospel, and excuse themselves by alleging the cruel need to defend themselves. Germany declares that war is pleasing to God. I know of German sermons proving that Jesus was a supporter of militarism. Germanic pride, the conviction that their race is providentially destined to dominate the world, united Protestants, Catholics, and Jews. Above their differences of dogma stands the God of the State, who is German; the warrior God, whom Wilhelm perhaps now calls “my respected ally.” Religions have always tended toward universality. Their goal is to place men in relationship with God and to sustain relations between all men. Prussia has regressed to barbarism by creating for its own use a second Jehovah, a divinity hostile to the majority of the human race, who makes the resentments and ambitions of the German people his own. Tchernoff then explained in his own way the creation of this ambitious, cruel, vengeful Germanic God . The Germans were Christians of the past. Their Christianity dated back only six centuries, while that of the other peoples of Europe was ten, fifteen, eighteen centuries old. When the Crusades were ending, the Prussians were still living in paganism. Racial pride, by driving them to war, revived dead divinities. Like the ancient Germanic God, who was a military leader, the God of the Gospel was seen by the Germans as adorned with a spear and shield. Christianity in Berlin wears a helmet and riding boots. God is mobilized at this moment, like Otto, Fritz, and Franz, to punish the enemies of the chosen people. It matters nothing that he commanded: “Thou shalt not kill” and that his son said on earth: “Blessed are the peacemakers.” Christianity, according to German priests of all denominations, can only influence the individual improvement of men and should not interfere in the life of the state. The God of the Prussian state is the “Old German God,” an heir to fierce Germanic mythology, an amalgam of war- hungry divinities . In the silence of the avenue, the Russian evoked the red figures of the implacable gods. They would awaken that night, hearing the beloved clang of weapons in their ears and the acrid scent of blood in their nostrils. Thor, the brutal god with the small head, stretched his biceps, wielding the hammer that crushes cities. Wotan sharpened his spear, which has lightning for iron and thunder for its tip. Odin, the one-eyed, yawned with gluttony on his mountaintop, waiting for the dead warriors who would pile up around his throne. The disheveled Valkyries, sweaty virgins smelling of colts, began to gallop from cloud to cloud, urging the men on with howls, to carry off the corpses, folded like saddlebags, on the haunches of their flying horses. “Germanic religiosity,” continued the Russian, “is the negation of Christianity. For it, men are not equal before God. He only values ​​the strong, and supports them with his influence so that they dare to do anything. Those who were born weak must submit or disappear. Nor are peoples equal: they are divided into leading peoples and inferior peoples whose destiny is to be broken up and assimilated by the former. That is what God wants. And it is useless to say that the great leading people is Germany. ” Argensola interrupted him. German pride did not rely solely on its God; it also appealed to science. “I know that,” said the Russian, without letting him finish: “determinism, inequality, selection, the struggle for life… The Germans, so proud of their worth, build their intellectual monuments on foreign soil , borrowing foundation material from foreigners when they undertake new work. A Frenchman and an Englishman, Gobineau and Chamberlain, have given them the arguments to defend the superiority of their race. With leftover rubble from Darwin and Spencer, their old man Haeckel has fabricated “monism,” a doctrine which, applied to politics, scientifically consecrates German pride and recognizes their right to dominate the world, as the strongest.” “No,” he continued a thousand times energetically after a brief silence. ” All that talk of the struggle for life, with its retinue of cruelties, may be true among the lower species, but it must not be true among men. We are beings of reason and progress, and we must free ourselves from the fatality of the environment, modifying it to suit our needs. The animal knows no law, no justice, no compassion; He lives enslaved by the darkness of his instincts. We think, and thought means freedom. To be strong, the strong don’t need to be cruel; they are greater when they don’t abuse their strength and are good. Everyone has the right to life, since they were born; and just as proud and humble beings, beautiful or weak, subsist, they must continue to live. Nations large and small, old and young. The purpose of our existence is not fighting, not killing, so that we may be killed in turn, and our killer may fall dead in turn. Let’s leave that to blind Nature. Civilized peoples, if they are to follow a common way of thinking, must adopt that of Mediterranean Europe, realizing the most peaceful and sweetest conception of life possible. A cruel smile stirred the Russian’s beard. But there is Kultur, which the Germans want to impose on us and which is the very opposite of civilization. Civilization is the refinement of the spirit, respect for one’s fellow man, tolerance of other people’s opinions, mildness of customs. Kultur is the action of a State that organizes and assimilates individuals and communities to serve it in its mission. And this mission consists primarily in placing itself above other States, crushing them with its greatness, or what is the same thing, pride, ferocity, violence. They had arrived at the Place de l’Étoile. The Arc de Triomphe stood out in its dark mass against the starry sky. The avenues scattered a double row of lights in all directions. The lanterns placed around the monument illuminated its gigantic bases and the feet of the sculptural groups. Higher above, the shadows closed in, giving the clear monument the black density of ebony. They crossed the square and the Arc de Triomphe. Seeing themselves beneath the vault, which echoed their footsteps, magnified, they stopped. The night breeze took on a wintry chill as it glided through the interior of the building. The vault outlined the sharp edges of its edges against the diffuse blue of the space. Instinctively, the three of them turned their heads to glance at the Champs-Élysées, which they had left behind. They saw only a river of shadow in which rosaries of red stars floated between two long black escarpments formed by the buildings. But they were familiar with the panorama, and thought they could contemplate in the darkness, without any effort, the majestic slope of the avenue, the double row of palaces, the Place de la Concorde in the background with its Egyptian spire, the groves of the Tuileries. “This is beautiful,” said Tchernoff, who saw more than shadows. ” An entire civilization that loves peace and the sweetness of life has passed this way. ” A memory touched the Russian. Many evenings, after lunch, he had met in that same place a robust, square man with a blond beard and kind eyes. He looked like a giant arrested in the middle of his growth. A dog accompanied him. It was Jaurès, his friend Jaurès, who before going to the Chamber would take a walk to the Arc de Triomphe from his house in Passy. He liked to stand where we are at this moment. He contemplated the avenues, the distant gardens, all of Paris that offers itself to admiration from this height. And he would say to me, moved: “This is magnificent. One of the most beautiful perspectives to be found in the world…” Poor Jaurès! The Russian, by an association of ideas, evoked the image of his compatriot Michael Bakounine, another revolutionary, the father of anarchism, weeping with emotion at a concert after hearing Beethoven’s symphony with choruses, conducted by a young friend of his named Richard Wagner. “When our revolution comes,” he shouted, clasping the maestro’s hand, and everything that exists perishes, we must save this at all costs.” Tchernoff tore himself from his memories to look around and say sadly : “They’ve passed through here.” Every time he crossed the Arch, the same image arose in his memory. They were thousands of hooves shining in the sun; thousands of thick boots rising with mechanical rigidity, all at once; the short trumpets, the fifes, the flat little drums, moving the august silence of the stone; Lohengrin’s war march resounding in the deserted avenues in front of the closed houses. He, a foreigner, was attracted to this monument, with the attraction of venerable buildings that guard the glory of the ancestors. I didn’t want to know who had created it. Men build believing they’re solidifying an immediate idea that flatters their pride. Then humanity comes along, with a broader vision, changing the meaning of the work and magnifying it, stripping it of its primitive selfishness. Greek statues, models of supreme beauty, had originally been simple sanctuary images donated by the piety of the devout women of that time. When evoking Roman grandeur, everyone imagined the enormous Colosseum, a ring of slaughter, or the arches raised to the glory of inept Caesars. The representative works of peoples had two meanings: the interior and immediate one given to them by their creators, and the exterior, of universal interest, which the centuries later communicated to them, making them a symbol. The Arch, continued Tehernoff, is French inside, with its names of battles and generals that lend themselves to criticism. Outwardly, it is the monument to the people who made the greatest of revolutions and to all peoples who believe in liberty. The glorification of man is down there, in the column in the Place Vendôme. There is nothing individual here. Its builders elevated it to the memory of the Grand Army, and that Grand Army was the people in arms spreading the revolution throughout Europe. The artists, who are great intuitions, sensed the true meaning of this work. Rude’s warriors intoning the Marseillaise in the group on our left are not professional soldiers; they are armed citizens marching to exercise their sublime and violent apostolate. Their nakedness makes me see in them sans culottes with Greek helmets… There is something more here than the narrow and selfish glory of a single nation. All of Europe awakens to a new life thanks to these crusaders of liberty… Peoples evoke images in my mind. If I think of Greece, I see the colonnades of the Parthenon; Rome, mistress of the world, is the Colosseum and the Arch of Trajan; revolutionary France is the Arc de Triomphe. It was something more, according to the Russian. It represented a great historical revenge: the peoples of the South, the so-called Latin races, responding after many centuries to the invasion that had destroyed Roman power; the Mediterranean men spreading victoriously across the lands of the ancient barbarians. They had swept away the past like a destructive wave, only to retreat immediately. The great tide deposited everything within its bowels, like the waters of certain rivers that fertilize by flooding. And when the men withdrew, the soil was left enriched by new and generous ideas. “If only they would return!” added Tchernoff with a worried gesture. “If only they would tread these flagstones again!” The other time it was some poor people, astonished by their rapid fortune, who passed through here like a rustic through a drawing room. They were content with pocket money and two provinces to perpetuate the memory of their victory… But now it will not be just soldiers marching against Paris. At the tail of the armies come, like angry barmaids, the Herr Professors, carrying at their sides the little barrel of wine laced with gunpowder that drives the barbarian mad, the wine of Kultur. And in the wagons also comes an enormous baggage of scientific savagery, a new philosophy that glorifies force as the principle and sanctification of all, denies liberty, suppresses the weak, and places the entire world under the control of a minority favored by God, solely because it has the quickest and surest means of inflicting death. Humanity must tremble for its future if once again the Germanic boots resound beneath this vault, following a march by Wagner or any regimental Kapellmeister. They moved away from the Arc, following the Avenue Victor Hugo. Tchernoff marched silently, as if saddened by the image of this hypothetical parade. Suddenly, he continued his thoughts aloud : “And even if they did enter, what does it matter?… Law would not die for this.” It suffers eclipses, but it is reborn; it may be unknown, trampled upon, but it does not cease to exist, and all good souls recognize this as the sole rule of life. A nation of madmen wants to place violence on the pedestal that others have elevated to law. A futile endeavor. The aspiration of men will eternally be for ever more liberty, more fraternity, more justice. With this statement, the Russian seemed reassured. He and his companions spoke of the spectacle offered by Paris preparing for war. Tchernoff pitied the great sorrows caused by the catastrophe, the thousands upon thousands of domestic tragedies that were unfolding at that moment. Nothing had apparently changed. In the city center and around the stations, an extraordinary bustle developed, but the rest of the immense metropolis did not betray the great upheaval of its existence. The solitary street offered the same appearance as every night. The breeze gently stirred the leaves of the trees. A solemn peace seemed to emanate from space. The houses were asleep, but behind the closed windows one could guess the sleeplessness of reddened eyes, the breathing of breasts anguished by the approaching threat, the tremulous agility of hands preparing war gear, perhaps the last gesture of love, exchanged without pleasure, with kisses ending in sobs. Tchernoff remembered his neighbors, that couple who occupied the other interior apartment behind the study. Her piano was no longer playing . The Russian had heard the sound of arguing, the sound of violently closed doors, and the footsteps of the man leaving in the middle of the night, fleeing the women’s cries. A drama had begun to unfold on the other side of the partitions: a vulgar drama, a repetition of others occurring at the same time. “She’s German,” the Russian added. “Our concierge has sniffed out her nationality well. He must have left around this time to join his regiment. Last night I could hardly sleep.” I heard her moans through the wall; a slow, desperate cry, like that of an abandoned child, and the man’s voice, who tried in vain to silence her… What a shower of sadness falls upon the world! That same afternoon, as I left home, I had found her at her door. She seemed like a different woman, with an air of old age, as if she had lived fifteen years in a few hours. In vain I had tried to cheer her up, recommending that she accept her husband’s absence calmly so as not to harm the other being she was carrying within her. Because that unhappy woman is going to be a mother. She hides her condition with a certain modesty, but I surprised her from my window arranging baby clothes. The woman had listened as if she didn’t understand him. Words were powerless against her despair. She had only been able to stammer, as if speaking to herself: “I’m German… He’s leaving; he has to go… Alone… alone forever!” She thought of her nationality, which separates her from the other; She thinks of the concentration camp where she and her compatriots will be taken. She fears abandonment in a hostile country that must defend itself against the aggression of its own people… And all this when she is about to become a mother. What misery! What sadness! They arrived at the Rue de la Pompe, and upon entering the house, Tchernoff said goodbye to his companions and went up the back stairs. Desnoyers wanted to prolong the conversation. He was afraid of being alone with his friend and that his bad mood would resurface due to recent setbacks. The conversation with the Russian interested him. The three of them went up in the elevator. Argensola spoke of the opportunity to uncork one of the many bottles he kept in the kitchen. Tchernoff could return home by the door of the study that led to the back stairs. The large window was open; the openings onto the inner courtyard were also open; A continuous breeze made the curtains flutter, swaying the antique lanterns, moth-eaten flags and other ornaments of the romantic study. They sat around a small table by the window, far from the lights that illuminated one end of the spacious room. They were in semidarkness, their backs to the interior. Before them were the rooftops and an enormous rectangle of blue shadow pierced by the cold sharpness of the stars. The city lights colored the somber space with a bloody reflection. He drank two glasses of Tchernoff, affirming the merit of the liquid with clicks of his tongue . The three remained silent, with the admiring and fearful silence that the grandeur of the night imposes on men. Their eyes jumped from star to star, grouping them in ideal lines, forming triangles or quadrilaterals of fantastic irregularity. Sometimes the flickering brilliance of a star seemed to catch the visual ray of their gaze, holding it in hypnotic fixity. The Russian, without breaking from his contemplation, poured himself another glass. Then he smiled with cruel irony. His bearded face took on the expression of a tragic mask peeking out from between the curtains of night. “What do they think of men up there!” he murmured. “Does any star know that Bismarck existed? Do the stars know of the divine mission of the Germanic people?” And he continued laughing. Something distant and indecisive disturbed the silence of the night, slipping through the depths of one of the cracks that cut through the immense plain of roofs. The three of them leaned forward to listen better… They were voices. A male choir was intoning a simple, monotonous, and deep hymn. They guessed it with their thoughts rather than perceived it with their ears. Several stray notes, reaching them with greater intensity on one of the fluctuations of the breeze, allowed Argensola to reconstruct the brief chant, culminating in a melodic howl; A true war chant: Cest l’Alsace et la Lorraine, Cest l’Alsace quil nous faut. Oh, oh, oh, oh. A new group of men was walking in the distance, along the end of a street, in search of the railway station, gateway to war. They must have been from the outskirts, perhaps from the countryside, and as they crossed Paris enveloped in silence, they felt the desire to sing of the great national aspiration, so that those who watched behind the dark facades would repel all perplexity knowing they were not alone. Just as Julio said in the operas, following the last sounds of the invisible chorus, which was fading away… fading away, devoured by the distance and the night’s breathing. Tchernoff continued drinking, but with a distracted air, his eyes fixed on the reddish fog that floated over the rooftops. The two friends guessed his mental work in the contraction of his brow, in the muffled grunts he let out, like an echo of an inner monologue. Suddenly, he leaped from reflection to speech, without any preparation, continuing his line of reasoning aloud . …And when the sun rises in a few hours, the world will see the four horsemen, enemies of mankind, race across its fields… Already their evil horses are pawing with the impatience of the race; already their riders of misfortune are gathering their wits and exchanging the last words before leaping into the saddle. “What riders are those?” asked Argensola. “Those who precede the Beast.” The two friends found this reply as unintelligible as the previous words. Desnoyers repeated to himself mentally: “He’s drunk.” But his curiosity made him insist. And what beast was that? The Russian looked at him as if he missed the question. He thought he had been speaking aloud from the beginning of his reflections. That of the Apocalypse. A silence fell; but the Russian’s laconicism did not last long . He felt the need to express his enthusiasm for the dreamer on the rock of Patmos. The poet of grandiose and obscure visions had exerted influence, for two thousand years, over this revolutionary mystic who had taken refuge on the top floor of a house in Paris. Juan had sensed everything. His delusions, unintelligible to the common people, held the mystery of great human events. Tchernoff described the apocalyptic beast emerging from the depths of the sea. It was like a leopard, its feet like those of a bear, and its mouth the snout of a lion. It had seven heads and ten horns. From its horns hung ten diadems, and on each of the seven heads was written a blasphemy. The evangelist did not utter these blasphemies , perhaps because they varied according to the times, changing every thousand years when the beast made a new appearance. The Russian read the ones now blazing on the monster’s heads: blasphemies against humanity, against justice, against everything that makes human life bearable and sweet. “Might is greater than right…” “The weak must not exist…” “Be tough to be great…” And the beast, with all its ugliness, intended to rule the world and be worshipped by men. But the four horsemen? Desnoyers asked. The four horsemen preceded the appearance of the monster in John’s dream . The seven seals of the Book of Mystery were broken by the Lamb in the presence of the great throne where someone who seemed to be made of jasper sat . The rainbow formed an emerald canopy around his head. Twenty-four thrones extended in a semicircle, and on them twenty-four elders in white robes and golden crowns. Four enormous animals covered with eyes and with six wings seemed to guard the greatest throne. Trumpets sounded, hailing the breaking of the first seal. “Look!” one of the animals cried to the visionary poet in a stentorian voice … And the first horseman appeared on a white horse. In his hand he carried a bow and on his head a crown: he was the Conquest, according to some; the Plague, according to others. He could be both at the same time. He wore a crown, and that was enough for Tchernoff. “Arise!” cried the second beast, rolling its thousand eyes. And from the broken seal sprang a reddish horse. Its rider waved an enormous sword above his head. It was War. Tranquility fled the world before its furious gallop: men were about to exterminate each other. As the third seal opened, another of the winged beasts bellowed like thunder: “Arise!” And John saw a black horse. Its rider held a scale in his hand to weigh the sustenance of men. It was Hunger. The fourth beast greeted the breaking of the fourth seal with a bellow. “Arise!” And a pale horse appeared. “Its rider is called Death, and power was given to it to destroy men by the sword, by famine, by pestilence, and by wild beasts.” The four horsemen began a mad, crushing race over the heads of terrified humanity. Tchernoff described the four scourges of the earth as if he were seeing them firsthand. The rider on the white horse was dressed in ostentatious and barbaric attire. His oriental face was odiously contorted, as if sniffing out his victims. While his horse galloped on, he armed his bow to shoot the plague. On his back swung a bronze quiver filled with poisonous arrows containing the germs of all diseases, both those that surprise peaceful people in retreat and those that poison the wounds of a soldier on the battlefield. The second rider, the one on the red horse, wielded the enormous sword over his hair, which was raised by the violence of his run. He was young, but his fierce brow and his contracted mouth gave him an expression of implacable ferocity. His clothes, swirling from the force of his gallop, revealed his athletic muscles. Old, bald, and horribly emaciated, the third rider leaped onto the jagged back of the black horse. His withered legs pressed against the flanks of the lean beast. With one withered hand, he held up the scales, symbolizing scarce food, which were about to reach the value of gold. The fourth rider’s knees, sharp as spurs, pricked the sides of the pale horse. His parchment-like skin left visible the edges and hollows of the skeleton. Its skull-like face contracted with the sardonic laughter of destruction. Its reed arms twirled a gigantic sickle. From its angular shoulders hung a rag of a shroud. And the furious cavalcade of the four horsemen passed like a hurricane over the immense crowd of humans. The sky above their heads took on a livid twilight shadow. Horrible, misshapen monsters flapped in a spiral above the furious raid, like a repugnant escort. Poor humanity, mad with fear, fled in all directions upon hearing the gallop of Plague, War, Hunger, and Death. Men and women, young and old, pushed each other and fell to the ground in all attitudes and gestures of terror, astonishment, and despair . And the white horse, the red, the black, and the pale one crushed them indifferently beneath their implacable hooves: the athlete heard the crunch of his broken ribs, the child lay dying, clinging to his mother’s breast, the old man closed his eyelids forever with a childish moan. ” God has fallen asleep, forgetting the world,” the Russian continued. “It will take him a long time to wake up, and while He sleeps, the four feudatory horsemen of the Beast will run the earth as their sole lords.” He was exalted by his words. Leaving his seat, he paced back and forth with great strides. His description of the four calamities seen by the gloomy poet seemed weak to him. A great painter had given corporeal form to these terrible dreams. “I have a book,” he murmured, “a precious book…” And suddenly he fled from the study, heading for the interior stairs to enter his rooms. He wanted to bring the book for his friends to see. Argensola accompanied him. A little later, they returned with the volume. They had left the doors open behind them. A stronger draft was established between the gaps in the facades and the inner courtyard. Tchernoff placed his precious book under a lamp. It was a volume printed in 1511, with Latin text and engravings. Desnoyers read the title: Apocalipsis cum figuris. The engravings were by Albrecht Dürer: a work from his youth, when the master was only twenty-seven years old. The three remained in ecstatic admiration before the illustration depicting the mad race of the apocalyptic horsemen. The quadruple scourge rushed with overwhelming force onto their fantastic mounts, crushing humanity, mad with terror. Something suddenly occurred that brought the three men out of their admiring contemplation; something extraordinary, indefinable: a great crash that seemed to enter directly into their brains without passing through their ears; a shock in their hearts. Instinct warned them that something serious had just happened. They remained silent, staring at each other: a silence that lasted seconds and seemed interminable. Through the open doors came a sound of alarm from the courtyard: shutters being opened, footsteps stumbled on the various floors, cries of surprise and terror. The three of them instinctively ran to the interior windows. Before reaching them, the Russian had a feeling. My neighbor… It must be my neighbor. Perhaps she’s killed herself. As they looked out, they saw lights in the distance; people milling around a body lying on the tiles. The alarm had instantly filled every window. It was a sleepless night, a night of nervousness, which kept everyone in a state of painful vigil. ” She’s killed herself,” said a voice that seemed to rise from a well. “It’s the German woman, she’s killed herself.” The concierge’s explanation leaped from window to window up to the highest floor. The Russian shook his head with a doomed expression. The unfortunate woman hadn’t taken the leap of death alone. Someone witnessed her despair: someone had pushed her… The horsemen! The four horsemen of the Apocalypse!… They were already in the saddle; they were already beginning their relentless, overwhelming gallop. The blind forces of evil were about to run free throughout the world. The torment of humanity had begun under the wild ride of their Four enemies. PART TWO. Chapter 6. The envies of Don Marcelo. Old Desnoyers’ first reaction was astonishment when he realized that war was inevitable. Humanity had gone mad. Was a war possible with so many railroads, so many merchant ships , so many machines, so much activity developing in the earth’s crust and its bowels?… Nations would be ruined forever. They were accustomed to needs and expenses that the peoples of a century ago had not known. Capital was master of the world, and war was going to kill it; but it, in turn, would die a few months later, lacking money to sustain itself. His businessman’s soul was indignant at the hundreds of billions that the mad adventure was going to invest in smoke and carnage. Since his indignation needed to focus on something immediate, he blamed his own compatriots for the great madness. So much talk of revenge! To worry for forty-four years about two lost provinces, when the nation owned vast and useless lands on other continents!… The results of such exasperated and noisy folly were about to be felt. For him, the war meant disaster in the near future. He had no faith in his country: the era of France had passed. Now the victors were the peoples of the North, and above all, that Germany he had seen up close, admiring with a certain dread its discipline and its rigid organization. The former worker felt the conservative and selfish instinct of all those who manage to amass millions. He despised political ideals , but out of class solidarity, in recent years, he had accepted all the declamations against the scandals of the regime. What could a corrupt and disorganized Republic do in the face of the most solid and powerful Empire on earth?… “We are going to our death,” he said to himself. “Worse than in ’70!… We will see horrible things.” The order and enthusiasm with which the French responded to the nation’s call, becoming soldiers, produced an immense astonishment in him. Driven by this moral shock, he began to believe in something. The great mass of his country was good: the people were as valuable as in times past. Forty-four years of alarm and anguish had brought ancient virtues to flower. But what about the leaders? Where were the leaders to march to victory? His question was repeated by many. The anonymity of the democratic regime and peace kept the country completely ignorant of its future leaders. Everyone saw the armies being formed hour by hour ; very few knew the generals. One name began to be heard on everyone’s lips: “Joffre… Joffre.” His first portraits drew curious crowds to gather around him. Desnoyers looked at him closely: “He looks like a good person.” His instincts as a man of order were flattered by the serious and serene air of the General of the Republic. He suddenly felt a great sense of confidence, similar to that inspired by the well-dressed bank managers. One could entrust one’s interests to this gentleman without fear of his doing anything crazy. The avalanche of enthusiasm and emotion finally swept Desnoyers away. Like everyone around him, he lived minutes that felt like hours and hours that seemed like years. Events rushed by; the world seemed to recover in a week from the long quietude of peace. The old man lived on the streets, attracted by the spectacle offered by the civilian crowd greeting the other uniformed crowd leaving for war. At night, he witnessed the marches on the boulevards. The tricolor flag fluttered its colors under the electric headlights. The cafes, overflowing with people, emitted the musical roar of patriotic songs from the swollen mouths of their doors and windows. Suddenly the crowd opened up in the middle of the street amidst applause and cheers. All of Europe passed by; all of Europe except the two enemy Empires spontaneously greeted France with their acclamations. Danger. The flags of the various peoples paraded in all the hues of the rainbow, and behind them the Russians, with clear, mystical eyes; the English, bareheaded, intoning songs of religious gravity; the Greeks and Romanians, with aquiline profile; the Scandinavians, white and red; the North Americans, with the noise of a somewhat childish enthusiasm; the homeless Jews, friends of the land of egalitarian revolutions; the Italians, arrogant like a chorus of heroic tenors; the Spaniards and South Americans, tireless in their cheers. They were students and workers perfecting their knowledge in schools and workshops, refugees who had taken refuge on the hospitable shore of Paris like shipwrecked victims of wars and revolutions. Their cries had no official significance. All these men moved with spontaneous impulse, eager to manifest their love for the Republic. And Desnoyers, moved by the spectacle, reflected that France was still something in the world, that it still exerted a moral force over people, and that its joys or misfortunes were of interest to humanity. “In Berlin and Vienna, it was said, they will also shout with enthusiasm at this moment… But only those from the country. Surely no foreigner will openly join their demonstrations.” The people of the Revolution, legislators of the Rights of Man, were gathering the gratitude of the crowds. He began to feel a certain remorse at the enthusiasm of the foreigners who offered their blood to France. Many lamented that the government had delayed the admission of volunteers for twenty days, until the mobilization operations had been completed. And he, who had been born French, had doubts about his country hours before!… During the day, the popular current was carrying him to the Gare du Est. A human mass crowded against the gate, spilling out in tentacles into the surrounding streets. The station, which was acquiring the importance of a historic site, resembled a narrow tunnel through which an entire river was trying to flow, crashing and churning against its walls. A section of armed France was launching itself through this exit from Paris toward the battlefields of the frontier. Desnoyers had only been there twice, on the way to and from his trip to Germany. Others were now embarking on the same journey. Crowds of people flocked from the outskirts of the city to see the geometrically shaped, uniformly dressed masses of people disappear inside the station , with flashes of steel and a rhythmic accompaniment of metallic clashes. The glass half-moons , which shone in the sun like fiery mouths, swallowed and swallowed people. At night, the parade continued in the light of electric spotlights . Thousands upon thousands of horses passed through the gates; Men with iron-clad chests and hair dangling from their helmets, like the paladins of ancient centuries; enormous crates that served as cages for the condors of aeronautics; strings of long, narrow barrels painted gray, protected by steel screens, more like astronomical instruments than death’s mouths; masses and masses of red kepis moving with the rhythm of the march; and rows of rifles, some black and bare, forming gloomy cane fields, others topped by bayonets that looked like luminous ears of wheat. And over these restless fields of steel crops, the regimental flags trembled in the air like colorful birds: a white body, one wing blue, the other red, a gold tie around the neck, and high above the bronze beak, the iron of the lance pointing at the clouds. From these farewells, Don Marcelo returned home vibrant and with his nerves strained, like someone who had just witnessed a spectacle of rude emotion. Despite his tenacious nature, which always refused to admit his own error, the old man began to feel ashamed of his previous doubts. The nation was alive, France was a great people; appearances had deceived him as they had many others. Perhaps most of his compatriots were of a frivolous and forgetful nature, excessively given over to the sensuality of life; but when the hour of danger arrived, they performed their duty simply, without needing the harsh imposition suffered by people subjected to rigid organizations. On the morning of the fourth day of mobilization, upon leaving his house, instead of heading for the city center, he marched in the opposite direction, toward the Rue de la Pompe. Some imprudent words from Chichí and the anxious glances of his wife and sister-in-law made him suspect that Julio had returned from his trip. He felt the need to see the studio windows from afar , as if this might provide him with news. And to justify to his own conscience an exploration that contrasted with his intentions of forgetting, he remembered that his carpenter lived on that street. Let’s go see Roberto. He promised me he would come a week ago. This Roberto was a young man who had “emancipated himself from the tyranny of the bosses,” in his own words, working alone in his own house. A nearly subterranean room served as his bedroom and workshop. His companion, whom he called “my partner,” was responsible for the care of him and the household, while a child grew up clinging to her skirts. Desnoyers indulged Roberto’s tirades against the bourgeoisie, because he indulged all his whims as a tireless furniture repairer. In the luxurious apartment on Avenue Victor Hugo, the carpenter sang the Internationale while swinging the saw or hammer. This and his bold language were forgiven by the master, considering the cheapness of his work. Upon arriving at the small workshop, he saw him wearing his cap over one ear, baggy corduroy trousers, studded boots, and several small flags and tricolor rosettes on the lapels of his jacket. “You’re late, boss,” he said cheerfully. “The factory is about to close. The owner has been mobilized and in a few hours will join his regiment. ” And he pointed to a handwritten note posted on the door of his hovel, similar to the printed notices that appeared in all Paris establishments to indicate that employers and employees had obeyed the mobilization order. It had never occurred to Desnoyers that his carpenter could become a soldier. He rebelled against any imposition of authority. He hated the flics, the Paris police, with whom he had exchanged punches and clubs in every revolt. Militarism was his preoccupation. At the rallies against the tyranny of the barracks, he had been one of the loudest demonstrators. And this revolutionary was going to war with the best of intentions, without any effort? Roberto spoke enthusiastically about the regiment, about life among comrades, with death just a stone’s throw away. “I believe in my ideas the same as before,” he continued, as if he guessed what the other was thinking; “but war is war, and it teaches many things; among them, that liberty must be accompanied by order and command. Someone must lead and the others must follow, by will, by consent… but they must follow. When war comes, things are seen differently than when one is at home doing what one wants.” The night Jaurès was assassinated, he roared with rage, announcing that the following morning would be a day of revenge. He had sought out his comrades in his section to find out what they were planning against the bourgeoisie. But war was about to break out. There was something in the air that opposed civil strife, that momentarily forgot individual grievances, concentrating all souls on a common aspiration. ” A week ago,” he continued, “I was an anti-militarist. How far away that seems to me! As if a year had gone by… I still think as before: I love peace, I hate war; and like me, all the comrades. But the French have not provoked anyone and they threaten us, they want to enslave us… Let us be fierce, since they force us to be; and to We must defend ourselves well, ensure that no one leaves the line, and that everyone obeys. Discipline is not at odds with the revolution. Remember the armies of the First Republic: all citizens, generals and soldiers alike; but Hoche, Kleber, and the others were rough friends who knew how to command and command obedience. The carpenter had his literature. In addition to the newspapers and pamphlets of “the idea,” he had read Michelet and other historical figures in loose notebooks. ” We are going to wage war against war,” he added. “We will fight so that this war will be the last.” His statement did not seem clear enough to him, and he continued: ” We will fight for the future; we will die so that our grandchildren do not know these calamities.” If the enemies triumphed, the continuation of war and conquest would triumph as the only means of aggrandizement. First, they would seize Europe, then the rest of the world. The dispossessed would later rise up: new wars!… We don’t want conquests. We want to recover Alsace and Lorraine because they were ours and their inhabitants want to return to us… And nothing more. We will not imitate our enemies by appropriating territories and endangering world peace. We had enough with Napoleon: there’s no need to repeat the adventure. We are going to fight for our own security and at the same time for the security of the world, for the life of weak peoples. If it were a war of aggression, of vanity, of conquest, we would remember our anti-militarism. But it is a war of defense, and the rulers are not to blame for it. We are under attack and we must all march together. The carpenter, who was anti-clerical, displayed generous tolerance, a broad-mindedness that embraced all men. The day before, he had met a reservist in his district’s town hall who was about to leave with him and join the same regiment. A glance had been enough to recognize that he was a priest. “I’m a carpenter,” he had said, introducing himself. “And you, comrade… do you work in churches?” He used this euphemism so that the priest wouldn’t suspect him of offensive intentions. The two had shaken hands. “I’m not into calotte,” he continued, addressing Desnoyers. ” I fell out with God a long time ago. But there are good people everywhere , and good people should understand each other at this time. Don’t you think so, boss?” The war flattered his egalitarian inclinations. Before the war, when speaking of the coming revolution, he had felt a malignant pleasure imagining that all the rich, deprived of their fortune, would have to work to survive. Now he was enthusiastic about the fact that all French people would share the same fate, regardless of class. Everyone with a rucksack on their backs and eating rations. And he extended military sobriety to those who remained behind the army. The war would bring great shortages: everyone would know ordinary bread. And you, boss, who are too old to go to war, will have to eat like me, with all your millions… Admit that this is beautiful. Desnoyers was not offended by the malicious satisfaction that his future privations inspired in the carpenter. He was thoughtful. A man like that, an adversary of all that exists and who had nothing material to defend, was marching to war, to his death, for a generous and distant ideal, to prevent the humanity of the future from experiencing the horrors of today. In doing this, he did not hesitate to sacrifice his old faith, all the beliefs cherished until the day before… And he, who was one of the privileged few, who possessed so many tempting things in need of defense, given over to doubt and criticism!… Hours later, he met the carpenter again near the Arc de Triomphe. He formed a group with several workers of the same appearance as him, and this group was joined by others and others who were like a representation of all social classes: well-dressed bourgeois, refined and anemic young gentlemen, graduates in worn morning coats, pale faces and thick glasses, Young priests smiling with a certain malice, as if involved in a prank. At the head of the human herd rode a sergeant, and in the rear were several soldiers with rifles slung over their shoulders. “Forward, reservists!” And a musical bellow, a deep, threatening, and monotonous melody emerged from this mass of round mouths, pendulous arms, and legs that opened and closed like beats. Roberto energetically intoned the warlike refrain. His eyes and drooping Gaul mustache trembled. Despite his corduroy suit and his overstuffed canvas bag, he had the same grand and heroic appearance as Rude’s figures on the Arc de Triomphe. The “associate” and the child trotted along the nearby sidewalk to accompany him to the station. He looked away from them to speak with a fellow worker, shaven and grave-looking: undoubtedly the priest he had met the day before. Perhaps they were already on first-name terms, with the fraternity that contact with death inspires in men. The millionaire followed with a look of respect for his carpenter, disproportionately magnified by being part of this human avalanche. And in his respect there was something of envy: the envy that arises from an uncertain conscience. When Don Marcelo spent bad nights, suffering nightmares, one source of terror, always the same, tormented his imagination. He rarely dreamed of mortal danger for himself or his family. The frightening vision always consisted of the fact that he was being presented with credit documents signed with his signature, and he, Marcelo Desnoyers, the man faithful to his commitments, with a history of immaculate integrity, couldn’t pay them. The prospect of this made him tremble, and after waking, he still felt his chest constricted with terror. In his mind, this was the greatest dishonor a man could suffer. As his existence was disrupted by the turmoil of war, the same anguish reappeared. Wide awake, in full possession of his reason, he suffered a torment equal to that he experienced in dreams, seeing his dishonored name at the foot of an uncollectible document. The entire past arose before his eyes with extraordinary clarity, as if until then it had remained blurred, in a tangled twilight. The threatened land of France was his. Fifteen centuries of history had worked for him, so that when he opened his eyes he would discover progress and comforts that his ancestors had not known. Many generations of Desnoyers had prepared their advent into life by battling with the land, defending it from enemies, giving it a free family and home at birth… And when it was his turn to continue this effort, when his turn in the rosary of generations arrived, he fled like a debtor who evades payment!… Upon coming into the world, he had contracted commitments to the land of his parents, to the human group to which he owed his existence. This obligation had to be repaid with his arms, with the sacrifice that refuses danger… And he had evaded recognition of his signature, running away and betraying his ancestors. Ah, wretch! The material success of his existence, the wealth acquired in a distant country, mattered nothing. There are faults that cannot be erased with millions. The uneasiness of his conscience was proof of this. So too were the envy and respect that that poor craftsman inspired in him, marching to meet his death with other equally humble beings, all of them inflamed with the satisfaction of a duty fulfilled, of a sacrifice accepted. The memory of Madariaga surfaced in his mind. “Where we become rich and form a family, there is our homeland.” No, the centaur’s statement wasn’t true. In normal times, perhaps . Far from one’s country of origin and when it is not in any danger, one can forget it for a few years. But he lived now in France, and France had to defend itself from enemies who wished to suppress it. The spectacle of all its inhabitants rising en masse represented a shameful torture for Desnoyers. He contemplated at all hours what He should have done it in his youth, but he didn’t want to. The veterans of ’70 walked through the streets displaying their green and black ribbons in their lapels, a reminder of the privations of the siege of Paris and of the heroic and ill-fated campaigns. The sight of these men, so content with their past, made him pale. No one remembered his; but he knew it, and that was enough. His reason tried in vain to calm this inner storm… Those had been different times: the unanimity of the present hour didn’t exist; the Empire was unpopular: all was lost… But the memory of a famous phrase remained fixed in his mind like an obsession: “There was France!” Many thought the same thing he had in his youth, and yet they hadn’t fled to avoid military service; they had stayed, attempting a last, desperate stand. His reasoning, seeking excuses, was useless. Great sentiments dispense with reasoning as futile. To make political and religious ideals understood, explanations and demonstrations are indispensable: the feeling of homeland needs none of this. The homeland… is the homeland. And the urban worker, incredulous and mocking, the selfish peasant, the solitary shepherd, all move at the spell of this word, understanding it instantly, without prior instruction. “It’s necessary to pay,” Don Marcelo repeated mentally. “I must pay my debt.” And he experienced, as in a dream, the anguish of an honest and desperate man who longs to fulfill his commitments. Pay!… And how? It was too late. For a moment, the heroic resolution occurred to him to offer himself as a volunteer, to march with his purse at his side in one of those groups of future combatants, just like his carpenter. But the futility of sacrifice dawned on him . What good could it do?… He seemed robust, he remained strong for his age, but he was over sixty, and only young men can make good soldiers. Anyone can fight. He had more than enough courage to take up a rifle. But combat is merely an incident of fighting. The hardships, the overwhelming, are the operations and sacrifices that precede combat, the interminable marches, the harsh temperatures, the nights under the open sky, turning over earth, digging trenches, loading wagons, suffering hunger… No; it was too late. He didn’t even have an illustrious name so that his sacrifice could serve as an example. Instinctively, he looked back. He wasn’t alone in the world: he had a son who could answer for his father’s debt… But this hope lasted only a moment. His son wasn’t French: he belonged to another people; half his blood was of a different origin. Besides, how could he feel the same worries as him? Would he ever understand them if his father exposed them to him? It was useless to expect anything from this graceful dancer sought after by women; from this brave man of frivolous courage, who risked his life in duels to satisfy a childish honor. The modesty of the rude Mr. Desnoyers after these reflections! His family was astonished to see the modesty and gentleness with which he moved within the house. The two imposing servants had gone to join their regiments, and the greatest surprise the declaration of war had in store for them was the sudden kindness of their master, the abundance of farewell gifts, the paternal care with which he watched over their travel arrangements. The redoubtable Don Marcelo embraced them with moist eyes . Both had to struggle to prevent him from accompanying them to the station. Outside his house, he glided humbly, as if silently asking forgiveness from those around him. Everyone seemed superior to him. These were times of economic crisis: the rich experienced momentary poverty and anxiety; the banks had suspended their operations and only paid out a meager portion of their deposits. The millionaire was deprived of his wealth for a few weeks. Furthermore, he felt uneasy at the sight of the uncertain future. How long would it take? How long would it take before money was sent to him from America? Wouldn’t war wipe out fortunes as much as lives? And yet, Desnoyers never valued money less or used it more generously. Many ordinary-looking soldiers marching alone toward the stations encountered a man who timidly stopped them, put a hand in his pocket, placed a twenty-franc note in his right hand, and then fled before their astonished eyes. Tearful workers returning from saying goodbye to their men saw the same man smile at the children marching beside them, caress their cheeks, and walk away, leaving the five – franc piece in their hands. Don Marcello, who had never smoked, frequented tobacco shops. He would emerge with his hands and pockets full, only to overwhelm the first soldier he met with a prodigious supply of packets. Sometimes the favored man smiled courteously, thanking him with words revealing a higher origin, and passed the gift to other comrades wearing greatcoats as coarse and ill-cut as his own. Compulsory service frequently caused him to make these mistakes. Rough hands, when they grasped his with a grateful grip, left him satisfied for a few minutes. Alas, not being able to do more!… The government, when mobilizing vehicles, had taken three of his monumental automobiles. Desnoyers was saddened that they weren’t taking his fourth behemoth. What good was it! The shepherds of the monstrous flock, the chauffeur and his assistants, had also left to join the army. They were all leaving. Finally, only he and his son would remain: two useless creatures. He roared when he learned of the enemy’s entry into Belgium, considering this event the most unheard-of betrayal in history. He was ashamed to recall that in the first moments he had blamed the exalted patriots of his country for the war… What perfidy, methodically prepared for many years in advance! The tales of looting, fires, and massacres made him turn pale, gritting his teeth. The same thing could happen to him, to Marcelo Desnoyers, as to the unfortunate Belgians if the barbarians invaded his country. He had a house in the city, a castle in the country, a family. By an association of ideas, the women victims of the soldiery made him think of his Chichí and the good Doña Luisa. The burning buildings evoked the memory of all the rare and expensive furniture piled up in their two homes, which were like emblems of their social elevation. The shot elderly, the mothers with their entrails ripped open, the children with their hands cut off—all the sadisms of a war of terror aroused the violence of his character. And this can happen with impunity in our time!… To convince himself that punishment was imminent, that vengeance was marching toward the guilty, he felt the need to mingle daily with the crowd gathered around the Eastern Station. The bulk of the troops were operating on the borders, but this didn’t diminish the excitement there. Entire battalions were no longer embarked, but day and night combatants were entering the station, singly or in groups. They were reservists without uniforms marching to join their regiments, officers who had been occupied until then with the work of mobilization, armed platoons destined to fill the great gaps opened by death. The crowd, pressed against the gates, greeted the departing men, following them with their eyes as they crossed the large courtyard. The latest editions of the newspapers were shouted. The dark mass, flecked with white, avidly reading the printed pages. Good news: “Long live France!” A confusing dispatch that foreshadowed a disaster: “It doesn’t matter. We must hold on anyway. The Russians will advance behind them. ” And while the Dialogues inspired by this news, and many young women, now vendors, went among the groups offering little flags and tricolor rosettes. They continued through the deserted courtyard, only to disappear behind the glass doors, men and more men going off to war. A reserve second lieutenant, with a sack over his shoulder, arrived accompanied by his father to the line of police officers blocking the passage to the crowd. Desnoyers found the officer somewhat resembling his son. The old man wore the green and black ribbon of 1870 in his lapel: the decoration evoking remorse. He was tall, wiry, and still tried to stand taller, putting on a sullen expression. He wanted to appear fierce, inhuman, to hide his emotion. “Goodbye, boy! Behave yourself. Goodbye, Father!” They didn’t shake hands: they avoided meeting each other’s gaze. The officer smiled like an automaton. The father abruptly turned his back and, crossing the crowd, entered a café. He needed the darkest corner, the most hidden bench, to hide his emotion for a few minutes. And Mr. Desnoyers envied this pain. Some reservists advanced singing, preceded by a flag. They pushed and joked, sensing in their excitement long pauses at every tavern they passed. One of them, without interrupting his song, held the right hand of a little old woman who walked beside him, serene and dry-eyed. The mother gathered her strength to accompany her young man, with false joy, until the last moment. Others arrived alone, detached from their companions, but they were not alone. The rifle slung over one shoulder, his shoulders were slumped by the hump of his rucksack, his red legs jutted out and hid between the turned-up wings of his blue greatcoat, his pipe smoking beneath the peak of his kepi. In front of one of them walked four children, lined up in order of height. They turned their heads to admire their father, suddenly enlarged by his military trappings. At his side walked his companion, affable and submissive, just as in the first weeks of their relationship, feeling in her simple soul a re-flowering of love, an untimely springtime, born at the touch of danger. The man, a worker from Paris who perhaps a month earlier had sung the Internationale, calling for the abolition of armies and the brotherhood of all mankind, was now seeking death. His wife choked back her sobs and admired him. Affection and sympathy made him insist on his recommendations. In her knapsack, she had packed the best handkerchiefs, the few provisions she kept at home, all her money. Her husband shouldn’t worry about her and the children. They would get through this difficult situation as best they could . The government and good souls would take care of their fate. The soldier joked about his wife’s somewhat deformed figure, greeting the citizen about to emerge, announcing a birth in the midst of victory. A kiss to his companion, an affectionate nudge to the offspring, and then he joined his comrades… No tears. Courage!… Long live France! The recommendations of those who were leaving were heard. No one wept. But when the last pair of red trousers disappeared, many hands convulsively clutched the bars of the gate, many handkerchiefs were bitten with gnashing of teeth, many heads hid under their arms with anguished gasps. And Monsieur Desnoyers envied these tears. The old woman, losing the touch of her son’s right hand with her wrinkled hand, turned towards where she thought the hostile country lay, waving her arms with murderous fury: “Ah, bandit!… Bandit!” She saw again in her imagination the face so often seen in the illustrated pages of newspapers: a pair of insolent, wild mustaches; a mouth with wolfish teeth, laughing… laughing as men in the age of caves must have laughed. And Monsieur Desnoyers envied this anger. Chapter 7. New Life. When Marguerite was able to return to her studio in the Rue de la Pompe, Jules, A man who lived in a perpetual bad mood, seeing everything in a somber light, was suddenly buoyed by optimism. The war was not going to be as cruel as everyone had initially imagined . Ten days had passed, and the movement of troops was beginning to become less visible. As the number of men on the streets decreased , the female population seemed to have increased. People complained of a shortage of money; the banks were still closed for payment. On the other hand, the crowd felt the need for extraordinary expenses to stockpile provisions. The memory of ’70, with the cruel shortages of the siege, tormented their imaginations. A war had broken out with the same enemy, and a repetition of the same accidents seemed logical to everyone . The food stores were besieged by women, who stockpiled stale food at exorbitant prices to store in their homes. Future hunger produced greater fear than the immediate dangers. For Desnoyers, these were all the transformations that the war had wrought around him. People would eventually get used to the new existence. Humanity possesses a force of adaptation that allows it to adapt to everything in order to continue subsisting. He hoped to continue his life as if nothing had happened. For this, it was enough that Marguerite remain faithful to her past. Together, they would watch events unfold with the cruel voluptuousness of someone contemplating a flood, without any risk, from an inaccessible height. This calm of a selfish witness to events had been inspired by Argensola. “Let’s be neutral,” the bohemian affirmed. “Neutrality does not mean indifference. Let’s enjoy the grand spectacle, since another like it will be offered again in our lifetimes.” It’s a pity the war caught them with so little money… Argensola hated the banks even more than the Central Powers, singling out with particular antipathy the credit institution that delayed payment of the July check. How wonderful it would have been to witness these events in every comfort, thanks to this enormous sum!… To remedy his domestic hardships, he once again implored Doña Luisa’s help. The war had weakened Don Marcelo’s precautions , and the family now lived in a state of generous abandon. His mother, following the example of other housewives, stocked up on supplies for months and months, acquiring whatever provisions she could find. He took advantage of this, frequently visiting the house on Avenue Victor Hugo to bring down the back stairs large packages to swell the study’s supplies. He experienced all the joys of a good housekeeper when he contemplated the treasures stored in his kitchen: large cans of preserved meat, pyramids of jars, sacks of dried vegetables. He had enough there to support a large family. Furthermore, the war had served as a pretext for making further visits to Don Marcelo’s cellar. “They can come,” he said with a heroic gesture as he inspected his storehouse. ” They can come whenever they want. We are prepared to confront them.” The care and increase of his provisions and the search for news were the two functions that occupied his existence. He needed to acquire ten, twelve, fifteen newspapers a day: some because they were reactionary, and he was enthusiastic about the novelty of seeing all French people united; others because, being radical, they ought to be better informed about the news received by the government. They appeared at noon, at three, at four, at five in the afternoon. A half-hour delay in the publication of a page instilled great hopes in the public, who imagined they would find stupendous news. Everyone snapped up the latest supplements; everyone carried their pockets stuffed with paper, anxiously awaiting new publications to purchase. And all the pages said approximately the same thing. Argensola perceived how a simple, enthusiastic, and credulous soul was forming within him , capable of accepting the most unlikely things. This His soul sensed it equally in all those who lived near him. At times, his old critical spirit seemed to rear up; but doubt was rejected as something dishonorable. He lived in a new world, and it was natural that extraordinary things happened that could not be measured or explained by the old reasoning. And he commented with childlike joy on the marvelous stories in the newspapers: battles between a platoon of French or Belgians and entire regiments of the enemy, putting them to disorderly flight; the Germans’ fear of the bayonet, which made them run like hares as soon as the charge sounded; the ineffectiveness of the German artillery, whose shells exploded poorly. It was ordinary and logical for him that tiny Belgium would defeat colossal Germany: a repetition of the encounter of David and Goliath, with all the metaphors and images that this unequal clash had inspired through the centuries. Like most of the nation, he had the mentality of a reader of chivalric novels who feels disappointed when the hero, a single man, doesn’t slay a thousand enemies in one reverse. He sought out with predilection the most exaggerated newspapers, those that published the most stories of isolated encounters, of individual actions, whose whereabouts no one knew for sure. England’s intervention at sea made him imagine a horrific, fulminating, providential famine that tormented the enemy. After ten days of naval blockade, he sincerely believed that in Germany the people were living like a group of shipwrecked people on a plank raft. This made him frequent his visits to the kitchen, excitedly admiring its packages of groceries. What they would give in Berlin for my treasure! Argensola never ate better. Considering the great shortages suffered by the enemy spurred his appetite, giving him a monstrous appetite. The white bread, with its golden, crispy crust, plunged him into a religious ecstasy. “If only friend William could catch this!” he would say to his companion. He chewed and swallowed eagerly; food and drink, as they passed through his mouth, took on a new, strange, and divine flavor. The hunger of others was a stimulant for him, a sauce of endless delight. France inspired him with enthusiasm, but he believed Russia even more. “Ah, the Cossacks!” He spoke of them as if they were close friends. He described the terrible horsemen galloping at breakneck speed, intangible as ghosts, and so terrifying in their rage that the enemy could not look them in the eye. At the gatehouse of his house and in various establishments along the street, people listened to him with all the respect deserved by a gentleman who, being a foreigner, can speak better than others about foreign things. ” The Cossacks will settle the score with those bandits,” he concluded with absolute certainty. “They will have entered Berlin within a month.” And his audience, composed largely of women, wives, or mothers of those who had gone off to war, modestly approved, with the irresistible desire we all feel to place our hopes in something distant and mysterious. The French would defend the country, also reconquering the lost territories; but it was the Cossacks who would deliver the coup de grâce, those Cossacks everyone talked about but very few had ever seen. The only one who knew them closely was Tchernoff, and to Argensola’s great dismay, he listened to his words without enthusiasm. To him, the Cossacks were a simple corps of the Russian army. Good soldiers, but incapable of performing the miracles everyone attributed to them. “That Tchernoff!” Argensola exclaimed. Since he hates the Tsar, he finds everything about his country evil. He is a fanatical revolutionary… and I am an enemy of all fanaticism. Julio listened distractedly to his companion’s news, the vibrant articles recited in a declamatory tone, the campaign plans he discussed before an enormous map fixed to a wall of the study and bristling with little flags marking the positions of the belligerent armies. Each newspaper forced the Spaniard to perform a new dance of pins on the map, followed by comments of an optimistic nature. Bomb test. We’ve entered Alsace: very well!… It seems we’re now leaving Alsace: perfectly! I guess the reason. It’s to re-enter from a better place, catching the enemy from behind… They say Liège has fallen. Lies!… And if it falls, it doesn’t matter. Just one incident. There remain the others… the others! who are advancing on the eastern side and are going to enter Berlin. The news from the Russian front was his favorite; but he was left in suspense every time he looked in the letter for the convoluted names of those places where the admired Cossacks performed their exploits. Meanwhile, Jules continued the course of his thoughts. Marguerite!… She had returned at last, and yet she seemed to live further and further away from him… In the first days of mobilization, he hovered around the vicinity of his house, believing his desire to be deceived by this illusory approach. Marguerite had written to him to recommend calm. Lucky him, because, as a foreigner, he wouldn’t suffer the consequences of the war! His brother, a reserve artillery officer, was about to leave at any moment . His mother, who lived with this unmarried son, had displayed astonishing serenity at the last minute, after crying so much in the previous days, when the war was still a problem. She herself had packed the soldier’s luggage, so that the small suitcase would contain everything essential for campaign life. But Marguerite sensed the poor lady’s inner torment and her struggle to prevent it from being revealed outwardly in the moisture in her eyes, the nervousness of her hands. It was impossible for her to leave her mother for a single moment… Then came the farewell. “Goodbye, my son! Do your duty, but be prudent.” Not a tear, not a faintness. The whole family had been against her accompanying him to the train. Her sister would go with him. And when Marguerite returned home, she found her in an armchair, rigid, with a sullen expression, avoiding mentioning her son’s name, talking about her friends who were also sending their sons to war, as if only they knew this torment. “Poor Mama! I must accompany her, now more than ever… Tomorrow, if I can, I’ll come see you.” At last, she returned to the Rue de la Pompe. Her first concern was to explain to Jules the modesty of her suit, the absence of jewels on her person. “War, my friend. Nowadays, the chic thing is to adapt to circumstances, to be sober and modest like soldiers. Who knows what awaits us!” The concern about her dress accompanied her every moment of her existence. Jules noticed a persistent distraction in her. It seemed as if her spirit were leaving the confines of her body, wandering to enormous distances. Her eyes looked at him, but perhaps did not see him. She spoke slowly, as if each word were subject to preliminary scrutiny, for fear of betraying some secret. This spiritual distance did not, however, prevent the physical approach. They were drawn to each other, with the irresistible shock of material attractions. She surrendered herself voluntarily, slipping down the gentle slope of habit; but when she regained her composure, she displayed a vague remorse. “Is what we’re doing right?… Isn’t it inappropriate to continue the same existence when so many misfortunes are about to befall the world?” Julio repelled these scruples. “But let’s get married as soon as we can!… We’re the same as husband and wife!” She replied with a look of surprise and discouragement. “Getting married!” Ten days before, she had desired nothing else. Now, only occasionally did the possibility of marriage resurface in her mind. Why dwell on remote and uncertain events! Other, more immediate ones occupied her mind. The farewell to her brother at the station was a scene that had been etched in her memory. As she went to the study, she resolved not to remember it, sensing that she might upset her lover with this story. And it was enough to swear to silence for her to feel an irresistible need to tell everything. She had never suspected that she loved her brother so much. Her affection Brotherly affection was coupled with a slight feeling of jealousy because Mama preferred the eldest son. Besides, he was the one who had introduced Laurier to the house: they both had degrees in industrial engineering and had been together since school… But when Marguerite saw him about to leave, she suddenly recognized that this brother, always considered secondary, occupied a special place in her affections. He looked so handsome, so interesting, in his lieutenant’s uniform! He looked like someone else. I confess that I walked proudly beside him, leaning on his arm. They took us for married. Seeing me cry, some poor women tried to console me. “Courage, madam! Your husband will return.” And he laughed at these mistakes. He only showed sadness when he remembered our mother. They had parted at the station door. The sentries wouldn’t let us go any further. She handed him her saber, which she had wanted to carry until the last moment. ” It’s beautiful to be a man,” she said enthusiastically. I’d like to wear a uniform, go to war, be of some use. She didn’t want to say anything else, as if she’d suddenly realized the inappropriateness of her last words. Perhaps she noticed a tension in Julio’s face. But she was excited by the memory of that farewell, and after a long pause, she couldn’t resist the desire to continue expressing her thoughts. At the station entrance, while she was kissing her brother for the last time, she had had a meeting, a great surprise. He had arrived, also dressed as an artillery officer, but alone, having to entrust his suitcase to a well-meaning man who emerged from the crowd. Julio made a questioning gesture. Who was he? She suspected, but feigned ignorance, as if afraid to know the truth. ” Laurier,” she replied laconically. “My former husband.” The lover displayed a cruel irony. It was a cowardly act to denigrate this man who had gone to fulfill his duty. He acknowledged his vileness, but a malignant and irresistible instinct made him persist in his mockery, in order to degrade him before Marguerite. “Laurier the soldier!… He must have looked ridiculous in uniform. Laurier the warrior!” he continued in a sarcastic voice that seemed strange to her, as if it came from someone else. “Poor man!” She hesitated in her reply so as not to upset Desnoyers. But the truth won out, and she said simply: “No… he didn’t look bad. It was someone else. Perhaps it was the uniform; perhaps it was his sadness at marching alone, completely alone, without a hand to shake his. It took me a while to get to know him. When he saw my brother, he came closer; but then, seeing me, he moved on… “Poor man! I pity him!” Her feminine instinct must have told her that she was talking too much, and she abruptly cut off her conversation. The same instinct also warned her why Julius’s face darkened and his mouth took on the crease of a bitter smile. She wanted to console him, and added: ” Luckily, you are a foreigner and will not be going to war. How terrible if I lost you!” She said it with sincerity. Moments before, she had envied men, admiring the gallantry with which they displayed their lives, and now she trembled at the idea that her lover could be one of them. He did not appreciate her selfishness in love, which set him apart from others, like a delicate and fragile being, fit only for feminine adoration . He preferred to inspire the envy she had felt when she saw her brother covered in warlike trappings. It seemed to him that something had just interposed itself between him and Margarita that would never collapse, that would continue to widen, repelling them in the opposite direction… far… very far, to where they could no longer recognize each other when their gaze met. He continued to touch on this obstacle in subsequent interviews. Margarita was extremely affectionate, looking at him with moist eyes. Her caressing hands seemed more like those of a mother than a lover; her tenderness was accompanied by extraordinary selflessness and modesty. She stubbornly remained in her study, avoiding going to the other places. rooms. We’re fine here… I don’t want to: it’s useless. I’d feel remorse… To think of such things at this moment!… The atmosphere was saturated with love for her; but it was a new love, a love for the suffering man, a desire for self-denial, for sacrifice. This love evoked an image of white veils, of trembling hands tending torn and bloody flesh. Every attempt at possession provoked in Margarita a vehement and modest protest , as if the two were meeting for the first time. ” It’s impossible,” she said: “I think of my brother; I think of so many I know who perhaps by now will be dead.” News of battles arrived; blood was beginning to flow abundantly . “No, I can’t,” she repeated. And when Julius succeeded in obtaining his desires, using supplication or passionate violence, he would clasp a willless being in his arms, which would abandon a part of its insensible body, while its head independently continued its mental work. One afternoon, Marguerite announced that from now on they would see each other less frequently. He had to attend her classes: he only had two days off. Desnoyers listened to her, stupefied. Her classes?… What were her classes?… She seemed irritated by his mocking gesture…. Yes; she was studying; she had been attending classes for a week. Now the lessons were going to be more continuous: the teaching had been organized; there were more teachers . I want to be a nurse. I suffer greatly when I consider my uselessness… What have I been good for until now?… She paused for a moment, as if she were imagining her entire past. ” Sometimes I think,” she continued, “that war, with all its horrors, has something good about it. It helps us to be useful to our fellow men. Let us appreciate life more seriously; misfortune makes us understand that we came into the world for a reason… I believe that we should love existence not only for the joys it gives us.” There must be great satisfaction in sacrifice, in dedicating ourselves to others, and this satisfaction, I don’t know why, perhaps because it is new, seems to me superior to all others. Julio looked at her in surprise, imagining what could exist inside her beloved and frivolous little head. What was forming beyond her forehead, contracted by the rough movement of ideas and which until then had only reflected the light shadow of swift, fluttering thoughts like birds? But the Margarita of before was still alive. He saw her reappear with a graceful pout amid the worries that the war made grow on souls like somber foliage. You have to study hard to get a nursing diploma. Have you noticed her dress? It is most distinguished: white suits blondes as well as brunettes. Then her headdress, which allows curls over the ears, the fashionable hairstyle; and the blue cape over the uniform, which offers a pretty contrast… An elegant woman can enhance all this with discreet jewelry and chic footwear. She is a mixture of nun and grande dame who does not look bad. She was going to study with true fury to be useful to her fellow men… and soon wear the admired uniform. Poor Desnoyers! The need to see her and the lack of occupation during these interminable afternoons, which until then had been more pleasantly employed, dragged him to prowl around the vicinity of an eternally unoccupied palace, where the government had just established the nursing school. Standing on a corner, waiting for the flutter of a skirt and the little trot of feminine feet on the sidewalk , he imagined he had gone back in time and that he was still eighteen years old, the same as when he had waited in the vicinity of a famous couturier’s workshop. The groups of women who left that palace at certain times made this resemblance even more credible. They were dressed with elaborate modesty: many of them looked more humble than the workers in the fashion industry. But they were Great ladies. Some climbed into cars whose chauffeurs wore soldier’s uniforms because they were ministerial vehicles. These long waits provided him with unexpected encounters with the elegant students who were getting in and out. “Desnoyers!” exclaimed some feminine voices behind him. “Isn’t that Desnoyers?” And he was forced to cut short the doubt by greeting some ladies who were gazing at him as if he were a ghost. They were friends from a distant time, from six months before; ladies who had admired and pursued him, trusting in his wisdom as a maestro to traverse the seven circles of the science of tango. They examined him as if between their last encounter and the present moment a great cataclysm had occurred that transformed all the laws of existence, as if he were the sole and miraculous survivor of a humanity that had completely vanished. They all ended by asking the same questions: “Aren’t you going to war?” “How come you’re not in uniform?” He tried to explain himself, but at his first words they interrupted him: ” It’s true… You’re a foreigner.” They said it with a certain envy. They were undoubtedly thinking of their beloved individuals who, at that time, were facing the privations and risks of war… But his foreignness instantly created a certain spiritual distance, a strangeness that Julio had not known in the good old days, when people sought each other out without reservations about their origins, without experiencing the withdrawal from danger that isolates and concentrates human groups. The ladies said their goodbyes with malicious suspicion. What was he doing there waiting? Some new adventure that his good fortune had in store for him? And the smiles on all their faces had something serious about them: the smiles of older people who know the true meaning of life and feel compassion for the deluded who still entertain themselves with frivolities. This hurt Julio, as if it were a manifestation of pity. They imagined him performing the only function he was capable of; he could be of no other use. On the other hand, those frivolous women, who still retained something of their former exterior, seemed animated by a great sense of motherhood: an abstract motherhood that embraced all the men of their nation, a desire to sacrifice themselves, to experience firsthand the privations of the humble, to suffer through contact with all the miseries of diseased flesh. Margaret felt this same ardor upon leaving her lessons. She advanced from astonishment to astonishment, hailing the first rudiments of surgery as great scientific marvels . She admired herself for the eagerness with which she grasped these mysteries, never before suspected . At certain moments, with graceful immodesty, she believed she had distorted the true purpose of her existence. “Who knows if I was born to be a great doctor!” she said. Her fear was that she would lack serenity at the moment of putting her new knowledge into practice. To face the stench of open flesh, to contemplate the trickling of blood, was horrifying to her, who had always felt an invincible repugnance to the base necessities of ordinary life. But her hesitations were short-lived: a manly energy suddenly animated her. These were times of sacrifice. Didn’t men tear themselves away from all the comforts of a sensual existence to follow the harsh career of a soldier?… She would be a soldier in skirts, staring pain in the face, battling it, plunging her hands into the putrefaction of decomposed matter , penetrating like a smile of light into the places where the soldiers groaned, awaiting the arrival of death. She proudly repeated to Desnoyers all the progress she made in school, the complicated bandages she managed to apply, sometimes on the limbs of a mannequin, other times on the flesh of a clerk who was willing to feign the attitude of a false wounded man. She, so delicate, incapable of the slightest physical effort at home, learned the most skillful procedures to lift a human body from the ground. Carrying him on her back. Who knows if she would ever serve on the battlefield! She was ready for the greatest daring, with the ignorant audacity of women when driven by a gust of heroism. All her admiration was for the nurses of the English army, wiry ladies of nervous vigor, who appeared in the newspapers wearing trousers, riding boots, and white helmets. Julius listened to her in amazement. But was that woman really Margaret? The war had erased her graceful frivolity. She no longer marched like a bird. Her feet planted on the ground with manly firmness, calm and confident in the new strength developing within her . When a caress from him reminded her of her status as a woman, she always said the same thing: How lucky you are to be a foreigner! How happy to see you free from war! In her desire for sacrifice, she wanted to go to the battlefields, and at the same time she celebrated as a joy to see her lover free from military duties. This illogicality was not received with gratitude by Julio; rather, it irritated him like an unconscious offense. “One would say she’s protecting me,” he thought. “She’s the man, and she’s happy that her weak companion, that is me, is safe from danger… What a grotesque situation!” Fortunately, some afternoons, when Margarita appeared in the study, she returned to her old self, making him instantly forget his worries. She arrived with the joy of leisure that a schoolboy or employee feels on their days off. When obligations weighed on her, she had learned the value of time. ” There’s no class today,” she shouted upon entering. And throwing her hat on a couch, she would begin a dance step, fleeing with childish shrugs from her lover’s arms. Within a few minutes, she regained her composure, the grave expression that had been common with her since the beginning of hostilities. She spoke of her mother, always sad, striving to hide her grief and encouraged by the hope of a letter from her son; she spoke of the war, commenting on the latest actions with the rhetorical optimism of official reports. She described in detail the first flag taken from the enemy, as if it were a suit of unprecedented elegance. She had seen it in a window of the Ministry of War. She became moved when repeating the stories of some Belgian fugitives who had arrived at her hospital. They were the only patients she had been able to care for until then. Paris was not yet receiving war wounded; by order of the government, they were sent from the front to hospitals in the South. She no longer offered the resistance she had shown in the early days to Jules’s wishes. Her nursing training gave her a certain passivity. She seemed to despise the attractions of matter, stripping them of the spiritual importance she had attributed to them until shortly before. She gave herself without resistance, without desire, with a smile of tolerance, satisfied to be able to give a little happiness, in which she did not share. Her attention had been focused on other concerns. One afternoon, while in the study bedroom, she felt the need to communicate some news that had been filling her thoughts since the day before. She jumped out of bed, searching among her disordered clothes for her handbag, which contained a letter. She wanted to read it once more, to tell someone its contents with the irresistible impulse that draws one to confession. It was a letter her brother had sent her from the Vosges. 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 battles. The officer admired his former brother-in-law. Who could have guessed a future hero in that calm and silent engineer ! And yet, he was a true hero. Margarita’s brother proclaimed it , and with him all the officers who had seen him calmly fulfill his duty, facing death with the same coldness as if he were in his factory near Paris. He applied for the risky position of observer, slipping as close as possible to the enemy to monitor the accuracy of the artillery fire, correcting it with his telephone instructions. A German shell had demolished the house on whose roof he was hiding. Laurier, emerging unharmed from the rubble, reset his telephone and calmly went to continue the same task in the branches of a nearby grove. His battery, discovered in an unfavorable engagement by enemy airplanes, had received concentrated fire from the artillery facing them. Within a few minutes, the entire personnel lay on the ground: the captain and several privates were dead, the officers and almost all the gunners wounded. Only Laurier the Impassive—as his comrades nicknamed him—remained as commander. Aided by the few artillerymen who remained standing, he continued firing, under a hail of iron and fire, to cover the retreat of a battalion. “He’s been mentioned twice in the agenda,” Marguerite continued, “I think he’ll soon get the cross. He’s a real brave man. Who would have believed it a few weeks ago?” She didn’t share this astonishment. Living with Laurier, she had often glimpsed the firmness of his character, the courage concealed by his placid exterior. Her instinct had warned her for a reason, making her fear her husband’s wrath in the early stages of his infidelity. She remembered the man’s gesture when he surprised her one night as she was leaving Jules’s house. He was the kind of passionate man who could kill. And yet, he hadn’t attempted the slightest violence against her… The memory of this respect awakened in Marguerite a feeling of gratitude. Perhaps he had loved her like no other man. Her eyes, with an irresistible desire for comparison, fixed on Desnoyers, admiring his youthful gentleness. The image of Laurier, dull and vulgar, came back to her like a consolation. It was true that the officer she had seen at the station when she said goodbye to her brother didn’t resemble her former husband. But Marguerite wanted to forget the pale, sad-looking lieutenant who had passed before her eyes, and remember only the industrialist, preoccupied with profits and incapable of understanding what she called “the subtleties of a chic woman.” Julio was decidedly more seductive. He didn’t regret his past: he didn’t want to regret it. And his amorous selfishness made him repeat the same exclamations once more: “How lucky you are to be a foreigner!… How happy to see you free from the dangers of war!” Julio felt his usual irritation upon hearing this. He almost clamped his hand over his lover’s mouth. Did she want to mock him?… It was an insult to set him apart from other men. Meanwhile, she, in the illogicality of her bewilderment, insisted on talking about Laurier, commenting on his exploits. ” I don’t love him, I’ve never loved him. Don’t look so sad.” How can the poor man compare himself to you?… But you have to admit that he offers a certain interest in his new existence. I rejoice in his exploits as if they were from an old friend, a visit from my family whom I hadn’t seen for a long time… The poor man deserved a better fate: to have found a woman other than me, a companion equal to his aspirations… I tell you, I pity him. And this pity was so intense that it moistened his eyes, awakening in his lover the torment of jealousy. Desnoyers emerged from these interviews sullen and gloomy. ” I suspect we’re in a false situation,” he said one morning to Argensola; “life is going to become increasingly painful for us. It’s difficult to remain calm, continuing the same existence as before, in the midst of a people fighting. ” His companion believed the same. He also found his existence as a young foreigner in this Paris shaken by war unbearable. You have to show your papers all the time so that the police are convinced that they haven’t found a deserter. In a subway car the other evening I had to explain that I was Spanish to some girls who were They were surprised that I wasn’t at the front… One of them, after learning my nationality, asked me simply why I didn’t volunteer… Now they’ve invented a word: “ambusher.” I’m fed up with the ironic glances with which my youth is greeted everywhere ; it infuriates me that they take me for a Frenchman “ambusher.” A gust of heroism shook the impressionable bohemian. Since everyone was going to war, he wanted to do the same. He wasn’t afraid of death: the only thing that terrified him was military servitude, the uniform, the mechanical obedience to the call of a trumpet, the blind subservience to his leaders. Fighting offered no difficulties for him, but freely or commanding others, for his character bridled at anything that meant discipline. The foreign groups in Paris were each trying to organize their own legion of volunteers, and he was likewise planning his own: a battalion of Spaniards and Spanish Americans, reserving, naturally, the presidency of the organizing committee and then the command of the corps. He had placed advertisements in the newspapers: the registration point was the studio on the Rue de la Pompe. Within ten days, two volunteers had appeared : an office worker, catching a cold in the middle of summer, who demanded to be an officer because he was wearing a morning coat, and a Spanish innkeeper who, at the first words, tried to deprive Argensola of his command on the flimsy pretext that he had been a soldier in his youth, while the other was merely a painter. Twenty Spanish battalions were being initiated simultaneously with equal success in different parts of Paris. Each enthusiast wanted to be the leader of the others, with the individualistic pride and aversion to discipline characteristic of the race. Finally, the future leaders, short of soldiers, sought to enroll as simple volunteers… but in a French regiment. “I’ll wait to see what the Garibaldis do,” Argensola said modestly. “Perhaps I’ll go with them.” This glorious name made warrior servitude tolerable to him. But then he hesitated: he would still have to obey someone in this volunteer corps, and he was a rebel against obedience that wasn’t preceded by long discussions… “What to do? Life has changed in half a month,” he continued. “It seems as if we’ve fallen to another planet: our old skills are meaningless. Others move to the front ranks, the humblest and most obscure, those who once occupied the back seat. The refined and spiritually complicated man has sunk, who knows for how many years… Now the simple man, with limited but firm ideas, who knows how to obey, rises to the surface as a triumphant one . We’re no longer in fashion.” Desnoyers nodded. That’s right: they were no longer fashionable. He could affirm it, having known notoriety and now passing as an unknown among the same people who had admired him months before. ” Your reign is over,” Argensola said, laughing. “It’s no use being handsome. I, with a uniform and a cross on my chest, would now defeat you in a romantic rivalry.” An officer only makes provincial young ladies dream of peacetime. But we’re at war, and every woman has awakened the ancestral enthusiasm that her distant grandmothers felt for the aggressive and strong beast… The great ladies who months ago complicated their desires with psychological subtleties now admire the military man with the same simplicity as a maid seeking a soldier . When faced with a uniform, they feel the humble and servile enthusiasm of lower-animal females when faced with the crests, manes, and plumage of their fighting males. “Be careful, maestro!”… We must follow the new course of time or resign ourselves to perishing in obscurity: the tango is dead. And Desnoyers thought that, indeed, they were two beings on the fringes of life. It had taken a leap, changed course. There was no place in the new existence for that poor painter of souls and for him, the hero of a frivolous life, who had achieved, between five and seven in the evening, the triumphs most envied by men. Chapter 8. The retreat. The war had extended one of its tentacles to Avenue Victor Hugo. It was a silent war, in which the enemy, soft, formless, gelatinous, seemed to be slipping through their fingers to resume its hostilities a little further on. ” I have Germany in my house,” said Marcel Desnoyers. Germany was Donna Helena, von Hartrott’s wife. Why hadn’t her son, that professor of unbearable inadequacy, whom he now considered a spy, taken her with him? Why, on some sentimental whim, had he wanted to remain by his sister’s side, losing the opportunity to return to Berlin before the borders were closed? The presence of this woman was for him a cause of remorse and alarm. Fortunately, the servants, the chauffeur, all the male staff, were in the army. The two Chinese women received an order in a threatening tone. Be very careful when speaking to the other French maids; Not the slightest allusion to the nationality of Doña Elena’s husband or the family’s address. Doña Elena was Argentine… But despite the maids’ silence, Don Marcelo feared some denunciation from the exalted patriotism, which dedicated itself with tireless fervor to hunting spies, and that his wife’s sister would be confined to a concentration camp as a suspect in dealings with the enemy. Mrs. von Hartrott responded poorly to these concerns. Instead of maintaining a discreet silence, she introduced discord into the house with her opinions. During the first days of the war, she remained locked in her room, joining the family only when called to the dining room. With pursed lips and a vacant stare, she sat at the table, pretending not to hear Don Marcelo’s verbal outbursts of enthusiasm . He described the troop sorties, the moving scenes in the streets and at the stations, commenting on the first news of the war with an optimism void of doubt. He considered two things above all discussion. The bayonet was the Frenchman’s secret, and the Germans felt a shudder of terror at its brilliance, inevitably fleeing. The .75 barrel had established itself as a unique jewel. Only its shots were accurate. The enemy artillery inspired pity in him, because if he ever happened to hit his target, its shells failed to explode… Besides, the French troops had entered Alsace victoriously: they already held several towns. ” This isn’t like ’70,” he would say, brandishing his fork or waving his napkin. “We’re going to kick them to the other side of the Rhine. Kick them! That’s it!” Chichí nodded enthusiastically, while Doña Elena raised her eyes as if silently protesting to someone hidden on the roof, calling him a witness to so many errors and blasphemies. Doña Luisa would later seek her out in the privacy of her room, believing her to be in need of comfort for living far from her family. “The Romantic” failed to maintain her dignified silence before this sister who had always deferred to her superior instruction. And the poor lady was stunned by the account she gave her of Germany’s enormous forces , with all her authority as the wife of a great German patriot and mother of an almost famous professor. The millions of men poured forth from her mouth; then paraded the thousands of cannons, the monstrous mortars, as enormous as towers. And above these immense forces of destruction appeared a man who was worth an army by himself , who knew everything and could do everything, handsome, intelligent, and infallible as a god: the Emperor. ” The French don’t know what they have in front of them,” Doña Elena continued. “They’re going to annihilate them. It will take a couple of weeks. Before the end of August, the Emperor will have entered Paris.” Madame Desnoyers, impressed by these prophecies, could not hide them from her family. Chichi was indignant at his mother’s credulity and his aunt’s Germanism. A warlike fervor had taken hold of the former “peoncito.” Oh, if only women could go to the War!… She saw herself as a rider in a regiment of dragoons, charging the enemy with other amazons as arrogant and beautiful as herself. Later, her love of skating took precedence over her riding habits, and she wanted to be an Alpine hunter, a “blue devil” who glides on long skates, carbine on his back and alpenstock in his right hand, down the snowy slopes of the Vosges. But the government despised women, and she could obtain no other participation in the war than to admire the uniform of her boyfriend, René Lacour, who had become a soldier. The senator’s son presented a fine figure. Tall, blond, with a somewhat feminine delicacy that reminded him of his deceased mother, René was a “little sugar soldier” in his girlfriend’s opinion. Chi-chi felt a certain pride when she went out into the street alongside this warrior, finding that the uniform had enhanced his charm . But a setback gradually clouded her joy. The senatorial prince was nothing more than a private soldier. His illustrious father, fearing that the war would forever cut short the Lacour dynasty, precious to the state, had him assigned to the army’s auxiliary services. Thus, Lacour Jr. would not leave Paris. But in such a situation, he was a soldier equal to those who knead bread or mend greatcoats. Only by going to the front could his status as a student at the École Centrale make him a second lieutenant attached to the reserve artillery. How fortunate that you’re staying in Paris! How I love that you’re a simple soldier!… And as Chichi said this, she thought with envy of her friends whose boyfriends and brothers were officers. They could go out into the street escorted by a braided kepi that attracted the glances of passersby and the greetings of their juniors. Every time Doña Luisa, terrified by her sister’s predictions, tried to communicate her fear to her daughter, the latter would rage: “Aunt’s lies! Since her husband is German, she sees everything as she pleases. Papa knows more; René’s father knows better . We’re going to give them a real beating. How nice it is to see my uncle in Berlin and all my cousins ​​beaten, so pretentious!” ” Shut up,” moaned the mother. “Don’t talk nonsense. The war has driven you crazy, like your father.” The good lady was scandalized to hear the explosion of her wild desires whenever she mentioned the emperor. In times of peace, Chichi had somewhat admired this man. “He’s handsome,” she said, “but with a very ordinary smile.” Now she concentrated all her hatred on him. The women who wept because of him at that time! Mothers without children, women without husbands, poor children abandoned to burning towns!… Ah, wicked man!… In her right hand emerged the old “peoncito” knife, a dagger with a silver handle and a chiseled sheath, a gift from her grandfather, which she had exhumed from among her childhood memories, forgotten in a suitcase. The first German who approached her was condemned to death. Doña Luisa was terrified watching her brandish the weapon in front of her dressing table mirror. She no longer wanted to be a cavalry soldier or a “blue devil.” She was content to be left in an enclosed space, facing the odious monster. In five minutes she would resolve the world conflict. “Defend yourself, Bogey!” she shouted, putting herself on guard, as she had seen the ranch hands do in her childhood. And with a slash from bottom to top, she threw her majestic entrails into the air. Immediately afterward, an acclamation resounded in her head, the gigantic sigh of millions of women who were freed from the bloodiest of nightmares thanks to her, who was Judith, Charlotte Corday, a summary of all the heroic women who killed for doing good. Her saving fury made her continue, dagger in hand, the imaginary slaughter. Second blow! The crown prince rolling on one side and his head on the other. A shower of knives! All the invincible generals her aunt spoke of fleeing with their guts in their mouths. hands, and at their tail, like a fawning lackey who also received his share, the uncle from Berlin… Oh, if only he could only have the opportunity to fulfill his wishes! “You’re crazy,” protested the mother: “utterly crazy. How can a young lady say that?” Doña Elena, upon catching glimpses of her niece’s ravings, raised her eyes to heaven, abstaining from then on from communicating her opinions, which she reserved entirely for her mother. Don Marcelo’s indignation took another form when his wife repeated the news about his sister. “It’s all a lie!” The war was going perfectly. On the eastern border, the French armies had advanced through the interior of Alsace and annexed Lorraine. “But what about invaded Belgium?” asked Doña Luisa. “And the poor Belgians?” Desnoyers replied indignantly: “That thing about Belgium is a betrayal… And betrayal is worthless between decent people.” He said this in good faith, as if the war were a duel in which the traitor was disqualified and unable to continue his felonies. Furthermore, Belgium’s heroic resistance instilled in him absurd illusions. The Belgians seemed to him like supernatural men destined for the most stupendous feats… And he who until then had paid no attention to this people!… For a few days, he saw Liège as a holy city before whose walls all Germanic might would crash . When Liège fell, his unshakeable faith found a new foothold. There were many Lièges left in the interior. The Germans could penetrate further: then it would be seen how many managed to escape. The surrender of Brussels caused him no concern. An open city!… Its surrender was foreseen: thus the Belgians would better defend themselves in Antwerp. The German advance toward the French border also caused him no alarm. In vain, his sister-in-law, with malicious brevity, went about mentioning in the dining room the progress of the invasion, confusingly indicated by the newspapers. The Germans were already on the border. “So what?” shouted Don Marcelo. “They’ll soon find someone to talk to.” Joffre confronted them. Our armies were in the East, where they belonged, on the true border, at the doorstep of the house. But this is a traitorous and cowardly friend, who instead of facing us , enters through the back, jumping over the walls of the farmyard, just like thieves… His betrayal will do him no good. The French are already in Belgium and will settle the score with the Germans. We will crush them, so that they will never again disturb the peace of the world. And we will display that damned fellow with the stiff mustache in a cage in the Place de la Concorde. ” Chichí, encouraged by his father’s affirmations, began to imagine a series of torments and vengeful mockeries as a complement to such an exposition. What irritated Frau von Hartrott most were the allusions to the Emperor. In the early days of the war, her sister had caught her weeping over newspaper caricatures and certain leaflets sold on the streets. “Such an excellent man… such a gentleman… such a good father ! He is not to blame for anything. It is his enemies who provoked him. ” And her veneration for the powerful made her regard insults against this admired figure with more vehemence than if they were directed at her own family. One evening, while she was in the dining room, she abandoned her tragic silence. Several sarcastic remarks directed by Desnoyers at the hero brought tears to her eyes. This tenderness served to remind her of her children, who were undoubtedly in the invasion army. Her brother-in-law wished for the extermination of all enemies. “Let not one of those barbarians with pointed helmets remain, who had just set fire to Louvain and other towns, shooting defenseless countrymen, women, old people, children!… You forget that I am a mother,” Madame Hartrott moaned. “You forget that among those whose extermination you demand are my children.” And she burst into tears. Desnoyers suddenly saw the abyss that existed between He and that woman staying in his own house. Her indignation overcame family considerations… She could cry for her children as much as she wanted: that was her right. But these children were aggressors and did evil voluntarily. He was only interested in the other mothers who lived peacefully in the cheerful Belgian towns and had suddenly seen their sons shot, their daughters trampled, their homes burning. Doña Elena wept harder, as if this description of horrors meant a new insult to her. It was all a lie! The Kaiser was an excellent man, his soldiers gentlemen, the German army an example of civilization and goodness. Her husband had belonged to this army; his sons marched in its ranks . And she knew her children: well- educated young men, incapable of any wrongdoing. Slander from the Belgians, which she could not listen to in peace… And she threw herself with dramatic abandon into her sister’s arms. Mr. Desnoyers was furious at fate, which forced him to live with this woman. What a chain for the family! And the borders remained closed, making it impossible to break free from her. ” All right,” he said; “let’s not talk about it anymore: we’d never understand each other. We belong to two different worlds. What a pity you can’t go back to your family!” He refrained from speaking of the war when his sister-in-law was present. Chichi was the only one who retained her aggressive and noisy enthusiasm. Reading in the newspapers news of shootings, looting, burning of cities, painful exoduses of people who saw everything that brought joy to their existence turned to cinders, he felt again the need to repeat his imaginary stabs. Oh, if only she had one of those bandits at hand! What did good men do without exterminating them all?… Then he would see René in his brand-new uniform, gentle in his manner, smiling, as if everything that happened meant nothing more than a change of clothes for him, and he would exclaim with an enigmatic tone: “How lucky you are not going to the front!… How happy you are that you are not in danger!” The fiancé accepted these words as proof of loving concern. One day, Don Marcelo was able to appreciate the horrors of war without leaving Paris . Three thousand Belgian fugitives were temporarily housed in a circus, before being distributed to the provinces. Desnoyers entered this place, which he had visited months before with his family. Advertisements for the joyful spectacles he had witnessed were still in the lobby. Inside, he perceived the stench of a sick, miserable, and crowded crowd, similar to that of a prison or a poor hospital. He saw people who seemed mad or stupid with grief. They didn’t know exactly where they were; they had gotten there without knowing how. The horrific spectacle of the invasion lingered in their memory, occupying it completely, leaving no room for subsequent impressions. They still saw the avalanche of helmeted men enter their peaceful villages: the houses suddenly engulfed in flames, the soldiers firing on those fleeing, the women agonizing, shattered under the acute persistence of carnal outrage, the elderly burned alive, children hacked to pieces in their cradles, all the sadisms of the human beast inflamed by alcohol and impunity… Some octogenarians recounted, weeping, how the soldiers of a civilized people cut off women’s breasts to nail them to doorways, how they paraded a newborn baby impaled on a bayonet as a trophy, how they shot the elderly in the same chair where their painful old age had kept them immobile, torturing them beforehand with mock tortures. They had fled without knowing where they were going, pursued by the fire and the shrapnel, mad with terror, like medieval crowds fleeing from the galloping hordes of Huns and Mongols. And this escape had been through Nature in celebration, in the most opulent of months, When the earth bristled with ears of corn, when the August sky was at its brightest, and the birds greeted the opulence of the harvest with their vociferous joy. He revived the vision of the immense crime in that circus filled with wandering crowds. The children moaned with cries like the bleating of lambs; the men looked around with terrified eyes; some women howled like madmen. Families had been torn apart by the terror of flight. A mother of five children had only one left. The parents, finding themselves alone, thought anxiously about their missing children. Would they be found again? Had they died at that hour? Don Marcelo returned home gritting his teeth, waving his cane alarmingly. Ah, bandits! He suddenly wished his sister-in-law would change sex; why wasn’t she a man? It seemed even better that she could suddenly take the form of her husband, von Hartrott. What an interesting interview that of the two brothers-in-law! The war had awakened religious sentiment in the men and increased the devotion of the women. The churches were full. Doña Luisa no longer limited her excursions to the district churches. With the audacity that extraordinary circumstances inspire, she set out on foot across Paris, going to the Madeleine, to Notre Dame, or to the distant Sacred Heart on the summit of Montmartre. Religious festivals were enlivened by the passion of popular assemblies. The preachers were tribunes. Patriotic enthusiasm sometimes interrupted the sermons with applause. Every morning, Madame Desnoyers, upon opening the newspapers, before looking for the war telegrams, would pursue another piece of news. “Where will Monseigneur Amette go today?” Then, beneath the vaults of the church, she would join her voice with the devout choir imploring supernatural intervention. “Lord, save France!” Patriotic religiosity placed Saint Genevieve at the head of the blessed. And from all these celebrations she returned trembling with faith, hoping for a miracle similar to the one the saint of Paris had performed against Attila’s invading hordes. Doña Elena also visited churches, but those closest to the house. Her brother-in-law saw her enter Saint Honorée d’Eylau one afternoon. The church was packed with the faithful; the flags of France and the allied nations were draped over the altar . The imploring crowd was not composed solely of women. Desnoyers saw men his age, upright, grave, moving their lips, fixing on the altar a glassy gaze that reflected the candle flames like lost stars … And he felt envy again… They were parents who remembered their childhood prayers, thinking of the battles and their children. Don Marcelo, who had always regarded religion with indifference, suddenly recognized the need for faith. He wanted to pray like the others, with a prayer of vague, indeterminate intention, understanding in it all those who fought and died for a land he had failed to defend. He watched with scandal as Hartrott’s wife knelt among these people, then raised her eyes to fix them on the cross with a look of anguished supplication. She prayed to heaven for her German husband, who perhaps at that hour was using all his madman’s powers to organize the crushing of the weak; she prayed for her sons, officers of the King of Prussia, who, revolvers in hand, entered villages and farms, leading the terrified crowd before them, leaving fire and death behind them. And these prayers were going to be confused with those of the mothers who prayed for the youth charged with holding back the barbarians, with the pleas of those men, grave and rigid in their tragic pain!… He had to restrain himself from screaming, and left the temple. His sister-in-law had no right to kneel among those people. They should expel her, he murmured indignantly. She puts God in a difficult position with her absurd prayers. But, despite his anger, he had to endure it near him, forcing himself to At the same time, he wanted to prevent the second nationality he had acquired upon marriage from becoming known abroad . It was a great torment for Don Marcelo to restrain his words when he was in the dining room with the family. He wanted to avoid the nervousness of his sister-in-law, who burst into tears and sighs at the slightest allusion to her hero; he also feared the complaints of his wife, always ready to defend her sister as if she were a victim… That a man of his character should be forced in his own home to watch his tongue and speak in euphemisms! The only satisfaction he could allow himself was to give news of military operations. The French had entered Belgium. “It seems the French have received a serious blow.” He glorified the slightest cavalry clash, a simple encounter between advance guards, as a decisive event. “We also swept them off their feet in Lorraine…” But suddenly, the source of his optimism seemed to dry up. Nothing extraordinary was happening in the world, judging by the newspapers. They continued publishing war stories to maintain enthusiasm, but no real news. The government issued communiqués with a vague, rhetorical sound. Desnoyers was alarmed: his instinct warned him of danger. “Something ‘s wrong,” he thought; a spring must have broken. This lack of news coincided with a sudden revitalization in Doña Elena. Who was that woman talking to? What kind of encounters did she encounter when she went out into the street?… Without losing her victim’s humility, with a pained look and a slightly twisted mouth, she spoke and spoke traitorously. Don Marcelo’s torment upon hearing the enemy sheltering in his house!… The French had been defeated simultaneously in Lorraine and Belgium. An army corps had been disbanded: many prisoners, many cannons lost. “Lies, exaggerations by the Germans!” Desnoyers shouted. And Chichi drowned out her aunt’s news from Berlin with her insolent girlish laughter. “I don’t know,” she continued with malicious annoyance. “Maybe it’s not true. I’ve heard it said.” Her brother-in-law was indignant. Where had he heard it said? Who was giving him such news? And to vent his bad mood, he burst into curses against enemy espionage, against the negligence of the police, which tolerated so many Germans hidden in Paris. But suddenly he had to stop, thinking about his own behavior. He, too, was unwittingly contributing to maintaining and harboring the enemy. The fall of the ministry and the formation of a national defense government made him realize that something serious was happening. Doña Luisa’s alarms and cries increased his nervousness. The good lady no longer returned enthusiastically and heroically from her visits to the churches. Her private conversations with her sister instilled a terror in her, which she intended to later communicate to her husband. “All is lost… Helena is the only one who knows the truth .” Desnoyers went in search of Senator Lacour. He knew all the ministers: no one knew better than he. “Yes, my friend,” the gentleman said sadly, “two great setbacks at Morhange and Charleroi, to the east and north. The enemy are going to invade French soil … But our army remains intact and is retreating in good order. Fortune may yet change. A great misfortune, but all is not lost.” Preparations for the defense of Paris were activated… somewhat late. The forts were armed with new cannons; the shacks that had been raised in the firing range during the years of peace disappeared under the picks of official demolition; the trees along the exterior avenues were felled to widen the horizon; barricades of sandbags and logs blocked the gates of the ancient walls. Onlookers wandered around the area to admire the newly dug trenches and barbed wire fences. The Bois de Boulogne was filled with herds. Beside mountains of dried alfalfa, bulls and sheep huddled together on the fine grassy meadows. The security of their livelihoods worried a population that The memory of the misery suffered in 1870 still remained alive. Every night the streetlights grew dimmer. The sky, however, was incessantly streaked with light from the searchlights. The fear of an aerial attack only increased public anxiety. Fearful people spoke of the Zeppelins, attributing irresistible power to them , with the exaggeration that accompanies mysterious dangers . Doña Luisa stunned her husband with her panic. He spent his days in constant alarm, having to encourage his trembling, whining wife. “They’re coming, Marcelo; my heart tells me so. I can’t live like this. The girl… the girl!” He blindly accepted all his sister’s statements. The only thing he questioned was the chivalry and discipline of the troops, which included his nephews. The news of the atrocities committed against women in Belgium commanded as much faith as the enemy advances announced by Helena. “The girl, Marcelo… the girl!” And the fact was that the girl, the object of such anxieties, laughed with the insolence of her vigorous youth, upon hearing her mother say: “Let those scoundrels come. I’d be pleased to see their faces.” And she tightened her right hand, as if she were already grasping the avenging knife. The father grew tired of this situation. He still had one of his monumental automobiles, which a foreign chauffeur could drive. Senator Lacour obtained the necessary papers for the family’s trip, and Desnoyers gave orders to his wife in a tone that brooked no reply. They were to go to Biarritz or the summer resorts in northern Spain. Almost all the South American families had left in the same direction. Doña Luisa tried to resist: it was impossible for her to leave without her husband. In so many years of marriage, they hadn’t separated even once. But Don Marcelo’s sullen refusal cut short their protests. He was staying. Then, the poor lady ran to the Rue de la Pompe. “Her son!” Julio barely heard his mother. “Alas, he was staying too!” And finally, the imposing automobile began its journey south, carrying Doña Luisa, her sister, who gladly accepted this separation from the Emperor’s admired troops, and Chichí, happy that the war would provide her with an excursion to the fashionable beaches frequented by her friends. Don Marcelo found himself alone. The copper-colored maidens had followed the ladies’ escape by train. At first, he felt disoriented in this solitude; he was puzzled by the meals at the restaurant, the nights spent in deserted, enormous rooms that still bore traces of his family. The other floors of the house were equally empty. All the inhabitants were foreigners who had discreetly escaped, or Frenchmen caught by the war while spending the summer on their country estates. Instinct led him to go on his walks to the Rue de la Pompe, gazing from afar at the study window. What would his son do?… Surely he would continue his happy and useless life. For men like him, nothing existed beyond the frivolities of their selfishness. Desnoyers was satisfied with his resolution. Following his family seemed a crime. The memory of his escape to America tormented him enough. “No, they won’t come,” he told himself repeatedly, with the optimism of enthusiasm. “I have a feeling they won’t reach Paris. And if they do…” The absence of his family gave him the cheerful and carefree courage of youth. Because of his age and his infirmities, he was incapable of waging war in the open, but he could fire a rifle, motionless in a trench, without fear of death. Let them come!… He desired it with the vehemence of a good payer eager to settle an old debt as soon as possible . He found many groups of fugitives in the streets of Paris. They were from the North and East of France and had escaped before the advance of the Germans. From all the stories of this grieving crowd, who did not know where to go and had no other recourse than the pity of the Among the people, what shocked him most were the attacks on property. Executions and murders made him clench his fists, bursting into desires for revenge. But the robberies authorized by the leaders, the mass looting ordered by superiors, followed by arson, seemed so unheard of that he remained silent, as if stupefaction paralyzed his thoughts. And a people with laws could wage war in this way, just like a tribe of Indians who go into battle to steal! His adoration of the right of property turned furiously against these sacrileges. He began to worry about his chateau of Villeblanche. Everything he owned in Paris suddenly seemed of little importance compared to what he kept in the “historic mansion.” His best paintings were there, adorning the gloomy salons; there too, the furniture snatched from antique dealers after a bidding war, and the overflowing display cases, the tapestries, the silverware. He reviewed every object in his memory, not a single one escaping this mental inventory. Things he had forgotten now resurfaced in his memory, and the fear of losing them seemed to give them greater brilliance, enlarging their size, imbuing them with new value. All of Villeblanche’s wealth was concentrated in one acquisition, which Desnoyers admired most , seeing in it the glory of his enormous fortune, the greatest display of luxury a millionaire could afford. “The golden bathtub,” he thought. “I have my golden tub over there.” He had acquired this precious metal at auction, judging the purchase to be the culmination of his opulence. He wasn’t sure of its origin: perhaps it was a piece of furniture belonging to princes; perhaps it owed its existence to the whim of a showy bogeyman. He and his family had formed a legend around this golden cavity adorned with lion’s claws, dolphins, and busts of naiads. Undoubtedly, it came from kings. Chichi gravely asserted that it was Marie Antoinette’s bathroom. And the whole family, considering the apartment on the Avenue Victor Hugo to be modest and bourgeois enough to house this jewel, had agreed to deposit it in the chateau, respected, useless, and solemn, like a museum piece… And could this be taken by the enemies if they advanced as far as the Marne, along with the other riches gathered with such patience?… Ah, no! His collector’s spirit was capable of the greatest heroism to prevent it. Every day brought a fresh wave of bad news. The newspapers said little; the government spoke in obscure language that plunged the spirit into perplexity. Nevertheless, the truth mysteriously made its way, driven by the pessimism of the alarmists and the maneuverings of enemy spies hidden in Paris. People whispered the fatal news to each other: “They’ve crossed the border…” “They’re already in Lille…” They advanced at a rate of fifty kilometers a day. The name von Kluck was beginning to become familiar. The English and French were retreating before the encircling movement of the invaders. Some expected a new Sedan. Desnoyers followed the enemy’s advance by going daily to the Gare du Nord. Every twenty-four hours, the radius of travel for travelers narrowed. Notices announcing that tickets were not being sold to certain northern towns indicated how these towns were falling, one after another, into the hands of the invaders. The shrinking of the national territory was taking place with methodical regularity, at a rate of fifty kilometers per day. With a clock in sight, one could predict the time at which the first houlans would salute the appearance of the Eiffel Tower on the horizon with their lances . The trains arrived packed, crowds of people spilling out of their cars. And it was in these moments of general anguish that Don Marcelo visited his friend Senator Lacour to astonish him with the most unprecedented of requests. He wanted to go immediately to his castle. When everyone was fleeing towards Paris, he needed to march in the opposite direction. The senator did not He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You’re crazy!” he exclaimed. “We must leave Paris, but head south. I’m telling you only, and keep quiet, because it’s a secret. We’re leaving at any moment; we’re all leaving: the President, the government, the Chambers. We’ll settle in Bordeaux, as in 1870. The enemy is going to arrive: it’s a matter of days… of hours. We know little of what ‘s happening, but all the news is bad. The army is holding firm, it’s still intact, but it’s retreating… it’s retreating, giving ground… Believe me, it’s best to leave Paris. Gallieni will defend it, but the defense will be hard and painful… Even if Paris falls, France will not fall. We will continue the war, if necessary, to the border of Spain… But this is sad, very sad!” And he offered his friend to take him with him on the retreat to Bordeaux, which very few people knew about at that time. Desnoyers shook his head. “No; He longed to go to the Château de Villeblanche. Its furniture… its riches… its park. “But you’re going to be taken prisoner!” the senator protested. “Perhaps they’ll kill you!” A gesture of indifference was the reply. He considered himself strong enough to fight against all the armies of Germany in defense of his property. The important thing was to settle there, and who would dare to touch his property! The senator looked in amazement at this bourgeois, enraged by the feeling of possession. He remembered the Arab merchants, ordinarily humble and peaceful, who fight and die like wild beasts when the thieving Bedouins try to seize their goods. This was not a moment for arguments: everyone should think about their own fate. The senator finally agreed to his friend’s wish. If that was his wish, he could grant it. And by his influence, he succeeded in getting himself to leave that very evening on a military train bound for the army. This trip exposed Don Marcelo to the extraordinary movement that the war had created on the railroads. His train took fourteen hours to cover a distance normally covered in two. It was composed of freight cars filled with provisions and cartridges, with their doors closed and sealed. A third-class car was occupied by the train’s escort: a platoon of territorials. Desnoyers was housed in a second-class car, along with the lieutenant commanding this group and several officers who were about to join their regiments after completing the mobilization operations in the towns they garrisoned before the war. The rear cars contained their horses. The train stopped many times to make way for others who were moving ahead of them, filled with soldiers, or returning to Paris with fleeing crowds. The latter consisted of loading platforms, and on them were crowded women, children, and the elderly, crammed with bundles of clothing, suitcases, and wheelbarrows that had been used to carry the remains of their belongings to the station. They were like rolling camps that remained immobilized for many hours or even days in the sidings, leaving free passage for convoys driven by the pressing needs of the war. The crowd, accustomed to endless delays, spilled out of the train, settling in front of the dead locomotive or scattering into the surrounding fields. At the important stations, all the tracks were occupied by strings of cars. The engines, under great pressure, whistled, impatient to depart. Groups of soldiers hesitated in front of the various trains, making mistakes, getting off one car and getting into another. The employees, calm and with an air of fatigue, went from one side to the other guiding the men, giving explanations, arranging the loading of mountains of objects. In the convoy that took Desnoyers, the territorials dozed, accustomed to the monotonous operation of providing escort. Those in charge of the horses had opened the sliding doors of the cars, sitting on the edge with their legs dangling. The train moved slowly through the night, through the fields of shadow, stopping before the red headlights to announce their presence with long whistles. At some stations, young women dressed in white, with rosettes and small flags on their chests, appeared. Day and night, they were there, taking turns, so that not a train passed without receiving their visit. They offered their gifts to the soldiers in baskets and trays : bread, chocolate, fruit. Many, out of exhaustion, tried to resist, but finally had to give in at the young women’s sad expressions. Even Desnoyers was assailed by these gifts of patriotic enthusiasm. He spent much of the night talking with his fellow travelers. The officers only had vague indications of where they might find their regiments. The operations of the war changed their situation daily. But faithful to their duty, they continued forward, hoping to arrive in time for the decisive battle. The commander of the escort had made several trips and was the only one with a precise account of the retreat. The train was making each journey shorter. Everyone seemed disoriented. Why the retreat? The army had undoubtedly suffered setbacks, but it was intact, and in his opinion, it should seek revenge in the same places. The retreat left the enemy free to advance. How far would they retreat? They were the ones who two weeks earlier had been discussing in their garrisons the point in Belgium where the adversaries would receive the fatal blow and from which places the victorious troops would invade Germany! Their disappointment betrayed no discouragement. An indeterminate but firm hope emerged above their hesitations: the generalissimo was the only one who held the secret of events. And Desnoyers approved, with the blind enthusiasm that people inspired in him when he placed his trust in them. Joffre! The serious and calm leader would finally put everything right. No one should doubt his fortune: he was one of those men who always have the last word. At dawn, he left the car. “Good luck!” And he shook the hands of those spirited young men, who were perhaps about to die soon. The train was able to continue on its way immediately, having accidentally found a clear track, and Don Marcelo found himself alone at a station. Normally, a secondary railway would depart from it, passing through Villeblanche; but the service was suspended due to a lack of personnel. The employees had transferred to the main lines, crowded with war transports . In vain, he sought, with the most generous offers, a horse, a simple cart pulled by some beast, to continue his journey. The mobilization monopolized the best, and the other means of transportation had disappeared with the flight of the timid. They had to make a march of fifteen kilometers on foot. The old man didn’t hesitate: forward! And he began walking along a white, straight, dusty road, between flat, level lands that continued to infinity. A few clumps of trees, a few green hedges, and the roofs of several farmhouses disrupted the monotony of the landscape. The fields were covered with stubble from the recent harvest. The haystacks pocked the ground with their yellowish cones, which were beginning to darken, taking on a rusty gold hue. Birds fluttered on the fences, shaking off the early morning dew. The first rays of the sun announced a hot day. Around the haystacks, Desnoyers saw a commotion of people getting up, shaking out their clothes and waking others who were still asleep. They were fugitives who had camped near the station, waiting for a train that would take them far away, without knowing for sure where they wanted to go. Some came from distant departments: they had heard the cannon, had seen the war approaching, and had been on a haphazard march for several days . Others, feeling the contagion of this panic, had fled as well, fearing to experience the same horrors… He saw mothers with their little ones in their arms; elderly people in pain who could only walk with one hand on a walking stick and the other on the arm of a family member; Old women, wrinkled and motionless like mummies, sleeping and traveling stretched out on a wheelbarrow. When the sun awoke, this miserable crowd sought each other out with clumsy steps, still numbed by the night, reconstituting the same groups as the day before. Many advanced toward the station in the hope of a train that never came , believing themselves to be luckier on the day that had just begun. Some continued along the tracks, thinking that luck would be more propitious elsewhere. Don Marcelo walked all morning. The straight white strip of road was dotted with groups coming toward him, resembling in the distance a string of ants. He didn’t see a single walker following the same direction. Everyone fled south; and when they found this gentleman from the city, who was walking well shod, with a walking stick and a straw hat, they made a gesture of surprise. They might have thought him a functionary, a prominent figure, someone from the government, seeing him advancing alone toward the country they were abandoning under the impulse of terror. At midday, he was able to find a piece of bread, some cheese, and a bottle of white wine in a tavern near the road. The owner was at war, the wife moaned in bed. The mother, a somewhat deaf old woman, surrounded by her grandchildren, followed this three-day parade of fugitives from the doorway . “Why are you fleeing, sir?” she said to the wayfarer. “War interests only soldiers. We country folk harm no one and have nothing to fear.” Four hours later, descending one of the slopes that form the Marne valley, he saw in the distance the rooftops of Villeblanche around its church, and emerging from a grove, the slate hoods that crowned the towers of its castle. The streets of the town were deserted. Only around the square did he see a few women sitting, as on placid afternoons of other summers. Half the population had fled; the other half remained in their homes, out of a sedentary routine, deluding themselves with blind optimism. If the Prussians came, what could they do to them? They would obey his orders without resisting, and a people who obey cannot be punished. Anything was preferable to losing homes built by their ancestors and from which they had never left. In the square, he saw the mayor and the principal inhabitants standing in a group. All of them, as well as the women, stared in astonishment at the owner of the castle. It was the most unexpected of apparitions. When so many were fleeing to Paris, this Parisian came to join them, sharing their fate. A smile of affection, a look of sympathy, seemed to pierce his rough, distrustful rustic exterior . Desnoyers had long been on bad terms with the entire town. He harshly upheld his rights, brooking no tolerance in matters of property. He spoke many times of prosecuting the mayor and sending half the neighborhood to jail, and his enemies responded by treacherously invading his lands, killing his game, overwhelming him with legal claims and incoherent lawsuits… His hatred of the municipality had drawn him closer to the priest, who lived in open hostility toward the mayor. But his relations with the Church were as fruitless as his struggles with the State. The priest was a good-natured man, in whom he found a certain physical resemblance to Renan, and who was only concerned with extracting alms for the poor, his kindly audacity going so far as to excuse marauders on his property. How distant the struggles they had endured up to a month before now seemed to him! The millionaire was greatly surprised to see how the priest, leaving his house to enter the church, greeted the mayor with a friendly smile as he passed. After long years of hostile silence, they had met on the evening of August 1st at the foot of the church tower. The bell rang to announce the mobilization of the men in the fields. And the two enemies, instinctively, had embraced. the hand. All French! This affectionate unanimity also reached out to the hated lord of the castle. He had to greet everyone from one side to the other, shaking firm hands. People burst into affectionate corrections behind him. “A good man, with no other flaw than the violence of his character…” And Monsieur Desnoyers experienced for a few minutes the pleasant atmosphere of popularity. Upon seeing himself in the castle, he considered the fatigue of the walk, which made his legs tremble, well spent . Never had its park seemed so grand and majestic as on this summer evening; never had the swans gliding, doubled by their reflection, over the still waters so white; never had the building, its image repeated inverted by the green mirror of the moats, so stately. He felt the need to see the stables with their cattle immediately ; then he glanced at the empty stalls. The mobilization had claimed his best work horses. His staff had also disappeared. The foreman and several servants were away with the army. Only the caretaker remained in the entire castle , a man of over fifty, suffering from chest illness, with his family of his wife and a daughter. The three of them took care of filling the cows’ troughs, occasionally milking their forgotten udders. Inside the building, he once again congratulated himself on the decision that had brought him there. How could he abandon such riches! He contemplated the paintings, the display cases, the furniture, the curtains, all bathed in gold by the fading glow of the day, and felt a sense of pride in possession. This pride instilled in him an absurd, improbable courage, as if he were a gigantic being from another planet and all humanity surrounding him a mere anthill he could wipe out with his feet. Let the enemies come! He considered himself strong enough to defend himself against them all… Then, when his heroic delirium had been wrenched from his reason , he tried to calm himself with an equally unsound optimism . They wouldn’t come. He didn’t know why, but his heart told him the enemy wouldn’t make it that far. He spent the next morning wandering around the artificial meadows he had created behind the park, lamenting their neglect because of the departure of his men, trying to open the floodgates to irrigate the grass, which was beginning to dry. The vines lined their masses of shoots along the wire fences that supported them. The full bunches, close to ripeness, poked out their grainy triangles between the leaves. Oh, who would harvest this wealth!… In the afternoon, he noticed an extraordinary stir in the village. Georgette, the caretaker’s daughter, brought news that enormous automobiles, many automobiles, and French soldiers, many soldiers, were beginning to pass along the main street . Soon the parade began along a road near the castle, leading to the bridge over the Marne. They were closed or open trucks that still retained their old commercial signs beneath the layer of hardened dust and splashes of mud. Many of them bore the names of Parisian companies; others the corporate names of provincial establishments. Along with these industrial vehicles requisitioned for the mobilization, others from public service passed by, producing in Desnoyers the same effect as friendly faces glimpsed in an unfamiliar crowd. They were Paris buses that still bore the names indicative of their former routes on their upper decks : Madeleine Bastille, Passy Bourse, etc. Perhaps he had traveled many times in these same vehicles, faded in paint, aged by twenty days of intense activity, with dented plates, bent irons, rattling like rickety, and perforated like sieves. Some carriages displayed white circles with a red cross in the center; others were marked with letters and numbers that only those initiated in the secrets of military administration could understand. And on all these vehicles, which only remained new and vigorous, their engines, he saw soldiers, many soldiers, but all wounded, their heads and legs wrapped in sackcloth, pale faces made even more tragic by overgrown beards, feverish eyes staring fixedly, mouths dilated as if the groan of pain had solidified within them. Doctors and nurses occupied several carriages in this convoy. Some platoons of horsemen escorted it. And among the slow march of mounts and automobiles passed groups of soldiers on foot, their greatcoats unbuttoned or hanging over their shoulders like a cape; wounded men who could walk were joking and singing, some with an arm wrapped across their chest, others with their heads bandaged, the oozing of blood showing through the fabric. The millionaire wanted to do something for them; but no sooner had he attempted to distribute a few bottles of wine, some bread, the first thing at hand, than a doctor intervened, apostrophizing him as if he were committing a crime. His gifts could prove fatal. And he had to remain by the side of the road, helpless and sad, following the grieving convoy with somber eyes… As night fell, it was no longer vehicles loaded with sick men that paraded by. He saw hundreds of trucks, some hermetically sealed, with the caution required by explosive materials ; others with bales and crates that spread a musty smell of provisions. Then large herds of oxen advanced, milling in the narrows of the road, continuing onward beneath the poles and cries of shepherds in kepis. He spent the night awake with his thoughts. It was the retreat people in Paris talked about, but which many refused to believe; the retreat reaching this point and continuing its indefinite retreat, since no one knew what its limit would be. Optimism suggested an unlikely hope. Perhaps this retreat included only the hospitals, the warehouses, everything that is stationed behind an army. The troops wanted to be free of their encumbrances, to move more agilely, and they were sent far away by railroads and highways. That must have been the case. And in the noises that persisted throughout the night, he could only guess at the passage of vehicles filled with wounded, ammunition, and provisions, just like those that had marched past that afternoon. Near dawn, fatigue made him fall asleep, and he awoke well into the day. His first glance was toward the road. He saw it filled with men and horses pulling rolling objects. But the men carried rifles and formed battalions, regiments. The animals dragged artillery pieces. It was an army… it was the retreat. Desnoyers ran to the side of the road to better convince himself of the truth. Alas! They were regiments like those he had seen leaving the Paris stations… but with a very different appearance. The blue greatcoats had become tattered, yellowish garments; the red trousers had bleached the color of badly baked brick; the shoes were balls of mud. Their faces wore a ferocious expression, with trails of dust and sweat in every crevice and hollow, with newly grown beards as sharp as spikes, and a look of weariness that revealed a desire to stop, to stay right there forever, killing or dying, but without taking another step. They walked… they walked… they walked. Some marches had lasted thirty hours. The enemy was on their trail, and the order was to walk and not fight, escaping the encircling movements attempted by the invader by swiftness of foot. The leaders guessed the mood of their men. They could demand the sacrifice of their lives, but to order them to march day and night, always fleeing from the enemy, when they did not consider themselves defeated, when they felt the fierce anger, mother of heroism, growling within them !… Their desperate glances sought out the nearest officer, the commanders, the colonel himself. They could take no more! An enormous, overwhelming march in so few days, and for what?… Their superiors, who knew as much as they did, seemed to answer with their eyes, as if possessed a secret: “Take heart! Another effort… This will be over very soon.” The beasts, vigorous but lacking in imagination, were less resilient than the men. Their appearance was deplorable. How could they be the same strong, lustrous-coated horses he had seen in the Paris parades at the beginning of the previous month? A twenty- day campaign had aged and exhausted them. Their dull gaze seemed to implore mercy. They were thin, with a gauntness that made the edges of their bones stand out and increased the bulging of their eyes. The harnesses, when moved, revealed their skin, with its torn hair and bloody scrapes. They advanced with a supreme pull, concentrating their last strength, as if the reason of men were working over their dark instincts. Some could go on no longer and suddenly collapsed, abandoning their fellow sufferers. Desnoyers witnessed how the gunners quickly stripped them of their harnesses, turning them upside down and out of the way so they wouldn’t obstruct traffic. There they remained, displaying their skeletal nakedness, hidden until then by the straps, their legs stiff and their eyes glassy and fixed, as if spying on the fluttering of the first flies attracted to their sad carrion. The gray-painted cannons, the gun carriages, the scythes—Don Marcelo had seen everything clean and shining, with that loving care that man has dedicated to weapons since ancient times, more tenacious than that of a woman with household objects. Now everything seemed dirty, with the patina of immeasurable use, with the wear and tear of inevitable neglect: the wheels were deformed externally by mud, the metal darkened by the fumes of the explosion, the gray paint stained by the moss of humidity. In the open spaces of this parade, in the gaps between a battery and a regiment, platoons of civilians ran: miserable groups driven forward by the invasion; entire villages that had dispersed, following the retreating army. The advance of a new unit forced them off the road, continuing their march across the fields. Then, at the slightest gap in the mass of troops, they slipped back onto the smooth white surface of the road. They were mothers pushing carts piled high with furniture and children; sick people almost crawling; octogenarians carried on the shoulders of their grandchildren; grandparents holding infants in their arms; old women with small children clinging to their skirts like a silent nest. No one objected now to the castle owner’s generosity. His entire cellar seemed to overflow onto the road. The barrels of the latest harvest rolled , and the soldiers filled the metal ladle hanging from their waists with the red stream . Then, the bottled wine was brought to light in date order, instantly lost in this river of men that flowed by. Desnoyers proudly contemplated the effects of his munificence. Smiles reappeared on fierce faces; French jokes leaped from rank to rank; as the groups drew back, they broke into song. Then he saw himself in the village square among several officers giving their horses a short rest before rejoining the column. With drawn brows and somber eyes, they spoke of this retreat, inexplicable to them. Days before, in Guise, they had inflicted a defeat on their pursuers. And yet, they continued to retreat, obedient to a definitive and severe order. “We don’t understand,” they said. “We don’t understand.” The orderly and methodical tide swept away these men who longed to fight and had to retreat. They all suffered from the same cruel doubt: “We don’t understand.” And their hesitation made the relentless march even more painful, a march that lasted day and night with only brief rests, the corps commanders constantly alarmed by the fear of being cut off and separated from the rest of the army. “One more effort, my sons. Take heart! We’ll soon rest.” The columns, in their retreat, covered hundreds of kilometers. Desnoyers could see only one of them. Others and others were making the same retreat at the same time, covering half the width of France. All were retreating with the same disheartened obedience, and their men were undoubtedly repeating the same thing as the officers: “We don’t understand… We don’t understand.” Don Marcelo suddenly experienced the sadness and disorientation of these soldiers. He didn’t understand either. He saw what was immediate, what everyone could see: the territory invaded without the Germans meeting any tenacious resistance; entire departments, cities, towns, and multitudes falling into the hands of the enemy behind an army that was incessantly retreating. His enthusiasm plummeted like a deflating balloon. His former pessimism reappeared. The troops displayed energy and discipline; but what good could this do if they retreated almost without fighting, unable, by a stern order, to defend the terrain? “Just like in ’70,” he thought. Outwardly, there was more order, but the result was going to be the same. Like an echo that responded negatively to his sadness, he heard the voice of a soldier speaking to a peasant: ” We are retreating, but it is to attack the boches with greater force. Grandfather Joffre will put them in his pocket at the time and place he chooses. ” Desnoyers perked up upon hearing the general’s name. Perhaps this soldier, who kept his faith intact throughout the interminable and demoralizing marches, sensed the truth better than the reasoning and studious officers. He spent the rest of the day giving gifts to the last groups of the column. His cellar was emptying. In order of date, the thousands of bottles stored in the castle’s cellars continued to be scattered . As night fell, he gave bottles covered with the dust of many years to the men he considered weak. As the column marched, it began to take on a sadder appearance of tiredness and weariness. The stragglers passed by, their raw feet dragging wearily inside their shoes. Some had escaped this torturous confinement and marched barefoot, their heavy boots hanging off one shoulder, leaving bloodstains on the ground . But all, overcome by mortal fatigue, held onto their weapons and equipment, thinking of the enemy that was close at hand. Desnoyers’s generosity astonished many of them. They were accustomed to crossing their native soil, having to contend with the selfishness of the farmer. No one offered anything. Fear of danger caused the inhabitants of the countryside to hide their provisions, refusing to provide the slightest aid to their compatriots fighting for them. The millionaire slept poorly that second night in his elaborate bed of columns and plumes, which had belonged to Henry IV, according to the vendors’ statements. The movement of troops was no longer continuous. From time to time, a loose battalion, a battery, a group of cavalrymen passed by, the last forces of the rearguard that had taken up position near the village to cover the retreat . The profound silence that followed these noisy parades aroused in him a feeling of doubt and unease. What was he doing there when the armed crowd withdrew? Wasn’t it madness to stay? But all the riches preserved in the castle immediately galloped through his mind. If only he could take them with him! It was impossible, for lack of means and time. Besides, his tenacity considered this flight something shameful. “You have to finish what you start,” he repeated mentally. He had made the journey to protect his possessions, and he shouldn’t flee when danger began… When he went down to the village the next morning, he saw hardly any soldiers. Only a squadron of dragoons was on the outskirts to cover the last remnants of the retreat. The riders raced in platoons through the woods, pushing back the stragglers and facing the enemy advance guard. Desnoyers went to the exit of the town. The dragoons had The street was blocked by a barricade of carts and furniture. On foot, rifle in hand, they stood guard behind this obstacle, watching the white strip of road that rose alone between two tree-covered hills. From time to time, stray shots rang out, like the crack of a whip. “Ours,” the dragoons called. They were the last detachments firing at the advance guard of the Uhlans. The cavalry’s mission was to maintain contact with the enemy in the rear, to offer continuous resistance, repelling the German detachments that tried to infiltrate along the columns. They saw the last stragglers of the infantry arriving along the road . They weren’t marching; rather, they seemed to be crawling, with a firm will to advance, but betrayed in their desire by stiff legs and bleeding feet. They had sat for a moment by the side of the road, agonizing with exhaustion, to breathe without the weight of their backpacks, to free their feet from the confines of their shoes, to wipe the sweat off their feet, and when they tried to resume their march, they found it impossible to get up. Their bodies felt like stone. Fatigue had plunged them into a state similar to catalepsy. They watched the rest of the army pass by like a fantastic parade : battalions upon battalions, batteries, troops of horses. Then, silence, night, a sleep on the dust and stones, shaken by terrible nightmares. At dawn, they were awakened by platoons of cavalrymen who were exploring the terrain, collecting the remnants of the retreat. Alas! Impossible to move! The dragoons, revolvers in hand, had to resort to threats to revive them. Only the certainty that the enemy was close and could take them prisoner gave them momentary vigor. And they staggered to their feet, dragging their legs, leaning on their rifles as if they were a cane. Many of these men were young men who had aged in an hour and walked like invalids. Unhappy men! They wouldn’t go far. Their will was to continue, to join the column; but upon entering the village, they examined the houses with pleading eyes, longing to enter them, feeling a longing for immediate rest that made them forget the proximity of the enemy. Villeblanche was lonelier than before the troops arrived. The night before, some of its inhabitants had fled, infected by the fear of the crowd following the army’s retreat. The mayor and the priest remained. Reconciled with the owner of the castle by their unexpected presence and amazed by his generosity, the municipal official approached him with some news. The engineers were mining the bridge over the Mame. They were only waiting to blow it up until the dragoons had withdrawn. If he wanted to leave, there was still time. Desnoyers hesitated again. It was madness to remain there. But a glance at the grove, over whose branches the castle turrets loomed, put an end to his doubts. No, no… “We must finish what we begin.” The last groups of dragoons appeared, emerging from various points in the forest onto the road. They walked their horses at a walk, as if they were pained by the recoil. They looked back, carbines in one hand, ready to halt and fire. The others who had been occupying the barricade were already in their mounts. The squadron reformed, the officers’ voices rang out, and a brisk trot accompanied by metallic clangs faded away behind Don Marcelo’s back. He remained beside the barricade, in a solitude of intense silence, as if the world had suddenly been emptied. Two dogs, abandoned by their masters’ escape, prowled and sniffed around him, imploring his protection. They couldn’t find the desired trail in that trampled earth, disfigured by the passage of thousands of men. A starving cat spied on the birds that were beginning to invade this place. With timid flutters, they pecked at the food scraps expelled by the dragoons’ horses. A stray hen He also appeared to challenge the winged rascals, hidden until then in the trees and overhangs, for their feast. The silence revived the murmur of the dead leaves, the buzzing of insects, the summer breathing of the sun-scorched ground—all the sounds of Nature, which seemed to have contracted fearfully under the weight of the armed men. Desnoyers had no precise account of the passage of time. He believed all this to be a dream. The calm that surrounded him made everything he had witnessed seem incredible. Suddenly, he saw something move at the far end of the road, at the top of the slope, where the white ribbon touched the blue horizon. They were two men on horseback, two tin soldiers who seemed to have escaped from a toy box. He had brought with him a pair of binoculars, which he used to detect incursions onto his property, and he looked. The two riders, dressed in greenish-gray, carried lances, and their helmets were topped with a horizontal plate… Them! He couldn’t doubt it: he had the first Hulans before him. They remained motionless for a while, as if scanning the horizon. Then, from the dark masses of vegetation that crowded the sides of the road, others and others emerged, until they formed a group. The tin soldiers no longer marked their silhouettes against the blue horizon. The whiteness of the road now served as a background, rising above their heads. They advanced slowly, like a troop fearing ambushes and examining its surroundings. The need to retreat as quickly as possible made Don Marcelo stop looking. It was dangerous to be surprised in that place. But as he lowered his binoculars, something extraordinary passed within the field of vision of his lenses. At a short distance, as if he were about to touch them with his hand, he saw many men marching under the cover of the trees on both sides of the road. His surprise was even greater when he realized they were French, since they all wore kepis. Where had they come from? He examined them again without the aid of his binoculars, now close to the barricade. They were stragglers, in a pitiful state, offering a picturesque variety of uniforms: line soldiers, zouaves, unhorsed dragoons. And mixed in with them were forest guards and gendarmes belonging to villages that had been late receiving the news of the retreat. There were about fifty of them in all. Some were fit and vigorous; others were holding on with superhuman effort. All still had their weapons. They reached the barricade, continually looking back to watch, under the cover of the trees, the slow advance of the uhlans. At the head of this heterogeneous troop was an old, fat gendarmerie officer, revolver in his right hand, his mustache bristling with emotion, and a murderous gleam in his blue eyes, veiled by heavy eyelids. They slipped to the other side of the barrier of wagons without noticing this curious countryman. They were about to continue their advance through the village when a tremendous explosion rang out, shaking the horizon in front of them and making the houses tremble. “What’s that?” asked the officer, looking for the first time at Desnoyers. He gave an explanation: it was the bridge, which had just been destroyed. An oath from the commander greeted the news. But his confused troop, grouped together haphazardly by the encounter, remained indifferent, as if they had lost all contact with reality. ” It’s the same to die here as it is to die elsewhere,” the officer continued. Many of the fugitives welcomed this decision, which freed them from the torment of walking, with prompt obedience . They were almost glad of the blast that cut off their path. They instinctively took up positions in the most covered areas of the barricade. Others entered abandoned houses, whose doors the dragoons had forced open to use the upper floors. Everyone seemed content to be able to rest, even if it meant fighting. The officer went from one group to another, communicating his orders. They were not to fire until he gave the word. Don Marcelo witnessed such preparations with the immobility of surprise. The appearance of the stragglers had been so swift and unprecedented that he still imagined he was dreaming. There could be no danger in this unreal situation: it was all a lie. And he remained in his place, unable to understand the lieutenant, who was ordering him to flee with harsh words. “Stubborn civilian!” The echo of the explosion had filled the road with horsemen. They came out from all directions, joining the original group. The Hulanos galloped with the certainty that the town was abandoned. “Fire!” Desnoyers was enveloped in a cloud of cracking sounds, as if the wood of every tree before his eyes had been splitting. The impetuous squadron stopped suddenly. Several men rolled on the ground. Some stood up to jump off the road, hunching over, in an attempt to make themselves less visible. Others remained lying on their backs or face down, arms outstretched. The riderless horses broke into a mad gallop across the fields, reins trailing, spurred on by loose stirrups. And after the rough jolt that caused surprise and death, they dispersed, disappearing almost instantly, absorbed by the grove. Chapter 9. Beside the Sacred Grotto. Argensola had a new occupation more exciting than marking the location of the armies on the map. ” I am now dedicating myself to following the Taube,” he told his friends. “It arrives between four and five, with the punctuality of a proper person coming for tea. Every afternoon, at the appointed hour, a German airplane flew over Paris, dropping bombs. This intimidation did not produce terror: people accepted the visit as an extraordinary and interesting spectacle. In vain, the aviators dropped German flags over the city with ironic messages reporting the woes of the retreating army and the failures of the Russian offensive. Lies, all lies! In vain, they dropped bombs, destroying attics and killing or wounding old people, women, and children. “Ah, bandits!” The crowd shook their fists at the evil mosquito, barely visible at two thousand meters above sea level, and after this outburst, they followed it with their eyes from street to street or stood still in the squares to watch its movements. One of the most punctual spectators was Argensola. At four o’clock, he was in the Place de la Concorde, head held high and eyes wide open, alongside other people bound to him by cordial comradeships . They were like theatergoers who, by dint of seeing each other, end up becoming friends. “Will he come? Won’t he come today?” The women seemed the most excited. Some appeared flushed and panting from their haste, fearing they had arrived late for the spectacle… A huge cry: “Here it comes!… There it is!” Thousands of hands pointed at a vague point on the horizon. Faces were stretched out with binoculars and telescopes; popular vendors offered all kinds of optical articles… And for an hour the thrilling spectacle of the aerial hunt unfolded , noisy and useless. The insect tried to approach the Eiffel Tower, and booms erupted from its base , while its various platforms spat out the ferocious crackle of machine guns. As it veered over the city, rifle volleys sounded on the rooftops and in the back of the streets. Everyone fired: neighbors who had a weapon in their homes, soldiers on guard, English and Belgian soldiers passing through Paris. They knew their shots were useless, but they fired for the pleasure of harassing the enemy, even if only intentionally, hoping that chance, in one of its whims, would perform a miracle. But the only miracle was that the shooters didn’t kill each other with this hasty and fruitless fire. Even so, some passersby were wounded by bullets of unknown origin. Argensola went from street to street following the flight of the enemy bird, trying to guess where their shells were falling, hoping to be among the first to arrive in front of the bombed house, excited by the volleys that answered from below. Not that he should have a carbine like the English dressed in khaki or those Belgians with their barracks caps and tassels on their foreheads!… Finally, the taube, tired of making evolutions, disappeared. “Until tomorrow,” thought the Spaniard. Tomorrow’s might be more interesting. ” He spent his free hours between geographical observations and aerial contemplations hovering near the stations, especially the Quai d’Orsay, watching the crowds of travelers fleeing Paris. The sudden vision of the truth after the illusions the government had created with its optimistic reports, the certainty that the Germans were close, when a week before many had imagined them in full defeat, the taubes flying over Paris, the mysterious threat of the zeppelins, drove part of the neighborhood mad. The stations, guarded by military personnel, admitted only those who had purchased a ticket in advance. Some waited days for their turn to leave . The most impatient set off on foot, eager to be out of the city as soon as possible. They filled the roads with the crowds advancing along them, all in the same direction. They went south by automobile, by horse-drawn carriage, in gardener’s carts, on foot. Argensola contemplated this escape with serenity. He was one of those who stayed . He had admired many men because they had witnessed the siege of Paris in 1870. Now his good fortune granted him the opportunity to witness a historical drama perhaps even more interesting. What a story he could tell in the future! But he was bothered by the distraction and indifference of his present audience. He returned to his study, satisfied with the news he was bearing, eager to communicate it to Descoyers, and the latter listened as if he couldn’t hear him. The night he informed her that the government, the Chambers of Deputies, the diplomatic corps, and even the artists of the Comédie- Française were leaving at that hour on special trains for Bordeaux, his companion answered with a gesture of indifference. His worries were different. In the morning he had received a letter from Marguerite: two simple lines written in haste. She was leaving: she would leave immediately, accompanying her mother. Goodbye!… And nothing more. Panic made one forget many affections, severed long-standing relationships, but by nature she was superior to these inconsistencies of her anxiety to escape. Jules saw something disturbing in her laconicism. Why didn’t she indicate where she was going?… In the afternoon, he exhibited a boldness she had always forbidden him. He entered the house where Marguerite lived, speaking at length with the concierge to acquire news. The good woman was thus able to give expression to her loquacity, abruptly cut short by the escape of the tenants and their servants. The lady of the main floor, Marguerite’s mother, had been the last to leave the house, even though she had been ill since her son’s departure. They had left the day before, without saying where they were going. All she knew was that they had taken the train at the Orsay station. They were fleeing south, like all rich people. And she expanded her revelations with the vague news that her daughter was deeply impressed by the reports she had received from the war front. Someone in the family was wounded. Perhaps it was her brother, but the concierge didn’t know. With so much news, surprises, and shocks, it was difficult to keep track of things. She also had her man in the army and was preoccupied with her own affairs. “Where is he?” Jules wondered during the day. “Why does he want me to ignore his whereabouts?” When, that evening, her comrade informed her of the rulers’ trip, with all the mystery of news that had not yet been made public, she simply replied, after a reflective silence: ” You’re right… I’ll leave tomorrow anyway, if I can.” Why stay in Paris? His family was absent. According to Argensola’s investigation, his father had also left, without saying where. With Marguerite’s mysterious escape, he was left alone, in a solitude that inspired remorse. That afternoon, while strolling along the boulevards, he had run into an elderly friend, a member of the fencing circle he frequented. He was the first he had met since the beginning of the war, and together they reviewed all the comrades who had joined the army. Desnoyers’ questions were answered by the old man. “So-and-so?” he had been wounded in Lorraine and was in a hospital in the South. “Another friend?” “Died in the Vosges.” “Another?” “Disappeared in Charleroi.” And so the heroic and funereal procession continued. Most were still alive, performing feats of valor. Other members of foreign origin—young Poles, Englishmen living in Paris, Americans from the southern republics— had just signed up as volunteers. The Circle should have been proud of this youth training in arms during peacetime: all of them were at the front risking their lives… And Desnoyers looked away, as if afraid to detect an ironic and questioning expression in his friend’s eyes. Why wasn’t he going, like the others, to defend the land where he lived?… ” Tomorrow I’ll leave,” Julio repeated, darkened by this memory. But he was heading south, like all those fleeing the war. The next morning, Argensola arranged for a train ticket to Bordeaux. The value of the money had increased considerably. Fifty francs, handed in on time, performed the miracle of procuring him a numbered piece of cardboard, the acquisition of which represented, for many, entire days of waiting. ” It’s for today,” he said to his comrade. “You must leave on tonight ‘s train .” The luggage didn’t require any great preparations. The trains refused to admit any packages other than those carried by hand by the travelers. Argensola refused to accept Julius’s generosity, who intended to share all his money with him. Heroes need very little, and the painter of souls felt animated by a heroic resolve. Gallieni’s brief address in taking charge of the defense of Paris was his own. He intended to remain until the last effort, just like the stern general. “Let them come!” he said with a tragic expression. “They’ll find me in my place!” His place was the studio. He wanted to see things up close to relate them to future generations. He would remain steadfast, with his provisions of food and wine. Furthermore, he planned, even after his companion disappeared, to take to live with him certain friends who wandered in search of a difficult meal and were afraid in the solitude of their homes. Danger brings good people closer and adds a new attraction to the pleasures of community. The amorous outpourings of the prisoners of the Terror, as they expected at any moment to be led to the guillotine, revived in his memory. Let us gulp down life, since we must die!… The studio on the Rue de la Pompe was about to witness the same mad and desperate festivities as a ship aground with abundant provisions. Desnoyers left the Orsay station in a first- class compartment. He mentally praised the good order with which the authorities had arranged everything. Each traveler had a seat. But at the Austerlitz station, a human avalanche attacked the train. The doors opened as if they would burst; packages and children entered through the windows like projectiles. People pushed against each other with the rudeness of a crowd fleeing a fire. In the space reserved for eight, fourteen were seated; the aisles were forever clogged with piles of suitcases, which served as seats for new travelers. Social distancing had disappeared. The townspeople preferred to invade the luxury carriages, believing they would find more space there. Those with first-class tickets went in They sought out the worst cars, in the vain hope of traveling comfortably . On the side tracks, long trains of cattle cars waited the day before their departure time. The rolling stables were packed with people sitting on the wooden floor or on chairs brought from their homes. Each train was a camp eager to move, and while it remained motionless, a layer of greasy papers and fruit peels gradually formed along its length. The attackers, as they jostled, tolerated and forgave each other fraternally. “In war as in war,” they would say as a last excuse. And each one squeezed his neighbor to snatch a few inches of seat, in order to insert his meager luggage among the bundles suspended over the people with the most improbable balance. Desnoyers gradually lost his advantage as first occupant. He felt sorry for these poor people who had waited for the train from four in the morning to eight at night. The women moaned with exhaustion, standing in the corridor, looking with fierce envy at those who occupied seats. The children cried with the bleating of hungry goats. Julio finally gave up his place, distributing among the needy and the improvident all the food that Argensola had provided him with. The station restaurants seemed looted. During the long waits for the train, only soldiers were seen on the platforms: soldiers who ran at the sound of the trumpet to return to take their places in the strings of cars that climbed and climbed toward Paris. In the sidings, long war trains waited for the track to be clear to continue their journey. The cuirassiers, wearing yellow vests over their steel chests, sat with their legs dangling in the doors of the stable cars, from whose interiors came neighing. Gray armours lined the platforms. The slender throats of the seventy-five pointed upwards like telescopes. He spent the night in the corridor, sitting on the edge of a suitcase, watching others doze off, brutalized by fatigue and excitement. It was a cruel and interminable night of jolts, crashes, and pauses punctuated by snores. At each station, trumpets sounded hastily, as if the enemy were near. Soldiers from the South rushed to their posts, and a new stream of men crawled along the rails toward Paris. They seemed cheerful and eager to arrive quickly at the places of slaughter. Many complained, believing they were late. Julio, leaning out of a window, listened to the conversations and shouts on these platforms, permeated with the pungent smell of men and mules. Everyone displayed unshakeable confidence. “The Boches!… Very numerous, with large cannons, with many machine guns… but all they had to do was charge with bayonets and they fled like hares.” The faith of those who were about to meet their death contrasted with the panic and doubt of those fleeing Paris. A decorated old gentleman, a type of retired civil servant, asked Desnoyers questions as the train resumed its journey. “Do you think they’ll reach Tours?” Before receiving an answer, he dozed off. The stupefying sleep advanced along the corridor with its leaden feet. Then, the old man suddenly woke up. “Do you think they’ll reach Bordeaux?” And his desire not to stop until he and his family reached an absolutely safe refuge made him welcome the vague answers like oracles. At dawn, they saw the country’s territorial officers guarding the tracks. They were armed with old rifles; they wore a red kepi as their only military insignia. The military trains continued to pass in the opposite direction. At the Bordeaux station, the civilian crowd, struggling to leave or seize new cars, mingled with the troops. Trumpets sounded incessantly to rally the soldiers. Many were black men, indigenous riflemen with loose gray breeches and a red cap over their black or tanned faces. The march continued north. The iron roll of the armed masses. Desnoyers saw a train of wounded from the battles in Flanders and Lorraine. Their fatigued, grimy uniforms were refreshed by the whiteness of the bandages that held their aching limbs or protected their broken heads. Everyone seemed to smile with their livid mouths and feverish eyes at the first lands of the South that peeped through the morning mist, crowned with sunshine, covered in the royal robes of their vine shoots. The men of the North stretched out their hands for the fruit offered to them by the women, pecking with delight at the sweet grapes of the country. He spent four days in Bordeaux, stunned and disoriented by the turmoil of a provincial city suddenly transformed into a capital. The hotels were full; many notables were content with a room as a servant. The cafés didn’t have a single chair free; the sidewalks seemed to repel this extraordinary gathering. The head of state was installed in the Prefecture; the ministries were established in schools and museums; two theaters were set up for future meetings of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies. Jules found a sordid and ambiguous hotel at the end of an alley constantly dampened by passersby. A cupid adorned the glass of the door. In his room, the mirror was engraved with women’s names, untranscribable phrases, as a reminder of his one-hour stays… And still, some Parisian ladies, busy looking for lodging, envied his fortune. His inquiries proved useless. The friends he found among the fleeing crowd thought of their own fate. They only knew how to speak of the incidents surrounding his installation; they repeated the news they had heard from the ministers, with whom they lived familiarly; they mentioned with a mysterious air the great battle that had begun to develop from the outskirts of Paris to Verdun. A disciple from his heyday, who retained the old elegance of her nurse’s uniform, gave him vague information. “Little Madame Laurier?… He remembered hearing from someone who lived nearby… Maybe in Biarritz.” Julio needed no more to resume his journey. To Biarritz! The first person he met upon arriving was Chichí. She declared the town uninhabitable because of the wealthy Spanish families who spent their summers there: “They’re mostly boches. I spend my life fighting. I’ll end up living alone.” Then he found his mother: hugs and tears. Afterward, he saw his aunt Elena in a hotel lounge, enthusiastic about the country and its vacationers. She could have spoken at length with many of them about the decline of France. All of them were waiting at any moment for news of the Kaiser’s entry into the capital. Serious men who had done nothing their entire lives were criticizing the Republic’s defects and oversights. Young men whose distinction excited Doña Elena burst into apostrophes against the corruptions of Paris, corruptions they had studied in depth, staying up until sunrise in the virtuous schools of Montmartre. They all adored Germany, a place they had never been or which they knew like a succession of cinematic images. They applied the events with the criteria of a bullring. The Germans were the ones who hit the hardest. “You don’t trifle with them: they’re very brutal.” And they seemed to admire brutality as the most respectable of merits. “Why don’t they say that in their own house, on the other side of the border?” Chichí protested. “Why do they come to the neighbor’s house to mock their worries? And perhaps they think they are well-bred people!” Julio had not gone to Biarritz to live with his family… On the very day of his arrival, he saw Margarita’s mother from afar. She was alone. His inquiries told him that the daughter lived in Pau. She was a nurse , caring for a wounded member of her family. “The brother… undoubtedly, it’s the brother,” Julio thought. And he resumed his journey, heading for Pau. His visits to the hospitals proved useless. No one knew Margarita. Every day the train arrived with a new shipment of His flesh was mangled, but his brother was not among the wounded. A nun, believing he was looking for a relative, took pity on him and gave him directions. He had to go to Lourdes: there were many wounded there, as well as lay nurses. And Desnoyers immediately made the short journey between Pau and Lourdes. He had never visited the holy town whose name his mother frequently repeated. For Doña Luisa, the French nation was Lourdes. In discussions with her sister and other foreign ladies who called for the extermination of France for its impiety, the good lady always summed up her opinion with the same words: “When the Virgin wished to appear in our time, she chose France. This country will not be as bad as they say… When I see her appear in Berlin, we will talk again.” But Desnoyers was not in a position to remember his mother’s naive opinions . He had barely settled into his hotel by the river when he rushed to the large inn converted into a hospital. The guards told him he wouldn’t be able to speak to the director until afternoon. To pacify his impatience, he strolled down the street leading to the basilica, lined with barracks and shops displaying religious prints and souvenirs, making it a sprawling bazaar. Here and in the gardens adjacent to the church, he saw only convalescing wounded, their uniforms bearing the marks of combat. Their greatcoats were dirty despite repeated brushing. Mud, blood, and rain had left indelible stains, giving them a cardboard-like stiffness. Some of the wounded tore off their sleeves to avoid harsh rubbing on their shattered arms . Others still bore the tears of shell casings on their trousers . They were combatants of all kinds and of diverse races: infantry, cavalry, artillerymen; soldiers from the mother country and the colonies; French peasants and African riflemen; blond heads, pale Mohammedan faces, and black Senegalese faces, with fiery eyes and blue lips, some displaying the good-natured air and sedentary obesity of a bourgeois suddenly transformed into a warrior; others, gaunt, nervous, with aggressive profiles, like men born to fight and trained in exotic campaigns. The city, visited by those sick with Catholicism, driven by hope, was now invaded by a crowd no less sorrowful, but dressed in carnival colors. All, despite their physical discouragement, had a certain air of ease and satisfaction. They had seen death up close, slipping through its bony clutches, and they found a new taste in the joy of living. With their overcoats adorned with decorations, their theatrical alquiceles, their kepis, and their African caps, this heroic crowd nevertheless presented a pitiful appearance. Very few of them retained the noble uprightness, the pride of human superiority. They advanced hunched, limping, dragging themselves, leaning on a club or a friendly arm. Others allowed themselves to be pushed, lying on the trolleys that had often been used to convey pious sick people from the station to the Virgin’s grotto. Some walked blindly, blindfolded, alongside a child or a nurse. The first clashes in Belgium and the East, half a dozen battles, had been enough to produce these physical ruins, in which manly beauty appeared amidst the most horrible insults… These organisms that tenaciously persisted in surviving, strolling their reborn energies in the sun, represented only a tiny part of the great harvest of death. Behind them remained thousands upon thousands of comrades groaning in their hospital beds, perhaps never to rise. Thousands upon thousands were hidden forever in the bowels of an earth soaked by its agonizing slime, a fatal earth that, when hit by a hail of missiles, threw back thickets of crosses like a harvest. The war revealed itself to Desnoyers in all its cruel ugliness. He had spoken of it until then as we speak of death in the midst of war. health, knowing that it exists and that it is horrible, but seeing it so far away… so far away! that it inspires no true emotion. The explosions of the shells accompanied their destructive brutality with a ferocious mockery, grotesquely disfiguring the human body. He saw wounded men who were beginning to regain their vital force and were only sketches of men, hideous caricatures, human rags saved from the grave by the audacity of science: trunks with heads dragging along the ground on a base of wheels, incomplete skulls whose brains throbbed beneath an artificial covering, beings without arms or legs resting at the back of a small cart like sculptural sketches or dissection pieces, noseless faces that showed, like the skulls, the black cavity of their nostrils. And these half-men talked, smoked, laughed, content to see the sky, to feel the sun’s caress, to have returned to existence, animated by the sovereign will to live, which confidently forgets present misery in the hope of something better. Such was his impression that he forgot for a time the reason that had brought him there… If only those who provoke war from diplomatic offices or the tables of a General Staff could contemplate it, not on the battlefield, with the enthusiasm that disturbs the senses, but in cold, as seen in hospitals and cemeteries by the remains it leaves in its wake!… The young man saw in his imagination the globe as an enormous ship sailing through the immensity. Its crew, the poor humans, had spent centuries and centuries exterminating each other on the deck. They didn’t even know what existed beneath their feet, in the depths of the ship. To occupy the largest surface area in the sunlight was the desire of each group. Men considered superior drove these masses to extermination, to scale the top deck and take hold of the helm, setting the ship on a determined course. And all those who felt these ambitions for absolute command knew the same thing… nothing! None of them could say with certainty what lay beyond the visible horizon, nor where the ship was heading. The dull hostility of mystery surrounded them all; their life was fragile, requiring incessant care to sustain it; and despite this, the crew, for centuries upon centuries, had not had a moment of agreement, of common action, of clear reasoning. Periodically, one half of it clashed with the other half; they killed each other, slaving away on the shifting deck, floating above the abyss; they struggled to throw each other off the ship; the ship’s wake was littered with corpses. And from the completely demented crowd, gloomy sophists still emerged to declare that this was the perfect state, that everyone should remain so forever, and that it was a wicked dream to wish that the crew members would regard each other as brothers following a common destiny and see around them the snares of an aggressive mystery… Ah, human misery! Julio felt alienated from his reflections by the childish joy displayed by some of the convalescents. They were Muslims, riflemen from Algeria and Morocco. They were in Lourdes as they could be anywhere else, attentive only to the gifts of the civilians, who followed them with patriotic tenderness. All of them gazed with indifference at the basilica inhabited by the “white lady.” Their only concern was asking for cigars and sweets. Seeing themselves entertained by the dominant race of their countries, they grew proud, daring to do anything, like unruly children. Their greatest pleasure was when the ladies shook their hands. Blessed war that allowed them to approach and touch these white, perfumed, smiling women, just as the paradisiacal females reserved for the blessed appear in dreams! “Madame… Madame,” they sighed, their inky pupils filling with flames at the same time. And not content with their hands, their dark claws ventured along the arm, while the ladies laughed at this tremulous adoration. Others advanced through the crowd, offering their right hands to all the women. “Let’s shake hands.” And they walked away, satisfied after receiving the handshake. Desnoyers wandered for a long time around the basilica’s outskirts. Under the shelter of the trees, rows of wheelbarrows filled with the wounded were formed. Officers and soldiers remained for long hours in the blue shade, watching other comrades who could use their legs pass by. The holy grotto shone with the flickering of hundreds of candles. The devout crowd, kneeling in the open air, fixed their supplicating eyes on the sacred stones, while their thoughts flew far away to the battlefields, with the trust in divinity that accompanies all anxiety. From the kneeling mass emerged soldiers with bandages on their heads, kepis in one hand, and tears streaming from their eyes. Women dressed in white were ascending and descending the basilica’s double staircase , their headdresses shimmering, giving them the appearance of fluttering doves from a distance. They were nurses, Ladies of Charity guiding the wounded. Desnoyers thought he recognized Marguerite in each one of them. But the disillusionment that followed such discoveries made him doubt the success of his trip. He wasn’t in Lourdes either. He would never find her in this France, swollen beyond measure by the war, which had turned every town into a hospital. In the afternoon, his inquiries met with no better success. The staff listened to his questions with a distracted air: he could return later. They were preoccupied with the announcement of a new medical train. The great battle near Paris was continuing. They had to improvise accommodations for the new shipment of mangled meat. Desnoyers returned to the gardens near the grotto. His walk was meant to pass the time. He planned to return to Pau that night: there was nothing left for him to do in Lourdes. Where would he next direct his investigations? He suddenly felt a shudder down his spine: the same indefinable sensation that had warned him of her presence when they had met in a Parisian garden. Marguerite was going to appear suddenly, as on other occasions, without his knowing for sure where she came from, as if she were emerging from the earth or descending from the clouds. After thinking this, he smiled bitterly. Lies of desire! Illusions! Turning his head, he recognized the falsity of his hope. No one was following his steps: he was the only one marching down the center of the avenue. On a nearby bench, a blindfolded officer was resting. Beside him, in the diaphanous whiteness of guardian angels , was a nurse. Poor blind man! Desnoyers was going to continue onward; But a quick movement by the woman dressed in white, a visible desire to go unnoticed, to hide her face by turning her eyes toward the plants, caught his attention. He was slow to recognize her. Two curls peeking out at the edge of her headdress gave him a glimpse of her hidden hair; her white-shod feet were clues to reconstruct the body somewhat disfigured by a uniform lacking in coquettishness. Her face was pale and grave. Nothing remained of her former makeup, which gave her a childish, doll-like beauty. Her eyes seemed to reflect the present with new forms against the backdrop of dark halos of fatigue… Margarita! They stared at each other for a long time, as if hypnotized by surprise. She showed concern when she saw Desnoyers take a step forward. No… no. Her eyes, her hands, her whole body seemed to protest, to repel his advance, to fix him in immobility. The fear of his approach made her march toward him. He said a few words to the soldier, who remained on the bench, catching the bandage on his face from a ray of sunlight he seemed not to feel. Then he stood up, went to meet Julio, and continued on, indicating with a gesture that he should stand further away, where the wounded man could not hear them. He stopped on a side path. From there he could see the blind man entrusted to his care. They remained motionless, facing each other. Desnoyers wanted to say many things—many!—but he hesitated, not knowing how. to clothe their complaints, their pleas, their flattery in words. Above this avalanche of thoughts, one emerged, fatal, dominant, and angry. “Who is that man?” The spiteful accent, the harsh voice with which he spoke these words surprised him, as if they came from another mouth. The nurse looked at him with her clear, enlarged, serene eyes, eyes that seemed forever free from the contractions of surprise and fear. The answer slipped by with the same clarity as the look. “It’s Laurier… It’s my husband. Laurier!” Julio’s eyes examined the soldier with long doubt before being convinced. “Laurier, this blind officer who remained motionless on the bench like a symbol of heroic pain!” He looked aged, with a tanned, bronze-colored complexion crisscrossed by cracks that converged like rays around every opening in his face. The hair was beginning to whiten at his temples and on the beard that now covered his cheeks. He had lived twenty years in a month… At the same time, he seemed younger, with a youthfulness that radiated vigorously from within him, with the strength of a soul that has suffered the most violent emotions and can no longer know fear, with the firm and serene satisfaction of a duty fulfilled. Contemplating him, he felt both admiration and jealousy. He was ashamed to realize the aversion he felt for this man in his throes of misfortune, who could not see what was around him. His hatred was cowardly; but he persisted in it, as if another soul had awakened within him , a second personality that filled him with terror. How he remembered Margaret’s eyes as she turned away from the wounded man for a few moments!… She had never looked at him like that before. He knew all the loving gradations of her eyelids, but her gaze on the wounded man was something different, something he had never seen before. She spoke with the fury of a lover who discovers an infidelity. “And that’s why you left without warning, without a word!… You abandoned me to come looking for him… Tell me, why have you come? Why have you come?” She was unfazed by his angry tone and his hostile glances. ” I came because my duty lay here.” Then she spoke like a mother who takes advantage of a moment of surprise in an irascible child to counsel him to caution. She explained her actions. She had received the news of Laurier’s wound as she and her mother were preparing to leave Paris. She didn’t hesitate for a moment: her duty was to rush to this man’s side. She had reflected a great deal in recent weeks. The war had made her meditate on the value of life. Her eyes beheld new horizons; our destiny is not in pleasure and selfish satisfactions: we owe it to pain and sacrifice. She longed to work for her country, to bear a share of the common sorrow, to serve like other women; And being willing to give all her care to strangers, wasn’t it natural that she would prefer this man whom she had caused so much harm?… She still remembered the moment when she saw him arrive at the station, completely alone, among so many who had the consolation of loving arms as they departed in search of death. Her pity had been even more intense when she learned of his misfortune. A shell had exploded beside him, killing those around him. Of his various wounds, the only serious one was the one on his face. He had lost one eye completely; the other the doctors were keeping blind , hoping to save it. But she hesitated; it was almost certain that Laurier would go blind. Marguerite’s voice trembled as she said this, as if she were about to cry; but her eyes remained dry. They didn’t feel the irresistible need for tears. Weeping was now superfluous, like many other things in times of peace. Her eyes had seen so much in just a few days!… How you love him! exclaimed Julio. She had addressed him formally until this moment, for fear of being overheard and to keep him at a distance, as if she were speaking to a friend. But the Her lover’s sadness ended her coldness. “No; I love you… I will always love you.” The simplicity with which she said this and her sudden use of the familiar form instilled confidence in Desnoyers. “And the other one?” he asked anxiously. Hearing her reply, he thought something had just happened before the sun, momentarily veiling its light. It was like a cloud gliding over the earth and over his thoughts, spreading a sensation of cold. ” I love him too.” She said this, looking at him as if imploring his forgiveness, with the painful sincerity of a soul that has quarreled with lies and weeps when it realizes the harm it causes. He felt his hardened anger crumble suddenly, like a mountain that cracks. “Ah, Marguerite!” His voice sounded tremulous and humble. Could everything between them end with this simplicity? Were their ancient oaths perhaps lies? They had sought each other with irresistible affinity, to become one, to become one… and now, suddenly hardened by indifference, were they about to clash like two hostile bodies repelling each other? What did this absurdity of loving him as always and loving her former husband at the same time mean? Marguerite lowered her head, murmuring in despair: You are a man, I am a woman. You will not understand me no matter how much I talk. Men cannot grasp certain mysteries of ours… A woman would understand me better. Desnoyers wanted to know her misfortune in all its cruelty. She could speak without fear. She felt strong enough to bear the blows… What was Laurier saying when he saw himself cared for and caressed by Marguerite? He does not know who I am… He believes me to be a nurse like the others, who takes pity on him, seeing him alone and blind, without relatives to write to him and visit him… At certain moments I have come to suspect whether he guessed the truth. My voice, the touch of my hands, at first made him bristle with a look of surprise. I told him I was a Belgian lady who had lost her loved ones and was alone in the world. He told me about his past life lightly, like someone who wanted to forget a hateful past… Not a word bothered his ex-wife. There are nights when I suspect he knows me, that he’s using his blindness to prolong his feigned ignorance, and this torments me… I wish he would regain his sight, that the doctors would save one of his eyes, and at the same time I feel afraid. What will he say when he recognizes me? But no: it’s better that he see, whatever happens, come what may. You can’t understand these worries; you don’t know what I suffer. He paused for a moment to refocus, appreciating once more the restlessness of his soul. “Oh, the war!” he continued. “What changes in our lives!” Two months ago, my situation would have seemed extraordinary, implausible… I was looking after my husband, fearing that he would discover me and leave me, and at the same time wanting him to recognize me and forgive me… I’ve only been living with him for a week. I distort my voice as much as I can, avoiding phrases that reveal who I am… But this can’t go on. Only in novels are these situations acceptable. Doubt suddenly clouded her resolve. “I believe,” she continued, “that he recognized me from the first moment… He remains silent and feigns ignorance because he despises me… because he will never forgive me. I’ve been so wicked!… I’ve hurt him so much!” She remembered the wounded man’s long, thoughtful silences after a few imprudent words. Two days after receiving her care, he had had a rebellious impulse, avoiding going out for walks with her. But, lacking his sight, understanding the futility of his resistance, he had finally surrendered with silent passivity. “Let him think what he will,” Margarita concluded cheerfully, “let him despise me. I am here; where I belong. I need his forgiveness; and if he doesn’t forgive me, I’ll still stay by his side… There are times when I wish he’d never regain his sight. Then he’d need me forever; I could spend my whole life by his side sacrificing myself for him… And me?” said Desnoyers. Margarita looked at him with astonished eyes, as if she were awakening. It was true; and the other one?… Inflamed by his sacrifice, which represented an atonement, she had forgotten the man before her. “You!” she said after a long pause; “you must leave me…” Life is not as we had conceived it. Without the war, perhaps we would have realized our dreams, but now!… Consider carefully. I carry for the rest of my existence a very heavy and at the same time sweet burden, because the more it weighs me down, the more pleasant it seems. I will never separate myself from this man whom I have offended so much, who sees himself alone in the world and needs protection like a child. Why should you share my fate? How can I live in love with an eternal nurse, alongside a good and blind man, whom we would continually outrage with our passion?… No; it is better for you to go away. Go your way alone and unencumbered. Leave me: you will find other women who will make you happier than I. You are one of those destined to find new happiness at every step. She insisted on her praise. Her voice was calm, but deep within it trembled the emotion of the final farewell to the joy that is forever gone . The man she loved belonged to others; and she herself was giving him away! But the noble sadness of the sacrifice instilled serenity in her. It was one more renunciation to atone for her sins. Julio lowered his eyes, perplexed and defeated. He was terrified by the image of the future outlined by Margarita. Living next door to the nurse, taking advantage of the blind man’s ignorance to inflict a new insult on him every day with his love affairs—ah, no! It was a villainy. She remembered now with shame the malignity with which she had looked shortly before at this unfortunate but good man. She realized she lacked the strength to fight him. Weak and powerless on that garden bench, he was more magnificent and respectable than Jules Desnoyers with all his youth and his gallantry. He had served a purpose in his life; he had done what he dared not do. This conviction of his inferiority made him groan like an abandoned child: “What will become of me?” Marguerite, considering the love that was going away forever, the hopes vanished, the future illuminated by the satisfaction of a duty fulfilled, but monotonous and painful, murmured equally: “And me? What will become of me!” Desnoyers seemed to revive, as if he had suddenly found a solution. “Listen, Marguerite: I read your soul. You love that man, and you are right. He is superior to me, and women are attracted by all superiority… I am a coward. Yes, don’t protest; I am a coward, with all my youth, with all my strength.” How could you not be impressed by that man’s conduct? But I will recover what was lost… This country is yours, Margarita; I will fight for it. Don’t say no… And fired by his sudden enthusiasm, he was drawing up a plan of heroism. He was going to become a soldier. She would soon hear about him. His purpose was to be left lying in the field at the first encounter or to astonish the world with his exploits. One way or another, he would resolve his shameful situation: the oblivion of death or glory. “No!” she exclaimed, interrupting him in anguish. “Not you. There’s enough with the other one… How horrible! You too, wounded, mutilated forever , perhaps dead… No; live. I prefer that you live, even if you belong to someone else. That I may know that you exist, that I may see you sometimes even if you have forgotten me, even if you pass by indifferently as if you didn’t know me.” In her protest, she cried out with ardent love, thoughtless and heroic love, which accepts all suffering in exchange for the continued existence of her beloved. But then, so that Jules wouldn’t feel the deception of a false hope, she added: “Live; you mustn’t die; it would be a new torment for me… But live without me. Forget me. All our talk is useless: my destiny is forever sealed at the side of the other.” Desnoyers once again gave way to despondency, sensing the ineffectiveness of pleas and protests. “Ah, how you love him! How you deceived me!” She, as a supreme explanation, repeated what she had said at the beginning of the interview. She loved Julio… and she loved her husband. They were different loves. She didn’t want to say which was the more ardent, but misfortune compelled her to choose between the two, and she accepted the more painful one, the one that required the greatest sacrifices. You are a man and you will never be able to understand me… A woman would understand me. Julio, looking around him, believed that the afternoon had suffered the effects of a celestial phenomenon. The garden was still illuminated by the sun, but the green of the trees, the yellow of the ground, the blue of space, the white foam of the river, everything seemed dark and diffuse, as if a shower of ashes were falling. So… is everything over between us? His trembling, pleading voice, laden with tears, made her turn her head to hide her emotion. Then, in the painful silence, the two despairing women posed the same question, as if interrogating the shadows of the future. “What will become of me?” the man murmured. And like an echo, her lips repeated: “What will become of me?” Everything had been said. Irreparable words rose between them like an obstacle that would widen by the moment, propelling them in opposite directions. Why prolong the painful interview?… Marguerite displayed the prompt and energetic resolution of any woman when she wishes to cut short a scene: “Goodbye!” Her face had taken on a yellowish pallor, her pupils were dull and smoky, like the lenses of a lantern whose light has gone out. “Goodbye!” She had to return to the side of her wounded man. She left without looking at him, and Desnoyers, instinctively, walked in the opposite direction. When, calming down, she tried to retrace her steps, she saw her walking away, arm in arm with the blind man, without turning her head once. She was convinced that he would never see her again, and a choking anguish constricted her throat. And with such ease could two beings who days before had contemplated the universe embodied in their persons be eternally separated? His despair at being left alone made him accuse himself of clumsiness. Now his thoughts came flooding back, and each one seemed enough to convince Marguerite. Undoubtedly, he hadn’t been able to express himself: he needed to speak to her again… And he decided to stay in Lourdes. He spent a tortured night in the hotel, listening to the river’s murmuring among the stones. Insomnia held him in its ferocious jaws, gnawing at him with endless torment. He turned on the light several times, but he couldn’t read. His eyes stared with stupid fixity at the patterns on the wallpaper, at the pious prints in this room that had served as a hostel for wealthy pilgrims. He remained motionless and abstracted, like the Orientals who reflect on their absolute lack of thoughts. A single thought danced in the emptiness of his skull: “And I won’t see her again… is this possible?” He dozed for a few moments, only to awaken with the sensation of a horrific explosion that sent him flying. And he remained awake, sweating with anguish, until a square of milky light began to stand out in the shadows of the room. Dawn was beginning to reflect on the window curtains. The velvety caress of the day finally allowed him to close his eyes. Upon awakening, well into the morning, he ran to the grotto gardens… Those hours of trembling and futile waiting, believing he would recognize Margarita in every white lady who advanced leading a wounded man! In the afternoon, after a luncheon whose plates were left untouched, he returned to the garden in search of her. When he recognized her clasping her arm in the blind officer’s, he experienced a feeling of dismay. She seemed taller, thinner, with a sharp face, two hollow shadows on her cheeks, her eyes shining with fever, her eyelids drooping with fatigue. He foresaw a night of torment, of few and tenacious thoughts , of painful stupefaction equal to his own in the hotel room. He suddenly felt the full weight of insomnia and loss of appetite, all the depressing emotion of the cruel sensations he had experienced in recent hours. How wretched they both were!… She advanced cautiously, looking from side to side, like someone who senses danger. Upon discovering him, she pressed herself against the blind man, casting a pleading, desperate look at her former lover, imploring mercy… Ah, that look! He felt ashamed; his personality seemed to have split into two: he contemplated himself with the eyes of a judge. What was the man called Jules Desnoyers doing there, a seductive and useless man, tormenting a poor woman with his presence, trying to divert her from her noble repentance, insisting on his selfish and petty desires, when all humanity was thinking of other things?… Her cowardice irritated him. Like a thief who preys on his victim’s sleep, he prowled around a good and courageous man who couldn’t see him, couldn’t defend himself, in order to steal the only affection he had in the world, which miraculously returned to him. “Very well, Monsieur Desnoyers! Ah, scoundrel!” These outward insults made him rise, haughty, cruel, inexorable, against that other self worthy of his contempt. He tilted his head: he didn’t want to meet Marguerite’s pleading eyes; he was afraid of her silent reproach. Nor did he dare look at the blind man, with his shaved and heroic uniform, with his face aged by duty and glory. He feared him as if he were afraid of remorse. He turned his back on the group: he walked away. “Farewell, love! Farewell, happiness!” He walked now with a firm step; a miracle had just happened within him: he had found his way. To Paris!… A new hope was about to fill the immense emptiness of his aimless existence. Chapter 10. The Invasion. Don Marcelo was fleeing to take refuge in his castle when he encountered the mayor of Villeblanche. The roar of the volley had made him run toward the barricade. Upon hearing of the appearance of the group of stragglers, he raised his arms in despair. They were mad. Their resistance was going to be fatal to the people. And he continued running to beg them to desist. A long time passed without the calm of the morning being disturbed. Desnoyers had climbed to the top of one of the towers and was scanning the countryside with his binoculars. He couldn’t make out the road; he could only see the nearby clumps of trees. With his imagination, he divined a hidden activity beneath these branches: masses of men halting , troops preparing for the attack. The unexpected defense of the fugitives had disrupted the progress of the invasion. Desnoyers thought about this handful of madmen and their stubborn leader: what would be their fate?… As he focused his binoculars on the outskirts of the village, he saw the red stains of their kepis drifting like poppies across the green of the meadows. It was they who were retreating, convinced of the futility of their resistance. Perhaps they had been shown a ford or a forgotten boat to cross the Marne, and they were continuing their retreat toward the river. At any moment, the Germans were about to enter Villeblanche. Half an hour of profound silence passed. Against a backdrop of hills, the village outlined its mass of roofs and the church tower topped by a cross and an iron rooster. Everything seemed tranquil, as in the best days of peace. Suddenly, he saw the forest vomit something loud and subtle in the distance, a bubble of steam accompanied by a dull explosion. Something also passed through the air with a strident curve. Then , a village roof opened like a crater, sending timbers, fragments of walls, and broken furniture flying out. The entire interior of the house escaped in a gush of smoke, dust, and splinters. The invaders bombarded Villeblanche before attempting an attack, as if fearing a fierce resistance in its streets. More shells rained down. Some, passing over the houses, exploded between the village and the castle. The turrets of the Desnoyers estate began to attract the artillery’s aim. He was considering the opportunity to abandon his dangerous observatory when he saw something white, resembling a tablecloth or a sheet, floating in the church tower. The neighbors had raised this sign of peace to avoid the bombardment. A few more shells fell; then silence fell. Don Marcelo was now in his park, watching the caretaker bury the hunting weapons that were in the castle at the foot of a tree. Then he headed toward the gate. The enemies were about to arrive, and they had to be received. In this uneasy wait, regret returned to torment him. What was he doing there? Why had he stayed? But his tenacious nature immediately dismissed the doubts of fear. He was there because he had a duty to guard his property. Besides, it was too late to think about such things. It suddenly seemed to him that the morning silence was cut by a dull tear of stiff cloth. “Shots, sir,” said the caretaker. “A volley. It must be in the square.” Minutes later, they saw a woman from the village arrive, an old woman with gaunt, blackish limbs, panting from the force of her running, casting wild glances around. She fled, not knowing where to go, out of the need to escape danger, to escape horrible visions. Desnoyers and the doormen listened to her explanation, interrupted by sniffles of terror. The Germans were in Villeblanche. First, a car had entered at full speed, passing from one end of the village to the other. Its machine gun fired at random at the closed houses and open doors, knocking down people who had peered out. The old woman opened her arms in a gesture of terror… Dead… many dead… wounded… blood. Then, other armored vehicles had stopped in the square, and behind them, groups of horsemen, battalions on foot, numerous battalions, arriving from all directions. The helmeted men seemed furious: they accused the inhabitants of having fired on them. In the square, the mayor and several neighbors who were coming out to meet him had been beaten. The priest, bent over some dying people, had also been run over… All prisoners. The Germans were about to shoot them. The old woman’s words were cut short by the sound of approaching cars. ” Open the gate,” the owner ordered the caretaker. The gate remained open, never to be closed again. The right of ownership had ended. A huge car, covered in dust and packed with men, pulled up at the entrance . Behind them, the horns of other vehicles sounded, signaling each other by screeching to a halt. Desnoyers saw soldiers jumping out, all dressed in greenish-gray, with a holster of the same shade covering their pointed helmets. One of them, who was marching in front, placed his revolver to his forehead. “Where are the snipers?” he asked. He was pale, with a pallor of anger, revenge, and fear. His cheeks trembled with the triple emotion. Don Marcelo explained himself slowly, contemplating the black circle of the threatening tube at close range. He had seen no snipers. The castle’s only inhabitants were the caretaker and his family, and he, the owner. The officer looked at the building and then examined Desnoyers with visible surprise, as if he found him too humble to be its owner. He had believed him to be a simple employee, and his respect for social hierarchies made him lower his revolver. This did not stop him from his imperious gestures. He pushed Don Marcelo to serve as his guide; he made him march ahead of him, while behind them were grouped some forty soldiers. They advanced in two files, under the cover of the trees that lined the central avenue, their rifles ready to fire, looking anxiously at the castle windows, as if expecting to receive a volley from them. Desnoyers marched calmly through the center, and the officer, who had imitated the The cautious attitude of his men finally joined him as he crossed the drawbridge. The armed men scattered through the rooms in search of enemies. They thrust their bayonets under beds and couches. Others, with destructive automatism, pierced the curtains and the rich bedclothes . The owner protested: “Why all this useless destruction?” He felt unbearable torture at the sight of enormous boots staining the carpets with mud, at the sound of rifle butts and knapsacks hitting the fragile furniture, from which objects fell. “Poor historic mansion!” The officer looked at him strangely, astonished that he should protest for such futile reasons. But he gave an order in German, and his men ceased their rude explorations. Then, as if to justify this extraordinary respect, he added in French: ” I believe you will have the honor of hosting the general of our army corps. ” The certainty that no enemies were hidden in the castle made him more amiable. Nevertheless, he persisted in his anger at the snipers. A group of townspeople had fired on the Hülans as they advanced carelessly after the French retreat. Desnoyers felt a protest was necessary. They were neither townspeople nor snipers: they were French soldiers. He was careful to conceal their presence at the barricade, but claimed to have seen their uniforms from a tower of his castle. The officer made an aggressive gesture. “You too? You, who seem a reasonable man, repeat such nonsense?” And to cut short the discussion, he said arrogantly: ” They were in uniform, if you insist on saying so, but they were snipers. The French government has distributed weapons and uniforms to the peasants so they can kill us. The Belgian government did the same… But we know their tricks and we will know how to punish them. The village was going to be burned. They had to avenge the four German corpses lying on the outskirts of Villeblanche, near the barricade.” The mayor, the priest, the principal residents, all shot. They were visiting the top floor at that moment. Desnoyers saw a dark mist float above the foliage of his park, its outlines reddened by the sun. The top of the bell tower was the only part of the town that could be distinguished from there. Around the iron rooster, thin rags swirled, like black cobwebs blown by the wind. A smell of old, burning wood reached the castle. The German greeted this spectacle with a cruel smile. Then, as he descended into the park, he ordered Desnoyers to follow him. His freedom and his dignity were over. From now on, he would be a thing under the control of these men, who could dispose of him at will. Alas, why had he stayed? He obeyed, getting into a car next to the officer, who still held the revolver in his right hand. His men scattered throughout the castle and its outbuildings to prevent the escape of an imaginary enemy. The caretaker and his family seemed to say goodbye with their eyes. Perhaps they were leading him to his death… Beyond the castle groves, a new world began to emerge. The short journey to Villeblanche represented for him a leap of millions of leagues, a fall onto a red planet, where men and things bore the patina of smoke and the glow of fire. He saw the town under a dark canopy speckled with sparks and glowing embers. The bell tower burned like an enormous candelabra; the church roof exploded, releasing jets of flame. A burning stench spread through the air. The glow of the fire seemed to shrink and pale before the impassive light of the sun. They ran across the fields with the speed of desperation, women and children screaming. The animals had escaped from the stables, driven by the flames, to begin a mad race. The cow and the workhorse had the rope hanging from their necks, broken by the pull of fear. Their flanks smoked and smelled of hair. burned. Pigs, sheep, and chickens were running around likewise, mingling with cats and dogs. All domestic animals were returning to their wild existence, fleeing from civilized man. Shots and brutal laughter rang out. The soldiers, on the outskirts of the village, gleefully insisted on this hunt for fugitives. Their rifles were aimed at the beasts and wounded the people. Desnoyers saw men, many men, men everywhere. They were like gray anthills marching and marching south, emerging from the woods, filling the roads, crossing the fields. The green of the vegetation dissolved beneath their steps; fences were broken; dust rose in spirals behind the dull roll of cannons and the rhythmic trot of thousands of horses. Several battalions had halted at the sides of the road, accompanied by vehicles and draft animals. They rested before resuming their march. He knew this army. He had seen it during the parades in Berlin, and it too seemed changed, like the previous day. Very little remained of the somber, imposing brilliance, of the silent, boastful stiffness that had made his brothers-in-law weep with admiration. The war, with its realities, had erased all the theatricality from the formidable organism of death. The soldiers looked dirty and tired. A breath of white, bacon-like, sweaty flesh, mixed with the stench of leather, wafted over the regiments. All the men had hungry faces. They had been walking for days and days incessantly in the footsteps of an enemy who always managed to escape. In this forced advance, the provisions from the Quartermaster’s Office arrived late at the quarters. They could only count on what they kept in their backpacks. Desnoyers saw them lined up along the road, devouring chunks of black bread and moldy sausages. Some scattered across the fields to dig up beets and other root vegetables, chewing their hard flesh amid the crunch of grains of earth. A second lieutenant shook the fruit trees, using his regimental flag as a perch. The glorious ensign, adorned with mementos from 1870, served as a perch for still-green plums. Those sitting on the ground took advantage of this respite by extracting their swollen, sweaty feet from their high boots, which emitted an unbearable steam. The infantry regiments that Desnoyers had seen in Berlin reflecting the light on metal and harness, the luxurious and terrifying hussars, the cuirassiers in white uniforms resembling the paladins of the Holy Grail, the artillerymen with their chests trimmed with white sashes, all the soldiers who had drawn sighs of admiration from the Hartrotts on parade , now appeared unified and confused by the monotony of color, all in mustard green, like powdered lizards crawling to blend in with the ground. The persistence of iron discipline was evident. A harsh word from the commanders, a blast from the whistle, and everyone would gather together, each person disappearing into the thick mass of automatons. But danger, fatigue, the certainty of triumph had momentarily brought soldiers and officers closer together, erasing caste differences. The leaders emerged somewhat from the isolation their haughtiness had kept them in and deigned to converse with their men to encourage them. One more effort, and they would surround the French and English, repeating the feat of Sedan, whose anniversary was being celebrated in those days. They were about to enter Paris: it would take a week. Paris! Great tents filled with riches, famous restaurants, women, champagne, money… And the men, proud that their leaders had deigned to speak to them, forgot their fatigue and hunger, cheering up like the crowds of the Crusade before the image of Jerusalem. “Nach París!” The joyful cry circulated from the head to the tail of the marching columns, “To Paris! To Paris!”… The scarcity of food was compensated for with the products of a land rich in wines. When they plundered the houses, they rarely found provisions, but Always a wine cellar. The humble German, watered on beer and considering wine a privilege of the rich, could break open barrels with rifle butts, bathing his feet in waves of the precious liquid. Each battalion left a trail of empty bottles as a mark of its passage; a halt in a field was littered with glass cylinders. The regiment’s wagons, unable to replenish their supplies , loaded wine in every village. The soldier, short of bread, received alcohol… And this gift was accompanied by sound advice from the officers. War is war: no mercy for adversaries who didn’t deserve it. The French shot prisoners and their wives gouged out the eyes of the wounded. Every dwelling was a den of ambushes. The simple, innocent German who entered alone was headed for certain death. Beds sank into terrifying subterranean recesses, closets were disguised doors, every corner concealed a murderer. This traitorous nation, which prepared its territory like a stage for a melodrama, had to be punished. Municipal officials, priests, and schoolteachers directed and protected the snipers. Desnoyers was terrified to consider the indifference with which these men marched around the burning village. They didn’t see the fire and the destruction; everything was worthless in their eyes: it was an ordinary spectacle. Since they crossed the borders of their country, ruined villages, set ablaze by the vanguards, and villages in nascent flames, ignited by their own passage, had been marking the stages of their advance through Belgian and French soil. As the car entered Villeblanche, he had to slow down. Charred walls had collapsed onto the street, half-charred beams obstructed the passage, forcing the vehicle to swerve through the smoldering rubble. The vacant lots burned like braziers between houses that were still standing, looted, their doors broken, but untouched by the fire. Desnoyers saw in these rectangles filled with embers, chairs, beds, sewing machines, iron stoves, all the furnishings of peasant well-being, either consuming or twisting. He also thought he could make out an arm emerging from the rubble, beginning to burn like a candle. No; it wasn’t possible… A stench of hot grease mingled with the sooty breath of wood and debris. He closed his eyes: he didn’t want to see. He thought for a moment he was dreaming. It was implausible that such horrors could have unfolded in little more than an hour. He believed human wickedness powerless to change the appearance of a town in such a short space of time. A sudden stop of the carriage made him look. This time the bodies were in the middle of the street: two men and a woman. Perhaps they had fallen under the bullets of the automobile machine gun that had crossed the town prior to the invasion. A little further on, with their backs to the dead, as if unaware of their presence, several soldiers were sitting on the ground eating. The chauffeur shouted at them to clear the way. With their rifles and feet, they pushed the still-warm corpses, which left a trail of blood with each tumble. Barely a bit of space remained between them and the wall, when the vehicle moved on… A crunch, a jump. The rear wheels had crushed a fragile obstacle. Desnoyers remained in his seat, cowering, stupefied, closing his eyes. Horror made him think about his own fate. Where was that lieutenant taking him? In the square, he saw the municipal building burning; The church was nothing more than a stone shell bristling with tongues of flame. The houses of the well-to-do neighbors had their doors and windows broken with axes. Inside, soldiers swarmed, following a methodical back and forth. They entered empty-handed and emerged laden with furniture and clothes. Others, from the upper floors, threw objects, accompanying their deliveries with jokes and laughter. Suddenly they had to flee. The fire broke out instantly, with the violence and speed of An explosion. He was following a group of men carrying crates and metal cylinders. Someone in front was pointing to the buildings, and as pellets and jets of liquid entered their broken windows , the catastrophe occurred with a lightning-fast force. He saw two men emerge from a burning building, resembling piles of rags, dragged by several Germans. Against the blue stain of their greatcoats, he could make out pale faces, eyes wide open with torment. Their legs dragged along the ground, sticking out between the strips of their torn red trousers. One of them still had his kepi on. Blood was flowing from various parts of their bodies, leaving behind the white snaking of their unraveled bandages. They were French wounded, stragglers who had remained in the village, without the strength to continue the retreat. Perhaps they belonged to the group that, having been cut off, attempted a mad resistance. Wishing to restore the truth, he looked at the officer at his side and tried to speak. But the latter stopped him: “Disguised sharpshooters, about to receive their punishment.” The German bayonets sank into their bodies. Then, a butt fell on the head of one of them… And the blows were repeated with a dull hammering on the bony capsules, which crunched as they broke. Once again, the old man thought about his own fate. Where was this lieutenant leading him through so many visions of horror? They reached the outskirts of the village, where the dragoons had set up their barricade. The wagons were still there, but at the side of the road. They got out of the car. He saw a group of officers dressed in gray, with their helmets on, identical in every way to the others. The one who had led him to this place remained motionless, rigid, with one hand on his visor, speaking to a soldier who was standing a few steps in front of the group. He looked at this man, and he looked back at him with hard, small blue eyes that pierced his gaunt, wrinkled face. It must be the general. The arrogant, scrutinizing gaze swept him from head to toe. Don Marcelo had the feeling his life depended on this examination. One bad idea that crossed his mind, one cruel whim of his imagination, and he was lost. The general shrugged his shoulders and said a few words with a disdainful gesture. Then he got into a car with two of his aides, and the group disbanded. The old man’s cruel uncertainty made the moments it took for the officer to return to his side interminable. “Your Excellency is very good,” he said. “I could have shot you, but you forgive me. And yet you still say we’re savages!” Unconscious of his contempt, he explained that he had brought him there convinced that they would shoot him. The general wished to punish the principal residents of Villeblanche, and he had decided on his own initiative that the owner of the castle should be one of them. Military duty, sir… So the war demands. After this excuse, he resumed his praise of His Excellency. He was going to stay at Don Marcello’s property, and for this he spared his life. He ought to thank him… Then his cheeks began to tremble with anger again. He pointed to some bodies lying by the side of the road. They were the corpses of the four hulans, covered with greatcoats, the enormous soles of their boots showing beneath them. “A murder!” he exclaimed. “A crime for which the guilty will pay dearly ! ” His indignation made him consider the death of the four soldiers an unprecedented and monstrous event, as if in war only the enemy should fall, the lives of his compatriots remaining unscathed. A group of infantrymen arrived, commanded by an officer. As their ranks opened, Desnoyers saw several civilians being roughly pushed among the gray uniforms . Their clothes were torn. Some had blood on their faces and hands. He recognized them one by one as they were lined up against a wall, twenty paces from the picket: the mayor, the priest, the forest ranger, and some wealthy neighbors whose houses he had seen. burn. They were going to be shot… To avoid any doubt, the lieutenant continued his explanations. I wanted you to see this. It’s good to learn. That way you’ll be more grateful for Your Excellency’s kindness. None of the prisoners spoke. They had exhausted their voices in a useless protest. They concentrated their entire life in their eyes, looking around in stupefaction… And it was possible that they would be killed coldly, without hearing their protests, without admitting the proofs of their innocence! The certainty of death suddenly gave almost all of them a noble serenity. It was useless to complain. Only one rich peasant, famous in the village for his avarice, whimpered desperately, repeating: “I don’t want to die… I don’t want to die.” Trembling and with his eyes full of tears, Desnoyers hid behind his implacable companion. He knew them all, he had fought with all of them , now regretting his old quarrels. The mayor had a large red wound on his forehead. A tricolor rag fluttered across his chest: the municipal sash he had worn to welcome the invaders, which they had torn from him. The priest stood tall, his small, round body, trying to encompass the victims, the executioners, the entire earth, and the sky in a look of resignation. He seemed fatter. The black belt, torn by the soldiers’ violence, left his abdomen free and his cassock flowing. His silver hair dripped with blood, spattering red drops on his white clerical collar. Seeing him advance across the execution ground with a stride hesitant because of his obesity, a wild laugh cut through the tragic silence. The groups of unarmed soldiers who had come to witness the execution greeted the old man with peals of laughter. “Death to the priest!” The fanaticism of the religious wars vibrated in their mockery. Almost all of them were Catholics or fervent Protestants; but they only believed in the priests of their own country. Outside of Germany, everything was considered despicable, even religion itself. The mayor and the priest changed places in the line, seeking each other out. They offered each other the center of the group with solemn courtesy. Here, Mr. Mayor; this is your place: at the head of everyone. No; after you, Mr. Priest. They were arguing for the last time, but at this supreme moment it was time to give way, each wanting to humble himself before the other. They had joined hands by instinct, facing the firing squad, which was lowering its rifles in a rigid horizontal line. Behind them, wails sounded. “Goodbye, my children… Goodbye, life… I don’t want to die… I don’t want to die!” The two men felt the need to say something, to close the page of their existence with an affirmation. “Long live the Republic!” shouted the mayor. “Long live France!” said the priest. Desnoyers believed they had both shouted the same thing. Two vertical lines rose above their heads: the priest’s arm traced a sign in the air, the picket leader’s saber flashed lividly at the same time… A dry, resounding thunderclap, followed by several late explosions. Don Marcelo felt sorry for poor humanity when he saw the grotesque forms it takes at the moment of death. Some collapsed like half-empty sacks; others bounced on the ground like balls; some did a gymnast’s leap, arms raised, landing on their backs or face downwards, in the attitude of a swimmer. He saw legs contorted by the shudders of agony emerge from the human pile… Some soldiers advanced with the same gesture as hunters about to take their prey. From the throbbing of the writhing limbs, white hair rose and a weak hand struggled to repeat its sign. Several shots and rifle butt blows in the livid, blood-soaked heap… And the last glimmerings of life were erased forever. The officer had lit a cigar. ” Whenever you like,” he said to Desnoyers with ironic courtesy. They got into the car to drive through Villeblanche, returning to the castle. The ever-increasing fires and the corpses lying in the streets no longer impressed the old man. He had seen so much! What could possibly alter his feelings? He longed to leave the village as soon as possible, in search of the peace of the countryside. But the fields had disappeared under the invasion: everywhere soldiers, horses, cannons. The groups at rest destroyed everything around them with their touch. The marching battalions had invaded all the roads, noisy and automatic like a machine, preceded by fifes and drums, occasionally uttering, to cheer themselves up, their cry of joy: “Nach París!” The castle was also disfigured by the invasion. The number of its guards had greatly increased during the owner’s absence. He saw an entire infantry regiment encamped in the park. Thousands of men were bustling about under the trees, preparing their meals in the mobile kitchens . The flowerbeds in his garden, the exotic plants, the carefully sanded and swept avenues, everything was broken and worn by the avalanche of men, beasts, and vehicles. A commander, wearing on one sleeve the distinctive armband of the military administration, gave orders as if he were the owner. He didn’t even deign to look at this civilian marching beside a lieutenant with the shrug of a prisoner. The stables were empty. Desnoyers saw his last cows being led out, beaten with sticks by helmeted shepherds . The expensive breeding stock were all slaughtered in the park like mere slaughter animals. Not a single bird remained in the chicken coops and dovecotes. The stables were filled with gaunt horses gorging themselves on the overflowing manger. The stored grass was scattered profusely along the avenues, much of it lost before it could be used. The cavalry of several squadrons roamed loose across the meadows, destroying canals, the edges of banks, and the smoothing of the ground beneath them—a labor of many months. The dry firewood burned in the park with a useless blaze. Through carelessness or malice, someone had set fire to its piles. The trees, their bark parched by the summer heat, crackled as they were licked by the flames. The building was also occupied by a multitude of men who obeyed this commander. Its open windows revealed a constant flow of people through the rooms. Desnoyers heard knocks that resonated in his chest. Ah, his historic mansion! The general was about to settle there, after having examined the work of the pontooners on the banks of the Marne, who were establishing several passages for the troops. His fear as a proprietor made him speak. He feared they would break down the doors of the locked rooms; he wanted to go and find the keys to hand them over. The commissary didn’t listen to him; he still ignored his existence. The lieutenant replied with cutting kindness: “No need; don’t bother yourself.” And he left to join his regiment. But before Desnoyers lost sight of him, the officer wanted to give him some advice. Stay quiet in his castle; outside it, he could be taken for a spy, and he was already aware of the promptness with which the Emperor’s soldiers conducted their affairs . He couldn’t remain in the garden gazing at his dwelling from afar. The Germans who came and went mocked him. Some marched straight toward him, as if they didn’t see him, and he had to step aside to avoid being overturned by this mechanical and rigid advance. Finally, he took refuge in the caretaker’s pavilion. His wife watched him with astonishment, slumped on a chair in his kitchen, despondent, his gaze cast toward the ground, suddenly aged by the loss of the energy that animated his robust old age. “Ah, sir! Poor sir!” Of all the attacks of the invasion, the most incredible for the poor woman was seeing the owner taking refuge in his home. “What will become of us!” she moaned. Her husband was frequently summoned by the invaders. His Excellency’s attendants, installed in the castle cellars, called for him . to inquire about the whereabouts of things they couldn’t find. He would return from these trips humiliated, his eyes brimming with tears. There was a black mark on his forehead from a blow; his jacket was torn. These were traces of a weak attempt at resistance during the owner’s absence when the Germans began to plunder the stables and halls. The millionaire felt bound by misfortune to people he had until then regarded with indifference. He was deeply grateful for the loyalty of this sick and humble man. He was touched by the interest of the poor woman, who regarded the castle as if it were her own. The presence of his daughter brought to his mind the image of Chichi. He had passed by her without noticing her transformation, seeing her the same way he had when he had accompanied, with a gait like a snail, Mademoiselle Desnoyers on her excursions through the park and the surrounding countryside. Now she was a woman, with the slimness of her last growth, showing the first feminine graces on her fourteen-year-old body. Her mother wouldn’t let her leave the pavilion, fearing the soldiers, who invaded everything with their overflowing current, filtering into open spaces, breaking through the obstacles that hindered their passage. Desnoyers abandoned his desperate silence to confess that he was hungry. He was ashamed of this material need, but the emotions of the day, death close at hand, the still threatening danger, awakened in him a nervous appetite. The realization that he was a wretch amidst his riches and could dispose of nothing in his domain increased his need even more. “Poor sir!” the woman said again. And she watched in amazement as the millionaire devoured a piece of bread and a triangle of cheese, the only things he could find in his dwelling. The certainty that he would not find any other food no matter how hard he searched kept Don Marcelo tormented by his appetite. To have won such an enormous fortune, only to suffer hunger at the end of his life!… The woman, as if divining his thoughts, moaned, raising her eyes. From the early hours of the morning, the world had changed course: everything seemed upside down. Ah, the war!… During the rest of the afternoon and part of the night, the owner received the news brought by the concierge after his visits to the castle. The general and numerous officers occupied the rooms. Not a single door remained closed: all were wide open, smashed with rifle butts and axes. Many things had disappeared; the doorkeeper didn’t know how, but they had disappeared, perhaps broken, perhaps snatched by those who came and went. The chief warder went from room to room examining everything, dictating in German to a soldier who was writing. Meanwhile, the general and his men were in the dining room. They drank freely and consulted maps spread out on the floor. The poor man had had to go down to the caves in search of the best wines. At dusk, a tidal surge was noted in that human tide that covered the fields as far as sight could see. Several bridges had been built over the Marne, and the invasion resumed its advance. The regiments set out, shouting their enthusiastic cry: “Nach Paris!” Those who remained to continue the next day were settling into the ruined houses or in the open air. Desnoyers heard chanting. Under the glow of the first stars, the soldiers grouped together like orpheonists, forming with their voices a solemn and sweet chorus of religious gravity. Above the trees floated a red cloud made even more intense by the shadows. It was the reflection of the town, still burning. In the distance, other bonfires in farms and hamlets cut through the night with their bloody flickers. The old man eventually fell asleep in his caretaker’s bed, with the heavy, stupefying sleep of exhaustion, without shocks or nightmares. He fell and fell into a gloomy, endless hole. When he woke up, he imagined he had only slept for a few minutes. The sun colored the window curtains orange . Through their mesh, he saw some tree branches. and birds skipping and chirping among the leaves. He felt the same joy as the fresh summer dawns. What a beautiful morning! But what room was that? He looked with surprise at the bed and everything around him. Suddenly, reality assaulted his brain, sweetly paralyzed by the first splendors of the day. From this mental fog , the long ladder of his memory began to emerge, with a final black and red rung: the block of emotions that represented the previous day. And he had slept peacefully surrounded by enemies, subjected to an arbitrary force that could destroy him on a whim! As he entered the kitchen, his concierge gave him news. The Germans were leaving. The regiment encamped in the park had left at dawn, and after it, others and others. One battalion remained in the village, occupying the few intact houses and the ruins of those that had been burned. The general had also left with his numerous staff. Only the commander of a brigade, whom his assistants called “the Count,” and several officers remained in the castle. After this news, he ventured out of the pavilion. He saw his garden , destroyed but beautiful. The trees impassively bore the insults their trunks had suffered. The birds fluttered in surprise and delight at finding themselves once again masters of the space abandoned by human inundation. Desnoyers soon regretted his departure. Five trucks were lined up next to the moats, in front of the castle bridge. Several groups of soldiers were leaving, carrying enormous pieces of furniture on their shoulders, like laborers moving house. A bulky object wrapped in silk curtains, which replaced the canvas, was being pushed by four men to one of the automobiles. The owner guessed. His bathroom: the famous golden tub! Then, with a sudden change of heart, he felt no sorrow for this loss. He now hated the ostentatious room, attributing a fatal influence to it. It was his fault that he found himself there. But alas!… the other furniture piled up on the trucks!… At that moment, he was able to grasp the full extent of his misery and his helplessness. It was impossible for him to defend his property; he couldn’t argue with that chieftain who was calmly plundering the castle, ignoring the owner’s presence. “Thieves! Thieves!” And he went back into the pavilion. He spent the whole morning with his elbow on a table and his jaw resting on his hand, just as he had the day before, letting the hours slip by slowly, unwilling to hear the dull roll of the vehicles carrying away displays of his opulence. Around noon, the concierge announced that an officer who had arrived an hour earlier by car wanted to see him. Upon leaving the pavilion, he found a captain just like the others, with a pointed, sheathed helmet, a mustard-colored uniform, red leather boots, a saber, a revolver, binoculars, and a geographical chart in a case hanging from his belt. He looked young; He wore his staff armband on one sleeve . “Do you know me? I didn’t want to pass this way without seeing you.” He said this in Spanish, and Desnoyers experienced a surprise greater than any he had felt in his long hours of anguish since the previous morning. “You really don’t know me?” the German continued, still in Spanish. “I’m Otto… Captain Otto von Hartrott. ” The old man descended, or rather rolled down the stairs of his memory, to stop on a distant step. He saw the room, he saw his brothers-in-law who had a second son. “I’ll name him Bismarck,” Karl would say. Then, climbing many steps, he saw himself in Berlin during his visit to the Hartrotts. They spoke with pride of Otto, almost as wise as his older brother, but who applied his talents to war. He was a lieutenant and was continuing his studies to enter the General Staff. “Who knows if he’ll become another Moltke?” the father would say. And the bustling Chichí baptized him with a nickname, accepted by the family. Otto was henceforth known as Moltkecito to his relatives in Paris. Desnoyers marveled at the transformations he had undergone over the years. That vigorous, insolent-looking captain, who could have shot him, was the same little boy he had seen running around the room, the beardless Moltkecito his daughter laughed at… Meanwhile, the soldier explained his presence there. He belonged to another division. There were many… many! advancing, forming a long and deep wall from Verdun to Paris. His general had sent him to maintain contact with the immediate division, but when he found himself near the castle, he had wanted to visit it. Family is not a simple word. He remembered the days he had spent in Villeblanche, when the Hartrott family had gone to live for a while with their relatives in France. The officers occupying the building had detained him so he could have lunch with them. One of them casually mentioned the owner of the property, implying that he was nearby, although no one took any notice of him. A great surprise for Captain von Hartrott. And he had made inquiries until he found him, grieving to see him holed up in his doorkeeper’s room. “You must get out of there: you are my uncle,” he said proudly. “Go back to your home, where you belong. My comrades will be very pleased to meet you; they are very distinguished men.” He then lamented what the old man had suffered. He didn’t know for sure what such suffering consisted of, but he guessed that the first moments of the invasion must have been cruel for him. “What do you want!” he repeated several times. “It’s war.” At the same time, he was glad that he had remained on his property. They had orders to punish the property of fugitives with special care. Germany wanted the inhabitants to remain in their homes, as if nothing extraordinary were happening. Desnoyers protested. “But the invaders were shooting innocent people and burning their houses!” His nephew refused to let him continue speaking. He paled, as if a wave of ash had spread behind his skin; his eyes shone, his cheeks trembled, just like the lieutenant who had taken possession of the castle. ” You’re referring to the execution of the mayor and the others… My comrades have just told me. The punishment was still light; they should have razed the whole village: they should have killed even the children and women. We must finish off the snipers.” The old man looked at him in astonishment. His Moltkecito was as dangerous and ferocious as the others… But the captain cut the conversation short, repeating once more the eternal and monstrous excuse: ” Very horrible, but what do you want!… That’s war.” Then he asked for news of his mother, pleased to learn that she was in the South. He had been very worried about the idea of ​​her staying in Paris. What with the revolutions that had occurred there recently !… Desnoyers hesitated, as if he had heard wrong. What revolutions were these?… But the officer had moved on without further explanation to speaking of his own, believing that Desnoyers would be impatient to learn the fate of his Germanic kin. They were all in magnificent circumstances. His illustrious father was president of various patriotic societies, since his age did not allow him to go to war, and he also organized future industrial enterprises to exploit the conquered countries. His brother, “the Wise One,” gave lectures about the nations that the victorious Empire should annex, thundering against the bad patriots who showed themselves to be weak and petty in their pretensions. The three remaining brothers were in the army: one of them had been decorated in Lorraine. The two sisters, somewhat saddened by the absence of their fiancés, hussar lieutenants, amused themselves by visiting hospitals and praying to God to punish traitorous England. Captain von Hartrott slowly led his uncle toward the castle. The gray, stiff soldiers, who had until then ignored Don Marcelo’s existence, followed him with interest, watching him in friendly conversation with a staff officer. He guessed that these men They were going to become more human for him, losing their inexorable and aggressive automatism . Upon entering the building, something contracted in his chest with shudders of anguish. Everywhere he saw painful emptiness that made him remember the objects that had previously occupied the same space. Rectangular stains of a darker color on the wallpaper revealed the location of the missing furniture and paintings. How quickly and efficiently that man with the armband on his sleeve worked!… To the sadness caused by the cold and orderly dispossession was added his indignation as an economic man, seeing torn curtains, stained carpets, broken china and glass objects, all the vestiges of a crude and unscrupulous occupation. The nephew, guessing what he was thinking, repeated the eternal excuse: “What can you do!… It’s war.” But with Moltkecito he had no reason to be considerate of fear. “This isn’t war,” he said with a spiteful tone. It’s a bandit expedition … Your comrades are thieves. Captain von Hartrott suddenly grew taller with a violent growth spurt. He separated himself from the old man, staring at him steadily, while he spoke in a low voice, somewhat hissing from the trembling of anger. “Attention, uncle!” Fortunately, he had expressed himself in Spanish, and those near them could not understand him. If he allowed himself to insist on such remarks, he ran the risk of receiving a bullet in reply. The Emperor’s officers do not allow themselves to be insulted. And everything about him showed how easily he could forget his kinship if he received the order to proceed against Don Marcelo. The latter fell silent, lowering his head. What could he do? The captain resumed his courtesies, as if he had forgotten what he had just said. He wished to introduce him to his comrades. His Excellency Count Meinbourg, Major General, upon learning that he was related to the Hartrotts, did him the honor of inviting him to his table. Invited into his own home, he entered the dining room, where many men dressed in mustard-colored clothes and high boots were sitting. Instinctively, he quickly appraised the condition of the room. Everything was in good order, nothing broken: walls, curtains, and furniture were still intact. But when he looked inside the monumental sideboards, he again experienced a painful sensation. Everywhere was the darkness of oak. Two sets of silver dishes and another of antique china had disappeared, leaving not a trace of the smallest piece. He had to respond with grave greetings to the introductions his nephew made, and he shook the hand the count extended to him with aristocratic indifference. His enemies regarded him with benevolence and a certain admiration, knowing that he was a millionaire from a distant land where men get rich quickly. He suddenly found himself seated like a stranger at his own table, eating from the same plates his family used, served by men with crew-cut heads and wearing striped aprons over their uniforms . What he ate was his, the wine came from his cellar, everything that adorned that room he had bought, the trees that extended their branches beyond the window belonged to him as well… And yet, he thought he was in this place for the first time, suffering the discomfort of strangeness and distrust. He ate because he was hungry, but the food and wine seemed from another planet. He examined with amazement these enemies who occupied the same places as his wife, his children, and the Lacours… They spoke German among themselves, but those who knew French often used it to make themselves understood by their guests. Those who only muttered a few words repeated them with friendly smiles. One could notice in all of them a desire to please the master of the castle. “You are going to lunch with the barbarians,” said the Count, offering him a seat next to him. Aren’t you afraid of being eaten alive?… The Germans laughed uproariously at His Excellency’s grace. All They made efforts to demonstrate with their words and gestures that the barbarity attributed to them by their enemies was false. Don Marcelo looked at them one by one. The fatigues of war, especially the accelerated march of the last few days, were visible on their faces. Some were tall, thin, with an angular slenderness; others were square and stocky, with short necks and heads sunken between their shoulders. The latter had lost their fat deposits in a month of campaigning, leaving wrinkled, flaccid skin hanging in various parts of their faces. All had shaved heads, like the soldiers. Around the table, two rows of pinkish or brown cranial spheres gleamed. The ears protruded grotesquely; the jaws bore the bony relief of emaciation. Some had retained their erect mustaches, in the emperor’s style; most were clean-shaven or had short, brush-like mustaches. A gold bracelet gleamed beneath one of the Count’s hands, placed on the table. He was the oldest of them all and the only one who still had his hair, a dark blond and graying, carefully combed and shining with pomade. Nearing fifty, he maintained a feminine vigor, cultivated by vigorous exercise. Lean, bony, and strong, he tried to disguise his roughness as a fighting man with a gentle and lazy negligence. The officers treated him with great respect. Hartrott had spoken of him to his uncle as a great artist, musician, and poet. The Emperor was his friend: they had known each other since their youth. Before the war, certain scandals in his private life had driven him away from court: the outcries of follicularists and socialists. But the sovereign kept his affection for him, as an old classmate, a secret. Everyone remembered one of his dances, *Les caprices de Shahrazad*, performed with great splendor in Berlin at the recommendation of his powerful companion. He had lived in the East for some years. In short, a great gentleman and an artist of exquisite sensitivity, as well as a soldier. The Count could not tolerate Desnoyers’s silence. He was his companion, and he thought it appropriate to make him speak so that he could participate in the conversation. When Don Marcelo explained that he had only left Paris three days earlier , everyone perked up, wanting to know the news. “Did you see any of the uprisings?” “Did the troops have to kill many people?” “What was the assassination of Poincaré like?” They asked him these questions at once, and Don Marcelo, disoriented by their implausibility, didn’t know how to answer. He thought he’d fallen into a meeting of lunatics. Then he suspected they were making fun of him. Uprisings? The assassination of the President? Some looked at him with pity for his ignorance; others with suspicion, seeing him pretending to be unaware of events that had unfolded right around him. His nephew insisted. The German newspapers write a lot about it. The people of Paris rose up against the government two weeks ago, storming the Élysée Palace and assassinating the President. The army had to use machine guns to restore order… Everyone knows it. But Desnoyers insisted on not knowing: he had seen nothing. And when his words were met with a gesture of malicious doubt, he preferred to remain silent. His Excellency, a superior spirit, incapable of indulging the credulity of the masses, intervened to reestablish the facts. The murder story might not have been true: the German newspapers could exaggerate in the best of good faith. Just a few hours earlier, the General Staff had informed him of the French government’s withdrawal to Bordeaux. But the revolt of the people of Paris and their fight with the troops was indisputable. “The gentleman undoubtedly saw it, but he doesn’t want to say it.” Desnoyers had to contradict the figure, but his denial went unheeded. “Paris!” This name had made their eyes sparkle, exciting the verbosity of everyone. They wanted to arrive as soon as possible within sight of the Eiffel Tower, to enter the city victoriously, to satiate themselves with the privations and fatigue of a month of campaigning. They were worshippers of the military glory, they considered war necessary for life, and yet they lamented the suffering it brought them. The Count uttered an artist’s complaint. “What harm the war has caused me!” he said languidly. “This winter they were going to premiere a ball of mine in Paris.” Everyone protested his sadness: his work would be imposed after the triumph, and the French would have to applaud it. ” It’s not the same,” continued the Count. “I confess I love Paris… What a pity those people have never wanted to come to an understanding with us!” And he sank into his melancholy of a man who did not understand. One of the officers who was speaking of the riches of Paris with covetous eyes was suddenly recognized by Desnoyers by the armband he wore on one sleeve. It was the one who had plundered the castle. As if he guessed his thoughts, the commissioner excused himself. It’s war, sir… The same as the others!… The war had to be paid for with the assets of the defeated. It was the new German system; a healthy return to the war of ancient times: taxes imposed on cities and isolated looting of houses. In this way, the enemy’s resistance was overcome and the war ended sooner. He shouldn’t be saddened by the plunder. His furniture and jewelry would be sold in Germany. He could make a claim to the French government for compensation after the defeat: his relatives in Berlin would support the demand. Desnoyers listened to such advice with horror. What a mentality those men had! Were they crazy or did they want to laugh at him?… At the end of lunch, some officers stood up, requesting their sabers to perform duties. Captain von Hartrott also stood up: he needed to return to his general; he had devoted a lot of time to family life. His uncle accompanied him to the automobile. Moltkecito apologized once more for the damage and plundering suffered by the castle. It’s war… We must be harsh so that it may be brief. True kindness consists in being cruel, because then, the enemy, terrified, surrenders more quickly and the world suffers less. Don Marcelo shrugged at the sophistry. They were at the door of the building. The captain gave orders to a soldier, and he returned shortly after with a piece of chalk used to mark the signs of lodging. Von Hartrott wanted to protect his uncle. And he began to trace an inscription on the wall next to the door: “Bitte, nicht plündern. Es sind sind freundliche Leute…” Then he translated it, in response to the old man’s repeated questions. It means: “Please do not loot. The inhabitants of this house are kind people… friendly people.” Ah, no! Desnoyers vehemently rejected this protection. He did not want to be kind. He remained silent because he could do nothing else… but a friend of the invaders of his country!… The nephew erased part of the sign and left only the beginning: “Bitte, nicht plündern.” “Please do not plunder.” Then, at the entrance to the park, he repeated the inscription. He considered this warning necessary; His Excellency could leave, other officers could settle in the castle. Von Hartrott had seen much, and his smile suggested that nothing would surprise him, no matter how enormous. But the old man continued to disdain his protection and laugh sadly at the sign. What more could they plunder?… They had already taken the best. Goodbye, uncle. We’ll see each other soon in Paris. The captain got into his automobile, after shaking a cold, soft hand that seemed to repel him with its inertia. On his way back home, he saw a table and chairs in the shade of a group of trees . His Excellency was drinking his coffee in the open air, and he made him sit beside him. Only three officers accompanied him… Heavy consumption of liquor from his cellar. They spoke in German among themselves, and thus Don Marcelo remained motionless for nearly an hour, wanting to leave and not finding the right moment to leave his seat and disappear. Outside the park, a large troop movement could be seen. Another army corps with the dull roll of the tide. The curtains of trees hid this incessant parade heading south. An inexplicable phenomenon shook the luminous calm of the afternoon. In the distance, a continuous roll of thunder sounded, as if an invisible storm were rolling across the blue horizon. The Count interrupted his conversation in German to speak to Desnoyers, who seemed interested in the din. ” It’s the cannon. A battle has started. We’ll soon enter the dance.” The possibility of having to abandon his lodgings, the most comfortable he had found during his entire campaign, put him in a bad mood. “The war!” he continued. “A glorious life, but dirty and brutalizing. In a whole month, today is the first day I’ve lived like a man.” And as if attracted by the comforts he would soon have to abandon, he got up and headed for the castle. Two Germans left for the village, and Desnoyers remained with the other, occupied in admiringly savoring his liquors. He was the commander of the battalion quartered in Villeblanche. “Sad war, sir!” he said in French. Of the entire group of enemies, this was the only one who had inspired in Don Marcelo a vague feeling of attraction. “Although he’s a German, he seems like a good person,” he thought, looking at him. He must have been obese in peacetime, but now he offered the loose, limp exterior of a body that had recently suffered a loss of volume. One could discern in him a previous existence of tranquil and vulgar sensuality, a bourgeois bliss that the war had rudely cut short. “What a life, sir!” he continued. “May God punish those who have caused this catastrophe. ” Desnoyers was almost moved. He saw the Germany he had often imagined: a tranquil, gentle Germany, with bourgeois people who were a bit clumsy and tiresome, but who compensated for their original rudeness with an innocent and poetic sentimentality. This Blumhardt, whom his comrades called “Battaillon Kommandeur,” was a good family man. He pictured him strolling with his wife and children under the linden trees in a provincial square, all listening with religious devotion to the melodies of a military band. Later he saw him in the beer hall with his friends, discussing metaphysical problems between business conversations. He was the man of old Germany, a character from a Goethe novel. Perhaps the glories of the Empire had changed his life, and instead of going to the beer hall, he frequented the officers’ casino, while his family remained apart, isolated from civilians, out of pride in their military caste; but deep down, he was always the good German, with patriarchal customs, ready to shed tears at a family scene or a fragment of good music. Major Blumhardt remembered his family, who lived in Cassel. “Eight children, sir,” he said with a visible effort to contain his emotion. “The two oldest are training to become officers. The youngest has been going to school since this year… That’s how it is.” And he pointed with one hand to the height of his boots. He trembled nervously with laughter and sorrow at the memory of his little one. Then he eulogized his wife, an excellent manager of the household, a mother who modestly sacrificed herself for her children, for her husband. Oh, sweet Augusta! Twenty years of marriage had passed, and he adored her as much as the day they had first seen each other. He kept in a pocket of his uniform all the letters she had written to him since the beginning of the campaign. Look at her, sir… These are my children. He took a silver medallion with Munich art decorations from his chest, and by touching a spring, made it open in roundels, like the pages of a book, revealing the faces of the entire family: the Frau Kommandeur, of an austere and rigid beauty, imitating the gesture and hairstyle of the Empress; then the daughters, the Fraulin Kommandeur, dressed in white, their eyes raised as if singing a ballad; And finally, the children, in uniforms from army schools or private institutions. And to think that I could lose these loved ones with just that a piece of iron had touched him!… And he had to live far from them now that it was the good season, the time for walks in the country!… Sad war! he repeated again. May God punish the English. With a concern that moved Don Marcelo, he in turn asked him about his family. He took pity on learning how few offspring he had; he smiled a little at the enthusiasm with which the old man spoke of his daughter, greeting Fraulin Chichí like a graceful little devil; he put on a contrite expression when he learned that his son had caused him great distress with his behavior. A pleasant commander!… He was the first sweet and humane man she had met in the hell of the invasion. “There are good people everywhere ,” she said to herself. She hoped he would not move from the castle. If the Germans were to remain there, it would be better to have him than anyone else. An orderly came to summon Don Marcelo on behalf of His Excellency. He found the count in his own bedroom, after passing through the drawing rooms with his eyes closed to avoid the pain of a useless rage. The doors were forced, the floors uncarpeted, the openings uncurtained. Only the furniture broken in the first moments occupied their former places. The bedrooms had been ransacked more systematically, only that which was not of immediate use disappearing. The general and his entire retinue having stayed there the day before had saved them from wanton destruction. The count received him with the courtesy of a great lord who wishes to entertain his guests. He could not consent to Herr Desnoyers, a relative of a von Hartrott whom he vaguely remembered seeing at court, living in the porter’s room. He had to occupy his bedroom, that solemn bed like a catafalque, with plumes and columns, which had had the honor of serving an illustrious general of the Empire a few hours earlier. I prefer to sleep here. This other room suits my tastes better. He had entered Madame Desnoyers’s bedroom, admiring its Louis XV furniture, of precious authenticity, with its faded gilding and tapestry landscapes darkened by time. It was one of Don Marcello’s finest purchases. The Count smiled with the contempt of an artist as he remembered the chief intendant in charge of official plunder. “What an ass! To think that this has been left behind because it’s old and ugly…” Then he looked squarely at the owner of the castle. ” Monsieur Desnoyers, I believe I’m not committing any inaccuracy, and I even imagine I’m interpreting your wishes when I tell you that I’m taking this furniture with me. It will be a reminder of our acquaintance, a testimony to our friendship, which is now beginning… If this remains here, it runs the risk of being destroyed. Warriors are not obliged to be artists. I will keep these precious things in Germany, and you may see them whenever you wish. Now we’re all going to be one…” My friend the Emperor will proclaim himself sovereign of the French. Desnoyers remained silent. What could he reply to the cruelly ironic gesture, to the look with which the great lord was emphasizing his words?… When the war is over, I will send you a gift from Berlin, he added protectively. The old man didn’t reply either. He stared at the emptiness left by several small paintings on the walls. They were by famous 18th -century masters . The commissioner must have dismissed them as insignificant as well. A slight smile from the count revealed their true whereabouts. He had scrutinized the entire room, the next bedroom, which was Chichí’s, the bathroom, even the family’s women’s wardrobe, which still contained some dresses by Mademoiselle Desnoyers. The warrior’s hands lost themselves with delight in the fine billows of fabric, appreciating their soft freshness. This contact made him think of Paris, of fashions, of the houses of the great couturiers. The Rue de la Paix was the place he most admired during his visits to the enemy city. Don Marcelo perceived the strong mixture of perfumes that her head, his mustache, his whole body. Several bottles from the ladies’ dressing table were on the mantelpiece. “What filth, war!” said the German. “This morning I was able to take a bath, after a week of abstinence; in the middle of the afternoon I will take another… By the way, dear sir: these perfumes are good, but not elegant. When I have the pleasure of being introduced to the ladies, I will give you the details of my suppliers… I use essences from Turkey in my house : I have many friends there… When the war is over , I will send a shipment to the family.” His eyes had fallen on some portraits placed on a table. The Count guessed Madame Desnoyers looking at the photograph of Doña Luisa. Then he smiled at the portrait of Chichí. Very graceful: what he admired most about her was her resolute, boyish air. He rested a broad, deep gaze on the photograph of Julio. ” Excellent young man,” he said. “An interesting head… artistic. At a costume ball, it would be a success.” What a Persian prince!… A white aigrette on his head held in place by a jewel, his chest bare, a black tunic with gold peacocks… And he continued, in his imagination, to dress Desnoyers’s firstborn in all the splendor of an oriental monarch. The old man felt a beginning of sympathy for the man because of the interest his son inspired. What a pity he should have chosen precious things with such skill and appropriated them for himself!… Beside the head of the bed, on a prayer book forgotten by his wife, he saw a medallion with another photograph. This one was not of the house. The Count, who had followed the direction of his eyes, wanted to show it to him. The warrior’s hands trembled… His disdainful and ironic haughtiness suddenly disappeared. An officer of the Hussars of Death smiled in the portrait, his lean, curved, fighting-bird profile contracting beneath his cap adorned with a skull and two femurs. “My best friend,” he said, his voice somewhat trembling. “The being I love most in the world… And to think that perhaps he is fighting at this moment and they could kill him!… To think that I too could die!” Don Marcelo thought he glimpsed a novel from the Count’s past. That hussar was undoubtedly an illegitimate son. His simplicity could conceive of nothing else. Only in his tenderness was a father capable of speaking like that… And he almost felt infected by this tenderness. Here the interview ended. The warrior had turned his back on him, leaving the bedroom, as if he wished to hide his emotions. A few minutes later, a magnificent grand piano sounded in the apartment below, which the commissioner had been unable to take because of the general’s opposition. The latter’s voice rose above the sound of the strings. It was a somewhat dull baritone , but it communicated a passionate trembling to his ballad. The old man was moved; he did not understand the words, but tears welled up in his eyes. He thought of his family, of the misfortunes and dangers that surrounded him, of the difficulty of finding his loved ones again… As if the music were pulling him, he slowly descended to the ground floor. What an artist, that haughtily mocking man! What a soul he had! The Germans were deceptive at first glance with their rough exterior and their discipline, which made them commit the greatest atrocities without scruple. One had to live intimately with them to appreciate them as they were. When the music stopped, he was on the castle bridge. A non-commissioned officer was watching the swans’ movements in the waters of the moat. He was a young doctor of law who served as secretary to His Excellency; a university student mobilized for the war. Upon speaking with Don Marcelo, he immediately revealed his origins. He had been surprised by the departure order while he was teaching at a private school and on the eve of his marriage. All his plans had been shattered. What a calamity, sir!… What a disruption for the world!… And yet, many of us saw the catastrophe coming. It was bound to happen one day or another. Capitalism: damned capitalism is to blame. The non-commissioned officer was a socialist. He made no secret of his participation in party activities that had led to persecution and setbacks in his career. But Social Democracy was now accepted by the Emperor and flattered by the most reactionary Junkers. They were all one. The party’s deputies in the Reichstag formed the group most obedient to the government… He only retained from his past a certain fervor to anathematize capitalism, which was responsible for the war. Desnoyers dared to argue with this enemy, who seemed sweet-natured and tolerant. “Wouldn’t German militarism be truly responsible ? Wouldn’t it have sought and prepared the conflict, preventing any settlement with its arrogance?…” The socialist denied it flatly. His deputies supported the war, and they must have had their reasons for doing so. One could see in him the subordination to discipline, the eternal Germanic discipline, blind and obedient, that governs even the most advanced parties. In vain, the Frenchman repeated arguments and facts, everything he had read since the beginning of the war. His words slid under the harshness of this revolutionary, accustomed to delegating the functions of thought. “Who knows!” he finally said. “Perhaps we were mistaken. But at the present moment, everything is confused: there is a lack of elements of judgment to form an accurate opinion. When the conflict is over, we will know the true culprits; and if they are ours, we will hold them accountable. ” Desnoyers felt like laughing at this candor. “Wait until the end of the war to find out who was guilty! And if the Empire emerged victorious, what responsibility would they, in the full pride of victory, demand from them, they who had always limited themselves to electoral battles , without the slightest attempt at rebellion? Whoever the perpetrator is,” the non-commissioned officer continued, “this war is sad. So many men dead! I was in Charleroi. We must see modern warfare up close… We shall win.” We are going to enter Paris, they say, but many of our men will fall before achieving the final victory… And to ward off the visions of death fixed in her mind, she followed the swans’ progress with her eyes, offering them pieces of bread that made them stray from their slow and majestic swim. The caretaker and his family crossed the bridge with frequent entries and exits. Seeing their master on good terms with the invaders, they had lost the fear that kept them confined to their home. It seemed natural to the woman that Don Marcelo would see his authority recognized by those people: the master is always the master. And as if she had received a part of this authority, she fearlessly entered the castle, followed by her daughter, to put the owner’s bedroom in order. They wanted to spend the night near him, so that he would not be alone among the Germans. The two women carried clothes and mattresses from the pavilion to the top floor. The caretaker was busy heating His Excellency’s second bathroom . His wife lamented the looting of the castle with desperate gestures . How many precious things had disappeared! Eager to save the last remains, she sought out the owner to file complaints, as if he could prevent individual and cautious theft. The count’s orderlies and clerks stuffed everything easy to conceal into their pockets. They smiled and said it was souvenirs. Then she approached with a mysterious air to make a new revelation. She had seen a chief break into the drawers where the lady kept her linen, and how he made a package with the finest garments and a large quantity of lace. ” That’s the one, sir,” she said suddenly, pointing to a German writing in the garden, his table catching an oblique ray of sunlight that filtered through the branches. Don Marcelo recognized him with surprise. “Commander Blumhardt too!” But he immediately excused his act. He found it only natural that he would take something from his house, after the commissary had set an example. He also took into account the quality of the objects he appropriated. They weren’t for him: they were for his wife, for his girls… A good father of a family. For over an hour he had been sitting at the table, writing without ceasing, conversing, pen in hand, with his Augusta, with the whole family who lived in Cassel. It was better for this good man to take his own than the other haughty officers, with their cutting voices and insolent stiffness… He saw how he raised his head every time Georgette, the caretaker’s daughter, passed by, following her with his eyes. Poor father!… He was undoubtedly thinking of the two young ladies who lived in Germany, his thoughts preoccupied with the dangers of war. He also remembered Chichi, fearing he would never see her again. On one of their trips from the castle to the pavilion, the girl was called by the German. She remained upright at her table, timid, as if sensing danger, but making an effort to smile. Meanwhile, Blumhardt spoke to her, caressing her cheeks with his big, fighting hands. Desnoyers was moved by this sight. Memories of a peaceful and virtuous life resurfaced through the horrors of war. This enemy was decidedly a good man. That’s why he smiled kindly when the commandant, leaving the table, approached him. He handed his letter and a bulky package to a soldier to take to the village, where the battalion post office was located. ” It’s for my family,” he said. “I don’t let a day of rest pass without sending a letter. Yours are so precious to me! I’m also sending some small greetings.” Desnoyers was close to protesting. “Not small ones!” But with a gesture of indifference, he indicated that he accepted the gifts made at his expense. The commandant continued talking about sweet Augusta and her children, while the invisible storm thundered on the serene horizon of the evening. The cannonade grew ever more intense. The battle continued, Blumhardt. Always the battle!… It’s surely the last one, and we’ll win. We’ll enter Paris before a week is up… But how many won’t live to see it! So many dead!… I think we won’t be here tomorrow. All the reserves will have to attack to overcome the supreme resistance… As long as I don’t fall!… The possibility of dying the next day contorted his face with a look of resentment. A vertical wrinkle split his brows. He glared at Desnoyers fiercely , as if he held him responsible for his death and the misfortune of his family. For a few minutes, Don Marcelo didn’t recognize the sweet, familiar Blumhardt of a short while before, realizing the transformations that war wreaks on men. Dusk was beginning to fall when a non-commissioned officer—the same one from the Social Democracy—came running in search of the commander. Desnoyers couldn’t understand him because he was speaking German, but following the directions given by his hand, he saw at the entrance to the castle, beyond the gate, a group of peasants and a few soldiers with rifles. Blumhardt, after a brief reflection, started toward the group, and Don Marcelo followed him. He saw a village boy between two Germans who were pointing their bayonets at his chest. He was pale, with a waxy pallor. His shirt, stained with soot, was tragically torn, revealing the bruises of the fight. On one temple, he had a raw wound that was oozing blood. A short distance away, a woman with her hair loose, surrounded by four girls and a little boy, all stained black, as if emerging from a coal mine. The woman spoke with her hands raised, moaning that interrupted her story, uselessly addressing the soldiers, who were unable to understand her. The non-commissioned officer in charge of the escort spoke in German to the commander, while the woman approached Desnoyers. She displayed a sudden serenity upon recognizing the owner of the castle, as if he could save her. That young man was her son. They had been sheltering since the previous day in the cave of their burned house. Hunger had forced them to leave, after escaping death by suffocation. The Germans, seeing her son, had beaten him and wanted to shoot him, as they shot all the young men. They believed the boy was twenty years old: they considered him old enough to be a soldier, and to prevent him from joining the French army, they were going to kill him. “It’s a lie!” the woman cried. “He’s only eighteen… Not eighteen either… much less: only seventeen.” She turned to other women who were following her, to invoke their testimony; sad women, equally filthy, with blackened faces and torn clothes, smelling of fire, of misery, of corpses. They all nodded, adding their cries to those of their mother. Some went to extremes, attributing the boy to sixteen … fifteen. And to this chorus of feminine cries were added the wails of the little ones, who stared at their brother with eyes wide with terror. The commandant examined the prisoner while he listened to the non-commissioned officer. A municipal employee had confusedly confessed that he was twenty years old, without realizing that he had caused his death. “Lie!” the mother repeated, instinctively guessing what they were talking about. “That man is mistaken… My son is robust, he looks older , but he’s not twenty… The gentleman, who knows him, can say so. Isn’t that true, Mr. Desnoyers?” Seeing his help called for by maternal despair, Don Marcelo believed he should intervene, and spoke to the commandant. He knew this young man well—he didn’t remember ever having seen him—and he believed him to be under twenty . And even if he were,” he added, “is that a crime to execute a man?” Blumhardt didn’t reply. Since he had resumed his duties of command, he seemed to be unaware of Don Marcelo’s existence. He went to say something, to give an order, but hesitated. It was better to consult His Excellency. And seeing that he was heading for the castle, Desnoyers marched to his side. “Commander, this can’t be,” he began. “This is senseless . To shoot a man on suspicion that he might be twenty years old!” But the commander remained silent and continued walking. As they crossed the bridge, they heard the sounds of the piano. This seemed a good omen to Desnoyers. That artist, who had moved him with his impassioned voice, was about to say the saving word. Upon entering the hall, he was slow to recognize His Excellency. He saw a man at the piano wearing, as his only clothing, a Japanese robe, a pink women’s kimono with gold birds, belonging to his Chi-Chi. On another occasion, he would have burst out laughing at the sight of this warrior, gaunt, bony, with cruel eyes, thrusting sinewy arms from his loose sleeves, on one of whose wrists the gold bracelet still gleamed. He had taken a bath and was delaying the moment of recovering his uniform, delighting in the silky feel of the feminine tunic, identical to his oriental garments from Berlin. Blumhardt didn’t show the slightest surprise at his general’s appearance. Standing erect , he spoke in his language, while the count listened with a bored air, running his fingers over the keys. A nearby window made the sunset visible, enveloping the piano and its player in a golden halo. The poetry of the twilight entered through it: the whispering of the branches, the dying songs of birds, the buzzing of insects that shone like sparks in the last ray of sunlight. His Excellency, seeing his melancholy reverie interrupted by the untimely visit, cut short the commander’s story with a commanding gesture and a word… just one. He said no more. He took two drags on a Turkish cigarette that was slowly scorching the wood of the piano, and his hands fell back on the ivory, resuming the vague and tender improvisation inspired by the twilight. Thank you, Your Excellency, said the old man, divining his magnanimous response. The commander had disappeared. Nor did he find him outside the house. A soldier was trotting near the gate to transmit the order. He saw how the escort repelled the vociferous group of women and children with their rifle butts . The entrance was cleared. Everyone was undoubtedly moving away towards the village after the general’s pardon… He was in the middle of the avenue, when a howl composed of many voices sounded, a bloodcurdling cry such as only feminine desperation can utter. At the same time, loud cracks of fire shook the air, a crackling he had known since the day before. “Shots!” He made out on the other side of the gate a rough swarm of people, some writhing, restrained by strong arms, others galloping away in fear. He saw a terrified woman running toward him, hands on her head, moaning. It was the concierge’s wife, who had recently joined the group of women. “Don’t go, sir!” she cried, blocking his path. “They’ve killed him… they’ve just shot him. ” Don Marcelo stood motionless with surprise. “Shot!” And the general’s word? He ran toward the castle without realizing what he was doing, and suddenly found himself in the living room. His Excellency was still at the piano. Now he sang in a low voice, his eyes moist with the poetry of his memories. But the old man couldn’t hear him. ” Your Excellency: they’ve shot him… They’ve just killed him, despite the order.” The chief’s smile made him suddenly understand his deception. ” It’s war, dear sir,” he said, ceasing to play. “War with its cruel necessities… It’s always prudent to suppress tomorrow’s enemy . ” And with a pedantic air, as if giving a lesson, he spoke of the Orientals, great masters in the art of knowing how to live. One of the figures he most admired was a certain sultan of the Turkish conquest, who strangled the children of his adversaries with his bare hands. “Our enemies don’t come into the world on horseback and wielding a lance,” the hero said. “Children are born like everyone else, and it’s opportune to suppress them before they grow up.” Desnoyers listened to him without understanding. A single thought occupied his mind. And that man he believed to be good, that sentimental man who was moved to tears when singing, had coldly, between two arpeggios, given the order for his death! The Count made a gesture of impatience. He could withdraw, and advised him to be discreet from now on, avoiding interfering in the affairs of the servants. Then he turned his back on him and ran his hands over the piano, surrendering to his harmonious melancholy. For Don Marcelo, an absurd life began that was to last four days, during which the most extraordinary events occurred . This period represented in his history a long parenthesis of stupefaction, interrupted by horrible visions. He did not want to meet with those men again, and fled from his own bedroom, taking refuge on the top floor, in a servant’s room, near the one the caretaker’s family had chosen. In vain did the good woman offer him food at nightfall: he had no appetite. He was lying on the bed. He preferred darkness and being alone with his thoughts. When would this anguish end? He remembered a trip he had made to London years before. He imagined the British Museum and certain Assyrian reliefs that had filled him with dread, like the remains of a bestial humanity. Warriors burned towns, prisoners were slaughtered in droves, peaceful peasant crowds marched in rows with chains around their necks, forming strings of slaves. Never had he recognized as much as he did at that moment the greatness of present-day civilization. Wars still broke out from time to time, but they had been regulated by progress. The lives of prisoners were considered sacred, peoples were to be respected, and a whole body of international law existed to regulate how men should kill each other and nations should fight, causing the least possible harm. But now he had just seen the reality of war. The same as thousands of years before! The helmeted men proceeded in the same way as the perfumed and ferocious satraps with blue mitres and ringed beards. The adversary was shot even if he had no weapons; the prisoner died with rifle butt blows; the civilian populations set out en masse for Germany, like the captives of other countries. Centuries. What had been the point of so-called progress? Where was civilization? He awoke when the light from a candle hit his eyes. The concierge’s wife had come upstairs again to ask if he needed anything. What a night! Hear them shouting and singing. The bottles that carry drinks! They’re in the dining room. It’s better if you don’t see them. Now they’re having fun breaking the furniture. Even the count is drunk; so is that chief who was talking to you, and the others. Some of them are dancing half-naked. He wished he could keep certain details to himself, but his feminine verbosity overrode these discreet intentions. Some young officers had disguised themselves in the ladies’ hats and dresses and were dancing, shouting and imitating the women’s swaying movements. One of them was greeted with a roar of enthusiasm when he appeared wearing nothing but a slip of Miss Chichi… Many took a malignant pleasure in depositing their digestive remains on the carpets or in the drawers of furniture, using whatever fine linens they found at hand to clean themselves. The owner silenced her. “Why tell him all this?… And we’re forced to serve them!” the woman continued moaning. ” They’re crazy: they look like other men. The soldiers say they’re leaving at dawn. There’s a great battle; they’re going to win it, but everyone needs to fight in it… My poor husband can’t take it anymore. So many humiliations… And my daughter… my daughter!” This was her greatest concern. She kept it hidden, but she anxiously followed the comings and goings of some of these alcohol-enraged men. Of all, the most fearsome was the leader who was fondling Georgette in a paternalistic manner. Fear for his daughter’s safety made him leave after uttering further laments. God doesn’t remember the world… Oh, what will become of us! For now, Don Marcelo lay awake. The dim light of a serene night entered through the open window. The cannonade continued, the battle dragging on in the darkness. At the foot of the castle, the soldiers intoned a slow, melodic chant that resembled a psalm. From inside the building, a roar of brutal laughter, the sound of breaking furniture, and the running of joyful chase rose up to him. When would he be able to escape this hell? A long time passed; he didn’t fall asleep, but little by little he began to lose all sense of his surroundings. Suddenly, he sat up. Near him, on the same floor, a door had cracked open with a dull creak, unable to withstand several formidable shoves. There were women’s screams, cries, desperate pleas, the sound of a struggle, hesitant footsteps, and bodies crashing against the walls. He had a feeling it was Georgette screaming and fighting back. Before he could even set foot on the ground, he heard a man’s voice, that of his concierge; he was sure of it. “Ah, bandit!” Then the sound of a second struggle… a shot… silence. As he stepped out into the wide corridor that ended at the stairs, he saw lights and many men rushing up the steps. He almost fell when he tripped over a body from which a roar of agony was escaping. The concierge was at his feet, his chest heaving like a bellow. His eyes were glassy and wide open; his mouth was covered with blood… A kitchen knife gleamed beside him. Then he saw a man with a revolver in his right hand, holding with his other hand a broken door that someone was trying to open from inside. He recognized him despite his greenish pallor and his wild gaze. It was Blumhardt, a new Blumhardt, with a beastly expression of pride and insolence that inspired terror. He imagined him scouring the castle in search of his desired prey, the father’s anxiety following in his footsteps, the girl’s screams, the unequal struggle between the sick man with his second-hand weapon and that man of war sustained by victory. The anger of his youth awoke in him, bold and overwhelming. What did it matter to him if he died? “Ah, bandit!” he roared like the other. And with his fists clenched, he marched toward the German. The latter placed his revolver before his eyes, smiling coldly. He was about to shoot… But at the same instant, Desnoyers fell to the ground, knocked down by those who had just climbed up . He received several blows; the heavy boots of the invaders hammered at him with their heels. He felt a hot jet on his face. Blood! He didn’t know if it was his own or that of that body in which the mortal gasp was fading away. Then he found himself lifted from the ground by several hands pushing him before a man. It was His Excellency, his uniform unbuttoned and smelling of wine. His eyes trembled as much as his voice. “My dear sir,” he said, trying to recover his mortifying irony: ” I advised you not to interfere in our affairs, and you have not listened to me . Suffer the consequences of your lack of discretion.” He gave an order, and the old man felt propelled down the stairs to the caves. Those leading him were soldiers under the command of a non-commissioned officer. He recognized the socialist. The young professor was the only one who wasn’t drunk, but he remained upright, unapproachable, with the ferocity of discipline. He led him into a vaulted room with no other vent than a small window at floor level. Many broken bottles and two crates containing some straw were all that was in the cave. ” You have insulted a leader,” the non-commissioned officer said rudely, “and it is certain that they will shoot you at dawn… Your only salvation is for the party to continue and for them to forget you.” Since the door was broken, as were all the doors in the castle, he had a pile of furniture and crates placed in front of it. Don Marcelo spent the rest of the night tormented by the cold. It was the only thing that worried him at that moment. He had given up on life: even the image of his family faded from his memory. He worked in the darkness to settle himself on the two crates, seeking the warmth of the straw. As the dawn breeze began to blow through the window, he slowly fell into a heavy sleep, a stupefying sleep, like that of those condemned to death or that which precedes a morning of defiance. He thought he heard shouts in German, the sound of horses’ trots, a distant sound of rolls and whistles similar to that produced by invading battalions with their fifes and flat drums… Then he completely lost all sense of his surroundings. When he opened his eyes again, a ray of sunlight, slipping through the window , traced a golden quadrilateral on the wall, lending a regal splendor to the hanging cobwebs. Someone was removing the barricade on the door. A woman’s voice, timid and distressed, called out to him repeatedly. Sir, are you there? Jumping up, he wanted to help with this outside work and vigorously pushed the door. He thought the invaders had left. He couldn’t understand any other way the caretaker’s wife would dare to bring him out of his confinement. “Yes, they’ve left,” she said. “There’s no one left in the castle.” Finding the exit free, Don Marcelo saw the poor woman with red eyes, a bony face, and disheveled hair. Night had weighed down her life with the weight of many years. All her energy vanished suddenly when she recognized the owner. “Sir… sir!” she moaned convulsively. And she threw herself into his arms, shedding tears. Don Marcelo didn’t want to know anything: he was afraid of the truth. Nevertheless, he asked for the caretaker. Now that he was awake and free, he entertained the momentary hope that everything he had seen the previous night was a nightmare. Perhaps the poor man was still alive… They killed him, sir… He was murdered by that man who seemed kind… And I don’t know where his body is: no one has wanted to tell me. I suspected that the corpse was in the ditch. The calm, green waters had mysteriously closed over this offering of the night… Desnoyers guessed that another misfortune worried the mother even more, but he remained modestly silent. It was she who spoke, amid exclamations of pain… Georgette was in the pavilion: she had fled. horrified at the castle when the invaders left. They had kept her in their power until the last moment. ” Sir, don’t look at her… She trembles and cries at the thought of you speaking to her after what had happened. She’s mad; she wants to die. Oh, my daughter!… And will there be no one to punish those monsters?” They had left the underground chamber and crossed the bridge. The woman stared at the green, merciless waters. The corpse of a swan floated on them. Before leaving, while saddling their horses, two officers had amused themselves by shooting the inhabitants of the lagoon with revolver shots . The aquatic plants were dripping with blood; among their leaves floated white, flaccid tufts, like linen that had escaped from the hands of a washerwoman. Don Marcelo and the woman exchanged a look of pity. They pitied each other as they contemplated her misery and aging in the sunlight . She felt a resurgence of energy at the thought of her daughter. The passage of those people had destroyed everything; There was no food left in the castle except a few pieces of stale bread forgotten in the kitchen. “And you have to live, sir… You have to live, if only to see how God punishes them…” The old man shrugged his shoulders in discouragement: “God?” But the woman was right: you had to live. With the audacity of his early youth, when he sailed the endless seas of land in the New World guiding troops of cattle, he launched himself out of his park. He saw the valley, blond and green, smiling in the sun; the clumps of trees; the squares of yellowish earth, with the hard stubble of stubble; the hedges, where birds sang; all the summer splendor of a countryside cultivated and combed for fifteen centuries by dozens and dozens of generations. And yet, he considered himself alone, at the mercy of fate, exposed to perish of hunger; more alone than when he crossed the horrendous heights of the Andes, the tortuous peaks of rock and snow wrapped in a deadly silence, interrupted from time to time by the flapping of the condor’s wings. No one… His vision didn’t distinguish a single moving point: everything was fixed, motionless, crystallized, as if contracting in terror at the thunder that continued to roll on the horizon. He headed for the town, a mass of black walls from which emerged several intact shacks and a roofless bell tower, its cross twisted by fire. No one either in its streets strewn with bottles, charred wood, and sooty rubble. The corpses had disappeared, but a nauseating stench of rotting fat and burnt flesh seemed to cling to his nostrils. He crossed everything, until he reached the site of the dragoons’ barricade. The wagons were still at the side of the road. He saw a mound of earth where the shooting had taken place. Two feet and a hand were sticking out at ground level. As he approached, black masses emerged from this shallow pit that had left the corpses exposed. A flock of stiff wings flapped the air, moving away with angry squawks. He retraced his steps. He shouted at the houses that were less damaged; he poked his head through doors and windows that were free of obstacles or half-eaten wooden sashes. Was there no one left in Villeblanche? He glimpsed something crawling among the ruins, a kind of reptile, which halted its crawl with hesitations of fear, ready to retreat and slink back into its burrow. Suddenly reassured, the beast straightened. It was a man, an old man. Other human larvae began to emerge at the sound of their cries, poor beings who had renounced the verticality that denounces them from afar, and who envied the lower organisms’ gliding through the dust, their readiness to slip into the bowels of the earth. They were mostly women and children, all filthy, black, with matted hair, the ardor of bestial appetites in their eyes, the despondency of a weak animal in their drooping jaws. They lived hidden in the rubble of their houses. Fear had made them forget their hunger; but Upon finding themselves free of enemies, all their needs, incubated by hours of anguish , suddenly reappeared . Desnoyers believed he was surrounded by a tribe of starving and brutalized Indians, just like those he had seen on his travels as an adventurer. He had brought with him from Paris a quantity of gold pieces, and he took out a coin, letting it glitter in the sun. He needed bread, he needed everything edible: he would pay without haggling. The sight of the gold provoked looks of enthusiasm and greed; but this impression was brief. Their eyes finally contemplated the yellow circle with indifference. Don Marcelo was convinced that the miraculous fetish had lost its power. Everyone intoned a chorus of misfortunes and horrors in slow, plaintive voices, as if weeping before a coffin: “My lord, my husband is dead…” “My lord, my sons: I have two sons left…” “My lord, they have taken all the men prisoner; They say it’s for working the land in Germany… “Lord, bread! My little ones are dying of hunger.” A woman was lamenting something worse than death: “My daughter!… My poor daughter!” Her look of hatred and madness denounced the secret tragedy; her shrieks and tears reminded her of the other mother who was crying the same thing in the castle. Deep in some cave lay the victim, broken with exhaustion, shaken by delirium, still watching the succession of brutal assailants with her face dilated by a simian enthusiasm. The miserable group stretched out their hands in a circle toward this man whose wealth they all knew. The women showed him their yellowish children , their eyes clouded with hunger and their breathing barely perceptible. “Bread… bread,” they implored, as if he could perform a miracle. He handed the coin he held between his fingers to a mother. Then he gave her other gold pieces. They kept them without looking at them and continued his lament: “Bread… bread.” And he had come all the way to make the same plea! He fled, realizing the futility of his efforts. When he returned, desperate, to his property, he found large automobiles and men on horseback filling the road in a very long convoy. They were going in the same direction as he was. As he entered his park, a group of Germans was laying the wires of a telephone line. They had just gone through the rooms in disorder and were laughing uproariously as they read the inscription made by Captain von Hartrott: “Please do not loot…” They found the farce very ingenious, very Germanic. The convoy invaded the park. The automobiles and vans bore a red cross. A field hospital was going to be established in the castle. The doctors, dressed in green and armed like the officers, imitated their cutting haughtiness, their repellent stiffness. Hundreds of folding beds emerged from the vans and lined up in the various rooms; The remaining furniture was thrown in a heap at the foot of the trees. Groups of soldiers obeyed the brief, imperious orders with mechanical promptness. A pharmacy-like scent of concentrated drugs wafted through the rooms, mingling with the strong odor of the antiseptics that had been sprayed on the walls to erase the residue of the night’s orgy. Then he saw women dressed in white, young women with blue eyes and hempen hair. They had a serious, hard, austere, implacable appearance. They repeatedly pushed Desnoyers as if they couldn’t see him. They looked like nuns, but with revolvers under their habits. At noon, other automobiles began to arrive, attracted by the enormous white flag with a red cross that had begun to wave atop the castle. They came from the Marne; their metal was dented by shells; their glass had star-shaped cracks. Men and more men were lowered from inside, some on foot, others on canvas stretchers: pale and ruddy faces, aquiline and flat profiles, blond heads and skulls wrapped in white turbans stained with blood; mouths that laughed with a laugh of bravado and mouths that moaned with blue lips; jaws held in place by bandages of mummy; giants who showed no apparent damage and were in agony; shapeless bodies surmounted by a head that spoke and smoked; legs with dangling tatters that spread a red liquid between the linens of the first treatment; arms that hung inert like dry branches; torn uniforms in which the tragic emptiness of missing limbs was evident. The avalanche of grief spread through the castle. Within a few hours, the entire castle was occupied; there was not a single bed free; the last stretchers were left in the shade of the trees. The telephones were ringing incessantly; the operators, wearing aprons, went from one side to the other, working quickly; human life was subjected to life-saving procedures with rudeness and speed. Those who were dying left a bed free for the others who were arriving. Desnoyers saw dripping baskets filled with shapeless flesh: tatters, broken bones, whole limbs. The bearers of these remains went to the end of his park to bury them in a small square that was Chichí’s favorite reading spot. Soldiers in pairs carried objects wrapped in sheets that the castle owner recognized as his own. These bundles were corpses. The park was becoming a cemetery. The small square was no longer sufficient to contain the dead and the remains of the treatments: new graves were being dug nearby. The Germans, armed with shovels, had sought help for their mournful work. A dozen peasant prisoners were turning the earth and helping unload the dead. Now they were being driven in a cart to the edge of the pit, falling into it like debris hauled away from a demolition. Don Marcelo felt a monstrous pleasure considering the growing number of missing enemies, but at the same time he lamented this avalanche of intruders that was going to settle forever on his lands. At nightfall, overwhelmed by so many emotions, he suffered the torment of hunger. He had eaten only one of the pieces of bread found in the kitchen by the caretaker’s widow. He had left the rest for herself and her daughter. Georgette’s despair represented a torment equal to that of hunger for him . Seeing him, she tried to escape, ashamed. “Don’t let the gentleman see me!” she moaned, hiding her face. And the gentleman, whenever he entered the ward, avoided approaching her, as if her presence made him feel the memory of the outrage more intensely. In vain, spurred by need, he approached some doctors who spoke French. They didn’t listen to him, and when he insisted on his requests, they pushed him away with a harsh slap… He wasn’t going to perish of hunger in the middle of his estate! Those people were eating; the harsh nurses had settled in his kitchen… But time passed without finding anyone who took pity on him, dragging his weakness from one place to another, old with an old age of misery, feeling the shock of the blows he had received the night before all over his body. He knew the torment of hunger as he had never experienced it before in his travels across the deserted plains, hunger among men, in a civilized country, wearing a belt full of gold, surrounded by lands and buildings that were his, but disposed of by others who didn’t deign to understand him. And to reach this situation at the end of his life, he had amassed millions and had returned to Europe! Ah, the irony of fate! He saw a paramedic with his back against a tree trunk about to devour a loaf of bread and a piece of sausage. His envious eyes examined this man, tall, square, with a strong jaw covered by the flowering of a red beard. He held out a gold coin between his fingers with silent invitation. The German’s eyes shone at the sight of the gold; a beatific smile stretched his mouth almost from ear to ear. He said it, understanding the mime. And he handed him his food, taking the coin. Don Marcelo began to swallow eagerly. He had never tasted the sensuality of food as at that moment, in the midst of his a garden turned into a cemetery, in front of his plundered castle, where hundreds of beings were moaning and dying. A gray arm passed before his eyes. It was the German, returning with two loaves of bread and a piece of meat snatched from the kitchen. He repeated his smile: “Ia?…” And after the old man handed him a second gold coin, he was able to offer this food to the two women taking refuge in the pavilion. During a night of painful sleeplessness, punctuated by visions of horror, he believed the roar of artillery was approaching. It was a barely perceptible difference; perhaps an effect of the night’s silence, which increased the intensity of the sounds. The cars continued to arrive from the front, unload their cargo of mangled meat, and then set off again. Desnoyers thought that his castle was merely one of many hospitals established along a line of more than one hundred kilometers, and that on the other side, behind the French, similar centers existed, and in all of them the same activity reigned, with the remittances of dying men following one another with terrifying frequency. Many didn’t even get the consolation of being sheltered: they howled in the middle of the field, burying their bloody limbs in the dust or mud; they expired wallowing in their own entrails… And Don Marcelo, who hours before had considered himself the most unhappy being in creation, experienced a cruel joy at the thought of so many thousands of vigorous men, undone by death, who could envy his healthy old age, the tranquility with which he lay in that bed. The next morning, the paramedic was waiting for him in the same place with a full napkin. “Helpful and kind bearded man!” He offered him a gold coin. Nein answered, stretching his mouth with a malicious smile. Two shining slices appeared on Don Marcelo’s fingers. Another smile, “nein,” and a negative shake of the head. Ah, thief! How he took advantage of his need!… And only when he had handed over five coins was he able to acquire the bundle of provisions. He soon noticed a secret and cunning conspiracy around him to seize his money. A giant with a sergeant’s stripes placed a shovel in his hand, pushing him roughly. He found himself in the corner of his park , converted into a cemetery, next to the cart of corpses; he had to turn over his own earth, confused with those prisoners exasperated by their misfortune, who treated him as an equal. He turned his eyes so as not to see the stiff and grotesque corpses that loomed over his head, at the edge of the hole, ready to spill into its depths. The ground exuded an unbearable stench. The decomposition of the bodies in the nearby graves had begun . The persistence with which his guards harassed him and the sergeant’s sly smile made him guess the blackmail. The bearded paramedic must have had a hand in all this. He dropped the shovel, putting a hand in his pocket with an inviting gesture. “I’m going,” said the sergeant. And after handing over a few coins, he was able to walk away and wander freely. He knew what awaited him: those men were going to subject him to relentless exploitation. Another day passed, just like the one before. On the morning of the following day, his senses, honed by anxiety, led him to guess something extraordinary. The cars arrived and departed more quickly; there was a noticeable degree of disarray and bewilderment among the personnel. The telephones rang with a mad rush; the wounded seemed more discouraged. The day before, there had been those who sang as they got out of the vehicles, deceiving their grief with laughter and bravado. They spoke of the approaching victory, regretting not being able to witness the entry into Paris. Now everyone remained silent, sulking, thinking about their own fate, unconcerned about what they were leaving behind. Outside the park, the noise of a crowd buzzed. The roads turned black. The invasion began again, but in a backward motion. For hours on end, strings of gray trucks passed by, amid the snorting of their tired engines. Then, infantry regiments, squadrons, Rolling batteries. They marched slowly, with a slowness that disconcerted Desnoyers, who didn’t know if this retreat was a flight or a change of position. The only thing that satisfied him was the brutalized and sad expression of the soldiers, the somber silence of the officers. No one shouted; everyone seemed to have forgotten the Nach Paris. The greenish monster still held its armed head on the other side of the Marne, but its tail was beginning to contract its coils with restless undulations. After nightfall, the troops continued their retreat. The cannonade seemed to approach. Some thunderclaps sounded so immediate that they made the windows shake. A fugitive peasant took refuge in the park and was able to give news to Don Marcelo. The Germans were retreating. Some of their batteries had been established on the banks of the Marne to attempt a new resistance. And the newcomer stayed, without attracting the attention of the invaders, who days before had shot at the slightest suspicion. The mechanical functioning of their discipline had been visibly disrupted. Doctors and nurses ran around shouting, swearing every time a new car arrived. They ordered the driver to continue onward, to another hospital located in the rear. They had received orders to evacuate the castle that very night. Despite the prohibition, one of the carriages was rid of its cargo of wounded. Such was their condition that the doctors accepted them, deeming it useless for them to continue their journey. They remained in the garden, lying on the same canvas stretchers they had occupied inside the vehicle. By the light of the lanterns, Desnoyers recognized one of the dying. It was His Excellency’s secretary, the socialist professor who had locked him in the cave. Seeing the owner of the castle, he smiled as if he had found a comrade. He was the only familiar face among all those people who spoke his language. He was pale, with gaunt features and an impalpable veil over his eyes. He had no visible wounds, but beneath the cloak draped over his stomach, his entrails, torn apart in a gruesome carnage, exuded a cemetery-like stench. Desnoyers’s presence made him guess where he’d been taken, and little by little he coordinated his memories. As if the old man might be interested in the whereabouts of his comrades, he spoke in a faint, labored voice that seemed undoubtedly natural to him… Bad luck for his brigade! They had arrived at the front in a moment of need, to be thrown in as fresh troops. Major Blumhardt was killed in the first moments: a 75-caliber shell had taken his head. Almost all the officers who had been quartered in the castle were dead. His Excellency’s jaw had been blown off by a shell casing. He had seen him on the ground roaring in pain, pulling a portrait from his chest, which he was trying to kiss with his broken mouth. His stomach was ripped open by the same shell. He had been in the field forty- two hours without being picked up… And with the eagerness of a university student who wants to see everything and explain everything, he added at this supreme moment, with the tenacity of one who dies speaking: Sad war, sir… There is not enough evidence to decide who is to blame… When the war is over, there will be… there will be… He closed his eyes, faint from his exertion. Desnoyers walked away. Unhappy man! He placed the hour of justice at the end of the war, and in the meantime, it was he who was ending it, disappearing with all his scruples as a slow and disciplined reasoner. He didn’t sleep that night. The walls of the pavilion trembled, the glass moved with the creaking sounds of fracture, the two women in the next room sighed uneasily . The roar of the German shots was joined by other, closer explosions. He sensed the bursts of French shells arriving, seeking out the enemy artillery above the Marne. His enthusiasm was beginning to revive; the possibility of victory dawned on him. But he was so depressed by his miserable condition that he situation, which immediately dismissed such hope. His men were advancing, but their advance perhaps represented no more than a local advantage. The battle line was so long!… What was about to happen was what had happened in 1870: French valor would achieve partial victories, modified at the last minute by enemy strategy until they became defeats. After midnight, the cannonade ceased, but silence was not restored. Automobiles rolled past the pavilion amid shouts of command. It must have been the medical convoy evacuating the castle. Then, near dawn, a clatter of horses and rolling machines passed the gate, making the ground tremble. Half an hour later, the human trot of a crowd sounded , marching rapidly, disappearing into the depths of the park. Dawn was breaking when he jumped out of bed. The first thing he saw upon leaving the pavilion was the Red Cross flag still waving atop the castle. There were no longer any stretchers under the trees. On the bridge, he found several paramedics and one of the doctors. The hospital had left with all the transportable wounded. Only the most seriously injured, those unable to move, remained in the building under the supervision of a section. The Valkyries from the Hospital had also disappeared. The bearded man was one of those who had stayed behind, and upon seeing Don Marcelo from a distance, he smiled, disappearing immediately. A few moments later, he reappeared with his hands full. Never had his present been so generous. The old man sensed a great demand, but as he reached for his pocket, the paramedic stopped him: “No… No.” What generosity was that? The German insisted on his refusal. His enormous mouth dilated with a friendly smile; his big hands rested on Don Marcelo’s shoulders. He looked like a good dog, a humble dog petting a passerby to be taken with him. “Franzosen… Franzosen.” He didn’t know how to say more, but his words betrayed a desire to convey that he had always felt a great sympathy for the French. Something important was happening; the ill-humored air of those standing at the castle gate, the sudden obsequiousness of this rustic in uniform, suggested it. Beyond the building, he saw soldiers, many soldiers. An infantry battalion had spread out along the walls, with their wagons and their draft and riding horses. The soldiers wielded picks, opening loopholes in the wall, cutting its edge into crenellations. Others knelt or sat near the openings, removing their rucksacks to be more free of burdens. In the distance, the sound of cannon fire came, and in the interval between its detonations, a crack of whip fire, a bubbling of frying oil, the creaking of a coffee grinder, the incessant crackle of rifles and machine guns. The morning coolness covered men and things with a damp sheen. Wisps of mist floated over the fields, giving nearby objects the uncertain lines of the unreal. The sun was a faint speck as it rose through curtains of mist. The trees weeping from every ridge of their bark. A thunderclap rent the air, close and loud, as if it were exploding next to the castle. Desnoyers hesitated, thinking he’d received a blow to the chest. The other men remained impassive, with customary indifference . A cannon had just fired a few feet from him… Only then did he realize that two batteries had been installed in his park. The pieces were hidden under domes of branches; the artillerymen were felling trees to mask their cannons with perfect concealment. He saw them positioning the last ones. With shovels, they formed a 30-centimeter rim of earth around each of them. This edge protected the feet of the servants, whose bodies were protected by the armored screens on both sides of the room. They then built a cabin of logs and branches, leaving only the mouth of the deadly cylinder visible. Don Marcelo gradually grew accustomed to the shots, which seemed to create a vacuum inside his skull. He gritted his teeth and clenched his fists with each report, but he remained motionless, with no desire to leave, overcome by the violence of the explosions, admiring the serenity of these men, who gave their orders, upright and cold, or swayed like humble servants around the thundering beasts. All his thoughts seemed to have flown, swept away by the first cannon shot. His mind lived only in the present moment. He returned his eyes insistently to the red and white flag waving over the building. “It’s a betrayal,” he thought, a disloyalty. In the distance, on the other side of the Marne, the French cannons were also firing. Their work was evident from the small yellowish clouds floating in the air, from the columns of smoke that rose from various points across the landscape, wherever German troops were hidden, forming a line that stretched into infinity. An atmosphere of protection and respect seemed to envelop the castle. The morning mists dissolved; the sun finally revealed its bright, clear disc, prolonging the shadows of men and trees on the ground to a fantastic length. Hills and forests emerged from the mist, fresh and dripping from the morning ablution. The valley was entirely uncovered. Desnoyers saw the river with surprise from his position. During the night, the cannon had opened large windows in the groves that had hidden him. What amazed him most when contemplating this morning landscape, smiling and childish, was not seeing anyone, absolutely no one. Peaks and groves thundered, without a single person in sight. More than one hundred thousand men must have been crouching in the space within his eyes, and not a single one was visible. The deadly roar of the weapons as they shook the air left no optical trace. There was no smoke other than that of the explosion, the black spirals raised by the large projectiles as they exploded on the ground. These columns emerged from all sides. They surrounded the castle like a circle of gigantic black spinning tops, but not one broke away from the orderly circle, daring to advance until it touched the building. Don Marcelo continued to stare at the flag. “It’s a betrayal,” he repeated mentally. But at the same time, he accepted it out of selfishness, seeing in it a defense of his property. The battalion had finished settling along the wall, facing the river. The soldiers, kneeling, rested their rifles on loopholes and crenellations. They seemed content with this rest after a night of fighting in retreat. They all seemed asleep with their eyes open. Little by little, they sank back onto their heels or sought the support of their packs. Snores sounded in the brief spaces of silence left by the artillery. The officers, standing behind them, examined the landscape with their field glasses or chatted in groups. Some seemed discouraged; others, furious at the retreat they had been making since the previous day; most remained calm, with the passivity of obedience. The battle front was immense: who could guess the end?… There they were retreating, and at other points their comrades would be advancing with a decisive movement. Until the last moment, no soldier knows the fate of battles. What pained them all was seeing themselves further and further away from Paris. Don Marcelo saw a glass circle gleam. It was a monocle fixed on it with aggressive insistence. A thin, skinny lieutenant, who retained the same appearance as the officers he had seen in Berlin, a true Junker, stood a few paces away, saber in hand, behind his men, like a shepherd, gloomy and angry. “What are you doing here?” he said rudely. He explained that he was the owner of the castle. “French?” the lieutenant continued. “Yes, French…” The officer remained in hostile meditation, feeling the need to do something against this enemy. The gestures and shouts of other officers tore him from his reflections. Everyone looked up high, and the old man imitated them. For an hour, terrifying roars had been passing through the air, wrapped in yellowish vapors, shreds of cloud that seemed to carry a wheel inside, creaking with frantic twirling. They were the shells of the German heavy artillery, firing for several kilometers, sending their shots high above the castle. This couldn’t be what interested the officers. He squinted to see better, and finally , near the edge of a cloud, he made out a kind of mosquito that shone in the sun. In the brief intervals of silence , the faint, distant buzzing could be heard, betraying its presence. The officers nodded: “Franzosen.” Desnoyers believed the same. He couldn’t imagine the two black crosses on the inside of its wings. In his mind, he saw two tricolored rings, similar to the roundels that color the flying cloaks of butterflies. The Germans’ anxiety was understandable. The French plane had hovered for a moment over the castle, paying no attention to the white bubbles bursting below and around it. The guns in the nearby positions fired their shells in vain. It turned quickly, moving away toward its starting point. “He must have seen everything,” Desnoyers thought. “He’s noticed us: he knows what ‘s here.” He sensed that the course of events was about to change rapidly. Everything that had happened until then in the early hours of the morning was insignificant compared to what was to come. He felt fear, the irresistible fear of the unknown, and at the same time curiosity, anguish, and impatience in the face of a threatening danger that never quite arrives. A deafening explosion sounded outside the park, but a short distance from the wall: something like a gigantic blow from an axe as enormous as his castle. Entire treetops flew through the air, several trunks split in two, black soil with tufts of grass, a jet of dust that darkened the sky. Some stones rolled from the wall. The Germans flinched, but without visible emotion. They knew this; they had expected its arrival, as something inevitable, after having seen the airplane. The flag with the red cross could no longer deceive the enemy gunners. Don Marcelo didn’t have time to recover from his surprise: a second explosion closer to the wall… a third inside the park. It seemed to him as if he had suddenly leaped into another world. He saw men and things through a fantastic atmosphere that roared, destroying everything with the cutting violence of its undulations. He had been frozen by terror, and yet he wasn’t afraid. Until then, he had imagined fear in different forms. He felt an agonizing emptiness in his stomach. He staggered repeatedly on his feet, as if someone had pushed him, struck him in the chest, only to straighten him again with another blow to the back. A smell of acids spread through the air, making it difficult to breathe, making his eyes prickle with tears. However, the noises ceased to bother him: they didn’t exist for him. He sensed them in the waves of the air, in the shaking of things, in the whirlwind that bent the men, but they had no effect on his interior. He had lost the faculty of hearing: the full power of his senses was concentrated on his gaze. His eyes seemed to acquire multiple facets, like those of certain insects. He saw what was happening in front of him, to his sides, and behind him. And he witnessed marvelous, instantaneous things, as if all the rules of life had just suffered a capricious upheaval. An officer a few steps away took inexplicable flight. He began to rise, without losing his military stiffness, with his helmet on his head, his brow furrowed, his short blond mustache, and lower down his mustard-colored chest, his gloved hands holding a pair of cufflinks and a piece of paper. But there his individuality ended. His gray legs with their gaiters had fallen to the ground, lifeless, like holsters. empty, expelling their red contents as they deflated. The trunk, in its violent ascent, collapsed like a pitcher, releasing its visceral contents. Further ahead, some artillerymen who had been upright suddenly appeared, lying motionless, covered in purple. The infantry line flattened on the ground. The men huddled together, to make themselves less visible, next to the loopholes through which their rifles protruded. Many had placed their rucksacks over their heads or backs to protect them from shell casings. If they moved, it was to better mold themselves to the ground, seeking to dig it with their bellies. Several of them had changed position with inexplicable rapidity. Now they were lying on their backs and seemed to be sleeping. One had his uniform open over his abdomen, revealing between the tears in the fabric loose flesh, blue and red, emerging and swelling with bubbles of expansion. Another had been left without legs. He also saw eyes widened with surprise and pain, round, black mouths that seemed to be wailing their lips. But they weren’t screaming: at least he couldn’t hear their screams. He had lost track of time. He didn’t know if he had been in this state of immobility for several hours or a minute. The only thing that bothered him was the trembling of his legs, which refused to support him… Something fell behind him. Debris rained down. When he turned his head, he saw his castle transformed. Half of his tower had just been robbed. The slates were scattered into tiny fragments; the ashlars were crumbling; the stone frame of a window remained loose and balanced like a frame. The old timbers of his hood began to burn like torches. The sight of this instantaneous change in his property impressed him more than the ravages wrought by death. He realized the horror of the blind and implacable forces that roared around him. The life concentrated in his eyes spread, descending to his feet… And he began to run, not knowing where to go, feeling the same need to hide as those men chained by discipline, forced to crush themselves to the ground, to envy the soft invisibility of reptiles. His instinct drove him toward the pavilion, but halfway down the avenue, his path was blocked by another of those astonishing mutations. An invisible hand had just ripped off half the roof with a backhand. An entire wall folded, forming a cascade of bricks and dust. The interior rooms were exposed, like a theater set: the kitchen where he had eaten; the upper floor with the bedroom, which still had his bed unmade. Poor women! He retreated, running toward the castle. He remembered the cave where he had spent a night locked inside. And when he found himself beneath its gloomy vault, he considered it the finest of all halls, praising the prudence of its builders. The subterranean silence gradually restored his auditory sensitivity. He heard, like a storm muffled by the distance, the German cannon fire and the explosion of French shells. He recalled the praise he had lavished on the .75-caliber cannon, without knowing it except from rumors. He had already witnessed its effects. “It shoots too well,” he murmured. In a short time, he would destroy his castle; he found such perfection excessive… But he soon regretted these lamentations of his selfishness. An idea as tenacious as remorse had taken hold of his mind. It seemed to him that everything he suffered was expiation for the mistake he had made in his youth. He had avoided serving his country, and now he found himself immersed in the horrors of war, with the humility of a passive and defenseless being, without the satisfactions of a soldier who can strike back. He was going to die, he was sure of it, a shameful death, without any glory, anonymously. The rubble of his property would serve as his tomb. And the certainty of death in the darkness, like a rodent whose burrows are blocked, began to become intolerable. This shelter. The storm continued above. A thunderclap seemed to explode above his head, followed by the crash of a collapse. Another shell had fallen on the building. He heard roars of agony, screams, and headlong rushes on the roof. Perhaps the shell, in its blind fury, had torn to pieces many of the dying who had occupied the halls. He feared he was buried in his shelter and leaped up the stairs to the basement. As he passed through the ground floor, he saw the sky through the broken ceilings. Pieces of wood hung from the edges, wobbly pieces of flooring, and furniture stopped in mid-fall. He stepped on rubble as he crossed the hall, where carpets had once been; he stumbled over broken and twisted ironwork, fragments of beds that had been thrown down from the highest part of the building; he thought he saw convulsing limbs among the piles of rubble; he heard anguished voices that he could not understand. He ran out, with the same yearning for light and fresh air that drives a shipwrecked man to the deck from the bowels of the ship… More time had passed than he imagined since he had taken refuge in the darkness. The sun was high in the sky. He saw in the garden new corpses in tragic and grotesque attitudes. The wounded groaned, hunched over, or remained on the ground, their backs against a tree, in a painful silence. Some had opened their rucksacks to take out their medical supplies and were tending to the wounds in their flesh. The infantry were now firing their rifles incessantly. The number of riflemen had increased. New groups of soldiers were entering the park: some with their sergeant at the front, others followed by an officer who carried his revolver against his chest, as if guiding the men with it. It was the infantry driven from their positions along the river, coming to reinforce the second line of defense. The machine guns combined their tick-tock of a moving loom with the crack of rifle fire. The air whistled, incessantly pierced by the bumblebee buzzing of an invisible swarm. Thousands of sticky midges moved around Desnoyers without his being able to see them. The tree bark jumped, pushed by hidden nails; leaves rained down; branches shook with contradictory swaying motions; stones broke from the ground, propelled by a mysterious foot. All inanimate objects seemed to acquire a fantastic life. The soldiers’ zinc buckets, the metal pieces of their equipment, the artillery buckets rattled on their own, as if hit by an intangible hailstorm. He saw a cannon lying on its side, its wheels broken and raised, among many men who seemed to be sleeping; he saw soldiers lying down and bowing their heads without a cry, without a twitch, as if instantly overcome by sleep . Others howled as they dragged themselves along or walked with their hands on their bellies, their bottoms touching the ground. The old man experienced an acute sensation of heat. A pungent scent of explosive drugs made him weep and scratched his throat. At the same time, he felt cold: his forehead was frozen with icy sweat. He had to turn away from the bridge. Several soldiers were passing by with wounded, trying to get them into the building, even though it was falling into ruin. Suddenly, he was hit by a spray of liquid from head to toe, as if the earth had opened up, revealing a torrent. A shell had fallen into the moat, raising an enormous column of water, shattering the carp sleeping in the mud, breaking part of the edges, and turning the white balustrade with its flower vases to dust. He ran, blinded by terror, only to find himself before a small glass circle that was coldly examining him. It was the Junker, the officer with the monocle. He was falling into their hands again… With the butt of his revolver, he pointed to two buckets a short distance away. He was to fill them at the lagoon and give water to his sun-sweltered men. His imperious tone brooked no reply, but Don Marcelo tried to resist. Serving as a servant to the Germans? His astonishment was brief .
He received a blow from the butt of the revolver in the middle of his chest, and at the same time, the lieutenant’s other hand fell closed over his face. The old man hunched over: he wanted to cry, he wanted to perish. But he neither shed tears nor did the life escape from his body at this affront, as he had longed for… He saw himself with the two buckets in his hands , filling them from the ditch, then walking along the line of men, who abandoned their rifles to sip the liquid with the avidity of panting beasts. He was no longer afraid of the shrillness of the invisible bodies. His wish was to die; he knew that he was bound to die. His sufferings were too much: there was no room left in the world for him. He had to pass by breaches opened in the wall by the sound of shells. No obstacle impeded his vision because of these breaches. Fences and groves had been altered or erased by the artillery fire. At the foot of the slope that occupied his castle, he made out several attack columns that had crossed the Marne. The attackers were pinned down by the heavy German fire. They advanced by leaps and bounds, in companies, then lying down in the shelter of the folds of the ground to let the deadly bursts pass. The old man felt animated by a desperate resolve: since he had to die, let a French bullet kill him. And he advanced upright, with his two buckets, among those prone men who were firing. Then, with sudden terror, he remained motionless, burying his head between his shoulders, thinking that the bullet he received represented one less danger to the enemy. It was better to be killed by the Germans… And he began to mentally toy with the idea of ​​picking up a weapon from any of the dead, falling upon the Junker who had slapped him. He was filling the buckets for the third time and looking at the lieutenant with his back to them when something improbable, absurd happened, something that reminded him of the fantastic mutations in cinemas. The officer’s head suddenly disappeared: two jets of blood leaped from his neck, and the body collapsed like an empty sack. At the same time, a cyclone passed along the wall, between it and the building, knocking down trees, overturning cannons, and swirling people around like dry leaves. He sensed that death was blowing in a new direction. Until then, it had come head-on, from the river side, battering the enemy line entrenched behind the wall. Now, with the suddenness of a change in the weather, it came from the far side of the park. A skillful movement by the attackers, the use of a secluded path , perhaps a withdrawal of the German line, had allowed the French to place their cannons in a new position, hitting the occupants of the castle from the flank. It was Don Marcelo’s good fortune to linger a few minutes at the edge of the ditch, sheltered by the mass of the building. The spray from the hidden battery passed along the avenue, sweeping away the living, shattering the dead a second time, killing the horses, breaking the wheels of the pieces, sending a harmonica flying with volcanic flames, from whose red and blue depths black bodies leaped. He saw hundreds of fallen men; he saw horses running, trampling on their guts. The harvest of death had not been in sheaves: an entire field was leveled with a single blow of the sickle. And as if the opposing batteries sensed the catastrophe, they redoubled their fire, sending down a hail of shells. They fell from all sides. Beyond the castle, at the end of the park, craters opened in the grove, vomiting up entire trunks. The projectiles brought the dead buried the day before out of their graves . Those who hadn’t fallen continued to shoot through the openings in the wall. Then they scrambled to their feet. Some of them cocked their bayonets, pale, with pursed lips and a crazed gleam in their eyes; others turned their backs, running toward the park exit, paying no attention to the officers’ shouts and the revolver shots they fired at the fugitives. All this happened with dizzying rapidity, like a scene from a nightmare. On the other side of the wall, a rising hum like the tide could be heard. He heard shouts; it seemed to him that hoarse, discordant voices were singing the Marseillaise. The machine guns were firing swiftly, like sewing machines. The attack was about to be immobilized again by this furious resistance. The Germans, mad with rage, fired and fired. In a gap, red kepis appeared, legs of the same color trying to climb over the rubble. But the vision was instantly erased under the spray of machine guns. The attackers must have fallen in heaps on the other side of the wall. Desnoyers wasn’t sure how the mutation occurred. Suddenly, he saw the red trousers inside the park. They leaped over the wall with an irresistible leap , slipped through the gaps, and came from the depths of the grove through invisible entrances. They were small, square, sweaty soldiers with their greatcoats unbuttoned. And mixed in with them, in the disorder of the charge, were African riflemen with devilish eyes and foaming mouths, zouaves in baggy breeches, and chasseurs in blue uniforms. The German officers wanted to die. Sabers raised, having exhausted their revolvers, they advanced against the attackers, followed by the soldiers who still obeyed them. There was a clash, a mingling. It seemed to the old man as if the world had fallen into a profound silence. The cries of the combatants, the clash of bodies, the shrillness of the weapons, meant nothing after the barrels had fallen silent. He saw men pinned belly-first to the butt of a rifle, a reddened point sticking out of their loins; raised butts falling like hammers; adversaries embracing each other, rolling on the ground, trying to dominate each other with kicks and bites. The mustard-colored chests disappeared; he saw only mustard-colored backs fleeing toward the park’s exit, filtering through the trees, falling mid-run, struck by bullets. Many of the attackers wanted to pursue the fugitives but could not, preoccupied with wrenching their bayonets free from the body that held them in its agonizing spasms. Don Marcelo suddenly found himself in the middle of these mortal clashes, jumping like a child, waving his hands, uttering cries. Then he woke again, holding in his arms the dusty head of a young officer who looked at him in astonishment. Perhaps he thought he was mad when he received his kisses, heard his incoherent words, and felt a shower of tears fall on his cheeks. He continued crying when the officer released him with a rude shove… he needed to vent his frustration after so many days of silent anguish: “Long live France!” His people were already at the park entrance. They ran with bayonets ahead, pursuing the last remnants of the German battalion escaping toward the village. A group of horsemen passed along the road. They were dragoons arriving to intensify the pursuit. But their horses were tired; only the fever of victory, which seemed to be transmitted from man to beast, sustained their forced and painful trot. One of these horsemen stopped near the entrance to the park. The horse greedily devoured some weeds, while the man remained curled up in the saddle as if asleep. Desnoyers touched him on the hip, trying to wake him, and he immediately rolled over . He was dead; his entrails hung out of his abdomen. Thus he had advanced on his steed, trotting in confusion with the others. Enormous spinning tops of iron and smoke began to fall nearby. The German artillery fired on their lost positions. The advance continued. Battalions, squadrons, and batteries marched north, tired, dirty, covered in dust and mud, but with a passion that galvanized their almost exhausted forces. French cannons began to thunder near the village. Groups of soldiers explored the castle and the surrounding woods. From ruined rooms, from the depths of caves, from the bushes of the park, from burned-out stables and garages, greenish men with pointed heads emerged. They all raised their arms, displaying their wide-open hands: “Kamarades… kamarades, non kaput!” They feared, with the unease of remorse, that they would be killed immediately. They had suddenly lost all their ferocity at being far from the officer and freed from discipline. Some who knew a little French spoke of their wives and children, to move the hearts of the enemies who threatened them with bayonets. A German marched beside Desnoyers, pressing himself close behind him. It was the bearded paramedic. He beat his chest and then pointed at him. “Franzosen… a great friend of Franzosen.” And he smiled at his protector. He remained in his castle until the following morning. She saw Georgette and her mother’s unexpected emergence from the depths of the ruined pavilion. They wept as they gazed at the French uniforms. “This couldn’t go on,” the widow moaned. “God never dies!” The two of them were beginning to doubt the reality of the previous days. After a bad night spent among the rubble, Don Marcelo decided to leave. What else could he do in this ruined castle? The presence of so many dead people bothered him. There were hundreds, thousands. The soldiers and peasants were burying the corpses in piles wherever they found them. Graves next to the building, in every avenue of the park, in the flowerbeds of the gardens, inside the outbuildings. Even at the bottom of the circular pond there were dead bodies. How could he live at all hours of the day with this tragic neighborhood, made up mostly of enemies? “Goodbye, Château de Villeblanche!” He set off for Paris; he intended to reach it no matter what. He found corpses everywhere, but these were not wearing the greenish uniform. Many of his own men had fallen in the saving offensive. Many would fall even in the final convulsions of the battle that continued behind him, shaking the horizon with an incessant thunder… He saw scarlet trousers emerging from the stubble, hobnailed soles shining upright beside the road, livid heads, amputated bodies, open stomachs that revealed enormous blue livers, severed trunks, loose legs. And emerging from this funereal amalgam were red and dark kepis, oriental caps, helmets with manes of horsehair, twisted sabers, broken bayonets, rifles, piles of cannon cartridges. Dead horses littered the plain with their swollen ribs. Artillery vehicles with their timbers burned away and their twisted iron frames revealed the tragic moment of the explosion. Rectangles of packed earth marked the position of the enemy batteries before they retreated. He found overturned cannons with their wheels broken, shell casings turned into twisted skeins of steel bars, and cones of charred matter, the remains of men and horses burned by the Germans the night before their retreat. Despite these barbaric incinerations, the corpses on both sides were endless, limitless. It seemed as if the earth had vomited up all the bodies it had received since the beginning of humanity. The sun, impassive, filled the fields of death with points of light and yellowish flashes. Bayonet wounds, metal plates, and rifle cartridge cases sparkled like shards of mirrors. The damp night, the rain, the oxidizing weather, had not yet modified these remains of the battle with their corrosive action, erasing their shine. The flesh was beginning to decompose. A cemetery stench accompanied the traveler, becoming more intense as he advanced toward Paris. Every half hour made him pass through a new circle of increasing decay, descending a step in animal decomposition . At first, the dead were from the previous day: they were fresh. Those he found on the other side of the river had been lying there for two days. the ground; then three, then four. Flocks of crows rose with lazy flapping at the sound of his footsteps; but they would settle back to the ground, full but not satiated, having lost all fear of man. From time to time he encountered living groups. They were cavalry platoons, gendarmes, zouaves, hunters. They bivouacked around the ruined farms, exploring the terrain to hunt down German fugitives . Desnoyers had to explain his story, showing the passport Lacour had given him to travel on the military train. Only in this way could he continue. These soldiers, many of them slightly wounded, were still under the impression of victory. They laughed, recounted their exploits, the great dangers they had faced in the previous days. “We’ll kick them all the way to the border…” His indignation was rekindled when he looked around them. The villages, the farms, the isolated houses, everything burned. Like the skeletons of prehistoric beasts , many steel frames twisted by the fire stood out on the plain. The brick chimneys of the factories were cut almost at ground level or showed several clean, round shell holes in their cylinders. They looked like shepherd’s flutes stuck in the ground. Beside the ruined villages, women were digging graves. This work seemed insignificant. It took an immense effort to remove so many dead bodies. “We’re going to die after the victory,” thought Don Marcelo. The plague is going to prey on us. The water in the streams had not been spared this contagion. Thirst made him drink from a pond, and when he raised his head, he saw green legs emerging from the liquid surface, sinking his boots into the mud on the shore. The head of a German was at the bottom of the puddle. He had been marching for several hours when he stopped, thinking he recognized a ruined house. It was the tavern where he had lunched days before, on his way to his castle. He entered the sooty walls, and a swarm of sticky flies buzzed around his face. A stench of fat rotted by death stung his nostrils. A leg that looked like charred cardboard was sticking out of the rubble. He thought he saw the old woman again with her grandchildren clinging to her skirts. “Sir, why are people fleeing? War is a matter for soldiers. We don’t harm anyone and we have nothing to fear.” Half an hour later, as he was descending a hill, he had the most unexpected encounter . He saw a rental car, a Parisian car, with its meter on the cab. The chauffeur was strolling calmly beside the vehicle, as if he were at a stop. He soon struck up a conversation with this gentleman, who appeared ragged and dirty like a vagabond, half his face pale from the brunt of a blow. He had brought some Parisians who wished to see the battlefield . They were the kind who wrote for the newspapers; he was waiting for them there to return at dusk. Don Marcello dug his right hand into his pocket. Two hundred francs if he took him to Paris. The chauffeur protested with the seriousness of a man faithful to his commitments… “Five hundred.” And he held up a handful of gold coins . The other man, in reply, cranked the engine, which began to rumble. It wasn’t every day that a battle took place in the vicinity of Paris. His clients could wait for him. And Desnoyers, inside the vehicle, saw this field of horrors pass through the doors in a dizzying flight, dissolving behind him. It was rolling toward human life… it was returning to civilization. As he entered Paris, the deserted streets seemed crowded . He had never found the city so beautiful. He saw the Opera, he saw the Place de la Concorde, he imagined he was dreaming as he appreciated the enormous leap he had made in an hour. He compared his surroundings with the images of just before, with that plain of death that stretched out a few miles away. No, it wasn’t possible. One of the two terms of this contrast had to be false. The car stopped: he had reached Victor Hugo Avenue… He thought he was still dreaming. Was he really home? The majestic doorman greeted him in astonishment, unable to explain his wretched appearance. “Ah, sir! Where did the sir come from?” ” From hell,” Don Marcelo murmured. His astonishment continued when he found himself inside his own home, wandering through its rooms. He was someone again. The sight of its riches, the enjoyment of its comforts, restored to him the notion of his dignity. At the same time, the memory of all the humiliations and insults he had suffered was resurrected in his mind. “Ah, scoundrels!” Two days later, in the morning, his doorbell rang. A visitor! A soldier advanced toward him, a small, timid, regular infantryman , with his cap in his right hand, muttering excuses in Spanish. I heard you were here… I’ve come to… That voice?… Don Marcelo pulled him in the dark hall, leading him toward a balcony… How handsome he looked!… His kepi was a red darkened by grime; his cloak, too wide, was shaved and re-stitched; his large shoes gave off a stench of leather. He had never seen his son so elegant and handsome as he was now in these warehouse remnants. “You!… You!” The father hugged him convulsively, moaning like a child, feeling that his feet refused to support him. He had always hoped that they would eventually come to an understanding. He had his blood: he was good, with no other fault than a certain stubbornness. He excused him now for everything that had happened, attributing much of the blame to himself. He had been too harsh. “You soldier!” he repeated. “You defending my country, which is not yours!” And she kissed him again, then stepped back a few steps to better appreciate his appearance. She decidedly found him more beautiful in his grotesque uniform than when he was famous for his graceful dancing, beloved by women. She finally mastered her emotions. Her eyes, filled with tears, shone with a malignant glow. A look of hatred twisted her face. ” Go,” she said simply. “You don’t know what this war is; I come from it, I’ve seen it up close. It’s not a war like the others, with loyal enemies: it’s a hunt for wild beasts… Shoot without scruple at the pile. For every one you knock down, you save humanity from danger.” She paused for a moment, as if hesitating, and finally added with tragic calm: “Perhaps you will find familiar faces before you. Family is not always formed to our liking. Men of your own blood are on the other side.” If you see any of them… don’t hesitate, shoot! He’s your enemy. Kill him!… kill him! PART THREE. Chapter 11. After the Marne. At the end of October, the Desnoyers family returned to Paris. Donna Luisa could not live in Biarritz, far from her husband. In vain did “the romantic” speak to her of the dangers of returning. The government was still in Bordeaux; the President of the Republic and the ministers only made brief appearances in the capital. The course of the war could change at any moment : the Marne represented only momentary relief… But the good lady remained insensitive to these suggestions after reading Don Marcelo’s letters. Besides, she was thinking of her son, her Julio, who was a soldier… She believed that by returning to Paris she would be in closer contact with him than on this beach near the Spanish border. Chichí also wanted to return. René occupied much of her thoughts. The absence had served to make her realize that she was in love. So long without seeing the “sugar soldier”!… And the family abandoned their hotel life to return to the Avenue Victor Hugo. Paris was changing its appearance after the shock of early September. The two million inhabitants who remained quietly in their houses, without letting themselves be swept away by panic, had welcomed the victory with grave serenity. No one could explain why. the course of the battle: they came to learn about it after it was over. One Sunday in September, at an hour when Parisians were strolling through the beautiful evening, they learned from the newspapers of the great triumph of the Allies and the danger they had run. People rejoiced, but without abandoning their calm demeanor. Six weeks of war had radically changed the boisterous and impressionable character of Paris . The victory was slowly returning the capital to its former appearance. A street that had been deserted weeks before was filled with passersby. Shops were opening. The neighbors, accustomed to a convent-like silence in their homes, once again heard sounds of settling on the roof and beneath their feet. Don Marcelo’s joy at seeing his people arrive was overshadowed by the presence of Doña Elena. It was Germany returning to his side, the enemy once again in his home. When would she be able to free herself from this slavery?… She remained silent in the presence of her brother-in-law. Recent events seemed to disorient her. Her face wore an expression of bewilderment, as if she were contemplating the most elementary laws of physics in turmoil . In her reflective silences, it was impossible for her to understand how the Germans had not conquered the land she stood on; and to explain this failure, she indulged in the most absurd suppositions. A particular concern increased her sadness. Her children… what would become of her children! Don Marcelo never spoke to her about his interview with Captain von Hartrott. He remained silent about his trip to Villeblanche; he did not want to recount his adventures during the Battle of the Marne. Why sadden his family with such misery?… He had limited himself to announcing to Donna Luisa, alarmed by the fate of her castle, that they would not be able to visit it for many years , as it had become uninhabitable. A cap of zinc sheets now replaced the old roof to prevent the rains from completing the internal destruction. Later, after peace, they would consider renovating it. For now, it had too many inhabitants… And all the ladies, even Doña Elena, shuddered at the thought of the thousands of corpses forming a circle around the building, hidden in the ground. This vision made Madame Hartrott moan again : “Oh, my children!” Her brother-in-law, out of humanity, had reassured her about the fate of one of them, Captain Otto. He was in perfect health at the start of the battle. He knew this from a friend who had spoken with him… And he would say no more. Doña Luisa spent part of the day in the churches, lulling her worries with prayer. These prayers were no longer vague and generous for the fate of millions of unknown men, for the victory of an entire people. She concentrated them with maternal selfishness on a single person, her son, who was a soldier like the others and perhaps at that moment felt in danger. The tears it cost her!… She had begged that he and his father come to an understanding, and when God finally wanted to favor her with a miracle, Julio went off to meet his death. Her prayers were never alone. Someone prayed beside her in church, formulating identical requests. Her sister’s tearful eyes rose at the same time as hers toward the crucified corpse. “Lord, save my son!” When Doña Luisa said this, she saw Julio just as her husband had shown him in a pale photograph he had received from the trenches, wearing a kepi and greatcoat, his legs bound by cloth bands, a rifle in his right hand, and his face shadowed by a budding beard. “Lord, protect us!” And Dona Elena in turn contemplated a group of officers with helmets and mignonette -green uniforms, broken by the leather stains of their revolvers, their binoculars, their map-cases, and their belts, from which their sabers hung. Watching them leave together for Saint-Honorée d’Eylau, Don Marcelo sometimes became indignant. They’re playing with God… This isn’t serious. How can he pay attention to some Such contradictory prayers? Ah, women! And with the superstition that danger awakens, she believed that her sister-in-law was causing a grave harm to her son. The divinity, tired of so much contradictory prayer, was about to turn her back so as not to hear either side . Why didn’t this fatal woman leave? Just as at the beginning of hostilities, she once again felt the torment of her presence. Doña Luisa unconsciously repeated her sister’s affirmations, subjecting them to the superior judgment of her husband. Thus Don Marcelo was able to learn that the victory of the Marne had never existed in reality: it was an invention of the Allies. The German generals had thought it prudent to retreat, due to their high strategic foresight, leaving the conquest of Paris for later, and the French had done nothing but follow in their footsteps, since the terrain was left open for them. That was all. She knew the opinions of some military men from neutral countries; she had spoken in Biarritz with highly competent people; She knew what the German newspapers were saying. No one there believed in the Marne battle. The public didn’t even know about this battle. “Your sister says that?” Desnoyers interrupted, pale with surprise and anger. All he could think of was to wish for a complete transformation of this enemy sheltered under his roof. “Oh! Why didn’t he become a man? Why didn’t the phantom of her husband come to take his place, even if only for half an hour ?” ” But the war goes on,” Doña Luisa insisted naively. “The enemies are still in France… What was the point of the Marne?” She accepted the explanations, nodding her head with an intelligent gesture, understanding everything immediately, only to forget it immediately and repeat the same doubts an hour later. Nevertheless, she began to show a dull hostility toward her sister. Until then, she had tolerated her enthusiasm in favor of her husband’s country because she considered family ties more important than national rivalries. Just because Desnoyers was French and Karl German, she wasn’t going to argue with Elena. But suddenly this feeling of tolerance vanished. Her son was in danger… May all the Hartrotts die before Julio received the slightest wound!… She shared her daughter’s bellicose feelings , recognizing in her a great talent for appreciating events. She longed to see all of Chichí’s fantastical stabs in the back of her throat brought to reality . Fortunately, “the romantic” left before this antipathy became apparent. She spent her afternoons away from home. Then, upon returning, she would repeat opinions and news from friends unknown to the family. Don Marcelo was indignant about the spies still living in hiding in Paris. What mysterious world did his sister-in-law frequent? Suddenly, she announced that she was leaving the following morning: she had a passport for Switzerland, and from there she would head to Germany. It was time to return to her family; She was very grateful for the family’s kindness … And Desnoyers dismissed her with ironic aggression. She gave her best regards to von Hartrott; she wished to pay him a visit in Berlin as soon as possible. One morning, Donna Luisa, instead of entering the church on the Place Victor Hugo, continued on to the Rue de la Pompe, flattered by the idea of ​​seeing his studio. It seemed to her that by doing so she would be in touch with her son. It was a new pleasure, more intense than looking at his photograph or reading his last letter. She hoped to find Argensola, the friend of good advice. She knew he was still living in the studio. Twice he had gone to see her by way of the back stairs, as in the past, but she was absent. As she rode up in the elevator, her heart beat with a rapidity of pleasure and anguish. It occurred to the good lady, with a certain blush, that “mad women” must feel something similar when they failed for the first time in their duties. Her tears flowed freely when she saw herself in that room. whose furniture and paintings reminded her of the absent man. Argensola ran from the door to the back of the room, agitated and confused, greeting her with words of welcome and simultaneously moving objects around. A woman’s coat that had fallen on a divan was obliterated by an oriental fabric; a flowered hat flew with a swipe of his hand and hid in a corner. Doña Luisa thought she saw a woman’s chemise flinging through a gap in a curtain , revealing rosy nakedness. On the stove, two bowls and the remains of toast betrayed a double breakfast. These painters! Just like her son! And he was moved to think of the ill-fated life of Julio’s advisor. My respectable Doña Luisa… Dear Madame Desnoyers… He spoke loudly in French, looking at the door through which the white and pink fluttering had disappeared. He trembled at the thought that his hidden companion might make jealous errors, compromising him with an untimely appearance. Then they spoke of the soldier. The two exchanged news. Doña Luisa almost repeated verbatim the paragraphs of their letters, reread so many times. Argensola modestly refrained from showing the texts of hers. The two friends used an epistolary style that would have made the good lady blush. A brave man proudly declared himself a true hero, considering the deeds of his companion as his own: “And I, Madame Desnoyers, understand something of this… His commanders know how to appreciate him…” Julio was a sergeant two months into the campaign. The captain of his company and other officers of the regiment belonged to the Fencing Circle where he had achieved so many triumphs. “What a career!” she continued. “He’s one of those who rise young to the highest ranks, like the generals of the Revolution… And what feats!” The soldier had only briefly mentioned some of his deeds in his letters , with the indifference of someone accustomed to danger and appreciating equal courage in his comrades. But the Bohemian exaggerated them, praising them as if they were the most culminating deeds of the war. He had carried an order through hellish fire, after three messengers had fallen dead without being able to fulfill the same task. He had jumped first in attacking many trenches and saved numerous comrades with bayonets in hand-to-hand combat. When his commanders needed a man they could trust, they invariably said, “Call Sergeant Desnoyers.” He stated this as if he had witnessed it, as if he had just returned from the war; and Doña Luisa trembled, shedding tears of joy and fear at the thought of her son’s glories and perils. That Argensola had the gift of moving her, because of the vehemence with which he recounted things. She believed she should be grateful for such enthusiasm by showing some interest in the person of the eulogist… What had he done lately ?… I, madam, have been where I ought to be. I haven’t moved from here. I witnessed the “siege” of Paris. His reason protested in vain against the inaccuracy of this word. Under the influence of his readings on the war of 1870, he called the operations carried out near Paris during the Battle of the Marne “siege. ” He modestly pointed to a gold-framed diploma placed on the piano, against a background of a tricolor flag. It was a piece of paper sold on the streets: a certificate of stay in the capital during the week of danger. He had filled in the blanks with his names and qualifications, and at the bottom were the signatures of two residents of the Rue de la Pompe: a tavern keeper and a friend of the porteress. The district police commissioner guaranteed with his signature and seal the responsibility of these honorable witnesses. No one would question, after such a precaution, whether or not he had witnessed the “siege” of Paris. He had such incredulous friends !… To move the good lady, he recalled his impressions. He had seen in broad daylight a flock of sheep on the boulevard, next to the gate. of the Madeleine. His footsteps had awakened the sonorous echoes of dead cities in many streets. He was the only passerby: abandoned dogs and cats roamed the sidewalks. His military memories inflamed him like breaths of glory. I have seen the Moroccans pass by… I have seen the Zouaves in cars. The same night that Jules had left for Bordeaux, he wandered until dawn, following a line of avenues through half of Paris, from the Lion of Belfort to the Gare du Est. Twenty-seven thousand men, with all their campaign equipment, from Morocco, had disembarked in Marseilles and arrived in the capital, making part of the journey by rail and part on foot. They had come to take part in the great battle that was beginning. They were troops composed of Europeans and Africans. The vanguard, upon entering the Porte d’Orléans, began a gymnastic march, crossing half of Paris to the Gare du Est, where the trains were waiting. The neighborhood saw squadrons of spahis, in theatrical uniforms, mounted on their nimble, slick horses; Moroccan riflemen with yellow turbans; Senegalese riflemen with black faces and red caps; colonial artillerymen; African hunters. They were professional fighters, soldiers who in times of peace had lived fighting in the colonies, with energetic profiles, tanned faces, and prey-like eyes. The long parade would freeze in the streets for hours on end to allow time for the forces in front to settle into the trains … And Argensola had followed this armed, motionless mass from the boulevards to the Gates of Orleans, talking with the officers, listening to the innocent cries of the African warriors, who had never seen Paris and who passed through it without curiosity, asking where the enemy was. They arrived in time to attack von Kluck on the banks of the Oureq, forcing him to retreat or risk being surrounded. What Argensola didn’t count on was that his nocturnal excursion along this army corps had been accompanied by the kind person inside and two other friends, an enthusiastic and generous group who handed out flowers and kisses to the tanned soldiers, laughing at the amazement with which they showed their white teeth. On another day, he had witnessed the most extraordinary spectacle of war. All the hired cars, some two thousand vehicles, carrying battalions of Zouaves, eight men per carriage, and speeding off, bristling with rifles and red caps. They formed a picturesque procession along the boulevards: a sort of interminable wedding. And the soldiers got out of the cars right on the edge of the battle, firing as soon as they jumped off the steps. Gallieni had thrown all the men who knew how to handle a rifle against the enemy’s extreme right at the supreme moment, when victory was still uncertain and the slightest weight could decide it. Clerks from the military offices, orderlies, members of the police, gendarmes— all had marched to give the final push, forming a mass of heterogeneous colors. And on Sunday afternoon, when she was sunbathing with her three companions in the Bois de Boulogne among thousands of Parisians, she learned from the special newspaper articles that the battle that had taken place near the city and was receding was a great battle, a victory. I have seen much, Madame Desnoyers… I can tell great things. And she approved: she had indeed seen Argensola… As she left, she offered him her support. He was her son’s friend, and she was accustomed to his requests. Times had changed; Don Marcelo was now boundlessly generous… But the Bohemian interrupted her with a stately gesture: he was living in abundance. Julius had appointed him his administrator. The American draft had been recognized by the Bank as a sum on deposit, and they could use a certain percentage, in accordance with the decrees on the moratorium. Her friend sent her a check whenever she needed money to support the household. She had never been in such a comfortable situation. War also has its good points… But, hoping that good manners would not be lost, she announced that she would once again go up the servants’ stairs to take a basket of bottles… Doña Luisa, after her sister’s departure, went to church alone, until suddenly she found herself with an unexpected companion. Mama, I’m going with you… It was Chichí, who seemed to feel an ardent devotion. She no longer enlivened the house with her noisy, manly joy; she no longer threatened the enemies with imaginary stabs. She was pale, sad, with blue halos around her eyes. She bowed her head as if a block of serious, completely new thoughts were gravitating on the other side of her forehead . Doña Luisa watched her in church with jealous spite. Her eyes were moist, just like her; He prayed fervently, just like her… but it certainly wasn’t for his brother. Julio had faded into the background of her memories. Another man in danger filled her thoughts. The last of the Lacours was no longer a simple soldier, nor was he in Paris. Upon arriving from Biarritz, Chichi had listened anxiously to the exploits of his “little sugar soldier.” Palpitating with emotion, he wanted to know all the dangers he had been subjected to, and the young warrior from the “auxiliary service” told him of his worries at the office during the endless days when the troops fought near Paris, the thunder of artillery heard from the outskirts. Her father had wanted to take him to Bordeaux, but last-minute administrative chaos kept her in the capital. She had done something else. On the day of the great effort, when the governor of the city threw all the able-bodied men into automobiles, she had taken a rifle, without being called, occupying a vehicle with others from her office. She had seen nothing but smoke, burning houses, dead and wounded. Not a single German had passed before her eyes, except for a group of captured Uhlans. He had lain for several hours on the side of the road, shooting… and nothing more. For the moment, it was enough for Chi-chi. She felt proud of being the fiancée of a Marne hero, even though her involvement had only lasted a few hours. But as the days passed, her temper darkened . It bothered her to go out on the street with René, a simple soldier, and also one of auxiliary service… The women of the town, excited by the memory of their men fighting at the front or dressed in mourning for the death of one of them, were aggressively insolent. The delicacy and elegance of the republican prince seemed to irritate them. Repeatedly, she heard harsh words spoken against the “ambushers.” The thought that her brother, who was not French, was fighting made the situation at Lacour even more intolerable. She had a boyfriend, a “man in ambush.” ​​How her friends must have laughed! The senator’s son undoubtedly guessed her thoughts, and this made him lose his smiling tranquility. For three days he didn’t appear at Desnoyers’s house. Everyone believed he was being held up by some office work. One morning, as Chichi was heading toward the Avenue du Bois escorted by one of her copper-colored maids, she saw a soldier marching toward her. He was wearing a brand-new uniform, the new blue-gray “horizon” color adopted by the French army. The chinstrap of his kepi was gold, and there was a small gold trim on the sleeves. His smile, his outstretched hands, the confidence with which he advanced toward her, made her recognize him. “René, an officer!” Her boyfriend, a second lieutenant! Yes; I can’t take it anymore… I’ve heard enough. Behind her father’s back and with the help of her friends, she had accomplished this transformation in just a few days. As a student at the Central School, he could have been a second lieutenant in the reserve artillery, and he had requested to be sent to the front. Auxiliary service over!… Within two days he was going to leave for the war. “You’ve done it!” exclaimed Chi-chi. “You’ve done it!” She looked at him, pale, with enormously enlarged eyes, eyes that seemed to devour him with their admiration. ” Come, my poor soul… Come here, sweet little soldier… I owe you something.” And turning her back on the maiden, she invited him to turn a nearby corner. It was the same: the cross street was as frequented as the avenue. But how the curious onlookers worried her! Vehemently, she threw her arms around his neck, blind and insensitive to everything but him. ” Here… here!” She planted two violent, resounding, aggressive kisses on his face. Then, staggering on her legs, suddenly faint, she put her handkerchief to her eyes and burst into desperate tears. Chapter 12. In the Study. As he opened the door one afternoon, Argensola froze, as if his feet had been rooted to the spot by surprise. An old man greeted him with a friendly smile. ” I’m Julio’s father.” And he walked forward with the confidence of a man who knew exactly where he was. Fortunately, the painter was alone, and he didn’t need to rush around, hiding the traces of pleasant company. It took him some time to recover from his excitement. He had heard so much about Don Marcelo and his bad temper that it caused him great unease to see him unexpectedly appear in the studio… What did the fearsome gentleman want? His calmness returned as he examined him discreetly. He had aged considerably since the beginning of the war. He no longer retained that expression of tenacity and ill humor that seemed to repel people. His eyes shone with a childish joy; his hands trembled slightly ; his back was hunched. Argensola, who had always fled upon meeting him on the street and experienced great fears upon climbing the servants’ stairs of his house, now felt a sudden confidence. He smiled at him as if he were a comrade; he made excuses to justify his visit. He had wanted to see his son’s house. Poor old man! He was drawn by the same attraction of a lover who, to cheer up his solitude, revisits the places frequented by his beloved. Julio’s letters were not enough for him : he needed to see his old house, to rub shoulders with all the objects that had surrounded him, to breathe the same air, to talk with that young man who was his intimate companion. He fixed his paternal eyes on the painter… “An interesting young man, that Argensola.” And thinking this, he forgot how many times he had called him a “scoundrel” without knowing him, simply because he was accompanying his son in a life of disapproval. Desnoyers’s gaze wandered with delight around the studio. He knew the tapestries, the furniture, all the ornaments from the old owner. He easily recalled the things he had bought in his life, despite the many. His eyes now sought out the personal, anything that might evoke the image of the absent man. And they focused on the barely sketched paintings, the unfinished studies that filled the corners. Was everything Julio’s? Many of the canvases belonged to Argensola; but the latter, influenced by the old man’s emotion, showed great generosity. Yes, everything Julio’s… And the father went from painting to painting, pausing with an admiring gesture before the most formless sketches, as if in his confusion he sensed the disordered visions of genius. ” He’s talented, isn’t he?” he asked, imploring a favorable word. ” I’ve always thought he was intelligent… Something of a devil, but character changes with the years… Now he’s a different man.” And he almost wept when he heard how the Spaniard, with all the vehemence of his verbosity, ready to be enthusiastic, praised the absent man, describing him as a great artist who would astonish the world when his time came. In the end, the painter of souls felt as moved as his father. He admired this old man with a certain remorse. He didn’t want to remember what he had said against him in the past. How unfair! Don Marcelo held his hands like a companion’s. His son’s friends were his friends. He was aware of how young people lived. If he ever had a problem, if he needed a pension to continue painting, he was there, eager to assist him. For now, he expected him to dine at his house that very night, and if he wanted to go every night, so much the better. He would eat with his family, modestly; the war had changed customs; but he would find himself in the intimacy of a home, just as if he were in his parents’ house. He even spoke of Spain, to make himself more agreeable to the painter. He had only been there once , for a short time; but after the war, he planned to travel all over the country. His father-in-law was Spanish, his wife had Spanish blood, and in his house, they used Castilian as the language of intimacy. Ah, Spain, a country of noble past and proud character! Argensola suspected that, had he belonged to another nation, the old man would have praised it just as much. This affection was nothing more than a reflection of his love for his absent son, but he appreciated it. And he almost embraced Don Marcelo as he said goodbye! After that afternoon, his visits to the studio became very frequent. The painter had to recommend to his friends a good walk after lunch, refraining from appearing on the Rue de la Pompe before nightfall. But sometimes Don Marcelo would appear unexpectedly in the morning, and he had to rush from one place to another, covering up here, removing there, so that the studio would retain an appearance of laborious virtue. Youth… youth! the old man murmured with a tolerant smile. And he had to make an effort, remembering the dignity of his years, not to ask Argensola to introduce him to the fugitives, whose presence he sensed in the inner rooms. They had perhaps been friends of his son, they represented a part of his past, and this was enough for him to suspect in them great qualities that made them interesting. These surprises, with their corresponding anxieties, eventually made the painter somewhat regret his new friendship. He was also annoyed by the old man’s constant invitations to dinner . He found the Desnoyers’ table very pleasant, but too boring. His father and mother spoke only of the absent man. Chichí paid little attention to his brother’s friend. His thoughts were fixed on the war; he worried about the functioning of the mail service, formulating protests against the government when several days went by without receiving a letter from Second Lieutenant Lacour. Argensola excused himself with various pretexts to continue eating on Avenue Victor Hugo. He preferred to go to the cheap restaurants with his female entourage. The old man accepted the refusals with the gesture of a resigned lover. “Not today either?” And to make up for such absences, he went to the studio the next day very early. For him, it represented an exquisite pleasure to let time slip by, seated on a couch that still seemed to bear the imprint of Jules’s body, gazing at those canvases covered in colors by his brush, caressed by the warmth of a stove that snored sweetly in a deep, convent-like silence. It was a pleasant refuge, full of memories, in the midst of the monotonous and saddened Paris of the war, where he found no friends, for everyone needed to think about their own worries. The pleasures of his past had lost all charm. The Hotel Drouot no longer tempted him. The property of Germans living in France, seized by the government, was being auctioned off at that moment . It was like a response to the forced journey that the furniture from the Villeblanche castle had made to Berlin. The brokers spoke to him in vain about the few people who attended the auctions. He didn’t feel the attraction of these extraordinary occasions. Why make more purchases? What was the point of so many useless objects? When he thought of the hard existence that millions of men led in the open country, Desires for an ascetic life assailed him. He had begun to hate the ostentatious splendor of his house on the Avenue Victor Hugo. He remembered without regret the destruction of the castle. He felt an irresistible laziness when his interests tried to push him, as in other times, to incessant shopping. No; it was better to be there… And there, it was always Julio’s studio. Argensola worked in the presence of Don Marcelo. He knew that the old man abhorred inactive people, and he had undertaken several works, feeling the contagion of this will inclined to action. Desnoyers followed with interest the strokes of the brush and accepted all the explanations of the portraitist of souls. He was a partisan of the ancients; in his purchases, he had only acquired works by dead painters ; but it was enough for him to know that Julio thought like his friend, to humbly accept all the latter’s theories. The industriousness of the artist was another matter. After a few minutes, he preferred to talk to the old man, sitting on the same couch. The main topic of conversation was the absent man. They repeated fragments of the letters they had received; they spoke of the past with discreet allusions. The painter described Julio’s life before the war as one completely dedicated to the concerns of art. The father was not unaware of the inaccuracy of such words, but he appreciated the lie as a great display of friendship. Argensola was a good and discreet companion; never, in his most casual verbal exchanges, had he alluded to Madame Laurier. In those days, the old man’s memory worried him. He had found her on the street, arm in arm with her husband, who was already recovering from his wounds. The illustrious Lacour recounted with satisfaction the couple’s reconciliation. The engineer had only lost an eye. Now he was in charge of his factory, requisitioned by the government for the manufacture of howitzers. He was a captain and held two decorations. The senator certainly didn’t know how the unexpected reconciliation had come about. He had seen them arrive home together one day, looking at each other tenderly, completely forgetting the past. “Who remembers things before the war?” the gentleman had said. “They and their friends have completely forgotten about the divorce. We’re all living a new life… I think they’re both happier now than before.” Desnoyers had sensed this happiness when he saw them. And the man of rigid morals, who the previous year had anathematized his son’s behavior with Laurier, considering it the most harmful of pranks, felt a certain spite when he saw Marguerite clinging to her husband, speaking to him with loving interest. This marital happiness seemed ingratitude to him . A woman who had influenced Jules’s life so much!… Can love be forgotten like that?… The two had passed by as if they didn’t know him. Perhaps Captain Laurier didn’t see clearly; But she had looked at him with her candid eyes, turning hastily to avoid his greeting… The old man was saddened by such indifference, not for himself, but for the other. Poor Julio!… The inflexible gentleman, in the throes of mental immorality, lamented this oversight as something monstrous. The war was another topic of conversation during the afternoons spent in the study. Argensola no longer carried his pockets stuffed with printed matter, as he had at the beginning of hostilities. A resigned and serene calm had succeeded the excitement of the first moment, when people expected extraordinary and marvelous interventions. All the newspapers said the same thing. It was enough for him to read the official communiqué, and he knew how to await this document without impatience, sensing that, more or less, it would say the same thing as the previous one. The fever of the first months, with its hopes and optimism, now seemed to him something chimerical. Those who were not in the war had gradually returned to their usual occupations. Existence resumed its ordinary rhythm. “We must live,” people said. And the need The desire to continue life filled their thoughts with its immediate demands. Those who had armed individuals in the army remembered them, but their occupations softened the violence of the memory, ending with the acceptance of the absence as something that went from extraordinary to normal. At first, the war cut short sleep, made food unpalatable, and soured pleasure, giving it a funereal pallor. Everyone talked about the same thing. Now, the theaters slowly opened , money circulated, people laughed, they spoke of the great calamity, but only at certain times, as something that was going to be long, very long, and with its inevitable fatalism, demanding great resignation. Humanity easily grows accustomed to misfortune, Argensola said, as long as the misfortune is long… That is our strength; that is why we live. Don Marcelo did not accept their resignation. The war was going to be shorter than everyone imagined. His enthusiasm set an immediate end: in three months, next spring. And if peace didn’t come in the spring, it would come in the summer. A new interlocutor took part in their conversations. Desnoyers met the Russian neighbor Argensola had told him about. This strange figure had also met his son, and this was enough to spark a great interest in him. In normal times, he would have kept him at a distance. The millionaire was a believer in order. He abhorred revolutionaries, with the instinctive fear of all rich people who have made their fortunes and remember the modesty of their origins. Tchernoff’s socialism and his nationality would have inevitably provoked a series of horrifying images in his mind : bombs, stabbings, just atonement by hanging, shipments to Siberia. No, he was not a recommendable friend… But now Don Marcelo was experiencing a profound disturbance in his appreciation of other people’s ideas . He had seen so much!… The terrifying procedures of the invasion, the lack of scruples of the German commanders, the ease with which the submarines sank peaceful ships loaded with defenseless travelers, the exploits of the aviators who, at two thousand meters high, dropped bombs on open cities, destroying women and children, made him remember the attacks of revolutionary terrorism that years before had provoked his indignation as unimportant events. And to think, he said, how we flew into a rage, as if the world were about to fall apart, because someone threw a bomb at a prominent figure! These fanatics offered him a quality that attenuated their crimes. They died victims of their own actions or surrendered knowing what their punishment would be. They sacrificed themselves without seeking a way out: rarely had they saved themselves by taking advantage of the precautions of impunity. While the terrorists of war!… With the violence of his imperious character, the old man effected a complete reversal of values. “The true anarchists are now on top,” he said with an ironic laugh. “All those who frightened us before were wretches… In a second, those of our time kill more innocent people than others in thirty years. ” Tchernoff’s sweetness, his original ideas, his inconsistencies as a thinker accustomed to jumping from reflection to words without any preparation, ended up seducing Don Marcelo. He discussed all his doubts with him. His admiration made him overlook the origin of certain bottles that Argensola sometimes gave to his neighbor. He gladly accepted that Tchernoff consume these souvenirs of the time in which he lived fighting with his son. After tasting the wine from Victor Hugo Avenue, the Russian felt a visionary loquacity similar to that of the night when he evoked the fantastic ride of the four apocalyptic horsemen. What Desnoyers admired most was his ability to present things, capturing them in images. The Battle of the Marne with the ensuing battles and the race of both armies toward the seashore These were easy facts for him to explain… If only the French hadn’t been so tired after their triumph at the Marne!… …But human strength, Tchernoff continued, has a limit, and the Frenchman, for all his enthusiasm, is a man like any other. First, the extremely rapid march from East to North to confront the invasion through Belgium; then the fighting; then a swift retreat to avoid being caught up; finally, a seven-day battle; and all this in a period of just three weeks… At the moment of triumph, the victors lacked the legs to go forward and there was no cavalry to pursue the fugitives. The beasts were even more exhausted than the men. Seeing themselves harassed with little tenacity, those who were retreating, collapsing from fatigue, lay down and dug the earth, creating a shelter for themselves. The French also lay down, scratching the ground so as not to lose what they had recovered… And thus began the trench warfare. Then, each line, attempting to envelop the enemy line, had been extended to the northwest, and the successive extensions resulted in a race to the sea by both sides, forming the largest combat front known in history. When Don Marcelo, in his enthusiastic optimism, announced the end of the war for the following spring… for the summer, always with four months’ notice at the most, the Russian shook his head. This will be long… very long. It’s a new war, the truly modern war. The Germans initiated hostilities in the old style, as if they had observed nothing since 1870: a war of enveloping movements, of open-field battles, just as Moltke might have conceived it, imitating Napoleon. They wanted to end it quickly and were certain of victory. Why employ new procedures? But the Marne conflict thwarted their plans: from being aggressors, they had to go on the defensive, and then they employed everything their General Staff had learned in the Japanese and Russian campaigns, initiating trench warfare , underground fighting, which is logical, given the range and the number of shots fired by modern weapons. The conquest of a kilometer of ground now represents more than a century ago the assault on a stone fortress. Neither side is going to advance for a long time. Perhaps they will never advance definitively. This is going to be long and boring, like fights between athletes of evenly matched strength. But it will end someday, Desnoyers said. Undoubtedly; but who knows when? And how will each side be left when it’s all over? He believed in a quick end, when people least expected it, due to the fatigue of one of the two fighters, carefully concealed until the last moment. Germany will be the defeated one, he added with firm conviction. I don’t know when or how, but it will logically fall. His masterstroke failed in September when he failed to enter Paris and defeat the enemy army. He laid all the trump cards on the table then. He didn’t win, and he continues to prolong the game because he has many cards, and he will prolong it for a long time yet… But what he couldn’t do at the first moment, he will never do. For Tchernoff, final defeat did not mean the destruction of Germany or the annihilation of the German people. ” I am outraged,” he continued, “by excessive patriotism. Listening to certain people formulate plans for the definitive suppression of Germany, it seems to me I am listening to the Pan-Germanists in Berlin when they were dividing up the continents.” Then he clarified his opinion. ” We must defeat the Empire, for the tranquility of the world: suppress the great war machine that disturbs the peace of nations… Since 1870, we have all lived terribly.” For forty-four years the danger has been averted, but in all this time what anguish!… What irritated Tchernoff most was the immoral teaching born of this situation and which had ended up taking over the world: the glorification of force, the sanctification of success, the triumph of materialism, respect for the fait accompli, the mockery of the noblest sentiments as if they were simply resounding and ridiculous phrases, the upheaval of moral values, a philosophy of bandits that claimed to be the last word in progress and was nothing more than a return to the despotism, violence, and barbarism of the most primitive eras of history. He desired the suppression of the representatives of this tendency, but he did not therefore demand the extermination of the German people. This people has great merits confused with poor conditions, which are the legacy of a barbaric past all too recent. They possess the instinct for organization and work, and can render good services to humanity… But first, it is necessary to administer a shower: the shower of failure. The Germans are mad with pride, and their madness is dangerous to the world. When those who poisoned them with illusions of global hegemony have disappeared, when misfortune has refreshed their imaginations and they have settled for being a human group neither superior nor inferior to others, they will form a tolerant, useful… and who knows, maybe even sympathetic people. At the present time, for Tchernoff, there was no more dangerous people. Their political organization transformed them into a warring horde educated by kicks and subjected to continual humiliation to nullify their will, which always resists discipline. It is a nation where everyone receives blows and wants to deliver them to those below them. The kick delivered by the emperor is transmitted from back to back to the lowest social strata. The blows begin in school and continue in the barracks, becoming part of their education. The apprenticeship of the crown princes of Prussia always consisted of receiving slaps and beatings from their father, the king. The Kaiser hits his offspring, the officer his soldiers, the father his children and wife, the teacher his students; and when the superior cannot strike, he imposes on those below him the torment of moral outrage. That is why, when they abandoned their ordinary lives, taking up arms to fall upon another group of people, they were implacably ferocious. Each one of them, the Russian continued, carries behind his back a store of kicks he has received, and wishes to console himself by in turn delivering them to the unfortunates whom war places under his domination. This people of “gentlemen,” as they call themselves, aspires to be such… but outside their home. Inside it, they are the least familiar with human dignity. That is why they feel with such vehemence the desire to spread out into the world, going from lackey to master. Suddenly, Don Marcelo stopped going to the study frequently. He now sought out his friend the senator. A promise from the latter had shaken his calm resignation. The man had been sad since the heir to his family’s glory had gone off to war, breaking the protective web of advice he had surrounded him with. One evening, while dining at Desnoyers’s house, he jotted down an idea that made the latter shudder. “Wouldn’t you like to see your son?” The senator was arranging authorization from General Headquarters to go to the front. He needed to see René. He belonged to the same army corps as Jules; perhaps they were in somewhat distant places, but an automobile can make many detours before reaching the end of its journey. He didn’t need to say more. Desnoyers suddenly felt a vehement desire to see his son. For many months he had had to content himself with reading his letters and looking at a photograph taken by one of his comrades… From then on, he besieged Lacour as if he were one of his constituents eager for a job. He visited him in the mornings at his home, invited him to dinner every evening, and went to look for him in the evenings in the salons of the Luxembourg. Before the first word of greeting, his eyes always formulated the same question… “When would I get the permit?” The great man lamented the indifference of the military towards him. civil element. They had always been enemies of parliamentarism. Besides, Joffre is proving intractable. He doesn’t want curious people… Tomorrow I’ll see the President. A few days later, he arrived at the house on Avenue Victor Hugo with a look of satisfaction that filled Don Marcelo with joy. “Is that it?” ” It’s done.” We left the day after tomorrow. The following afternoon, Desnoyers went to the studio on the Rue de la Pompe. ” I’m leaving tomorrow.” The painter wished to accompany him. “Couldn’t he also go as the senator’s secretary?” Don Marcelo smiled. The authorization was valid only for Lacour and one companion. He was the one who would figure as secretary, valet, or whatever, to his future father-in-law. At the end of the afternoon, he left the studio, accompanied to the elevator by Argensola’s lamentations. “Not being able to join the expedition!” He thought he had lost the opportunity to paint his masterpiece. Near his house, he met Tchernoff. Don Marcelo was in a good mood. The certainty that he would soon see his son filled him with a childlike joy. He almost embraced the Russian, despite his shabby appearance, his tragic beard, and his enormous hat, which made passersby turn their heads. At the end of the avenue, the Arc de Triomphe stood out against a sky colored by the setting sun. A red cloud floated around the monument, reflecting its whiteness with purple tinges. Desnoyers remembered the Four Horsemen and everything else Argensola had told him before introducing him to the Russian. “Blood,” he said happily. “The whole sky seems made of blood… It is the apocalyptic beast that has received the coup de grâce. Soon we will see it die.” Tchernoff smiled too, but his smile was melancholy. ” No; the beast does not die. It is the eternal companion of men. It hides, dripping with blood, for forty years… sixty… a century, but it reappears.” All we can hope for is that his wound is long-lasting, that it is hidden for a long time, and that it is never seen by the generations who will still remember us. Chapter 13. The War. Don Marcelo was ascending a mountain covered in trees. The forest offered a tragic desolation. A silent storm had frozen within it , fixing everything in violent, unnatural positions. Not a single tree retained the rectilinear shape and abundant foliage of the days of peace. The groups of pines recalled the colonnades of ruined temples. Some remained erect along their entire length, but without the crown, like shafts that had lost their capitals; others were cut in half, like flute-like points, like pilasters split by lightning. Some left the filamentous splinters of dead wood hanging around their sections , like a broken toothpick. The destructive force had taken its toll on the age-old trees: beeches, holm oaks, and oaks. Great tangles of felled branches littered the ground, as if a gang of gigantic lumberjacks had just passed through. The trunks appeared severed a short distance from the ground, with a clean, polished cut, as if from a single blow of the axe. Around the unearthed roots, stones mixed with clods abounded; stones that had lain dormant in the bowels of the soil and had been blown flying across the surface by the explosion. In places, glittering among the trees or dividing the path with an inopportuneness that required troublesome detours, enormous pools of water extended, all alike, geometrically regular , round, exactly round. Desnoyers compared them to basins sunk into the ground for the use of the invisible titans who had cut down the forest. Their immense depth began at the very edges. A swimmer could throw themselves into these pools without touching the bottom. The water was greenish, dead water, rainwater, with a crust of vegetation pierced by the respiratory bubbles of the small organisms that were beginning to live in its depths. Halfway up the slope, surrounded by pines, were several graves with wooden crosses; graves of French soldiers surmounted by tricolor flags. Resting on these moss-covered mounds were old artillery caps. The ferocious woodcutter, while destroying the forest, had blindly struck the ants moving among the trunks. Don Marcelo wore leggings, a wide-brimmed hat, and over his shoulders a thin poncho rolled up like a blanket. He had brought to light these garments that reminded him of his distant life on the estancia. Behind him walked Lacour, trying to preserve his senatorial dignity amid the panting and puffing of fatigue. He also wore high boots and a soft hat, but had kept his formal tailcoat, rather than completely abandon his parliamentary uniform. In front marched two captains serving as guides. They were on a mountain occupied by French artillery. They were heading toward the peaks, where cannons and cannons were hidden, forming a line several kilometers long. The German artillerymen had caused this destruction by responding to French fire. The forest was slashed by shells. The circular lagoons were funnels opened by German “kettles” in a limestone, impermeable soil that retained rainwater. They had left their car at the foot of the mountain. One of the officers, an old artilleryman, explained this precaution to them. They had to continue uphill cautiously. They were within range of the enemy, and a car could attract their cannon fire. The climb continued somewhat tiringly. “Take heart, Senator! We’re close now. ” They began to cross paths with artillery soldiers. Many of them wore only a military cap. They looked like metalworking factory workers, foundrymen and fitters, wearing corduroy trousers and vests. Their arms were bare, and some, to walk more safely on the mud, wore wooden clogs. They were former ironworkers who had been drafted into the reserve artillery. Their sergeants had been boatswains; many of their officers, engineers, and workshop owners. Suddenly, those climbing up stumbled upon the iron inhabitants of the forest. When they spoke, the ground shook, the air trembled, and the inhabitants of the grove, crows and hares, butterflies and ants, fled in terror to hide, as if the world were about to perish in a noisy convulsion. Now, the bellowing monsters remained silent. One approached them without seeing them. Among the green branches, the end of something resembling a gray beam poked out; at other times, this apparition emerged from a pile of dry logs. Upon turning the obstacle, a small square of cleared earth appeared, occupied by several men who lived, slept, and worked around an enormous contraption mounted on wheels. The senator, who had written poetry in his youth and composed oratorical poetry when inaugurating a statue in his district, saw in these mountain solitaires, blackened by the sun and smoke, with their chests unbuttoned and their sleeves rolled up, a kind of priests placed at the service of the fatal divinity, who received from their hands the offering of the enormous explosive capsules, vomiting them out in the form of thunder. Hidden under the branches, to escape the observation of enemy aviators , the French cannons were scattered along the crests and plateaus of a series of mountains. Among this steel herd were enormous pieces, with wheels reinforced with skids, similar to those of the agricultural locomotives that Desnoyers kept on his ranches to plow the land. Like smaller beasts, more agile and playful in their incessant barking, the groups of the 75th appeared interpolated among the shadowy monsters. The two captains had received orders from the general of their army corps to thoroughly show the senator the operation of the artillery. And Lacour accepted their observations with thoughtful gravity, while he looked from side to side in the hope of recognizing his son. The interesting thing for him was seeing René… But remembering the official pretext for his trip, he continued from cannon to cannon listening to explanations. The gun crewmen showed the projectiles: large pointed cylinders extracted from the underground stores. These stores, called “shelters,” were deep burrows, oblique shafts reinforced with bags of earth and timbers. They served as shelter for unemployed personnel and kept the ammunition protected from an explosion. An artilleryman showed them two tightly packed bags of white cloth. They looked like a double sausage and were the charge of one of the large cannons. The bag was left open, revealing some bundles of pink leaves. The senator and his companion were amazed that this paste, which looked like a toilet article, was one of the terrible explosives of modern warfare. “I affirm,” Lacour said, “that if he had found one of these bundles in the street, he would have believed it came from a lady’s purse or a forgetful perfumer’s assistant… anything but an explosive. And with this thing, which seems made for lipstick, you can blow up a building!” They continued on their way. At the top of the mountain, they saw a somewhat crumbling tower. It was the most dangerous position. From it, an officer was examining the enemy line to assess the accuracy of his shots. While his comrades were underground, or hidden by the branches, he carried out his mission from this visible vantage point. A short distance from the tower, an underground passageway opened before their eyes . They descended through its gloomy depths until they came across several rooms dug into the ground. A sheer mountainside was its exterior facade. Narrow windows pierced in the stone gave light and air to these rooms. An elderly commander in charge of the sector came out to meet him. Desnoyers thought he saw a section chief from a large Paris department store. His mannerisms were exquisite, his soft voice seeming to implore forgiveness with every word, as if he were addressing a group of ladies offering them the latest items. But this impression lasted only a moment. The gray-haired soldier with nearsighted glasses, who in the midst of war had the mannerisms of a factory manager receiving his customers, revealed bandages and cotton inside his sleeves as he moved his arms. He was wounded in both wrists by a shell blast, yet he remained in his position. “What a sweet, syrupy gentleman!” thought Don Marcelo. “You have to admit he’s someone.” They had entered the command post, a vast room that received light through a horizontal window four meters wide and only a foot and a half high. It looked like the space between two shutters. Beneath it lay a pine table laden with papers, with several stools on it. From one of these seats, one could see the entire plain. On the walls were electrical equipment, switchboards , loudspeakers, and telephones—many telephones. The commander moved the papers aside and piled them up, offering the stools with the same gesture as if he were in a drawing room. ” Here, Senator.” Desnoyers, a humble companion, sat beside him. The commander looked like a theater director preparing to show something extraordinary. He placed on the table a huge sheet of paper that reproduced all the features of the plain spread out before them: roads, towns, fields, heights, and valleys. On this map appeared a triangular group of red lines in the shape of a fan. The vertex was the place where they were; the wide part of the triangle was the limit of the real horizon they could see with their eyes. ” Let’s fire at this forest,” said the artilleryman, pointing to one end of the map. “Here is there,” he continued, pointing to a small dark line on the horizon. “Take the binoculars.” But before the two of them could rest the rims of their eyepieces on their eyebrows, the commander placed a new piece of paper over the map. It was a huge, somewhat blurry photograph, over whose lines appeared a fan of red lines identical to the other. ” Our aviators,” the courteous gunner continued, “have taken some views of the enemy positions this morning. This is an enlargement of our photographic workshop… According to their reports, two German regiments are encamped in the forest.” Don Marcelo saw in the photograph the patch of forest and within it white lines that represented roads, groups of small squares that were town blocks. He thought he was in an airplane contemplating the earth from a thousand meters high. Then he brought his binoculars to his eyes, following the direction of one of the red lines, and saw a black bar enlarge around the circle of the lens, something similar to a thick line of ink: the forest, the enemy’s refuge . “When you decide, Senator, we will begin,” said the commander, reaching the extremes of courtesy. “Are you ready?” Desnoyers smiled slightly. What good could his illustrious friend be doing now? What good could he be, a mere onlooker like himself, undoubtedly excited by the novelty of the spectacle?… Behind them, countless bells rang: vibrations calling, vibrations responding. The acoustic tubes seemed to swell with the gallop of the words. The electric wire filled the silence of the room with the palpitations of its mysterious life. The amiable chief no longer concerned himself with his person. They guessed him behind their backs at the mouth of a telephone, conversing with his officers several kilometers away. The sweet, well-spoken hero never for a moment abandoned his twisted courtesy. “Would you be so kind as to begin?” he said softly to the distant officer. “I’ll be happy to pass on the order.” Don Marcelo felt a slight nervous tremor next to one of his legs. It was Lacour, uneasy about the novelty. The firing was about to begin; something he had never seen before was about to happen. The cannons were overhead : the vault would shake like the deck of a ship when fired upon. The room, with its acoustic tubes and telephone vibrations, was like the bridge of a ship at the moment of a scuffle. The din that was about to ensue!… A few seconds passed, which seemed very long… Suddenly, a distant thunderclap that seemed to come from the clouds. Desnoyers no longer felt the nervous vibration next to his leg. The senator moved with impulses of surprise; his gesture seemed to say: “And that’s all?”… The meters of earth above them muffled the detonations. The shot from a heavy piece of ammunition was equivalent to a blow to a mattress with a club. More impressive was the whine of the projectile, sounding so high in the air, but displacing the air with such violence that its waves reached the window. It fled… it fled, weakening its roar. A long time passed before its effects were felt. The two friends came to believe that he had been lost in space. “He’s not coming… he’s not coming,” they thought. Suddenly , on the horizon, in exactly the right place, above the blur of the forest, an enormous column of smoke appeared, a rotating tower of black vapor, followed by a volcanic explosion. “How awful it must be to live there!” said the senator. He and Desnoyers experienced an impression of animal joy, a selfish glee, seeing themselves in a safe place, several meters below the ground. “The Germans are going to fire at any moment,” Don Marcelo said in a low voice to his friend. The senator shared the same opinion. Undoubtedly, they were going to respond, engaging in an artillery duel. All the French batteries had opened fire. The mountain thundered incessantly: the roar of the shells followed one another; the horizon, still silent, was bristling with black Solomonic columns. They both acknowledged that it was very good in this A shelter, resembling a theater box… Someone tapped Lacour on the shoulder. It was one of the captains guiding them along the front. ” Let’s go up,” he said simply. “You have to see our cannons working up close. The spectacle is worth it. Up?…” The man was perplexed, astonished, as if he were being offered an interplanetary journey. “Up, when the enemy was about to answer at any moment?” The captain explained that Second Lieutenant Lacour was perhaps waiting for his father. His battery, positioned a kilometer away, had been notified by telephone: he should take advantage of the time to see him. They climbed back into the light through the tunnel. The senator had stood majestically upright. “They’re going to fire,” a voice inside said; “the enemy is going to answer.” But he adjusted his morning coat like a tragic cloak and continued forward, grave and solemn. If those men of war, opponents of parliamentarianism, wanted to secretly laugh at the emotions of a civilian figure, they were in for a disappointment. Desnoyers admired the determination with which the great man launched himself out of the dungeon, just as if he were marching against the enemy. After a few steps, the atmosphere was rent in tumultuous waves. The two stumbled on their feet, their ears ringing, and they thought they felt the shock of a blow on the back of their necks. It occurred to them simultaneously that the Germans had already begun to fire. But it was their own men who were firing. A wisp of smoke rose from the woods a dozen meters away, dissolving instantly. One of the enormous-caliber pieces, hidden in the branches beside them, had just fired . The captains gave an explanation without pausing their pace. They had to continue ahead of the cannons, enduring the violent sound of their shots, so as not to venture into the open space where the lookout tower was. They too expected a reply from across the street at any moment . The man next to Don Marcelo congratulated him on the composure with which he endured the cannon fire. “My friend knows that,” the senator said proudly. “He was in the Battle of the Marne.” The two soldiers appreciated Desnoyers’s age with some surprise. “Where had he been? To which corps did he belong?” ” I was a victim,” the aforementioned said modestly. An officer was running toward them from the side of the tower, across the open space barren of trees. He repeatedly waved his cap to be seen better. Lacour trembled for him. The enemy could distinguish him; he was offering himself as a target by imprudently cutting across the open space, hoping to get there first. And he trembled even more when he saw him up close… It was René. His hands clasped strong, sinewy hands with a certain strangeness. He saw his son’s face, its features more pronounced, darkened by the patina of rural existence. An air of determination, of confidence in his own strength, seemed to emanate from him. Six months of intense life had transformed him. He was the same, but with a broader chest, stronger wrists. The soft, gentle features of his mother had been lost beneath this manly mask. Lacour proudly acknowledged that he now resembled him. After the greeting hugs, René attended to Don Marcelo more assiduously than to his father. He thought he could detect some of Chichí’s perfume in his person . He asked about her: he wanted to know details of her life, despite the frequency with which her letters arrived. The senator, meanwhile, moved by his recent emotion, had taken on a somewhat oratorical air when addressing his son. He improvised a fragment of a speech in honor of this soldier of the Republic who bore the glorious name of Lacour, judging the moment opportune to make known to those professional soldiers the antecedents of his family. Do your duty, my son. The Lacours have warrior traditions. Remember our grandfather, the Commissioner of the Convention, who He covered himself with glory in the defense of Mainz. While he was speaking, everyone had set off, rounding a corner of the woods to position themselves behind the cannons. Here, the noise was less violent. The large guns, after each shot, released a small cloud of smoke like that of a pipe from the breech. The sergeants dictated figures, communicated in a low voice by another gunner with a telephone receiver in one ear . The servants obeyed silently around the cannon. They touched a small wheel, and the monster raised its gray snout, moving it from side to side, with the intelligent expression and the agility of an elephant’s trunk. At the foot of the nearest gun, a gunner stood with the rifle in his hands, his face impassive. He must have been deaf. His brutal facial expression betrayed a certain authority. For him, life was nothing more than a series of tugs and thunderclaps. He knew their importance. He was the servant of the storm, the guardian of lightning. “Fire!” shouted the sergeant. And thunder crashed at his voice. Everything seemed to tremble; but the two travelers, accustomed to hearing the reports of artillery pieces from their muzzles , thought the present din was of secondary importance. Lacour was about to continue his story about the glorious grandfather of the Convention when something extraordinary interrupted his eloquence. ” Tiran,” the artilleryman manning the telephone said simply. The two officers repeated this news to the senator, relayed by the lookouts in the tower. “Hadn’t he said the enemy were going to answer?” Obeying the holy instinct of self-preservation and urged at the same time by his son, he found himself in a shelter of the battery. He refused to hide inside the narrow cave. He remained near the entrance, his curiosity overcoming his anxiety. He felt the invisible projectile approaching despite the roar of the nearby cannons. With rare sensitivity, he perceived its passage through the atmosphere above the other, more powerful and nearby noises. It was a groan that grew in intensity; a sonorous triangle, with its apex on the horizon, that opened as it advanced, filling all space. Then it was no longer a groan, but a hoarse crash, formed by various collisions and scrapes, similar to the descent of an electric tram down a sloping street, or the speed of a train passing a station without stopping. He saw it appear in the form of a cloud, growing larger as if it were about to collapse onto the battery. Without knowing how, he found himself at the bottom of the “shelter,” and his hands stumbled upon the cold touch of a pile of steel cylinders lined up like bottles. They were projectiles. “If the German ‘kettle’ had thought of exploding over this burrow… what a horrific explosion!” But he was reassured by the solidity of the vault: beams and bags of earth followed one another for a thickness of several meters. Suddenly, he was left in absolute darkness. Another man had taken refuge in the shelter, blocking the entry of light with his body: perhaps his friend Desnoyers. A year passed, which on his clock represented only a second; then a century of equal duration passed… and finally, the expected thunder crashed, the shelter trembling, but with softness, with a dull elasticity, as if it were made of rubber. The explosion, despite this, was horrific. Other smaller explosions, coiled, playful, and hissing, arose behind the first. With his imagination, Lacour gave form to this cataclysm. He saw a winged serpent vomiting sparks and smoke, a kind of Wagnerian monster that, when flattened against the ground, opened its entrails, scattering thousands of fiery serpents that covered everything with their deadly writhings… The shell must have exploded very close, perhaps in the same square occupied by the battery. He left the “shelter”, expecting to find a horrific spectacle of torn corpses, and saw his son smiling, lighting a cigar and talking to Desnoyers… Nothing! The artillerymen were finishing calmly loading a large piece of ammunition. They had raised their eyes for a moment as the enemy projectile passed, then continued their work. ” It must have fallen about 300 meters away,” René said calmly. The senator, an impressionable spirit, suddenly felt a heroic confidence. It wasn’t worthwhile to worry so much about one’s own safety when the other men, equal to him even if they were dressed differently , didn’t seem to recognize the danger. And as new projectiles passed, which were lost in the woods with crater-like explosions, he remained at his son’s side, with no other sign of emotion than a slight shudder in his legs. It seemed to him now that only the French projectiles, because they were “theirs,” found their target and killed. The others had the obligation to pass by, disappearing far away amid a useless din. Courage is built on such illusions … “And that’s all?” his eyes seemed to say. He remembered with a certain shame his refuge in the “shelter”; He felt capable of living there, just like René. However, the German shells were becoming more frequent. They were no longer lost in the woods; their explosions sounded closer. The two officers exchanged glances. They had been charged with ensuring the safety of the illustrious visitor. “This is getting heated,” one of them said. René, as if he knew what they were thinking, prepared to leave. “Goodbye, Papa!” He was needed in his battery. The senator tried to resist, wanted to prolong the interview, but he ran into something hard and inflexible that repelled all his influence. A senator was worth little among those people accustomed to discipline. “Cheers, my son!… Good luck… Remember who you are.” And the father wept as he held him in his arms. He silently lamented the brevity of the interview; he thought of the dangers that awaited his only son when he was separated from him. When René had disappeared, the captains began the group’s march. It was getting late; they had to arrive before nightfall at a certain cantonment. They were going downhill, sheltered by a mountain ridge , watching the enemy shells fly by high above. In a hollow, they encountered several groups of 75-caliber cannons. They were scattered in the woods, hidden by piles of branches, like crouching dogs barking, their gray snouts sticking out. The great cannons roared with intervals of grave pause. These packs of steel screamed incessantly, without opening the slightest parenthesis in their noisy rage, like the tearing of a cloth that is endlessly splitting. The pieces were numerous, the shots were vertiginous, and the detonations merged into a single one, like a series of points joined together to form a compact line . The commanders, intoxicated by the din, shouted their orders, waving their arms as they paced behind their pieces. The cannons slid over the motionless carriages, advancing and retreating like automatic pistols. Each shot ejected the empty cartridge case, instantly shoving a new projectile into the smoking chamber. The air behind the batteries swirled in furious waves. Lacour and his companion received a blow to the chest with each shot, the violent contact of an invisible hand pushing them back. They had to time their breathing to the rhythm of the shots. For a hundredth of a second, between the swept air wave and the new advancing wave, their chests experienced the anguish of emptiness. Desnoyers admired the barking of these gray dogs. He knew their bites well, which could reach for many kilometers. They were still fresh in his poor castle. It seemed to Lacour that the rows of cannons were singing something monotonous and ferocious, like the war hymns of prehistoric humanity. This music of dry, deafening, delirious notes was awakening in the two of them something that lies dormant in the depths of all souls: the savagery of their distant ancestors. The air was heated with acrid, pungent, bestially intoxicating odors. The scent of explosives reached their brains through their mouths, their ears, and their eyes. They experienced the same excitement as the commanders of the guns, who shouted and flailed their arms in the midst of the thunder. The empty shells were forming a thick layer behind the cannons. “Fire!… always fire! We must spray well,” the commanders shouted. “We must water the forest where the guns are.” And the muzzles of the 75s sprayed without interruption, flooding the distant grove with projectiles. Excited by this deadly activity, intoxicated by the destructive speed , subjected to the vertigo of the red hours, Lacour and Desnoyers suddenly found themselves waving their hats, moving from one side to the other as if they were about to dance the sacred dance of death, shouting with their mouths dry from the acrid vapor of gunpowder: “Hurrah… hurrah!” The car rolled all afternoon, stopping a few times on roads congested by the long parade of convoys. They passed through uncultivated fields, lined with the remains of dwellings. They ran alongside burned-out villages that were nothing more than a succession of black facades with gaping holes in the void. ” Now it’s your turn,” the senator said to Desnoyers. “Let’s go see your son.” At dusk, they crossed paths with numerous groups of infantry, soldiers with long beards and blue uniforms faded by the elements. They were returning from their entrenchments, carrying shovels, picks, and other earth-moving implements on the humps of their backpacks, which had become important as combat weapons. They were covered in mud from head to toe. They all looked like old men in the prime of their youth. Their joy at returning to the quarters after a week in the trenches filled the silence of the plain with songs accompanied by the dull clatter of their hobnailed shoes. In the violet-hued twilight, the male chorus scatters the winged verses of the Marseillaise or the heroic affirmations of the Departure Song. ” They are the soldiers of the Revolution,” the senator enthused; ” France has returned to 1792.” They spent the night in a half-ruined village where a divisional headquarters had been established. The two captains said their goodbyes. Others would be in charge of guiding them the following morning. They had stayed at the “Hotel de la Sirena,” an old building with a facade gnawed by shells. The owner proudly showed them a broken window that had taken the shape of a crater. This window dwarfed the hotel’s former symbol: an iron woman with a fish tail. Since Desnoyers occupied the room next to the one hit by the shell, the hotel owner wanted to show it to him before he went to bed. Everything was broken: walls, floor, ceiling. The furniture was splintered in the corners; Rags of flowery paper hung from the walls. Through a huge hole, the stars could be seen and the night’s chill blew in. The owner made it clear that this destruction was not the work of the Germans. It had been caused by a .75 caliber shell as the invaders were repelled from the town. And he smiled with patriotic pride at the destruction, repeating: “It’s our work. What do you think of how the .75 caliber works?… What do you think about this?” Despite the fatigue of the trip, Don Marcelo slept poorly, troubled by the thought that his son was only a short distance away. An hour after dawn, they left the town by car, guided by another officer. On both sides of the road, they saw encampments and encampments. They left the ammunition yards behind; they passed the third line of troops; then the second. Thousands and thousands of men had settled in the open countryside, improvising their homes. This manly swarm, with its variety of uniforms and races, recalled the great invasions of history. It wasn’t a people on the march: the exodus of a people carries women and children behind it. Here only men were seen, Men everywhere. Every type of dwelling devised by humanity, beginning with the cavern, was used in these military agglomerations. Caves and quarries served as barracks. Some huts resembled the American rancho; others, conical and elongated, imitated the African gurbi. Many of the soldiers came from the colonies; some had lived as traders in countries of the New World, and having to improvise a more stable home than the canvas tent, they appealed to their memories, imitating the architecture of the tribes with whom they had come into contact. Furthermore, among this mass of combatants were Moroccan, Black, and Asian riflemen, who seemed to thrive far from the cities, acquiring in the open field a superiority that made them masters of the civilized. White clothes fluttered beside the streams, hanging out to dry. Rows of bare-chested men braved the morning cool, bending over the sheet of water to wash themselves with noisy ablations followed by vigorous scrubbing… On a bridge, a soldier was writing, using the parapet as a table… Cooks bustled around the steaming pots. A greasy whiff of morning soup drifted amid the resinous scent of the trees and the odor of wet earth. Long barracks of wood and zinc served the cavalry and artillery to house livestock and equipment. The soldiers cleaned and shod their horses in the open air, both lean and fat. Trench warfare kept them in a placid state of obesity. “If only they had been like this at the Battle of the Marne!” Desnoyers said to his friend. Now, the cavalry lived in endless rest. Their riders fought on foot, firing from the trenches. The animals swelled in the convent-like tranquility, and they had to be taken out for a walk so they wouldn’t get sick in the crowded manger. Several airplanes stood out over the plain, like gray dragonflies, ready to take flight. Many men gathered around them. The peasants, who had become soldiers, looked with admiration at the comrade in charge of operating these machines. They saw in him the same power as the sorcerers venerated and feared in village tales . Don Marcelo noticed the general transformation of the French uniform. Everyone was dressed in grayish blue from head to toe. The scarlet trousers and the red kepis he had seen during the Marne campaign were no longer a thing. The men traveling on the roads were soldiers. All the vehicles, even the oxcarts, were driven by a soldier. The car suddenly stopped next to some ruined houses blackened by the fire. ” We’ve arrived,” said the officer. “Now we’ll have to walk a bit.” The senator and his friend began walking along the road. ” That’s not the way,” the guide said again. “That path is harmful to your health. You have to avoid drafts.” He explained that the Germans had their cannons and entrenchments at the end of this road, which descended through a depression in the terrain and rose to the horizon as a white ribbon between two rows of trees and burned-out houses. The pale morning, with its hazy blur, protected them from enemy fire. On a sunny day, the arrival of the car would have been greeted with a howitzer. “That’s how this war is,” he concluded ; “you approach death without seeing it.” The two remembered the recommendations of the general who had had them at his table the day before. “Be very careful: trench warfare is treacherous.” They saw before them the immense field without a person, but with its ordinary appearance. It was the countryside on Sunday, when the workers are at home and the ground seems to be concentrated in silent meditation. Shapeless objects were seen abandoned on the plain, like agricultural implements on a holiday. Perhaps they were broken cars, artillery shells shattered by the blast. their load. ” This way,” said the officer, who had been joined by four soldiers to shoulder several sacks and packages brought by Desnoyers on the roof of the car. They advanced single file along a blackened brick wall, following a descending path. After a few steps, the surface of the ground was at the height of their knees; beyond that, it reached their waists; then their shoulders; and so they sank into the earth, seeing only a narrow strip of sky above their heads. They were in the open countryside. They had left behind them the group of ruins that hid the entrance to the road. They walked in an absurd manner, as if they abhorred straight lines, in zigzags, in curves, at angles. Other paths, no less complicated, branched off from this ditch, which was the central avenue of an immense underground city. They walked… they walked. A quarter of an hour, half an hour, a whole hour passed. Lacour and his friend thought nostalgically of the tree-lined roads, of walking in the open air, seeing the sky and the fields. They didn’t take twenty steps in a row in the same direction. The officer, who marched in front, disappeared every moment in a scramble. Those behind panted and talked invisibly, having to quicken their pace to avoid getting lost. Occasionally, they stopped to gather and count each other, for fear that someone had strayed into a cross gallery. The ground was slippery. In some places, there was an almost liquid mud , white and corrosive, similar to that which drips from the scaffolding of a house under construction. The echo of their footsteps, the brush of their shoulders, dislodged clods and pebbles from the two slopes. From time to time, the ditch rose, and the walkers climbed with it. A small effort was enough to see over the mounds of earth. But what they saw were uncultivated fields, fenced with cross-shaped posts, the same appearance of a resting plain, devoid of inhabitants. The officer knew from experience how difficult this curiosity often was, and he didn’t allow them to prolong it: “Onward, onward.” They had been walking for an hour and a half. The two travelers began to feel the fatigue and disorientation of this zigzag march. They no longer knew whether they were advancing or retreating. The steep slopes, the continuous twists and turns, produced in them a beginning of vertigo. “Is it much further?” asked the senator. ” There,” said the officer, pointing over the mounds of earth. There, a ruined bell tower and several burned houses could be seen in the distance: the remains of a town taken and lost several times by one side or the other. They would have made the same distance on the earth’s crust in half an hour, marching in a straight line. To the angles of the underground road, prepared to impede an enemy advance, had to be added the obstacles of the field fortifications: tunnels cut by fences; wire cages that were suspended, but when they fell, they obstructed the ditch, allowing the defenders to fire through their grating. They began to encounter soldiers with bundles and buckets of water. They lost themselves in the winding paths. Some, sitting on a pile of timbers, smiled as they read a small newspaper written in the trenches. The same signs on the road that indicate the proximity of a settlement on the surface of the earth could be seen. Soldiers moved aside to make way for the procession; curious, bearded faces appeared in the alleys. In the distance, a clatter of dry noises could be heard, as if at the end of the winding road there were a shooting range or a group of hunters practicing to shoot down pigeons. The morning continued foggy and icy. Despite the damp air, a sticky buzzing horsefly flew several times over the two visitors. “Bullets,” the officer said laconically. Desnoyers had sunk his head a little between his shoulders. He knew this insect noise perfectly well. The senator walked faster: he was no longer He felt tired. They found themselves before a lieutenant colonel, who greeted them like an engineer showing his workshops, like a naval officer showing the batteries and turrets of his battleship. He was the commander of the battalion occupying this sector of the trenches. Don Marcelo looked at him with interest, thinking that his son was under his command. This is what a ship said after greeting them. The two friends recognized that the underground fortifications bore a certain resemblance to the bowels of a ship. They passed from trench to trench. They were the last line, the oldest: dark galleries into which only slivers of light entered through the loopholes and the wide, low machine-gun windows. The long line of defense formed a tunnel, intersected by brief open spaces. One leaped from light to darkness and from darkness to light with a visual harshness that fatigued the eyes. In the open spaces, the ground was higher. There were plank benches embedded in the slopes so observers could poke their heads out or examine the landscape using the periscope. The enclosed spaces served as both batteries and dormitories. These quarters had originally been open trenches, similar to those on the front line. After repelling the enemy and gaining ground, the combatants, who had been in them for an entire winter, had sought to settle as comfortably as possible. Beams from the ruined houses had been placed across the open trenches; over the beams, planks, doors, windows, and on top of the woodwork, several rows of earthbags were laid. These bags were covered with a layer of humus from which grass sprouted, giving the ridge of the trench a green, pastoral placidity. The vaults, made of concrete, withstood the fall of shells, which buried themselves in them without causing much damage. When an explosion caused too much damage, the troglodytes would emerge at night, like sleepless ants, swiftly rebuilding the “roof” of their dwelling. Everything appeared clean, with the rough and somewhat clumsy neatness that men can achieve when they live far from women and left to their own devices. These galleries had something of a monastery cloister, a prison stable, or a battleship’s tween deck. Their floors were half a meter lower than the open spaces that connected one trench to another. To enable the officers to advance without having to climb up and down, planks forming scaffolding were stretched from door to door. When the soldiers saw their leader, they formed a line. Their heads were level with the waists of those passing over the planks. Desnoyers looked eagerly at all these men. Where could Julio be? He noticed the peculiar appearance of the various redoubts. They all seemed the same in construction, but the occupants had modified them with their decorations. The exterior was always the same, intersected by loopholes in which rifles were aimed at the enemy and by machine-gun windows. The lookouts, standing next to these openings, spied on the solitary field, like quartermasters scan the sea from the bridge. On the interior sides were the armories and the dormitories: three rows of bunks made of planks, similar to the beds of sailors. The desire for artistic ornamentation felt by simple souls had beautified the underground chambers. Each soldier had a museum made of colored newspaper sheets and postcards. Portraits of comedians and dancers smiled with their mouths painted on the glossy cardboard, enlivening the chaste atmosphere of the redoubt. Don Marcelo felt impatient at seeing so many hundreds of men without finding his son among them. The senator, warned by his glances, spoke to the commander, who preceded him with great deference. He strained his memory to recall who Julio Desnoyers was. But his hesitation was short-lived. He remembered the sergeant’s exploits. An excellent soldier said, “They’ll call you immediately, sir.” Senator… He’s on duty with his section in the front- line trenches.
The father, impatient to see him, suggested that they be taken to this forward position; but his request made the commander and the other soldiers smile . These open trenches, one hundred meters, fifty meters from the enemy, with no defense other than barbed wire and earthbags, were not for visits from civilians . The mud was perpetual in them; one had to crawl, exposed to a bullet, feeling the earth stirred up by the projectiles fall on one’s back. Only combatants could frequent these forward works. “There’s always danger,” the commander continued, “there’s always shooting… Can
you hear them firing?” Desnoyers did indeed perceive a distant crackling sound he hadn’t noticed until then. He experienced a sensation of anguish at the thought of his son there, where the rifle fire sounded. The dangers that surrounded him daily appeared to him in all their vivid reality . Would he die at that moment, before he could see him? Time passed for Don Marcelo with exasperating slowness. He thought the messenger who had left with the message for the forward trench would never arrive. He barely noticed the quarters the commander was showing them: underground rooms that served as toilet and sanitation rooms for the soldiers ; primitive bathrooms; a cave with a sign: “Café de la Victoria”; another cave with a sign: “Theater”… Lacour was interested in all this, celebrating the French joy that laughs and sings in the face of danger. His friend continued thinking about Julio. When would he find him? They stopped next to a machine-gun window, keeping, on the recommendation of the soldiers, on both sides of the horizontal gap, hiding their bodies, cautiously leaning their heads forward to look with only one eye. They saw a deep excavation and the opposite edge of the ground. At a short distance, several rows of wooden Xs joined by barbed wire, forming a compact fence. A hundred meters further on, a second fence. A profound silence reigned, a silence of absolute solitude, as if the world were asleep. ” There are the Boches,” the commander said in a subdued voice. “Where?” asked the senator, straining to see. The commander indicated the second wire fence, which Lacour and his friend believed belonged to the French. “It belonged to the German trench. We are a hundred meters from them,” he continued, “but they haven’t attacked from this side for a long time . ” The two experienced a certain emotion at the thought that the enemy was so close at hand, hidden in the ground, in a mysterious invisibility that made them even more fearsome. If he were to suddenly emerge with fixed bayonets, hand grenades, incendiary liquids, and suffocating bombs to assault the redoubt!… From this window, they perceived the firing from the front line more intensely . The shots seemed to be getting closer. The commander rudely made them abandon their observatory: he feared that the fire would spread, reaching there. The soldiers, without receiving orders, with customary promptness , had approached their rifles, which were horizontally positioned, sticking out of the loopholes. Once again, the visitors marched one after another. They descended into caves that were once cellars of houses that had vanished. The officers had settled into these caverns, utilizing all the debris left over from the destruction. A street door on two log trestles served as a table. The vaults and walls were covered with chintz from Parisian stores. Photographs of women and children adorned the walls amid the nickel-plated shine of telegraph and telephone equipment. Desnoyers saw above a door an ivory Christ, yellowed by the years, perhaps by the centuries: an image inherited from generation to generation, which must have witnessed many agonies… In another cave He found, in a conspicuous place, a seven-hole horseshoe. Religious beliefs spread their wings widely in this atmosphere of danger and death, and at the same time the most grotesque superstitions acquired new value, without anyone daring to laugh at them. Upon emerging from one of the underground passages, in the middle of an open space, he found his son. He knew it was him because of the commander’s indicative gesture, because a soldier was advancing, smiling, holding out his hands to him. The paternal instinct, of which he had spoken so often as something infallible, did not warn him on this occasion. How could he recognize Julio in this sergeant whose feet were two balls of wet earth, wearing a faded greatcoat with frayed edges, covered in mud up to his shoulders, smelling of damp cloth and belt? After the first embrace, he threw his head back to contemplate him, without letting go of him. His dark pallor had acquired a bronzed hue. He had a full beard , a black, curly beard. Don Marcelo remembered his father-in-law. The centaur Madariaga would undoubtedly recognize himself in this warrior hardened by life outdoors. At first, he lamented his dirty and tired appearance; then he found him more handsome, more interesting than in his days of worldly glory. What do you need? What do you want? His voice trembled with tenderness. He spoke to the tanned and robust combatant with the same intonation he had used twenty years before, when he had stopped in front of shop windows in Buenos Aires, leading a child by the hand. Do you want money? He had brought a significant sum to give to his son. But the soldier made a gesture of indifference, as if offering him a toy. He had never been as rich as he was at the present moment. He had a lot of money in Paris and didn’t know what to do with it: it was of no use to him. Send me cigars… They’re for me and my comrades. He received large packages from his mother filled with choice provisions, tobacco, and clothing. But he held nothing back; nothing was enough to care for his comrades, children of poor families or those alone in the world. His generosity had spread from his group to the company, and from there to the entire battalion. Don Marcelo sensed a sympathetic popularity in the glances and smiles of the soldiers who passed by . He was the generous son of a millionaire. And this popularity also touched him when news spread that Sergeant Desnoyers’s father had arrived, a potentate who possessed fabulous riches on the other side of the sea. ” I have guessed your desires,” the old man continued. He looked around for the sacks brought from the automobile through the windings of the underground road. All of his son’s exploits, praised and amplified by Argensola, now paraded through his memory. He had the hero before his eyes. Are you happy? Don’t you regret your decision? Yes; I’m happy, Papa… very happy. Julio spoke modestly, without boasting. His life was hard, but like that of millions of men. In his section, which only consisted of a few dozen soldiers, there were those superior to him in intelligence, in their studies, in their character. And all of them courageously endured the harsh ordeal, experiencing the satisfaction of a duty fulfilled. Furthermore, shared danger served to develop the noblest virtues of men. Never in peacetime had he known as much as now what camaraderie was. What beautiful sacrifices he had witnessed! When this is over, men will be better… more generous. Those who remain alive will be able to do great things. Yes; he was happy. For the first time, he savored the joy of considering himself useful, the conviction that he was serving a purpose, that his time in the world would not be fruitless. He remembered with pity that Desnoyers, who didn’t know how to fill the emptiness of his existence and filled it with all kinds of frivolities. Now he had obligations that absorbed all his strength; he was helping shape the future; he was a man. “I’m happy,” he repeated. The father believed him. But in a corner of his frank gaze, he imagined he saw something painful, a memory perhaps from the past that lingered amid the emotions of the present. The gentle figure of Mrs. Laurier flashed through his mind. He guessed that his son still remembered her. “And not being able to bring her back!” The rigid father of the previous year looked at himself in amazement as he mentally formulated this immoral wish. A quarter of an hour passed without letting go of each other’s hands, looking into each other’s eyes. Julio asked about his mother and Chichí. He received letters from them frequently , but this wasn’t enough to satisfy his curiosity. He laughed when he learned of Argensola’s wide and abundant life . This news, which cheered him, came from a world only a hundred kilometers away in a straight line, but so far away… so far away! Suddenly, the father noticed that he was listening less attentively. His senses, sharpened by a lifetime of alarms and ambushes, seemed to be moving away , drawn by the gunfire. They were no longer isolated shots. They were joining together, forming a continuous crackle. The senator appeared, having moved away so that father and son could talk more freely. ” They’re throwing us out of here, my friend. We have no luck with our visits.” No more soldiers were passing by. Everyone had gone to take up their posts, like on a ship preparing for battle. Julio picked up his rifle, which he had left against the embankment. At the same moment, a bit of dust flew up on top of his father’s head; a small hole formed in the ground. “Soon, far away,” he said, pushing Don Marcelo. Inside a covered trench, the farewell was brief, nervous: “Goodbye, Papa.” A kiss, and he turned his back. He wanted to run as quickly as possible to his people. The firing had spread throughout the line. The soldiers fired serenely, as if carrying out an ordinary task. It was a battle that arose every day, without knowing for sure who had started it, as a consequence of two armed masses being positioned at close range, facing each other. The battalion commander abandoned his visitors, fearing an attempted attack. Once again, the officer in charge of guiding them took their place at the head of the line , and they began to retrace their steps along the winding and slippery road. Monsieur Desnoyers marched with his head bowed, enraged by this enemy intervention that had cut short his happiness. Before his eyes flitted Jules’s gaze, his curly black beard, which for him was the greatest novelty of the trip. He heard the deep voice of a man who had found a new meaning in life. ” I’m happy, Papa… I’m happy.” The shooting, increasingly distant, caused him a painful unease. Then he felt an instinctive, absurd, and most firm faith. He saw his son, beautiful and immortal, like a god. He had a feeling that his life would emerge unscathed from all the dangers. That others would die was only natural: but Julio!… As he walked away from him, hope seemed to sing in his ear. And like an echo of his own pleasant reassurances, the father repeated mentally: There’s no one to kill him. My heart tells me, it never deceives me… There’s no one to kill him! Chapter 14. There’s no one to kill him. Four months later, Don Marcelo’s confidence suffered a severe blow. Julio was wounded. But at the same time that he received the news, regrettably late, Lacour reassured him with his inquiries at the Ministry of War. Sergeant Desnoyers was a second lieutenant; his wound was almost healed, and thanks to the senator’s efforts, he would be coming to spend a fortnight convalescing with his family. “A brave man, my friend,” the man concluded. “I’ve read what his superiors say about him. At the head of his platoon, he attacked a German company; He killed the captain by his own hand; he performed I don’t know how many more feats… They gave him the Military Medal, they made him an officer… A true hero. And the father, weeping with emotion, shook his head tremblingly, each time He grew older and more enthusiastic. He regretted his lack of faith in the first moments upon receiving the news of the wound. He had almost believed his son could die. Absurd! No one could kill Julio: his heart assured him so. One day he saw him enter his house, amidst the screams and spasms of the women. Poor Doña Luisa wept, embracing him, clinging to his neck with pangs of emotion. Chichí contemplated him gravely and thoughtfully, concentrating half of her thoughts on the newcomer, while the rest flew far away in search of another combatant. The copper-colored maidens vied for the opening in a curtain, passing through this gap their curious antelope-like glances. The father admired the small patch of gold on the sleeves of the gray capotongue with the flaps buttoned up at the back, then examined the dark blue helmet with flat edges adopted by the French for trench warfare . The traditional kepi had disappeared. A graceful helmet, similar to that worn by the arquebusiers of the Spanish Tercios, shaded Julio’s face. He also noticed his short, well-groomed beard, unlike the one he had seen in the trenches. He was clean and tidy after his recent release from the hospital. “Don’t you think he looks like me?” the old man said proudly. Doña Luisa protested, with the intransigence that mothers display when it comes to resemblances. ” He’s always been your spitting image.” Seeing him healthy and happy, the whole family felt a sudden unease. They wanted to examine his wound to convince themselves he wasn’t in any danger. “It’s nothing!” protested the second lieutenant. “A bullet wound to the shoulder. The doctors feared he would lose his left arm; but everything turned out fine… There’s no need to remember.” Chichí scanned Julio with his eyes, from head to toe, immediately discovering the details of his military elegance. His overcoat was shaved and dirty, his leggings were scratched, and he smelled of sweaty cloth, leather, and strong tobacco. But on one wrist he wore a platinum watch and on the other his identity medal held by a gold chain. He had always admired his brother for his innate good taste; and he recorded these details to communicate them in writing to René. Then he considered the advisability of surprising Mama with a request for a loan so he could send the artilleryman a shipment on his own. Don Marcelo contemplated fifteen days of satisfaction and glory ahead of him. Second Lieutenant Desnoyers couldn’t go out alone. His father hovered in the reception room in front of the helmet displayed on the coat rack with a modest yet glorious glow. No sooner had Julio placed it on his head than his father appeared, with a hat and cane, ready to leave as well. “Will you allow me to accompany you?… Shall I not bother you?” He said it with such humility, with such a vehement desire to have his request granted, that the son didn’t dare refuse to accompany him. To stroll with Argensola, he had to slip down the back stairs and resort to other schoolboy tricks. Never had Mr. Desnoyers walked the streets of Paris so contentedly as beside this young man with his greatcoat of glorious old age and his chest enhanced by two decorations: the Croix de Guerre and the Military Medal. He was a hero, and this hero was his son. He accepted the sympathetic glances of the public on the streetcars and in the underground railway as a tribute to both of them. The interesting glances women cast at the handsome young man gave him a certain tingle of vanity and unease. All the soldiers he met, no matter how many stripes and crosses they wore, seemed to him to be “in ambush,” unworthy of comparison with Julius. The wounded who were getting out of the carriages, leaning on sticks and crutches, inspired a feeling of humiliating pity in him. Wretches! They weren’t as fortunate as his son. No one could kill him, and when he accidentally received a wound, the traces of it were immediately erased, without detriment to his gallantry. Sometimes, especially at night, he displayed unexpected magnanimity, allowing Julio to go out alone. He remembered his youthful, triumphant love affair, which had achieved so many successes before the war. What could he not achieve now with his prestige as a valiant soldier? Pacing his bedroom before going to bed, he imagined the hero in the amiable company of a great lady. Only a female celebrity was worthy of him; his paternal pride accepted nothing less. And it never occurred to him that Julio was with Argensola in a music hall, in a movie theater, enjoying the monotonous and simple diversions of war-shadowed Paris, with the simplicity of tastes of a second lieutenant, and that in terms of amorous successes his good fortune extended no further than the renewal of some old friendships. One evening, as he walked beside him along the Champs-Élysées, he shuddered at the sight of a lady coming in the opposite direction. It was Mrs. Laurier… Would Jules recognize her? He thought he perceived the man turning pale, turning his eyes toward other people with affected distraction. She continued on, upright, indifferent. The old man was almost irritated by such coldness. To pass by his son without instinct warning him of her presence! Ah, women! He turned his head to follow her, but immediately had to desist from his gaze. He had surprised Marguerite motionless behind them, pale with surprise, fixing her deep gaze on the retreating soldier. Don Marcello thought he read in her eyes admiration, love, a whole past suddenly resurfacing in his memory. Poor woman! He felt a paternal affection for her, as if she were Jules’s wife. His friend Lacour had spoken to him again about the Laurier couple. He knew that Marguerite was going to be a mother. And the old man, oblivious to the spouses’ reconciliation or the passage of time, was moved by this motherhood, as if his son had had a hand in it. Meanwhile, Julio continued walking, without turning his head, unaware of this gaze fixed on his back, pale and humming to himself to hide his emotion. And he never knew anything. He continued to believe that Margarita had passed by him without knowing him, because the old man remained silent. One of Don Marcelo’s concerns was getting his son to recount the war encounter in which he had been wounded. No visitor came to his house to see the second lieutenant, and the old man never failed to make the same request: Tell us how you were wounded… Explain how you killed the German captain. Julio excused himself with visible annoyance. He was already fed up with his own story. To please his father, he had told the story to the senator, to Argensola and Tchernoff in his study, to other family friends who had come to see him… He couldn’t take it anymore. And it was the father who undertook the narrative on his own, giving it the relief and details of an event he had seen with his own eyes. They had to seize the ruins of a sugar refinery opposite the trench. The Germans had been driven back by French shelling. Reconnaissance was needed, led by a reliable man. And the commanders had designated, as always, Sergeant Desnoyers. At daybreak, the platoon had advanced cautiously, encountering no obstacles. The soldiers scattered through the ruins. Julio went alone to the end of them, intending to examine the enemy positions, when, as he turned a corner of the wall, he had the most unexpected encounter. A German captain was standing in front of him. They had almost collided as they turned the corner. They looked into each other’s eyes, with more surprise than hatred, while instinctively seeking to kill each other, each trying to outrun the other. The captain had dropped the country map he was holding. His right hand reached for the revolver, struggling to draw it from its holster, without taking his eyes off the enemy for a moment. Then he gave up, convinced that this movement was useless. Too late. His eyes, exaggeratedly Opened by the proximity of death, they remained fixed on the Frenchman. He had raised his rifle to his face. A shot almost at point-blank range… and the German fell dead. Only then did he notice the captain’s orderly, who was marching a few paces behind him. The soldier fired his rifle at Desnoyers, wounding him in the shoulder. The French rushed forward, killing the orderly. Then they exchanged a fierce fire with the enemy company, which had halted further on while its commander reconnoitered the terrain. Julio, despite his wound, continued at the head of his section, defending the factory against superior forces, until finally aid arrived and the land was definitively in French hands. “Wasn’t it so, my son?” Don Marcelo concluded. The son nodded, eager for a story that was annoying because of its persistence to end as quickly as possible . Yes; it had been. But what his father didn’t know, what he would never say, was the discovery he had made after killing the captain. The two men, staring at each other for a second that seemed endless, showed in their eyes something more than the surprise of the encounter and the desire to escape. Desnoyers knew the man. The captain, for his part, knew him. He guessed it in his expression… But each of them, preoccupied with killing in order to stay alive, could not gather his memories. Desnoyers fired with the certainty that he was killing someone he knew. Then, as he directed the defense of the position while awaiting the arrival of reinforcements, he suspected that the enemy whose corpse lay nearby might be a member of his family, one of the Hartrotts. He seemed, however, older than his cousins ​​and much younger than his uncle Karl. Karl, with his years, was not going to be considered a simple infantry captain. When, weakened by loss of blood, he could be led to the trenches, the sergeant wanted to see the body of his enemy. His doubts continued when he saw the face paled by death. His eyes, wide open, seemed to still hold the impression of surprise. That man undoubtedly knew him; he also knew that face. Who was it? Suddenly, in his mind’s eye, he saw the sea, a large ship, a tall, blond woman looking at him with half-closed eyes, a burly, mustachioed man making speeches imitating the style of his emperor. “Rest in peace, Captain Erckmann.” That was how the discussions that had taken place in the middle of the ocean had ended, in a corner of France. He apologized mentally, as if he were in the presence of sweet Bertha. He had had to kill so that they wouldn’t kill him. That’s how war is. He tried to console himself with the thought that Erckmann had perhaps fallen without identifying him, without knowing that his killer was his traveling companion from months before… And he kept this encounter, arranged by fate, a secret in the depths of his memory . He refrained from telling his friend Argensola, who knew about the incidents of the Atlantic crossing. When he least expected it, Don Marcelo found himself at the end of that existence of joy and pride that his son’s presence had brought him . Fifteen days passed quickly. The second lieutenant left, and the entire family, after this period of realities, had to return to the deceptive caresses of illusion and hope, awaiting the arrival of letters, speculating about the silence of the absent man, sending him package after package with everything the trade offered for the military: useful and absurd things. The mother fell into a deep despondency. Julio’s trip had served to make her feel his absence more intensely. Seeing him, listening to those tales of death that his father liked to repeat, she became more aware of the dangers that surrounded her son. Fate seemed to warn her with funereal forebodings. ” They’re going to kill him,” she said to her husband. “That wound is a warning from heaven. ” As she went out into the street, she trembled with emotion before the disabled soldiers. The energetic-looking convalescents, close to returning to the front, inspired even greater pity in her. She remembered a trip to San Sebastián with her husband, a bullfight that had made her cry out in indignation and pity, pitying the fate of the poor horses. They were left with their entrails hanging out and were subjected to a quick treatment in the corrals, only to return to the arena fired up by false energy. Time and again they endured this macabre recovery, until finally the final goring came… The newly healed men evoked in her the image of the poor beasts. Some had been wounded three times since the beginning of the war and returned patched up and galvanized to submit to the lottery of fate, always awaiting the ultimate blow… “Oh, his son!” Desnoyers was indignant listening to his wife. “But there’s no one to kill Julio!… He’s my son.” I have endured terrible dangers in my youth. I was also wounded in the wars of the other world, and yet, here I am, burdened with years. Events only strengthened her blind faith. Misfortunes rained down on the family, saddening those close to her, and not a single one touched the intrepid second lieutenant, who harped on about his exploits with the heroic ease of a musketeer. Doña Luisa received a letter from Germany. Her sister was writing to her from Berlin, using a South American Consulate in Switzerland. This time, Mrs. Desnoyers wept for someone other than her son: she wept for Elena and for the enemies. There were mothers in Germany too, and she placed the feeling of motherhood above all patriotic differences. Poor Mrs. von Hartrott! Her letter, written a month earlier, contained only mournful news and words of despair. Captain Otto had died. So had one of his younger brothers. This one, at least, offered his mother the consolation of having fallen in a territory dominated by her own people. She could weep at his graveside. The other was buried in French soil; no one knew where. She would never discover his remains, mingled with hundreds of corpses; she would forever be ignorant of where this body, born from her womb, lay wasting away… A third son was wounded in Poland. Her two daughters had lost their fiancés, and they drove her to despair with their silent grief. Von Hartrott continued to preside over patriotic societies and made plans for aggrandizement following the next victory, but he had aged greatly in recent months. The “wise man” was the only one who remained steadfast. The family’s misfortunes only intensified the ferocity of Professor Julius von Hartrott. For a book he was writing, he calculated the hundreds of billions that Germany would have to demand after its triumph and the parts of Europe it needed to claim… Madame Desnoyers thought she heard from the Avenue Victor Hugo that mother’s cry that ran silently through a house in Berlin. “You will understand my despair, Luisa… How happy we were! May God punish those who have brought so much misfortune upon the world! The Emperor is innocent. His enemies are to blame for everything…” Don Marcelo remained silent in the presence of his wife. He pitied Elena for her misfortune, ignoring the political assertions of the letter. He was also moved to see how Doña Luisa wept for her nephew Otto. She had been his godmother at his baptism and Desnoyers his godfather. It was true; Don Marcelo had forgotten it. He imagined the placid life on the ranch, the games of the blond children he had fondled behind their grandfather’s back before Jules was born. For a few years he had devoted all his love to his nephews, disoriented by the delay in the birth of a child of his own. In good faith, he was moved by the thought of Karl’s despair . But then, when he found himself alone, a selfish coldness erased these feelings. War was war, and the others had sought it. France had to defend itself, and the more enemies that fell, the better… The only one who should have interested him was Julio. And his faith in his son’s destiny made him experience a brutal joy, the satisfaction of a loving father, almost ferocious. No one can kill him… My heart tells me so. Another, more recent misfortune broke his calm. One evening, upon returning to the Avenue Victor Hugo, he found Dona Luisa, looking terrified, her hands clutching her head. The girl, Marcelo… the girl! Chichí was lying on a sofa in the living room, pale, with a greenish whiteness, staring fixedly before her, as if she were seeing someone in a void. She wasn’t crying; only a slight pearly sheen made her eyes tremble, rounded with spasm. “I want to see him!” she said in a hoarse voice. “I need to see him!” The father guessed that something terrible had happened to Lacour’s son. Only because of this could Chichí show such despair. His wife told him the sad news. René was wounded, seriously wounded. A shell had exploded above his battery, killing many of his comrades. The officer had been pulled from a pile of corpses: he was missing a hand, and had wounds to his legs, torso, and head. “I want to see him!” Chichí repeated. And Don Marcelo had to make great efforts to convince his daughter to desist from this painful stubbornness that drove her to demand an immediate trip to the front, overcoming obstacles, until she reached the wounded man’s side. The senator finally convinced her. They had to wait; he, being her father, had to resign himself. He was arranging for René’s transfer to a hospital in Paris. The great man inspired Desnoyers’ pity. He made efforts to preserve his stoic serenity, a father of the old style, remembering his glorious ancestors and all the heroic figures of the Roman Republic. But these oratorical dreams suddenly crumbled , and his friend caught him crying more than once. An only child, and he could lose him!… Chichi’s silence inspired even greater compassion. He didn’t cry: his pain was without tears, without fainting. The greenish pallor of his face, the feverish glow in his eyes, a rigidity that made him walk like an automaton, were the only signs of his emotion. He lived with his thoughts far away, unaware of what surrounded him. When the wounded man arrived in Paris, she and the senator were transfigured. They went to see him, and this was enough for them to imagine that he was already saved. The fiancée rushed to the hospital with her future father-in-law and her mother. Later, she went alone; she wanted to stay there, to live by the wounded man’s side, declaring war on all regulations, clashing with nuns and nurses, who inspired in her a rivalrous hatred. But seeing the scant results of his violence, he shrank, became humble, trying to win over all the women one by one with his graces. Finally, he managed to spend a large part of the day by René’s side. Desnoyers had to hold back his tears as he looked at the artilleryman in bed… Oh! That’s what his son looked like! He looked like an Egyptian mummy to him, wrapped in tight bandages. Shells had riddled him. All he could see were gentle eyes and a blond mustache peeking out between the white strips. The poor man smiled at Chichí, who watched over him with a certain authority, as if he were in his own home. Two months passed. René was better; he was almost completely recovered. His fiancée hadn’t doubted his recovery since they allowed her to stay with him. ” Whoever I want can’t die on me,” he said with a faith similar to that of his father. At any time I’ll allow the Bogeys to leave me without a husband! She kept her “little sugar soldier,” but in a lamentable state… Never had Don Marcelo realized the horror of war as when he saw this convalescent man, whom he had known months before, fine and slender, with a delicate and somewhat feminine beauty, enter his house . His face was furrowed with several scars that formed a violet arabesque. The body concealed other similar ones. The left hand had disappeared with part of the forearm. The sleeve hung over the aching emptiness of the missing limb. The other hand rested on a cane, a necessary aid to move a leg that refused to regain its elasticity. But Chi-chi was happy. She watched her little soldier with more enthusiasm than ever: a little deformed, but very interesting. She, followed by her mother, accompanied the wounded man on his walk through the forest. Their glances became withering when, crossing a street, motorists and coachmen raced forward to let the invalid pass… “Shameless ambushes!” She felt the same angry spirit of the village women who had once insulted René when they saw him healthy and happy. She trembled with satisfaction and pride as she returned her friends’ greetings. Her eyes spoke: “Yes; this is my boyfriend… A hero.” He was worried about the Croix de Guerre pinned to the breast of his “horizon” blouse. His hands took care of its arrangement, so that it would stand out more clearly. He busied himself with prolonging the life of his uniform, always the same, the old one, the one he’d been wearing at the time of his wound. A new one would give him a certain air of an office soldier, one of those who stayed in Paris. In vain, René, growing stronger and stronger, tried to emancipate himself from her domineering care. It was useless for him to try to walk lightly and easily. “Lean on me. ” And he had to take his fiancée’s arm. All her plans for the future were based on the ferocity with which she would protect her husband, on the care she would devote to his weakness. “My poor invalid!” she said in a loving whisper. “So ugly and useless those scoundrels have left him! But, luckily, he has me , and I adore him… It doesn’t matter that you’re missing a hand; I’ll take care of you: you’ll be my little boy. You’ll see, when we’re married, what a gift you’ll live with, how elegant and well-groomed I’ll be… But watch out for the others! Look , the first time you do something to me, invalid, I’ll leave you abandoned to your uselessness. Desnoyers and the senator were also concerned about their future, but in a more positive way. The marriage had to happen as soon as possible. What did they expect? The war was no obstacle. More marriages than ever were taking place, in the secrecy of privacy. The time was not one for celebration. And René Lacour remained forever in the house on Avenue Victor Hugo after the wedding ceremony, attended by a dozen people. Don Marcelo had dreamed of other things for his daughter: a noisy wedding that the newspapers would report at length, a son-in-law with a brilliant future… But oh, the war! Everyone saw some of their hopes destroyed at that hour . He consoled himself by appreciating his situation. What was missing? Chichi was happy, with a selfish and noisy joy that forgot everything but his love. His business dealings couldn’t have been better. After the crisis of the initial moments, the needs of the belligerents were ravaging the produce from his estates. Meat had never reached such high prices. Money flowed to him more vigorously than before, and his living expenses had diminished… Julio was in danger of dying, but he was convinced that nothing bad could happen to him. His only concern was to remain calm, avoiding strong emotions . He felt a certain alarm when he considered the frequency with which the deaths of well-known people occurred in Paris: politicians, artists, writers. Every day someone of a certain name fell. The war didn’t only kill at the front. His emotions flew like arrows through the cities, striking down the broken, the weak, who in normal times would have prolonged their existence. “Attention, Marcelo!” he said to himself with selfish glee. “Keep calm. We must avoid our friend Tchernoff’s four horsemen.” He spent an afternoon in the study talking with him and Argensola about the news in the newspapers. An offensive had begun. of the French in Champagne, with great advances and many prisoners. Desnoyers thought about the loss of life this could represent. But Jules’s fate did not cause him any concern. His son was not on that side of the front. The day before, he had received a letter from him dated a week earlier; but almost all of them arrived with the same delay. Second Lieutenant Desnoyers was cheerful and spirited. He was going to be promoted at any moment: he was among those proposed for the Legion of Honor. Don Marcello saw himself as the future father of a young general, like those of the Revolution. He looked at the sketches around him, wondering why the war had so extraordinarily distorted his son’s career. On his way home, he crossed paths with Marguerite Laurier, who was dressed in mourning. The senator had spoken to him about her a few days before. Her brother, the artilleryman, had just died at Verdun. “So many are falling!” he said to himself. “How must his poor mother be!” But she immediately smiled as she remembered those being born. Never had people been as concerned as they were now with accelerating reproduction. Madame Laurier herself proudly displayed the plumpness of her motherhood, which had reached the greatest visible extremes. Her eyes caressed the vital volume revealed beneath the veils of mourning. Once again, she thought of Jules, without considering the passage of time. She felt the attraction of the future child, as if she were related to him; she promised to generously assist the Laurier son if she ever met him in her life. As she entered her house, Madame Louise met her to tell her that Lacour was waiting for him. ” Let’s see what our illustrious father-in-law has to say,” he said cheerfully. The good lady was uneasy. She had been alarmed, without knowing why, by the senator’s solemn gesture, with that feminine instinct that pierces men’s caution, divining what lies hidden behind them. She had also seen that René and his father were speaking in low voices, with restrained emotion. She prowled around the office with irresistible curiosity, hoping to hear something. But her wait wasn’t long. Suddenly, a scream… a shriek… a voice such as only a body ebbing away can emit. And Dona Luisa entered in time to support her husband, who was falling to the floor. The senator, confused, excused himself in front of the furniture, in front of the walls, turning his back in his bewilderment on the crestfallen René, who was the only one who could hear him. He didn’t let me finish… He guessed from the first word… Chichí appeared, attracted by the scream, to see her father escape from his wife’s arms, fall onto a sofa, then roll on the floor, his eyes glassy and bulging, his mouth contracted, foaming with tears. A lament spread through the luxurious rooms, a moan, always the same, that passed beneath the doors to the majestic and solitary staircase: “Oh, Julio!… Oh, my son!… Chapter 15. Fields of Death. The car moved forward slowly, under the livid sky of a winter morning. In the distance, the ground trembled with white palpitations, similar to the fluttering of a flock of butterflies perched in the furrows. Over some fields, the swarm was dense; in others, it formed small groups. As the vehicle approached, the white butterflies took on new colors. One wing turned blue; another, red… They were small flags, hundreds, thousands of them, that shuddered day and night in the warm breeze imbued with sunshine, in the watery hurricane of the pale mornings, in the biting cold of the endless nights. The rain had washed and rewashed their colors, weakening them. The restless canvases had their edges gnawed by the damp. Others were sunburned, like insects that had just touched a fire. The flags, with their throbbing, trembling, revealed the semblance of wood. Black hats that were crosses. On these timbers appeared dark kepis, red caps, helmets topped with manes of slowly rotting horsehair , weeping atmospheric tears from their tips. “So many dead!” sighed Don Marcelo ‘s voice from inside the car . And René, who was in front of him, shook his head with sad feeling. Doña Luisa gazed at the funereal plain, while her lips trembled slightly with a continuous prayer. Chichí turned his eyes from side to side , wide with astonishment. He seemed larger, stronger, despite the greenish pallor that discolored his face. The two ladies were dressed in mourning, with long veils. The priest was also in mourning, sunk in his seat, looking like a wreck, his legs carefully wrapped in a fur blanket. René still had his field uniform, wearing a short motorist’s raincoat over it. Despite his injuries, he had refused to retire from the army. He was attached to a technical office until the end of the war. The Desnoyers family was about to grant his wish. Upon regaining consciousness after the fatal news, the father had concentrated all his willpower into one request: I need to see him… Oh, my son!… My son! To no avail, the senator demonstrated the impossibility of this trip. They were still fighting in the area where Julius had fallen. Later, a visit might be possible. “I want to see him,” the old man insisted. He needed to see his son’s grave before he died in turn . And Lacour had to struggle for four months, making pleas and forcing resistance, to ensure that Don Marcelo could make this trip. One morning, a military car finally took everyone from the Desnoyers family away. The senator couldn’t go with them. Rumors were circulating of an impending ministerial change, and he was to appear before the Upper House in case the Republic required his somewhat underappreciated services. They spent the night in a provincial town where an army corps command was located. René took reports from the officers who had witnessed the great battle. With the map in front of him, he followed their explanations until he knew the section of terrain over which Jules’s regiment had moved. The following morning they resumed their journey. A soldier who had taken part in the battle served as their guide, sitting on the box next to the chauffeur. René occasionally consulted the map spread out on his knees and asked the soldier questions. Desnoyers’s regiment had fought alongside Desnoyers’s, but he could not exactly recall the places he had trodden months before. The field had undergone transformations. It presented a different appearance than when he had seen it covered with men, amidst the vicissitudes of combat. The solitude disoriented him… And the car moved forward slowly, with no direction other than the clusters of graves, following the central road, smooth and white, plunging into the crossroads: winding ditches, mudflats of deep gravel, in which it made great leaps that made its springs squeal. Sometimes it continued cross-country, from one cluster of crosses to another, crushing the furrows opened by the ploughing with the tread of its tires . Tombs… graves everywhere. The white locusts of death covered the landscape. Not a corner remained untouched by this glorious and funereal fluttering. The gray earth recently opened by the plow, the yellowish roads , the dark groves, everything throbbed with a tireless undulation. The ground seemed to scream; its words were the vibrations of the restless flags. And the thousands of screams, with a melody that incessantly resumed through the days and nights, sang of the monstrous clash that this land had witnessed and of which it still retained a tragic shudder. Dead… dead, Chichí murmured, following the line with his eyes. of crosses that slid down the sides of the car, constantly renewed. “Lord, for them!… for their mothers!” moaned Doña Luisa, resuming her prayer. Here the most terrible part of the battle had taken place, the old-fashioned fight, the hand-to-hand clash, outside the trenches, with bayonets, with the butt, with fists, with teeth. The guide, who was beginning to orient himself, was pointing out various points on the solitary horizon. There were the African marksmen; further back, the hunters. The large groups of graves were of line soldiers who had charged with bayonets along the sides of the road. The car stopped. René got out behind the soldier to examine the inscriptions on some crosses. Perhaps these dead came from the regiment they were looking for. Chichí also got out mechanically, with the irresistible desire to protect her husband. Each grave guarded several men. The number of corpses could be counted by the rotting and rusting kepis or helmets clinging to the arms of the cross. Ants formed a rosary on the military garments, pierced by rotten holes and still bearing the regimental cipher. The wreaths with which patriotic piety had adorned some of these tombs were blackening and losing their leaves. On some crosses, the names of the dead were still clear; on others, they were beginning to fade and would soon be illegible. “A heroic death!… Glory!” Chichí thought sadly. Not even a name would survive for most of these vigorous men who had died in their youth. All that would remain of them would be the memory that occasionally assaulted an old peasant woman guiding her cow along a French road, making her murmur between sighs: “My little one!… Where is my little one buried?” He would live only in the woman of the people dressed in mourning who didn’t know how to solve the problem of their existence, in the children who, going to school in black blouses, would say with ferocious determination: “When I grow up, I’ll go kill boches to avenge my father.” And Doña Luisa, motionless in her seat, following with her eyes Chichí’s passage among the graves, would once again interrupt her prayer: “Lord, for mothers without children… for little ones without a father… so that your anger may forget us and your smile may return to us!” The husband, slumped in his seat, also gazed at the funeral field. But his eyes were fixed tenaciously on some graves without wreaths or flags, simple crosses with a tablet bearing a brief inscription. They were German graves, which seemed to form a separate page in the book of death. To one side, on the innumerable French graves, there were inscriptions of little significance, simple numbers: one, two, three dead. On the other hand, in the widely spaced and unadorned graves, strong divisions, bulging figures, figures of terrifying laconicism. Long, narrow fences of sticks bordered these ditches filled with flesh. The earth whitened as if it contained snow or saltpeter. It was lime mixed with clods of earth. The cross bore on its tablet the indication that the grave contained Germans, and then a number: 200… 300… 400. These figures forced Desnoyers to make an effort of imagination. They spoke quickly, but it was not easy to recall with precision the vision of three hundred dead together, three hundred bundles of livid and bloody human flesh, their straps broken, their helmets dented, their boots ending in balls of mud, smelling of stiff fabrics in which decomposition is beginning, with glassy and tenacious eyes, with the rictus of supreme mystery, lining up in layers, just as if they were bricks, at the bottom of a ditch that was about to close forever … And this funereal alignment was repeated in patches throughout the immensity of the plain. Don Marcelo felt a fierce joy. His grieving paternity experienced the fleeting consolation of revenge. Julio had died, and he was going to die too, unable to bear his misfortune; but How many enemies were wasting away in these rotting pits, leaving loved ones in the world who remembered them, as he remembered his son! He imagined them as they must have been before their death, as he had seen them during the advances of the invasion around his castle. Some of them, the most learned and fearsome, bore the theatrical scars of university duels on their faces. They were soldiers who carried books in their knapsacks, and after shooting a group of peasants or sacking a village, they would devote themselves to reading poets and philosophers by the glow of the fires. Swollen with knowledge, as bloated as a toad, proud of their pedantic and sufficient intellectuality, they had inherited the ponderous and tortuous dialectic of the ancient theologians. Children of sophistry and grandchildren of lies, they considered themselves capable of proving the greatest absurdities with the mental capers to which their intellectual acrobatics had accustomed them. They used their favorite method of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis to demonstrate that Germany should be the mistress of the world; that Belgium was to blame for its ruin because it had defended itself; that happiness consists in all humans living regimented in the Prussian manner, without any wasted effort; that the supreme ideal of existence consists of a clean stable and a full manger; that liberty and justice represent nothing more than illusions of French revolutionary romanticism; that every fait accompli is sacred from the moment it triumphs, and that right is simply a byproduct of force. These intellectuals with rifles considered themselves the champions of a civilizing crusade. They wanted the blond man to triumph definitively over the dark-skinned man; they wished to enslave the despicable man of the South, ensuring forever that the world would be ruled by the Germans, “the salt of the earth,” “the aristocracy of humanity.” Everything in history that was worth anything was German. The ancient Greeks had been of Germanic origin; Germans, too, were the great artists of the Italian Renaissance. The men of the Mediterranean, with the malice inherent in their origins, had falsified history. But in the best of these ambitious reveries, the crusader of Pan-Germanism received a bullet from the despicable “Latin,” descending into the grave with all his pride. “You are well where you are, bellicose pedant,” thought Desnoyers, recalling his conversations with his Russian friend. It was a pity that all the Herr Professors who had remained in the German universities, scholars of undeniable ability, for the most part, to demarcate intellectual products by changing the terminology of things, were not there too! These men with river beards and gold goggles, peaceful rabbits of the laboratory and the classroom, had prepared the present war with their sophistries and their pride. His guilt was greater than that of the Herr Lieutenant, with his tightly corsetted body and gleaming monocle, who, desiring fighting and slaughter, was merely pursuing his professional interests. While the low-class German soldier plundered whatever he could and drunkenly shot whatever came his way, the warrior student read Hegel and Nietzsche in the bivouac. He was too cultured to carry out these acts of “historical justice” with his own hands. But he and his professors had excited all the evil instincts of the German beast, giving them a veneer of scientific justification. “Stay in your grave, dangerous intellectual,” Desnoyers continued mentally. The ferocious Moroccans, the childishly minded Negroes, the gloomy Hindustanis seemed more respectable to him than all the ermine togas that paraded proud and warlike through the cloisters of German universities. What peace for the world if their wearers were to disappear! In contrast to the refined, cold, and cruel barbarism of the ambitious sage, he preferred the childish and modest barbarism of the savage: it bothered him less, and he was not a hypocrite. That’s why the only enemies he felt sorry for were the obscure, illiterate soldiers rotting in those graves. They had been rural peasants, factory workers, shop assistants, greedy Germans with immeasurable guts who saw war as an opportunity to satisfy their appetites, to command and beat someone, after spending their lives in their own country obeying and receiving beatings. The history of his homeland was nothing more than a series of raids southward , similar to Indian raids, to seize the property of the people living on the temperate shores of the Mediterranean. The Herr Professors had demonstrated that these plundering expeditions represented a highly civilized endeavor. And the German marched forward with the enthusiasm of a good father who sacrifices himself to earn a living for his family. Hundreds of thousands of letters, written by families with trembling hands, followed the great Germanic horde as it advanced through the invaded lands. Desnoyers had heard some of them read at dusk in front of his ruined castle. They were papers found in the pockets of the dead and prisoners. “Have no mercy on the red trousers. Kill welches: don’t spare even the little ones…” “We thank you for the shoes, but the girl can’t put them on. Those Frenchmen have ridiculously small feet…” “Try to get hold of a piano.” “I’d like a good watch.” “Our neighbor, the captain, has sent his wife a pearl necklace. And you only send insignificant things!” The virtuoso German advanced heroically with the double desire to make his country great and send valuable items to his children. “Germany over the world!” But in the best of his dreams, he fell into the grave , mixed with other comrades who cherished the same reveries. Desnoyers imagined the impatience, on the other side of the Rhine, of the pious women who waited and waited. The lists of the dead had perhaps said nothing about those who were absent. And the letters continued to depart for the German lines: letters that the recipient would never receive. “Reply. When you don’t write, it’s perhaps because you ‘re preparing a nice surprise for us. Don’t forget the necklace. Send us a piano. I would very much like a carved dining room cabinet. The French have beautiful things…” The stark cross remained motionless on the white limed earth. Near it, the flags fluttered. They moved from side to side like a protesting head, smiling ironically. “No! No!” The car moved on. The guide was now pointing to a distant group of graves. This was undoubtedly where the regiment had fought. And the vehicle left the road, sinking its wheels into the disturbed earth, having to make great detours to avoid the graves capriciously scattered by the hazards of combat. Almost all the fields were plowed. The work of man extended from grave to grave, becoming more visible as the morning repelled its enveloping mists. Under the last suns of winter, Nature began to smile, blind, deaf, insensitive, unaware of our existence and indifferently welcoming into her womb a poor little human creature as well as a million corpses. The springs still held their icy beards; the earth crumbled beneath the foot with a crunch of glass; the pools had motionless wrinkles; the trees, black and dormant, retained on their trunks the metallic green shirt with which winter had dressed them . The bowels of the soil breathed an absolute and ferocious cold, similar to that of extinguished and dead planets… But spring had already girded on its flowery armor in the palaces of the tropics, saddling the green steed that neighed with impatience: soon it would run through the fields, leading before its gallop in disordered flight the black winter goblins, while at its back floated the loose A mane of gold like a trail of perfume. The grasses along the roads announced their arrival, becoming covered in tiny buds. Birds dared to leave their shelters to flutter among the crows cawing in anger beside the closed graves. The landscape took on a falsely childish smile in the sun, the expression of a child looking with candid eyes, while his pockets were stuffed with stolen goods. The farmer had plowed the bed and filled the furrow with seed. Men could continue killing each other; the land has nothing to do with their hatreds, and they would not interrupt the course of their lives. The ploughshare had opened its straight and inflexible lines, as it does every year, erasing the stamping of men and beasts, the deep reflections of the cannons. Nothing disoriented his hardworking stubbornness. He had filled the funnels opened by the bombs. Sometimes, the steel triangle stumbled upon underground obstacles… an anonymous dead man without a grave. The iron claw continued forward, merciless for what cannot be seen. From time to time, it stopped before less gentle obstacles. They were projectiles buried in the ground and unexploded. The peasant unearthed the apparatus of death, which sometimes , with belated malice, exploded in his hands… But the man of the soil knows no fear when he goes in search of sustenance, and he continued his straight advance, turning only when he came close to a visible grave. The furrows mercifully parted, surrounding with their small waves, like islands, these pieces of soil topped by flags or crosses. The clod sunk in a livid mouth held within its entrails the creative seeds of future bread. The seeds, like gestating octopuses, were preparing to extend the tentacles of their roots to the skulls that a few months before had contained glorious hopes or monstrous ambitions. Life was about to be renewed once more. The car stopped. The guide ran between the crosses, bending down to decipher their blurred inscriptions. “This is it!” He had found the regimental number on a grave. Chichí and her husband quickly jumped out of the vehicle. Then Doña Luisa got out, painfully stiff, contorting her face to hide her tears. Finally, the three decided to help the priest, who had repelled his fur wrapping. “Poor Mr. Desnoyers!” When he touched the ground, he stumbled on his legs; then he moved forward with difficulty, moving his feet with difficulty, digging his cane into the furrows. ” Hold on, old man,” said his wife, offering him an arm. The authoritarian head of the family could not move now without the protection of his family. The march between the graves began, slow and painful. The guide explored the thicket of crosses, spelling out names, remaining indecisive before the blurred labels. René did the same work elsewhere. Chichí advanced alone, from grave to grave. The wind made her black veils flutter. Curls escaped from her mourning hat every time she bowed her head before an inscription, struggling to decipher it. Her small feet sank into the furrows. She gathered her skirt to walk more freely, revealing a part of its adorable foundation. A voluptuous atmosphere, of life, of hidden beauty, of love, followed her steps on this earth of death and decay. In the distance, the father’s voice sounded. Not yet? The two old men grew impatient, wanting to find their son’s grave as soon as possible . Half an hour passed without the scouts finding her. Always unknown names, anonymous crosses, or inscriptions listing the numbers of other regiments. Don Marcelo could no longer stand. The march over the soft earth, through the furrows, was a torment for him. He began to despair… Alas! They would never find Julio’s grave. His parents also searched for it on their own. They bowed their sorrowful heads before all the crosses; they often sank their feet into the long, narrow mound that seemed to mark the body’s bulk. They read the names… It wasn’t there either! And they continued onward along the rough path of hopes and discouragements. It was Chichí who warned with a shout: “Here… here!” The old people ran, fearing they might fall with every step. The whole family gathered before a mound of earth that had the vague shape of a coffin and was beginning to become overgrown with weeds. At the head of the mound, a cross with letters deeply carved with a knife, the pious work of comrades in arms. “Desnoyers…” Then, in military abbreviations, the rank, the regiment, and the company. A long silence. Doña Luisa had instantly knelt, her eyes fixed on the cross: enormous eyes, with reddened corneas, that could not cry. The tears had accompanied her there. Now they fled, as if repelled by the immensity of a pain incapable of yielding to ordinary manifestations. The father stared at the rustic grave with surprise. His son was there, there forever!… and he would never see him again! He imagined him asleep in the depths of the ground without any wrapping, in direct contact with the earth, just as death had surprised him, in his miserable and heroic uniform. The thought that the roots of the plants might touch with their hair the same face he had lovingly kissed, that the rain wound in damp trickles along his body, was the first thing that revolted him, as if it were an outrage. She recalled the exquisite care she had endured in life: the long bath, the massage, the invigorating practice of boxing and arm wrestling, the icy shower, the elegant and discreet perfumes… all only to come to rot in a wheat field like a dung heap, like a beast of burden that has burst to death and is buried where it fell! She wanted to take her son away immediately, but despaired of the fact that she couldn’t. She would move him as soon as she was allowed, erecting a mausoleum for him, fitting those of a king… And what would she achieve by doing this? She would move a pile of bones; but his flesh, his outer covering, everything that made up his charm, would remain there, mingled with the earth. The son of the rich Desnoyers had become forever attached to a poor field in Champagne. Ah, misery! And to achieve this, he had worked so hard, amassing millions? She didn’t even know how he had died. No one could repeat his last words to him. He didn’t know if his end had been instantaneous, lightning-fast, leaving the world with a smile of unconsciousness, or if he had spent long hours of torment abandoned in the fields, writhing like a reptile, rolling through the circles of infernal pain before sinking into nothingness. He also didn’t know what lay beneath that tomb: an entire body touched by death with a discreet hand, or an amalgam of formless remains shattered by the hurricane of steel… And he wouldn’t see him again! And that Julio who filled his thoughts would simply be a memory, a name that would live as long as his parents lived and then gradually fade away when they disappeared! He was surprised to hear a moan, a sob… Then he realized that it was he himself accompanying his reflections with a hiccup of pain. His wife was at his feet. She prayed with dry eyes, she prayed alone with her despair, fixing on the cross a gaze of hypnotic tenacity… There was her son, lying at her knees, just as he had been as a child in the cradle when she watched over his sleep… The father’s exclamation also burst into her thoughts, but without angry exasperation, with a discouraged sadness. And she would never see him again!… And this was possible! Chichi interrupted with her presence the painful reflections of the two. She had run toward the automobile and was returning with an armful of flowers. She hung a wreath on the cross; she placed an enormous bouquet at its foot. Then she showered a shower of petals over the entire surface of the tomb, grave and frowning, as if performing a religious rite, accompanying the offering with greetings from her thoughts: “To you, who so loved life for its beauty and its sensuality… To you, who knew how to make women love you…” She wept mentally for his memory with as much admiration as pain. If she weren’t his sister, she would have wanted to be his lover. And when the shower of flowers had dried up, she withdrew, so as not to disturb the wailing grief of her parents with her presence. Faced with the futility of his complaints, Don Marcelo’s old temper had awakened, roaring against fate. He looked at the horizon, there where he imagined his enemies must be, and clenched his fists in rage. He thought he saw the beast, the eternal nightmare of men. And would evil go unpunished as it had so often? There was no justice; The world was a product of chance; all lies, words of comfort so that man might bear without fear the helplessness in which he lived. It seemed to him that in the distance he heard the gallop of the four apocalyptic horsemen trampling down the human race. He saw the brutal, muscular youth with the sword of war, the archer with the repulsive smile carrying the arrows of plague, the bald miser with the scales of famine, the galloping corpse with the sickle of death. He recognized them as the only familiar and terrible divinities who made their presence felt to man. Everything else was a dream. The four horsemen were reality… Suddenly, through a mysterious mental assimilation, he thought he could read the thoughts of that whimpering head at his feet. The mother, driven by her own misfortunes, had evoked the misfortunes of the others. She too looked at the horizon. He imagined seeing beyond the enemy line a procession of grief equal to that of his family. He contemplated Helena with her daughters marching among the tombs, searching for a beloved name, falling to their knees before a cross. Alas! He could not fully understand this painful satisfaction. It was impossible for him to cross to the opposite side to search for another grave. And even if he did, he would never find it. The adored body was lost forever in the anonymous rotting grounds, the sight of which had recently reminded him of his nephew Otto. “My lord, why did we come to these lands? Why don’t we continue living in the place where we were born?” Guessing these thoughts, Desnoyers saw the immense, green plain of the ranch where he had met his wife. He thought he heard the trotting of cattle. He contemplated the centaur Madariaga in the tranquil night, proclaiming under the brilliance of the stars the joys of peace, the holy brotherhood of people from the most diverse backgrounds united by work, abundance, and lack of political ambition. He too, thinking of his son, lamented like his wife: “Why did we come here?” He too, with the solidarity of grief, pitied those on the other side. They suffered the same as they did: they had lost their children. Human suffering is the same everywhere. But then he rebelled against his sympathy. Karl was a supporter of war; he was one of those who considered it the perfect state of man, and he had prepared for it with his provocations. It was right that war should devour his children: he shouldn’t mourn them. But he, who had always loved peace! He, who had only one son, only one… and he was losing him forever!… He was going to die; He was sure he was going to die… He only had a few months left to live. And the poor companion who prayed at his feet would soon disappear as well. One does not survive a blow like the one they had just experienced. There was nothing left for them to do in the world. Their daughter thought only of herself, of forming a separate nucleus, with the hard instinct of independence that separates children from their parents, so that Humanity continues its renewal. Julio was the only one who could have prolonged the family, perpetuating the surname. The Desnoyers were dead; his daughter’s children would be Lacour… All finished. Don Marcelo felt a certain satisfaction at the thought of his approaching death. He wished to leave the world as soon as possible. He was not curious about the end of this war that had worried him so much. However it ended, it would end badly. Even if the beast was mutilated, it would re- emerge years later, as the eternal companion of mankind… For him, the only important thing was that the war had stolen his son. Everything was somber, everything black… The world was going to perish… He was going to rest. Chichí was perched on a mound that perhaps contained corpses. With a furrowed brow, she contemplated the plain. Tombs… always graves! The memory of Julio had passed into the background in her memory. She could not resurrect him no matter how much she wept. The sight of the fields of death made her think only of the living. She turned her eyes from side to side, while with both hands she held the flutter of her skirts, moved by the wind. René stood at the foot of the mound. Several times, after contemplating the graves, she looked at him, as if establishing a connection between her husband and those dead. And he had risked his life in battles like this one!… And you, my poor soul, she continued aloud, could be by now under a mound of earth with a wooden cross, just like so many unfortunate people!… The second lieutenant smiled sadly. That was it. Come, get up, said Chichí imperiously. I want to tell you something. Having him close, she threw her arms around his neck, pressed him against the hidden magnolias of her chest, which exhaled a perfume of life and love, kissed him furiously on the mouth, bit him, no longer remembering her brother, no longer seeing the two old men, who were crying below, wanting to die… and her skirts, free in the wind, molded the superb curve of amphora-shaped hips. Thus concludes this powerful story, where war is shown not only as a physical conflict, but as a force that transforms, destroys, and marks all those who cross its path. The four horsemen of the apocalypse represent fate and suffering, but also the struggle for survival and hope in the midst of darkness. Thank you for joining us on this literary journey; we’ll see you in the next story here, on Ahora de Cuentos.

¡Bienvenidos a un viaje literario al corazón de la guerra y el destino! 🌍📖 En este clásico de la literatura española, *Los cuatro jinetes del apocalipsis* nos lleva a través de un relato épico sobre la devastación de la Primera Guerra Mundial y sus consecuencias en la vida de diversas personas. A través de los ojos de los personajes de Blasco Ibáñez, descubrimos las emociones, los sacrificios y las tragedias que se entrelazan con los horrores del conflicto bélico. En esta historia, los jinetes del apocalipsis no son solo una metáfora, sino una representación de los aspectos más oscuros de la humanidad.

🔸 *¿De qué trata la historia?*
*Los cuatro jinetes del apocalipsis* nos narra la vida de varios personajes cuyas existencias se ven irremediablemente afectadas por la guerra. La obra está cargada de simbolismos y reflexiones sobre el destino, la muerte, el sufrimiento y el amor en tiempos de destrucción. Con una narrativa apasionante y conmovedora, Blasco Ibáñez muestra cómo los conflictos bélicos afectan no solo a las naciones, sino también a las almas de aquellos que los viven.

🔸 *¿Por qué leer esta obra?*
1. **Una crítica al impacto de la guerra**: La novela examina cómo la guerra afecta profundamente la vida de los individuos, deshumanizando y llevando a los personajes a enfrentarse a dilemas existenciales.
2. **Personajes complejos**: Cada personaje en *Los cuatro jinetes del apocalipsis* tiene una historia propia que se entrelaza con el sufrimiento de la guerra, creando una red de emociones humanas intensas.
3. **Una obra maestra del realismo social**: Blasco Ibáñez utiliza su pluma para retratar las realidades sociales y políticas de la época, proporcionando una visión completa del conflicto.
4. **Temas universales**: Aunque está ambientada en la Primera Guerra Mundial, los temas de la obra siguen siendo relevantes hoy en día, como la lucha por la supervivencia, el sacrificio y la esperanza en medio de la oscuridad.

🎬 No olvides suscribirte al canal para más relatos como este. Si te apasiona la literatura clásica y quieres sumergirte en historias profundas, suscríbete aquí: [https://bit.ly/AhoradeCuentos](https://bit.ly/AhoradeCuentos). ¡No te lo pierdas!
-✈️ Al primer vuelo 🦅 – Un relato de superación y aventura[https://youtu.be/5jBxxdswt7E]
-🔴 La Aventura del Círculo Rojo 🕵️‍♂️ | Sherlock Holmes Resuelve el Misterio [https://youtu.be/Rr3c7CKXgk0]
-Doctor Sutilis (Cuentos) 📚👨‍⚕️ | Leopoldo Alas (Clarín) – ¡Una obra única de la literatura española! [https://youtu.be/Wtx8a8XJ9jQ]
-Despertar Para Morir (Novela) 📖💔[https://youtu.be/vgK1Ubep9PY]
-La Incógnita 🔍✨ de Benito Pérez Galdós [https://youtu.be/RIGjy4WpT4I]
-Los cuatro jinetes del apocalipsis 🏇💀 | Vicente Blasco Ibáñez [https://youtu.be/S2LaR-rWSI8]
-Gloria (novela completa) de Benito Pérez Galdós 📖✨ [https://youtu.be/89gxOhMDa-c]
-📖✨ La cita: novelas de Eduardo Zamacois 🎭💫[https://youtu.be/4as5K4nvXKE]

📣 **Deja tu comentario abajo**: ¿Qué opinas sobre la representación de la guerra en esta novela? ¿Te ha impactado la forma en que Blasco Ibáñez describe los efectos de la guerra en las personas? ¡Queremos saber tu opinión!
🔔 **Activa las notificaciones** para no perderte ninguna de nuestras historias.

#literatura #clásicos #VicenteBlascoIbáñez #LosCuatroJinetesDelApocalipsis #guerra #novelaclásica #historias #apocalipsis #drama #literaturaspañola #realismo #novelaépica #novelasdeamor #primeraGuerraMundial #destrucción #simbolismo #drama #historia #personajesprofundos #humanidad #consecuenciasdelguerra #paz #muerte #novelahistorica #impactoemocional #cuento #ahoradecuentos #literaturauniversal #novelatempestiva #literaturarealista

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