CHAPTER I

Produced by Donald Lainson

THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE

(Los Cuatro Jinettes del Apocalipsis)

by Vicente Blasco Ibanez

Translated by Charlotte Brewster Jordan

CONTENTS

PART I

I. THE TRYST--IN THE GARDEN OF THE EXPIATORY CHAPEL

II. MADARIAGA, THE CENTAUR

III. THE DESNOYERS FAMILY

IV. THE COUSIN FROM BERLIN

V. IN WHICH APPEAR THE FOUR HORSEMEN

PART II

I. WHAT DON MARCELO ENVIED

II. NEW LIFE

III. THE RETREAT

IV. NEAR THE SACRED GROTTO

V. THE INVASION

VI. THE BANNER OF THE RED CROSS

PART III

I. AFTER THE MARNE

II. IN THE STUDIO

IV. “NO ONE WILL KILL HIM”

V. THE BURIAL FIELDS

PART I

CHAPTER I

THE TRYST

(In the Garden of the Chapelle Expiatoire)

They were to have met in the garden of the Chapelle Expiatoire at five

o’clock in the afternoon, but Julio Desnoyers with the impatience of a

lover who hopes to advance the moment of meeting by presenting himself

before the appointed time, arrived an half hour earlier. The change of

the seasons was at this time greatly confused in his mind, and evidently

demanded some readjustment.

Five months had passed since their last interview in this square had

afforded the wandering lovers the refuge of a damp, depressing calmness

near a boulevard of continual movement close to a great railroad

station. The hour of the appointment was always five and Julio was

accustomed to see his beloved approaching by the reflection of the

recently lit street lamps, her figure enveloped in furs, and holding

her muff before her face as if it were a half-mask. Her sweet voice,

greeting him, had breathed forth a cloud of vapor, white and tenuous,

congealed by the cold. After various hesitating interviews, they had

abandoned the garden. Their love had acquired the majestic importance of

acknowledged fact, and from five to seven had taken refuge in the fifth

floor of the rue de la Pompe where Julio had an artist’s studio. The

curtains well drawn over the double glass windows, the cosy hearth-fire

sending forth its ruddy flame as the only light of the room, the

monotonous song of the samovar bubbling near the cups of tea--all

the seclusion of life isolated by an idolizing love--had dulled their

perceptions to the fact that the afternoons were growing longer, that

outside the sun was shining later and later into the pearl-covered

depths of the clouds, and that a timid and pallid Spring was beginning

to show its green finger tips in the buds of the branches suffering the

last nips of Winter--that wild, black boar who so often turned on his

tracks.

Then Julio had made his trip to Buenos Aires, encountering in the other

hemisphere the last smile of Autumn and the first icy winds from the

pampas. And just as his mind was becoming reconciled to the fact that

for him Winter was an eternal season--since it always came to meet

him in his change of domicile from one extreme of the planet to the

other--lo, Summer was unexpectedly confronting him in this dreary

garden!

A swarm of children was racing and screaming through the short avenues

around the monument. On entering the place, the first thing that Julio

encountered was a hoop which came rolling toward his legs, trundled by

a childish hand. Then he stumbled over a ball. Around the chestnut

trees was gathering the usual warm-weather crowd, seeking the blue shade

perforated with points of light. Many nurse-maids from the neighboring

houses were working and chattering here, following with indifferent

glances the rough games of the children confided to their care. Near

them were the men who had brought their papers down into the garden

under the impression that they could read them in the midst of peaceful

groves. All of the benches were full. A few women were occupying camp

stools with that feeling of superiority which ownership always confers.

The iron chairs, “pay-seats,” were serving as resting places for

various suburban dames, loaded down with packages, who were waiting for

straggling members of their families in order to take the train in the

Gare Saint Lazare. . . .

And Julio, in his special delivery letter, had proposed meeting in this

place, supposing that it would be as little frequented as in former

times. She, too, with the same thoughtlessness, had in her reply, set

the usual hour of five o’clock, believing that after passing a few

minutes in the Printemps or the Galeries on the pretext of shopping, she

would be able to slip over to the unfrequented garden without risk of

being seen by any of her numerous acquaintances.

Desnoyers was enjoying an almost forgotten sensation, that of strolling

through vast spaces, crushing as he walked the grains of sand under

his feet. For the past twenty days his rovings had been upon planks,

following with the automatic precision of a riding school the oval

promenade on the deck of a ship. His feet accustomed to insecure

ground, still were keeping on terra firma a certain sensation of elastic

unsteadiness. His goings and comings were not awakening the curiosity of

the people seated in the open, for a common preoccupation seemed to

be monopolizing all the men and women. The groups were exchanging

impressions. Those who happened to have a paper in their hands, saw

their neighbors approaching them with a smile of interrogation. There

had suddenly disappeared that distrust and suspicion which impels the

inhabitants of large cities mutually to ignore one another, taking each

other’s measure at a glance as though they were enemies.

“They are talking about the war,” said Desnoyers to himself. “At this

time, all Paris speaks of nothing but the possibility of war.”

Outside of the garden he could see also the same anxiety which was

making those around him so fraternal and sociable. The venders of

newspapers were passing through the boulevard crying the evening

editions, their furious speed repeatedly slackened by the eager hands

of the passers-by contending for the papers. Every reader was instantly

surrounded by a group begging for news or trying to decipher over his

shoulder the great headlines at the top of the sheet. In the rue des

Mathurins, on the other side of the square, a circle of workmen under

the awning of a tavern were listening to the comments of a friend who

accompanied his words with oratorical gestures and wavings of the paper.

The traffic in the streets, the general bustle of the city was the same

as in other days, but it seemed to Julio that the vehicles were whirling

past more rapidly, that there was a feverish agitation in the air and

that people were speaking and smiling in a different way. The women of

the garden were looking even at him as if they had seen him in former

days. He was able to approach them and begin a conversation without

experiencing the slightest strangeness.

“They are talking of the war,” he said again but with the commiseration

of a superior intelligence which foresees the future and feels above the

impressions of the vulgar crowd.

He knew exactly what course he was going to follow. He had disembarked

at ten o’clock the night before, and as it was not yet twenty-four hours

since he had touched land, his mentality was still that of a man who

comes from afar, across oceanic immensities, from boundless horizons,

and is surprised at finding himself in touch with the preoccupations

which govern human communities. After disembarking he had spent two

hours in a cafe in Boulogne, listlessly watching the middle-class

families who passed their time in the monotonous placidity of a life

without dangers. Then the special train for the passengers from South

America had brought him to Paris, leaving him at four in the morning

on a platform of the Gare du Nord in the embrace of Pepe Argensola, the

young Spaniard whom he sometimes called “my secretary” or “my valet”

because it was difficult to define exactly the relationship between

them. In reality, he was a mixture of friend and parasite, the poor

comrade, complacent and capable in his companionship with a rich youth

on bad terms with his family, sharing with him the ups and downs

of fortune, picking up the crumbs of prosperous days, or inventing

expedients to keep up appearances in the hours of poverty.

“What about the war?” Argensola had asked him before inquiring about the

result of his trip. “You have come a long ways and should know much.”

Soon he was sound asleep in his dear old bed while his “secretary” was

pacing up and down the studio talking of Servia, Russia and the Kaiser.

This youth, too, skeptical as he generally was about everything not

connected with his own interests, appeared infected by the general

excitement.

When Desnoyers awoke he found her note awaiting him, setting their

meeting at five that afternoon and also containing a few words about the

threatened danger which was claiming the attention of all Paris. Upon

going out in search of lunch the concierge, on the pretext of welcoming

him back, had asked him the war news. And in the restaurant, the cafe

and the street, always war . . . the possibility of war with

Germany. . . .

Julio was an optimist. What did all this restlessness signify to a man

who had just been living more than twenty days among Germans, crossing

the Atlantic under the flag of the Empire?

He had sailed from Buenos Aires in a steamer of the Hamburg line, the

Koenig Frederic August. The world was in blessed tranquillity when

the boat left port. Only the whites and half-breeds of Mexico were

exterminating each other in conflicts in order that nobody might believe

that man is an animal degenerated by peace. On the rest of the

planet, the people were displaying unusual prudence. Even aboard the

transatlantic liner, the little world of passengers of most diverse

nationalities appeared a fragment of future society implanted by way of

experiment in modern times--a sketch of the hereafter, without frontiers

or race antagonisms.

One morning the ship band which every Sunday had sounded the Choral of

Luther, awoke those sleeping in the first-class cabins with the most

unheard-of serenade. Desnoyers rubbed his eyes believing himself

under the hallucinations of a dream. The German horns were playing the

Marseillaise through the corridors and decks. The steward, smiling at

his astonishment, said, “The fourteenth of July!” On the German steamers

they celebrate as their own the great festivals of all the nations

represented by their cargo and passengers. Their captains are careful

to observe scrupulously the rites of this religion of the flag and its

historic commemoration. The most insignificant republic saw the ship

decked in its honor, affording one more diversion to help combat the

monotony of the voyage and further the lofty ends of the Germanic

propaganda. For the first time the great festival of France was being

celebrated on a German vessel, and whilst the musicians continued

escorting a racy Marseillaise in double quick time through the different

floors, the morning groups were commenting on the event.

“What finesse!” exclaimed the South American ladies. “These Germans are

not so phlegmatic as they seem. It is an attention . . . something very

distinguished. . . . And is it possible that some still believe that

they and the French might come to blows?”

The very few Frenchmen who were travelling on the steamer found

themselves admired as though they had increased immeasurably in public

esteem. There were only three;--an old jeweller who had been visiting

his branch shops in America, and two demi-mondaines from the rue de

la Paix, the most timid and well-behaved persons aboard, vestals with

bright eyes and disdainful noses who held themselves stiffly aloof in

this uncongenial atmosphere.

At night there was a gala banquet in the dining room at the end of which

the French flag and that of the Empire formed a flaunting, conspicuous

drapery. All the German passengers were in dress suits, and their wives

were wearing low-necked gowns. The uniforms of the attendants were as

resplendent as on a day of a grand review.

During dessert the tapping of a knife upon a glass reduced the table

to sudden silence. The Commandant was going to speak. And this brave

mariner who united to his nautical functions the obligation of making

harangues at banquets and opening the dance with the lady of most

importance, began unrolling a string of words like the noise of clappers

between long intervals of silence. Desnoyers knew a little German as

a souvenir of a visit to some relatives in Berlin, and so was able

to catch a few words. The Commandant was repeating every few minutes

“peace” and “friends.” A table neighbor, a commercial commissioner,

offered his services as interpreter to Julio, with that obsequiousness

which lives on advertisement.

“The Commandant asks God to maintain peace between Germany and France

and hopes that the two peoples will become increasingly friendly.”

Another orator arose at the same table. He was the most influential of

the German passengers, a rich manufacturer from Dusseldorf who had just

been visiting his agents in America. He was never mentioned by name. He

bore the title of Commercial Counsellor, and among his countrymen was

always Herr Comerzienrath and his wife was entitled Frau Rath. The

Counsellor’s Lady, much younger than her important husband, had from

the first attracted the attention of Desnoyers. She, too, had made an

exception in favor of this young Argentinian, abdicating her title from

their first conversation. “Call me Bertha,” she said as condescendingly

as a duchess of Versailles might have spoken to a handsome abbot seated

at her feet. Her husband, also protested upon hearing Desnoyers call him

“Counsellor,” like his compatriots.

“My friends,” he said, “call me ‘Captain.’ I command a company of the

Landsturm.” And the air with which the manufacturer accompanied these

words, revealed the melancholy of an unappreciated man scorning the

honors he has in order to think only of those he does not possess.

While he was delivering his discourse, Julio was examining his small

head and thick neck which gave him a certain resemblance to a bull dog.

In imagination he saw the high and oppressive collar of a uniform making

a double roll of fat above its stiff edge. The waxed, upright moustaches

were bristling aggressively. His voice was sharp and dry as though

he were shaking out his words. . . . Thus the Emperor would utter his

harangues, so the martial burgher, with instinctive imitation, was

contracting his left arm, supporting his hand upon the hilt of an

invisible sword.

In spite of his fierce and oratorical gesture of command, all the

listening Germans laughed uproariously at his first words, like men who

knew how to appreciate the sacrifice of a Herr Comerzienrath when he

deigns to divert a festivity.

“He is saying very witty things about the French,” volunteered the

interpreter in a low voice, “but they are not offensive.”

Julio had guessed as much upon hearing repeatedly the word Franzosen.

He almost understood what the orator was saying--“Franzosen--great

children, light-hearted, amusing, improvident. The things that they

might do together if they would only forget past grudges!” The attentive

Germans were no longer laughing. The Counsellor was laying aside his

irony, that grandiloquent, crushing irony, weighing many tons, as

enormous as a ship. Then he began unrolling the serious part of his

harangue, so that he himself, was also greatly affected.

“He says, sir,” reported Julio’s neighbor, “that he wishes France

to become a very great nation so that some day we may march together

against other enemies . . . against OTHERS!”

And he winked one eye, smiling maliciously with that smile of common

intelligence which this allusion to the mysterious enemy always

awakened.

Finally the Captain-Counsellor raised his glass in a toast to France.

“Hoch!” he yelled as though he were commanding an evolution of his

soldierly Reserves. Three times he sounded the cry and all the German

contingent springing to their feet, responded with a lusty Hoch while

the band in the corridor blared forth the Marseillaise.

Desnoyers was greatly moved. Thrills of enthusiasm were coursing up

and down his spine. His eyes became so moist that, when drinking his

champagne, he almost believed that he had swallowed some tears. He

bore a French name. He had French blood in his veins, and this that the

gringoes were doing--although generally they seemed to him ridiculous

and ordinary--was really worth acknowledging. The subjects of the Kaiser

celebrating the great date of the Revolution! He believed that he was

witnessing a great historic event.

“Very well done!” he said to the other South Americans at the near

tables. “We must admit that they have done the handsome thing.”

Then with the vehemence of his twenty-seven years, he accosted the

jeweller in the passage way, reproaching him for his silence. He was

the only French citizen aboard. He should have made a few words of

acknowledgment. The fiesta was ending awkwardly through his fault.

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

“I am an Argentinian citizen,” replied Julio.

And he left the older man believing that he ought to have spoken and

making explanations to those around him. It was a very dangerous thing,

he protested, to meddle in diplomatic affairs. Furthermore, he had not

instructions from his government. And for a few hours he believed that

he had been on the point of playing a great role in history.

Desnoyers passed the rest of the evening in the smoking room attracted

thither by the presence of the Counsellor’s Lady. The Captain of the

Landsturm, sticking a preposterous cigar between his moustachios, was

playing poker with his countrymen ranking next to him in dignity and

riches. His wife stayed beside him most of the time, watching the goings

and comings of the stewards carrying great bocks, without daring to

share in this tremendous consumption of beer. Her special preoccupation

was to keep vacant near her a seat which Desnoyers might occupy. She

considered him the most distinguished man on board because he was

accustomed to taking champagne with all his meals. He was of medium

height, a decided brunette, with a small foot, which obliged her to tuck

hers under her skirts, and a triangular face under two masses of hair,

straight, black and glossy as lacquer, the very opposite of the type of

men about her. Besides, he was living in Paris, in the city which she

had never seen after numerous trips in both hemispheres.

“Oh, Paris! Paris!” she sighed, opening her eyes and pursing her lips

in order to express her admiration when she was speaking alone to the

Argentinian. “How I should love to go there!”

And in order that he might feel free to tell her things about Paris, she

permitted herself certain confidences about the pleasures of Berlin, but

with a blushing modesty, admitting in advance that in the world there

was more--much more--that she wished to become acquainted with.

While pacing around the Chapelle Expiatoire, Julio recalled with a

certain remorse the wife of Counsellor Erckmann. He who had made the

trip to America for a woman’s sake, in order to collect money and marry

her! Then he immediately began making excuses for his conduct. Nobody

was going to know. Furthermore he did not pretend to be an ascetic, and

Bertha Erckmann was certainly a tempting adventure in mid ocean. Upon

recalling her, his imagination always saw a race horse--large, spare,

roan colored, and with a long stride. She was an up-to-date German who

admitted no defect in her country except the excessive weight of its

women, combating in her person this national menace with every known

system of dieting. For her every meal was a species of torment, and

the procession of bocks in the smoking room a tantalizing agony.

The slenderness achieved and maintained by will power only made more

prominent the size of her frame, the powerful skeleton with heavy jaws

and large teeth, strong and dazzling, which perhaps suggested Desnoyers’

disrespectful comparison. “She is thin, but enormous, nevertheless!” was

always his conclusion.

But then, he considered her, notwithstanding, the most distinguished

woman on board--distinguished for the sea--elegant in the style of

Munich, with clothes of indescribable colors that suggested Persian art

and the vignettes of mediaeval manuscripts. The husband admired Bertha’s

elegance, lamenting her childlessness in secret, almost as though it

were a crime of high treason. Germany was magnificent because of the

fertility of its women. The Kaiser, with his artistic hyperbole, had

proclaimed that the true German beauty should have a waist measure of at

least a yard and a half.

When Desnoyers entered into the smoking room in order to take the

seat which Bertha had reserved for him, her husband and his wealthy

hangers-on had their pack of cards lying idle upon the green felt. Herr

Rath was continuing his discourse and his listeners, taking their cigars

from their mouths, were emitting grunts of approbation. The arrival of

Julio provoked a general smile of amiability. Here was France coming

to fraternize with them. They knew that his father was French, and

that fact made him as welcome as though he came in direct line from the

palace of the Quai d’Orsay, representing the highest diplomacy of the

Republic. The craze for proselyting made them all promptly concede to

him unlimited importance.

“We,” continued the Counsellor looking fixedly at Desnoyers as if he

were expecting a solemn declaration from him, “we wish to live on good

terms with France.”

The youth nodded his head so as not to appear inattentive. It appeared

to him a very good thing that these peoples should not be enemies, and

as far as he was concerned, they might affirm this relationship as often

as they wished: the only thing that was interesting him just at

that time was a certain knee that was seeking his under the table,

transmitting its gentle warmth through a double curtain of silk.

“But France,” complained the manufacturer, “is most unresponsive towards

us. For many years past, our Emperor has been holding out his hand with

noble loyalty, but she pretends not to see it. . . . That, you must

admit, is not as it should be.”

Just here Desnoyers believed that he ought to say something in order

that the spokesman might not divine his more engrossing occupation.

“Perhaps you are not doing enough. If, first of all, you would return

that which you took away from France!” . . .

Stupefied silence followed this remark, as if the alarm signal had

sounded through the boat. Some of those who were about putting their

cigars in their mouths, remained with hands immovable within two inches

of their lips, their eyes almost popping out of their heads. But the

Captain of the Landsturm was there to formulate their mute protest.

“Return!” he said in a voice almost extinguished by the sudden swelling

of his neck. “We have nothing to return, for we have taken nothing. That

which we possess, we acquire by our heroism.”

The hidden knee with its agreeable friction made itself more

insinuating, as though counselling the youth to greater prudence.

“Do not say such things,” breathed Bertha, “thus only the republicans,

corrupted by Paris, talk. A youth so distinguished who has been in

Berlin, and has relatives in Germany!” . . .

But Desnoyers felt a hereditary impulse of aggressiveness before each

of her husband’s statements, enunciated in haughty tones, and responded

coldly:--

“It is as if I should take your watch and then propose that we should be

friends, forgetting the occurrence. Although you might forget, the first

thing for me to do would be to return the watch.”

Counsellor Erckmann wished to retort with so many things at once that he

stuttered horribly, leaping from one idea to the other. To compare the

reconquest of Alsace to a robbery. A German country! The race . . . the

language . . . the history! . . .

“But when did they announce their wish to be German?” asked the youth

without losing his calmness. “When have you consulted their opinion?”

The Counsellor hesitated, not knowing whether to argue with this

insolent fellow or crush him with his scorn.

“Young man, you do not know what you are talking about,” he finally

blustered with withering contempt. “You are an Argentinian and do not

understand the affairs of Europe.”

And the others agreed, suddenly repudiating the citizenship which

they had attributed to him a little while before. The Counsellor, with

military rudeness, brusquely turned his back upon him, and taking up

the pack, distributed the cards. The game was renewed. Desnoyers, seeing

himself isolated by the scornful silence, felt greatly tempted to break

up the playing by violence; but the hidden knee continued counselling

self-control, and an invisible hand had sought his right, pressing

it sweetly. That was enough to make him recover his serenity. The

Counsellor’s Lady seemed to be absorbed in the progress of the game. He

also looked on, a malignant smile contracting slightly the lines of his

mouth as he was mentally ejaculating by way of consolation, “Captain,

Captain! . . . You little know what is awaiting you!”

On terra firma, he would never again have approached these men; but life

on a transatlantic liner, with its inevitable promiscuousness, obliges

forgetfulness. The following day the Counsellor and his friends came in

search of him, flattering his sensibilities by erasing every irritating

memory. He was a distinguished youth belonging to a wealthy family, and

all of them had shops and business in his country. The only thing was

that he should be careful not to mention his French origin. He was an

Argentinian; and thereupon, the entire chorus interested itself in the

grandeur of his country and all the nations of South America where they

had agencies or investments--exaggerating its importance as though its

petty republics were great powers, commenting with gravity upon the

deeds and words of its political leaders and giving him to understand

that in Germany there was no one who was not concerned about the

future of South America, predicting for all its divisions most glorious

prosperity--a reflex of the Empire, always, provided, of course, that

they kept under Germanic influence.

In spite of these flatteries, Desnoyers was no longer presenting himself

with his former assiduity at the hour of poker. The Counsellor’s wife

was retiring to her stateroom earlier than usual--their approach to the

Equator inducing such an irresistible desire for sleep, that she had

to abandon her husband to his card playing. Julio also had mysterious

occupations which prevented his appearance on deck until after midnight.

With the precipitation of a man who desires to be seen in order to avoid

suspicion, he was accustomed to enter the smoking room talking loudly as

he seated himself near the husband and his boon companions.

The game had ended, and an orgy of beer and fat cigars from Hamburg

was celebrating the success of the winners. It was the hour of Teutonic

expansion, of intimacy among men, of heavy, sluggish jokes, of off-color

stories. The Counsellor was presiding with much majesty over the

diableries of his chums, prudent business men from the Hanseatic ports

who had big accounts in the Deutsche Bank or were shopkeepers installed

in the republic of the La Plata, with an innumerable family. He was a

warrior, a captain, and on applauding every heavy jest with a laugh that

distended his fat neck, he fancied that he was among his comrades at

arms.

In honor of the South Americans who, tired of pacing the deck, had

dropped in to hear what the gringoes were saying, they were turning into

Spanish the witticisms and licentious anecdotes awakened in the memory

by a superabundance of beer. Julio was marvelling at the ready laugh of

all these men. While the foreigners were remaining unmoved, they would

break forth into loud horse-laughs throwing themselves back in their

seats. And when the German audience was growing cold, the story-teller

would resort to an infallible expedient to remedy his lack of success:--

“They told this yarn to the Kaiser, and when the Kaiser heard it he

laughed heartily.”

It was not necessary to say more. They all laughed then. Ha, ha, ha!

with a spontaneous roar but a short one, a laugh in three blows, since

to prolong it, might be interpreted as a lack of respect to His Majesty.

As they neared Europe, a batch of news came to meet the boat. The

employees in the wireless telegraphy office were working incessantly.

One night, on entering the smoking room, Desnoyers saw the German

notables gesticulating with animated countenances. They were no longer

drinking beer. They had had bottles of champagne uncorked, and the

Counsellor’s Lady, much impressed, had not retired to her stateroom.

Captain Erckmann, spying the young Argentinian, offered him a glass.

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

has come!”

Desnoyers made a gesture of astonishment. War! . . . What war? . . .

Like all the others, he had read on the news bulletin outside

a radiogram stating that the Austrian government had just sent an

ultimatum to Servia; but it made not the slightest impression on him,

for he was not at all interested in the Balkan affairs. Those were but

the quarrels of a miserable little nation monopolizing the attention of

the world, distracting it from more worthwhile matters. How could this

event concern the martial Counsellor? The two nations would soon come to

an understanding. Diplomacy sometimes amounted to something.

“No,” insisted the German ferociously. “It is war, blessed war. Russia

will sustain Servia, and we will support our ally. . . . What will

France do? Do you know what France will do?” . . .

Julio shrugged his shoulders testily as though asking to be left out of

all international discussions.

“It is war,” asserted the Counsellor, “the preventive war that we need.

Russia is growing too fast, and is preparing to fight us. Four years

more of peace and she will have finished her strategic railroads, and

her military power, united to that of her allies, will be worth as much

as ours. It is better to strike a powerful blow now. It is necessary to

take advantage of this opportunity. . . . War. Preventive war!”

All his clan were listening in silence. Some did not appear to feel the

contagion of his enthusiasm. War! . . . In imagination they saw their

business paralyzed, their agencies bankrupt, the banks cutting down

credit . . . a catastrophe more frightful to them than the slaughters

of battles. But they applauded with nods and grunts all of Erckmann’s

ferocious demonstrations. He was a Herr Rath, and an officer besides.

He must be in the secrets of the destiny of his country, and that was

enough to make them drink silently to the success of the war.

Julio thought that the Counsellor and his admirers must be drunk. “Look

here, Captain,” he said in a conciliatory tone, “what you say lacks

logic. How could war possibly be acceptable to industrial Germany? Every

moment its business is increasing, every month it conquers a new

market and every year its commercial balance soars upward in unheard of

proportions. Sixty years ago, it had to man its boats with Berlin

hack drivers arrested by the police. Now its commercial fleets and war

vessels cross all oceans, and there is no port where the German merchant

marine does not occupy the greatest part of the docks. It would only be

necessary to continue living in this way, to put yourselves beyond the

exigencies of war! Twenty years more of peace, and the Germans would be

lords of the world’s commerce, conquering England, the former mistress

of the seas, in a bloodless struggle. And are they going to risk all

this--like a gambler who stakes his entire fortune on a single card--in

a struggle that might result unfavorably?” . . .

“No, war,” insisted the Counsellor furiously, “preventive war. We live

surrounded by our enemies, and this state of things cannot go on. It is

best to end it at once. Either they or we! Germany feels herself strong

enough to challenge the world. We’ve got to put an end to this Russian

menace! And if France doesn’t keep herself quiet, so much the worse for

her! . . . And if anyone else . . . ANYONE dares to come in against us,

so much the worse for him! When I set up a new machine in my shops, it

is to make it produce unceasingly. We possess the finest army in the

world, and it is necessary to give it exercise that it may not rust

out.”

He then continued with heavy emphasis, “They have put a band of iron

around us in order to throttle us. But Germany has a strong chest and

has only to expand in order to burst its bands. We must awake before

they manacle us in our sleep. Woe to those who then oppose us! . . .”

Desnoyers felt obliged to reply to this arrogance. He had never seen

the iron circle of which the Germans were complaining. The nations were

merely unwilling to continue living, unsuspecting and inactive,

before boundless German ambition. They were simply preparing to defend

themselves against an almost certain attack. They wished to maintain

their dignity, repeatedly violated under most absurd pretexts.

“I wonder if it is not the others,” he concluded, “who are obliged to

defend themselves because you represent a menace to the world!”

An invisible hand sought his under the table, as it had some nights

before, to recommend prudence; but now he clasped it forcibly with the

authority of a right acquired.

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

distinguished who has . . .”

She was not able to finish, for her husband interrupted. They were no

longer in American waters, and the Counsellor expressed himself with the

rudeness of a master of his house.

“I have the honor to inform you, young man,” he said, imitating the

cutting coldness of the diplomats, “that you are merely a South American

and know nothing of the affairs of Europe.”

He did not call him an “Indian,” but Julio heard the implication as

though he had used the word itself. Ah, if that hidden handclasp had not

held him with its sentimental thrills! . . . But this contact kept him

calm and even made him smile. “Thanks, Captain,” he said to himself. “It

is the least you can do to get even with me!”

Here his relations with the German and his clientele came to an end. The

merchants, as they approached nearer and nearer to their native land,

began casting off that servile desire of ingratiating themselves which

they had assumed in all their trips to the new world. They now had more

important things to occupy them. The telegraphic service was working

without cessation. The Commandant of the vessel was conferring in his

apartment with the Counsellor as his compatriot of most importance.

His friends were hunting out the most obscure places in order to

talk confidentially with one another. Even Bertha commenced to avoid

Desnoyers. She was still smiling distantly at him, but that smile was

more of a souvenir than a reality.

Between Lisbon and the coast of England, Julio spoke with her husband

for the last time. Every morning was appearing on the bulletin board the

alarming news transmitted by radiograph. The Empire was arming itself

against its enemies. God would punish them, making all manner of

troubles fall upon them. Desnoyers was motionless with astonishment

before the last piece of news--“Three hundred thousand revolutionists

are now besieging Paris. The suburbs are beginning to burn. The horrors

of the Commune have broken out again.”

“My, but these Germans have gone mad!” exclaimed the disgusted youth to

the curious group surrounding the radio-sheet. “We are going to lose

the little sense that we have left! . . . What revolutionists are they

talking about? How could a revolution break out in Paris if the men of

the government are not reactionary?”

A gruff voice sounded behind him, rude, authoritative, as if trying to

banish the doubts of the audience. It was the Herr Comerzienrath who was

speaking.

“Young man, these notices are sent us by the first agencies of Germany

. . . and Germany never lies.”

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

more.

On the following morning, the last day of the voyage. Desnoyers’ steward

awoke him in great excitement. “Herr, come up on deck! a most beautiful

spectacle!”

The sea was veiled by the fog, but behind its hazy curtains could be

distinguished some silhouettes like islands with great towers and sharp,

pointed minarets. The islands were advancing over the oily waters slowly

and majestically, with impressive dignity. Julio counted eighteen. They

appeared to fill the ocean. It was the Channel Fleet which had just left

the English coast by Government order, sailing around simply to show

its strength. Seeing this procession of dreadnoughts for the first

time, Desnoyers was reminded of a flock of marine monsters, and gained

a better idea of the British power. The German ship passed among them,

shrinking, humiliated, quickening its speed. “One might suppose,” mused

the youth, “that she had an uneasy conscience and wished to scud to

safety.” A South American passenger near him was jesting with one of

the Germans, “What if they have already declared war! . . . What if they

should make us prisoners!”

After midday, they entered Southampton roads. The Frederic August

hurried to get away as soon as possible, and transacted business with

dizzying celerity. The cargo of passengers and baggage was enormous.

Two launches approached the transatlantic and discharged an avalanche of

Germans residents in England who invaded the decks with the joy of those

who tread friendly soil, desiring to see Hamburg as soon as possible.

Then the boat sailed through the Channel with a speed most unusual in

these places.

The people, leaning on the railing, were commenting on the extraordinary

encounters in this marine boulevard, usually frequented by ships of

peace. Certain smoke lines on the horizon were from the French squadron

carrying President Poincare who was returning from Russia. The European

alarm had interrupted his trip. Then they saw more English vessels

patrolling the coast line like aggressive and vigilant dogs. Two North

American battleships could be distinguished by their mast-heads in the

form of baskets. Then a Russian battleship, white and glistening, passed

at full steam on its way to the Baltic. “Bad!” said the South American

passengers regretfully. “Very bad! It looks this time as if it were

going to be serious!” and they glanced uneasily at the neighboring

coasts on both sides. Although they presented the usual appearance,

behind them, perhaps, a new period of history was in the making.

The transatlantic was due at Boulogne at midnight where it was supposed

to wait until daybreak to discharge its passengers comfortably. It

arrived, nevertheless, at ten, dropped anchor outside the harbor, and

the Commandant gave orders that the disembarkation should take place

in less than an hour. For this reason they had quickened their speed,

consuming a vast amount of extra coal. It was necessary to get away

as soon as possible, seeking the refuge of Hamburg. The radiographic

apparatus had evidently been working to some purpose.

By the glare of the bluish searchlights which were spreading a livid

clearness over the sea, began the unloading of passengers and baggage

for Paris, from the transatlantic into the tenders. “Hurry! Hurry!” The

seamen were pushing forward the ladies of slow step who were recounting

their valises, believing that they had lost some. The stewards loaded

themselves up with babies as though they were bundles. The general

precipitation dissipated the usual exaggerated and oily Teutonic

amiability. “They are regular bootlickers,” thought Desnoyers. “They

believe that their hour of triumph has come, and do not think it

necessary to pretend any longer.” . . .

He was soon in a launch that was bobbing up and down on the waves

near the black and immovable hulk of the great liner, dotted with many

circles of light and filled with people waving handkerchiefs. Julio

recognized Bertha who was waving her hand without seeing him, without

knowing in which tender he was, but feeling obliged to show her

gratefulness for the sweet memories that now were being lost in the

mystery of the sea and the night. “Adieu, Frau Rath!”

The distance between the departing transatlantic and the lighters was

widening. As though it had been awaiting this moment with impunity, a

stentorian voice on the upper deck shouted with a noisy guffaw, “See you

later! Soon we shall meet you in Paris!” And the marine band, the very

same band that three days before had astonished Desnoyers with its

unexpected Marseillaise, burst forth into a military march of the time

of Frederick the Great--a march of grenadiers with an accompaniment of

trumpets.

That had been the night before. Although twenty-four hours had not yet

passed by, Desnoyers was already considering it as a distant event of

shadowy reality. His thoughts, always disposed to take the opposite

side, did not share in the general alarm. The insolence of the

Counsellor now appeared to him but the boastings of a burgher turned

into a soldier. The disquietude of the people of Paris, was but the

nervous agitation of a city which lived placidly and became alarmed at

the first hint of danger to its comfort. So many times they had spoken

of an immediate war, always settling things peacefully at the last

moment! . . . Furthermore he did not want war to come because it would

upset all his plans for the future; and the man accepted as logical

and reasonable everything that suited his selfishness, placing it above

reality.

“No, there will not be war,” he repeated as he continued pacing up and

down the garden. “These people are beside themselves. How could a war

possibly break out in these days?” . . .

And after disposing of his doubts, which certainly would in a short

time come up again, he thought of the joy of the moment, consulting his

watch. Five o’clock! She might come now at any minute! He thought that

he recognized her afar off in a lady who was passing through the grating

by the rue Pasquier. She seemed to him a little different, but it

occurred to him that possibly the Summer fashions might have altered

her appearance. But soon he saw that he had made a mistake. She was not

alone, another lady was with her. They were perhaps English or North

American women who worshipped the memory of Marie Antoinette and wished

to visit the Chapelle Expiatoire, the old tomb of the executed queen.

Julio watched them as they climbed the flights of steps and crossed the

interior patio in which were interred the eight hundred Swiss soldiers

killed in the attack of the Tenth of August, with other victims of

revolutionary fury.

Disgusted at his error, he continued his tramp. His ill humor made the

monument with which the Bourbon restoration had adorned the old cemetery

of the Madeleine, appear uglier than ever to him. Time was passing, but

she did not come. Every time that he turned, he looked hungrily at the

entrances of the garden. And then it happened as in all their meetings.

She suddenly appeared as if she had fallen from the sky or risen up from

the ground, like an apparition. A cough, a slight rustling of footsteps,

and as he turned, Julio almost collided with her.

“Marguerite! Oh, Marguerite!” . . .

It was she, and yet he was slow to recognize her. He felt a certain

strangeness in seeing in full reality the countenance which had occupied

his imagination for three months, each time more spirituelle and shadowy

with the idealism of absence. But his doubts were of short duration.

Then it seemed as though time and space were eliminated, that he had

not made any voyage, and but a few hours had intervened since their last

interview.

Marguerite divined the expansion which might follow Julio’s

exclamations, the vehement hand-clasp, perhaps something more, so she

kept herself calm and serene.

“No; not here,” she said with a grimace of repugnance. “What a

ridiculous idea for us to have met here!”

They were about to seat themselves on the iron chairs, in the shadow of

some shrubbery, when she rose suddenly. Those who were passing along the

boulevard might see them by merely casting their eyes toward the

garden. At this time, many of her friends might be passing through the

neighborhood because of its proximity to the big shops. . . . They,

therefore, sought refuge at a corner of the monument, placing themselves

between it and the rue des Mathurins. Desnoyers brought two chairs near

the hedge, so that when seated they were invisible to those passing on

the other side of the railing. But this was not solitude. A few steps

away, a fat, nearsighted man was reading his paper, and a group of

women were chatting and embroidering. A woman with a red wig and two

dogs--some housekeeper who had come down into the garden in order to

give her pets an airing--passed several times near the amorous pair,

smiling discreetly.

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

place!”

The two scrutinized each other carefully, wishing to see exactly what

transformation Time had wrought.

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

Julio was finding her even lovelier than before, and felt sure that

possessing her was well worth all the contrarieties which had brought

about his trip to South America. She was taller than he, with an

elegantly proportioned slenderness. “She has the musical step,”

Desnoyers had told himself, when seeing her in his imagination; and now,

on beholding her again, the first thing that he admired was her rhythmic

tread, light and graceful as she passed through the garden seeking

another seat. Her features were not regular but they had a piquant

fascination--a true Parisian face. Everything that had been invented for

the embellishment of feminine charm was used about her person with the

most exquisite fastidiousness. She had always lived for herself. Only

a few months before had she abdicated a part of this sweet selfishness,

sacrificing reunions, teas, and calls in order to give Desnoyers some of

the afternoon hours.

Stylish and painted like a priceless doll, with no loftier ambition

than to be a model, interpreting with personal elegance the latest

confections of the modistes, she was at last experiencing the same

preoccupations and joys as other women, creating for herself an inner

life. The nucleus of this new life, hidden under her former frivolity,

was Desnoyers. Just as she was imagining that she had reorganized

her existence--adjusting the satisfactions of worldly elegance to the

delights of love in intimate secrecy--a fulminating catastrophe (the

intervention of her husband whose possible appearance she seemed to

have overlooked) had disturbed her thoughtless happiness. She who was

accustomed to think herself the centre of the universe, imagining that

events ought to revolve around her desires and tastes, had suffered this

cruel surprise with more astonishment than grief.

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

“I must tell you that the fashion has changed. The sheath skirt has

passed away. Now it is worn short and with more fullness.”

Desnoyers had to interest himself in her apparel with the same devotion,

mixing his appreciation of the latest freak of the fashion-monger with

his eulogies of Marguerite’s beauty.

“Have you thought much about me?” she continued. “You have not been

unfaithful to me a single time? Not even once? . . . Tell me the truth;

you know I can always tell when you are lying.”

“I have always thought of you,” he said putting his hand on his heart,

as if he were swearing before a judge.

And he said it roundly, with an accent of truth, since in his

infidelities--now completely forgotten--the memory of Marguerite had

always been present.

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

the time?”

He had brought his chair nearer to hers, and their knees touched. He

took one of her hands, patting it and putting his finger in the glove

opening. Oh, that accursed garden which would not permit greater

intimacy and obliged them to speak in a low tone, after three months’

absence! . . . In spite of his discretion, the man who was reading his

paper raised his head and looked irritably at them over his spectacles

as though a fly were distracting him with its buzzing. . . . The very

idea of talking love-nonsense in a public garden when all Europe was

threatened with calamity!

Repelling the audacious hand, Marguerite spoke tranquilly of her

existence during the last months.

“I have passed my life the best I could, but I have been greatly bored.

You know that I am now living with mama, and mama is a lady of the old

regime who does not understand our tastes. I have been to the theatres

with my brother. I have made many calls on the lawyer in order to learn

the progress of my divorce and hurry it along . . . and nothing else.”

“And your husband?”

“Don’t let’s talk about him. Do you want to? I pity the poor man!

So good . . . so correct. The lawyer assures me that he agrees to

everything and will not impose any obstacles. They tell me that he does

not come to Paris, that he lives in his factory. Our old home is closed.

There are times when I feel remorseful over the way I have treated him.”

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

“You are right,” she returned smiling. “You are Life. It is cruel but

it is human. We have to live our lives without taking others into

consideration. It is necessary to be selfish in order to be happy.”

The two remained silent. The remembrance of the husband had swept across

them like a glacial blast. Julio was the first to brighten up.

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

“No, how could I? The very idea, a woman in divorce proceedings! . . .

I have not been to a single chic party since you went away. I wanted to

preserve a certain decorous mourning fiesta. How horrible it was! . . .

It needed you, the Master!”

They had again clasped hands and were smiling. Memories of the previous

months were passing before their eyes, visions of their life from five

to seven in the afternoon, dancing in the hotels of the Champs Elysees

where the tango had been inexorably associated with a cup of tea.

She appeared to tear herself away from these recollections, impelled

by a tenacious obsession which had slipped from her mind in the first

moments of their meeting.

“Do you know much about what’s happening? Tell me all. People talk so

much. . . . Do you really believe that there will be war? Don’t you

think that it will all end in some kind of settlement?”

Desnoyers comforted her with his optimism. He did not believe in the

possibility of a war. That was ridiculous.

“I say so, too! Ours is not the epoch of savages. I have known some

Germans, chic and well-educated persons who surely must think exactly as

we do. An old professor who comes to the house was explaining yesterday

to mama that wars are no longer possible in these progressive times. In

two months’ time, there would scarcely be any men left, in three, the

world would find itself without money to continue the struggle. I do not

recall exactly how it was, but he explained it all very clearly, in a

manner most delightful to hear.”

She reflected in silence, trying to co-ordinate her confused

recollections, but dismayed by the effort required, added on her own

account.

“Just imagine what war would mean--how horrible! Society life paralyzed.

No more parties, nor clothes, nor theatres! Why, it is even possible

that they might not design any more fashions! All the women in mourning.

Can you imagine it? . . . And Paris deserted. . . . How beautiful it

seemed as I came to meet you this afternoon! . . . No, no, it cannot

be! Next month, you know, we go to Vichy. Mama needs the waters. Then to

Biarritz. After that, I shall go to a castle on the Loire. And besides

there are our affairs, my divorce, our marriage which may take place the

next year. . . . And is war to hinder and cut short all this! No, no,

it is not possible. My brother and others like him are foolish enough

to dream of danger from Germany. I am sure that my husband, too, who is

only interested in serious and bothersome matters, is among those

who believe that war is imminent and prepare to take part in it. What

nonsense! Tell me that it is all nonsense. I need to hear you say it.”

Tranquilized by the affirmations of her lover, she then changed the

trend of the conversation. The possibility of their approaching marriage

brought to mind the object of the voyage which Desnoyers had just made.

There had not been time for them to write to each other during their

brief separation.

“Did you succeed in getting the money? The joy of seeing you made me

forget all about such things. . . .”

Adopting the air of a business expert, he replied that he had brought

back less than he expected, for he had found the country in the throes

of one of its periodical panics; but still he had managed to get

together about four hundred thousand francs. In his purse he had a check

for that amount. Later on, they would send him further remittances.

A ranchman in Argentina, a sort of relative, was looking after his

affairs. Marguerite appeared satisfied, and in spite of her frivolity,

adopted the air of a serious woman.

“Money, money!” she exclaimed sententiously. “And yet there is no

happiness without it! With your four hundred thousand and what I have,

we shall be able to get along. . . . I told you that my husband wishes

to give me back my dowry. He has told my brother so. But the state of

his business, and the increased size of his factory do not permit him to

return it as quickly as he would like. I can’t help but feel sorry for

the poor man . . . so honorable and so upright in every way. If he only

were not so commonplace! . . .”

Again Marguerite seemed to regret these tardy spontaneous eulogies which

were chilling their interview. So again she changed the trend of her

chatter.

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

Desnoyers had been to his father’s home before starting for the Chapelle

Expiatoire. A stealthy entrance into the great house on the avenue

Victor Hugo, and then up to the first floor like a tradesman. Then he

had slipt into the kitchen like a soldier sweetheart of the maids.

His mother had come there to embrace him, poor Dona Luisa, weeping and

kissing him frantically as though she had feared to lose him forever.

Close behind her mother had come Luisita, nicknamed Chichi, who always

surveyed him with sympathetic curiosity as if she wished to know better

a brother so bad and adorable who had led decent women from the paths

of virtue, and committed all kinds of follies. Then Desnoyers had been

greatly surprised to see entering the kitchen with the air of a tragedy

queen, a noble mother of the drama, his Aunt Elena, the one who had

married a German and was living in Berlin surrounded with innumerable

children.

“She has been in Paris a month. She is going to make a little visit to

our castle. And it appears that her eldest son--my cousin, ‘The Sage,’

whom I have not seen for years--is also coming here.”

The home interview had several times been interrupted by fear. “Your

father is at home, be careful,” his mother had said to him each time

that he had spoken above a whisper. And his Aunt Elena had stationed

herself at the door with a dramatic air, like a stage heroine resolved

to plunge a dagger into the tyrant who should dare to cross the

threshold. The entire family was accustomed to submit to the rigid

authority of Don Marcelo Desnoyers. “Oh, that old man!” exclaimed Julio,

referring to his father. “He may live many years yet, but how he weighs

upon us all!”

His mother, who had never wearied of looking at him, finally had to

bring the interview to an end, frightened by certain approaching sounds.

“Go, he might surprise us, and he would be furious.” So Julio had fled

the paternal home, caressed by the tears of the two ladies and the

admiring glances of Chichi, by turns ashamed and proud of a brother who

had caused such enthusiasm and scandal among her friends.

Marguerite also spoke of Senor Desnoyers. A terrible tyrant of the old

school with whom they could never come to an understanding.

The two remained silent, looking fixedly at each other. Now that they

had said the things of greatest urgency, present interests became more

absorbing. More immediate things, unspoken, seemed to well up in their

timid and vacillating eyes, before escaping in the form of words.

They did not dare to talk like lovers here. Every minute the cloud of

witnesses seemed increasing around them. The woman with the dogs and the

red wig was passing with greater frequency, shortening her turns through

the square in order to greet them with a smile of complicity. The

reader of the daily paper was now exchanging views with a friend on a

neighboring bench regarding the possibilities of war. The garden

had become a thoroughfare. The modistes upon going out from their

establishments, and the ladies returning from shopping, were crossing

through the square in order to shorten their walk. The little avenue was

a popular short-cut. All the pedestrians were casting curious glances at

the elegant lady and her companion seated in the shadow of the shrubbery

with the timid yet would-be natural look of those who desire to hide

themselves, yet at the same time feign a casual air.

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

A girl looked at her so searchingly that she thought she recognized in

her an employee of a celebrated modiste. Besides, some of her personal

friends who had met her in the crowded shops but an hour ago might be

returning home by way of the garden.

“Let us go,” she said rising hurriedly. “If they should spy us here

together, just think what they might say! . . . and just when they are

becoming a little forgetful!”

Desnoyers protested crossly. Go away? . . . Paris had become a shrunken

place for them nowadays because Marguerite refused to go to a single

place where there was a possibility of their being surprised. In another

square, in a restaurant, wherever they might go--they would run the same

risk of being recognized. She would only consider meetings in public

places, and yet at the same time, dreaded the curiosity of the people.

If Marguerite would like to go to his studio of such sweet

memories! . . .

“To your home? No! no indeed!” she replied emphatically “I cannot forget

the last time I was there.”

But Julio insisted, foreseeing a break in that firm negative. Where

could they be more comfortable? Besides, weren’t they going to marry as

soon as possible? . . .

“I tell you no,” she repeated. “Who knows but my husband may be watching

me! What a complication for my divorce if he should surprise us in your

house!”

Now it was he who eulogized the husband, insisting that such

watchfulness was incompatible with his character. The engineer had

accepted the facts, considering them irreparable and was now thinking

only of reconstructing his life.

“No, it is better for us to separate,” she continued. “Tomorrow we shall

see each other again. You will hunt a more favorable place. Think it

over, and you will find a solution for it all.”

But he wished an immediate solution. They had abandoned their seats,

going slowly toward the rue des Mathurins. Julio was speaking with a

trembling and persuasive eloquence. To-morrow? No, now. They had only to

call a taxicab. It would be only a matter of a few minutes, and then the

isolation, the mystery, the return to a sweet past--to that intimacy

in the studio where they had passed their happiest hours. They would

believe that no time had elapsed since their first meetings.

“No,” she faltered with a weakening accent, seeking a last resistance.

“Besides, your secretary might be there, that Spaniard who lives with

you. How ashamed I would be to meet him again!”

Julio laughed. . . . Argensola! How could that comrade who knew all

about their past be an obstacle? If they should happen to meet him in

the house, he would be sure to leave immediately. More than once, he had

had to go out so as not to be in the way. His discretion was such that

he had foreseen events. Probably he had already left, conjecturing that

a near visit would be the most logical thing. His chum would simply go

wandering through the streets in search of news.

Marguerite was silent, as though yielding on seeing her pretexts

exhausted. Desnoyers was silent, too, construing her stillness as

assent. They had left the garden and she was looking around uneasily,

terrified to find herself in the open street beside her lover, and

seeking a hiding-place. Suddenly she saw before her the little red door

of an automobile, opened by the hand of her adorer.

“Get in,” ordered Julio.

And she climbed in hastily, anxious to hide herself as soon as possible.

The vehicle started at great speed. Marguerite immediately pulled down

the shade of the window on her side, but, before she had finished and

could turn her head, she felt a hungry mouth kissing the nape of her

neck.

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

And while he, rebellious at these exhortations, persisted in his

advances, the voice of Marguerite again sounded above the noise of the

rattling machinery of the automobile as it bounded over the pavement.

“Do you really believe that there will be no war? Do you believe that we

will be able to marry? . . . Tell me again. I want you to encourage me

. . . I need to hear it from your lips.”

CHAPTER II

MADARIAGA, THE CENTAUR

In 1870 Marcelo Desnoyers was nineteen years old. He was born in the

suburbs of Paris, an only child; his father, interested in little

building speculations, maintained his family in modest comfort. The

mason wished to make an architect of his son, and Marcelo was in the

midst of his preparatory studies when his father suddenly died, leaving

his affairs greatly involved. In a few months, he and his mother

descended the slopes of ruin, and were obliged to give up their snug,

middle-class quarters and live like laborers.

When the fourteen-year-old boy had to choose a trade, he learned wood

carving. This craft was an art related to the tastes awakened in Marcelo

by his abandoned studies. His mother retired to the country, living with

some relatives while the lad advanced rapidly in the shops, aiding his

master in all the important orders which he received from the provinces.

The first news of the war with Prussia surprised him in Marseilles,

working on the decorations of a theatre.

Marcelo was opposed to the Empire like all the youths of his generation.

He was also much influenced by the older workmen who had taken part in

the Republic of ‘48, and who still retained vivid recollections of the

Coup d’Etat of the second of December.

One day he saw in the streets of Marseilles a popular manifestation in

favor of peace which was practically a protest against the government.

The old republicans in their implacable struggle with the Emperor, the

companies of the International which had just been organized, and a

great number of Italians and Spaniards who had fled their countries on

account of recent insurrections, composed the procession. A long-haired,

consumptive student was carrying the flag. “It is peace that we want--a

peace which may unite all mankind,” chanted the paraders. But on this

earth, the noblest propositions are seldom heard, since Destiny amuses

herself in perverting them and turning them aside.

Scarcely had the friends of peace entered the rue Cannebiere with their

hymn and standard, when war came to meet them, obliging them to resort

to fist and club. The day before, some battalions of Zouaves from

Algiers had disembarked in order to reinforce the army on the

frontier, and these veterans, accustomed to colonial existence and

undiscriminating as to the cause of disturbances, seized the opportunity

to intervene in this manifestation, some with bayonets and others with

ungirded belts. “Hurrah for War!” and a rain of lashes and blows

fell upon the unarmed singers. Marcelo saw the innocent student, the

standard-bearer of peace, knocked down wrapped in his flag, by the

merry kicks of the Zouaves. Then he knew no more, since he had received

various blows with a leather strap, and a knife thrust in his shoulder;

he had to run the same as the others.

That day developed for the first time, his fiery, stubborn character,

irritable before contradiction, even to the point of adopting the most

extreme resolution. “Down with War!” Since it was not possible for him

to protest in any other way, he would leave the country. The Emperor

might arrange his affairs as best he could. The struggle was going to

be long and disastrous, according to the enemies of the Empire. If he

stayed, he would in a few months be drawn for the soldiery. Desnoyers

renounced the honor of serving the Emperor. He hesitated a little when

he thought of his mother. But his country relatives would not turn her

out, and he planned to work very hard and send her money. Who knew what

riches might be waiting for him, on the other side of the sea! . . .

Good-bye, France!

Thanks to his savings, a harbor official found it to his interest to

offer him the choice of three boats. One was sailing to Egypt, another

to Australia, another to Montevideo and Buenos Aires, which made the

strongest appeal to him? . . . Desnoyers, remembering his readings,

wished to consult the wind and follow the course that it indicated, as

he had seen various heroes of novels do. But that day the wind blew from

the sea toward France. He also wished to toss up a coin in order to test

his fate. Finally he decided upon the vessel sailing first. Not until,

with his scanty baggage, he was actually on the deck of the next boat

to anchor, did he take any interest in its course--“For the Rio de la

Plata.” . . . And he accepted these words with a fatalistic shrug. “Very

well, let it be South America!” The country was not distasteful to him,

since he knew it by certain travel publications whose illustrations

represented herds of cattle at liberty, half-naked, plumed Indians, and

hairy cowboys whirling over their heads serpentine lassos tipped with

balls.

The millionaire Desnoyers never forgot that trip to America--forty-three

days navigating in a little worn-out steamer that rattled like a heap

of old iron, groaned in all its joints at the slightest roughness of the

sea, and had to stop four times for repairs, at the mercy of the winds

and waves.

In Montevideo, he learned of the reverses suffered by his country and

that the French Empire no longer existed. He felt a little ashamed

when he heard that the nation was now self-governing, defending itself

gallantly behind the walls of Paris. And he had fled! . . . Months

afterwards, the events of the Commune consoled him for his flight. If

he had remained, wrath at the national downfall, his relations with his

co-laborers, the air in which he lived--everything would surely have

dragged him along to revolt. In that case, he would have been shot or

consigned to a colonial prison like so many of his former comrades.

So his determination crystallized, and he stopped thinking about the

affairs of his mother-country. The necessities of existence in a foreign

land whose language he was beginning to pick up made him think only

of himself. The turbulent and adventurous life of these new nations

compelled him to most absurd expedients and varied occupations. Yet he

felt himself strong with an audacity and self-reliance which he never

had in the old world. “I am equal to everything,” he said, “if they

only give me time to prove it!” Although he had fled from his country

in order not to take up arms, he even led a soldier’s life for a

brief period in his adopted land, receiving a wound in one of the many

hostilities between the whites and reds in the unsettled districts.

In Buenos Aires, he again worked as a woodcarver. The city was beginning

to expand, breaking its shell as a large village. Desnoyers spent many

years ornamenting salons and facades. It was a laborious existence,

sedentary and remunerative. But one day he became tired of this slow

saving which could only bring him a mediocre fortune after a long time.

He had gone to the new world to become rich like so many others. And

at twenty-seven, he started forth again, a full-fledged adventurer,

avoiding the cities, wishing to snatch money from untapped, natural

sources. He worked farms in the forests of the North, but the locusts

obliterated his crops in a few hours. He was a cattle-driver, with the

aid of only two peons, driving a herd of oxen and mules over the snowy

solitudes of the Andes to Bolivia and Chile. In this life, making

journeys of many months’ duration, across interminable plains, he lost

exact account of time and space. Just as he thought himself on the verge

of winning a fortune, he lost it all by an unfortunate speculation.

And in a moment of failure and despair, being now thirty years old, he

became an employee of Julio Madariaga.

He knew of this rustic millionaire through his purchases of flocks--a

Spaniard who had come to the country when very young, adapting himself

very easily to its customs, and living like a cowboy after he had

acquired enormous properties. The country folk, wishing to put a title

of respect before his name, called him Don Madariaga.

“Comrade,” he said to Desnoyers one day when he happened to be in a good

humor--a very rare thing for him--“you must have passed through many ups

and downs. Your lack of silver may be smelled a long ways off. Why lead

such a dog’s life? Trust in me, Frenchy, and remain here! I am growing

old, and I need a man.”

After the Frenchman had arranged to stay with Madariaga, every landed

proprietor living within fifteen or twenty leagues of the ranch, stopped

the new employee on the road to prophesy all sorts of misfortune.

“You will not stay long. Nobody can get along with Don Madariaga. We

have lost count of his overseers. He is a man who must be killed or

deserted. Soon you will go, too!”

Desnoyers did not doubt but that there was some truth in all this.

Madariaga was an impossible character, but feeling a certain sympathy

with the Frenchman, had tried not to annoy him with his irritability.

“He’s a regular pearl, this Frenchy,” said the plainsman as though

trying to excuse himself for his considerate treatment of his latest

acquisition. “I like him because he is very serious. . . . That is the

way I like a man.”

Desnoyers did not know exactly what this much-admired seriousness could

be, but he felt a secret pride in seeing him aggressive with everybody

else, even his family, whilst he took with him a tone of paternal

bluffness.

The family consisted of his wife Misia Petrona (whom he always called

the China) and two grown daughters who had gone to school in Buenos

Aires, but on returning to the ranch had reverted somewhat to their

original rusticity.

Madariaga’s fortune was enormous. He had lived in the field since his

arrival in America, when the white race had not dared to settle outside

the towns for fear of the Indians. He had gained his first money as a

fearless trader, taking merchandise in a cart from fort to fort. He had

killed Indians, was twice wounded by them, and for a while had lived as

a captive with an Indian chief whom he finally succeeded in making his

staunch friend. With his earnings, he had bought land, much land, almost

worthless because of its insecurity, devoting it to the raising of

cattle that he had to defend, gun in hand, from the pirates of the

plains.

Then he had married his China, a young half-breed who was running around

barefoot, but owned many of her forefathers’ fields. They had lived in

an almost savage poverty on their property which would have taken many a

day’s journey to go around. Afterwards, when the government was pushing

the Indians towards the frontiers, and offering the abandoned lands

for sale, considering it a patriotic sacrifice on the part of any one

wishing to acquire them, Madariaga bought and bought at the lowest

figure and longest terms. To get possession of vast tracts and populate

it with blooded stock became the mission of his life. At times,

galloping with Desnoyers through his boundless fields, he was not able

to repress his pride.

“Tell me something, Frenchy! They say that further up the country, there

are some nations about the size of my ranches. Is that so?” . . .

The Frenchman agreed. . . . The lands of Madariaga were indeed greater

than many principalities. This put the old plainsman in rare good humor

and he exclaimed in the cowboy vernacular which had become second nature

to him--“Then it wouldn’t be absurd to proclaim myself king some day?

Just imagine it, Frenchy;--Don Madariaga, the First. . . . The worst of

it all is that I would also be the last, for the China will not give me

a son. . . . She is a weak cow!”

The fame of his vast territories and his wealth in stock reached even to

Buenos Aires. Every one knew of Madariaga by name, although very few had

seen him. When he went to the Capital, he passed unnoticed because of

his country aspect--the same leggings that he was used to wearing in the

fields, his poncho wrapped around him like a muffler above which rose

the aggressive points of a necktie, a tormenting ornament imposed by his

daughters, who in vain arranged it with loving hands that he might look

a little more respectable.

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

“Sir, I know that you need some young bulls for the European market, and

I have come to sell you a few.”

The man of affairs looked haughtily at the poor cowboy. He might explain

his errand to one of the employees, he could not waste his time on such

small matters. But the malicious grin on the rustic’s face awoke his

curiosity.

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

“About thirty thousand, sir.”

It was not necessary to hear more. The supercilious merchant sprang from

his desk, and obsequiously offered him a seat.

“You can be no other than Don Madariaga.”

“At the service of God and yourself, sir,” he responded in the manner of

a Spanish countryman.

That was the most glorious moment of his existence.

In the outer office of the Directors of the Bank, the clerks offered him

a seat until the personage the other side of the door should deign to

receive him. But scarcely was his name announced than that same director

ran to admit him, and the employee was stupefied to hear the ranchman

say, by way of greeting, “I have come to draw out three hundred thousand

dollars. I have abundant pasturage, and I wish to buy a ranch or two in

order to stock them.”

His arbitrary and contradictory character weighed upon the inhabitants

of his lands with both cruel and good-natured tyranny. No vagabond ever

passed by the ranch without being rudely assailed by its owner from the

outset.

“Don’t tell me any of your hard-luck stories, friend,” he would yell as

if he were going to beat him. “Under the shed is a skinned beast;

cut and eat as much as you wish and so help yourself to continue your

journey. . . . But no more of your yarns!”

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

dollars.

One day he became infuriated because a peon was nailing the wire fencing

too deliberately on the posts. Everybody was robbing him! The following

day he spoke of a large sum of money that he would have to pay for

having endorsed the note of an acquaintance, completely bankrupt. “Poor

fellow! His luck is worse than mine!”

Upon finding in the road the skeleton of a recently killed sheep, he was

beside himself with indignation. It was not because of the loss of the

meat. “Hunger knows no law, and God has made meat for mankind to eat.

But they might at least have left the skin!” . . . And he would rage

against such wickedness, always repeating, “Lack of religion and good

habits!” The next time, the bandits stripped the flesh off of three

cows, leaving the skins in full view, and the ranchman said, smiling,

“That is the way I like people, honorable and doing no wrong.”

His vigor as a tireless centaur had helped him powerfully in his task

of populating his lands. He was capricious, despotic and with the

same paternal instincts as his compatriots who, centuries before when

conquering the new world, had clarified its native blood. Like the

Castilian conquistadors, he had a fancy for copper-colored beauty with

oblique eyes and straight hair. When Desnoyers saw him going off on some

sudden pretext, putting his horse at full gallop toward a neighboring

ranch, he would say to himself, smilingly, “He is going in search of a

new peon who will help work his land fifteen years from now.”

The personnel of the ranch often used to comment on the resemblance of

certain youths laboring here the same as the others, galloping from the

first streak of dawn over the fields, attending to the various duties

of pasturing. The overseer, Celedonio, a half-breed thirty years old,

generally detested for his hard and avaricious character, also bore a

distant resemblance to the patron.

Almost every year, some woman from a great distance, dirty and

bad-faced, presented herself at the ranch, leading by the hand a little

mongrel with eyes like live coals. She would ask to speak with the

proprietor alone, and upon being confronted with her, he usually

recalled a trip made ten or twelve years before in order to buy a herd

of cattle.

“You remember, Patron, that you passed the night on my ranch because the

river had risen?”

The Patron did not remember anything about it. But a vague instinct

warned him that the woman was probably telling the truth. “Well, what of

it?”

“Patron, here he is. . . . It is better for him to grow to manhood by

your side than in any other place.”

And she presented him with the little hybrid. One more, and offered with

such simplicity! . . . “Lack of religion and good habits!” Then with

sudden modesty, he doubted the woman’s veracity. Why must it necessarily

be his? . . . But his wavering was generally short-lived.

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

The mother went away tranquilly, seeing the youngster’s future assured,

because this man so lavish in violence was equally so in generosity.

In time there would be a bit of land and a good flock of sheep for the

urchin.

These adoptions at first aroused in Misia Petrona a little

rebellion--the only ones of her life; but the centaur soon reduced her

to terrified silence.

“And you dare to complain of me, you weak cow! . . . A woman who has

only given me daughters. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

The same hand that negligently extracted from his pocket a wad of bills

rolled into a ball, giving them away capriciously without knowing just

how much, also wore a lash hanging from the wrist. It was supposed to be

for his horse, but it was used with equal facility when any of his peons

incurred his wrath.

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

One day, the man receiving the blow, took a step backward, hunting for

the knife in his belt.

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

. . . I come from Corrientes.”

The Patron remained with upraised thong. “Is it true that you were not

born here? . . . Then you are right; I cannot beat you. Here are five

dollars for you.”

When Desnoyers came on the place, Madariaga was beginning to lose count

of those who were under his dominion in the old Latin sense, and could

take his blows. There were so many that confusion often reigned.

The Frenchman admired the Patron’s expert eye for his business. It was

enough for him to contemplate for a few moments a herd of cattle, to

know its exact number. He would go galloping along with an indifferent

air, around an immense group of horned and stamping beasts, and

then would suddenly begin to separate the different animals. He had

discovered that they were sick. With a buyer like Madariaga, all the

tricks and sharp practice of the drovers came to naught.

His serenity before trouble was also admirable. A drought suddenly

strewed his plains with dead cattle, making the land seem like an

abandoned battlefield. Everywhere great black hulks. In the air, great

spirals of crows coming from leagues away. At other times, it was the

cold; an unexpected drop in the thermometer would cover the ground with

dead bodies. Ten thousand animals, fifteen thousand, perhaps more, all

perished!

“WHAT a knock-out!” Madariaga would exclaim with resignation. “Without

such troubles, this earth would be a paradise. . . . Now, the thing to

do is to save the skins!”

And he would rail against the false pride of the emigrants, against the

new customs among the poor which prevented his securing enough hands to

strip the victims quickly, so that thousands of hides had to be lost.

Their bones whitened the earth like heaps of snow. The peoncitos (little

peons) went around putting the skulls of cows with crumpled horns on

the posts of the wire fences--a rustic decoration which suggested a

procession of Grecian lyres.

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

He loved to race around his immense fields when they were beginning to

turn green in the late rains. He had been among the first to convert

these virgin wastes into rich meadow-lands, supplementing the natural

pasturage with alfalfa. Where one beast had found sustenance before, he

now had three. “The table is set,” he would chuckle, “we must now go

in search of the guests.” And he kept on buying, at ridiculous prices,

herds dying of hunger in others’ uncultivated fields, constantly

increasing his opulent lands and stock.

One morning Desnoyers saved his life. The old ranchman had raised his

lash against a recently arrived peon who returned the attack, knife in

hand. Madariaga was defending himself as best he could, convinced

from one minute to another that he was going to receive the deadly

knife-thrust--when Desnoyers arrived and, drawing his revolver, overcame

and disarmed the adversary.

“Thanks, Frenchy,” said the ranchman, much touched. “You are an

all-round man, and I am going to reward you. From this day I shall speak

to you as I do to my family.”

Desnoyers did not know just what this familiar talk might amount to,

for his employer was so peculiar. Certain personal favors, nevertheless,

immediately began to improve his position. He was no longer allowed to

eat in the administration building, the proprietor insisting imperiously

that henceforth Desnoyers should sit at his own table, and thus he was

admitted into the intimate life of the Madariaga family.

The wife was always silent when her husband was present. She was used to

rising in the middle of the night in order to oversee the breakfasts

of the peons, the distribution of biscuit, and the boiling of the great

black kettles of coffee or shrub tea. She looked after the chattering

and lazy maids who so easily managed to get lost in the nearby groves.

In the kitchen, too, she made her authority felt like a regular

house-mistress, but the minute that she heard her husband’s voice she

shrank into a respectful and timorous silence. Upon sitting down at

table, the China would look at him with devoted submission, her great,

round eyes fixed on him, like an owl’s. Desnoyers felt that in this mute

admiration was mingled great astonishment at the energy with which the

ranchman, already over seventy, was continuing to bring new occupants to

live on his demesne.

The two daughters, Luisa and Elena, accepted with enthusiasm the new

arrival who came to enliven the monotonous conversations in the dining

room, so often cut short by their father’s wrathful outbursts. Besides,

he was from Paris. “Paris!” sighed Elena, the younger one, rolling her

eyes. And Desnoyers was henceforth consulted in all matters of style

every time they ordered any “confections” from the shops of Buenos

Aires.

The interior of the house reflected the different tastes of the two

generations. The girls had a parlor with a few handsome pieces of

furniture placed against the cracked walls, and some showy lamps that

were never lighted. The father, with his boorishness, often invaded this

room so cherished and admired by the two sisters, making the carpets

look shabby and faded under his muddy boot-tracks. Upon the gilt

centre-table, he loved to lay his lash. Samples of maize scattered

its grains over a silk sofa which the young ladies tried to keep very

choice, as though they feared it might break.

Near the entrance to the dining room was a weighing machine, and

Madariaga became furious when his daughters asked him to remove it to

the offices. He was not going to trouble himself to go outside every

time that he wanted to know the weight of a leather skin! . . . A piano

came into the ranch, and Elena passed the hours practising exercises

with desperate good will. “Heavens and earth! She might at least play

the Jota or the Perican, or some other lively Spanish dance!” And

the irate father, at the hour of siesta, betook himself to the nearby

eucalyptus trees, to sleep upon his poncho.

This younger daughter whom he dubbed La Romantica, was the special

victim of his wrath and ridicule. Where had she picked up so many tastes

which he and his good China never had had? Music books were piled on the

piano. In a corner of the absurd parlor were some wooden boxes that had

held preserves, which the ranch carpenter had been made to press into

service as a bookcase.

“Look here, Frenchy,” scoffed Madariaga. “All these are novels and

poems! Pure lies! . . . Hot air!”

He had his private library, vastly more important and glorious, and

occupying less space. In his desk, adorned with guns, thongs, and chaps

studded with silver, was a little compartment containing deeds and

various legal documents which the ranchman surveyed with great pride.

“Pay attention, now and hear marvellous things,” announced the master to

Desnoyers, as he took out one of his memorandum books.

This volume contained the pedigree of the famous animals which had

improved his breeds of stock, the genealogical trees, the patents of

nobility of his aristocratic beasts. He would have to read its contents

to him since he did not permit even his family to touch these records.

And with his spectacles on the end of his nose, he would spell out the

credentials of each animal celebrity. “Diamond III, grandson of Diamond

I, owned by the King of England, son of Diamond II, winner in the

races.” His Diamond had cost him many thousands, but the finest horses

on the ranch, those which brought the most marvellous prices, were his

descendants.

“That horse had more sense than most people. He only lacked the power

to talk. He’s the one that’s stuffed, near the door of the parlor. The

girls wanted him thrown out. . . . Just let them dare to touch him! I’d

chuck them out first!”

Then he would continue reading the history of a dynasty of bulls

with distinctive names and a succession of Roman numbers, the same as

kings--animals acquired by the stubborn ranchman in the great cattle

fairs of England. He had never been there, but he had used the cable in

order to compete in pounds sterling with the British owners who wished

to keep such valuable stock in their own country. Thanks to these

blue-blooded sires that had crossed the ocean with all the luxury of

millionaire passengers, he had been able to exhibit in the concourses

of Buenos Aires animals which were veritable towers of meat, edible

elephants with their sides as fit and sleek as a table.

“That book amounts to something! Don’t you think so, Frenchy? It is

worth more than all those pictures of moons, lakes, lovers and other

gewgaws that my Romantica puts on the walls to catch the dust.”

And he would point out, in contrast, the precious diplomas which were

adorning his desk, the metal vases and other trophies won in the fairs

by the descendants of his blooded stock.

Luisa, the elder daughter, called Chicha, in the South American fashion,

was much more respected by her father. “She is my poor China right over

again,” he said, “the same good nature, and the same faculty for work,

but more of a lady.” Desnoyers entirely agreed with him, and yet the

father’s description seemed to him weak and incomplete. He could not

admit that the pale, modest girl with the great black eyes and smile

of childish mischief bore the slightest resemblance to the respectable

matron who had brought her into existence.

The great fiesta for Chicha was the Sunday mass. It represented a

journey of three leagues to the nearest village, a weekly contact with

people unlike those of the ranch. A carriage drawn by four horses took

the senora and the two senoritas in the latest suits and hats arrived,

via Buenos Aires, from Europe. At the suggestion of Chicha, Desnoyers

accompanied them in the capacity of driver.

The father remained at home, taking advantage of this opportunity

to survey his fields in their Sunday solitude, thus keeping a

closer oversight on the shiftlessness of his hands. He was very

religious--“Religion and good manners, you know.” But had he not given

thousands of dollars toward building the neighboring church? A man

of his fortune should not be submitted to the same obligations as

ragamuffins!

During the Sunday lunch the young ladies were apt to make comments upon

the persons and merits of the young men of the village and neighboring

ranches, who had lingered at the church door in order to chat with them.

“Don’t fool yourselves, girls!” observed the father shrewdly. “You

believe that they want you for your elegance, don’t you? . . . What

those shameless fellows really want are the dollars of old Madariaga,

and once they had them, they would probably give you a daily beating.”

For a while the ranch received numerous visitors. Some were young men of

the neighborhood who arrived on spirited steeds, performing all kinds of

tricks of fancy horsemanship. They wanted to see Don Julio on the most

absurd pretexts, and at the same time improved the opportunity to chat

with Chicha and Luisa. At other times they were youths from Buenos Aires

asking for a lodging at the ranch, as they were just passing by. Don

Madariaga would growl--

“Another good-for-nothing scamp who comes in search of the Spanish

ranchman! If he doesn’t move on soon . . . I’ll kick him out!”

But the suitor did not stand long on the order of his going, intimidated

by the ominous silence of the Patron. This silence, of late, had

persisted in an alarming manner, in spite of the fact that the ranch was

no longer receiving visitors. Madariaga appeared abstracted, and all the

family, including Desnoyers, respected and feared this taciturnity.

He ate, scowling, with lowered head. Suddenly he would raise his eyes,

looking at Chicha, then at Desnoyers, finally fixing them upon his wife

as though asking her to give an account of things.

His Romantica simply did not exist for him. The only notice that he ever

took of her was to give an ironical snort when he happened to see

her leaning at sunset against the doorway, looking at the reddening

glow--one elbow on the door frame and her cheek in her hand, in

imitation of the posture of a certain white lady that she had seen in a

chromo, awaiting the knight of her dreams.

Desnoyers had been five years in the house when one day he entered his

master’s private office with the brusque air of a timid person who has

suddenly reached a decision.

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

Madariaga looked at him slyly. “Going to leave, eh? . . . What for?” But

in vain he repeated his questions. The Frenchman was floundering through

a series of incoherent explanations--“I’m going; I’ve got to go.”

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

tones.

But Desnoyers did not quail before the insults. He had often heard his

Patron use these same words when holding somebody up to ridicule, or

haggling with certain cattle drovers.

“Ah, you thief, you false prophet! Do you suppose that I do not know

why you are going? Do you suppose old Madariaga has not seen your

languishing looks and those of my dead fly of a daughter, clasping

each others’ hands in the presence of poor China who is blinded in her

judgment? . . . It’s not such a bad stroke, Frenchy. By it, you would be

able to get possession of half of the old Spaniard’s dollars, and then

say that you had made it in America.”

And while he was storming, or rather howling, all this, he had grasped

his lash and with the butt end kept poking his manager in the stomach

with such insistence that it might be construed in an affectionate or

hostile way.

“For this reason I have come to bid you good-bye,” said Desnoyers

haughtily. “I know that my love is absurd, and I wish to leave.”

“The gentleman would go away,” the ranchman continued spluttering. “The

gentleman believes that here one can do what one pleases! No, siree!

Here nobody commands but old Madariaga, and I order you to stay. . . .

Ah, these women! They only serve to antagonize men. And yet we can’t

live without them!” . . .

He took several turns up and down the room, as though his last words

were making him think of something very different from what he had just

been saying. Desnoyers looked uneasily at the thong which was still

hanging from his wrist. Suppose he should attempt to whip him as he did

the peons? . . . He was still undecided whether to hold his own against

a man who had always treated him with benevolence or, while his back

was turned, to take refuge in discreet flight, when the ranchman planted

himself before him.

“You really love her, really?” he asked. “Are you sure that she loves

you? Be careful what you say, for love is blind and deceitful. I, too,

when I married my China was crazy about her. Do you love her, honestly

and truly? . . . Well then, take her, you devilish Frenchy. Somebody has

to take her, and may she not turn out a weak cow like her mother! . . .

Let us have the ranch full of grandchildren!”

In voicing this stock-raiser’s wish, again appeared the great breeder of

beasts and men. And as though he considered it necessary to explain his

concession, he added--“I do all this because I like you; and I like you

because you are serious.”

Again the Frenchman was plunged in doubt, not knowing in just what this

greatly appreciated seriousness consisted.

At his wedding, Desnoyers thought much of his mother. If only the poor

old woman could witness this extraordinary stroke of good fortune! But

she had died the year before, believing her son enormously rich because

he had been sending her sixty dollars every month, taken from the wages

that he had earned on the ranch.

Desnoyers’ entrance into the family made his father-in-law pay less

attention to business.

City life, with all its untried enchantments and snares, now attracted

Madariaga, and he began to speak with contempt of country women, poorly

groomed and inspiring him with disgust. He had given up his cowboy

attire, and was displaying with childish satisfaction, the new suits

in which a tailor of the Capital was trying to disguise him. When Elena

wished to accompany him to Buenos Aires, he would wriggle out of it,

trumping up some absorbing business. “No; you go with your mother.”

The fate of his fields and flocks gave him no uneasiness. His fortune,

managed by Desnoyers, was in good hands.

“He is very serious,” again affirmed the old Spaniard to his family

assembled in the dining roam--“as serious as I am. . . . Nobody can make

a fool of him!”

And finally the Frenchman concluded that when his father-in-law spoke of

seriousness he was referring to his strength of character. According to

the spontaneous declaration of Madariaga, he had, from the very first

day that he had dealings with Desnoyers, perceived in him a nature

like his own, more hard and firm perhaps, but without splurges

of eccentricities. On this account he had treated him with such

extraordinary circumspection, foreseeing that a clash between the

two could never be adjusted. Their only disagreements were about

the expenses established by Madariaga during his regime. Since the

son-in-law was managing the ranches, the work was costing less, and

the people working more diligently;--and that, too, without yells, and

without strong words and deeds, with only his presence and brief orders.

The old man was the only one defending the capricious system of a

blow followed by a gift. He revolted against a minute and mechanical

administration, always the same, without any arbitrary extravagance or

good-natured tyranny. Very frequently some of the half-breed peons whom

a malicious public supposed to be closely related to the ranchman, would

present themselves before Desnoyers with, “Senor Manager, the old Patron

say that you are to give me five dollars.” The Senor Manager would

refuse, and soon after Madariaga would rush in in a furious temper, but

measuring his words, nevertheless, remembering that his son-in-law’s

disposition was as serious as his own.

“I like you very much, my son, but here no one overrules me. . . . Ah,

Frenchy, you are like all the rest of your countrymen! Once you get your

claws on a penny, it goes into your stocking, and nevermore sees

the light of day, even though they crucify you. . . ! Did I say five

dollars? Give him ten. I command it and that is enough.”

The Frenchman paid, shrugging his shoulders, whilst his father-in-law,

satisfied with his triumph, fled to Buenos Aires. It was a good thing to

have it well understood that the ranch still belonged to Madariaga, the

Spaniard.

From one of these trips, he returned with a companion, a young German

who, according to him, knew everything and could do everything. His

son-in-law was working too hard. This Karl Hartrott would assist him

in the bookkeeping. Desnoyers accepted the situation, and in a few days

felt increasing esteem for the new incumbent.

Although they belonged to two unfriendly nations, it didn’t matter.

There are good people everywhere, and this Karl was a subordinate worth

considering. He kept his distance from his equals, and was hard and

inflexible toward his inferiors. All his faculties seemed concentrated

in service and admiration for those above him. Scarcely would Madariaga

open his lips before the German’s head began nodding in agreement,

anticipating his words. If he said anything funny, his clerk’s laugh

would break forth in scandalous roars. With Desnoyers he appeared more

taciturn, working without stopping for hours at a time. As soon as he

saw the manager entering the office he would leap from his seat,

holding himself erect with military precision. He was always ready to

do anything whatever. Unasked, he spied on the workmen, reporting their

carelessness and mistakes. This last service did not especially please

his superior officer, but he appreciated it as a sign of interest in the

establishment.

The old man bragged triumphantly of the new acquisition, urging his

son-in-law also to rejoice.

“A very useful fellow, isn’t he? . . . These gringoes from Germany

work well, know a good many things and cost little. Then, too, so

disciplined! so servile! . . . I am sorry to praise him so to you

because you are a Frenchy, and your nation has in them a very powerful

enemy. His people are a hard-shelled race.”

Desnoyers replied with a shrug of indifference. His country was far

away, and so was Germany. Who knew if they would ever return! . . . They

were both Argentinians now, and ought to interest themselves in present

affairs and not bother about the past.

“And how little pride they have!” sneered Madariaga in an ironical tone.

“Every one of these gringoes when he is a clerk at the Capital sweeps

the shop, prepares the meals, keeps the books, sells to the customers,

works the typewriter, translates four or five languages, and dances

attendance on the proprietor’s lady friend, as though she were a grand

senora . . . all for twenty-five dollars a month. Who can compete with

such people! You, Frenchy, you are like me, very serious, and would die

of hunger before passing through certain things. But, mark my words, on

this very account they are going to become a terrible people!”

After brief reflection, the ranchman added:

“Perhaps they are not so good as they seem. Just see how they treat

those under them! It may be that they affect this simplicity without

having it, and when they grin at receiving a kick, they are saying

inside, ‘Just wait till my turn comes, and I’ll give you three!’”

Then he suddenly seemed to repent of his suspicions.

“At any rate, this Karl is a poor fellow, a mealy-mouthed simpleton who

the minute I say anything opens his jaws like a fly-catcher. He insists

that he comes of a great family, but who knows anything about these

gringoes? . . . All of us, dead with hunger when we reach America, claim

to be sons of princes.”

Madariaga had placed himself on a familiar footing with his Teutonic

treasure, not through gratitude as with Desnoyers, but in order to make

him feel his inferiority. He had also introduced him on an equal footing

in his home, but only that he might give piano lessons to his younger

daughter. The Romantica was no longer framing herself in the doorway--in

the gloaming watching the sunset reflections. When Karl had finished his

work in the office, he was now coming to the house and seating himself

beside Elena, who was tinkling away with a persistence worthy of a

better fate. At the end of the hour the German, accompanying himself on

the piano, would sing fragments from Wagner in such a way that it

put Madariaga to sleep in his armchair with his great Paraguay cigar

sticking out of his mouth.

Elena meanwhile was contemplating with increasing interest the singing

gringo. He was not the knight of her dreams awaited by the fair lady. He

was almost a servant, a blond immigrant with reddish hair, fat, heavy,

and with bovine eyes that reflected an eternal fear of disagreeing

with his chiefs. But day by day, she was finding in him something which

rather modified these impressions--his feminine fairness, except

where he was burned by the sun, the increasingly martial aspect of his

moustachios, the agility with which he mounted his horse, his air of a

troubadour, intoning with a rather weak tenor voluptuous romances whose

words she did not understand.

One night, just before supper, the impressionable girl announced with a

feverish excitement which she could no longer repress that she had made

a grand discovery.

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

The plainsman made a gesture of indifference. Other things were vexing

him in those days. But during the evening, feeling the necessity of

venting on somebody the wrath which had been gnawing at his vitals since

his last trip to Buenos Aires, he interrupted the singer.

“See here, gringo, what is all this nonsense about nobility which you

have been telling my girl?”

Karl left the piano that he might draw himself up to the approved

military position before responding. Under the influence of his recent

song, his pose suggested Lohengrin about to reveal the secret of his

life. His father had been General von Hartrott, one of the commanders

in the war of ‘70. The Emperor had rewarded his services by giving him

a title. One of his uncles was an intimate councillor of the King

of Prussia. His older brothers were conspicuous in the most select

regiments. He had carried a sword as a lieutenant.

Bored with all this grandeur, Madariaga interrupted him. “Lies . . .

nonsense . . . hot air!” The very idea of a gringo talking to him about

nobility! . . . He had left Europe when very young in order to cast in

his lot with the revolting democracies of America, and although nobility

now seemed to him something out-of-date and incomprehensible, still

he stoutly maintained that the only true nobility was that of his own

country. He would yield first place to the gringoes for the invention

of machinery and ships, and for breeding priceless animals, but all the

Counts and Marquises of Gringo-land appeared to him to be fictitious

characters.

“All tomfoolery!” he blustered. “There isn’t any nobility in your

country, nor have you five dollars all told to rub against each other.

If you had, you wouldn’t come over here to play the gallant to women who

are . . . you know what they are as well as I do.”

To the astonishment of Desnoyers, the German received this onslaught

with much humility, nodding his head in agreement with the Patron’s last

words.

“If there’s any truth in all this twaddle about titles,” continued

Madariaga implacably, “swords and uniforms, what did you come here for?

What in the devil did you do in your own country that you had to leave

it?”

Now Karl hung his head, confused and stuttering.

“Papa, papa,” pleaded Elena. “The poor little fellow! How can you

humiliate him so just because he is poor?”

And she felt a deep gratitude toward her brother-in-law when he broke

through his usual reserve in order to come to the rescue of the German.

“Oh, yes, of course, he’s a good-enough fellow,” said Madariaga,

excusing himself. “But he comes from a land that I detest.”

When Desnoyers made a trip to Buenos Aires a few days afterward, the

cause of the old man’s wrath was explained. It appeared that for some

months past Madariaga had been the financial guarantor and devoted swain

of a German prima donna stranded in South America with an Italian opera

company. It was she who had recommended Karl--an unfortunate countryman,

who after wandering through many parts of the continent, was now

living with her as a sort of gentlemanly singer. Madariaga had joyously

expended upon this courtesan many thousands of dollars. A childish

enthusiasm had accompanied him in this novel existence midst urban

dissipations until he happened to discover that his Fraulein was leading

another life during his absence, laughing at him with the parasites of

her retinue; whereupon he arose in his wrath and bade her farewell to

the accompaniment of blows and broken furniture.

The last adventure of his life! . . . Desnoyers suspected his abdication

upon hearing him admit his age, for the first time. He did not intend

to return to the capital. It was all false glitter. Existence in the

country, surrounded by all his family and doing good to the poor was

the only sure thing. And the terrible centaur expressed himself with

the idyllic tenderness and firm virtue of seventy-five years, already

insensible to temptation.

After his scene with Karl, he had increased the German’s salary, trying

as usual, to counteract the effects of his violent outbreaks with

generosity. That which he could not forget was his dependent’s nobility,

constantly making it the subject of new jests. That glorious boast had

brought to his mind the genealogical trees of the illustrious ancestry

of his prize cattle. The German was a pedigreed fellow, and thenceforth

he called him by that nickname.

Seated on summer nights under the awning, he surveyed his family around

him with a sort of patriarchal ecstasy. In the evening hush could be

heard the buzzing of insects and the croaking of the frogs. From the

distant ranches floated the songs of the peons as they prepared their

suppers. It was harvest time, and great bands of immigrants were

encamped in the fields for the extra work.

Madariaga had known many of the hard old days of wars and violence. Upon

his arrival in South America, he had witnessed the last years of the

tyranny of Rosas. He loved to enumerate the different provincial and

national revolutions in which he had taken part. But all this had

disappeared and would never return. These were the times of peace, work

and abundance.

“Just think of it, Frenchy,” he said, driving away the mosquitoes with

the puffs of his cigar. “I am Spanish, you French, Karl German, my

daughters Argentinians, the cook Russian, his assistant Greek, the

stable boy English, the kitchen servants Chinas (natives), Galicians or

Italians, and among the peons there are many castes and laws. . . . And

yet we all live in peace. In Europe, we would have probably been in a

grand fight by this time, but here we are all friends.”

He took much pleasure in listening to the music of the laborers--laments

from Italian songs to the accompaniment of the accordion, Spanish

guitars and Creole choruses, wild voices chanting of love and death.

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

“He means the tower of Babel,” thought Desnoyers to himself, “but it’s

all the same thing to the old man.”

“I believe,” he rambled on, “that we live thus because in this part

of the world there are no kings and a very small army--and mankind is

thinking only of enjoying itself as much as possible, thanks to its

work. But I also believe that we live so peacefully because there is

such abundance that everyone gets his share. . . . How quickly we would

spring to arms if the rations were less than the people!”

Again he fell into reflective silence, shortly after announcing the

result of his meditations.

“Be that as it may be, we must recognize that here life is more tranquil

than in the other world. Men are taken for what they are worth, and

mingle together without thinking whether they came from one country or

another. Over here, fellows do not come in droves to kill other fellows

whom they do not know and whose only crime is that they were born in an

unfriendly country. . . . Man is a bad beast everywhere, I know that;

but here he eats, owns more land than he needs so that he can stretch

himself, and he is good with the goodness of a well-fed dog. Over there,

there are too many; they live in heaps getting in each other’s way, and

easily run amuck. Hurrah for Peace, Frenchy, and the simple life! Where

a man can live comfortably and runs no danger of being killed for things

he doesn’t understand--there is his real homeland!”

And as though an echo of the rustic’s reflections, Karl seated at the

piano, began chanting in a low voice one of Beethoven’s hymns--

“We sing the joy of life,

We sing of liberty,

We’ll ne’er betray our fellow-man,

Though great the guerdon be.”

Peace! . . . A few days afterward Desnoyers recalled bitterly the old

man’s illusion, for war--domestic war--broke loose in this idyllic

stage-setting of ranch life.

“Run, Senor Manager, the old Patron has unsheathed his knife and is

going to kill the German!” And Desnoyers had hurried from his office,

warned by the peon’s summons. Madariaga was chasing Karl, knife in hand,

stumbling over everything that blocked his way. Only his son-in-law

dared to stop him and disarm him.

“That shameless pedigreed fellow!” bellowed the livid old man as he

writhed in Desnoyers’ firm clutch. “Half famished, all he thinks he has

to do is to come to my house and take away my daughters and dollars.

. . . Let me go, I tell you! Let me loose that I may kill him.”

And in order to free himself from Desnoyers, he tried further to explain

the difficulty. He had accepted the Frenchman as a husband for his

daughter because he was to his liking, modest, honest . . . and serious.

But this singing Pedigreed Fellow, with all his airs! . . . He was a man

that he had gotten from . . . well, he didn’t wish to say just where!

And the Frenchman, though knowing perfectly well what his introduction

to Karl had been, pretended not to understand him.

As the German had, by this time, made good his escape, the ranchman

consented to being pushed toward his house, talking all the time about

giving a beating to the Romantica and another to the China for not

having informed him of the courtship. He had surprised his daughter

and the Gringo holding hands and exchanging kisses in a grove near the

house.

“He’s after my dollars,” howled the irate father. “He wants America to

enrich him quickly at the expense of the old Spaniard, and that is

the reason for so much truckling, so much psalm-singing and so much

nobility! Imposter! . . . Musician!”

And he repeated the word “musician” with contempt, as though it were the

sum and substance of everything vile.

Very firmly and with few words, Desnoyers brought the wrangling to an

end. While her brother-in-law protected her retreat, the Romantica,

clinging to her mother, had taken refuge in the top of the house,

sobbing and moaning, “Oh, the poor little fellow! Everybody against

him!” Her sister meanwhile was exerting all the powers of a discreet

daughter with the rampageous old man in the office, and Desnoyers had

gone in search of Karl. Finding that he had not yet recovered from the

shock of his terrible surprise, he gave him a horse, advising him to

betake himself as quickly as possible to the nearest railway station.

Although the German was soon far from the ranch, he did not long remain

alone. In a few days, the Romantica followed him. . . . Iseult of the

white hands went in search of Tristan, the knight.

This event did not cause Madariaga’s desperation to break out as

violently as his son-in-law had expected. For the first time, he saw him

weep. His gay and robust old age had suddenly fallen from him, the news

having clapped ten years on to his four score. Like a child, whimpering

and tremulous, he threw his arms around Desnoyers, moistening his neck

with tears.

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

away!”

This time he did not lay all the blame on his China. He wept with her,

and as if trying to console her by a public confession, kept saying over

and over:

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

sins.”

Now began for Desnoyers a period of difficulties and conflicts. The

fugitives, on one of his visits to the Capital, threw themselves on his

mercy, imploring his protection. The Romantica wept, declaring that only

her brother-in-law, “the most knightly man in the world,” could save

her. Karl gazed at him like a faithful hound trusting in his master.

These trying interviews were repeated on all his trips. Then, on

returning to the ranch, he would find the old man ill-humored, moody,

looking fixedly ahead of him as though seeing invisible power and

wailing, “It is my punishment--the punishment for my sins.”

The memory of the discreditable circumstances under which he had made

Karl’s acquaintance, before bringing him into his home, tormented

the old centaur with remorse. Some afternoons, he would have a horse

saddled, going full gallop toward the neighboring village. But he was

no longer hunting hospitable ranches. He needed to pass some time in

the church, speaking alone with the images that were there only for

him--since he had footed the bills for them. . . . “Through my sin,

through my very great sin!”

But in spite of his self-reproach, Desnoyers had to work very hard

to get any kind of a settlement out of the old penitent. Whenever he

suggested legalizing the situation and making the necessary arrangements

for their marriage, the old tyrant would not let him go on. “Do what you

think best, but don’t say anything to me about it.”

Several months passed by. One day the Frenchman approached him with a

certain air of mystery. “Elena has a son and has named him ‘Julio’ after

you.”

“And you, you great useless hulk,” stormed the ranchman, “and that weak

cow of a wife of yours, you dare to live tranquilly on without giving

me a grandson! . . . Ah, Frenchy, that is why the Germans will finally

overwhelm you. You see it, right here. That bandit has a son, while you,

after four years of marriage . . . nothing. I want a grandson!--do you

understand THAT?”

And in order to console himself for this lack of little ones around his

own hearth, he betook himself to the ranch of his overseer, Celedonio,

where a band of little half-breeds gathered tremblingly and hopefully

about him.

Suddenly China died. The poor Misia Petrona passed away as discreetly as

she had lived, trying even in her last hours to avoid all annoyance for

her husband, asking his pardon with an imploring look for any trouble

which her death might cause him. Elena came to the ranch in order to see

her mother’s body for the last time, and Desnoyers who for more than

a year had been supporting them behind his father-in-law’s back, took

advantage of this occasion to overcome the old man’s resentment.

“Well, I’ll forgive her,” said the ranchman finally. “I’ll do it for the

sake of my poor wife and for you. She may remain on the ranch, and that

shameless gringo may come with her.”

But he would have nothing to do with him. The German was to be an

employee under Desnoyers, and they could live in the office building as

though they did not belong to the family. He would never say a word to

Karl.

But scarcely had the German returned before he began giving him orders

rudely as though he were a perfect stranger. At other times he would

pass by him as though he did not know him. Upon finding Elena in the

house with his older daughter, he would go on without speaking to her.

In vain his Romantica transfigured by maternity, improved all

opportunities for putting her child in his way, calling him loudly by

name: “Julio . . . Julio!”

“They want that brat of a singing gringo, that carrot top with a face

like a skinned kid to be my grandson? . . . I prefer Celedonio’s.”

And by way of emphasizing his protest, he entered the dwelling of his

overseer, scattering among his dusky brood handfuls of dollars.

After seven years of marriage, the wife of Desnoyers found that she,

too, was going to become a mother. Her sister already had three sons.

But what were they worth to Madariaga compared to the grandson that was

going to come? “It will be a boy,” he announced positively, “because I

need one so. It shall be named Julio, and I hope that it will look like

my poor dead wife.”

Since the death of his wife he no longer called her the China, feeling

something of a posthumous love for the poor woman who in her lifetime

had endured so much, so timidly and silently. Now “my poor dead wife”

cropped out every other instant in the conversation of the remorseful

ranchman.

His desires were fulfilled. Luisa gave birth to a boy who bore the name

of Julio, and although he did not show in his somewhat sketchy features

any striking resemblance to his grandmother, still he had the black

hair and eyes and olive skin of a brunette. Welcome! . . . This WAS a

grandson!

In the generosity of his joy, he even permitted the German to enter the

house for the baptismal ceremony.

When Julio Desnoyers was two years old, his grandfather made the rounds

of his estates, holding him on the saddle in front of him. He went from

ranch to ranch in order to show him to the copper-colored populace, like

an ancient monarch presenting his heir. Later on, when the child was

able to say a few words, he entertained himself for hours at a time

talking with the tot under the shade of the eucalyptus tree. A certain

mental failing was beginning to be noticed in the old man. Although not

exactly in his dotage, his aggressiveness was becoming very childish.

Even in his most affectionate moments, he used to contradict everybody,

and hunt up ways of annoying his relatives.

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

Frenchy.”

The grandchild protested as though he had been insulted. His mother had

taught him that he was an Argentinian, and his father had suggested that

she also add Spanish, in order to please the grandfather.

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

Napoleon!’”

And he looked around him to see if Desnoyers might be near, believing

that this would displease him greatly. But his son-in-law pursued the

even tenor of his way, shrugging his shoulders.

“Down with Napoleon!” repeated Julio.

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

his pockets.

Karl’s sons, now four in number, used to circle around their grandparent

like a humble chorus kept at a distance, and stare enviously at these

gifts. In order to win his favor, they one day when they saw him alone,

came boldly up to him, shouting in unison, “Down with Napoleon!”

“You insolent gringoes!” ranted the old man. “That’s what that shameless

father has taught you! If you say that again, I’ll chase you with a

cat-o-nine-tails. . . . The very idea of insulting a great man in that

way!”

While he tolerated this blond brood, he never would permit the slightest

intimacy. Desnoyers and his wife often had to come to their rescue,

accusing the grandfather of injustice. And in order to pour the vials of

his wrath out on someone, the old plainsman would hunt up Celedonio, the

best of his listeners, who invariably replied, “Yes, Patron. That’s so,

Patron.”

“They’re not to blame,” agreed the old man, “but I can’t abide them!

Besides, they are so like their father, so fair, with hair like a

shredded carrot, and the two oldest wearing specs as if they were court

clerks! . . . They don’t seem like folks with those glasses; they look

like sharks.”

Madariaga had never seen any sharks, but he imagined them, without

knowing why, with round, glassy eyes, like the bottoms of bottles.

By the time he was eight years old, Julio was a famous little

equestrian. “To horse, peoncito,” his grandfather would cry, and away

they would race, streaking like lightning across the fields, midst

thousands and thousands of horned herds. The “peoncito,” proud of his

title, obeyed the master in everything, and so learned to whirl the

lasso over the steers, leaving them bound and conquered. Upon making

his pony take a deep ditch or creep along the edge of the cliffs, he

sometimes fell under his mount, but clambered up gamely.

“Ah, fine cowboy!” exclaimed the grandfather bursting with pride in his

exploits. “Here are five dollars for you to give a handkerchief to some

china.”

The old man, in his increasing mental confusion, did not gauge his gifts

exactly with the lad’s years; and the infantile horseman, while keeping

the money, was wondering what china was referred to, and why he should

make her a present.

Desnoyers finally had to drag his son away from the baleful teachings

of his grandfather. It was simply useless to have masters come to the

house, or to send Julio to the country school. Madariaga would always

steal his grandson away, and then they would scour the plains together.

So when the boy was eleven years old, his father placed him in a big

school in the Capital.

The grandfather then turned his attention to Julio’s three-year-old

sister, exhibiting her before him as he had her brother, as he took her

from ranch to ranch. Everybody called Chicha’s little girl Chichi, but

the grandfather bestowed on her the same nickname that he had given her

brother, the “peoncito.” And Chichi, who was growing up wild, vigorous

and wilful, breakfasting on meat and talking in her sleep of roast beef,

readily fell in with the old man’s tastes. She was dressed like a boy,

rode astride like a man, and in order to win her grandfather’s praises

as “fine cowboy,” carried a knife in the back of her belt. The two raced

the fields from sun to sun, Madariaga following the flying pigtail of

the little Amazon as though it were a flag. When nine years old she,

too, could lasso the cattle with much dexterity.

What most irritated the ranchman was that his family would remember his

age. He received as insults his son-in-law’s counsels to remain quietly

at home, becoming more aggressive and reckless as he advanced in years,

exaggerating his activity, as if he wished to drive Death away. He

accepted no help except from his harum-scarum “Peoncito.” When Karl’s

children, great hulking youngsters, hastened to his assistance and

offered to hold his stirrup, he would repel them with snorts of

indignation.

“So you think I am no longer able to help myself, eh! . . . There’s

still enough life in me to make those who are waiting for me to die, so

as to grab my dollars, chew their disappointment a long while yet!”

Since the German and his wife were kept pointedly apart from the family

life, they had to put up with these allusions in silence. Karl,

needing protection, constantly shadowed the Frenchman, improving every

opportunity to overwhelm him with his eulogies. He never could thank him

enough for all that he had done for him. He was his only champion. He

longed for a chance to prove his gratitude, to die for him if necessary.

His wife admired him with enthusiasm as “the most gifted knight in the

world.” And Desnoyers received their devotion in gratified silence,

accepting the German as an excellent comrade. As he controlled

absolutely the family fortune, he aided Karl very generously without

arousing the resentment of the old man. He also took the initiative in

bringing about the realization of Karl’s pet ambition--a visit to the

Fatherland. So many years in America! . . . For the very reason that

Desnoyers himself had no desire to return to Europe, he wished to

facilitate Karl’s trip, and gave him the means to make the journey with

his entire family. The father-in-law had no curiosity as to who paid the

expenses. “Let them go!” he said gleefully, “and may they never return!”

Their absence was not a very long one, for they spent their year’s

allowance in three months. Karl, who had apprised his parents of the

great fortune which his marriage had brought him, wished to make an

impression as a millionaire, in full enjoyment of his riches. Elena

returned radiant, speaking with pride of her relatives--of the baron,

Colonel of Hussars, of the Captain of the Guard, of the Councillor

at Court--asserting that all countries were most insignificant when

compared with her husband’s. She even affected a certain condescension

toward Desnoyers, praising him as “a very worthy man, but without

ancient lineage or distinguished family--and French, besides.”

Karl, on the other hand, showed the same devotion as before, keeping

himself submissively in the background when with his brother-in-law

who had the keys of the cash box and was his only defense against the

browbeating old Patron. . . . He had left his two older sons in a school

in Germany. Years afterwards they reached an equal footing with the

other grandchildren of the Spaniard who always begrudged them their

existence, “perfect frights, with carroty hair, and eyes like a shark.”

Suddenly the old man became very lonely, for they had also carried off

his second “Peoncito.” The good Chicha could not tolerate her daughter’s

growing up like a boy, parading ‘round on horseback all the time, and

glibly repeating her grandfather’s vulgarities. So she was now in a

convent in the Capital, where the Sisters had to battle valiantly in

order to tame the mischievous rebellion of their wild little pupil.

When Julio and Chichi returned to the ranch for their vacations, the

grandfather again concentrated his fondness on the first, as though the

girl had merely been a substitute. Desnoyers was becoming indignant

at his son’s dissipated life. He was no longer at college, and his

existence was that of a student in a rich family who makes up for

parental parsimony with all sorts of imprudent borrowings.

But Madariaga came to the defense of his grandson. “Ah, the fine

cowboy!” . . . Seeing him again on the ranch, he admired the dash of the

good looking youth, testing his muscles in order to convince himself

of their strength, and making him to recount his nightly escapades as

ringleader of a band of toughs in the Capital. He longed to go to Buenos

Aires himself, just to see the youngster in the midst of this gay, wild

life. But alas! he was not seventeen like his grandson; he had already

passed eighty.

“Come here, you false prophet! Tell me how many children you have. . . .

You must have a great many children, you know!”

“Father!” protested Chicha who was always hanging around, fearing her

parent’s bad teachings.

“Stop nagging at me!” yelled the irate old fellow in a towering temper.

“I know what I’m saying.”

Paternity figured largely in all his amorous fancies. He was almost

blind, and the loss of his sight was accompanied by an increasing mental

upset. His crazy senility took on a lewd character, expressing itself in

language which scandalized or amused the community.

“Oh, you rascal, what a pretty fellow you are!” he said, leering at

Julio with eyes which could no longer distinguish things except in a

shadowy way. “You are the living image of my poor dead wife. . . . Have

a good time, for Grandpa is always here with his money! If you could

only count on what your father gives you, you would live like a hermit.

These Frenchies are a close-fisted lot! But I am looking out for you.

Peoncito! Spend and enjoy yourself--that’s what your Granddaddy has

piled up the silver for!”

When the Desnoyers children returned to the Capital, he spent his

lonesome hours in going from ranch to ranch. A young half-breed would

set the water for his shrub-tea to boiling on the hearth, and the old

man would wonder confusedly if she were his daughter. Another, fifteen

years old, would offer him a gourd filled with the bitter liquid and a

silver pipe with which to sip it. . . . A grandchild, perhaps--he wasn’t

sure. And so he passed the afternoons, silent and sluggish, drinking

gourd after gourd of shrub tea, surrounded by families who stared at him

with admiration and fear.

Every time he mounted his horse for these excursions, his older daughter

would protest. “At eighty-four years! Would it not be better for him to

remain quietly at home. . . .” Some day something terrible would happen.

. . . And the terrible thing did happen. One evening the Patron’s

horse came slowly home without its rider. The old man had fallen on the

sloping highway, and when they found him, he was dead. Thus died the

centaur as he had lived, with the lash hanging from his wrist, with his

legs bowed by the saddle.

A Spanish notary, almost as old as he, produced the will. The family

was somewhat alarmed at seeing what a voluminous document it was. What

terrible bequests had Madariaga dictated? The reading of the first part

tranquilized Karl and Elena. The old father had left considerable more

to the wife of Desnoyers, but there still remained an enormous share for

the Romantica and her children. “I do this,” he said, “in memory of my

poor dead wife, and so that people won’t talk.”

After this, came eighty-six legacies. Eighty-five dark-hued individuals

(women and men), who had lived on the ranch for many years as tenants

and retainers, were to receive the last paternal munificence of the old

patriarch. At the head of these was Celedonio whom Madariaga had greatly

enriched in his lifetime for no heavier work than listening to him and

repeating, “That’s so, Patron, that’s true!” More than a million dollars

were represented by these bequests in lands and herds. The one who

completed the list of beneficiaries was Julio Desnoyers. The grandfather

had made special mention of this namesake, leaving him a plantation “to

meet his private expenses, making up for that which his father would not

give him.”

“But that represents hundreds of thousands of dollars!” protested Karl,

who had been making himself almost obnoxious in his efforts to assure

himself that his wife had not been overlooked in the will.

The days following the reading of this will were very trying ones for

the family. Elena and her children kept looking at the other group as

though they had just waked up, contemplating them in an entirely new

light. They seemed to forget what they were going to receive in their

envy of the much larger share of their relatives.

Desnoyers, benevolent and conciliatory, had a plan. An expert in

administrative affairs, he realized that the distribution among the

heirs was going to double the expenses without increasing the income. He

was calculating, besides, the complications and disbursements necessary

for a judicial division of nine immense ranches, hundreds of thousands

of cattle, deposits in the banks, houses in the city, and debts to

collect. Would it not be better for them all to continue living as

before? . . . Had they not lived most peaceably as a united family? . . .

The German received this suggestion by drawing himself up haughtily.

No; to each one should be given what was his. Let each live in his own

sphere. He wished to establish himself in Europe, spending his wealth

freely there. It was necessary for him to return to “his world.”

As they looked squarely at each other, Desnoyers saw an unknown Karl,

a Karl whose existence he had never suspected when he was under his

protection, timid and servile. The Frenchman, too, was beginning to see

things in a new light.

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

me.”

CHAPTER III

THE DESNOYERS FAMILY

The “Madariagan succession,” as it was called in the language of

the legal men interested in prolonging it in order to augment their

fees--was divided into two groups, separated by the ocean. The Desnoyers

moved to Buenos Aires. The Hartrotts moved to Berlin as soon as Karl

could sell all the legacy, to re-invest it in lands and industrial

enterprises in his own country.

Desnoyers no longer cared to live in the country. For twenty years,

now, he had been the head of an enormous agricultural and stock raising

business, overseeing hundreds of men in the various ranches. The

parcelling out of the old man’s fortune among Elena and the other

legatees had considerably constricted the radius of his authority,

and it angered him to see established on the neighboring lands so many

foreigners, almost all Germans, who had bought of Karl. Furthermore,

he was getting old, his wife’s inheritance amounted to about twenty

millions of dollars, and perhaps his brother-in-law was showing the

better judgment in returning to Europe.

So he leased some of the plantations, handed over the superintendence

of others to those mentioned in the will who considered themselves

left-handed members of the family--of which Desnoyers as the Patron

received their submissive allegiance--and moved to Buenos Aires.

By this move, he was able to keep an eye on his son who continued living

a dissipated life without making any headway in his engineering studies.

Then, too, Chichi was now almost a woman--her robust development making

her look older than she was--and it was not expedient to keep her on the

estate to become a rustic senorita like her mother.

Dona Luisa had also tired of ranch life, the social triumphs of her

sister making her a little restless. She was incapable of feeling

jealous, but material ambitions made her anxious that her children

should not bring up the rear of the procession in which the other

grandchildren were cutting such a dashing figure.

During the year, most wonderful reports from Germany were finding their

way to the Desnoyers home in the Capital. “The aunt from Berlin,” as the

children called her, kept sending long letters filled with accounts

of dances, dinners, hunting parties and titles--many high-sounding and

military titles;--“our brother, the Colonel,” “our cousin, the Baron,”

“our uncle, the Intimate Councillor,” “our great-uncle, the Truly

Intimate.” All the extravagances of the German social ladder, which

incessantly manufactures new titles in order to satisfy the thirst for

honors of a people divided into castes, were enumerated with delight by

the old Romantica. She even mentioned her husband’s secretary (a nobody)

who, through working in the public offices, had acquired the title of

Rechnungarath, Councillor of Calculations. She also referred with much

pride to the retired Oberpedell which she had in her house, explaining

that that meant “Superior Porter.”

The news about her children was no less glorious. The oldest was the

wise one of the family. He was devoted to philology and the historical

sciences, but his sight was growing weaker all the time because of his

omnivorous reading. Soon he would be a Doctor, and before he was

thirty, a Herr Professor. The mother lamented that he had not military

aspirations, considering that his tastes had somewhat distorted the

lofty destinies of the family. Professorships, sciences and literature

were more properly the perquisites of the Jews, unable, because of their

race, to obtain preferment in the army; but she was trying to console

herself by keeping in mind that a celebrated professor could, in time,

acquire a social rank almost equal to that of a colonel.

Her other four sons would become officers. Their father was preparing

the ground so that they might enter the Guard or some aristocratic

regiment without any of the members being able to vote against their

admission. The two daughters would surely marry, when they had reached

a suitable age with officers of the Hussars whose names bore the magic

“von” of petty nobility, haughty and charming gentlemen about whom the

daughter of Misia Petrona waxed most enthusiastic.

The establishment of the Hartrotts was in keeping with these new

relationships. In the home in Berlin, the servants wore knee-breeches

and white wigs on the nights of great banquets. Karl had bought an old

castle with pointed towers, ghosts in the cellars, and various legends

of assassinations, assaults and abductions which enlivened its history

in an interesting way. An architect, decorated with many foreign orders,

and bearing the title of “Councillor of Construction,” was engaged

to modernize the mediaeval edifice without sacrificing its terrifying

aspect. The Romantica described in anticipation the receptions in the

gloomy salon, the light diffused by electricity, simulating torches,

the crackling of the emblazoned hearth with its imitation logs bristling

with flames of gas, all the splendor of modern luxury combined with the

souvenirs of an epoch of omnipotent nobility--the best, according to

her, in history. And the hunting parties, the future hunting parties!

. . . in an annex of sandy and loose soil with pine woods--in no way

comparable to the rich ground of their native ranch, but which had the

honor of being trodden centuries ago by the Princes of Brandenburg,

founders of the reigning house of Prussia. And all this advancement in a

single year! . . .

They had, of course, to compete with other oversea families who had

amassed enormous fortunes in the United States, Brazil or the Pacific

coast; but these were Germans “without lineage,” coarse plebeians who

were struggling in vain to force themselves into the great world by

making donations to the imperial works. With all their millions, the

very most that they could ever hope to attain would be to marry their

daughters with ordinary soldiers. Whilst Karl! . . . The relatives of

Karl! . . . and the Romantica let her pen run on, glorifying a family in

whose bosom she fancied she had been born.

From time to time were enclosed with Elena’s effusions brief, crisp

notes directed to Desnoyers. The brother-in-law continued giving an

account of his operations the same as when living on the ranch under

his protection. But with this deference was now mixed a badly concealed

pride, an evident desire to retaliate for his times of voluntary

humiliation. Everything that he was doing was grand and glorious. He had

invested his millions in the industrial enterprises of modern Germany.

He was stockholder of munition factories as big as towns, and of

navigation companies launching a ship every half year. The Emperor was

interesting himself in these works, looking benevolently on all those

who wished to aid him. Besides this, Karl was buying land. At first

sight, it seemed foolish to have sold the fertile fields of their

inheritance in order to acquire sandy Prussian wastes that yielded only

to much artificial fertilizing; but by becoming a land owner, he now

belonged to the “Agrarian Party,” the aristocratic and conservative

group par excellence, and thus he was living in two different but

equally distinguished worlds--that of the great industrial friends

of the Emperor, and that of the Junkers, knights of the countryside,

guardians of the old traditions and the supply-source of the officials

of the King of Prussia.

On hearing of these social strides, Desnoyers could not but think of the

pecuniary sacrifices which they must represent. He knew Karl’s past,

for on the ranch, under an impulse of gratitude, the German had one day

revealed to the Frenchman the cause of his coming to America. He was

a former officer in the German army, but the desire of living

ostentatiously without other resources than his salary, had dragged him

into committing such reprehensible acts as abstracting funds belonging

to the regiment, incurring debts of honor and paying for them with

forged signatures. These crimes had not been officially prosecuted

through consideration of his father’s memory, but the members of his

division had submitted him to a tribunal of honor. His brothers and

friends had advised him to shoot himself as the only remedy; but

he loved life and had fled to South America where, in spite of

humiliations, he had finally triumphed.

Wealth effaces the spots of the past even more rapidly than Time. The

news of his fortune on the other side of the ocean made his family give

him a warm reception on his first voyage home; introducing him again

into their world. Nobody could remember shameful stories about a few

hundred marks concerning a man who was talking about his father-in-law’s

lands, more extensive than many German principalities. Now, upon

installing himself definitely in his country, all was forgotten. But,

oh, the contributions levied upon his vanity . . . Desnoyers shrewdly

guessed at the thousands of marks poured with both hands into the

charitable works of the Empress, into the imperialistic propagandas,

into the societies of veterans, into the clubs of aggression and

expansion organized by German ambition.

The frugal Frenchman, thrifty in his expenditures and free from social

ambitions, smiled at the grandeurs of his brother-in-law. He considered

Karl an excellent companion although of a childish pride. He recalled

with satisfaction the years that they had passed together in the

country. He could not forget the German who was always hovering around

him, affectionate and submissive as a younger brother. When his family

commented with a somewhat envious vivacity upon the glories of their

Berlin relatives, Desnoyers would say smilingly, “Leave them in peace;

they are paying very dear for their whistle.”

But the enthusiasm which the letters from Germany breathed finally

created an atmosphere of disquietude and rebellion. Chichi led the

attack. Why were they not going to Europe like other folks? all their

friends had been there. Even the Italian and Spanish shopkeepers were

making the voyage, while she, the daughter of a Frenchman, had never

seen Paris! . . . Oh, Paris. The doctors in attendance on melancholy

ladies were announcing the existence of a new and terrible disease, “the

mania for Paris.” Dona Luisa supported her daughter. Why had she not

gone to live in Europe like her sister, since she was the richer of the

two? Even Julio gravely declared that in the old world he could study to

better advantage. America is not the land of the learned.

Infected by the general unrest, the father finally began to wonder

why the idea of going to Europe had not occurred to him long before.

Thirty-four years without going to that country which was not his!

. . . It was high time to start! He was living too near to his business. In

vain the retired ranchman had tried to keep himself indifferent to the

money market. Everybody was coining money around him. In the club, in

the theatre, wherever he went, the people were talking about purchases

of lands, of sales of stock, of quick negotiations with a triple profit,

of portentous balances. The amount of money that he was keeping idle in

the banks was beginning to weigh upon him. He finally ended by involving

himself in some speculation; like a gambler who cannot see the roulette

wheel without putting his hand in his pocket.

His family was right. “To Paris!” For in the Desnoyers’ mind, to go to

Europe meant, of course, to go to Paris. Let the “aunt from Berlin” keep

on chanting the glories of her husband’s country! “It’s sheer nonsense!”

exclaimed Julio who had made grave geographical and ethnic comparisons

in his nightly forays. “There is no place but Paris!” Chichi saluted

with an ironical smile the slightest doubt of it--“Perhaps they make as

elegant fashions in Germany as in Paris? . . . Bah!” Dona Luisa took up

her children’s cry. “Paris!” . . . Never had it even occurred to her to

go to a Lutheran land to be protected by her sister.

“Let it be Paris, then!” said the Frenchman, as though he were speaking

of an unknown city.

He had accustomed himself to believe that he would never return to it.

During the first years of his life in America, the trip would have been

an impossibility because of the military service which he had evaded.

Then he had vague news of different amnesties. After the time for

conscription had long since passed, an inertness of will had made him

consider a return to his country as somewhat absurd and useless. On the

other side, nothing remained to attract him. He had even lost track of

those country relatives with whom his mother had lived. In his heaviest

hours he had tried to occupy his activity by planning an enormous

mausoleum, all of marble, in La Recoleta, the cemetery of the rich,

in order to move thither the remains of Madariaga as founder of the

dynasty, following him with all his own when their hour should come.

He was beginning to feel the weight of age. He was nearly seventy years

old, and the rude life of the country, the horseback rides in the rain,

the rivers forded upon his swimming horse, the nights passed in the open

air, had brought on a rheumatism that was torturing his best days.

His family, however, reawakened his enthusiasm. “To Paris!” . . . He

began to fancy that he was twenty again, and forgetting his habitual

parsimony, wished his household to travel like royalty, in the most

luxurious staterooms, and with personal servants. Two copper-hued

country girls, born on the ranch and elevated to the rank of maids

to the senora and her daughter, accompanied them on the voyage, their

oblique eyes betraying not the slightest astonishment before the

greatest novelties.

Once in Paris, Desnoyers found himself quite bewildered. He confused

the names of streets, proposed visits to buildings which had long since

disappeared, and all his attempts to prove himself an expert authority

on Paris were attended with disappointment. His children, guided by

recent reading up, knew Paris better than he. He was considered

a foreigner in his own country. At first, he even felt a certain

strangeness in using his native tongue, for he had remained on the ranch

without speaking a word of his language for years at a time. He was used

to thinking in Spanish, and translating his ideas into the speech of his

ancestors spattered his French with all kinds of Creole dialect.

“Where a man makes his fortune and raises his family, there is his true

country,” he said sententiously, remembering Madariaga.

The image of that distant country dominated him with insistent obsession

as soon as the impressions of the voyage had worn off. He had no French

friends, and upon going into the street, his feet instinctively took him

to the places where the Argentinians gathered together. It was the same

with them. They had left their country only to feel, with increasing

intensity, the desire to talk about it all the time. There he read the

papers, commenting on the rising prices in the fields, on the prospects

for the next harvests and on the sales of cattle. Returning home, his

thoughts were still in America, and he chuckled with delight as he

recalled the way in which the two chinas had defied the professional

dignity of the French cook, preparing their native stews and other

dishes in Creole style.

He had settled the family in an ostentatious house in the avenida Victor

Hugo, for which he paid a rental of twenty-eight thousand francs. Dona

Luisa had to go and come many times before she could accustom herself to

the imposing aspect of the concierges--he, decorated with gold trimmings

on his black uniform and wearing white whiskers like a notary in a

comedy, she with a chain of gold upon her exuberant bosom, and receiving

the tenants in a red and gold salon. In the rooms above was ultra-modern

luxury, gilded and glacial, with white walls and glass doors with

tiny panes which exasperated Desnoyers, who longed for the complicated

carvings and rich furniture in vogue during his youth. He himself

directed the arrangement and furnishings of the various rooms which

always seemed empty.

Chichi protested against her father’s avarice when she saw him buying

slowly and with much calculation and hesitation. “Avarice, no!” he

retorted, “it is because I know the worth of things.”

Nothing pleased him that he had not acquired at one-third of its value.

Beating down those who overcharged but proved the superiority of the

buyer. Paris offered him one delightful spot which he could not find

anywhere else in the world--the Hotel Drouot. He would go there every

afternoon that he did not find other important auctions advertised in

the papers. For many years, there was no famous failure in Parisian

life, with its consequent liquidation, from which he did not carry

something away. The use and need of these prizes were matters of

secondary interest, the great thing was to get them for ridiculous

prices. So the trophies from the auction-rooms now began to inundate

the apartment which, at the beginning, he had been furnishing with such

desperate slowness.

His daughter now complained that the home was getting overcrowded. The

furnishings and ornaments were handsome, but too many . . . far too

many! The white walls seemed to scowl at the magnificent sets of chairs

and the overflowing glass cabinets. Rich and velvety carpets over

which had passed many generations, covered all the compartments. Showy

curtains, not finding a vacant frame in the salons, adorned the doors

leading into the kitchen. The wall mouldings gradually disappeared

under an overlay of pictures, placed close together like the scales of

a cuirass. Who now could accuse Desnoyers of avarice? . . . He was

investing far more than a fashionable contractor would have dreamed of

spending.

The underlying idea still was to acquire all this for a fourth of its

price--an exciting bait which lured the economical man into continuous

dissipation. He could sleep well only when he had driven a good bargain

during the day. He bought at auction thousands of bottles of wine

consigned by bankrupt firms, and he who scarcely ever drank, packed his

wine cellars to overflowing, advising his family to use the champagne as

freely as ordinary wine. The failure of a furrier induced him to buy for

fourteen thousand francs pelts worth ninety thousand. In consequence,

the entire Desnoyers family seemed suddenly to be suffering as

frightfully from cold as though a polar iceberg had invaded the avenida

Victor Hugo. The father kept only one fur coat for himself but ordered

three for his son. Chichi and Dona Luisa appeared arrayed in all kinds

of silky and luxurious skins--one day chinchilla, other days blue fox,

marten or seal.

The enraptured buyer would permit no one but himself to adorn the

walls with his new acquisitions, using the hammer from the top of a

step-ladder in order to save the expense of a professional picture

hanger. He wished to set his children the example of economy. In his

idle hours, he would change the position of the heaviest pieces of

furniture, trying every kind of combination. This employment reminded

him of those happy days when he handled great sacks of wheat and bundles

of hides on the ranch. Whenever his son noticed that he was looking

thoughtfully at a monumental sideboard or heavy piece, he prudently

betook himself to other haunts.

Desnoyers stood a little in awe of the two house-men, very solemn,

correct creatures always in dress suit, who could not hide their

astonishment at seeing a man with an income of more than a million

francs engaged in such work. Finally it was the two coppery maids

who aided their Patron, the three working contentedly together like

companions in exile.

Four automobiles completed the luxuriousness of the family. The children

would have been more content with one--small and dashing, in the very

latest style. But Desnoyers was not the man to let a bargain slip past

him, so one after the other, he had picked up the four, tempted by the

price. They were as enormous and majestic as coaches of state. Their

entrance into a street made the passers-by turn and stare. The chauffeur

needed two assistants to help him keep this flock of mastodons in order,

but the proud owner thought only of the skill with which he had gotten

the best of the salesmen, anxious to get such monuments out of their

sight.

To his children he was always recommending simplicity and economy. “We

are not as rich as you suppose. We own a good deal of property, but it

produces a scanty income.”

And then, after refusing a domestic expenditure of two hundred francs,

he would put five thousand into an unnecessary purchase just because

it would mean a great loss to the seller. Julio and his sister kept

protesting to their mother, Dona Luisa--Chichi even going so far as to

announce that she would never marry a man like her father.

“Hush, hush!” exclaimed the scandalized Creole. “He has his little

peculiarities, but he is very good. Never has he given me any cause for

complaint. I only hope that you may be lucky enough to find his equal.”

Her husband’s quarrelsomeness, his irritable character and his masterful

will all sank into insignificance when she thought of his unvarying

fidelity. In so many years of married life . . . nothing! His

faithfulness had been unexceptional even in the country where many,

surrounded by beasts, and intent on increasing their flocks, had seemed

to become contaminated by the general animalism. She remembered her

father only too well! . . . Even her sister was obliged to live

in apparent calmness with the vainglorious Karl, quite capable of

disloyalty not because of any special lust, but just to imitate the

doings of his superiors.

Desnoyers and his wife were plodding through life in a routine

affection, reminding Dona Luisa, in her limited imagination, of the

yokes of oxen on the ranch who refused to budge whenever another animal

was substituted for the regular companion. Her husband certainly was

quick tempered, holding her responsible for all the whims with which he

exasperated his children, yet he could never bear to have her out of his

sight. The afternoons at the hotel Drouot would be most insipid for him

unless she was at his side, the confidante of his plans and wrathful

outbursts.

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

He would make this proposition in such a gentle and coaxing voice--the

voice that Dona Luisa remembered in their first talks around the old

home. And so they would go together, but by different routes;--she in

one of the monumental vehicles because, accustomed to the leisurely

carriage rides of the ranch, she no longer cared to walk; and

Desnoyers--although owner of the four automobiles, heartily abominating

them because he was conservative and uneasy with the complications of

new machinery--on foot under the pretext that, through lack of work, his

body needed the exercise. When they met in the crowded salesrooms, they

proceeded to examine the jewels together, fixing beforehand, the price

they would offer. But he, quick to become exasperated by opposition,

always went further, hurling numbers at his competitors as though they

were blows. After such excursions, the senora would appear as majestic

and dazzling as a basilica of Byzantium--ears and neck decorated

with great pearls, her bosom a constellation of brilliants, her hands

radiating points of light of all colors of the rainbow.

“Too much, mama,” Chichi would protest. “They will take you for a

pawnbroker’s lady!” But the Creole, satisfied with her splendor, the

crowning glory of a humble life, attributed her daughter’s faultfinding

to envy. Chichi was only a girl now, but later on she would thank her

for having collected all these gems for her.

Already the home was unable to accommodate so many purchases. In

the cellars were piled up enough paintings, furniture, statues, and

draperies to equip several other dwellings. Don Marcelo began to

complain of the cramped space in an apartment costing twenty-eight

thousand francs a year--in reality large enough for a family four times

the size of his. He was beginning to deplore being obliged to renounce

some very tempting furniture bargains when a real estate agent smelled

out the foreigner and relieved him of his embarrassment. Why not buy a

castle? . . .

The entire family was delighted with the idea. An historic castle, the

most historic that could be found, would supplement their luxurious

establishment. Chichi paled with pride. Some of her friends had castles.

Others, of old colonial family, who were accustomed to look down upon

her for her country bringing up, would now cry with envy upon learning

of this acquisition which was almost a patent of nobility. The mother

smiled in the hope of months in the country which would recall the

simple and happy life of her youth. Julio was less enthusiastic. The

“old man” would expect him to spend much time away from Paris, but he

consoled himself by reflecting that the suburban place would provide

excuse for frequent automobile trips.

Desnoyers thought of the relatives in Berlin. Why should he not have

his castle like the others? . . . The bargains were alluring. Historic

mansions by the dozen were offered him. Their owners, exhausted by

the expense of maintaining them, were more than anxious to sell. So he

bought the castle of Villeblanche-sur-Marne, built in the time of

the religious wars--a mixture of palace and fortress with an Italian

Renaissance facade, gloomy towers with pointed hoods, and moats in which

swans were swimming.

He could now live with some tracts of land over which to exercise his

authority, struggling again with the resistance of men and things.

Besides, the vast proportions of the rooms of the castle were very

tempting and bare of furniture. This opportunity for placing the

overflow from his cellars plunged him again into buying. With this

atmosphere of lordly gloom, the antiques would harmonize beautifully,

without that cry of protest which they always seemed to make when placed

in contact with the glaring white walls of modern habitations. The

historic residence required an endless outlay; on that account it had

changed owners so many times.

But he and the land understood each other beautifully. . . . So at the

same time that he was filling the salons, he was going to begin farming

and stock-raising in the extensive parks--a reproduction in miniature

of his enterprises in South America. The property ought to be made

self-supporting. Not that he had any fear of the expenses, but he did

not intend to lose money on the proposition.

The acquisition of the castle brought Desnoyers a true friendship--the

chief advantage in the transaction. He became acquainted with a

neighbor, Senator Lacour, who twice had been Minister of State, and was

now vegetating in the senate, silent during its sessions, but restless

and voluble in the corridors in order to maintain his influence. He was

a prominent figure of the republican nobility, an aristocrat of the new

regime that had sprung from the agitations of the Revolution, just

as the titled nobility had won their spurs in the Crusades. His

great-grandfather had belonged to the Convention. His father had figured

in the Republic of 1848. He, as the son of an exile who had died in

banishment, had when very young marched behind the grandiloquent figure

of Gambetta, and always spoke in glowing terms of the Master, in the

hope that some of his rays might be reflected on his disciple. His son

Rene, a pupil of the Ecole Centrale regarded his father as “a rare

old sport,” laughing a little at his romantic and humanitarian

republicanism. He, nevertheless, was counting much on that same official

protection treasured by four generations of Lacours dedicated to the

service of the Republic, to assist him when he became an engineer.

Don Marcelo who used to look uneasily upon any new friendship, fearing a

demand for a loan, gave himself up with enthusiasm to intimacy with this

“grand man.” The personage admired riches and recognized, besides,

a certain genius in this millionaire from the other side of the sea

accustomed to speaking of limitless pastures and immense herds.

Their intercourse was more than the mere friendliness of a country

neighborhood, and continued on after their return to Paris. Finally Rene

visited the home on the avenida Victor Hugo as though it were his own.

The only disappointments in Desnoyers’ new life came from his children.

Chichi irritated him because of the independence of her tastes. She did

not like antiques, no matter how substantial and magnificent they might

be, much preferring the frivolities of the latest fashion. She accepted

all her father’s gifts with great indifference. Before an exquisite

blonde piece of lace, centuries old, picked up at auction, she made

a wry face, saying, “I would much rather have had a new dress costing

three hundred francs.” She and her brother were solidly opposed to

everything old.

Now that his daughter was already a woman, he had confided her

absolutely to the care of Dona Luisa. But the former “Peoncito” was not

showing much respect for the advice and commands of the good natured

Creole. She had taken up roller-skating with enthusiasm, regarding it as

the most elegant of diversions. She would go every afternoon to the Ice

Palace, Dona Luisa chaperoning her, although to do this she was obliged

to give up accompanying her husband to his sales. Oh, the hours of

deadly weariness before that frozen oval ring, watching the white circle

of balancing human monkeys gliding by on runners to the sound of an

organ! . . . Her daughter would pass and repass before her tired eyes,

rosy from the exercise, spirals of hair escaped from her hat, streaming

out behind, the folds of her skirt swinging above her skates--handsome,

athletic and Amazonian, with the rude health of a child who, according

to her father, “had been weaned on beefsteaks.”

Finally Dona Luisa rebelled against this troublesome vigilance,

preferring to accompany her husband on his hunt for underpriced riches.

Chichi went to the skating rink with one of the dark-skinned maids,

passing the afternoons with her sporty friends of the new world.

Together they ventilated their ideas under the glare of the easy life

of Paris, freed from the scruples and conventions of their native land.

They all thought themselves older than they were, delighting to discover

in each other unsuspected charms. The change from the other hemisphere

had altered their sense of values. Some were even writing verses in

French. And Desnoyers became alarmed, giving free rein to his bad humor,

when Chichi of evenings, would bring forth as aphorisms that which she

and her friends had been discussing, as a summary of their readings and

observations.--“Life is life, and one must live! . . . I will marry the

man I love, no matter who he may be. . . .”

But the daughter’s independence was as nothing compared to the worry

which the other child gave the Desnoyers. Ay, that other one! . . .

Julio, upon arriving in Paris, had changed the bent of his aspirations.

He no longer thought of becoming an engineer; he wished to become

an artist. Don Marcelo objected in great consternation, but finally

yielded. Let it be painting! The important thing was to have some

regular profession. The father, while he considered property and wealth

as sacred rights, felt that no one should enjoy them who had not worked

to acquire them.

Recalling his apprenticeship as a wood carver, he began to hope that the

artistic instincts which poverty had extinguished in him were, perhaps,

reappearing in his son. What if this lazy boy, this lively genius,

hesitating before taking up his walk in life, should turn out to be

a famous painter, after all! . . . So he agreed to all of Julio’s

caprices, the budding artist insisting that for his first efforts in

drawing and coloring, he needed a separate apartment where he could work

with more freedom. His father, therefore, established him near his home,

in the rue de la Pompe in the former studio of a well-known foreign

painter. The workroom and its annexes were far too large for an amateur,

but the owner had died, and Desnoyers improved the opportunity offered

by the heirs, and bought at a remarkable bargain, the entire plant,

pictures and furnishings.

Dona Luisa at first visited the studio daily like a good mother, caring

for the well-being of her son that he may work to better advantage.

Taking off her gloves, she emptied the brass trays filled with cigar

stubs and dusted the furniture powdered with the ashes fallen from the

pipes. Julio’s visitors, long-haired young men who spoke of things

that she could not understand, seemed to her rather careless in their

manners. . . . Later on she also met there women, very lightly clad, and

was received with scowls by her son. Wasn’t his mother ever going to let

him work in peace? . . . So the poor lady, starting out in the morning

toward the rue de la Pompe, stopped midway and went instead to the

church of Saint Honore d’Eylau.

The father displayed more prudence. A man of his years could not expect

to mingle with the chums of a young artist. In a few months’ time, Julio

passed entire weeks without going to sleep under the paternal roof.

Finally he installed himself permanently in his studio, occasionally

making a flying trip home that his family might know that he was still

in existence. . . . Some mornings, Desnoyers would arrive at the rue de

la Pompe in order to ask a few questions of the concierge. It was ten

o’clock; the artist was sleeping. Upon returning at midday, he learned

that the heavy sleep still continued. Soon after lunch, another visit

to get better news. It was two o’clock, the young gentleman was just

arising. So the father would retire, muttering stormily--“But when does

this painter ever paint?” . . .

At first Julio had tried to win renown with his brush, believing that

it would prove an easy task. In true artist fashion, he collected his

friends around him, South American boys with nothing to do but enjoy

life, scattering money ostentatiously so that everybody might know

of their generosity. With serene audacity, the young canvas-dauber

undertook to paint portraits. He loved good painting, “distinctive”

painting, with the cloying sweetness of a romance, that copied only the

forms of women. He had money, a good studio, his father was standing

behind him ready to help--why shouldn’t he accomplish as much as many

others who lacked his opportunities? . . .

So he began his work by coloring a canvas entitled, “The Dance of the

Hours,” a mere pretext for copying pretty girls and selecting buxom

models. These he would sketch at a mad speed, filling in the outlines

with blobs of multi-colored paint, and up to this point all went well.

Then he would begin to vacillate, remaining idle before the picture only

to put it in the corner in hope of later inspiration. It was the same

way with his various studies of feminine heads. Finding that he was

never able to finish anything, he soon became resigned, like one

who pants with fatigue before an obstacle waiting for a providential

interposition to save him. The important thing was to be a painter . . .

even though he might not paint anything. This afforded him the

opportunity, on the plea of lofty aestheticism, of sending out cards

of invitation and asking light women to his studio. He lived during

the night. Don Marcelo, upon investigating the artist’s work, could not

contain his indignation. Every morning the two Desnoyers were accustomed

to greet the first hours of dawn--the father leaping from his bed, the

son, on his way home to his studio to throw himself upon his couch not

to wake till midday.

The credulous Dona Luisa would invent the most absurd explanations to

defend her son. Who could tell? Perhaps he had the habit of painting

during the night, utilizing it for original work. Men resort to so many

devilish things! . . .

Desnoyers knew very well what these nocturnal gusts of genius were

amounting to--scandals in the restaurants of Montmartre, and scrimmages,

many scrimmages. He and his gang, who believed that at seven a full

dress or Tuxedo was indispensable, were like a band of Indians, bringing

to Paris the wild customs of the plains. Champagne always made them

quarrelsome. So they broke and paid, but their generosities were almost

invariably followed by a scuffle. No one could surpass Julio in the

quick slap and the ready card. His father heard with a heavy heart the

news brought him by some friends thinking to flatter his vanity--his

son was always victorious in these gentlemanly encounters; he it was who

always scratched the enemy’s skin. The painter knew more about fencing

than art. He was a champion with various weapons; he could box, and was

even skilled in the favorite blows of the prize fighters of the slums.

“Useless as a drone, and as dangerous, too,” fretted his father. And

yet in the back of his troubled mind fluttered an irresistible

satisfaction--an animal pride in the thought that this hare-brained

terror was his own.

For a while, he thought that he had hit upon a way of withdrawing his

son from such an existence. The relatives in Berlin had visited

the Desnoyers in their castle of Villeblanche. With good-natured

superiority, Karl von Hartrott had appreciated the rich and rather

absurd accumulations of his brother-in-law. They were not bad; he

admitted that they gave a certain cachet to the home in Paris and to the

castle. They smacked of the possessions of titled nobility. But Germany!

. . . The comforts and luxuries in his country! . . . He just wished his

brother-in-law to admire the way he lived and the noble friendships that

embellished his opulence. And so he insisted in his letters that the

Desnoyers family should return their visit. This change of environment

might tone Julio down a little. Perhaps his ambition might waken on

seeing the diligence of his cousins, each with a career. The Frenchman

had, besides, an underlying belief in the more corrupt influence of

Paris as compared with the purity of the customs in Patriarchal Germany.

They were there four months. In a little while Desnoyers felt ready to

retreat. Each to his own kind; he would never be able to understand

such people. Exceedingly amiable, with an abject amiability and evident

desire to please, but constantly blundering through a tactless desire to

make their grandeur felt. The high-toned friends of Hartrott emphasized

their love for France, but it was the pious love that a weak and

mischievous child inspires, needing protection. And they would accompany

their affability with all manner of inopportune memories of the wars in

which France had been conquered. Everything in Germany--a monument, a

railroad station, a simple dining-room device, instantly gave rise to

glorious comparisons. “In France, you do not have this,” “Of course, you

never saw anything like this in America.”

Don Marcelo came away fatigued by so much condescension, and his wife

and daughter refused to be convinced that the elegance of Berlin could

be superior to Paris. Chichi, with audacious sacrilege, scandalized her

cousins by declaring that she could not abide the corseted officers with

immovable monocle, who bowed to the women with such automatic rigidity,

blending their gallantries with an air of superiority.

Julio, guided by his cousins, was saturated in the virtuous atmosphere

of Berlin. With the oldest, “The Sage,” he had nothing to do. He was a

poor creature devoted to his books who patronized all the family with

a protecting air. It was the others, the sub-lieutenants or military

students, who proudly showed him the rounds of German joy.

Julio was accordingly introduced to all the night

restaurants--imitations of those in Paris, but on a much larger scale.

The women who in Paris might be counted by the dozens appeared here

in hundreds. The scandalous drunkenness here never came by chance,

but always by design as an indispensable part of the gaiety. All was

grandiose, glittering, colossal. The libertines diverted themselves

in platoons, the public got drunk in companies, the harlots presented

themselves in regiments. He felt a sensation of disgust before these

timid and servile females, accustomed to blows, who were so eagerly

trying to reimburse themselves for the losses and exposures of their

business. For him, it was impossible to celebrate with hoarse ha-has,

like his cousins, the discomfiture of these women when they realized

that they had wasted so many hours without accomplishing more than

abundant drinking. The gross obscenity, so public and noisy, like a

parade of riches, was loathsome to Julio. “There is nothing like this

in Paris,” his cousins repeatedly exulted as they admired the stupendous

salons, the hundreds of men and women in pairs, the thousands of

tipplers. “No, there certainly was nothing like that in Paris.” He was

sick of such boundless pretension. He seemed to be attending a fiesta

of hungry mariners anxious at one swoop to make amends for all former

privations. Like his father, he longed to get away. It offended his

aesthetic sense.

Don Marcelo returned from this visit with melancholy resignation. Those

people had undoubtedly made great strides. He was not such a blind

patriot that he could not admit what was so evident. Within a few years

they had transformed their country, and their industry was astonishing

. . . but, well . . . it was simply impossible to have anything to do

with them. Each to his own, but may they never take a notion to envy

their neighbor! . . . Then he immediately repelled this last suspicion

with the optimism of a business man.

“They are going to be very rich,” he thought. “Their affairs are

prospering, and he that is rich does not hunt quarrels. That war of

which some crazy fools are always dreaming would be an impossible

thing.”

Young Desnoyers renewed his Parisian existence, living entirely in the

studio and going less and less to his father’s home. Dona Luisa began to

speak of a certain Argensola, a very learned young Spaniard, believing

that his counsels might prove most helpful to Julio. She did not know

exactly whether this new companion was friend, master or servant. The

studio habitues also had their doubts. The literary ones always spoke

of Argensola as a painter. The painters recognized only his ability as a

man of letters. He was among those who used to come up to the studio

of winter afternoons, attracted by the ruddy glow of the stove and the

wines secretly provided by the mother, holding forth authoritatively

before the often-renewed bottle and the box of cigars lying open on the

table. One night, he slept on the divan, as he had no regular quarters.

After that first night, he lived entirely in the studio.

Julio soon discovered in him an admirable reflex of his own personality.

He knew that Argensola had come third-class from Madrid with twenty

francs in his pocket, in order to “capture glory,” to use his own words.

Upon observing that the Spaniard was painting with as much difficulty

as himself, with the same wooden and childish strokes, which are so

characteristic of the make-believe artists and pot-boilers, the routine

workers concerned themselves with color and other rank fads. Argensola

was a psychological artist, a painter of souls. And his disciple, felt

astonished and almost displeased on learning what a comparatively simple

thing it was to paint a soul. Upon a bloodless countenance, with a chin

as sharp as a dagger, the gifted Spaniard would trace a pair of nearly

round eyes, and at the centre of each pupil he would aim a white brush

stroke, a point of light . . . the soul. Then, planting himself

before the canvas, he would proceed to classify this soul with his

inexhaustible imagination, attributing to it almost every kind of stress

and extremity. So great was the sway of his rapture that Julio, too, was

able to see all that the artist flattered himself into believing that he

had put into the owlish eyes. He, also, would paint souls . . . souls of

women.

In spite of the ease with which he developed his psychological

creations, Argensola preferred to talk, stretched on a divan, or to

read, hugging the fire while his friend and protector was outside.

Another advantage this fondness for reading gave young Desnoyers was

that he was no longer obliged to open a volume, scanning the index and

last pages “just to get the idea.” Formerly when frequenting society

functions, he had been guilty of coolly asking an author which was his

best book--his smile of a clever man--giving the writer to understand

that he merely enquired so as not to waste time on the other volumes.

Now it was no longer necessary to do this; Argensola would read for him.

As soon as Julio would see him absorbed in a book, he would demand an

immediate share: “Tell me the story.” So the “secretary,” not only gave

him the plots of comedies and novels, but also detailed the argument of

Schopenhauer or of Nietzsche . . . Dona Luisa almost wept on hearing her

visitors--with that benevolence which wealth always inspires--speak of

her son as “a rather gay young man, but wonderfully well read!”

In exchange for his lessons, Argensola received, much the same treatment

as did the Greek slaves who taught rhetoric to the young patricians of

decadent Rome. In the midst of a dissertation, his lord and friend would

interrupt him with--“Get my dress suit ready. I am invited out this

evening.”

At other times, when the instructor was luxuriating in bodily comfort,

with a book in one hand near the roaring stove, seeing through the

windows the gray and rainy afternoon, his disciple would suddenly appear

saying, “Quick, get out! . . . There’s a woman coming!”

And Argensola, like a dog who gets up and shakes himself, would

disappear to continue his reading in some miserable little coffee house

in the neighborhood.

In his official capacity, this widely gifted man often descended from

the peaks of intellectuality to the vulgarities of everyday life. He

was the steward of the lord of the manor, the intermediary between the

pocketbook and those who appeared bill in hand. “Money!” he would say

laconically at the end of the month, and Desnoyers would break out into

complaints and curses. Where on earth was he to get it, he would like to

know. His father was as regular as a machine, and would never allow the

slightest advance upon the following month. He had to submit to a rule

of misery. Three thousand francs a month!--what could any decent person

do with that? . . . He was even trying to cut THAT down, to tighten the

band, interfering in the running of his house, so that Dona Luisa could

not make presents to her son. In vain he had appealed to the various

usurers of Paris, telling them of his property beyond the ocean. These

gentlemen had the youth of their own country in the hollow of their hand

and were not obliged to risk their capital in other lands. The same hard

luck pursued him when, with sudden demonstrations of affection, he had

tried to convince Don Marcelo that three thousand francs a month was but

a niggardly trifle.

The millionaire fairly snorted with indignation. “Three thousand francs

a trifle!” And the debts besides, that he often had to pay for his son!

. . .

“Why, when I was your age,” . . . he would begin saying--but Julio would

suddenly bring the dialogue to a close. He had heard his father’s story

too many times. Ah, the stingy old miser! What he had been giving him

all these months was no more than the interest on his grandfather’s

legacy. . . . And by the advice of Argensola he ventured to get control

of the field. He was planning to hand over the management of his land to

Celedonio, the old overseer, who was now such a grandee in his country

that Julio ironically called him “my uncle.”

Desnoyers accepted this rebellion coldly. “It appears just to me. You

are now of age!” Then he promptly reduced to extremes his oversight

of his home, forbidding Dona Luisa to handle any money. Henceforth he

regarded his son as an adversary, treating him during his lightning

apparitions at the avenue Victor Hugo with glacial courtesy as though he

were a stranger.

For a while a transitory opulence enlivened the studio. Julio had

increased his expenses, considering himself rich. But the letters from

his uncle in America soon dissipated these illusions. At first the

remittances exceeded very slightly the monthly allowance that his father

had made him. Then it began to diminish in an alarming manner. According

to Celedonio, all the calamities on earth seemed to be falling upon his

plantation. The pasture land was yielding scantily, sometimes for lack

of rain, sometimes because of floods, and the herds were perishing by

hundreds. Julio required more income, and the crafty half-breed sent him

what he asked for, but simply as a loan, reserving the return until they

should adjust their accounts.

In spite of such aid, young Desnoyers was suffering great want. He was

gambling now in an elegant circle, thinking thus to compensate for his

periodical scrimpings; but this resort was only making the remittances

from America disappear with greater rapidity. . . . That such a man as

he was should be tormented so for the lack of a few thousand francs!

What else was a millionaire father for?

If the creditors began threatening, the poor youth had to bring the

secretary into play, ordering him to see the mother immediately; he

himself wished to avoid her tears and reproaches. So Argensola would

slip like a pickpocket up the service stairway of the great house on the

avenue Victor Hugo. The place in which he transacted his ambassadorial

business was the kitchen, with great danger that the terrible Desnoyers

might happen in there, on one of his perambulations as a laboring man,

and surprise the intruder.

Dona Luisa would weep, touched by the heartrending tales of the

messenger. What could she do! She was as poor as her maids; she had

jewels, many jewels, but not a franc. Then Argensola came to the rescue

with a solution worthy of his experience. He would smooth the way for

the good mother, leaving some of her jewels at the Mont-de-Piete. He

knew the way to raise money on them. So the lady accepted his advice,

giving him, however, only jewels of medium value as she suspected that

she might never see them again. Later scruples made her at times refuse

flatly. Suppose Don Marcelo should ever find it out, what a scene! . . .

But the Spaniard deemed it unseemly to return empty-handed, and always

bore away a basket of bottles from the well-stocked wine-cellar of the

Desnoyers.

Every morning Dona Luisa went to Saint-Honore-d’Eylau to pray for her

son. She felt that this was her own church. It was a hospitable and

familiar island in the unexplored ocean of Paris. Here she could

exchange discreet salutations with her neighbors from the different

republics of the new world. She felt nearer to God and the saints when

she could hear in the vestibule conversations in her language.

It was, moreover, a sort of salon in which took place the great events

of the South American colony. One day was a wedding with flowers,

orchestra and chanting chorals. With Chichi beside her, she greeted

those she knew, congratulating the bride and groom. Another day it was

the funeral of an ex-president of some republic, or some other foreign

dignitary ending in Paris his turbulent existence. Poor President! Poor

General! . . .

Dona Luisa remembered the dead man. She had seen him many times in that

church devoutly attending mass and she was indignant at the evil tongues

which, under the cover of a funeral oration, recalled the shootings and

bank failures in his country. Such a good and religious gentleman! May

God receive his soul in glory! . . . And upon going out into the

square, she would look with tender eyes upon the young men and women on

horseback going to the Bois de Boulogne, the luxurious automobiles, the

morning radiant in the sunshine, all the primeval freshness of the early

hours--realizing what a beautiful thing it is to live.

Her devout expression of gratitude for mere existence usually included

the monument in the centre of the square, all bristling with wings as if

about to fly away from the ground. Victor Hugo! . . . It was enough

for her to have heard this name on the lips of her son to make her

contemplate the statue with a family interest. The only thing that she

knew about the poet was that he had died. Of this she was almost sure,

and she imagined that in life, he was a great friend of Julio’s because

she had so often heard her son repeat his name.

Ay, her son! . . . All her thoughts, her conjectures, her desires,

converged on him and her strong-willed husband. She longed for the men

to come to an understanding and put an end to a struggle in which she

was the principal victim. Would not God work this miracle? . . . Like

an invalid who goes from one sanitarium to another in pursuit of health,

she gave up the church on her street to attend the Spanish chapel on the

avenue Friedland. Here she considered herself even more among her own.

In the midst of the fine and elegant South American ladies who looked

as if they had just escaped from a fashion sheet, her eyes sought other

women, not so well dressed, fat, with theatrical ermine and antique

jewelry. When these high-born dames met each other in the vestibule,

they spoke with heavy voices and expressive gestures, emphasizing their

words energetically. The daughter of the ranch ventured to salute them

because she had subscribed to all their pet charities, and upon

seeing her greeting returned, she felt a satisfaction which made her

momentarily forget her woes. They belonged to those families which her

father had so greatly admired without knowing why. They came from the

“mother country,” and to the good Chicha were all Excelentisimas or

Altisimas, related to kings. She did not know whether to give them her

hand or bend the knee, as she had vaguely heard was the custom at court.

But soon she recalled her preoccupation and went forward to wrestle

in prayer with God. Ay, that he would mercifully remember her! That he

would not long forget her son! . . .

It was Glory that remembered Julio, stretching out to him her arms of

light, so that he suddenly awoke to find himself surrounded by all the

honors and advantages of celebrity. Fame cunningly surprises mankind on

the most crooked and unexpected of roads. Neither the painting of souls

nor a fitful existence full of extravagant love affairs and complicated

duels had brought Desnoyers this renown. It was Glory that put him on

his feet.

A new pleasure for the delight of humanity had come from the other side

of the seas. People were asking one another in the mysterious tones of

the initiated who wish to recognize a familiar spirit, “Do you know how

to tango? . . .” The tango had taken possession of the world. It was

the heroic hymn of a humanity that was suddenly concentrating its

aspirations on the harmonious rhythm of the thigh joints, measuring its

intelligence by the agility of its feet. An incoherent and monotonous

music of African inspiration was satisfying the artistic ideals of

a society that required nothing better. The world was dancing . . .

dancing . . . dancing.

A negro dance from Cuba introduced into South America by mariners who

shipped jerked beef to the Antilles, conquered the entire earth in a few

months, completely encircling it, bounding victoriously from nation to

nation . . . like the Marseillaise. It was even penetrating into the

most ceremonious courts, overturning all traditions of conservation and

etiquette like a song of the Revolution--the revolution of frivolity.

The Pope even had to become a master of the dance, recommending the

“Furlana” instead of the “Tango,” since all the Christian world,

regardless of sects, was united in the common desire to agitate its feet

with the tireless frenzy of the “possessed” of the Middle Ages.

Julio Desnoyers, upon meeting this dance of his childhood in full swing

in Paris, devoted himself to it with the confidence that an old love

inspires. Who could have foretold that when as a student, he was

frequenting the lowest dance halls in Buenos Aires, watched by the

police, that he was really serving an apprenticeship to Glory? . . .

From five to seven, in the salons of the Champs d’Elysees where it cost

five francs for a cup of tea and the privilege of joining in the sacred

dance, hundreds of eyes followed him with admiration. “He has the key,”

said the women, appraising his slender elegance, medium stature, and

muscular springs. And he, in abbreviated jacket and expansive shirt

bosom, with his small, girlish feet encased in high-heeled patent

leathers with white tops, danced gravely, thoughtfully, silently, like

a mathematician working out a problem, under the lights that shed bluish

tones upon his plastered, glossy locks. Ladies asked to be presented

to him in the sweet hope that their friends might envy them when they

beheld them in the arms of the master. Invitations simply rained upon

Julio. The most exclusive salons were thrown open to him so that every

afternoon he made a dozen new acquaintances. The fashion had brought

over professors from the other side of the sea, compatriots from the

slums of Buenos Aires, haughty and confused at being applauded like

famous lecturers or tenors; but Julio triumphed over these vulgarians

who danced for money, and the incidents of his former life were

considered by the women as deeds of romantic gallantry.

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

much.”

The glory of his friend and master was only making more trouble for

him. His placid readings before the fire were now subject to daily

interruptions. It was impossible to read more than a chapter. The

celebrated man was continually ordering him to betake himself to the

street. “A new lesson,” sighed the parasite. And when he was alone in

the studio numerous callers--all women, some inquisitive and aggressive,

others sad, with a deserted air--were constantly interrupting his

thoughtful pursuits.

One of them terrified the occupants of the studio with her insistence.

She was a North American of uncertain age, somewhere between thirty-two

and fifty-nine, with short skirts that whenever she sat down, seemed

to fly up as if moved by a spring. Various dances with Desnoyers and

a visit to the rue de la Pompe she seemed to consider as her sacred

rights, and she pursued the master with the desperation of an abandoned

zealot. Julio had made good his escape upon learning that this beauty

of youthful elegance--when seen from the back--had two grandchildren.

“MASTER Desnoyers has gone out,” Argensola would invariably say upon

receiving her. And, thereupon she would burst into tears and threats,

longing to kill herself then and there that her corpse might frighten

away those other women who would come to rob her of what she considered

her special privilege. Now it was Argensola who sped his companion to

the street when he wished to be alone. He had only to remark casually,

“I believe that Yankee is coming,” and the great man would beat a hasty

retreat, oftentimes in his desperate flight availing himself of the back

stairs.

At this time began to develop the most important event in Julio’s

existence. The Desnoyers family was to be united with that of Senator

Lacour. Rene, his only son, had succeeded in awakening in Chichi a

certain interest that was almost love. The dignitary enjoyed thinking

of his son allied to the boundless plains and immense herds whose

description always affected him like a marvellous tale. He was a

widower, but he enjoyed giving at his home famous banquets and parties.

Every new celebrity immediately suggested to him the idea of giving a

dinner. No illustrious person passing through Paris, polar explorer

or famous singer, could escape being exhibited in the dining room

of Lacour. The son of Desnoyers--at whom he had scarcely glanced

before--now inspired him with sudden interest. The senator was a

thoroughly up-to-date man who did not classify glory nor distinguish

reputations. It was enough for him that a name should be on everybody’s

lips for him to accept it with enthusiasm. When Julio responded to his

invitation, he presented him with pride to his friends, and came very

near to calling him “dear master.” The tango was monopolizing all

conversation nowadays. Even in the Academy they were taking it up in

order to demonstrate that the youth of ancient Athens had diverted

itself in a somewhat similar way. . . . And Lacour had dreamed all his

life of an Athenian republic.

At these reunions, Desnoyers became acquainted with the Lauriers. He was

an engineer who owned a motor-factory for automobiles in the outskirts

of Paris--a man about thirty-five, tall, rather heavy and silent, with

a deliberate air as though he wished to see deeply into men and

things. She was of a light, frivolous character, loving life for the

satisfactions and pleasures which it brought her, appearing to accept

with smiling conformity the silent and grave adoration of her husband.

She could not well do less with a man of his merits. Besides, she had

brought to the marriage a dowry of three hundred thousand francs, a

capital which had enabled the engineer to enlarge his business. The

senator had been instrumental in arranging this marriage. He was

interested in Laurier because he was the son of an old friend.

Upon Marguerite Laurier the presence of Julio flashed like a ray of

sunlight in the tiresome salon of Lacour. She was dancing the fad of the

hour and frequenting the tango teas where reigned the adored Desnoyers.

And to think that she was being entertained with this celebrated and

interesting man that the other women were raving about! . . . In order

that he might not take her for a mere middle-class woman like the other

guests at the senator’s party, she spoke of her modistes, all from the

rue de la Paix, declaring gravely that no woman who had any self-respect

could possibly walk through the streets wearing a gown costing less than

eight hundred francs, and that the hat of a thousand francs--but a few

years ago, an astonishing novelty--was nowadays a very ordinary affair.

This acquaintanceship made the “little Laurier,” as her friends called

her notwithstanding her tallness, much sought by the master of the

dance, in spite of the looks of wrath and envy hurled at her by the

others. What a triumph for the wife of a simple engineer who was used

to going everywhere in her mother’s automobile! . . . Julio at first

had supposed her like all the others who were languishing in his arms,

following the rhythmic complications of the dance, but he soon found

that she was very different. Her coquetry after the first confidential

words, but increased his admiration. He really had never before been

thrown with a woman of her class. Those of his first social period were

the habituees of the night restaurants paid for their witchery. Now

Glory was tossing into his arms ladies of high position but with an

unconfessable past, anxious for novelties although exceedingly mature.

This middle class woman who would advance so confidently toward him and

then retreat with such capricious outbursts of modesty, was a new type

for him.

The tango salons soon began to suffer a great loss. Desnoyers was

permitting himself to be seen there with less frequency, handing Glory

over to the professionals. Sometimes entire weeks slipped by without the

five-to-seven devotees being able to admire his black locks and his tiny

patent leathers twinkling under the lights in time with his graceful

movements.

Marguerite was also avoiding these places. The meetings of the two were

taking place in accordance with what she had read in the love stories

of Paris. She was going in search of Julio, fearing to be recognized,

tremulous with emotion, selecting her most inconspicuous suit, and

covering her face with a close veil--“the veil of adultery,” as her

friends called it. They had their trysts in the least-frequented squares

of the district, frequently changing the places, like timid birds

that at the slightest disturbance fly to perch a little further away.

Sometimes they would meet in the Buttes Chaumont, at others they

preferred the gardens on the left bank of the Seine, the Luxembourg, and

even the distant Parc de Montsouris. She was always in tremors of terror

lest her husband might surprise them, although she well knew that the

industrious engineer was in his factory a great distance away. Her

agitated aspect, her excessive precautions in order to slip by unseen,

only served to attract the attention of the passers-by. Although Julio

was waxing impatient with the annoyance of this wandering love affair

which only amounted to a few fugitive kisses, he finally held his peace,

dominated by Marguerite’s pleadings.

She did not wish merely to be one in the procession of his sweethearts;

it was necessary to convince herself first that this love was going to

last forever. It was her first slip and she wanted it to be the last.

Ay, her former spotless reputation! . . . What would people say! . . .

The two returned to their adolescent period, loving each other as they

had never loved before, with the confident and childish passion of

fifteen-year-olds.

Julio had leaped from childhood to libertinism, taking his initiation

into life at a single bound. She had desired marriage in order to

acquire the respect and liberty of a married woman, but feeling towards

her husband only a vague gratitude. “We end where others begin,” she had

said to Desnoyers.

Their passion took the form of an intense, reciprocal and vulgar love.

They felt a romantic sentimentality in clasping hands or exchanging

kisses on a garden bench in the twilight. He was treasuring a ringlet

of Marguerite’s--although he doubted its genuineness, with a vague

suspicion that it might be one of the latest wisps of fashion. She

would cuddle down with her head on his shoulder, as though imploring

his protection, although always in the open air. If Julio ever attempted

greater intimacy in a carriage, madame would repel him most vigorously.

A contradictory duality appeared to inspire her actions. Every morning,

on awaking, she would decide to yield, but then when near him, her

middle-class respectability, jealous of its reputation, kept her

faithful to her mother’s teachings.

One day she agreed to visit his studio with the interest that the

haunts of the loved one always inspires. “Promise that you will not take

advantage of me.” He readily promised, swearing that everything should

be as Marguerite wished. . . . But from that day they were no longer

seen in the gardens, nor wandering around persecuted by the winter

winds. They preferred the studio, and Argensola had to rearrange his

existence, seeking the stove of another artist friend, in order to

continue his reading.

This state of things lasted two months. They never knew what secret

force suddenly disturbed their tranquility. Perhaps one of her friends,

guessing at the truth, had told the husband anonymously. Perhaps it was

she herself unconsciously, with her inexpressible happiness, her tardy

returns home when dinner was already served, and the sudden aversion

which she showed toward the engineer in their hours alone, trying to

keep her heart faithful to her lover. To divide her interest between her

legal companion and the man she loved was a torment that her simple and

vehement enthusiasm could not tolerate.

While she was hurrying one night through the rue de la Pompe, looking at

her watch and trembling with impatience at not finding an automobile

or even a cab, a man stood in front of her. . . . Etienne Laurier! She

always shuddered with fear on recalling that hour. For a moment

she believed that he was going to kill her. Serious men, quiet and

diffident, are most terrible in their explosions of wrath. Her husband

knew everything. With the same patience that he employed in solving his

industrial problems, he had been studying her day by day, without her

ever suspecting the watchfulness behind that impassive countenance. Then

he had followed her in order to complete the evidence of his misfortune.

Marguerite had never supposed that he could be so common and noisy in

his anger. She had expected that he would accept the facts coldly with

that slight tinge of philosophical irony usually shown by distinguished

men, as the husbands of her friends had done. But the poor engineer

who, outside of his work, saw only his wife, loving her as a woman,

and adoring her as a dainty and superior being, a model of grace and

elegance, could not endure the thought of her downfall, and cried and

threatened without reserve, so that the scandal became known throughout

their entire circle of friends. The senator felt greatly annoyed in

remembering that it was in his exclusive home that the guilty ones had

become acquainted; but his displeasure was visited upon the husband.

What lack of good taste! . . . Women will be women, and everything

is capable of adjustment. But before the imprudent outbursts of this

frantic devil no elegant solution was possible, and there was now

nothing to do but to begin divorce proceedings.

Desnoyers, senior, was very indignant upon learning of this last

escapade of his son. He had always had a great liking for Laurier.

That instinctive bond which exists between men of industry, patient and

silent, had made them very congenial. At the senator’s receptions he

had always talked with the engineer about the progress of his business,

interesting himself in the development of that factory of which he

always spoke with the affection of a father. The millionaire, in

spite of his reputation for miserliness, had even volunteered his

disinterested support if at any time it should become necessary to

enlarge the plant. And it was this good man’s happiness that his son, a

frivolous and useless dancer, was going to steal! . . .

At first Laurier spoke of a duel. His wrath was that of a work horse who

breaks the tight reins of his laboring outfit, tosses his mane, neighs

wildly and bites. The father was greatly distressed at the possibility

of such an outcome. . . . One scandal more! Julio had dedicated the

greater part of his existence to the handling of arms.

“He will kill the poor man!” he said to the senator. “I am sure that he

will kill him. It is the logic of life; the good-for-nothing always kill

those who amount to anything.”

But there was no killing. The Father of the Republic knew how to handle

the clashing parties, with the same skill that he always employed in

the corridors of the Senate during a ministerial crisis. The scandal was

hushed up. Marguerite went to live with her mother and took the first

steps for a divorce.

Some evenings, when the studio clock was striking seven, she would yawn

and say sadly: “I must go. . . . I have to go, although this is my true

home. . . . Ah, what a pity that we are not married!”

And he, feeling a whole garden of bourgeois virtues, hitherto ignored,

bursting into bloom, repeated in a tone of conviction:

“That’s so; why are we not married!”

Their wishes could be realized. The husband was facilitating the step

by his unexpected intervention. So young Desnoyers set forth for South

America in order to raise the money and marry Marguerite.

CHAPTER IV

THE COUSIN FROM BERLIN

The studio of Julio Desnoyers was on the top floor, both the stairway

and the elevator stopping before his door. The two tiny apartments

at the back were lighted by an interior court, their only means of

communication being the service stairway which went on up to the

garrets.

While his comrade was away, Argensola had made the acquaintance of those

in the neighboring lodgings. The largest of the apartments was empty

during the day, its occupants not returning till after they had taken

their evening meal in a restaurant. As both husband and wife were

employed outside, they could not remain at home except on holidays.

The man, vigorous and of a martial aspect, was superintendent in a big

department store. . . . He had been a soldier in Africa, wore a military

decoration, and had the rank of sub-lieutenant in the Reserves. She was

a blonde, heavy and rather anaemic, with bright eyes and a sentimental

expression. On holidays she spent long hours at the piano, playing

musical reveries, always the same. At other times Argensola saw

her through the interior window working in the kitchen aided by her

companion, the two laughing over their clumsiness and inexperience in

preparing the Sunday dinner.

The concierge thought that this woman was a German, but she herself said

that she was Swiss. She was a cashier in a shop--not the one in which

her husband was employed. In the mornings they left home together,

separating in the Place d’Etoile. At seven in the evening they met here,

greeting each other with a kiss, like lovers who meet for the first

time; and then after supper, they returned to their nest in the rue de

la Pompe. All Argensola’s attempts at friendliness with these neighbors

were repulsed because of their self-centredness. They responded with

freezing courtesy; they lived only for themselves.

The other apartment of two rooms was occupied by a single man. He was a

Russian or Pole who almost always returned with a package of books, and

passed many hours writing near the patio window. From the very first the

Spaniard took him to be a mysterious man, probably a very distinguished

one--a true hero of a novel. The foreign appearance of this Tchernoff

made a great impression upon him--his dishevelled beard, and oily

locks, his spectacles upon a large nose that seemed deformed by a

dagger-thrust. There emanated from him, like an invisible nimbus, an

odor of cheap wine and soiled clothing.

When Argensola caught a glimpse of him through the service door he would

say to himself, “Ah, Friend Tchernoff is returning,” and thereupon

he would saunter out to the stairway in order to have a chat with his

neighbor. For a long time the stranger discouraged all approach to his

quarters, which fact led the Spaniard to infer that he devoted himself

to alchemy and kindred mysteries. When he finally was allowed to enter

he saw only books, many books, books everywhere--scattered on the floor,

heaped upon benches, piled in corners, overflowing on to broken-down

chairs, old tables, and a bed that was only made up now and then when

the owner, alarmed by the increasing invasion of dust and cobwebs, was

obliged to call in the aid of his friend, the concierge.

Argensola finally realized, not without a certain disenchantment, that

there was nothing mysterious in the life of the man. What he was writing

near the window were merely translations, some of them ordered, others

volunteer work for the socialist periodicals. The only marvellous thing

about him was the quantity of languages that he knew.

“He knows them all,” said the Spaniard, when describing their neighbor

to Desnoyers. “He has only to hear of a new one to master it. He

holds the key, the secret of all languages, living or dead. He

speaks Castilian as well as we do, and yet he has never been in a

Spanish-speaking country.”

Argensola again felt a thrill of mystery upon reading the titles of many

of the volumes. The majority were old books, many of them in languages

that he was not able to decipher, picked up for a song at second-hand

shops or on the book stands installed upon the parapets of the Seine.

Only a man holding the key of tongues could get together such volumes.

An atmosphere of mysticism, of superhuman insight, of secrets intact

for many centuries appeared to emanate from these heaps of dusty volumes

with worm-eaten leaves. And mixed with these ancient tomes were others

red and conspicuous, pamphlets of socialistic propaganda, leaflets in

all the languages of Europe and periodicals--many periodicals, with

revolutionary titles.

Tchernoff did not appear to enjoy visits and conversation. He would

smile enigmatically into his black beard, and was very sparing with his

words so as to shorten the interview. But Argensola possessed the means

of winning over this sullen personage. It was only necessary for him

to wink one eye with the expressive invitation, “Do we go?” and the two

would soon be settled on a bench in the kitchen of Desnoyers’ studio,

opposite a bottle which had come from the avenue Victor Hugo. The costly

wines of Don Marcelo made the Russian more communicative, although, in

spite of this aid, the Spaniard learned little of his neighbor’s real

existence. Sometimes he would mention Jaures and other socialistic

orators. His surest means of existence was the translation of

periodicals or party papers. On various occasions the name of Siberia

escaped from his lips, and he admitted that he had been there a long

time; but he did not care to talk about a country visited against his

will. He would merely smile modestly, showing plainly that he did not

wish to make any further revelations.

The morning after the return of Julio Desnoyers, while Argensola was

talking on the stairway with Tchernoff, the bell rang. How annoying! The

Russian, who was well up in advanced politics, was just explaining the

plans advanced by Jaures. There were still many who hoped that war might

be averted. He had his motives for doubting it. . . . He, Tchernoff, was

commenting on these illusions with the smile of a flat-nosed sphinx when

the bell rang for a second time, so that Argensola was obliged to break

away from his interesting friend, and run to open the main door.

A gentleman wished to see Julio. He spoke very correct French, though

his accent was a revelation for Argensola. Upon going into the bedroom

in search of his master, who was just arising, he said confidently,

“It’s the cousin from Berlin who has come to say good-bye. It could not

be anyone else.”

When the three came together in the studio, Desnoyers presented his

comrade, in order that the visitor might not make any mistake in regard

to his social status.

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

deserving youth.”

Doctor Julius von Hartrott said this with the self-sufficiency of a

man who knows everything and wishes to be agreeable to an inferior,

conceding him the alms of his attention.

The two cousins confronted each other with a curiosity not altogether

free from distrust. Although closely related, they knew each other very

slightly, tacitly admitting complete divergence in opinions and tastes.

After slowly examining the Sage, Argensola came to the conclusion that

he looked like an officer dressed as a civilian. He noticed in his

person an effort to imitate the soldierly when occasionally discarding

uniform--the ambition of every German burgher wishing to be taken for

the superior class. His trousers were narrow, as though intended to be

tucked into cavalry boots. His coat with two rows of buttons had the

contracted waist with very full skirt and upstanding lapels, suggesting

vaguely a military great coat. The reddish moustachios, strong jaw and

shaved head completed his would-be martial appearance; but his eyes,

large, dark-circled and near-sighted, were the eyes of a student taking

refuge behind great thick glasses which gave him the aspect of a man of

peace.

Desnoyers knew that he was an assistant professor of the University,

that he had published a few volumes, fat and heavy as bricks, and that

he was a member of an academic society collaborating in documentary

research directed by a famous historian. In his lapel he was wearing the

badge of a foreign order.

Julio’s respect for the learned member of the family was not unmixed

with contempt. He and his sister Chichi had from childhood felt an

instinctive hostility toward the cousins from Berlin. It annoyed him,

too, to have his family everlastingly holding up as a model this

pedant who only knew life as it is in books, and passed his existence

investigating what men had done in other epochs, in order to draw

conclusions in harmony with Germany’s views. While young Desnoyers

had great facility for admiration, and reverenced all those whose

“arguments” Argensola had doled out to him, he drew the line at

accepting the intellectual grandeur of this illustrious relative.

During his stay in Berlin, a German word of vulgar invention had enabled

him to classify this prig. Heavy books of minute investigation were

every month being published by the dozens in the Fatherland. There was

not a professor who could resist the temptation of constructing from the

simplest detail an enormous volume written in a dull, involved style.

The people, therefore, appreciating that these near-sighted authors were

incapable of any genial vision of comradeship, called them Sitzfleisch

haben, because of the very long sittings which their works represented.

That was what this cousin was for him, a mere Sitzfleisch haben.

Doctor von Hartrott, on explaining his visit, spoke in Spanish.

He availed himself of this language used by the family during his

childhood, as a precaution, looking around repeatedly as if he feared

to be heard. He had come to bid his cousin farewell. His mother had told

him of his return, and he had not wished to leave Paris without seeing

him. He was leaving in a few hours, since matters were growing more

strained.

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

“War will be declared to-morrow or the day after. Nothing can prevent it

now. It is necessary for the welfare of humanity.”

Silence followed this speech, Julio and Argensola looking with

astonishment at this peaceable-looking man who had just spoken with such

martial arrogance. The two suspected that the professor was making this

visit in order to give vent to his opinions and enthusiasms. At the same

time, perhaps, he was trying to find out what they might think and know,

as one of the many viewpoints of the people in Paris.

“You are not French,” he added looking at his cousin. “You were born in

Argentina, so before you I may speak the truth.”

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

The Doctor made a gesture of protest, as though he had just heard

something insulting. “No, I am a German. No matter where a German may

be born, he always belongs to his mother country.” Then turning to

Argensola--“This gentleman, too, is a foreigner. He comes from noble

Spain, which owes to us the best that it has--the worship of honor, the

knightly spirit.”

The Spaniard wished to remonstrate, but the Sage would not permit,

adding in an oracular tone:

“You were miserable Celts, sunk in the vileness of an inferior and

mongrel race whose domination by Rome but made your situation worse.

Fortunately you were conquered by the Goths and others of our race who

implanted in you a sense of personal dignity. Do not forget, young man,

that the Vandals were the ancestors of the Prussians of to-day.”

Again Argensola tried to speak, but his friend signed to him not to

interrupt the professor who appeared to have forgotten his former

reserve and was working up to an enthusiastic pitch with his own words.

“We are going to witness great events,” he continued. “Fortunate are

those born in this epoch, the most interesting in history! At this

very moment, humanity is changing its course. Now the true civilization

begins.”

The war, according to him, was going to be of a brevity hitherto unseen.

Germany had been preparing herself to bring about this event without

any long, economic world-disturbance. A single month would be enough

to crush France, the most to be feared of their adversaries. Then they

would march against Russia, who with her slow, clumsy movements could

not oppose an immediate defense. Finally they would attack haughty

England, so isolated in its archipelago that it could not obstruct the

sweep of German progress. This would make a series of rapid blows and

overwhelming victories, requiring only a summer in which to play this

magnificent role. The fall of the leaves in the following autumn would

greet the definite triumph of Germany.

With the assurance of a professor who does not expect his dictum to be

refuted by his hearers, he explained the superiority of the German

race. All mankind was divided into two groups--dolicephalous and the

brachicephalous, according to the shape of the skull. Another scientific

classification divided men into the light-haired and dark-haired. The

dolicephalous (arched heads) represented purity of race and superior

mentality. The brachicephalous (flat heads) were mongrels with all the

stigma of degeneration. The German, dolicephalous par excellence, was

the only descendant of the primitive Aryans. All the other nations,

especially those of the south of Europe called “latins,” belonged to a

degenerate humanity.

The Spaniard could not contain himself any longer. “But no person with

any intelligence believes any more in those antique theories of race!

What if there no longer existed a people of absolutely pure blood, owing

to thousands of admixtures due to historical conquests!” . . . Many

Germans bore the identical ethnic marks which the professor was

attributing to the inferior races.

“There is something in that,” admitted Hartrott, “but although the

German race may not be perfectly pure, it is the least impure of all

races and, therefore, should have dominion over the world.”

His voice took on an ironic and cutting edge when speaking of the Celts,

inhabitants of the lands of the South. They had retarded the progress

of Humanity, deflecting it in the wrong direction. The Celt is

individualistic and consequently an ungovernable revolutionary who tends

to socialism. Furthermore, he is a humanitarian and makes a virtue

of mercy, defending the existence of the weak who do not amount to

anything.

The illustrious German places above everything else, Method and Power.

Elected by Nature to command the impotent races, he possesses all

the qualifications that distinguish the superior leader. The French

Revolution was merely a clash between Teutons and Celts. The nobility of

France were descended from Germanic warriors established in the country

after the so-called invasion of the barbarians. The middle and lower

classes were the Gallic-Celtic element. The inferior race had conquered

the superior, disorganizing the country and perturbing the world.

Celtism was the inventor of Democracy, of the doctrines of Socialism and

Anarchy. Now the hour of Germanic retaliation was about to strike, and

the Northern race would re-establish order, since God had favored it by

demonstrating its indisputable superiority.

“A nation,” he added, “can aspire to great destinies only when it is

fundamentally Teutonic. The less German it is, the less its civilization

amounts to. We represent ‘the aristocracy of humanity,’ ‘the salt of the

earth,’ as our William said.”

Argensola was listening with astonishment to this outpouring of conceit.

All the great nations had passed through the fever of Imperialism. The

Greeks aspired to world-rule because they were the most civilized and

believed themselves the most fit to give civilization to the rest of

mankind. The Romans, upon conquering countries, implanted law and the

rule of justice. The French of the Revolution and the Empire justified

their invasions on the plea that they wished to liberate mankind and

spread abroad new ideas. Even the Spaniards of the sixteenth century,

when battling with half of Europe for religious unity and the

extermination of heresy, were working toward their ideals obscure and

perhaps erroneous, but disinterested.

All the nations of history had been struggling for something which they

had considered generous and above their own interests. Germany alone,

according to this professor, was trying to impose itself upon the

world in the name of racial superiority--a superiority that nobody had

recognized, that she was arrogating to herself, coating her affirmations

with a varnish of false science.

“Until now wars have been carried on by the soldiery,” continued

Hartrott. “That which is now going to begin will be waged by a

combination of soldiers and professors. In its preparation the

University has taken as much part as the military staff. German

science, leader of all sciences, is united forever with what the Latin

revolutionists disdainfully term militarism. Force, mistress of the

world, is what creates right, that which our truly unique civilization

imposes. Our armies are the representatives of our culture, and in a

few weeks we shall free the world from its decadence, completely

rejuvenating it.”

The vision of the immense future of his race was leading him on to

expose himself with lyrical enthusiasm. William I, Bismarck, all the

heroes of past victories, inspired his veneration, but he spoke of them

as dying gods whose hour had passed. They were glorious ancestors of

modest pretensions who had confined their activities to enlarging the

frontiers, and to establishing the unity of the Empire, afterwards

opposing themselves with the prudence of valetudinarians to the

daring of the new generation. Their ambitions went no further than a

continental hegemony . . . but now William II had leaped into the arena,

the complex hero that the country required.

“Lamprecht, my master, has pictured his greatness. It is tradition and

the future, method and audacity. Like his grandfather, the Emperor holds

the conviction of what monarchy by the grace of God represents, but his

vivid and modern intelligence recognizes and accepts modern conditions.

At the same time that he is romantic, feudal and a supporter of the

agrarian conservatives, he is also an up-to-date man who seeks practical

solutions and shows a utilitarian spirit. In him are correctly balanced

instinct and reason.”

Germany, guided by this hero, had, according to Hartrott, been

concentrating its strength, and recognizing its true path. The

Universities supported him even more unanimously than the army. Why

store up so much power and maintain it without employment? . . . The

empire of the world belongs to the German people. The historians and

philosophers, disciples of Treitschke, were taking it upon themselves

to frame the rights that would justify this universal domination. And

Lamprecht, the psychological historian, like the other professors, was

launching the belief in the absolute superiority of the Germanic race.

It was just that it should rule the world, since it only had the power

to do so. This “telurian germanization” was to be of immense benefit

to mankind. The earth was going to be happy under the dictatorship of a

people born for mastery. The German state, “tentacular potency,” would

eclipse with its glory the most imposing empire of the past and present.

Gott mit uns!

“Who will be able to deny, as my master says, that there exists a

Christian, German God, the ‘Great Ally,’ who is showing himself to our

enemies, the foreigners, as a strong and jealous divinity?” . . .

Desnoyers was listening to his cousin with astonishment and at the same

time looking at Argensola who, with a flutter of his eyes, seemed to be

saying to him, “He is mad! These Germans are simply mad with pride.”

Meanwhile, the professor, unable to curb his enthusiasm, continued

expounding the grandeur of his race. From his viewpoint, the

providential Kaiser had shown inexplicable weakenings. He was too good

and too kind. “Deliciae generis humani,” as had said Professor Lasson,

another of Hartrott’s masters. Able to overthrow everything with

his annihilating power, the Emperor was limiting himself merely to

maintaining peace. But the nation did not wish to stop there, and was

pushing its leader until it had him started. It was useless now to put

on the brakes. “He who does not advance recedes”;--that was the cry of

PanGermanism to the Emperor. He must press on in order to conquer the

entire world.

“And now war comes,” continued the pedant. “We need the colonies of the

others, even though Bismarck, through an error of his stubborn old age,

exacted nothing at the time of universal distribution, letting England

and France get possession of the best lands. We must control all

countries that have Germanic blood and have been civilized by our

forbears.”

Hartrott enumerated these countries. Holland and Belgium were German.

France, through the Franks, was one-third Teutonic blood. Italy. . . .

Here the professor hesitated, recalling the fact that this nation

was still an ally, certainly a little insecure, but still united by

diplomatic bonds. He mentioned, nevertheless, the Longobards and other

races coming from the North. Spain and Portugal had been populated by

the ruddy Goth and also belonged to the dominant race. And since the

majority of the nations of America were of Spanish and Portuguese

origin, they should also be included in this recovery.

“It is a little premature to think of these last nations just yet,”

added the Doctor modestly, “but some day the hour of justice will sound.

After our continental triumph, we shall have time to think of their

fate. . . . North America also should receive our civilizing influence,

for there are living millions of Germans who have created its

greatness.”

He was talking of the future conquests as though they were marks of

distinction with which his country was going to favor other countries.

These were to continue living politically the same as before with

their individual governments, but subject to the Teutons, like minors

requiring the strong hand of a master. They would form the Universal

United States, with an hereditary and all-powerful president--the

Emperor of Germany--receiving all the benefits of Germanic culture,

working disciplined under his industrial direction. . . . But the world

is ungrateful, and human badness always opposes itself to progress.

“We have no illusions,” sighed the professor, with lofty sadness. “We

have no friends. All look upon us with jealousy, as dangerous beings,

because we are the most intelligent, the most active, and have proved

ourselves superior to all others. . . . But since they no longer love

us, let them fear us! As my friend Mann says, although Kultur is the

spiritual organization of the world, it does not exclude bloody savagery

when that becomes necessary. Kultur sanctifies the demon within us, and

is above morality, reason and science. We are going to impose Kultur by

force of the cannon.”

Argensola continued, saying with his eyes, “They are crazy, crazy with

pride! . . . What can the world expect of such people!”

Desnoyers here intervened in order to brighten this gloomy monologue

with a little optimism. War had not yet been positively declared. The

diplomats were still trying to arrange matters. Perhaps it might all

turn out peaceably at the last minute, as had so often happened before.

His cousin was seeing things entirely distorted by an aggressive

enthusiasm.

Oh, the ironical, ferocious and cutting smile of the Doctor! Argensola

had never known old Madariaga, but it, nevertheless, occurred to him

that in this fashion sharks must smile, although he, too, had never seen

a shark.

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

knew that war was inevitable.”

The certainty with which he said this dissipated all Julio’s hope.

Moreover, this man’s trip, on the pretext of seeing his mother,

disquieted him. . . . On what mission had Doctor Julius von Hartrott

come to Paris? . . .

“Well, then,” asked Desnoyers, “why so many diplomatic interviews? Why

does the German government intervene at all--although in such a lukewarm

way--in the struggle between Austria and Servia. . . . Would it not be

better to declare war right out?”

The professor replied with simplicity: “Our government undoubtedly

wishes that the others should declare the war. The role of outraged

dignity is always the most pleasing one and justifies all ulterior

resolutions, however extreme they may seem. There are some of our people

who are living comfortably and do not desire war. It is expedient to

make them believe that those who impose it upon us are our enemies so

that they may feel the necessity of defending themselves. Only superior

minds reach the conviction of the great advancement that can be

accomplished by the sword alone, and that war, as our grand Treitschke

says, is the highest form of progress.”

Again he smiled with a ferocious expression. Morality, from his point of

view, should exist among individuals only to make them more obedient

and disciplined, for morality per se impedes governments and should be

suppressed as a useless obstacle. For the State there exists neither

truth nor falsehood; it only recognizes the utility of things. The

glorious Bismarck, in order to consummate the war with France, the base

of German grandeur, had not hesitated to falsify a telegraphic despatch.

“And remember, that he is the most glorious hero of our time! History

looks leniently upon his heroic feat. Who would accuse the one who

triumphs? . . . Professor Hans Delbruck has written with reason,

‘Blessed be the hand that falsified the telegram of Ems!’”

It was convenient to have the war break out immediately, in order that

events might result favorably for Germany, whose enemies are totally

unprepared. Preventive war was recommended by General Bernhardi and

other illustrious patriots. It would be dangerous indeed to defer the

declaration of war until the enemies had fortified themselves so that

they should be the ones to make war. Besides, to the Germans what kind

of deterrents could law and other fictions invented by weak nations

possibly be? . . . No; they had the Power, and Power creates new laws.

If they proved to be the victors, History would not investigate too

closely the means by which they had conquered. It was Germany that was

going to win, and the priests of all cults would finally sanctify with

their chants the blessed war--if it led to triumph.

“We are not making war in order to punish the Servian regicides, nor to

free the Poles, nor the others oppressed by Russia, stopping there in

admiration of our disinterested magnanimity. We wish to wage it because

we are the first people of the earth and should extend our activity over

the entire planet. Germany’s hour has sounded. We are going to take

our place as the powerful Mistress of the World, the place which Spain

occupied in former centuries, afterwards France, and England to-day.

What those people accomplished in a struggle of many years we are going

to bring about in four months. The storm-flag of the Empire is now going

to wave over nations and oceans; the sun is going to shine on a great

slaughter. . . .

“Old Rome, sick unto death, called ‘barbarians’ the Germans who opened

the grave. The world to-day also smells death and will surely call us

barbarians. . . . So be it! When Tangiers and Toulouse, Amberes and

Calais have become submissive to German barbarism . . . then we will

speak further of this matter. We have the power, and who has that

needs neither to hesitate nor to argue. . . . Power! . . . That is the

beautiful word--the only word that rings true and clear. . . . Power!

One sure stab and all argument is answered forever!”

“But are you so sure of victory?” asked Desnoyers. “Sometimes Destiny

gives us great surprises. There are hidden forces that we must take into

consideration or they may overturn the best-laid plans.”

The smile of the Doctor became increasingly scornful and arrogant.

Everything had been foreseen and studied out long ago with the most

minute Germanic method. What had they to fear? . . . The enemy most to

be reckoned with was France, incapable of resisting the enervating moral

influences, the sufferings, the strain and the privations of war;--a

nation physically debilitated and so poisoned by revolutionary spirit

that it had laid aside the use of arms through an exaggerated love of

comfort.

“Our generals,” he announced, “are going to leave her in such a state

that she will never again cross our path.”

There was Russia, too, to consider, but her amorphous masses were slow

to assemble and unwieldy to move. The Executive Staff of Berlin had

timed everything by measure for crushing France in four weeks, and would

then lead its enormous forces against the Russian empire before it could

begin action.

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

professor triumphantly.

But guessing at some objection from his cousin, he hastened on--“I know

what you are going to tell me. There remains another enemy, one that has

not yet leaped into the lists but which all the Germans are waiting for.

That one inspires more hatred than all the others put together, because

it is of our blood, because it is a traitor to the race. . . . Ah, how

we loathe it!”

And in the tone in which these words were uttered throbbed an expression

of hatred and a thirst for vengeance which astonished both listeners.

“Even though England attack us,” continued Hartrott, “we shall conquer,

notwithstanding. This adversary is not more terrible than the others.

For the past century she has ruled the world. Upon the fall of Napoleon

she seized the continental hegemony, and will fight to keep it. But

what does her energy amount to? . . . As our Bernhardi says, the English

people are merely a nation of renters and sportsmen. Their army is

formed from the dregs of the nation. The country lacks military spirit.

We are a people of warriors, and it will be an easy thing for us to

conquer the English, debilitated by a false conception of life.”

The Doctor paused and then added: “We are counting on the internal

corruption of our enemies, on their lack of unity. God will aid us by

sowing confusion among these detested people. In a few days you will see

His hand. Revolution is going to break out in France at the same time

as war. The people of Paris will build barricades in the streets and

the scenes of the Commune will repeat themselves. Tunis, Algiers and all

their other possessions are about to rise against the metropolis.”

Argensola seized the opportunity to smile with an aggressive

incredulity.

“I repeat it,” insisted Hartrott, “that this country is going to have

internal revolution and colonial insurrection. I know perfectly

well what I am talking about. . . . Russia also will break out into

revolution with a red flag that will force the Czar to beg for mercy on

his knees. You have only to read in the papers of the recent strikes

in Saint Petersburg, and the manifestations of the strikers with the

pretext of President Poincare’s visit. . . . England will see her

appeals to her colonies completely ignored. India is going to rise

against her, and Egypt, too, will seize this opportunity for her

emancipation.”

Julio was beginning to be impressed by these affirmations enunciated

with such oracular certainty, and he felt almost irritated at the

incredulous Argensola, who continued looking insolently at the seer,

repeating with his winking eyes, “He is insane--insane with pride.” The

man certainly must have strong reasons for making such awful prophecies.

His presence in Paris just at this time was difficult for Desnoyers to

understand, and gave to his words a mysterious authority.

“But the nations will defend themselves,” he protested to his cousin.

“Victory will not be such a very simple thing as you imagine.”

“Yes, they will defend themselves, and the struggle will be fiercely

contested. It appears that, of late years, France has been paying some

attention to her army. We shall undoubtedly encounter some resistance;

triumph may be somewhat difficult, but we are going to prevail. . . .

You have no idea to what extent the offensive power of Germany has

attained. Nobody knows with certainty beyond the frontiers. If our foes

should comprehend it in all its immensity, they would fall on their

knees beforehand to beg for mercy, thus obviating the necessity for

useless sacrifices.”

There was a long silence. Julius von Hartrott appeared lost in reverie.

The very thought of the accumulated strength of his race submerged him

in a species of mystic adoration.

“The preliminary victory,” he suddenly exclaimed, “we gained some time

ago. Our enemies, therefore, hate us, and yet they imitate us. All that

bears the stamp of Germany is in demand throughout the world. The very

countries that are trying to resist our arms copy our methods in their

universities and admire our theories, even those which do not attain

success in Germany. Oftentimes we laugh among ourselves, like the Roman

augurs, upon seeing the servility with which they follow us! . . . And

yet they will not admit our superiority!”

For the first time, Argensola’s eyes and general expression approved the

words of Hartrott. What he had just said was only too true--the world

was a victim of “the German superstition.” An intellectual cowardice,

the fear of Force had made it admire en masse and indiscriminately,

everything of Teutonic origin, just because of the intensity of its

glitter--gold mixed with talcum. The so-called Latins, dazed with

admiration, were, with unreasonable pessimism, becoming doubtful of

their ability, and thus were the first to decree their own death. And

the conceited Germans merely had to repeat the words of these pessimists

in order to strengthen their belief in their own superiority.

With that Southern temperament, which leaps rapidly from one extreme

to another, many Latins had proclaimed that in the world of the

future, there would be no place for the Latin peoples, now in their

death-agony--adding that Germany alone preserved the latent forces

of civilization. The French who declaimed among themselves, with the

greatest exaggeration, unconscious that folks were listening the other

side of the door, had proclaimed repeatedly for many years past, that

France was degenerating rapidly and would soon vanish from the earth.

. . . Then why should they resent the scorn of their enemies. . . . Why

shouldn’t the Germans share in their beliefs?

The professor, misinterpreting the silent agreement of the Spaniard who

until then had been listening with such a hostile smile, added:

“Now is the time to try out in France the German culture, implanting it

there as conquerors.”

Here Argensola interrupted, “And what if there is no such thing as

German culture, as a celebrated Teuton says?” It had become necessary

to contradict this pedant who had become insufferable with his egotism.

Hartrott almost jumped from his chair on hearing such a doubt.

“What German is that?”

“Nietzsche.”

The professor looked at him pityingly. Nietzsche had said to mankind,

“Be harsh!” affirming that “a righteous war sanctifies every cause.”

He had exalted Bismarck; he had taken part in the war of ‘70; he was

glorifying Germany when he spoke of “the smiling lion,” and “the blond

beast.” But Argensola listened with the tranquillity of one sure of his

ground. Oh, hours of placid reading near the studio chimney, listening

to the rain beating against the pane! . . .

“The philosopher did say that,” he admitted, “and he said many other

very different things, like all great thinkers. His doctrine is one of

pride, but of individual pride, not that of a nation or race. He always

spoke against ‘the insidious fallacy of race.’”

Argensola recalled his philosophy word for word. Culture, according

to Nietzsche, was “unity of style in all the manifestations of life.”

Science did not necessarily include culture. Great knowledge might be

accompanied with great barbarity, by the absence of style or by the

chaotic confusion of all styles. Germany, according to the philosopher,

had no genuine culture owing to its lack of style. “The French,” he had

said, “were at the head of an authentic and fruitful culture, whatever

their valor might be, and until now everybody had drawn upon it.” Their

hatreds were concentrated within their own country. “I cannot endure

Germany. The spirit of servility and pettiness penetrates everywhere.

. . . I believe only in French culture, and what the rest of Europe calls

culture appears to me to be a mistake. The few individual cases of lofty

culture that I met in Germany were of French origin.”

“You know,” continued Argensola, “that in quarrelling with Wagner about

the excess of Germanism in his art, Nietzsche proclaimed the necessity

of mediterraneanizing music. His ideal was a culture for all Europe, but

with a Latin base.”

Julius von Hartrott replied most disdainfully to this, repeating the

Spaniard’s very words. Men who thought much said many things. Besides,

Nietzsche was a poet, completely demented at his death, and was no

authority among the University sages. His fame had only been recognized

in foreign lands. . . . And he paid no further attention to the youth,

ignoring him as though he had evaporated into thin air after his

presumption. All the professor’s attention was now concentrated on

Desnoyers.

“This country,” he resumed, “is dying from within. How can you doubt

that revolution will break out the minute war is declared? . . .

Have you not noticed the agitation of the boulevard on account of the

Caillaux trial? Reactionaries and revolutionists have been assaulting

each other for the past three days. I have seen them challenging one

another with shouts and songs as if they were going to come to blows

right in the middle of the street. This division of opinion will become

accentuated when our troops cross the frontier. It will then be civil

war. The anti-militarists are clamoring mournfully, believing that it

is in the power of the government to prevent the clash. . . . A country

degenerated by democracy and by the inferiority of the triumphant Celt,

greedy for full liberty! . . . We are the only free people on earth

because we know how to obey.”

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

“It is so,” persisted Hartrott energetically. “We have the liberty best

suited to a great people--economical and intellectual liberty.”

“And political liberty?”

The professor received this question with a scornful shrug.

“Political liberty! . . . Only decadent and ungovernable people,

inferior races anxious for equality and democratic confusion, talk about

political liberty. We Germans do not need it. We are a nation of masters

who recognize the sacredness of government, and we wish to be commanded

by those of superior birth. We possess the genius of organization.”

That, according to the Doctor, was the grand German secret, and the

Teutonic race upon taking possession of the world, would share its

discovery with all. The nations would then be so organized that each

individual would give the maximum of service to society. Humanity,

banded in regiments for every class of production, obeying a superior

officer, like machines contributing the greatest possible output of

labor--there you have the perfect state! Liberty was a purely negative

idea if not accompanied with a positive concept which would make it

useful.

The two friends listened with astonishment to this description of the

future which Teutonic superiority was offering to the world. Every

individual submitted to intensive production, the same as a bit of land

from which its owner wishes to get the greatest number of vegetables.

. . . Mankind reduced to mechanics. . . . No useless operations that would

not produce immediate results. . . . And the people who heralded this

awful idea were the very philosophers and idealists who had once given

contemplation and reflection the first place in their existence! . . .

Hartrott again harked back to the inferiority of their racial enemies.

In order to combat successfully, it required self-assurance, an

unquenchable confidence in the superiority of their own powers.

“At this very hour in Berlin, everyone is accepting war, everyone is

believing that victory is sure, while HERE! . . . I do not say that

the French are afraid; they have a brave past that galvanizes them at

certain times--but they are so depressed that it is easy to guess that

they will make almost any sacrifices in order to evade what is coming

upon them. The people first will shout with enthusiasm, as it always

cheers that which carries it to perdition. The upper classes have no

faith in the future; they are keeping quiet, but the presentiment of

disaster may easily be conjectured. Yesterday I was talking with your

father. He is French, and he is rich. He was indignant against the

government of his country for involving the nation in the European

conflict in order to defend a distant and uninteresting people. He

complains of the exalted patriots who have opened the abyss between

Germany and France, preventing a reconciliation. He says that Alsace and

Lorraine are not worth what a war would cost in men and money. . . .

He recognizes our greatness and is convinced that we have progressed so

rapidly that the other countries cannot come up to us. . . . And as your

father thinks, so do many others--all those who are wrapped in creature

comfort, and fear to lose it. Believe me, a country that hesitates and

fears war is conquered before the first battle.”

Julio evinced a certain disquietude, as though he would like to cut

short the conversation.

“Just leave my father out of it! He speaks that way to-day because war

is not yet an accomplished fact, and he has to contradict and vent his

indignation on whoever comes near him. To-morrow he will say just the

opposite. . . . My father is a Latin.”

The professor looked at his watch. He must go; there were still many

things which he had to do before going to the station. The Germans

living in Paris had fled in great bands as though a secret order had

been circulating among them. That afternoon the last of those who had

been living ostensibly in the Capital would depart.

“I have come to see you because of our family interest, because it was

my duty to give you fair warning. You are a foreigner, and nothing holds

you here. If you are desirous of witnessing a great historic event,

remain--but it will be better for you to go. The war is going to be

ruthless, very ruthless, and if Paris attempts resistance, as formerly,

we shall see terrible things. Modes of offense have greatly changed.”

Desnoyers made a gesture of indifference.

“The same as your father,” observed the professor. “Last night he and

all your family responded in the same way. Even my mother prefers to

remain with her sister, saying that the Germans are very good, very

civilized and there is nothing to apprehend in their triumph.”

This good opinion seemed to be troubling the Doctor.

“They don’t understand what modern warfare means. They ignore the fact

that our generals have studied the art of overcoming the enemy and they

will apply it mercilessly. Ruthlessness is the only means, since

it perturbs the intelligence of the enemy, paralyzes his action and

pulverizes his resistance. The more ferocious the war, the more

quickly it is concluded. To punish with cruelty is to proceed humanely.

Therefore, Germany is going to be cruel with a cruelty hitherto unseen,

in order that the conflict may not be prolonged.”

He had risen and was standing, cane and straw hat in hand. Argensola was

looking at him with frank hostility. The professor, obliged to pass near

him, did so with a stiff and disdainful nod.

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

was brief.

“I repeat my counsel. If you do not like danger, go! It may be that I am

mistaken, and that this nation, convinced of the uselessness of defense,

may give itself up voluntarily. . . . At any rate, we shall soon see.

I shall take great pleasure in returning to Paris when the flag of the

Empire is floating over the Eiffel Tower, a mere matter of three or four

weeks, certainly by the beginning of September.”

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

a foregone conclusion.

“Paris will remain,” he admitted benevolently, “the French will remain,

because a nation is not easily suppressed; but they will not retain

their former place. We shall govern the world; they will continue to

occupy themselves in inventing fashions, in making life agreeable for

visiting foreigners; and in the intellectual world, we shall encourage

them to educate good actresses, to produce entertaining novels and to

write witty comedies. . . . Nothing more.”

Desnoyers laughed as he shook his cousin’s hand, pretending to take his

words as a paradox.

“I mean it,” insisted Hartrott. “The last hour of the French Republic as

an important nation has sounded. I have studied it at close range,

and it deserves no better fate. License and lack of confidence

above--sterile enthusiasm below.”

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

“We know all about that kind of study,” he added aggressively. “We are

accustomed to examine the nations of the past, to dissect them fibre by

fibre, so that we recognize at a glance the psychology of the living.”

The Bohemian fancied that he saw a surgeon talking self-sufficiently

about the mysteries of the will before a corpse. What did this pedantic

interpreter of dead documents know about life? . . .

When the door closed, he approached his friend who was returning

somewhat dismayed. Argensola no longer considered Doctor Julius von

Hartrott crazy.

“What a brute!” he exclaimed, throwing up his hands. “And to think that

they are at large, these originators of gloomy errors! . . . Who would

ever believe that they belong to the same land that produced Kant, the

pacifist, the serene Goethe and Beethoven! . . . To think that for so

many years, we have believed that they were forming a nation of dreamers

and philosophers occupied in working disinterestedly for all

mankind! . . .”

The sentence of a German geographer recurred to him: “The German is

bicephalous; with one head he dreams and poetizes while with the other

he thinks and executes.”

Desnoyers was now beginning to feel depressed at the certainty of war.

This professor seemed to him even worse than the Herr Counsellor and the

other Germans that he had met on the steamer. His distress was not only

because of his selfish thought as to how the catastrophe was going to

affect his plans with Marguerite. He was suddenly discovering that

in this hour of uncertainty he loved France. He recognized it as his

father’s native land and the scene of the great Revolution. . . .

Although he had never mixed in political campaigns, he was a republican

at heart, and had often ridiculed certain of his friends who adored

kings and emperors, thinking it a great sign of distinction.

Argensola tried to cheer him up.

“Who knows? . . . This is a country of surprises. One must see the

Frenchman when he tries to remedy his want of foresight. Let that

barbarian of a cousin of yours say what he will--there is order, there

is enthusiasm. . . . Worse off than we were those who lived in the days

before Valmy. Entirely disorganized, their only defense battalions of

laborers and countrymen handling a gun for the first time. . . . But,

nevertheless, the Europe of the old monarchies could not for twenty

years free themselves from these improvised warriors!”

CHAPTER V

IN WHICH APPEAR THE FOUR HORSEMEN

The two friends now lived a feverish life, considerably accelerated by

the rapidity with which events succeeded each other. Every hour brought

forth an astonishing bit of news--generally false--which changed

opinions very suddenly. As soon as the danger of war seemed arrested,

the report would spread that mobilization was going to be ordered within

a few minutes.

Within each twenty-four hours were compressed the disquietude, anxiety

and nervous waste of a normal year. And that which was aggravating the

situation still more was the uncertainty, the expectation of the

event, feared but still invisible, the distress on account of a danger

continually threatening but never arriving.

History in the making was like a stream overflowing its banks, events

overlapping each other like the waves of an inundation. Austria was

declaring war with Servia while the diplomats of the great powers were

continuing their efforts to stem the tide. The electric web girdling the

planet was vibrating incessantly in the depths of the ocean and on the

peaks of the continents, transmitting alternate hopes and fears.

Russia was mobilizing a part of its army. Germany, with its troops in

readiness under the pretext of manoeuvres, was decreeing the state of

“threatened war.” The Austrians, regardless of the efforts of diplomacy,

were beginning the bombardment of Belgrade. William II, fearing that the

intervention of the Powers might settle the differences between the

Czar and the Emperor of Austria, was forcing the course of events by

declaring war upon Russia. Then Germany began isolating herself, cutting

off railroad and telegraphic communications in order to shroud in

mystery her invading forces.

France was watching this avalanche of events, temperate in its words and

enthusiasm. A cool and grave resolution was noticeable everywhere. Two

generations had come into the world, informed as soon as they reached

a reasonable age, that some day there would undoubtedly be war. Nobody

wanted it; the adversary imposed it. . . . But all were accepting it

with the firm intention of fulfilling their duty.

During the daytime Paris was very quiet, concentrating the mind on

the work in hand. Only a few groups of exalted patriots, following the

tricolored flag, were passing through the place de la Concorde, in order

to salute the statue of Strasbourg. The people were accosting each other

in a friendly way in the streets. Everybody seemed to know everybody

else, although they might not have met before. Eye attracted eye,

and smiles appeared to broaden mutually with the sympathy of a common

interest. The women were sad but speaking cheerily in order to hide

their emotions. In the long summer twilight, the boulevards were filling

with crowds. Those from the outlying districts were converging toward

the centre of the city, as in the remote revolutionary days, banding

together in groups, forming an endless multitude from which came shouts

and songs. These manifestations were passing through the centre under

the electric lights that were just being turned on, the processions

generally lasting until midnight, with the national banner floating

above the walking crowds, escorted by the flags of other nations.

It was on one of these nights of sincere enthusiasm that the two friends

heard an unexpected, astonishing piece of news. “They have killed

Jaures!” The groups were repeating it from one to another with an

amazement which seemed to overpower their grief. “Jaures assassinated!

And what for?” The best popular element, which instinctively seeks an

explanation of every proceeding, remained in suspense, not knowing

which way to turn. The tribune dead, at the very moment that his word as

welder of the people was most needed! . . .

Argensola thought immediately of Tchernoff. “What will our neighbors

say?” . . . The quiet, orderly people of Paris were fearing a

revolution, and for a few moments Desnoyers believed that his cousin’s

auguries were about to be fulfilled. This assassination, with its

retaliations, might be the signal for civil war. But the masses of the

people, worn out with grief at the death of their hero, were waiting in

tragic silence. All were seeing, beyond his dead body, the image of the

country.

By the following morning, the danger had vanished. The laboring classes

were talking of generals and war, showing each other their little

military memorandums, announcing the date of their departure as soon as

the order of mobilization should be published. “I go the second day.” “I

the first.” Those of the standing army who were on leave were recalled

individually to the barracks. All these events were tending in the same

direction--war.

The Germans were invading Luxembourg; the Germans were ordering their

armies to invade the French frontier when their ambassador was still in

Paris making promises of peace. On the day after the death of Jaures,

the first of August, the people were crowding around some pieces of

paper, written by hand and in evident haste. These papers were copies of

other larger printed sheets, headed by two crossed flags. “It has come;

it is now a fact!”. . . It was the order for general mobilization. All

France was about to take up arms, and chests seemed to expand with a

sigh of relief. Eyes were sparkling with excitement. The nightmare was

at last over! . . . Cruel reality was preferable to the uncertainty of

days and days, each as long as a week.

In vain President Poincare, animated by a last hope, was explaining to

the French that “mobilization is not necessarily war, that a call to

arms may be simply a preventive measure.” “It is war, inevitable war,”

said the populace with a fatalistic expression. And those who were going

to start that very night or the following day were the most eager and

enthusiastic.--“Now those who seek us are going to find us! Vive la

France!” The Chant du Depart, the martial hymn of the volunteers of the

first Republic, had been exhumed by the instinct of a people which

seek the voice of Art in its most critical moments. The stanzas of the

conservative Chenier, adapted to a music of warlike solemnity, were

resounding through the streets, at the same time as the Marseillaise:

La Republique nous appelle.

Sachons vaincre ou sachons perir;

Un francais doit vivre pour elle.

Pour elle un francais doit mourir.

The mobilization began at midnight to the minute. At dusk, groups of men

began moving through the streets towards the stations. Their families

were walking beside them, carrying the valise or bundle of clothes.

They were escorted by the friends of their district, the tricolored flag

borne aloft at the head of these platoons. The Reserves were donning

their old uniforms which presented all the difficulties of suits long

ago forgotten. With new leather belts and their revolvers at their

sides, they were betaking themselves to the railway which was to carry

them to the point of concentration. One of their children was carrying

the old sword in its cloth sheath. The wife was hanging on his arm,

sad and proud at the same time, giving her last counsels in a loving

whisper.

Street cars, automobiles and cabs rolled by with crazy velocity. Nobody

had ever seen so many vehicles in the Paris streets, yet if anybody

needed one, he called in vain to the conductors, for none wished to

serve mere civilians. All means of transportation were for military

men, all roads ended at the railroad stations. The heavy trucks of the

administration, filled with sacks, were saluted with general enthusiasm.

“Hurrah for the army!” The soldiers in mechanic’s garb, on top of the

swaying pyramid, replied to the cheers, waving their arms and uttering

shouts that nobody pretended to understand.

Fraternity had created a tolerance hitherto unknown. The crowds were

pressing forward, but in their encounters, invariably preserved good

order. Vehicles were running into each other, and when the conductors

resorted to the customary threats, the crowds would intervene and make

them shake hands. “Three cheers for France!” The pedestrians, escaping

between the wheels of the automobiles were laughing and good-naturedly

reproaching the chauffeur with, “Would you kill a Frenchman on his way

to his regiment?” and the conductor would reply, “I, too, am going in

a few hours. This is my last trip.” As night approached, cars and cabs

were running with increasing irregularity, many of the employees having

abandoned their posts to take leave of their families and make the

train. All the life of Paris was concentrating itself in a half-dozen

human rivers emptying in the stations.

Desnoyers and Argensola met in a boulevard cafe toward midnight. Both

were exhausted by the day’s emotions and under that nervous depression

which follows noisy and violent spectacles. They needed to rest. War

was a fact, and now that it was a certainty, they felt no anxiety to get

further news. Remaining in the cafe proved impossible. In the hot and

smoky atmosphere, the occupants were singing and shouting and waving

tiny flags. All the battle hymns of the past and present were here

intoned in chorus, to an accompaniment of glasses and plates. The

rather cosmopolitan clientele was reviewing the European nations. All,

absolutely all, were going to enroll themselves on the side of France.

“Hurrah! . . . Hurrah!” . . . An old man and his wife were seated at a

table near the two friends. They were tenants, of an orderly, humdrum

walk in life, who perhaps in all their existence had never been awake at

such an hour. In the general enthusiasm they had come to the boulevards

“in order to see war a little closer.” The foreign tongue used by his

neighbors gave the husband a lofty idea of their importance.

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

Argensola knew as much about it as he, but he replied authoritatively,

“Of course she will. That’s a sure thing!” The old man rose to his feet:

“Hurrah for England!” and he began chanting a forgotten patriotic song,

marking time with his arms in a spirited way, to the great admiration

of his old wife, and urging all to join in the chorus that very few were

able to follow.

The two friends had to take themselves home on foot. They could not find

a vehicle that would stop for them; all were hurrying in the opposite

direction toward the stations. They were both in a bad humor, but

Argensola couldn’t keep his to himself.

“Ah, these women!” Desnoyers knew all about his relations (so far

honorable) with a midinette from the rue Taitbout. Sunday strolls in the

suburbs of Paris, various trips to the moving picture shows, comments

upon the fine points of the latest novel published in the sheets of a

popular paper, kisses of farewell when she took the night train from

Bois Colombes in order to sleep at home--that was all. But Argensola was

wickedly counting on Father Time to mellow the sharpest virtues. That

evening they had taken some refreshment with a French friend who was

going the next morning to join his regiment. The girl had sometimes

seen him with Argensola without noticing him particularly, but now she

suddenly began admiring him as though he were another person. She had

given up the idea of returning home that night; she wanted to see how

a war begins. The three had dined together, and all her interest had

centred upon the one who was going away. She even took offense, with

sudden modesty, when Argensola tried as he had often done before, to

squeeze her hand under the table. Meanwhile she was almost leaning her

head on the shoulder of the future hero, enveloping him with admiring

gaze.

“And they have gone. . . . They have gone away together!” said the

Spaniard bitterly. “I had to leave them in order not to make my hard

luck any worse. To have worked so long . . . for another!”

He was silent for a few minutes, then changing the trend of his ideas,

he added: “I recognize, nevertheless, that her behavior is beautiful.

The generosity of these women when they believe that the moment for

sacrifice has come! She is terribly afraid of her father, and yet she

stays away from home all night with a person whom she hardly knows, and

whom she was not even thinking of in the middle of the afternoon! . . .

The entire nation feels gratitude toward those who are going to imperil

their lives, and she, poor child, wishing to do something, too, for

those destined for death, to give them a little pleasure in their last

hour . . . is giving the best she has, that which she can never recover.

I have sketched her role poorly, perhaps. . . . Laugh at me if you want

to, but admit that it is beautiful.”

Desnoyers laughed heartily at his friend’s discomfiture, in spite of the

fact that he, too, was suffering a good deal of secret annoyance. He had

seen Marguerite but once since the day of his return. The only news of

her that he had received was by letter. . . . This cursed war! What an

upset for happy people! Marguerite’s mother was ill. She was brooding

over the departure of her son, an officer, on the first day of the

mobilization. Marguerite, too, was uneasy about her brother and did not

think it expedient to come to the studio while her mother was grieving

at home. When was this situation ever to end? . . .

That check for four hundred thousand francs which he had brought from

America was also worrying him. The day before, the bank had declined to

pay it for lack of the customary official advice. Afterward they said

that they had received the advice, but did not give him the money. That

very afternoon, when the trust companies had closed their doors, the

government had already declared a moratorium, in order to prevent a

general bankruptcy due to the general panic. When would they pay him?

. . . Perhaps when the war which had not yet begun was ended--perhaps

never. He had no other money available except the two thousand francs

left over from his travelling expenses. All of his friends were in the

same distressing situation, unable to draw on the sums which they had in

the banks. Those who had any money were obliged to go from shop to shop,

or form in line at the bank doors, in order to get a bill changed. Oh,

this war! This stupid war!

In the Champs Elysees, they saw a man with a broad-brimmed hat who

was walking slowly ahead of them and talking to himself. Argensola

recognized him as he passed near the street lamp, “Friend Tchernoff.”

Upon returning their greeting, the Russian betrayed a slight odor of

wine. Uninvited, he had adjusted his steps to theirs, accompanying them

toward the Arc de Triomphe.

Julio had merely exchanged silent nods with Argensola’s new acquaintance

when encountering him in the vestibule; but sadness softens the heart

and makes us seek the friendship of the humble as a refreshing shelter.

Tchernoff, on the contrary, looked at Desnoyers as though he had known

him all his life.

The man had interrupted his monologue, heard only by the black masses

of vegetation, the blue shadows perforated by the reddish tremors of

the street lights, the summer night with its cupola of warm breezes and

twinkling stars. He took a few steps without saying anything, as a mark

of consideration to his companions, and then renewed his arguments,

taking them up where he had broken off, without offering any

explanation, as though he were still talking to himself. . . .

“And at this very minute, they are shouting with enthusiasm the same as

they are doing here, honestly believing that they are going to defend

their outraged country, wishing to die for their families and firesides

that nobody has threatened.”

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

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

“They,” he said laconically.

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

“I have lived ten years in Germany,” he continued, connecting up his

words, now that he found himself listened to. “I was daily correspondent

for a paper in Berlin and I know these people. Passing along these

thronged boulevards, I have been seeing in my imagination what must be

happening there at this hour. They, too, are singing and shouting with

enthusiasm as they wave their flags. On the outside, they seem just

alike--but oh, what a difference within! . . . Last night the people

beset a few babblers in the boulevard who were yelling, ‘To Berlin!’--a

slogan of bad memories and worse taste. France does not wish

conquests; her only desire is to be respected, to live in peace without

humiliations or disturbances. To-night two of the mobilized men said on

leaving, ‘When we enter Germany we are going to make it a republic!’

. . . A republic is not a perfect thing, but it is better than living

under an irresponsible monarchy by the grace of God. It at least

presupposes tranquillity and absence of the personal ambitions that

disturb life. I was impressed by the generous thought of these laboring

men who, instead of wishing to exterminate their enemies, were planning

to give them something better.”

Tchernoff remained silent a few minutes, smiling ironically at the

picture which his imagination was calling forth.

“In Berlin, the masses are expressing their enthusiasm in the lofty

phraseology befitting a superior people. Those in the lowest classes,

accustomed to console themselves for humiliations with a gross

materialism, are now crying ‘Nach Paris! We are going to drink champagne

gratis!’ The pietistic burgher, ready to do anything to attain a new

honor, and the aristocracy which has given the world the greatest

scandals of recent years, are also shouting, ‘Nach Paris!’ To them Paris

is the Babylon of the deadly sin, the city of the Moulin Rouge and the

restaurants of Montmartre, the only places that they know. . . . And my

comrades of the Social-Democracy, they are also cheering, but to another

tune.--‘To-morrow! To St. Petersburg! Russian ascendency, the menace

of civilization, must be obliterated!’ The Kaiser waving the tyranny of

another country as a scarecrow to his people! . . . What a joke!”

And the loud laugh of the Russian sounded through the night like the

noise of wooden clappers.

“We are more civilized than the Germans,” he said, regaining his

self-control.

Desnoyers, who had been listening with great interest, now gave a start

of surprise, saying to himself, “This Tchernoff has been drinking.”

“Civilization,” continued the Socialist, “does not consist merely in

great industry, in many ships, armies and numerous universities that

only teach science. That is material civilization. There is another, a

superior one, that elevates the soul and does not permit human dignity

to suffer without protesting against continual humiliations. A Swiss

living in his wooden chalet and considering himself the equal of the

other men of his country, is more civilized than the Herr Professor who

gives precedence to a lieutenant, or to a Hamburg millionaire who, in

turn, bends his neck like a lackey before those whose names are prefixed

by a von.”

Here the Spaniard assented as though he could guess what Tchernoff was

going to say.

“We Russians endure great tyranny. I know something about that. I know

the hunger and cold of Siberia. . . . But opposed to our tyranny

has always existed a revolutionary protest. Part of the nation is

half-barbarian, but the rest has a superior mentality, a lofty moral

spirit which faces danger and sacrifice because of liberty and truth.

. . . And Germany? Who there has ever raised a protest in order to defend

human rights? What revolutions have ever broken out in Prussia, the land

of the great despots?

“Frederick William, the founder of militarism, when he was tired of

beating his wife and spitting in his children’s plates, used to sally

forth, thong in hand, in order to cowhide those subjects who did not get

out of his way in time. His son, Frederick the Great, declared that he

died, bored to death with governing a nation of slaves. In two centuries

of Prussian history, one single revolution--the barricades of 1848--a

bad Berlinish copy of the Paris revolution, and without any result.

Bismarck corrected with a heavy hand so as to crush completely the last

attempts at protest--if such ever really existed. And when his friends

were threatening him with revolution, the ferocious Junker, merely put

his hands on his hips and roared with the most insolent of horse laughs.

A revolution in Prussia! . . . Nothing at all, as he knew his people!”

Tchernoff was not a patriot. Many a time Argensola had heard him railing

against his country, but now he was indignant in view of the contempt

with which Teutonic haughtiness was treating the Russian nation.

Where, in the last forty years of imperial grandeur, was that universal

supremacy of which the Germans were everlastingly boasting? . . .

Excellent workers in science; tenacious and short-sighted academicians,

each wrapped in his specialty!--Benedictines of the laboratory who

experimented painstakingly and occasionally hit upon something, in spite

of enormous blunders given out as truths, because they were their own

. . . that was all! And side by side with such patient laboriosity, really

worthy of respect--what charlatanism! What great names exploited as a

shop sample! How many sages turned into proprietors of sanatoriums!

. . . A Herr Professor discovers the cure of tuberculosis, and the

tubercular keep on dying as before. Another labels with a number the

invincible remedy for the most unconfessable of diseases, and the

genital scourge continues afflicting the world. And all these errors

were representing great fortunes, each saving panacea bringing into

existence an industrial corporation selling its products at high

prices--as though suffering were a privilege of the rich. How different

from the bluff Pasteur and other clever men of the inferior races who

have given their discoveries to the world without stooping to form

monopolies!

“German science,” continued Tchernoff, “has given much to humanity, I

admit that; but the science of other nations has done as much. Only a

nation puffed up with conceit could imagine that it has done everything

for civilization, and the others nothing. . . . Apart from their learned

specialists, what genius has been produced in our day by this Germany

which believes itself so transcendent? Wagner, the last of the

romanticists, closes an epoch and belongs to the past. Nietzsche took

pains to proclaim his Polish origin and abominated Germany, a country,

according to him, of middle-class pedants. His Slavism was so pronounced

that he even prophesied the overthrow of the Prussians by the Slavs.

. . . And there are others. We, although a savage people, have given

the world of modern times an admirable moral grandeur. Tolstoi and

Dostoievsky are world-geniuses. What names can the Germany of William II

put ahead of these? . . . His country was the country of music, but the

Russian musicians of to-day are more original than the mere followers

of Wagner, the copyists who take refuge in orchestral exasperations in

order to hide their mediocrity. . . . In its time of stress the German

nation had men of genius, before Pan-Germanism had been born, when

the Empire did not exist. Goethe, Schiller, Beethoven were subjects of

little principalities. They received influence from other countries and

contributed their share to the universal civilization like citizens of

the world, without insisting that the world should, therefore, become

Germanized.”

Czarism had committed atrocities. Tchernoff knew that by experience, and

did not need the Germans to assure him of it. But all the illustrious

classes of Russia were enemies of that tyranny and were protesting

against it. Where in Germany were the intellectual enemies of Prussian

Czarism? They were either holding their peace, or breaking forth into

adulation of the anointed of the Lord--a musician and comedian like

Nero, of a sharp and superficial intelligence, who believed that by

merely skimming through anything he knew it all. Eager to strike a

spectacular pose in history, he had finally afflicted the world with the

greatest of calamities.

“Why must the tyranny that weighs upon my country necessarily be

Russian? The worst Czars were imitators of Prussia. Every time that the

Russian people of our day have attempted to revindicate their rights,

the reactionaries have used the Kaiser as a threat, proclaiming that he

would come to their aid. One-half of the Russian aristocracy is German;

the functionaries who advise and support despotism are Germans; German,

too, are the generals who have distinguished themselves by massacring

the people; German are the officials who undertake to punish the

laborers’ strikes and the rebellion of their allies. The reactionary

Slav is brutal, but he has the fine sensibility of a race in which many

princes have become Nihilists. He raises the lash with facility, but

then he repents and oftentimes weeps. I have seen Russian officials kill

themselves rather than march against the people, or through remorse

for slaughter committed. The German in the service of the Czar feels no

scruples, nor laments his conduct. He kills coldly, with the minuteness

and exactitude with which he does everything. The Russian is a barbarian

who strikes and regrets; German civilization shoots without hesitation.

Our Slav Czar, in a humanitarian dream, favored the Utopian idea of

universal peace, organizing the Conference of The Hague. The Kaiser of

culture, meanwhile, has been working years and years in the erection and

establishment of a destructive organ of an immensity heretofore unknown,

in order to crush all Europe. The Russian is a humble Christian,

socialistic, democratic, thirsting for justice; the German prides

himself upon his Christianity, but is an idolator like the German of

other centuries. His religion loves blood and maintains castes; his true

worship is that of Odin;--only that nowadays, the god of slaughter has

changed his name and calls himself, ‘The State’!”

Tchernoff paused an instant--perhaps in order to increase the wonder of

his companions--and then said with simplicity:

“I am a Christian.”

Argensola, who already knew the ideas and history of the Russian,

started with astonishment, and Julio persisted in his suspicion, “Surely

Tchernoff is drunk.”

“It is true,” declared the Russian earnestly, “that I do not worry about

God, nor do I believe in dogmas, but my soul is Christian as is that

of all revolutionists. The philosophy of modern democracy is lay

Christianity. We Socialists love the humble, the needy, the weak. We

defend their right to life and well-being, as did the greatest lights

of the religious world who saw a brother in every unfortunate. We exact

respect for the poor in the name of justice; the others ask for it in

the name of charity. That only separates us. But we strive that

mankind may, by common consent, lead a better life, that the strong may

sacrifice for the weak, the lofty for the lowly, and the world be ruled

by brotherliness, seeking the greatest equality possible.”

The Slav reviewed the history of human aspirations. Greek thought had

brought comfort, a sense of well-being on the earth--but only for the

few, for the citizens of the little democracies, for the free men,

leaving the slaves and barbarians who constituted the majority, in their

misery. Christianity, the religion of the lowly, had recognized the

right of happiness for all mankind, but this happiness was placed in

heaven, far from this world, this “vale of tears.” The Revolution

and its heirs, the Socialists, were trying to place happiness in the

immediate realities of earth, like the ancients, but making all humanity

participants in it like the Christians.

“Where is the ‘Christianity of modern Germany? . . . There is far more

genuine Christian spirit in the fraternal laity of the French Republic,

defender of the weak, than in the religiosity of the conservative

Junkers. Germany has made a god in her own image, believing that she

adores it, but in reality adoring her own image. The German God is a

reflex of the German State which considers war as the first activity of

a nation and the noblest of occupations. Other Christian peoples, when

they have to go to war, feel the contradiction that exists between

their conduct and the teachings of the Gospel, and excuse themselves by

showing the cruel necessity which impels them. Germany declares that war

is acceptable to God. I have heard German sermons proving that Jesus was

in favor of Militarism.

“Teutonic pride, the conviction that its race is providentially destined

to dominate the world, brings into working unity their Protestants,

Catholics and Jews.

“Far above their differences of dogma is that God of the State which

is German--the Warrior God to whom William is probably referring as ‘my

worthy Ally.’ Religions always tend toward universality. Their aim is to

place humanity in relationship with God, and to sustain these relations

among mankind. Prussia has retrograded to barbarism, creating for its

personal use a second Jehovah, a divinity hostile to the greater part of

the human race who makes his own the grudges and ambitions of the German

people.”

Tchernoff then explained in his own way the creation of this Teutonic

God, ambitious, cruel and vengeful. The Germans were comparatively

recent Christians. Their Christianity was not more than six centuries

old. When the Crusades were drawing to a close, the Prussians were still

living in paganism. Pride of race, impelling them to war, had revived

these dead divinities. The God of the Gospel was now adorned by the

Germans with lance and shield like the old Teutonic god who was a

military chief.

“Christianity in Berlin wears helmet and riding boots. God at this

moment is seeing Himself mobilized the same as Otto, Fritz and Franz,

in order to punish the enemies of His chosen people. That the Lord has

commanded, ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ and His Son has said to the world,

‘Blessed are the peacemakers,’ no longer matters. Christianity,

according to its German priests of all creeds, can only influence the

individual betterment of mankind, and should not mix itself in affairs

of state. The Prussian God of the State is ‘the old German God,’ the

lineal descendant of the ferocious Germanic mythology, a mixture of

divinities hungry for war.”

In the silence of the avenue, the Russian evoked the ruddy figures of

the implacable gods, that were going to awake that night upon hearing

the hum of arms and smelling the acrid odor of blood. Thor, the brutal

god with the little head, was stretching his biceps and clutching the

hammer that crushed cities. Wotan was sharpening his lance which had the

lightning for its handle, the thunder for its blade. Odin, the one-eyed,

was gaping with gluttony on the mountain-tops, awaiting the dead

warriors that would crowd around his throne. The dishevelled Valkyries,

fat and perspiring, were beginning to gallop from cloud to cloud,

hallooing to humanity that they might carry off the corpses doubled like

saddle bags, over the haunches of their flying nags.

“German religiosity,” continued the Russian, “is the disavowal of

Christianity. In its eyes, men are no longer equal before God. Their God

is interested only in the strong, and favors them with his support

so that they may dare anything. Those born weak must either submit or

disappear. Neither are nations equal, but are divided into leaders and

inferior races whose destiny is to be sifted out and absorbed by their

superiors. Since God has thus ordained, it is unnecessary to state that

the grand world-leader is Germany.”

Argensola here interrupted to observe that German pride believed itself

championed not only by God but by science, too.

“I know that,” interposed the Russian without letting him

finish--“generalization, inequality, selection, the struggle for life,

and all that. . . . The Germans, so conceited about their special worth,

erect upon distant ground their intellectual monuments, borrowing of the

foreigner their foundation material whenever they undertake a new line

of work. A Frenchman and an Englishman, Gobineau and Chamberlain, have

given them the arguments with which to defend the superiority of their

race. With the rubbish left over from Darwin and Spencer, their

old Haeckel has built up his doctrine of ‘Monism’ which, applied to

politics, scientifically consecrates Prussian pride and recognizes its

right to rule the world by force.”

“No, a thousand times no!” he exclaimed after a brief silence. “The

struggle for existence with its procession of cruelties may be

true among the lower species, but it should not be true among human

creatures. We are rational beings and ought to free ourselves from the

fatality of environment, moulding it to our convenience. The animal does

not know law, justice or compassion; he lives enslaved in the obscurity

of his instincts. We think, and thought signifies liberty. Force does

not necessarily have to be cruel; it is strongest when it does not take

advantage of its power, and is kindly. All have a right to the life into

which they are born, and since among individuals there exist the haughty

and the humble, the mighty and the weak, so should exist nations, large

and small, old and young. The end of our existence is not combat nor

killing in order that others may afterwards kill us, and, perhaps, be

killed themselves. Civilized peoples ought unanimously to adopt the idea

of southern Europe, striving for the most peaceful and sweetest form of

life possible.”

A cruel smile played over the Russian’s beard.

“But there exists that Kultur, diametrically opposed to civilization,

which the Germans wish to palm off upon us. Civilization is refinement

of spirit, respect of one’s neighbor, tolerance of foreign opinion,

courtesy of manner. Kultur is the action of a State that organizes and

assimilates individuals and communities in order to utilize them for

its own ends; and these ends consist mainly in placing ‘The State’ above

other states, overwhelming them with their grandeur--or what is the same

thing--with their haughty and violent pride.”

By this time, the three had reached the place de l’Etoile. The dark

outline of the Arc de Triomphe stood forth clearly in the starry

expanse. The avenues extended in all directions, a double file of

lights. Those around the monument illuminated its gigantic bases and the

feet of the sculptured groups. Further up, the vaulted spaces were so

locked in shadow that they had the black density of ebony.

Upon passing under the Arch, which greatly intensified the echo of their

footsteps, they came to a standstill. The night breeze had a wintry

chill as it whistled past, and the curved masses seemed melting into the

diffused blue of space. Instinctively the three turned to glance back

at the Champs Elysees. They saw only a river of shadow on which were

floating rosaries of red stars among the two long, black scarfs formed

by the buildings. But they were so well acquainted with this panorama

that in imagination they mentally saw the majestic sweep of the avenue,

the double row of palaces, the place de la Concorde in the background

with the Egyptian obelisk, and the trees of the Tuileries.

“How beautiful it is!” exclaimed Tchernoff who was seeing something

beyond the shadows. “An entire civilization, loving peace and pleasure,

has passed through here.”

A memory greatly affected the Russian. Many an afternoon, after lunch,

he had met in this very spot a robust man, stocky, with reddish beard

and kindly eyes--a man who looked like a giant who had just stopped

growing. He was always accompanied by a dog. It was Jaures, his friend

Jaures, who before going to the senate was accustomed to taking a walk

toward the Arch from his home in Passy.

“He liked to come just where we are now! He loved to look at the

avenues, the distant gardens, all of Paris which can be seen from this

height; and filled with admiration, he would often say to me, ‘This is

magnificent--one of the most beautiful perspectives that can be found in

the entire world.’ . . . Poor Jaures!”

Through association of ideas, the Russian evoked the image of his

compatriot, Michael Bakounine, another revolutionist, the father of

anarchy, weeping with emotion at a concert after hearing the symphony

with Beethoven chorals directed by a young friend of his, named Richard

Wagner. “When our revolution comes,” he cried, clasping the hand of the

master, “whatever else may perish, this must be saved at any cost!”

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

with sadness:

“THEY have passed through here!”

Every time that he walked through the Arch, the same vision would spring

up in his mind. THEY were thousands of helmets glistening in the sun,

thousands of heavy boots lifted with mechanical rigidity at the same

time; horns, fifes, drums large and small, clashing against the majestic

silence of these stones--the warlike march from Lohengrin sounding in

the deserted avenues before the closed houses.

He, who was a foreigner, always felt attracted by the spell exerted by

venerable buildings guarding the glory of a bygone day. He did not wish

to know who had erected it. As soon as its pride is flattered, mankind

tries immediately to solidify it. Then Humanity intervenes with a

broader vision that changes the original significance of the work,

enlarges it and strips it of its first egotistical import. The Greek

statues, models of the highest beauty, had been originally mere images

of the temple, donated by the piety of the devotees of those times.

Upon evoking Roman grandeur, everybody sees in imagination the enormous

Coliseum, circle of butcheries, or the arches erected to the glory

of the inept Caesars. The representative works of nations have two

significations--the interior or immediate one which their creators gave

them, and the exterior or universal interest, the symbolic value which

the centuries have given them.

“This Arch,” continued Tchernoff, “is French within, with its names

of battles and generals open to criticism. On the outside, it is the

monument of the people who carried through the greatest revolution

for liberty ever known. The glorification of man is there below in

the column of the place Vendome. Here there is nothing individual. Its

builders erected it to the memory of la Grande Armee and that Grand

Army was the people in arms who spread revolution throughout Europe. The

artists, great inventors, foresaw the true significance of this work.

The warriors of Rude who are chanting the Marseillaise in the group

at the left are not professional soldiers, they are armed citizens,

marching to work out their sublime and violent mission. Their nudity

makes them appear to me like sans-culottes in Grecian helmets. . . .

Here there is more than the glory and egoism of a great nation. All

Europe is awake to new life, thanks to these Crusaders of Liberty. . . .

The nations call to mind certain images. If I think of Greece, I see the

columns of the Parthenon; Rome, Mistress of the World, is the Coliseum

and the Arch of Trajan; and revolutionary France is the Arc de

Triomphe.”

The Arch was even more, according to the Russian. It represented a

great historical retaliation; the nations of the South, called the

Latin races, replying, after many centuries, to the invasion which had

destroyed the Roman jurisdiction--the Mediterranean peoples spreading

themselves as conquerors through the lands of the ancient barbarians.

Retreating immediately, they had swept away the past like a tidal

wave--the great surf depositing all that it contained. Like the waters

of certain rivers which fructify by overflowing, this recession of the

human tide had left the soil enriched with new and generous ideas.

“If THEY should return!” added Tchernoff with a look of uneasiness.

“If they again should tread these stones! . . . Before, they were

simple-minded folk, stunned by their rapid good-fortune, who passed

through here like a farmer through a salon. They were content with money

for the pocket and two provinces which should perpetuate the memory

of their victory. . . . But now they will not be the soldiers only

who march against Paris. At the tail of the armies come the maddened

canteen-keepers, the Herr Professors, carrying at the side the little

keg of wine with the powder which crazes the barbarian, the wine

of Kultur. And in the vans come also an enormous load of scientific

savagery, a new philosophy which glorifies Force as a principle and

sanctifier of everything, denies liberty, suppresses the weak and places

the entire world under the charge of a minority chosen by God, just

because it possesses the surest and most rapid methods of slaughter.

Humanity may well tremble for the future if again resounds under this

archway the tramp of boots following a march of Wagner or any other

Kapellmeister.”

They left the Arch, following the avenue Victor Hugo. Tchernoff

walking along in dogged silence as though the vision of this imaginary

procession had overwhelmed him. Suddenly he continued aloud the course

of his reflections.

“And if they should enter, what does it matter? . . . On that account,

the cause of Right will not die. It suffers eclipses, but is born again;

it may be ignored and trampled under foot, but it does not, therefore,

cease to exist, and all good souls recognize it as the only rule of

life. A nation of madmen wishes to place might upon the pedestal that

others have raised to Right. Useless endeavor! The eternal hope

of mankind will ever be the increasing power of more liberty, more

brotherliness, more justice.”

The Russian appeared to calm himself with this statement. He and

his friends spoke of the spectacle which Paris was presenting in its

preparation for war. Tchernoff bemoaned the great suffering produced by

the catastrophe, the thousands and thousands of domestic tragedies that

were unrolling at that moment. Apparently nothing had changed. In the

centre of the city and around the stations, there was unusual agitation,

but the rest of the immense city did not appear affected by the great

overthrow of its existence. The solitary street was presenting its usual

aspect, the breeze was gently moving the leaves. A solemn peace seemed

to be spreading itself through space. The houses appeared wrapped in

slumber, but behind the closed windows might be surmised the insomnia

of the reddened eyes, the sighs from hearts anguished by the threatened

danger, the tremulous agility of the hands preparing the war outfit,

perhaps the last loving greetings exchanged without pleasure, with

kisses ending in sobs.

Tchernoff thought of his neighbors, the husband and wife who occupied

the other interior apartment behind the studio. She was no longer

playing the piano. The Russian had overheard disputes, the banging of

doors locked with violence, and the footsteps of a man in the middle of

the night, fleeing from a woman’s cries. There had begun to develop on

the other side of the wall a regulation drama--a repetition of hundreds

of others, all taking place at the same time.

“She is a German,” volunteered the Russian. “Our concierge has ferreted

out her nationality. He must have gone by this time to join his

regiment. Last night I could hardly sleep. I heard the lamentations

through the thin wall partition, the steady, desperate weeping of an

abandoned child, and the voice of a man who was vainly trying to quiet

her! . . . Ah, what a rain of sorrows is now falling upon the world!”

That same evening, on leaving the house, he had met her by her door.

She appeared like another woman, with an old look as though in these

agonizing hours she had been suffering for fifteen years. In vain the

kindly Tchernoff had tried to cheer her up, urging her to accept quietly

her husband’s absence so as not to harm the little one who was coming.

“For the unhappy creature is going to be a mother,” he said sadly. “She

hides her condition with a certain modesty, but from my window, I have

often seen her making the dainty layette.”

The woman had listened to him as though she did not understand. Words

were useless before her desperation. She could only sob as though

talking to herself, “I am a German. . . . He has gone; he has to go

away. . . . Alone! . . . Alone forever!” . . .

“She is thinking all the time of her nationality which is separating

her from her husband; she is thinking of the concentration camp to

which they will take her with her compatriots. She is fearful of being

abandoned in the enemy’s country obliged to defend itself against the

attack of her own country. . . . And all this when she is about to

become a mother. What miseries! What agonies!”

The three reached the rue de la Pompe and on entering the house,

Tchernoff began to take leave of his companions in order to climb the

service stairs; but Desnoyers wished to prolong the conversation. He

dreaded being alone with his friend, still chagrined over the evening’s

events. The conversation with the Russian interested him, so they all

went up in the elevator together. Argensola suggested that this would

be a good opportunity to uncork one of the many bottles which he was

keeping in the kitchen. Tchernoff could go home through the studio door

that opened on the stairway.

The great window had its glass doors wide open; the transoms on the

patio side were also open; a breeze kept the curtains swaying, moving,

too, the old lanterns, moth-eaten flags and other adornments of the

romantic studio. They seated themselves around the table, near a window

some distance from the light which was illuminating the other end of

the big room. They were in the shadow, with their backs to the interior

court. Opposite them were tiled roofs and an enormous rectangle of blue

shadow, perforated by the sharp-pointed stars. The city lights were

coloring the shadowy space with a bloody reflection.

Tchernoff drank two glasses, testifying to the excellence of the liquid

by smacking his lips. The three were silent with the wondering and

thoughtful silence which the grandeur of the night imposes. Their

eyes were glancing from star to star, grouping them in fanciful lines,

forming them into triangles or squares of varying irregularity. At

times, the twinkling radiance of a heavenly body appeared to broaden the

rays of light, almost hypnotizing them.

The Russian, without coming out of his revery, availed himself of

another glass. Then he smiled with cruel irony, his bearded face taking

on the semblance of a tragic mask peeping between the curtains of the

night.

“I wonder what those men up there are thinking!” he muttered. “I wonder

if any star knows that Bismarck ever existed! . . . I wonder if the

planets are aware of the divine mission of the German nation!”

And he continued laughing.

Some far-away and uncertain noise disturbed the stillness of the night,

slipping through some of the chinks that cut the immense plain of roofs.

The three turned their heads so as to hear better. . . . The sound

of voices cut through the thick silence of night--a masculine chorus

chanting a hymn, simple, monotonous and solemn. They guessed at what it

must be, although they could not hear very well. Various single notes

floating with greater intensity on the night wind, enabled Argensola to

piece together the short song, ending in a melodious, triumphant yell--a

true war song:

C’est l’Alsace et la Lorraine,

C’est l’Alsace qu’il nous faut,

Oh, oh, oh, oh.

A new band of men was going away through the streets below, toward the

railway station, the gateway of the war. They must be from the outlying

districts, perhaps from the country, and passing through silence-wrapped

Paris, they felt like singing of the great national hope, that those who

were watching behind the dark facades might feel comforted, knowing that

they were not alone.

“Just as it is in the opera,” said Julio listening to the last notes of

the invisible chorus dying away into the night.

Tchernoff continued drinking, but with a distracted air, his eyes fixed

on the red cloud that floated over the roofs.

The two friends conjectured his mental labor from his concentrated look,

and the low exclamations which were escaping him like the echoes of an

interior monologue. Suddenly he leaped from thought to word without any

forewarning, continuing aloud the course of his reasoning.

“And when the sun arises in a few hours, the world will see coursing

through its fields the four horsemen, enemies of mankind. . . . Already

their wild steeds are pawing the ground with impatience; already the

ill-omened riders have come together and are exchanging the last words

before leaping into the saddle.”

“What horsemen are these?” asked Argensola.

“Those which go before the Beast.”

The two friends thought this reply as unintelligible as the preceding

words. Desnoyers again said mentally, “He is drunk,” but his curiosity

forced him to ask, “What beast is that?”

“That of the Apocalypse.”

There was a brief silence, but the Russian’s terseness of speech did not

last long. He felt the necessity of expressing his enthusiasm for the

dreamer on the island rock of Patmos. The poet of great and mystic

vision was exerting, across two thousand years, his influence over this

mysterious revolutionary, tucked away on the top floor of a house in

Paris. John had foreseen it all. His visions, unintelligible to the

masses, nevertheless held within them the mystery of great human events.

Tchernoff described the Apocalyptic beast rising from the depths of the

sea. He was like a leopard, his feet like those of a bear, his mouth

like the snout of a lion. He had seven heads and ten horns. And upon

the horns were ten crowns, and upon each of his heads the name of a

blasphemy. The evangelist did not say just what these blasphemies were,

perhaps they differed according to the epochs, modified every thousand

years when the beast made a new apparition. The Russian seemed to be

reading those that were flaming on the heads of the monster--blasphemies

against humanity, against justice, against all that makes life sweet

and bearable. “Might is superior to Right!” . . . “The weak should not

exist.” . . . “Be harsh in order to be great.” . . . And the Beast in

all its hideousness was attempting to govern the world and make mankind

render him homage!

“But the four horsemen?” persisted Desnoyers.

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

vision.

The seven seals of the book of mystery were broken by the Lamb in the

presence of the great throne where was seated one who shone like jasper.

The rainbow round about the throne was in sight like unto an emerald.

Twenty-four thrones were in a semicircle around the great throne, and

upon them twenty-four elders with white robes and crowns of gold. Four

enormous animals, covered with eyes and each having six wings, seemed

to be guarding the throne. The sounding of trumpets was greeting the

breaking of the first seal.

“Come and see,” cried one of the beasts in a stentorian tone to the

vision-seeing poet. . . . And the first horseman appeared on a white

horse. In his hand he carried a bow, and a crown was given unto him.

He was Conquest, according to some, the Plague according to others. He

might be both things at the same time. He wore a crown, and that was

enough for Tchernoff.

“Come forth,” shouted the second animal, removing his thousand eyes. And

from the broken seal leaped a flame-colored steed. His rider brandished

over his head an enormous sword. He was War. Peace fled from the world

before his furious gallop; humanity was going to be exterminated.

And when the third seal was broken, another of the winged animals

bellowed like a thunder clap, “Come and see!” And John saw a black

horse. He who mounted it held in his hand a scale in order to weigh the

maintenance of mankind. He was Famine.

The fourth animal saluted the breaking of the fourth seal with a great

roaring--“Come and see!” And there appeared a pale-colored horse. His

rider was called Death, and power was given him to destroy with the

sword and with hunger and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.

The four horsemen were beginning their mad, desolating course over the

heads of terrified humanity.

Tchernoff was describing the four scourges of the earth exactly as

though he were seeing them. The horseman on the white horse was clad in

a showy and barbarous attire. His Oriental countenance was contracted

with hatred as if smelling out his victims. While his horse continued

galloping, he was bending his bow in order to spread pestilence

abroad. At his back swung the brass quiver filled with poisoned arrows,

containing the germs of all diseases--those of private life as well as

those which envenom the wounded soldier on the battlefield.

The second horseman on the red steed was waving the enormous, two-edged

sword over his hair bristling with the swiftness of his course. He was

young, but the fierce scowl and the scornful mouth gave him a look of

implacable ferocity. His garments, blown open by the motion of his wild

race, disclosed the form of a muscular athlete.

Bald, old and horribly skinny was the third horseman bouncing up and

down on the rawboned back of his black steed. His shrunken legs clanked

against the thin flanks of the lean beast. In one withered hand he was

holding the scales, symbol of the scarcity of food that was going to

become as valuable as gold.

The knees of the fourth horseman, sharp as spurs, were pricking the

ribs of the pale horse. His parchment-like skin betrayed the lines and

hollows of his skeleton. The front of his skull-like face was twisted

with the sardonic laugh of destruction. His cane-like arms were whirling

aloft a gigantic sickle. From his angular shoulders was hanging a

ragged, filthy shroud.

And the furious cavalcade was passing like a hurricane over the immense

assemblage of human beings. The heavens showed above their heads, a

livid, dark-edged cloud from the west. Horrible monsters and deformities

were swarming in spirals above the furious horde, like a repulsive

escort. Poor Humanity, crazed with fear, was fleeing in all directions

on hearing the thundering pace of the Plague, War, Hunger and Death. Men

and women, young and old, were knocking each other down and falling to

the ground overwhelmed by terror, astonishment and desperation. And the

white horse, the red, the black and the pale, were crushing all with

their relentless, iron tread--the athletic man was hearing the crashing

of his broken ribs, the nursing babe was writhing at its mother’s

breast, and the aged and feeble were closing their eyes forever with a

childlike sob.

“God is asleep, forgetting the world,” continued the Russian. “It will

be a long time before he awakes, and while he sleeps the four feudal

horsemen of the Beast will course through the land as its only lords.”

Tchernoff was overpowered by the intensity of his dramatic vision.

Springing from his seat, he paced up and down with great strides; but

his picture of the fourfold catastrophe revealed by the gloomy poet’s

trance, seemed to him very weak indeed. A great painter had given

corporeal form to these terrible dreams.

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

And suddenly he left the studio and went to his own quarters. He wanted

to bring the book to show to his friends. Argensola accompanied him, and

they returned in a few minutes with the volume, leaving the doors open

behind them, so as to make a stronger current of air among the hollows

of the facades and the interior patio.

Tchernoff placed his precious book under the light. It was a volume

printed in 1511, with Latin text and engravings. Desnoyers read the

title, “The Apocalypse Illustrated.” The engravings were by Albert

Durer, a youthful effort, when the master was only twenty-seven years

old. The three were fascinated by the picture portraying the wild career

of the Apocalyptic horsemen. The quadruple scourge, on fantastic mounts,

seemed to be precipitating itself with a realistic sweep, crushing

panic-stricken humanity.

Suddenly something happened which startled the three men from their

contemplative admiration--something unusual, indefinable, a dreadful

sound which seemed to enter directly into their brains without passing

through their ears--a clutch at the heart. Instinctively they knew that

something very grave had just happened.

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

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

With a common impulse, the three ran to the interior window, but before

reaching them, the Russian had a presentiment.

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

herself!”

Looking down, they could see lights below, people moving around a form

stretched out on the tiled floor. The alarm had instantly filled all

the court windows, for it was a sleepless night--a night of nervous

apprehension when everyone was keeping a sad vigil.

“She has killed herself,” said a voice which seemed to come up from a

well. “The German woman has committed suicide.”

The explanation of the concierge leaped from window to window up to the

top floor.

The Russian was shaking his head with a fatalistic expression. The

unhappy woman had not taken the death-leap of her own accord. Someone

had intensified her desperation, someone had pushed her. . . . The

horsemen! The four horsemen of the Apocalypse! . . . Already they were

in the saddle! Already they were beginning their merciless gallop of

destruction!

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

world.

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

already begun!

PART II

CHAPTER I

WHAT DON MARCELO ENVIED

Upon being convinced that war really was inevitable, the elder Desnoyers

was filled with amazement. Humanity had gone crazy. Was it possible that

war could happen in these days of so many railroads, so many merchant

marines, so many inventions, so much activity developed above and below

the earth? . . . The nations would ruin themselves forever. They were

now accustomed to luxuries and necessities unknown a century ago.

Capital was master of the world, and war was going to wipe it out. In

its turn, war would be wiped out in a few months’ time through lack

of funds to sustain it. His soul of a business man revolted before the

hundreds of thousands of millions that this foolhardy event was going to

convert into smoke and slaughter.

As his indignation had to fix upon something close at hand, he made his

own countrymen responsible for this insanity. Too much talk about la

revanche! The very idea of worrying for forty-four years over the two

lost provinces when the nation was mistress of enormous and undeveloped

lands in other countries! . . . Now they were going to pay the penalty

for such exasperating and clamorous foolishness.

For him war meant disaster writ large. He had no faith in his country.

France’s day had passed. Now the victors were of the Northern peoples,

and especially that Germany which he had seen so close, admiring with a

certain terror its discipline and its rigorous organization. The former

working-man felt the conservative and selfish instinct of all those who

have amassed millions. He scorned political ideals, but through class

interest he had of late years accepted the declarations against the

scandals of the government. What could a corrupt and disorganized

Republic do against the solidest and strongest empire in the

world? . . .

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

We are going to see horrible things!”

The good order and enthusiasm with which the French responded to their

country’s call and transformed themselves into soldiers were most

astonishing to him. This moral shock made his national faith begin to

revive. The great majority of Frenchmen were good after all; the nation

was as valiant as in former times. Forty-four years of suffering and

alarm had developed their old bravery. But the leaders? Where were they

going to get leaders to march to victory? . . .

Many others were asking themselves the same question. The silence of the

democratic government was keeping the country in complete ignorance of

their future commanders. Everybody saw the army increasing from hour to

hour: very few knew the generals. One name was beginning to be repeated

from mouth to mouth, “Joffre . . . Joffre.” His first pictures made the

curious crowds struggle to get a glimpse of them. Desnoyers studied them

very carefully. “He looks like a very capable person.” His methodical

instincts were gratified by the grave and confident look of the

general of the Republic. Suddenly he felt the great confidence that

efficient-looking bank directors always inspired in him. He could

entrust his interests to this gentleman, sure that he would not act

impulsively.

Finally, against his will, Desnoyers was drawn into the whirlpool of

enthusiasm and emotion. Like everyone around him, he lived minutes that

were hours, and hours that were years. Events kept on overlapping each

other; within a week the world seemed to have made up for its long

period of peace.

The old man fairly lived in the street, attracted by the spectacle

of the multitude of civilians saluting the multitude of uniformed men

departing for the seat of war.

At night he saw the processions passing through the boulevards. The

tricolored flag was fluttering its colors under the electric lights. The

cafes were overflowing with people, sending forth from doors and windows

the excited, musical notes of patriotic songs. Suddenly, amidst applause

and cheers, the crowd would make an opening in the street. All Europe

was passing here; all Europe--less the arrogant enemy--and was saluting

France in her hour of danger with hearty spontaneity. Flags of different

nations were filing by, of all tints of the rainbow, and behind them

were the Russians with bright and mystical eyes; the English, with

heads uncovered, intoning songs of religious gravity; the Greeks and

Roumanians of aquiline profile; the Scandinavians, white and red; the

North Americans, with the noisiness of a somewhat puerile enthusiasm;

the Hebrews without a country, friends of the nation of socialistic

revolutions; the Italians, as spirited as a choir of heroic tenors;

the Spanish and South Americans, tireless in their huzzas. They were

students and apprentices who were completing their courses in the

schools and workshops, and refugees who, like shipwrecked mariners, had

sought shelter on the hospitable strand of Paris. Their cheers had no

special significance, but they were all moved by their desire to show

their love for the Republic. And Desnoyers, touched by the sight,

felt that France was still of some account in the world, that she yet

exercised a moral force among the nations, and that her joys and sorrows

were still of interest to humanity.

“In Berlin and Vienna, too,” he said to himself, “they must also be

cheering enthusiastically at this moment . . . but Germans only, no

others. Assuredly no foreigner is joining in their demonstrations.”

The nation of the Revolution, legislator of the rights of mankind, was

harvesting the gratitude of the throngs, but was beginning to feel

a certain remorse before the enthusiasm of the foreigners who were

offering their blood for France. Many were lamenting that the government

should delay twenty days, until after they had finished the operations

of mobilization, in admitting the volunteers. And he, a Frenchman born,

a few hours before, had been mistrusting his country! . . .

In the daytime the popular current was running toward the Gare de l’Est.

Crowded against the gratings was a surging mass of humanity stretching

its tentacles through the nearby streets. The station that was acquiring

the importance of a historic spot appeared like a narrow tunnel

through which a great human river was trying to flow with many rippling

encounters and much heavy pressure against its banks. A large part of

France in arms was coursing through this exit from Paris toward the

battlefields at the frontier.

Desnoyers had been in the station only twice, when going and coming from

Germany. Others were now taking the same road. The crowds were swarming

in from the environs of the city in order to see the masses of human

beings in geometric bodies, uniformly clad, disappearing within the

entrance with flash of steel and the rhythm of clanking metal. The

crystal archways that were glistening in the sun like fiery mouths were

swallowing and swallowing people. When night fell the processions were

still coming on, by light of the electric lamps. Through the iron grills

were passing thousands and thousands of draught horses; men with their

breasts crossed with metal and bunches of horsehair hanging from their

helmets, like paladins of bygone centuries; enormous cases that were

serving as cages for the aeronautic condors; strings of cannon, long

and narrow, painted grey and protected, by metal screens, more like

astronomical instruments than mouths of death; masses and masses of

red kepis (military caps) moving in marching rhythm, rows and rows of

muskets, some black and stark like reed plantations, others ending in

bayonets like shining spikes. And over all these restless fields of

seething throngs, the flags of the regiments were fluttering in the air

like colored birds; a white body, a blue wing, or a red one, a cravat of

gold on the neck, and above, the metal tip pointing toward the clouds.

Don Marcelo would return home from these send-offs vibrating with

nervous fatigue, as one who had just participated in a scene of racking

emotion. In spite of his tenacious character which always stood out

against admitting a mistake, the old man began to feel ashamed of his

former doubts. The nation was quivering with life; France was a grand

nation; appearances had deceived him as well as many others. Perhaps the

most of his countrymen were of a light and flippant character, given to

excessive interest in the sensuous side of life; but when danger came

they were fulfilling their duty simply, without the necessity of the

harsh force to which the iron-clad organizations were submitting their

people.

On leaving home on the morning of the fourth day of the mobilization

Desnoyers, instead of betaking himself to the centre of the city, went

in the opposite direction toward the rue de la Pompe. Some imprudent

words dropped by Chichi, and the uneasy looks of his wife and

sister-in-law made him suspect that Julio had returned from his trip. He

felt the necessity of seeing at least the outside of the studio windows,

as if they might give him news. And in order to justify a trip so at

variance with his policy of ignoring his son, he remembered that the

carpenter lived in the same street.

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

This Robert was a husky young fellow who, to use his own words, was

“emancipated from boss tyranny,” and was working independently in his

own home. A tiny, almost subterranean room was serving him for dwelling

and workshop. A woman he called “my affinity” was looking carefully

after his hearth and home, with a baby boy clinging to her skirts.

Desnoyers was accustomed to humor Robert’s tirades against his fellow

citizens because the man had always humored his whimseys about the

incessant rearrangement of his furniture. In the luxurious apartment in

the avenue Victor Hugo the carpenter would sing La Internacional while

using hammer and saw, and his employer would overlook his audacity of

speech because of the cheapness of his work.

Upon arriving at the shop he found the man with cap over one ear, broad

trousers like a mameluke’s, hobnailed boots and various pennants and

rosettes fastened to the lapels of his jacket.

“You’ve come too late, Boss,” he said cheerily. “I am just going to

close the factory. The Proprietor has been mobilized, and in a few hours

will join his regiment.”

And he pointed to a written paper posted on the door of his dwelling

like the printed cards on all establishments, signifying that employer

and employees had obeyed the order of mobilization.

It had never occurred to Desnoyers that his carpenter might become a

soldier, since he was so opposed to all kinds of authority. He hated

the flics, the Paris police, with whom he had, more than once, exchanged

fisticuffs and clubbings. Militarism was his special aversion. In the

meetings against the despotism of the barracks he had always been one

of the noisiest participants. And was this revolutionary fellow going to

war naturally and voluntarily? . . .

Robert spoke enthusiastically of his regiment, of life among comrades

with Death but four steps away.

“I believe in my ideas, Boss, the same as before,” he explained as

though guessing the other’s thought. “But war is war and teaches many

things--among others that Liberty must be accompanied with order

and authority. It is necessary that someone direct that the rest may

follow--willingly, by common consent . . . but they must follow. When

war actually comes one sees things very differently from when living at

home doing as one pleases.”

The night that they assassinated Jaures he howled with rage, announcing

that the following morning the murder would be avenged. He had hunted up

his associates in the district in order to inform them what retaliation

was being planned against the malefactors. But war was about to break

out. There was something in the air that was opposing civil strife, that

was placing private grievances in momentary abeyance, concentrating all

minds on the common weal.

“A week ago,” he exclaimed, “I was an anti-militarist! How far away that

seems now--as if a year had gone by! I keep thinking as before! I

love peace and hate war like all my comrades. But the French have not

offended anybody, and yet they threaten us, wishing to enslave us. . . .

But we French can be fierce, since they oblige us to be, and in order

to defend ourselves it is just that nobody should shirk, that all should

obey. Discipline does not quarrel with Revolution. Remember the armies

of the first Republic--all citizens, Generals as well as soldiers, but

Hoche, Kleber and the others were rough-hewn, unpolished benefactors who

knew how to command and exact obedience.”

The carpenter was well read. Besides the papers and pamphlets of “the

Idea,” he had also read on stray sheets the views of Michelet and other

liberal actors on the stage of history.

“We are going to make war on War,” he added. “We are going to fight so

that this war will be the last.”

This statement did not seem to be expressed with sufficient clearness,

so he recast his thought.

“We are going to fight for the future; we are going to die in order

that our grandchildren may not have to endure a similar calamity. If

the enemy triumphs, the war-habit will triumph, and conquest will be the

only means of growth. First they will overcome Europe, then the rest of

the world. Later on, those who have been pillaged will rise up in their

wrath. More wars! . . . We do not want conquests. We desire to regain

Alsace and Lorraine, for their inhabitants wish to return to us . . .

and nothing more. We shall not imitate the enemy, appropriating

territory and jeopardizing the peace of the world. We had enough of that

with Napoleon; we must not repeat that experience. We are going to fight

for our immediate security, and at the same time for the security of

the world--for the life of the weaker nations. If this were a war

of aggression, of mere vanity, of conquest, then we Socialists would

bethink ourselves of our anti-militarism. But this is self-defense, and

the government has not been at fault. Since we are attacked, we must be

united in our defensive.”

The carpenter, who was also anti-clerical, was now showing a more

generous tolerance, an amplitude of ideas that embraced all mankind. The

day before he had met at the administration office a Reservist who was

just leaving to join his regiment. At a glance he saw that this man was

a priest.

“I am a carpenter,” he had said to him, by way of introduction, “and

you, comrade, are working in the churches?”

He employed this figure of speech in order that the priest might not

suspect him of anything offensive. The two had clasped hands.

“I do not take much stock in the clerical cowl,” Robert explained

to Desnoyers. “For some time I have not been on friendly terms with

religion. But in every walk of life there must be good people, and the

good people ought to understand each other in a crisis like this. Don’t

you think so, Boss?”

The war coincided with his socialistic tendencies. Before this,

when speaking of future revolution, he had felt a malign pleasure in

imagining all the rich deprived of their fortunes and having to work in

order to exist. Now he was equally enthusiastic at the thought that all

Frenchmen would share the same fate without class distinction.

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

And he was even extending this military sobriety to those who remained

behind the army. War was going to cause great scarcity of provisions,

and all would have to come down to very plain fare.

“You, too, Boss, who are too old to go to war--you, with all your

millions, will have to eat the same as I. . . . Admit that it is a

beautiful thing.”

Desnoyers was not offended by the malicious satisfaction that his future

privations seemed to inspire in the carpenter. He was very thoughtful.

A man of his stamp, an enemy of existing conditions, who had no property

to defend, was going to war--to death, perhaps--because of a generous

and distant ideal, in order that future generations might never know

the actual horrors of war! To do this, he was not hesitating at the

sacrifice of his former cherished beliefs, all that he had held sacred

till now. . . . And he who belonged to the privileged class, who

possessed so many tempting things, requiring defense, had given himself

up to doubt and criticism! . . .

Hours after, he again saw the carpenter, near the Arc de Triomphe. He

was one of a group of workmen looking much as he did, and this group

was joining others and still others that represented every social

class--well-dressed citizens, stylish and anaemic young men, graduate

students with worn jackets, pale faces and thick glasses, and youthful

priests who were smiling rather shamefacedly as though they had been

caught at some ridiculous escapade. At the head of this human herd was

a sergeant, and as a rear guard, various soldiers with guns on their

shoulders. Forward march, Reservists! . . .

And a musical cry, a solemn harmony like a Greek chant, menacing and

monotonous, surged up from this mass with open mouths, swinging arms,

and legs that were opening and shutting like compasses.

Robert was singing the martial chorus with such great

energy that his eyes and Gallic moustachios were fairly trembling. In

spite of his corduroy suit and his bulging linen hand bag, he had

the same grand and heroic aspect as the figures by Rude in the Arc de

Triomphe. The “affinity” and the boy were trudging along the sidewalk so

as to accompany him to the station. For a moment he took his eyes from

them to speak with a companion in the line, shaven and serious-looking,

undoubtedly the priest whom he had met the day before. Now they were

talking confidentially, intimately, with that brotherliness which

contact with death inspires in mankind.

The millionaire followed the carpenter with a look of respect,

immeasurably increased since he had taken his part in this human

avalanche. And this respect had in it something of envy, the envy that

springs from an uneasy conscience.

Whenever Don Marcelo passed a bad night, suffering from nightmare, a

certain terrible thing--always the same--would torment his imagination.

Rarely did he dream of mortal peril to his family or self. The frightful

vision was always that certain notes bearing his signature were

presented for collection which he, Marcelo Desnoyers, the man always

faithful to his bond, with a past of immaculate probity, was not able

to pay. Such a possibility made him tremble, and long after waking his

heart would be oppressed with terror. To his imagination this was the

greatest disgrace that a man could suffer.

Now that war was overturning his existence with its agitations, the

same agonies were reappearing. Completely awake, with full powers of

reasoning, he was suffering exactly the same distress as when in his

horrible dreams he saw his dishonored signature on a protested document.

All his past was looming up before his eyes with such extraordinary

clearness that it seemed as though until then his mind must have been

in hopeless confusion. The threatened land of France was his native

country. Fifteen centuries of history had been working for him, in

order that his opening eyes might survey progress and comforts that his

ancestors did not even know. Many generations of Desnoyers had prepared

for his advent into life by struggling with the land and defending it

that he might be born into a free family and fireside. . . . And when

his turn had come for continuing this effort, when his time had arrived

in the rosary of generations--he had fled like a debtor evading payment!

. . . On coming into his fatherland he had contracted obligations with

the human group to whom he owed his existence. This obligation should be

paid with his arms, with any sacrifice that would repel danger . . . and

he had eluded the acknowledgment of his signature, fleeing his country

and betraying his trust to his forefathers! Ah, miserable coward! The

material success of his life, the riches acquired in a remote country,

were comparatively of no importance. There are failures that millions

cannot blot out. The uneasiness of his conscience was proving it now.

Proof, too, was in the envy and respect inspired by this poor mechanic

marching to meet his death with others equally humble, all kindled with

the satisfaction of duty fulfilled, of sacrifice accepted.

The memory of Madariaga came to his memory.

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

No, the statement of the centaur was not correct. In normal times,

perhaps. Far from one’s native land when it is not exposed to danger,

one may forget it for a few years. But he was living now in France, and

France was being obliged to defend herself against enemies wishing to

overpower her. The sight of all her people rising en masse was becoming

an increasingly shameful torture for Desnoyers, making him think all the

time of what he should have done in his youth, of what he had dodged.

The veterans of ‘70 were passing through the streets, with the green and

black ribbon in their lapel, souvenirs of the privations of the Siege of

Paris, and of heroic and disastrous campaigns. The sight of these men,

satisfied with their past, made him turn pale. Nobody was recalling his,

but he knew it, and that was enough. In vain his reason would try to

lull this interior tempest. . . . Those times were different; then

there was none of the present unanimity; the Empire was unpopular . . .

everything was lost. . . . But the recollection of a celebrated sentence

was fixing itself in his mind as an obsession--“France still remained!”

Many had thought as he did in his youth, but they had not, therefore,

evaded military service. They had stood by their country in a last and

desperate resistance.

Useless was his excuse-making reasoning. Nobler thoughts showed him the

fallacy of this beating around the bush. Explanations and demonstrations

are unnecessary to the understanding of patriotic and religious ideals;

true patriotism does not need them. One’s country . . . is one’s

country. And the laboring man, skeptical and jesting, the self-centred

farmer, the solitary pastor, all had sprung to action at the sound

of this conjuring word, comprehending it instantly, without previous

instruction.

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

to pay my debt.”

As in his dreams, he was constantly feeling the anguish of an upright

and desperate man who wishes to meet his obligations.

Pay! . . . and how? It was now very late. For a moment the heroic

resolution came into his head of offering himself as a volunteer, of

marching with his bag at his side in some one of the groups of future

combatants, the same as the carpenter. But the uselessness of the

sacrifice came immediately into his mind. Of what use would it be?

. . . He looked robust and was well-preserved for his age, but he was

over seventy, and only the young make good soldiers. Combat is but

one incident in the struggle. Equally necessary are the hardship

and self-denial in the form of interminable marches, extremes of

temperature, nights in the open air, shoveling earth, digging trenches,

loading carts, suffering hunger. . . . No; it was too late. He could not

even leave an illustrious name that might serve as an example.

Instinctively he glanced behind. He was not alone in the world; he had a

son who could assume his father’s debt . . . but that hope only lasted

a minute. His son was not French; he belonged to another people; half

of his blood was from another source. Besides, how could the boy be

expected to feel as he did? Would he even understand if his father

should explain it to him? . . . It was useless to expect anything from

this lady-killing, dancing clown, from this fellow of senseless bravado,

who was constantly exposing his life in duels in order to satisfy a

silly sense of honor.

Oh, the meekness of the bluff Senor Desnoyers after these reflections!

. . . His family felt alarmed at seeing the humility and gentleness with

which he moved around the house. The two men-servants had gone to

join their regiments, and to them the most surprising result of

the declaration of war was the sudden kindness of their master, the

lavishness of his farewell gifts, the paternal care with which he

supervised their preparations for departure. The terrible Don Marcelo

embraced them with moist eyes, and the two had to exert themselves to

prevent his accompanying them to the station.

Outside of his home he was slipping about humbly as though mutely asking

pardon of the many people around him. To him they all appeared his

superiors. It was a period of economic crisis; for the time being, the

rich also were experiencing what it was to be poor and worried; the

banks had suspended operations and were paying only a small part of

their deposits. For some weeks the millionaire was deprived of his

wealth, and felt restless before the uncertain future. How long would it

be before they could send him money from South America? Was war going to

take away fortunes as well as lives? . . . And yet Desnoyers had never

appreciated money less, nor disposed of it with greater generosity.

Numberless mobilized men of the lower classes who were going alone

toward the station met a gentleman who would timidly stop them, put

his hand in his pocket and leave in their right hand a bill of

twenty francs, fleeing immediately before their astonished eyes. The

working-women who were returning weeping from saying good-bye to their

husbands saw this same gentleman smiling at the children who were with

them, patting their cheeks and hastening away, leaving a five-franc

piece in their hands.

Don Marcelo, who had never smoked, was now frequenting the tobacco

shops, coming out with hands and pockets filled in order that he might,

with lavish generosity, press the packages upon the first soldier he

met. At times the recipient, smiling courteously, would thank him with a

few words, revealing his superior breeding--afterwards passing the gift

on to others clad in cloaks as coarse and badly cut as his own. The

mobilization, universally obligatory, often caused him to make these

mistakes.

The rough hands pressing his with a grateful clasp, left him satisfied

for a few moments. Ah, if he could only do more! . . . The Government

in mobilizing its vehicles had appropriated three of his monumental

automobiles, and Desnoyers felt very sorry that they were not also

taking the fourth mastodon. Of what use were they to him? The shepherds

of this monstrous herd, the chauffeur and his assistants, were now in

the army. Everybody was marching away. Finally he and his son would be

the only ones left--two useless creatures.

He roared with wrath on learning of the enemy’s entrance into Belgium,

considering this the most unheard-of treason in history. He suffered

agonies of shame at remembering that at first he had held the exalted

patriots of his country responsible for the war. . . . What perfidy,

methodically carried out after long years of preparation! The accounts

of the sackings, fires and butcheries made him turn pale and gnash his

teeth. To him, to Marcelo Desnoyers, might happen the very same thing

that Belgium was enduring, if the barbarians should invade France. He

had a home in the city, a castle in the country, and a family. Through

association of ideas, the women assaulted by the soldiery, made him

think of Chichi and the dear Dona Luisa. The mansions in flames called

to his mind the rare and costly furnishings accumulated in his expensive

dwellings--the armorial bearings of his social elevation. The old folk

that were shot, the women foully mutilated, the children with their

hands cut off, all the horrors of a war of terror, aroused the violence

of his character.

And such things could happen with impunity in this day and

generation! . . .

In order to convince himself that punishment was near, that vengeance

was overtaking the guilty ones, he felt the necessity of mingling daily

with the people crowding around the Gare de l’Est.

Although the greater part of the troops were operating on the frontiers,

that was not diminishing the activity in Paris. Entire battalions were

no longer going off, but day and night soldiers were coming to the

station singly or in groups. These were Reserves without uniform on

their way to enroll themselves with their companies, officials who until

then had been busy with the work of the mobilization, platoons in arms

destined to fill the great gaps opened by death.

The multitude, pressed against the railing, was greeting those who were

going off, following them with their eyes while they were crossing the

large square. The latest editions of the daily papers were announced

with hoarse yells, and instantly the dark throng would be spotted with

white, all reading with avidity the printed sheets. Good news: “Vive

la France!” A doubtful despatch, foreshadowing calamity: “No matter! We

must press on at all costs! The Russians will close in behind them!” And

while these dialogues, inspired by the latest news were taking place,

many young girls were going among the groups offering little flags and

tricolored cockades--and passing through the patio, men and still more

men were disappearing behind the glass doors, on their way to the war.

A sub-lieutenant of the Reserves, with his bag on his shoulder, was

accompanied by his father toward the file of policemen keeping the

crowds back. Desnoyers saw in the young officer a certain resemblance to

his son. The father was wearing in his lapel the black and green ribbon

of 1870--a decoration which always filled Desnoyers with remorse. He was

tall and gaunt, but was still trying to hold himself erect, with a heavy

frown. He wanted to show himself fierce, inhuman, in order to hide his

emotion.

“Good-bye, my boy! Do your best.”

“Good-bye, father.”

They did not clasp hands, and each was avoiding looking at the other.

The official was smiling like an automaton. The father turned his back

brusquely, and threading his way through the throng, entered a cafe,

where for some time he needed the most retired seat in the darkest

earner to hide his emotion.

AND DON MARCELO ENVIED HIS GRIEF.

Some of the Reservists came along singing, preceded by a flag. They were

joking and jostling each other, betraying in excited actions, long halts

at all the taverns along the way. One of them, without interrupting

his song, was pressing the hand of an old woman marching beside him,

cheerful and dry-eyed. The mother was concentrating all her strength in

order, with feigned happiness, to accompany this strapping lad to the

last minute.

Others were coming along singly, separated from their companies, but not

on that account alone. The gun was hanging from the shoulder, the back

overlaid by the hump of the knapsack, the red legs shooting in and out

of the turned-back folds of the blue cloak, and the smoke of a pipe

under the visor of the kepis. In front of one of these men, four

children were walking along, lined up according to size. They kept

turning their heads to admire their father, suddenly glorified by his

military trappings. At his side was marching his wife, affable and

resigned, feeling in her simple soul a revival of love, an ephemeral

Spring, born of the contact with danger. The man, a laborer of Paris,

who a few months before was singing La Internacional, demanding the

abolishment of armies and the brotherhood of all mankind, was now going

in quest of death. His wife, choking back her sobs, was admiring him

greatly. Affection and commiseration made her insist upon giving him a

few last counsels. In his knapsack she had put his best handkerchiefs,

the few provisions in the house and all the money. Her man was not to be

uneasy about her and the children; they would get along all right. The

government and kind neighbors would look after them.

The soldier in reply was jesting over the somewhat misshapen figure of

his wife, saluting the coming citizen, and prophesying that he would

be born in a time of great victory. A kiss to the wife, an affectionate

hair-pull for his offspring, and then he had joined his comrades. . . .

No tears. Courage! . . . Vive la France!

The final injunctions of the departing were now heard. Nobody was

crying. But as the last red pantaloons disappeared, many hands grasped

the iron railing convulsively, many handkerchiefs were bitten with

gnashing teeth, many faces were hidden in the arms with sobs of anguish.

AND DON MARCELO ENVIED THESE TEARS.

The old woman, on losing the warm contact of her son’s hand from her

withered one, turned in the direction which she believed to be that of

the hostile country, waving her arms with threatening fury.

“Ah, the assassin! . . . the bandit!”

In her wrathful imagination she was again seeing the countenance so

often displayed in the illustrated pages of the periodicals--moustaches

insolently aggressive, a mouth with the jaw and teeth of a wolf, that

laughed . . . and laughed as men must have laughed in the time of the

cave-men.

AND DON MARCELO ENVIED THIS WRATH!