CHAPTER VI

THE BANNER OF THE RED CROSS

Returning in desperation to his estate, Don Marcelo Desnoyers saw

huge automobiles and men on horseback, forming a very long convoy and

completely filling the road. They were all going in his direction. At

the entrance to the park a band of Germans was putting up the wires for

a telephone line. They had just been reconnoitering the rooms befouled

with the night’s saturnalia, and were ha-haing boisterously over Captain

von Hartrott’s inscription, “Bitte, nicht plundern.” To them it seemed

the acme of wit--truly Teutonic.

The convoy now invaded the park with its automobiles and trucks bearing

a red cross. A war hospital was going to be established in the castle.

The doctors were dressed in grayish green and armed the same as the

officers; they also imitated their freezing hauteur and repellent

unapproachableness. There came out of the drays hundreds of folding

cots, which were placed in rows in the different rooms. The furniture

that still remained was thrown out in a heap under the trees. Squads

of soldiers were obeying with mechanical promptitude the brief and

imperious orders. An odor of an apothecary shop, of concentrated

drugs, now pervaded the quarters, mixed with the strong smell of the

antiseptics with which they were sprinkling the walls in order to

disinfect the filthy remains of the nocturnal orgy.

Then he saw women clad in white, buxom girls with blue eyes and flaxen

hair. They were grave, bland, austere and implacable in appearance.

Several times they pushed Desnoyers out of their way as if they did not

see him. They looked like nuns, but with revolvers under their habits.

At midday other automobiles began to arrive, attracted by the enormous

white flag with the red cross, which was now waving from the castle

tower. They came from the division battling beyond the Marne. Their

metal fittings were dented by projectiles, their wind-shields broken by

star-shaped holes. From their interiors appeared men and more men; some

on foot, others on canvas stretchers--faces pale and rubicund, profiles

aquiline and snubby, red heads and skulls wrapped in white turbans stiff

with blood; mouths that laughed with bravado and mouths that groaned

with bluish lips; jaws supported with mummy-like bandages; giants in

agony whose wounds were not apparent; shapeless forms ending in a head

that talked and smoked; legs with hanging flesh that was dyeing the

First Aid wrappings with their red moisture; arms that hung as inert

as dead boughs; torn uniforms in which were conspicuous the tragic

vacancies of absent members.

This avalanche of suffering was quickly distributed throughout the

castle. In a few hours it was so completely filled that there was not a

vacant bed--the last arrivals being laid in the shadow of the trees. The

telephones were ringing incessantly; the surgeons in coarse aprons

were going from one side to the other, working rapidly; human life was

submitted to savage proceedings with roughness and celerity. Those who

died under it simply left one more cot free for the others that kept

on coming. Desnoyers saw bloody baskets filled with shapeless masses of

flesh, strips of skin, broken bones, entire limbs. The orderlies were

carrying these terrible remnants to the foot of the park in order to

bury them in a little plot which had been Chichi’s favorite reading

nook.

Pairs of soldiers were carrying out objects wrapped in sheets which

the owner recognized as his. These were the dead, and the park was soon

converted into a cemetery. No longer was the little retreat large enough

to hold the corpses and the severed remains from the operations. New

grave trenches were being opened near by. The Germans armed with shovels

were pressing into service a dozen of the farmer-prisoners to aid in

unloading the dead. Now they were bringing them down by the cartload,

dumping them in like the rubbish from some demolished building. Don

Marcelo felt an abnormal delight in contemplating this increasing

number of vanquished enemies, yet he grieved at the same time that this

precipitation of intruders should be deposited forever on his property.

At nightfall, overwhelmed by so many emotions, he again suffered the

torments of hunger. All day long he had eaten nothing but the crust of

bread found in the kitchen by the Warden’s wife. The rest he had left

for her and her daughter. A distress as harrowing to him as his hunger

was the sight of poor Georgette’s shocked despondency. She was always

trying to escape from his presence in an agony of shame.

“Don’t let the Master see me!” she would cry, hiding her face. Since

his presence seemed to recall more vividly the memory of her assaults,

Desnoyers tried, while in the lodge, to avoid going near her.

Desperate with the gnawings of his empty stomach, he accosted several

doctors who were speaking French, but all in vain. They would not listen

to him, and when he repeated his petitions they pushed him roughly out

of their way. . . . He was not going to perish with hunger in the midst

of his riches! Those people were eating; the indifferent nurses had

established themselves in his kitchen. . . . But the time passed

on without encountering anybody who would take pity on this old man

dragging himself weakly from one place to another, in the misery of an

old age intensified by despair, and suffering in every part of the body,

the results of the blows of the night before. He now knew the gnawings

of a hunger far worse than that which he had suffered when journeying

over the desert plains--a hunger among men, in a civilized country,

wearing a belt filled with gold, surrounded with towers and castle halls

which were his, but in the control of others who would not condescend

to listen to him. And for this piteous ending of his life he had amassed

millions and returned to Europe! . . . Ah, the irony of fate! . . .

He saw a doctor’s assistant leaning up against a tree, about to devour

a slab of bread and sausage. His envious eyes scrutinized this fellow,

tall, thick-set, his jaws bristling with a great red beard. The

trembling old man staggered up to him, begging for the food by signs and

holding out a piece of money. The German’s eyes glistened at the sight

of the gold, and a beatific smile stretched his mouth from ear to ear.

“Ya,” he responded, and grabbing the money, he handed over the food.

Don Marcelo commenced to swallow it with avidity. Never had he so

appreciated the sheer ecstasy of eating as at that instant--in the midst

of his gardens converted into a cemetery, before his despoiled castle

where hundreds of human beings were groaning in agony. A grayish arm

passed before his eyes; it belonged to the German, who had returned

with two slices of bread and a bit of meat snatched from the kitchen. He

repeated his smirking “Ya?” . . . and after his victim had secured it

by means of another gold coin, he was able to take it to the two women

hidden in the cottage.

During the night--a night of painful watching, cut with visions of

horror, it seemed to him that the roar of the artillery was coming

nearer. It was a scarcely perceptible difference, perhaps the effect of

the silence of the night which always intensifies sound. The ambulances

continued coming from the front, discharging their cargoes of riddled

humanity and going back for more. Desnoyers surmised that his castle was

but one of the many hospitals established in a line of more than eighty

miles, and that on the other side, behind the French, were many similar

ones in which the same activity was going on--the consignments of

dying men succeeding each other with terrifying frequency. Many of the

combatants were not even having the satisfaction of being taken from

the battle field, but were lying groaning on the ground, burying their

bleeding members in the dust or mud, and weltering in the ooze from

their wounds. . . . And Don Marcelo, who a few hours before had been

considering himself the unhappiest of mortals, now experienced a cruel

joy in reflecting that so many thousands of vigorous men at the point of

death could well envy him for his hale old age, and for the tranquillity

with which he was reposing on that humble bed.

The next morning the orderly was waiting for him in the same place,

holding out a napkin filled with eatables. Good red-bearded man, helpful

and kind! . . . and he offered him the piece of gold.

“Nein,” replied the fellow, with a broad, malicious grin. Two gleaming

gold pieces appeared between Don Marcelo’s fingers. Another leering

“Nein” and a shake of the head. Ah, the robber! How he was taking

advantage of his necessity! . . . And not until he had produced five

gold coins was he able to secure the package.

He soon began to notice all around him a silent and sly conspiracy

to get possession of his money. A giant in a sergeant’s uniform put a

shovel in his hand pushing him roughly forward. He soon found himself

in a corner of the park that had been transformed into a graveyard, near

the cart of cadavers; there he had to shovel dirt on his own ground in

company with the indignant prisoners.

He averted his eyes so as not to look at the rigid and grotesque bodies

piled above him at the edge of the pit, ready to be tumbled in. The

ground was sending forth an insufferable odor, for decomposition had

already set in in the nearby trenches. The persistence with which his

overseers accosted him, and the crafty smile of the sergeant made him

see through the deep-laid scheme. The red-beard must be at the bottom

of all this. Putting his hand in his pocket he dropped the shovel with

a look of interrogation. “Ya,” replied the sergeant. After handing

over the required sum, the tormented old man was permitted to stop

grave-digging and wander around at his pleasure; he knew, however, what

was probably in store for him--those men were going to submit him to a

merciless exploitation.

Another day passed by, like its predecessor. In the morning of the

following day his perceptions, sharpened by apprehension, made him

conjecture that something extraordinary had occurred. The automobiles

were arriving and departing with greater rapidity, and there was greater

disorder and confusion among the executive force. The telephone was

ringing with mad precipitation; and the wounded arrivals seemed more

depressed. The day before they had been singing when taken from the

vehicles, hiding their woe with laughter and bravado, all talking of the

near victory and regretting that they would not be able to witness the

triumphal entry into Paris. Now they were all very silent, with furrowed

brows, thinking no longer about what was going on behind them, wondering

only about their own fate.

Outside the park was the buzz of the approaching throng which was

blackening the roads. The invasion was beginning again, but with a

refluent movement. For hours at a time great strings of gray trucks went

puffing by; then regiments of infantry, squadrons, rolling stock. They

were marching very slowly with a deliberation that puzzled Desnoyers,

who could not make out whether this recessional meant flight or change

of position. The only thing that gave him any satisfaction was the

stupefied and downcast appearance of the soldiers, the gloomy sulks of

the officers. Nobody was shouting; they all appeared to have forgotten

their “Nach Paris!” The greenish gray monster still had its armed head

stretched across the other side of the Marne, but its tail was beginning

to uncoil with uneasy wrigglings.

After night had settled down the troops were still continuing to

fall back. The cannonading was certainly coming nearer. Some of the

thunderous claps sounded so close that they made the glass tremble in

the windows. A fugitive farmer, trying to find refuge in the park,

gave Don Marcelo some news. The Germans were in full retreat. They had

installed some of their batteries on the banks of the Marne in order

to attempt a new resistance. . . . And the new arrival remained without

attracting the attention of the invaders who, a few days before, would

have shot him on the slightest suspicion.

The mechanical workings of discipline were evidently out of gear.

Doctors and nurses were running from place to place, shouting orders and

breaking out into a volley of curses every time a fresh ambulance load

arrived. The drivers were commanded to take their patients on ahead

to another hospital near the rear-guard. Orders had been received to

evacuate the castle that very night.

In spite of this prohibition, one of the ambulances unloaded its relay

of wounded men. So deplorable was their state that the doctors accepted

them, judging it useless for them to continue their journey. They

remained in the garden, lying on the same stretchers that they had

occupied within the vehicle. By the light of the lanterns Desnoyers

recognized one of the dying. It was the secretary to His Excellency, the

Socialist professor who had shut him in the cellar vaults.

At the sight of the owner of the castle he smiled as though he had met a

comrade. His was the only familiar face among all those people who were

speaking his language. He was ghastly in hue, with sunken features and

an impalpable glaze spreading over his eyes. He had no visible wounds,

but from under the cloak spread over his abdomen his torn intestines

exhaled a fatal warning. The presence of Don Marcelo made him guess

where they had brought him, and little by little he co-ordinated his

recollections. As though the old gentleman might be interested in the

whereabouts of his comrades, he told him all he knew in a weak and

strained voice. . . . Bad luck for their brigade! They had reached the

front at a critical moment for the reserve troops. Commandant Blumhardt

had died at the very first, a shell of ‘75 taking off his head. Dead,

too, were all the officers who had lodged in the castle. His Excellency

had had his jaw bone torn off by a fragment of shell. He had seen him

on the ground, howling with pain, drawing a portrait from his breast and

trying to kiss it with his broken mouth. He had himself been hit in

the stomach by the same shell. He had lain forty-two hours on the field

before he was picked up by the ambulance corps. . . .

And with the mania of the University man, whose hobby is to see

everything reasoned out and logically explained, he added in that

supreme moment, with the tenacity of those who die talking:

“Sad war, sir. . . . Many premises are lacking in order to decide who is

the culpable party. . . . When the war is ended they will have to . . .

will have to . . .” And he closed his eyes overcome by the effort.

Desnoyers left the dead man, thinking to himself. Poor fellow! He was

placing the hour of justice at the termination of the war, and meanwhile

hundreds like him were dying, disappearing with all their scruples of

ponderous and disciplined reasoning.

That night there was no sleep on the place. The walls of the lodge

were creaking, the glass crashing and breaking, the two women in the

adjoining room crying out nervously. The noise of the German fire was

beginning to mingle with that of other explosives close at hand. He

surmised that this was the smashing of the French projectiles which were

coming in search of the enemy’s artillery above the Marne.

For a few minutes his hopes revived as the possibility of victory

flashed into his mind, but he was so depressed by his forlorn situation

that such a hope evaporated as quickly as it had come. His own troops

were advancing, but this advance did not, perhaps, represent more than

a local gain. The line of battle was so extensive! . . . It was going to

be as in 1870; the French would achieve partial victories, modified at

the last moment by the strategy of the enemies until they were turned

into complete defeat.

After midnight the cannonading ceased, but silence was by no means

re-established. Automobiles were rolling around the lodge midst hoarse

shouts of command. It must be the hospital convoy that was evacuating

the castle. Then near daybreak the thudding of horses’ hoofs and the

wheels of chugging machines thundered through the gates, making the

ground tremble. Half an hour afterwards sounded the tramp of multitudes

moving at a quick pace, dying away in the depths of the park.

At dawn the old gentleman leaped from his bed, and the first thing

he spied from the cottage window was the flag of the Red Cross still

floating from the top of the castle. There were no more cots under the

trees. On the bridge he met one of the doctors and several assistants.

The hospital force had gone with all its transportable patients. There

only remained in the castle, under the care of a company, those most

gravely wounded. The Valkyries of the health department had also

disappeared.

The red-bearded Shylock was among those left behind, and on seeing Don

Marcelo afar off, he smiled and immediately vanished. A few minutes

after he returned with full hands. Never before had he been so generous.

Foreseeing pressing necessity, the hungry man put his hands in his

pockets as usual, but was astonished to learn from the orderly’s

emphatic gestures that he did not wish any money.

“Nein. . . . Nein!”

What generosity was this! . . . The German persisted in his negatives.

His enormous mouth expanded in an ingratiating grin as he laid his heavy

paws on Marcelo’s shoulders. He appeared like a good dog, a meek dog,

fawning and licking the hands of the passer-by, coaxing to be taken

along with him. “Franzosen. . . . Franzosen.” He did not know how to

say any more, but the Frenchman read in his words the desire to make him

understand that he had always been in great sympathy with the French.

Something very important was evidently transpiring--the ill-humored air

of those left behind in the castle, and the sudden servility of this

plowman in uniform, made it very apparent. . . .

Some distance beyond the castle he saw soldiers, many soldiers. A

battalion of infantry had spread itself along the walls with trucks,

draught horses and swift mounts. With their pikes the soldiers were

making small openings in the mud walls, shaping them into a border of

little pinnacles. Others were kneeling or sitting near the apertures,

taking off their knapsacks in order that they might be less hampered.

Afar off the cannon were booming, and in the intervals between their

detonations could be heard the bursting of shrapnel, the bubbling of

frying oil, the grinding of a coffee-mill, and the incessant crackling

of rifle-fire. Fleecy clouds were floating over the fields, giving to

near objects the indefinite lines of unreality. The sun was a faint spot

seen between curtains of mist. The trees were weeping fog moisture from

all the cracks in their bark.

A thunderclap rent the air so forcibly that it seemed very near the

castle. Desnoyers trembled, believing that he had received a blow in

the chest. The other men remained impassive with their customary

indifference. A cannon had just been discharged but a few feet away

from him, and not till then did he realize that two batteries had been

installed in the park. The pieces of artillery were hidden under mounds

of branches, the gunners having felled trees in order to mask their

monsters more perfectly. He saw them arranging the last; with shovels,

they were forming a border of earth, a foot in width, around each

piece. This border guarded the feet of the operators whose bodies were

protected by steel shields on both sides of them. Then they raised

a breastwork of trunks and boughs, leaving only the mouth of the

cylindrical mortar visible.

By degrees Don Marcelo became accustomed to the firing which seemed

to be creating a vacuum within his cranium. He ground his teeth and

clenched his fists at every detonation, but stood stock-still with no

desire to leave, dominated by the violence of the explosions, admiring

the serenity of these men who were giving orders, erect and coolly, or

moving like humble menials around their roaring metal beasts.

All his ideas seemed to have been snatched away by that first discharge

of cannon. His brain was living in the present moment only. He turned

his eyes insistently toward the white and red banner which was waving

from the mansion.

“That is treachery,” he thought, “a breach of faith.”

Far away, on the other side of the Marne, the French artillery were

belching forth their deadly fire. He could imagine their handiwork

from the little yellowish clouds that were floating in the air, and

the columns of smoke which were spouting forth at various points of

the landscape where the German troops were hidden, forming a line which

appeared to lose itself in infinity. An atmosphere of protection and

respect seemed to be enveloping the castle.

The morning mists had dissolved; the sun was finally showing its bright

and limpid light, lengthening the shadows of men and trees to fantastic

dimensions. Hills and woods came forth from the haze, fresh and dripping

after their morning bath. The entire valley was now completely exposed,

and Desnoyers was surprised to see the river from the spot to which he

had been rooted--the cannon having opened great windows in the woods

that had hid it from view. What most astonished him in looking over this

landscape, smiling and lovely in the morning light, was that nobody was

to be seen--absolutely nobody. Mountain tops and forests were bellowing

without anyone’s being in evidence. There must be more than a hundred

thousand men in the space swept by his piercing gaze, and yet not a

human being was visible. The deadly boom of arms was causing the air to

vibrate without leaving any optical trace. There was no other smoke but

that of the explosions, the black spirals that were flinging their

great shells to burst on the ground. These were rising on all sides,

encircling the castle like a ring of giant tops, but not one of that

orderly circle ventured to touch the edifice. Don Marcelo again stared

at the Red Cross flag. “It is treachery!” he kept repeating; yet at the

same time he was selfishly rejoicing in the base expedient, since it

served to defend his property.

The battalion was at last completely installed the entire length of the

wall, opposite the river. The soldiers, kneeling, were supporting their

guns on the newly made turrets and grooves, and seemed satisfied with

this rest after a night of battling retreat. They all appeared sleeping

with their eyes open. Little by little they were letting themselves drop

back on their heels, or seeking the support of their knapsacks. Snores

were heard in the brief spaces between the artillery fire. The officials

standing behind them were examining the country with their field

glasses, or talking in knots. Some appeared disheartened, others furious

at the backward flight that had been going on since the day before.

The majority appeared calm, with the passivity of obedience. The battle

front was immense; who could foresee the outcome? . . . There they were

in full retreat, but in other places, perhaps, their comrades might be

advancing with decided gains. Until the very last moment, no soldier

knows certainly the fate of the struggle. What was most grieving this

detachment was the fact that it was all the time getting further away

from Paris.

Don Marcelo’s eye was caught by a sparkling circle of glass, a monocle

fixed upon him with aggressive insistence. A lank lieutenant with the

corseted waist of the officers that he had seen in Berlin, a genuine

Junker, was a few feet away, sword in hand behind his men, like a

wrathful and glowering shepherd.

“What are you doing here?” he said gruffly.

Desnoyers explained that he was the owner of the castle. “French?”

continued the lieutenant. “Yes, French.” . . . The official scowled in

hostile meditation, feeling the necessity of saying something against

the enemy. The shouts and antics of his companions-at-arms put a summary

end to his reflections. They were all staring upward, and the old man

followed their gaze.

For an hour past, there had been streaking through the air frightful

roarings enveloped in yellowish vapors, strips of cloud which seemed

to contain wheels revolving with frenzied rotation. They were the

projectiles of the heavy German artillery which, fired from various

distances, threw their great shells over the castle. Certainly that

could not be what was interesting the officials!

He half shut his eyes in order to see better, and finally near the

edge of a cloud, he distinguished a species of mosquito flashing in

the sunlight. Between brief intervals of silence, could be heard the

distant, faint buzz announcing its presence. The officers nodded their

heads. “Franzosen!” Desnoyers thought so, too. He could not believe that

the enemy’s two black crosses were between those wings. Instead he saw

with his mind’s eye, two tricolored rings like the circular spots which

color the fluttering wings of butterflies.

This explained the agitation of the Germans. The French air-bird

remained motionless for a few seconds over the castle, regardless of

the white bubbles exploding underneath and around it. In vain the cannon

nearest hurled their deadly fire. It wheeled rapidly, and returned to

the place from which it came.

“It must have taken in the whole situation,” thought the old Frenchman.

“It has found them out; it knows what is going on here.”

He guessed rightly that this information would swiftly change the course

of events. Everything which had been happening in the early morning

hours was going to sink into insignificance compared with what was

coming now. He shuddered with fear, the irresistible fear of the

unknown, and yet at the same time, he was filled with curiosity,

impatience and nervous dread before a danger that threatened and would

not stay its relentless course.

Outside the park, but a short distance from the mud wall, sounded a

strident explosion like a stupendous blow from a gigantic axe--an axe as

big as his castle. There began flying through the air entire treetops,

trunks split in two, great chunks of earth with the vegetation still

clinging, a rain of dirt that obscured the heavens. Some stones fell

down from the wall. The Germans crouched but with no visible emotion.

They knew what it meant; they had been expecting it as something

inevitable after seeing the French aeroplane. The Red Cross flag could

no longer deceive the enemy’s artillery.

Don Marcelo had not time to recover from his surprise before there came

a second explosion nearer the mud wall . . . a third inside the park.

It seemed to him that he had been suddenly flung into another world from

which he was seeing men and things across a fantastic atmosphere which

roared and rocked and destroyed with the violence of its reverberations.

He was stunned with the awfulness of it all, and yet he was not afraid.

Until then, he had imagined fear in a very different form. He felt an

agonizing vacuum in his stomach. He staggered violently all the time, as

though some force were pushing him about, giving him first a blow on the

chest, and then another on the back to straighten him up.

A strong smell of acids penetrated the atmosphere, making respiration

very difficult, and filling his eyes with smarting tears. On the other

hand, the uproar no longer disturbed him, it did not exist for him. He

supposed it was still going on from the trembling air, the shaking of

things around him, in the whirlwind which was bending men double but was

not reacting within his body. He had lost the faculty of hearing; all

the strength of his senses had concentrated themselves in looking. His

eyes appeared to have acquired multiple facets like those of certain

insects. He saw what was happening before, beside, behind him,

simultaneously witnessing extraordinary things as though all the laws of

life had been capriciously overthrown.

An official a few feet away suddenly took an inexplicable flight. He

began to rise without losing his military rigidity, still helmeted, with

furrowed brow, moustache blond and short, mustard-colored chest,

and gloved hands still holding field-glasses and map--but there his

individuality stopped. The lower extremities, in their grayish leggings

remained on the ground, inanimate as reddening, empty moulds. The

trunk, in its violent ascent, spread its contents abroad like a bursting

rocket. Further on, some gunners, standing upright, were suddenly

stretched full length, converted into a motionless row, bathed in blood.

The line of infantry was lying close to the ground. The men had huddled

themselves together near the loopholes through which they aimed their

guns, trying to make themselves less visible. Many had placed their

knapsacks over their heads or at their backs to defend themselves from

the flying bits of shell. If they moved at all, it was only to worm

their way further into the earth, trying to hollow it out with their

stomachs. Many of them had changed position with mysterious rapidity,

now lying stretched on their backs as though asleep. One had his uniform

torn open across the abdomen, showing between the rents of the cloth,

slabs of flesh, blue and red that protruded and swelled up with a

bubbling expansion. Another had his legs shot away, and was looking

around with surprised eyes and a black mouth rounded into an effort to

howl, but from which no sound ever came.

Desnoyers had lost all notion of time. He could not tell whether he had

been rooted to that spot for many hours or for a single moment. The only

thing that caused him anxiety was the persistent trembling of his legs

which were refusing to sustain him. . . .

Something fell behind him. It was raining ruin. Turning his head, he

saw his castle completely transformed. Half of the tower had just been

carried off. The pieces of slate were scattered everywhere in tiny

chips; the walls were crumbling; loose window frames were balancing on

edge like fragments of stage scenery, and the old wood of the tower hood

was beginning to burn like a torch.

The spectacle of this instantaneous change in his property impressed him

more than the ravages of death, making him realize the Cyclopean power

of the blind, avenging forces raging around him. The vital force that

had been concentrated in his eyes, now spread to his feet . . . and he

started to run without knowing whither, feeling the same necessity to

hide himself as had those men enchained by discipline who were trying to

flatten themselves into the earth in imitation of the reptile’s pliant

invisibility.

His instinct was pushing him toward the lodge, but half way up the

avenue, he was stopped by another lot of astounding transformations. An

unseen hand had just snatched away half of the cottage roof. The entire

side wall doubled over, forming a cascade of bricks and dust. The

interior rooms were now exposed to view like a theatrical setting--the

kitchen where he had eaten, the upper floor with the room in which he

descried his still unmade bed. The poor women! . . .

He turned around, running now toward the castle, trying to make the

sub-cellar in which he had been fastened for the night; and when he

finally found himself under those dusty cobwebs, he felt as though

he were in the most luxurious salon, and he devoutly blessed the good

workmanship of the castle builders.

The subterranean silence began gradually to bring back his sense of

hearing. The cannonading of the Germans and the bursting of the French

shells sounded from his retreat like a distant tempest. There came into

his mind the eulogies which he had been accustomed to lavish upon the

cannon of ‘75 without knowing anything about it except by hearsay. Now

he had witnessed its effects. “It shoots TOO well!” he muttered. In a

short time it would finish destroying his castle--he was finding such

perfection excessive.

But he soon repented of these selfish lamentations. An idea, tenacious

as remorse, had fastened itself in his brain. It now seemed to him that

all he was passing through was an expiation for the great mistake of

his youth. He had evaded the service of his country, and now he was

enveloped in all the horrors of war, with the humiliation of a passive

and defenseless being, without any of the soldier’s satisfaction of

being able to return the blows. He was going to die--he was sure of

that--but a shameful death, unknown and inglorious. The ruins of his

mansion were going to become his sepulchre. . . . And the certainty of

dying there in the darkness, like a rat that sees the openings of his

hole being closed up, made this refuge intolerable.

Above him the tornado was still raging. A peal like thunder boomed above

his head, and then came the crash of a landslide. Another projectile

must have fallen upon the building. He heard shrieks of agony, yells

and precipitous steps on the floor above him. Perhaps the shell, in its

blind fury, had blown to pieces many of the dying in the salons.

Fearing to remain buried in his retreat, he bounded up the cellar stairs

two steps at a time. As he scudded across the first floor, he saw the

sky through the shattered roofs. Along the edges were hanging sections

of wood, fragments of swinging tile and furniture stopped halfway in

its flight. Crossing the hall, he had to clamber over much rubbish. He

stumbled over broken and twisted iron, parts of beds rained from the

upper rooms into the mountain of debris in which he saw convulsed limbs

and heard anguished voices that he could not understand.

He leaped as he ran, feeling the same longing for light and free air as

those who rush from the hold to the deck of a shipwreck. While sheltered

in the darkness more time had elapsed than he had supposed. The sun was

now very high. He saw in the garden more corpses in tragic and grotesque

postures. The wounded were doubled over with pain or lying on the ground

or propping themselves against the trees in painful silence. Some had

opened their knapsacks and drawn out their sanitary kits and were trying

to care for their cuts. The infantry was now firing incessantly. The

number of riflemen had increased. New bands of soldiers were entering

the park--some with a sergeant at their head, others followed by an

officer carrying a revolver at his breast as though guiding his men

with it. This must be the infantry expelled from their position near

the river which had come to reinforce the second line of defense. The

mitrailleuses were adding their tac-tac to the cracks of the fusileers.

The hum of the invisible swarms was buzzing incessantly. Thousands of

sticky horse-flies were droning around Desnoyers without his even seeing

them. The bark of the trees was being stripped by unseen hands; the

leaves were falling in torrents; the boughs were shaken by opposing

forces, the stones on the ground were being crushed by a mysterious

foot. All inanimate objects seemed to have acquired a fantastic life.

The zinc spoons of the soldiers, the metallic parts of their outfit, the

pails of the artillery were all clanking as though in an imperceptible

hailstorm. He saw a cannon lying on its side with the wheels broken

and turned over among many men who appeared asleep; he saw soldiers

who stretched themselves out without a contraction, without a sound, as

though overcome by sudden drowsiness. Others were howling and dragging

themselves forward in a sitting position.

The old man felt an extreme sensation of heat. The pungent perfume of

explosive drugs brought the tears to his eyes and clawed at his throat.

At the same time he was chilly and felt his forehead freezing in a

glacial sweat.

He had to leave the bridge. Several soldiers were passing bearing the

wounded to the edifice in spite of the fact that it was falling in

ruins. Suddenly he was sprinkled from head to foot, as if the earth had

opened to make way for a waterspout. A shell had fallen into the moat,

throwing up an enormous column of water, making the carp sleeping in

the mud fly into fragments, breaking a part of the edges and grinding to

powder the white balustrades with their great urns of flowers.

He started to run on with the blindness of terror, when he suddenly saw

before him the same little round crystal, examining him coolly. It

was the Junker, the officer of the monocle. . . . With the end of

his revolver, the German pointed to two pails a short distance away,

ordering Desnoyers to fill them from the lagoon and give the water to

the men overcome by the sun. Although the imperious tone admitted of no

reply, Don Marcelo tried, nevertheless, to resist. He received a blow

from the revolver on his chest at the same time that the lieutenant

slapped him in the face. The old man doubled over, longing to weep,

longing to perish; but no tears came, nor did life escape from his body

under this affront, as he wished. . . . With the two buckets in his

hands, he found himself dipping up water from the canal, carrying it the

length of the file, giving it to men who, each in his turn, dropped his

gun to gulp the liquid with the avidity of panting beasts.

He was no longer afraid of the shrill shrieks of invisible bodies. His

one great longing was to die. He was strongly convinced that he was

going to die; his sufferings were too great; there was no longer any

place in the world for him.

He had to pass by breaches opened in the wall by the bursting shells.

There was no natural object to arrest the eye looking through these

gaps. Hedges and groves had been swept away or blotted out by the

fire of the artillery. He descried at the foot of the highway near his

castle, several of the attacking columns which had crossed the Marne.

The advancing forces were coming doggedly on, apparently unmoved by the

steady, deadly fire of the Germans. Soon they were rushing forward with

leaps and bounds, by companies, shielding themselves behind bits of

upland in bends of the road, in order to send forth their blasts of

death.

The old man was now fired with a desperate resolution;--since he had to

die, let a French ball kill him! And he advanced very erect with his two

pails among those men shooting, lying down. Then, with a sudden fear,

he stood still hanging his head; a second thought had told him that the

bullet which he might receive would be one danger less for the enemy.

It would be better for them to kill the Germans . . . and he began to

cherish the hope that he might get possession of some weapon from those

dying around him, and fall upon that Junker who had struck him.

He was filling his pails for the third time, and murderously

contemplating the lieutenant’s back when something occurred so absurd

and unnatural that it reminded him of the fantastic flash of the

cinematograph;--the officer’s head suddenly disappeared; two jets of

blood spurted from his severed neck and his body collapsed like an empty

sack.

At the same time, a cyclone was sweeping the length of the wall, tearing

up groves, overturning cannon and carrying away people in a whirlwind as

though they were dry leaves. He inferred that Death was now blowing from

another direction. Until then, it had come from the front on the river

side, battling with the enemy’s line ensconced behind the walls. Now,

with the swiftness of an atmospheric change, it was blustering from the

depths of the park. A skillful manoeuver of the aggressors, the use of a

distant road, a chance bend in the German line had enabled the French to

collect their cannon in a new position, attacking the occupants of the

castle with a flank movement.

It was a lucky thing for Don Marcelo that he had lingered a few moments

on the bank of the fosse, sheltered by the bulk of the edifice. The fire

of the hidden battery passed the length of the avenue, carrying off the

living, destroying for a second time the dead, killing horses, breaking

the wheels of vehicles and making the gun carriages fly through the air

with the flames of a volcano in whose red and bluish depths black bodies

were leaping. He saw hundreds of fallen men; he saw disembowelled horses

trampling on their entrails. The death harvest was not being reaped in

sheaves; the entire field was being mowed down with a single flash

of the sickle. And as though the batteries opposite divined the

catastrophe, they redoubled their fire, sending down a torrent of

shells. They fell on all sides. Beyond the castle, at the end of the

park, craters were opening in the woods, vomiting forth the entire

trunks of trees. The projectiles were hurling from their pits the bodies

interred the night before.

Those still alive were firing through the gaps in the walls. Then they

sprang up with the greatest haste. Some grasped their bayonets, pale,

with clamped lips and a mad glare in their eyes; others turned their

backs, running toward the exit from the park, regardless of the shouts

of their officers and the revolver shots sent after the fugitives.

All this occurred with dizzying rapidity, like a nightmare. On the other

side of the wall came a murmur, swelling in volume, like that of the

sea. Desnoyers heard shouts, and it seemed to him that some hoarse,

discordant voices were singing the Marseillaise. The machine-guns were

working with the swift steadiness of sewing machines. The attack was

going to be opposed with furious resistance. The Germans, crazed

with fury, shot and shot. In one of the breaches appeared a red kepis

followed by legs of the same color trying to clamber over the ruins. But

this vision was instantly blotted out by the sprinkling from the machine

guns, making the invaders fall in great heaps on the other side of the

wall. Don Marcelo never knew exactly how the change took place. Suddenly

he saw the red trousers within the park. With irresistible bounds they

were springing over the wall, slipping through the yawning gaps, and

darting out from the depths of the woods by invisible paths. They were

little soldiers, husky, panting, perspiring, with torn cloaks; and

mingled with them, in the disorder of the charge, African marksmen with

devilish eyes and foaming mouths, Zouaves in wide breeches and chasseurs

in blue uniforms.

The German officers wanted to die. With upraised swords, after having

exhausted the shots in their revolvers, they advanced upon their

assailants followed by the soldiers who still obeyed them. There was a

scuffle, a wild melee. To the trembling spectator, it seemed as though

the world had fallen into profound silence. The yells of the combatants,

the thud of colliding bodies, the clang of arms seemed as nothing after

the cannon had quieted down. He saw men pierced through the middle by

gun points whose reddened ends came out through their kidneys; muskets

raining hammer-like blows, adversaries that grappled in hand-to-hand

tussles, rolling over and over on the ground, trying to gain the

advantage by kicks and bites.

The mustard-colored fronts had entirely disappeared, and he now saw only

backs of that color fleeing toward the exit, filtering among the trees,

falling midway in their flight when hit by the pursuing balls. Many

of the invaders were unable to chase the fugitives because they were

occupied in repelling with rude thrusts of their bayonets the bodies

falling upon them in agonizing convulsions.

Don Marcelo suddenly found himself in the very thick of these mortal

combats, jumping up and down like a child, waving his hands and shouting

with all his might. When he came to himself again, he was hugging

the grimy head of a young French officer who was looking at him in

astonishment. He probably thought him crazy on receiving his kisses, on

hearing his incoherent torrent of words. Emotionally exhausted, the worn

old man continued to weep after the officer had freed himself with a

jerk. . . . He needed to give vent to his feelings after so many days of

anguished self-control. Vive la France! . . .

His beloved French were already within the park gates. They were

running, bayonets in hand, in pursuit of the last remnants of the German

battalion trying to escape toward the village. A group of horsemen

passed along the road. They were dragoons coming to complete the rout.

But their horses were fagged out; nothing but the fever of victory

transmitted from man to beast had sustained their painful pace. One

of the equestrians came to a stop near the entrance of the park, the

famished horse eagerly devouring the herbage while his rider settled

down in the saddle as though asleep. Desnoyers touched him on the hip in

order to waken him, but he immediately rolled off on the opposite side.

He was dead, with his entrails protruding from his body, but swept on

with the others, he had been brought thus far on his steady steed.

Enormous tops of iron and smoke now began falling in the neighborhood.

The German artillery was opening a retaliatory fire against its

lost positions. The advance continued. There passed toward the North

battalions, squadrons and batteries, worn, weary and grimy, covered with

dust and mud, but kindled with an ardor that galvanized their flagging

energy.

The French cannon began thundering on the village side. Bands of

soldiers were exploring the castle and the nearest woods. From the

ruined rooms, from the depths of the cellars, from the clumps of

shrubbery in the park, from the stables and burned garage, came surging

forth men dressed in greenish gray and pointed helmets. They all threw

up their arms, extending their open hands:--“Kamarades . . . kamarades,

non kaput.” With the restlessness of remorse, they were in dread of

immediate execution. They had suddenly lost all their haughtiness on

finding that they no longer had any official powers and were free from

discipline. Some of those who knew a little French, spoke of their wives

and children, in order to soften the enemies that were threatening them

with their bayonets. A brawny Teuton came up to Desnoyers and clapped

him on the back. It was Redbeard. He pressed his heart and then pointed

to the owner of the castle. “Franzosen . . . great friend of the

Franzosen” . . . and he grinned ingratiatingly at his protector.

Don Marcelo remained at the castle until the following morning, and was

astounded to see Georgette and her mother emerge unexpectedly from the

depths of the ruined lodge. They were weeping at the sight of the French

uniforms.

“It could not go on,” sobbed the widow. “God does not die.”

After a bad night among the ruins, the owner decided to leave

Villeblanche. What was there for him to do now in the destroyed castle?

. . . The presence of so many dead was racking his nerves. There were

hundreds, there were thousands. The soldiers and the farmers were

interring great heaps of them wherever he went, digging burial trenches

close to the castle, in all the avenues of the park, in the garden

paths, around the outbuildings. Even the depths of the circular lagoon

were filled with corpses. How could he ever live again in that tragic

community composed mostly of his enemies? . . . Farewell forever, castle

of Villeblanche!

He turned his steps toward Paris, planning to get there the best way

he could. He came upon corpses everywhere, but they were not all the

gray-green uniform. Many of his countrymen had fallen in the gallant

offensive. Many would still fall in the last throes of the battle that

was going on behind them, agitating the horizon with its incessant

uproar. Everywhere red pantaloons were sticking up out of the stubble,

hobnailed boots glistening in upright position near the roadside,

livid heads, amputated bodies, stray limbs--and, scattered through this

funereal medley, red kepis and Oriental caps, helmets with tufts of

horse hair, twisted swords, broken bayonets, guns and great mounds

of cannon cartridges. Dead horses were strewing the plain with their

swollen carcasses. Artillery wagons with their charred wood and bent

iron frames revealed the tragic moment of the explosion. Rectangles of

overturned earth marked the situation of the enemy’s batteries before

their retreat. Amidst the broken cannons and trucks were cones of

carbonized material, the remains of men and horses burned by the Germans

on the night before their withdrawal.

In spite of these barbarian holocausts corpses were every where in

infinite numbers. There seemed to be no end to their number; it seemed

as though the earth had expelled all the bodies that it had received

since the beginning of the world. The sun was impassively flooding the

fields of death with its waves of light. In its yellowish glow, the

pieces of the bayonets, the metal plates, the fittings of the guns were

sparkling like bits of crystal. The damp night, the rain, the rust of

time had not yet modified with their corrosive action these relics of

combat.

But decomposition had begun to set in. Graveyard odors were all along

the road, increasing in intensity as Desnoyers plodded on toward Paris.

Every half hour, the evidence of corruption became more pronounced--many

of the dead on this side of the river having lain there for three or

four days. Bands of crows, at the sound of his footsteps, rose up,

lazily flapping their wings, but returning soon to blacken the earth,

surfeited but not satisfied, having lost all fear of mankind.

From time to time, the sad pedestrian met living bands of men--platoons

of cavalry, gendarmes, Zouaves and chasseurs encamped around the ruined

farmsteads, exploring the country in pursuit of German fugitives. Don

Marcelo had to explain his business there, showing the passport that

Lacour had given him in order to make his trip on the military train.

Only in this way, could he continue his journey. These soldiers--many

of them slightly wounded--were still stimulated by victory. They were

laughing, telling stories, and narrating the great dangers which they

had escaped a few days before, always ending with, “We are going to kick

them across the frontier!” . . .

Their indignation broke forth afresh as they looked around at the

blasted towns--farms and single houses, all burned. Like skeletons

of prehistoric beasts, many steel frames twisted by the flames were

scattered over the plains. The brick chimneys of the factories were

either levelled to the ground or, pierced with the round holes made

by shells, were standing up like giant pastoral flutes forced into the

earth.

Near the ruined villages, the women were removing the earth and trying

to dig burial trenches, but their labor was almost useless because it

required an immense force to inter so many dead. “We are all going to

die after gaining the victory,” mused the old man. “The plague is going

to break out among us.”

The water of the river must also be contaminated by this contagion;

so when his thirst became intolerable he drank, in preference, from a

nearby pond. . . . But, alas, on raising his head, he saw some greenish

legs on the surface of the shallow water, the boots sunk in the muddy

banks. The head of the German was in the depths of the pool.

He had been trudging on for several hours when he stopped before a

ruined house which he believed that he recognized. Yes, it was the

tavern where he had lunched a few days ago on his way to the castle. He

forced his way in among the blackened walls where a persistent swarm of

flies came buzzing around him. The smell of decomposing flesh attracted

his attention; a leg which looked like a piece of charred cardboard was

wedged in the ruins. Looking at it bitterly he seemed to hear again the

old woman with her grandchildren clinging to her skirts--“Monsieur, why

are the people fleeing? War only concerns the soldiers. We countryfolk

have done no wrong to anybody, and we ought not to be afraid.”

Half an hour later, on descending a hilly path, the traveller had the

most unexpected of encounters. He saw there a taxicab, an automobile

from Paris. The chauffeur was walking tranquilly around the vehicle as

if it were at the cab stand, and he promptly entered into conversation

with this gentleman who appeared to him as downcast and dirty as a

tramp, with half of his livid face discolored from a blow. He had

brought out here in his machine some Parisians who had wanted to see the

battlefield; they were reporters; and he was waiting there to take them

back at nightfall.

Don Marcelo buried his right hand in his pocket. Two hundred francs

if the man would drive him to Paris. The chauffeur declined with the

gravity of a man faithful to his obligations. . . . “Five hundred?”

. . . and he showed his fist bulging with gold coins. The man’s only

response was a twirl of the handle which started the machine to

snorting, and away they sped. There was not a battle in the neighborhood

of Paris every day in the year! His other clients could just wait.

And settling back into the motor-car, Desnoyers saw the horrors of the

battle field flying past at a dizzying speed and disappearing behind

him. He was rolling toward human life . . . he was returning to

civilization!

As they came into Paris, the nearly empty streets seemed to him to be

crowded with people. Never had he seen the city so beautiful. He whirled

through the avenue de l’Opera, whizzed past the place de la Concorde,

and thought he must be dreaming as he realized the gigantic leap that he

had taken within the hour. He compared all that was now around him with

the sights on that plain of death but a few miles away. No; no, it was

not possible. One of the extremes of this contrast must certainly be

false!

The automobile was beginning to slow down; he must be now in the avenue

Victor Hugo. . . . He couldn’t wake up. Was that really his home? . . .

The majestic concierge, unable to understand his forlorn appearance,

greeted him with amazed consternation. “Ah. Monsieur! . . . Where has

Monsieur been?” . . .

“In hell!” muttered Don Marcelo.

His wonderment continued when he found himself actually in his own

apartment, going through its various rooms. He was somebody once more.

The sight of the fruits of his riches and the enjoyment of home comforts

restored his self-respect at the same time that the contrast recalled to

his mind the recollection of all the humiliations and outrages that he

had suffered. . . . Ah, the scoundrels! . . .

Two mornings later, the door bell rang. A visitor!

There came toward him a soldier--a little soldier of the infantry,

timid, with his kepis in his hand, stuttering excuses in Spanish:--“I

knew that you were here . . . I come to . . .”

That voice? . . . Dragging him from the dark hallway, Don Marcelo

conducted him to the balcony. . . . How handsome he looked! . . . The

kepis was red, but darkened with wear; the cloak, too large, was torn

and darned; the great shoes had a strong smell of leather. Yet never

had his son appeared to him so elegant, so distinguished-looking as now,

fitted out in these rough ready-made clothes.

“You! . . . You! . . .”

The father embraced him convulsively, crying like a child, and trembling

so that he could no longer stand.

He had always hoped that they would finally understand each other. His

blood was coursing through the boy’s veins; he was good, with no other

defect than a certain obstinacy. He was excusing him now for all the

past, blaming himself for a great part of it. He had been too hard.

“You a soldier!” he kept exclaiming over and over. “You defending my

country, when it is not yours!” . . .

And he kissed him again, receding a few steps so as to get a better look

at him. Decidedly he was more fascinating now in his grotesque uniform,

than when he was so celebrated for his skill as a dancer and idolized by

the women.

When the delighted father was finally able to control his emotion, his

eyes, still filled with tears, glowed with a malignant light. A spasm of

hatred furrowed his face.

“Go,” he said simply. “You do not know what war is; I have just come

from it; I have seen it close by. This is not a war like other wars,

with rational enemies; it is a hunt of wild beasts. . . . Shoot without

a scruple against them all. . . . Every one that you overcome, rids

humanity of a dangerous menace.”

He hesitated a few seconds, and then added with tragic calm:

“Perhaps you may encounter familiar faces. Family ties are not always

formed to our tastes. Men of your blood are on the other side. If you

see any one of them . . . do not hesitate. Shoot! He is your enemy. Kill

him! . . . Kill him!”

PART III

CHAPTER I

AFTER THE MARNE

At the end of October, the Desnoyers family returned to Paris. Dona

Luisa could no longer live in Biarritz, so far from her husband. In vain

la Romantica discoursed on the dangers of a return. The Government was

still in Bordeaux, the President of the Republic and the Ministry making

only the most hurried apparitions in the Capital. The course of the war

might change at any minute; that little affair of the Marne was but

a momentary relief. . . . But the good senora, after having read

Don Marcelo’s letters, opposed an adamantine will to all contrary

suggestions. Besides, she was thinking of her son, her Julio, now a

soldier. . . . She believed that, by returning to Paris, she might in

some ways be more in touch with him than at this seaside resort near the

Spanish frontier.

Chichi also wished to return because Rene was now filling the greater

part of her thoughts. Absence had shown her that she was really in love

with him. Such a long time without seeing her little sugar soldier!

. . . So the family abandoned their hotel life and returned to the

avenue Victor Hugo.

Since the shock of the first September days, Paris had been gradually

changing its aspect. The nearly two million inhabitants who had been

living quietly in their homes without letting themselves be drawn into

the panic, had accepted the victory with grave serenity. None of them

could explain the exact course of the battle; they would learn all about

it when it was entirely finished.

One September Sunday, at the hour when the Parisians are accustomed

to take advantage of the lovely twilight, they had learned from the

newspapers of the great triumph of the Allies and of the great danger

which they had so narrowly escaped. The people were delighted, but

did not, however, abandon their calm demeanor. Six weeks of war had

radically changed the temperament of turbulent and impressionable Paris.

The victory was slowly restoring the Capital to its former aspect. A

street that was practically deserted a few weeks before was now filled

with transients. The shops were reopening. The neighbors accustomed to

the conventional silence of their deserted apartment houses, again heard

sounds of returning life in the homes above and below them.

Don Marcelo’s satisfaction in welcoming his family home was considerably

clouded by the presence of Dona Elena. She was Germany returning to the

encounter, the enemy again established within his tents. Would he never

be able to free himself from this bondage? . . . She was silent in her

brother-in-law’s presence because recent events had rather bewildered

her. Her countenance was stamped with a wondering expression as though

she were gazing at the upsetting of the most elemental physical laws.

In reflective silence she was puzzling over the Marne enigma, unable to

understand how it was that the Germans had not conquered the ground

on which she was treading; and in order to explain this failure, she

resorted to the most absurd suppositions.

One especially engrossing matter was increasing her sadness. Her sons.

. . . What would become of her sons! Don Marcelo had never told her of

his meeting with Captain von Hartrott. He was maintaining absolute

silence about his sojourn at Villeblanche. He had no desire to recount

his adventures at the battle of the Marne. What was the use of saddening

his loved ones with such miseries? . . . He simply told Dona Luisa, who

was alarmed about the possible fate of the castle, that they would not

be able to go there for many years to come, because the hostilities had

rendered it uninhabitable. A covering of zinc sheeting had been

substituted for the ancient roof in order to prevent further injury from

wind and rain to the wrecked interior. Later on, after peace had been

declared, they would think about its renovation. Just now it had too

many inhabitants. And all the ladies, including Dona Elena, shuddered in

imagining the thousands of buried bodies forming their ghastly circle

around the building. This vision made Frau von Hartrott again groan,

“Ay, my sons!”

Finally, for humanity’s sake, her brother-in-law set her mind at rest

regarding the fate of one of them, the Captain von Hartrott. He was in

perfect health at the beginning of the battle. He knew that this was so

from a friend who had conversed with him . . . and he did not wish to

talk further about him.

Dona Luisa was spending a part of each day in the churches, trying to

quiet her uneasiness with prayer. These petitions were no longer vague

and generous for the fate of millions of unknown men, for the victory of

an entire people. With maternal self-centredness they were focussed

on one single person--her son, who was a soldier like the others, and

perhaps at this very moment was exposed to the greatest danger. The

tears that he had cost her! . . . She had implored that he and his

father might come to understand each other, and finally just as God was

miraculously granting her supplication, Julio had taken himself off to

the field of death.

Her entreaties never went alone to the throne of grace. Someone was

praying near her, formulating identical requests. The tearful eyes of

her sister were raised at the same time as hers to the figure of the

crucified Savior. “Lord, save my son!” . . . When uttering these words,

Dona Luisa always saw Julio as he looked in a pale photograph which he

had sent his father from the trenches--with kepis and military cloak, a

gun in his right hand, and his face shadowed by a growing beard. “O

Lord have mercy upon us!” . . . and Dona Elena was at the same time

contemplating a group of officers with helmets and reseda uniforms

reinforced with leather pouches for the revolver, field glasses and

maps, with sword-belt of the same material.

Oftentimes when Don Marcelo saw them setting forth together toward Saint

Honore d’Eylau, he would wax very indignant.

“They are juggling with God. . . . This is most unreasonable! How could

He grant such contrary petitions? . . . Ah, these women!”

And then, with that superstition which danger awakens, he began to

fear that his sister-in-law might cause some grave disaster to his son.

Divinity, fatigued with so many contradictory prayers was going to turn

His back and not listen to any of them. Why did not this fatal woman

take herself off? . . .

He felt as exasperated at her presence in his home as he had at the

beginning of hostilities. Dona Luisa was still innocently repeating her

sister’s statements, submitting them to the superior criticism of her

husband. In this way, Don Marcelo had learned that the victory of the

Marne had never really happened; it was an invention of the allies.

The German generals had deemed it prudent to retire through profound

strategic foresight, deferring till a little later the conquest of

Paris, and the French had done nothing but follow them over the ground

which they had left free. That was all. She knew the opinions of

military men of neutral countries; she had been talking in Biarritz with

some people of unusual intelligence; she knew what the German papers

were saying about it. Nobody over there believed that yarn about the

Marne. The people did not even know that there had been such a battle.

“Your sister said that?” interrupted Desnoyers, pale with wrath and

amazement.

But he could do nothing but keep on longing for the bodily

transformation of this enemy planted under his roof. Ay, if she could

only be changed into a man! If only the evil genius of her husband could

but take her place for a brief half hour! . . .

“But the war still goes on,” said Dona Luisa in artless perplexity. “The

enemy is still in France. . . . What good did the battle of the Marne

do?”

She accepted his explanations with intelligent noddings of the head,

seeming to take them all in, and an hour afterwards would be repeating

the same doubts.

She, nevertheless, began to evince a mute hostility toward her sister.

Until now, she had been tolerating her enthusiasms in favor of her

husband’s country because she always considered family ties of more

importance than the rivalries of nations. Just because Desnoyers

happened to be a Frenchman and Karl a German, she was not going to

quarrel with Elena. But suddenly this forbearance had vanished. Her son

was now in danger. . . . Better that all the von Hartrotts should die

than that Julio should receive the most insignificant wound! . . . She

began to share the bellicose sentiments of her daughter, recognizing in

her an exceptional talent for appraising events, and now desiring all of

Chichi’s dagger thrusts to be converted into reality.

Fortunately La Romantica took herself off before this antipathy

crystallized. She was accustomed to pass the afternoons somewhere

outside, and on her return would repeat the news gleaned from friends

unknown to the rest of the family.

This made Don Marcelo wax very indignant because of the spies

still hidden in Paris. What mysterious world was his sister-in-law

frequenting? . . .

Suddenly she announced that she was leaving the following morning; she

had obtained a passport to Switzerland, and from there she would go to

Germany. It was high time for her to be returning to her own; she was

most appreciative of the hospitality shown her by the family. . . . And

Desnoyers bade her good-bye with aggressive irony. His regards to

von Hartrott; he was hoping to pay him a visit in Berlin as soon as

possible.

One morning Dona Luisa, instead of entering the neighboring church as

usual, continued on to the rue de la Pompe, pleased at the thought of

seeing the studio once more. It seemed to her that in this way she might

put herself more closely in touch with her son. This would be a new

pleasure, even greater than poring over his photograph or re-reading his

last letter.

She was hoping to meet Argensola, the friend of good counsels, for she

knew that he was still living in the studio. Twice he had come to see

her by the service stairway as in the old days, but she had been out.

As she went up in the elevator, her heart was palpitating with pleasure

and distress. It occurred to the good lady that the “foolish virgins”

must have had feelings like this when for the first time they fell from

the heights of virtue.

The tears came to her eyes when she beheld the room whose furnishings

and pictures so vividly recalled the absent. Argensola hastened from the

door at the end of the room, agitated, confused, and greeting her with

expressions of welcome at the same time that he was putting sundry

objects out of sight. A woman’s sweater lying on the divan, he covered

with a piece of Oriental drapery--a hat trimmed with flowers, he sent

flying into a far-away corner. Dona Luisa fancied that she saw a bit of

gauzy feminine negligee embroidered in pink, flitting past the window

frame. Upon the divan were two big coffee cups and bits of toast

evidently left from a double breakfast. These artists! . . . The same

as her son! And she was moved to compassion over the bad life of Julio’s

counsellor.

“My honored Dona Luisa. . . . My DEAR Madame Desnoyers. . . .”

He was speaking in French and at the top of his voice, looking

frantically at the door through which the white and rosy garments had

flitted. He was trembling at the thought that his hidden companion, not

understanding the situation, might in a jealous fit, compromise him by a

sudden apparition.

Then he spoke to his unexpected guest about the soldier, exchanging news

with her. Dona Luisa repeated almost word for word the paragraphs of his

letters so frequently read. Argensola modestly refrained from displaying

his; the two friends were accustomed to an epistolary style which would

have made the good lady blush.

“A valiant man!” affirmed the Spaniard proudly, looking upon the deeds

of his comrade as though they were his own. “A true hero! and I, Madame

Desnoyers, know something about what that means. . . . His chiefs know

how to appreciate him.” . . .

Julio was a sergeant after having been only two months in the campaign.

The captain of his company and the other officials of the regiment

belonged to the fencing club in which he had had so many triumphs.

“What a career!” he enthused. “He is one of those who in youth reach

the highest ranks, like the Generals of the Revolution. . . . And what

wonders he has accomplished!”

The budding officer had merely referred in the most casual way to some

of exploits, with the indifference of one accustomed to danger and

expecting the same attitude from his comrades; but his chum exaggerated

them, enlarging upon them as though they were the culminating events of

the war. He had carried an order across an infernal fire, after three

messengers, trying to accomplish the same feat, had fallen dead. He

had been the first to attack many trenches and had saved many of

his comrades by means of the blows from his bayonet and hand to hand

encounters. Whenever his superior officers needed a reliable man, they

invariably said, “Let Sergeant Desnoyers be called!”

He rattled off all this as though he had witnessed it, as if he had

just come from the seat of war, making Dona Luisa tremble and pour forth

tears of joy mingled with fear over the glories and dangers of her son.

That Argensola certainly possessed the gift of affecting his hearers by

the realism with which he told his stories!

In gratitude for these eulogies, she felt that she ought to show some

interest in his affairs. . . . What had he been doing of late?

“I, Madame, have been where I ought to be. I have not budged from this

spot. I have witnessed the siege of Paris.”

In vain, his reason protested against the inexactitude of that word,

“siege.” Under the influence of his readings about the war of 1870, he

had classed as a siege all those events which had developed near Paris

during the course of the battle of the Marne.

He pointed modestly to a diploma in a gold frame hanging above the piano

against a tricolored flag. It was one of the papers sold in the streets,

a certificate of residence in the Capital during the week of danger. He

had filled in the blanks with his name and description of his person;

and at the foot were very conspicuous the signatures of two residents of

the rue de la Pompe--a tavern-keeper, and a friend of the concierge. The

district Commissary of Police, with stamp and seal, had guaranteed the

respectability of these honorable witnesses. Nobody could remain in

doubt, after such precautions, as to whether he had or had not witnessed

the siege of Paris. He had such incredulous friends! . . .

In order to bring the scene more dramatically before his amiable

listener, he recalled the most striking of his impressions for her

special benefit. Once, in broad daylight, he had seen a flock of sheep

in the boulevard near the Madeleine. Their tread had resounded through

the deserted streets like echoes from the city of the dead. He was the

only pedestrian on the sidewalks thronged with cats and dogs.

His military recollections excited him like tales of glory.

“I have seen the march of the soldiers from Morocco. . . . I have seen

the Zouaves in automobiles!”

The very night that Julio had gone to Bordeaux, he had wandered around

till sunrise, traversing half of Paris, from the Lion of Belfort, to

the Gare de l’Est. Twenty thousand men, with all their campaign outfit,

coming from Morocco, had disembarked at Marseilles and arrived at the

Capital, making part of the trip by rail and the rest afoot. They had

come to take part in the great battle then beginning. They were troops

composed of Europeans and Africans. The vanguard, on entering through

the Orleans gate, had swung into rhythmic pace, thus crossing half Paris

toward the Gare de l’Est where the trains were waiting for them.

The people of Paris had seen squadrons from Tunis with theatrical

uniforms, mounted on horses, nervous and fleet, Moors with yellow

turbans, Senegalese with black faces and scarlet caps, colonial

artillerymen, and light infantry from Africa. These were professional

warriors, soldiers who in times of peace, led a life of continual

fighting in the colonies--men with energetic profiles, bronzed faces and

the eyes of beasts of prey. They had remained motionlesss in the streets

for hours at a time, until room could be found for them in the military

trains. . . . And Argensola had followed this armed, impassive mass of

humanity from the boulevards, talking with the officials, and listening

to the primitive cries of the African warriors who had never seen Paris,

and who passed through it without curiosity, asking where the enemy was.

They had arrived in time to attack von Kluck on the banks of the Ourq,

obliging him to fall back or be completely overwhelmed.

A fact which Argensola did not relate to his sympathetic guest was that

his nocturnal excursion the entire length of this division of the

army had been accompanied by the amiable damsel within, and two other

friends--an enthusiastic and generous coterie, distributing flowers and

kisses to the swarthy soldiers, and laughing at their consternation and

gleaming white teeth.

Another day he had seen the most extraordinary of all the spectacles

of the war. All the taxicabs, some two thousand vehicles, conveying

battalions of Zouaves, eight men to a motor car, had gone rolling past

him at full speed, bristling with guns and red caps. They had presented

a most picturesque train in the boulevards, like a kind of interminable

wedding procession. And these soldiers got out of the automobiles on the

very edge of the battle field, opening fire the instant that they leaped

from the steps. Gallieni had launched all the men who knew how to handle

a gun against the extreme right of the adversary at the supreme moment

when the most insignificant weight might tip the scales in favor of the

victory which was hanging in the balance. The clerks and secretaries

of the military offices, the orderlies of the government and the civil

police, all had marched to give that final push, forming a mass of

heterogenous colors.

And one Sunday afternoon when, with his three companions of the “siege”

he was strolling with thousands of other Parisians through the Bois

de Boulogne, he had learned from the extras that the combat which

had developed so near to the city was turning into a great battle, a

victory.

“I have seen much, Madame Desnoyers. . . . I can relate great events.”

And she agreed with him. Of course Argensola had seen much! . . . And on

taking her departure, she offered him all the assistance in her power.

He was the friend of her son, and she was used to his petitions. Times

had changed; Don Marcelo’s generosity now knew no bounds . . . but the

Bohemian interrupted her with a lordly gesture; he was living in luxury.

Julio had made him his trustee. The draft from America had been

honored by the bank as a deposit, and he had the use of the interest

in accordance with the regulations of the moratorium. His friend was

sending him regularly whatever money was needed for household expenses.

Never had he been in such prosperous condition. War had its good side,

too . . . but not wishing to break away from old customs, he announced

that once more he would mount the service stairs in order to bear away a

basket of bottles.

After her sister’s departure, Dona Luisa went alone to the churches

until Chichi in an outburst of devotional ardor, suddenly surprised her

with the announcement:

“Mama, I am going with you!”

The new devotee was no longer agitating the household by her rollicking,

boyish joy; she was no longer threatening the enemy with imaginary

dagger thrusts. She was pale, and with dark circles under her eyes. Her

head was drooping as though weighed down with a set of serious, entirely

new thoughts on the other side of her forehead.

Dona Luisa observed her in the church with an almost indignant jealousy.

Her headstrong child’s eyes were moist, and she was praying as fervently

as the mother . . . but it was surely not for her brother. Julio

had passed to second place in her remembrance. Another man was now

completely filling her thoughts.

The last of the Lacours was no longer a simple soldier, nor was he now

in Paris. Upon her return from Biarritz, Chichi had listened anxiously

to the reports from her little sugar soldier. Throbbing with eagerness,

she wanted to know all about the dangers which he had been experiencing;

and the young warrior “in the auxiliary service” told her of his

restlessness in the office during the interminable days in which the

troops were battling around Paris, hearing afar off the boom of the

artillery. His father had wished to take him with him to Bordeaux,

but the administrative confusion of the last hour had kept him in the

capital.

He had done something more. On the day of the great crisis, when the

acting governor had sent out all the available men in automobiles, he

had, unasked, seized a gun and occupied a motor with others from his

office. He had not seen anything more than smoke, burning houses, and

wounded men. Not a single German had passed before his eyes, excepting a

band of Uhlan prisoners, but for some hours he had been shooting on the

edge of the road . . . and nothing more.

For a while, that was enough for Chichi. She felt very proud to be

the betrothed of a hero of the Marne, even though his intervention had

lasted but a few hours. In a few days, however, her enthusiasm became

rather clouded.

It was becoming annoying to stroll through the streets with Rene, a

simple soldier and in the auxiliary service, besides. . . . The women

of the town, excited by the recollection of their men fighting at the

front, or clad in mourning because of the death of some loved one, would

look at them with aggressive insolence. The refinement and elegance

of the Republican Prince seemed to irritate them. Several times, she

overheard uncomplimentary words hurled against the “embusques.”

The fact that her brother who was not French was in the thick of the

fighting, made the Lacour situation still more intolerable. She had an

“embusque” for a lover. How her friends would laugh at her! . . .

The senator’s son soon read her thoughts and began to lose some of

his smiling serenity. For three days he did not present himself at the

Desnoyers’ home, and they all supposed that he was detained by work at

the office.

One morning as Chichi was going toward the Bois de Boulogne, escorted by

one of the nut-brown maids, she noticed a soldier coming toward her. He

was wearing a bright uniform of the new gray-blue, the “horizon blue”

just adopted by the French army. The chin strap of his kepi was gilt,

and on his sleeve there was a little strip of gold. His smile, his

outstretched hands, the confidence with which he advanced toward her

made her recognize him. Rene an officer! Her betrothed a sub-lieutenant!

“Yes, of course! I could do nothing else. . . . I had heard enough!”

Without his father’s knowledge, and assisted by his friends, he had in

a few days, wrought this wonderful transformation. As a graduate of

the Ecole Centrale, he held the rank of a sub-lieutenant of the Reserve

Artillery, and he had requested to be sent to the front. Good-bye to the

auxiliary service! . . . Within two days, he was going to start for the

war.

“You have done this!” exclaimed Chichi. “You have done this!”

Although very pale, she gazed fondly at him with her great eyes--eyes

that seemed to devour him with admiration.

“Come here, my poor boy. . . . Come here, my sweet little soldier! . . .

I owe you something.”

And turning her back on the maid, she asked him to come with her round

the corner. It was just the same there. The cross street was just as

thronged as the avenue. But what did she care for the stare of the

curious! Rapturously she flung her arms around his neck, blind and

insensible to everything and everybody but him.

“There. . . . There!” And she planted on his face two vehement,

sonorous, aggressive kisses.

Then, trembling and shuddering, she suddenly weakened, and fumbling for

her handkerchief, broke down in desperate weeping.

CHAPTER II

IN THE STUDIO

Upon opening the studio door one afternoon, Argensola stood motionless

with surprise, as though rooted to the ground.

An old gentleman was greeting him with an amiable smile.

“I am the father of Julio.”

And he walked into the apartment with the confidence of a man entirely

familiar with his surroundings.

By good luck, the artist was alone, and was not obliged to tear

frantically from one end of the room to the other, hiding the traces

of convivial company; but he was a little slow in regaining his

self-control. He had heard so much about Don Marcelo and his bad temper,

that he was very uncomfortable at this unexpected appearance in the

studio. . . . What could the fearful man want?

His tranquillity was restored after a furtive, appraising glance. His

friend’s father had aged greatly since the beginning of the war. He

no longer had that air of tenacity and ill-humor that had made him

unapproachable. His eyes were sparkling with childish glee; his hands

were trembling slightly, and his back was bent. Argensola, who had

always dodged him in the street and had thrilled with fear when sneaking

up the stairway in the avenue home, now felt a sudden confidence.

The transformed old man was beaming on him like a comrade, and making

excuses to justify his visit.

He had wished to see his son’s home. Poor old man! He was drawn thither

by the same attraction which leads the lover to lessen his solitude by

haunting the places that his beloved has frequented. The letters from

Julio were not enough; he needed to see his old abode, to be on familiar

terms with the objects which had surrounded him, to breathe the same

air, to chat with the young man who was his boon companion.

His fatherly glance now included Argensola. . . . “A very interesting

fellow, that Argensola!” And as he thought this, he forgot completely

that, without knowing him, he had been accustomed to refer to him as

“shameless,” just because he was sharing his son’s prodigal life.

Desnoyers’ glance roamed delightedly around the studio. He knew well

these tapestries and furnishings, all the decorations of the former

owner. He easily remembered everything that he had ever bought, in spite

of the fact that they were so many. His eyes then sought the personal

effects, everything that would call the absent occupant to mind; and he

pored over the miserably executed paintings, the unfinished dabs which

filled all the corners.

Were they all Julio’s? . . . Many of the canvases belonged to Argensola,

but affected by the old man’s emotion, the artist displayed a marvellous

generosity. Yes, everything was Julio’s handiwork . . . and the father

went from canvas to canvas, halting admiringly before the vaguest daubs

as though he could almost detect signs of genius in their nebulous

confusion.

“You think he has talent, really?” he asked in a tone that implored a

favorable reply. “I always thought him very intelligent . . . a little

of the diable, perhaps, but character changes with years. . . . Now he

is an altogether different man.”

And he almost wept at hearing the Spaniard, with his ready, enthusiastic

speech, lauding the departed “diable,” graphically setting forth the

way in which his great genius was going to take the world when his turn

should come.

The painter of souls finally worked himself up into feeling as much

affected as the father, and began to admire this old Frenchman with a

certain remorse, not wishing to remember how he had ranted against him

not so very long ago. What injustice! . . .

Don Marcelo clasped his hand like an old comrade. All of his son’s

friends were his friends. He knew the life that young men lived.

. . . If at any time, he should be in any difficulties, if he needed an

allowance so as to keep on with his painting--there he was, anxious to

help him! He then and there invited him to dine at his home that very

night, and if he would care to come every evening, so much the better.

He would eat a family dinner, entirely informal. War had brought about a

great many changes, but he would always be as welcome to the intimacy of

the hearth as though he were in his father’s home.

Then he spoke of Spain, in order to place himself on a more congenial

footing with the artist. He had never been there but once, and then only

for a short time; but after the war, he was going to know it better.

His father-in-law was a Spaniard, his wife had Spanish blood, and in

his home the language of the family was always Castilian. Ah, Spain, the

country with a noble past and illustrious men! . . .

Argensola had a strong suspicion that if he had been a native of any

other land, the old gentleman would have praised it in the same way. All

this affection was but a reflex of his love for his absent son, but it

so pleased the impressionable fellow that he almost embraced Don Marcelo

when he took his departure.

After that, his visits to the studio were very frequent. The artist was

obliged to recommend his friends to take a good long walk after lunch,

abstaining from reappearing in the rue de la Pompe until nightfall.

Sometimes, however, Don Marcelo would unexpectedly present himself in

the morning, and then the soulful impressionist would have to scurry

from place to place, hiding here, concealing there, in order that his

workroom should preserve its appearance of virtuous labor.

“Youth . . . youth!” the visitor would murmur with a smile of tolerance.

And he actually had to make an effort to recall the dignity of his

years, in order not to ask Argensola to present him to the fair

fugitives whose presence he suspected in the interior rooms. Perhaps

they had been his boy’s friends, too. They represented a part of his

past, anyway, and that was enough to make him presume that they had

great charms which made them interesting.

These surprises, with their upsetting consequences, finally made the

painter rather regret this new friendship; and the invitations to dinner

which he was constantly receiving bored him, too. He found the Desnoyers

table most excellent, but too tedious--for the father and mother could

talk of nothing but their absent son. Chichi scarcely looked at her

brother’s friend. Her attention was entirely concentrated on the war.

The irregularity in the mails was exasperating her so that she began

composing protests to the government whenever a few days passed by

without bringing any letter from sub-Lieutenant Lacour.

Argensola excused himself on various pretexts from continuing to dine

in the avenue Victor Hugo. It pleased him far more to haunt the cheap

restaurants with his female flock. His host accepted his negatives with

good-natured resignation.

“Not to-day, either?”

And in order to compensate for his guest’s non-appearance, he would

present himself at the studio earlier than ever on the day following.

It was an exquisite pleasure for the doting father to let the time slip

by seated on the divan which still seemed to guard the very hollow made

by Julio’s body, gazing at the canvases covered with color by his brush,

toasting his toes by the beat of a stove which roared so cosily in the

profound, conventual silence. It certainly was an agreeable refuge, full

of memories in the midst of monotonous Paris so saddened by the war

that he could not meet a friend who was not preoccupied with his own

troubles.

His former purchasing dissipations had now lost all charm for him. The

Hotel Drouot no longer tempted him. At that time, the goods of German

residents, seized by the government, were being auctioned off;--a

felicitous retaliation for the enforced journey which the fittings of

the castle of Villeblanche had taken on the road to Berlin; but the

agents told him in vain of the few competitors which he would now meet.

He no longer felt attracted by these extraordinary bargains. Why buy

anything more? . . . Of what use was such useless stuff? Whenever he

thought of the hard life of millions of men in the open field, he felt

a longing to lead an ascetic life. He was beginning to hate the

ostentatious splendors of his home on the avenue Victor Hugo. He now

recalled without a regretful pang, the destruction of the castle. No,

he was far better off there . . . and “there” was always the studio of

Julio.

Argensola began to form the habit of working in the presence of Don

Marcelo. He knew that the resolute soul abominated inactive people, so,

under the contagious influence of dominant will-power, he began several

new pieces. Desnoyers would follow with interest the motions of his

brush and accept all the explanations of the soulful delineator. For

himself, he always preferred the old masters, and in his bargains had

acquired the work of many a dead artist; but the fact that Julio had

thought as his partner did was now enough for the devotee of the antique

and made him admit humbly all the Spaniard’s superior theories.

The artist’s laborious zeal was always of short duration. After a few

moments, he always found that he preferred to rest on the divan and

converse with his guest.

The first subject, of course, was the absentee. They would repeat

fragments of the letters they had received, and would speak of the past

with the most discreet allusions. The painter described Julio’s life

before the war as an existence dedicated completely to art. The father

ignored the inexactitude of such words, and gratefully accepted the lie

as a proof of friendship. Argensola was such a clever comrade, never,

in his loftiest verbal flights, making the slightest reference to Madame

Laurier.

The old gentleman was often thinking about her nowadays, for he had seen

her in the street giving her arm to her husband, now recovered from his

wounds. The illustrious Lacour had informed him with great satisfaction

of their reconciliation. The engineer had lost but one eye. Now he was

again at the head of his factory requisitioned by the government for the

manufacture of shells. He was a Captain, and was wearing two decorations

of honor. The senator did not know exactly how this unexpected agreement

had come about. He had one day seen them coming home together, looking

affectionately at each other, in complete oblivion of the past.

“Who remembers things that happened before the war,” said the politic

sage. “They and their friends have completely forgotten all about their

divorce. Nowadays we are all living a new existence. . . . I believe

that the two are happier than ever before.”

Desnoyers had had a presentiment of this happiness when he saw them

together. And the man of inflexible morality who was, the year before,

anathematizing his son’s behavior toward Laurier, considering it the

most unpardonable of his adventures, now felt a certain indignation in

seeing Marguerite devoted to her husband, and talking to him with such

affectionate interest. This matrimonial felicity seemed to him like the

basest ingratitude. A woman who had had such an influence over the life

of Julio! . . . Could she thus easily forget her love? . . .

The two had passed on as though they did not recognize him. Perhaps

Captain Laurier did not see very clearly, but she had looked at him

frankly and then hastily averted her eyes so as to evade his greeting.

. . . The old man felt sad over such indifference, not on his own

account, but on his son’s. Poor Julio! . . . The unbending parent, in

complete mental immorality, found himself lamenting this indifference as

something monstrous.

The war was the other topic of conversation during the afternoons passed

in the studio. Argensola was not now stuffing his pockets with printed

sheets as at the beginning of hostilities. A serene and resigned calm

had succeeded the excitement of those first moments when the people were

daily looking for miraculous interventions. All the periodicals were

saying about the same thing. He was content with the official report,

and he had learned to wait for that document without impatience,

foreseeing that with but few exceptions, it would say the same thing as

the day before.

The fever of the first months, with its illusions and optimisms, now

appeared to Argensola somewhat chimerical. Those not actually engaged in

the war were returning gradually to their habitual occupations. Life had

recovered its regular rhythm. “One must live!” said the people, and the

struggle for existence filled their thoughts with its immediate urgency.

Those whose relatives were in the army, were still thinking of them, but

their occupations were so blunting the edge of memory, that they were

becoming accustomed to their absence, regarding the unusual as the

normal condition. At first, the war made sleep out of the question, food

impossible to swallow, and embittered every pleasure with its funereal

pall. Now the shops were slowly opening, money was in circulation, and

people were able to laugh; they talked of the great calamity, but only

at certain hours, as something that was going to be long, very long and

would exact great resignation to its inevitable fatalism.

“Humanity accustoms itself easily to trouble,” said Argensola, “provided

that the trouble lasts long enough. . . . In this lies our strength.”

Don Marcelo was not in sympathy with the general resignation. The

war was going to be much shorter than they were all imagining. His

enthusiasm had settled on a speedy termination;--within the next three

months, the next Spring probably; if peace were not declared in the

Spring, it surely would be in the Summer.

A new talker took part in these conversations. Desnoyers had become

acquainted with the Russian neighbor of whom Argensola had so frequently

spoken. Since this odd personage had also known his son, that was enough

to make Tchernoff arouse his interest.

In normal times, he would have kept him at a distance. The millionaire

was a great believer in law and order. He abominated revolutionists,

with the instinctive fear of all the rich who have built up a fortune

and remember their humble beginnings. Tchernoff’s socialism and

nationality brought vividly to his mind a series of feverish

images--bombs, daggers, stabbings, deserved expiations on the gallows,

and exile to Siberia. No, he was not desirable as a friend. . . .

But now Don Marcelo was experiencing an abrupt reversal of his

convictions regarding alien ideas. He had seen so much! . . . The

revolting proceedings of the invasion, the unscrupulous methods of the

German chiefs, the tranquillity with which their submarines were sinking

boats filled with defenseless passengers, the deeds of the aviators

who were hurling bombs upon unguarded cities, destroying women and

children--all this was causing the events of revolutionary terrorism

which, years ago, used to arouse his wrath, to sink into relative

unimportance.

“And to think,” he said “that we used to be as infuriated as though

the world were coming to an end, just because someone threw a bomb at a

grandee!”

Those titled victims had had certain reprehensible qualities which had

justified their execution. They had died in consequence of acts which

they undertook, knowing well what the punishment would be. They had

brought retribution on themselves without trying to evade it, rarely

taking any precautions. While the terrorists of this war! . . .

With the violence of his imperious character, the old conservative now

swung to the opposite extreme.

“The true anarchists are yet on top,” he said with an ironical laugh.

“Those who terrified us formerly, all put together, were but a few

miserable creatures. . . . In a few seconds, these of our day kill more

innocent people than those others did in thirty years.”

The gentleness of Tchernoff, his original ideas, his incoherencies

of thought, bounding from reflection to word without any preparation,

finally won Don Marcelo so completely over that he formed the habit

of consulting him about all his doubts. His admiration made him, too,

overlook the source of certain bottles with which Argensola sometimes

treated his neighbor. He was delighted to have Tchernoff consume these

souvenirs of the time when he was living at swords’ points with his son.

After sampling the wine from the avenue Victor Hugo, the Russian would

indulge in a visionary loquacity similar to that of the night when he

evoked the fantastic cavalcade of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse.

What his new convert most admired was his facility for making things

clear, and fixing them in the imagination. The battle of the Marne with

its subsequent combats and the course of both armies were events easily

explained. . . . If the French only had not been so fatigued after their

triumph of the Marne! . . .

“But human powers,” continued Tchernoff, “have their limits, and the

French soldier, with all his enthusiasm, is a man like the rest. In the

first place, the most rapid of marches from the East to the North, in

order to resist the invasion of Belgium; then the combats; then the

swift retreat that they might not be surrounded; finally a seven days’

battle--and all this in a period of three weeks, no more. . . . In

their moment of triumph, the victors lacked the legs to follow up their

advantage, and they lacked the cavalry to pursue the fugitives. Their

beasts were even more exhausted than the men. When those who were

retreating found that they were being spurred on with lessening

tenacity, they had stretched themselves, half-dead with fatigue, on the

field, excavating the ground and forming a refuge for themselves. The

French also flung themselves down, scraping the soil together so as not

to lose what they had gained. . . . And in this way began the war of the

trenches.”

Then each line, with the intention of wrapping itself around that of

the enemy, had gone on prolonging itself toward the Northeast, and from

these successive stretchings had resulted the double course toward the

sea--forming the greatest battle front ever known to history.

When Don Marcelo with optimistic enthusiasm announced the end of the war

in the following Spring or Summer--in four months at the outside--the

Russian shook his head.

“It will be long . . . very long. It is a new war, the genuine modern

warfare. The Germans began hostilities in the old way as though they had

observed nothing since 1870--a war of involved movements, of battles

in the open field, the same as Moltke might have planned, imitating

Napoleon. They were desirous of bringing it to a speedy conclusion, and

were sure of triumph. Why employ new methods? . . . But the encounter of

the Marne twisted their plans, making them shift from the aggressive to

the defensive. They then brought into service all that the war staff had

learned in the campaigns of the Japanese and Russians, beginning the war

of the trenches, the subterranean struggle which is the logical outcome

of the reach and number of shots of the modern armament. The conquest of

half a mile of territory to-day stands for more than did the assault

of a stone fortress a century ago. Neither side is going to make any

headway for a long time. Perhaps they may never make a definite advance.

The war is bound to be long and tedious, like the athletic conquests

between opponents who are equally matched.”

“But it will have to come to an end, sometime,” interpolated Desnoyers.

“Undoubtedly, but who knows when? . . . And in what condition will they

both be when it is all over?” . . .

He was counting upon a rapid finale when it was least expected, through

the exhaustion of one of the contestants, carefully dissimulated until

the last moment.

“Germany will be vanquished,” he added with firm conviction. “I do

not know when nor how, but she will fall logically. She failed in her

master-stroke in not entering Paris and overcoming its opposition. All

the trumps in her pack of cards were then played. She did not win, but

continues playing the game because she holds many cards, and she will

prolong it for a long time to come. . . . But what she could not do at

first, she will never be able to do.”

For Tchernoff, the final defeat did not mean the destruction of Germany

nor the annihilation of the German people.

“Excessive patriotism irritates me,” he pursued. “Hearing people form

plans for the definite extinction of Germany seems to me like listening

to the Pan-Germanists of Berlin when they talk of dividing up the

continents.”

Then he summed up his opinion.

“Imperialism will have to be crushed for the sake of the tranquillity of

the world; the great war machine which menaces the peace of nations will

have to be suppressed. Since 1870, we have all been living in dread of

it. For forty years, the war has been averted, but in all that time,

what apprehension!” . . .

What was most irritating Tchernoff was the moral lesson born of this

situation which had ended by overwhelming the world--the glorification

of power, the sanctification of success, the triumph of materialism, the

respect for the accomplished fact, the mockery of the noblest sentiments

as though they were merely sonorous and absurd phrases, the reversal

of moral values . . . a philosophy of bandits which pretended to be

the last word of progress, and was no more than a return to despotism,

violence, and the barbarity of the most primitive epochs of history.

While he was longing for the suppression of the representatives of

this tendency, he would not, therefore, demand the extermination of the

German people.

“This nation has great merits jumbled with bad conditions inherited

from a not far-distant, barbarous past. It possesses the genius of

organization and work, and is able to lend great service to humanity.

. . . But first it is necessary to give it a douche--the douche of

downfall. The Germans are mad with pride and their madness threatens

the security of the world. When those who have poisoned them with the

illusion of universal hegemony have disappeared, when misfortune has

freshened their imagination and transformed them into a community of

humans, neither superior nor inferior to the rest of mankind, they will

become a tolerant people, useful . . . and who knows but they may even

prove sympathetic!”

According to Tchernoff, there was not in existence to-day a more

dangerous nation. Its political organization was converting it into a

warrior horde, educated by kicks and submitted to continual humiliations

in order that the willpower which always resists discipline might be

completely nullified.

“It is a nation where all receive blows and desire to give them to those

lower down. The kick that the Kaiser gives is transmitted from back to

back down to the lowest rung of the social ladder. The blows begin

in the school and are continued in the barracks, forming part of the

education. The apprenticeship of the Prussian Crown Princes has always

consisted in receiving fisticuffs and cowhidings from their progenitor,

the king. The Kaiser beats his children, the officer his soldiers, the

father his wife and children, the schoolmaster his pupils, and when the

superior is not able to give blows, he subjects those under him to the

torment of moral insult.”

On this account, when they abandoned their ordinary avocations, taking

up arms in order to fall upon another human group, they did so with

implacable ferocity.

“Each one of them,” continued the Russian, “carries on his back the

marks of kicks, and when his turn comes, he seeks consolation in passing

them on to the unhappy creatures whom war puts into his power. This

nation of war-lords, as they love to call themselves, aspires to

lordship, but outside of the country. Within it, are the ones who least

appreciate human dignity and, therefore, long vehemently to spread

their dominant will over the face of the earth, passing from lackeys to

lords.”

Suddenly Don Marcelo stopped going with such frequency to the studio. He

was now haunting the home and office of the senator, because this friend

had upset his tranquillity. Lacour had been much depressed since the

heir to the family glory had broken through the protecting paternal net

in order to go to war.

One night, while dining with the Desnoyers family, an idea popped into

his head which filled him with delight. “Would you like to see your

son?” He needed to see Rene and had begun negotiating for a permit from

headquarters which would allow him to visit the front. His son belonged

to the same army division as Julio; perhaps their camps were rather far

apart, but an automobile makes many revolutions before it reaches the

end of its journey.

It was not necessary to say more. Desnoyers instantly felt the most

overmastering desire to see his boy, since, for so many months, he had

had to content himself with reading his letters and studying the snap

shot which one of his comrades had made of his soldier son.

From that time on, he besieged the senator as though he were a political

supporter desiring an office. He visited him in the mornings in his

home, invited him to dinner every evening, and hunted him down in the

salons of the Luxembourg. Before the first word of greeting could be

exchanged, his eyes were formulating the same interrogation. . . . “When

will you get that permit?”

The great man could only reply by lamenting the indifference of the

military department toward the civilian element; it always had been

inimical toward parliamentarism.

“Besides, Joffre is showing himself most unapproachable; he does not

encourage the curious. . . . To-morrow I will see the President.”

A few days later, he arrived at the house in the avenue Victor Hugo,

with an expression of radiant satisfaction that filled Don Marcelo with

joy.

“It has come?”

“It has come. . . . We start the day after to-morrow.”

Desnoyers went the following afternoon to the studio in the rue de la

Pompe.

“I am going to-morrow!”

The artist was very eager to accompany him. Would it not be possible for

him to go, too, as secretary to the senator? . . . Don Marcelo smiled

benevolently. The authorization was only for Lacour and one companion.

He was the one who was going to pose as secretary, valet or utility man

to his future relative-in-law.

At the end of the afternoon, he left the studio, accompanied to the

elevator by the lamentations of Argensola. To think that he could not

join that expedition! . . . He believed that he had lost the opportunity

to paint his masterpiece.

Just outside of his home, he met Tchernoff. Don Marcelo was in high good

humor. The certainty that he was soon going to see his son filled him

with boyish good spirits. He almost embraced the Russian in spite of his

slovenly aspect, his tragic beard and his enormous hat which made every

one turn to look after him.

At the end of the avenue, the Arc de Triomphe stood forth against a sky

crimsoned by the sunset. A red cloud was floating around the monument,

reflected on its whiteness with purpling palpitations.

Desnoyers recalled the four horsemen, and all that Argensola had told

him before presenting him to the Russian.

“Blood!” shouted jubilantly. “All the sky seems to be blood-red. . . .

It is the apocalyptic beast who has received his death-wound. Soon we

shall see him die.”

Tchernoff smiled, too, but his was a melancholy smile.

“No; the beast does not die. It is the eternal companion of man. It

hides, spouting blood, forty . . . sixty . . . a hundred years, but

eventually it reappears. All that we can hope is that its wound may be

long and deep, that it may remain hidden so long that the generation

that now remembers it may never see it again.”

CHAPTER III

WAR

Don Marcelo was climbing up a mountain covered with woods.

The forest presented a tragic desolation. A silent tempest had installed

itself therein, placing everything in violent unnatural positions. Not a

single tree still preserved its upright form and abundant foliage as in

the days of peace. The groups of pines recalled the columns of ruined

temples. Some were still standing erect, but without their crowns, like

shafts that might have lost their capitals; others were pierced like the

mouthpiece of a flute, or like pillars struck by a thunderbolt. Some had

splintery threads hanging around their cuts like used toothpicks.

A sinister force of destruction had been raging among these beeches,

spruce and oaks. Great tangles of their cut boughs were cluttering the

ground, as though a band of gigantic woodcutters had just passed by. The

trunks had been severed a little distance from the ground with a clean

and glistening stroke, as though with a single blow of the axe. Around

the disinterred roots were quantities of stones mixed with sod, stones

that had been sleeping in the recesses of the earth and had been brought

to the surface by explosions.

At intervals--gleaming among the trees or blocking the roadway with an

importunity which required some zigzagging--was a series of pools, all

alike, of regular geometrical circles. To Desnoyers, they seemed like

sunken basins for the use of the invisible Titans who had been hewing

the forest. Their great depth extended to their very edges. A swimmer

might dive into these lagoons without ever touching bottom. Their

water was greenish, still water--rain water with a scum of vegetation

perforated by the respiratory bubbles of the little organisms coming to

life in its vitals.

Bordering the hilly pathway through the pines, were many mounds with

crosses of wood--tombs of French soldiers topped with little tricolored

flags. Upon these moss-covered graves were the old kepis of the gunners.

The ferocious wood-chopper, in destroying this woods, had also blindly

demolished many of the ants swarming around the trunks.

Don Marcelo was wearing leggings, a broad hat, and on his shoulders,

a fine poncho arranged like a shawl--garments which recalled his

far-distant life on the ranch. Behind him came Lacour trying to preserve

his senatorial dignity in spite of his gasps and puffs of fatigue.

He also was wearing high boots and a soft hat, but he had kept to his

solemn frock-coat in order not to abandon entirely his parliamentary

uniform. Before them marched two captains as guides.

They were on a mountain occupied by the French artillery, and were

climbing to the top where were hidden cannons and cannons, forming a

line some miles in length. The German artillery had caused the woodland

ruin around the visitors, in their return of the French fire. The

circular pools were the hollows dug by the German shells in the limy,

non-porous soil which preserved all the runnels of rain.

The visiting party had left their automobile at the foot of the

mountain. One of the officers, a former artilleryman, explained

this precaution to them. It was necessary to climb this roadway very

cautiously. They were within reach of the enemy, and an automobile might

attract the attention of their gunners.

“A little fatiguing, this climb,” he continued. “Courage, Senator

Lacour! . . . We are almost there.”

They began to meet artillerymen, many of them not in uniform but wearing

the military kepis. They looked like workmen from a metal factory,

foundrymen with jackets and pantaloons of corduroy. Their arms were

bare, and some had put on wooden shoes in order to get over the mud with

greater security. They were former iron laborers, mobilized into the

artillery reserves. Their sergeants had been factory overseers, and many

of them officials, engineers and proprietors of big workshops.

Suddenly the excursionists stumbled upon the iron inmates of the woods.

When these spoke, the earth trembled, the air shuddered, and the native

inhabitants of the forest, the crows, rabbits, butterflies and ants,

fled in terrified flight, trying to hide themselves from the fearful

convulsion which seemed to be bringing the world to an end. Just at

present, the bellowing monsters were silent, so that they came upon them

unexpectedly. Something was sticking up out of the greenery like a gray

beam; at other times, this apparition would emerge from a conglomeration

of dry trunks. Around this obstacle was cleared ground occupied by men

who lived, slept and worked about this huge manufactory on wheels.

The senator, who had written verse in his youth and composed oratorical

poetry when dedicating various monuments in his district, saw in these

solitary men on the mountain side, blackened by the sun and smoke,

with naked breasts and bare arms, a species of priests dedicated to

the service of a fatal divinity that was receiving from their hands

offerings of enormous explosive capsules, hurling them forth in

thunderclaps.

Hidden under the branches, in order to escape the observation of the

enemy’s birdmen, the French cannon were scattered among the hills

and hollows of the highland range. In this herd of steel, there were

enormous pieces with wheels reinforced by metal plates, somewhat like

the farming engines which Desnoyers had used on his ranch for plowing.

Like smaller beasts, more agile and playful in their incessant yelping,

the groups of ‘75 were mingled with the terrific monsters.

The two captains had received from the general of their division orders

to show Senator Lacour minutely the workings of the artillery, and

Lacour was accepting their observations with corresponding gravity while

his eyes roved from side to side in the hope of recognizing his son.

The interesting thing for him was to see Rene . . . but recollecting the

official pretext of his journey, he followed submissively from cannon to

cannon, listening patiently to all explanations.