¡Bienvenidos a un viaje literario al corazón de la guerra y el destino! 🌍📖 En este clásico de la literatura española, *Los cuatro jinetes del apocalipsis* nos lleva a través de un relato épico sobre la devastación de la Primera Guerra Mundial y sus consecuencias en la vida de diversas personas. A través de los ojos de los personajes de Blasco Ibáñez, descubrimos las emociones, los sacrificios y las tragedias que se entrelazan con los horrores del conflicto bélico. En esta historia, los jinetes del apocalipsis no son solo una metáfora, sino una representación de los aspectos más oscuros de la humanidad.
🔸 *¿De qué trata la historia?*
*Los cuatro jinetes del apocalipsis* nos narra la vida de varios personajes cuyas existencias se ven irremediablemente afectadas por la guerra. La obra está cargada de simbolismos y reflexiones sobre el destino, la muerte, el sufrimiento y el amor en tiempos de destrucción. Con una narrativa apasionante y conmovedora, Blasco Ibáñez muestra cómo los conflictos bélicos afectan no solo a las naciones, sino también a las almas de aquellos que los viven.
🔸 *¿Por qué leer esta obra?*
1. **Una crítica al impacto de la guerra**: La novela examina cómo la guerra afecta profundamente la vida de los individuos, deshumanizando y llevando a los personajes a enfrentarse a dilemas existenciales.
2. **Personajes complejos**: Cada personaje en *Los cuatro jinetes del apocalipsis* tiene una historia propia que se entrelaza con el sufrimiento de la guerra, creando una red de emociones humanas intensas.
3. **Una obra maestra del realismo social**: Blasco Ibáñez utiliza su pluma para retratar las realidades sociales y políticas de la época, proporcionando una visión completa del conflicto.
4. **Temas universales**: Aunque está ambientada en la Primera Guerra Mundial, los temas de la obra siguen siendo relevantes hoy en día, como la lucha por la supervivencia, el sacrificio y la esperanza en medio de la oscuridad.
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📣 **Deja tu comentario abajo**: ¿Qué opinas sobre la representación de la guerra en esta novela? ¿Te ha impactado la forma en que Blasco Ibáñez describe los efectos de la guerra en las personas? ¡Queremos saber tu opinión!
🔔 **Activa las notificaciones** para no perderte ninguna de nuestras historias.
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In this story, Vicente Blasco Ibáñez transports us to a world devastated by war, where the destinies of various characters intersect amidst tragedy. Through his profound and critical gaze, the author presents a story full of emotion, inner struggles, and the consequences of armed conflict. Join us in this fascinating narrative, where the horrors of war become the backdrop for a tale about life, destiny, and humanity. PART ONE. Chapter 1. In the Garden of the Expiatory Chapel. They were to meet at five in the afternoon in the small garden of the Expiatory Chapel, but Julio Desnoyers arrived half an hour early, with the impatience of a lover who believes he can hasten the rendezvous by arriving ahead of schedule. As he passed through the gate on Boulevard Haussmann, he suddenly realized that in Paris, July belongs to summer. The course of the seasons was, for him at that moment, something confusing that required calculations. Five months had passed since their last meetings in this square, which offered wandering couples the refuge of a damp, funereal calm beside a bustling boulevard and near a large railway station. The appointed time was always five o’clock. Julio would see his beloved arrive in the light of the recently lit street lamps, her torso wrapped in furs, her muff pulled up over her face like a mask. Her sweet voice, as she greeted him, scattered her breath, frozen by the cold: a halo of thin, white vapor. After several tentative, hesitant meetings, they finally left the garden. Their love had acquired the majestic significance of a consummated act, and from five to seven, she sought refuge in a fifth-floor apartment on the rue de la Pompe, where Julio had his painting studio. The curtains drawn tightly over the panes of glass, the blazing fireplace scattering purple pulses as the room’s sole light, the monotonous hum of the samovar simmering beside the teacups—all the seclusion of a life isolated by sweet selfishness—prevented them from noticing that the afternoons were growing longer, that outside the sun still occasionally shone through the pearly pools in the clouds, and that spring, a timid and pale spring, was beginning to show its green fingers in the buds on the branches, enduring the last bites of winter, a black boar retracing its steps. Later, Julio had traveled to Buenos Aires, finding in the other hemisphere the last smiles of autumn and the first icy winds of the pampas. And just when he imagined that winter was his eternal season, since it always crossed his path during his moves from one end of the planet to the other, summer unexpectedly appeared in this neighborhood garden. A swarm of children ran and shouted in the short paths around the expiatory monument. The first thing Julio saw upon entering was a hoop rolling toward his legs, pushed by a child’s hand. Then he tripped over a ball. Around the chestnut trees, the usual crowd of hot days gathered, seeking the blue shade pierced by points of light. They were maids from nearby houses , doing chores or chatting, indifferently watching the boisterous games of the children entrusted to their care; boisterous residents of the neighborhood who came down to the garden to read their newspapers, deluding themselves into thinking they were surrounded by the peace of the woods. Every bench was full. Some women occupied folding canvas stools, with the self-assurance that comes from ownership. The iron chairs, seats for hire, served as refuge for several ladies laden with parcels, bourgeois women from the outskirts of Paris waiting for other members of their families to catch the train at the Gare Saint-Lazare… And Julio had suggested in a pneumatic letter that they meet, as in days gone by, in this place, considering it seldom frequented. And she, with no less forgetfulness of reality, fixed on her She answered at the usual time, five o’clock, believing that, after spending a few minutes in Printemps or the Galeries under the pretext of shopping, she could slip into the secluded garden without risk of being seen by any of her many acquaintances… Desnoyers enjoyed an almost forgotten pleasure: the movement in a vast space as she strolled, the grains of sand crunching beneath her feet . For twenty days, her walks had been on boardwalks, following with the automaticity of a riding horse the oval track of a ship’s deck. Her feet, accustomed to unsteady ground, still retained on solid earth a certain sensation of elastic movement. Her comings and goings did not arouse the curiosity of the people sitting on the promenade. A common concern seemed to encompass everyone, men and women. The groups exchanged their impressions aloud. Those with a newspaper in hand watched their neighbors approach with questioning smiles. The distrust and suspicion that drive the inhabitants of large cities to ignore one another, sizing each other up as if they were enemies, had suddenly vanished . “They’re talking about war,” Desnoyers said to himself. “All of Paris is talking about nothing but the possibility of war at this hour.” Outside the garden, the same anxiety was equally palpable, making people fraternal and egalitarian. Newspaper vendors sped along the boulevard, shouting out the afternoon papers. Their furious run was cut short by the eager hands of passersby, who fought over the papers. Every reader found himself surrounded by a group asking for news or trying to decipher over their shoulders the thick, sensational headlines at the top of the page. On the rue des Mathurins, across the square, a group of workers, under a tavern awning, listened to the comments of a friend, who punctuated his words by waving his newspaper with oratorical gestures. The traffic in the streets, the general bustle of the city, was the same as on other days, but it seemed to Jules that the vehicles were moving faster , that there was a feverish tremor in the air, that people spoke and smiled differently. Everyone seemed to know each other. The women in the garden looked at him as if they had seen him in previous days. He could approach them and strike up a conversation without them feeling surprised. “They’re talking about the war,” he repeated to himself; but with the compassion of a superior intellect that knows the future and is above the impressions of the common people. He knew what to expect. He had disembarked at ten o’clock at night, less than twenty-four hours after setting foot on land, and his mindset was that of a man who comes from afar, across the vast oceans, across unobstructed horizons, and is surprised to find himself assailed by the concerns that govern human masses. Upon disembarking, he had spent two hours in a café in Boulogne, watching the bourgeois families pass the evening in the monotonous placidity of a life without dangers. Then, the special train for travelers from America had taken him to Paris, leaving him at four in the morning on a platform at the Gare du Nord in the arms of Pepe Argensola, a young Spaniard whom he sometimes called “my secretary” and other times “my squire,” not knowing for certain what his role was in his personal life. In reality, he was a mixture of friend and parasite, the poor, obliging, and active comrade who accompanies the young gentleman from a wealthy family, at odds with his parents, sharing in the vicissitudes of his fortune, picking up the crumbs of prosperous days , and inventing schemes to maintain appearances in times of hardship. “What about the war?” Argensola had said before asking him about the outcome of his trip. “You come from abroad and you must know a lot.” Then he had fallen asleep in his old bed, keeper of fond memories, while the “secretary” paced the study talking about Serbia, Russia, and the Kaiser. This young man, too, was skeptical of… Everything unrelated to his own selfishness seemed infected by the general anxiety. When he awoke, her letter summoning him for five o’clock that afternoon also contained a few words about the dreaded danger. Through her lovestruck tone, the anxiety of Paris seemed to permeate everything. As he went out in search of lunch, the concierge, under the pretext of welcoming him, had asked him for news. And in the restaurant, in the café, in the street, always the war… the possibility of a war with Germany… Desnoyers was optimistic. What could these anxieties mean to a man like him, who had just spent more than twenty days among Germans, crossing the Atlantic under the flag of the Empire?… He had left Buenos Aires on a Hamburg steamer: the König Friedrich August. The world was in blissful tranquility when the ship sailed away from land. Only in Mexico were whites and mestizos exterminating each other in a revolutionary frenzy, so that no one could believe that man is an animal degenerated by peace. The people of the rest of the world demonstrated extraordinary sanity. Even on the ocean liner, the small world of passengers, from the most diverse nationalities, seemed a fragment of future society, implemented as a trial in the present, a sketch of the world to come, without borders or racial antagonisms. One morning, the ship’s music, which played Luther’s Chorale every Sunday, roused the sleepers in the first- class cabins with the most unprecedented of dawns. Desnoyers rubbed his eyes, believing he was still living in the hallucinations of sleep. The German brass instruments roared the Marseillaise through the corridors and decks. The steward, smiling at his astonishment, finally explained the event: “July 14th.” On German steamships, the great holidays of all the nations that provide cargo and passengers are celebrated as if they were their own. Their captains take meticulous care to observe the rituals of this religion of the flag and historical memory. The most insignificant republic sees the ship bedecked in its honor. It is yet another diversion, helping to combat the monotony of the voyage and serving the lofty aims of German propaganda. For the first time, France’s great day was being celebrated on a German ship; and while the musicians continued parading through the various decks, a galloping, sweaty, and flowing Marseillaise, the morning gatherings discussed the event. “How refined!” said the South American ladies. “These Germans are not as common as they seem. It’s a thoughtful gesture… something very distinguished. And there are still those who believe that they and France are going to clash?…” The very few French people traveling on the ship were amazed, as if they had grown disproportionately in the face of public scrutiny. There were only three of them: an elderly jeweler who had just returned from visiting his branches in America, and two young women who worked as saleswomen from the Rue de la Paix, the most demure and timid people on board, like vestal virgins with cheerful eyes and upturned noses, who kept to themselves, not allowing themselves the slightest outburst in this rather unpleasant atmosphere. That evening there was a gala banquet. At the far end of the dining room, the French and Imperial flags formed a garish and outlandish curtain. All the German passengers wore tailcoats, and their ladies displayed the whiteness of their décolletages. The servants’ uniforms shone as if on a grand review. At dessert, there was the clinking of a knife against a glass, and silence fell. The captain was about to speak. And the brave sailor, who combined his nautical duties with the obligation to give speeches at banquets and open dances with the most respected lady, began to recite a string of words like the rubbing of tablets, punctuated by long intervals of hesitant silence. Desnoyers knew a little German, a memento of his contacts with relatives in Berlin, and managed to catch a few words. The commander kept repeating “peace” and “friends.” A fellow diner, a traveling salesman, offered to interpret, with the obsequiousness of one who He lives off propaganda. The commander prays to God to maintain peace between Germany and France and hopes that the two nations will become increasingly friendly. Another speaker rose at the same table the sailor had occupied. He was the most respected of the German passengers, a wealthy industrialist from Düsseldorf who had just returned from visiting his correspondents in America. He was never referred to by his name. He held the title of Commercial Counselor, and to his compatriots he was Herr Comerzienrath, just as his wife was known as Frau Rath. The “Counselor Lady,” much younger than her important husband, had attracted Desnoyers’ attention from the very beginning of the voyage. She, for her part, made an exception for this young Argentinian, relinquishing her title from their first conversation. “My name is Berta,” she said derisively, like a Duchess of Versailles to a handsome abbot seated at her feet. The husband also protested when he heard Desnoyers call him “counselor,” like his countrymen: “My friends call me captain. I command a company of the Landsturm.” And the gesture with which the industrialist accompanied these words revealed the melancholy of a misunderstood man, scorning the honors he enjoyed to think only of those he lacked. As he delivered his speech, Julio examined his small head and robust neck, which gave him a certain resemblance to a fighting dog. In his imagination, he saw the high, oppressive collar of the uniform raising a double puff of red grease along its edges. His stiff, waxed mustache took on an aggressive air. His voice was sharp and dry, as if he were shaking the words… This was how the emperor must deliver his harangues. And the bellicose bourgeois, with instinctive pretense, drew back his left arm, resting his hand on the hilt of an invisible saber . Despite his fierce demeanor and commanding oratory, all the German listeners roared with laughter at the first words, like men who know how to appreciate the sacrifice of a Herr Comerzienrath when he deigns to entertain a gathering. “He says some very funny things about the French,” the interpreter noted in a low voice. “But they aren’t offensive.” Julio had guessed something of this upon hearing the word “Franzosen” repeatedly . He understood roughly what the speaker was saying: “Franzosen, big children, cheerful, funny, improvident. The things the Germans and they could do together, if only they forgot the grudges of the past!” The German listeners were no longer laughing. The councilor was abandoning his irony, a grandiose, crushing irony, weighing many tons, enormous as the ship. Now he was developing the serious part of his harangue, and even the commissioner seemed moved. “He says, sir,” he continued, “that he wishes France to be very great and that one day we may march together against other enemies… against others!” And he winked, smiling maliciously, with the same knowing smile that this allusion to the mysterious enemy aroused in everyone. Finally, the captain-counselor raised his glass to France. “Hoc!” he shouted as if ordering his reserve troops to a drill. Three times he gave the cry, and the entire German mass, standing, answered with a “Hoc!” like a roar, while the band, set up in the anteroom, broke into the Marseillaise. Desnoyers was moved. A shiver of enthusiasm ran up his spine. His eyes moistened, and as he drank the champagne, he thought he had swallowed a few tears. He bore a French name, had French blood, and what those gringos, who most of the time seemed ridiculous and common to him, were doing was worthy of gratitude. The Kaiser’s subjects celebrating the great day of the Revolution!… He thought he was witnessing a great historical event. “Very good!” he said to other South Americans at nearby tables . “I must admit they’ve been very courteous.” Then, with the vehemence of his twenty-seven years, he confronted the jeweler in the anteroom, reproaching him for his silence. He was the only French citizen on board. He should have said a few words. of gratitude. The party was ending badly because of him. “And why didn’t you speak up, you who are the son of a Frenchman?” said the other. ” I am an Argentine citizen,” Julio replied. And he walked away from the jeweler, while the latter, thinking that he “could have spoken up,” gave explanations to those around him. It was very dangerous to meddle in diplomatic affairs. Besides, he “had no instructions from his government.” And for a few hours he believed himself to be a man who had been on the verge of playing a great role in History. Desnoyers spent the rest of the night in the smoking room, drawn by the presence of the “counselor lady.” The captain of the Landsturm, pushing an enormous cigar between his mustache, played poker with other compatriots who followed him in order of rank and wealth. His companion stayed by his side for much of the evening, witnessing the coming and going of the waiters laden with bocks, without daring to intervene in this enormous consumption of beer. Her concern was reserving an empty seat next to her for Desnoyers. She considered him the most “distinguished” man on board because he drank champagne at every meal. He was of medium height, dark-haired, with short feet that forced her to tuck hers under her skirts, and his forehead appeared as a triangle beneath two straight, black, glossy locks of hair, like sheets of lacquer. The opposite of the men who surrounded her. Besides, he lived in Paris, a city she had never seen, after numerous trips to both hemispheres. “Oh, Paris! Paris!” she would say, widening her eyes and pursing her lips to express her admiration when she spoke alone with the Argentinian. “How I would love to go there!” And to get him to tell her about Paris, she would allow herself certain confidences about the pleasures of Berlin, but with blushing modesty, admitting beforehand that there was more, much more, in the world, and that she longed to discover it. Julio, as he strolled around the Expiatory Chapel, remembered with a certain remorse the wife of Councilor Erckmann. He, who had traveled to America for a woman, to raise money and marry her! But he immediately found excuses for his behavior. No one would ever know what had happened. Besides, he wasn’t an ascetic, and Berta Erckmann represented a tempting friendship in the middle of the sea. When he thought of her, he imagined a large, lean, long-legged racehorse . She was a modern German woman who recognized no other fault in her country than the heaviness of its women, combating this national affliction herself with all sorts of dietary methods. Food was a torment for her, and the parade of cigars in the smoking room a Tantalus-like ordeal. The slenderness achieved and maintained by this tension of will made the robustness of her frame all the more visible—her strong skeleton, with powerful jaws and large, healthy, dazzling teeth , which perhaps gave rise to Desnoyers’ irreverent comparison. “She is slender and yet enormous,” he would say to himself upon examining her. But then he would also declare her the most distinguished woman on board; distinguished for the Ocean, elegant in the Munich style, with dresses of indefinable colors that recalled Persian art and the vignettes of medieval manuscripts. Her husband admired Berta’s elegance, secretly lamenting her sterility almost as if it were an act of high treason. The German homeland was magnificent because of the fecundity of its women. The Kaiser, with his artistic hyperbole, had declared that true German beauty must have a waist of at least five feet tall. When Desnoyers entered the smoking room to take the seat reserved for him by the councilor, her husband and his wealthy companions had their deck of cards lying idle on the green felt. Herr Rath was continuing his discourse among friends, and the listeners lifted their cigars from their lips to grunt in approval. Julio’s presence provoked a general smile of friendliness. It was France that had come to fraternize with them. They knew his father was French, and this was enough for them to welcome him. They received him as if he had arrived in a straight line from the Palais du Quai d’ Orsay, representing the highest diplomacy of the Republic. Their zeal for proselytizing led them all to suddenly grant him disproportionate importance. “We,” continued the councilor, staring intently at Desnoyers as if expecting a solemn declaration, “desire to live in good friendship with France. ” Young Jules nodded, so as not to appear inattentive. He thought it very good that people were not enemies. As far as he was concerned, this friendship could be affirmed as much as they wished. The only thing that interested him at that moment was a certain knee that sought his beneath the table, transmitting its sweet warmth to him through a double curtain of silk. “But France,” the industrialist continued complainingly, “is being sullen with us. For years our emperor has extended his hand to her with noble loyalty, and she pretends not to see it… You will recognize that this is not right.” Here Desnoyers felt he should say something, lest the speaker guess his true concerns. “Perhaps you aren’t doing enough. If only you would return, first of all, what you took from us!”… A stunned silence fell, as if the alarm had sounded on the ship. Some of those who had been raising their cigars to their lips stood with their hands motionless, two fingers’ width from their mouths, their eyes wide with terror. But there was the captain of the Landsturm to give voice to their silent protest. “Return!” he said in a voice that seemed muffled by the sudden swelling of his neck. “We have no reason to return anything, since we haven’t taken anything. What we possess we earned through our heroism.” The hidden knee became more suggestive, as if advising the young man to be prudent with its gentle caresses. “Don’t say such things,” sighed Berta. “Only corrupt republicans in Paris say such things .” “Such a distinguished young man, who has been to Berlin and has relatives in Germany!”… But Desnoyers, faced with any assertion made in a haughty tone, felt an inherited impulse of aggression, and said coldly: ” It’s as if I were to take your watch and then propose that we be friends, forgetting what happened. Even if you could forget, the first thing would be for me to return your watch.” Councilor Erckmann wanted to respond with so many things at once that he stammered, jumping from one idea to another: “To compare the reconquest of Alsace to theft!… A German land!… The race… the language… the history… ” “But where is it written that you want to be German?” the young man asked, without losing his composure. “When have you consulted your opinion?”… The councilor hesitated, as if undecided between pounced on the insolent man or crushed him with his contempt. ” Young man, you don’t know what you’re talking about,” he finally stated majestically. “You are Argentinian and don’t understand European affairs.” And the others nodded, suddenly stripping him of the citizenship they had bestowed upon him shortly before. The councilor, with military rudeness, had turned his back on him and, taking the deck, was dealing the cards. The game resumed. Desnoyers, seeing himself isolated by this silent contempt, felt an urge to violently interrupt the game. But the hidden knee continued to advise him to remain calm, and an equally invisible hand sought his right, gently pressing it. This was enough to restore his composure. The “lady councilor” followed the progress of the game with a fixed gaze. He looked too, and a malevolent smile slightly curled the corners of his mouth, as he mentally told himself, by way of consolation: “Captain, Captain!… You have no idea what awaits you.” On land, he would not have gone any closer to these men; but life on an ocean liner, with its inevitable promiscuity, compels forgetfulness. The next day, the councilor and his friends went in search of him, going to great lengths to erase any unpleasant memories. He was a “distinguished” young man, belonging to a wealthy family, and they all owned shops and other businesses in their country. The only thing they took care of It was unnecessary to mention his French origins. He was Argentinian, and everyone in unison expressed interest in the greatness of his nation and all the nations of South America, where they had correspondents and businesses, exaggerating their importance as if they were great powers, gravely commenting on the deeds and words of their political figures, implying that in Germany there was no one who wasn’t concerned about their future, predicting for all of them a future glory, a reflection of that of the Empire, provided they remained under Germanic influence. Despite these flattering remarks, Desnoyers didn’t appear with the same regularity as before at poker time. The councilwoman retired to her cabin earlier than usual. The proximity of the equator gave her an irresistible sleepiness, leaving her husband, who continued with the cards in his hand. Julio, for his part, had mysterious occupations that only allowed him to go up on deck after midnight. With the haste of a man eager to be seen and avoid suspicion, he entered the smoking room, speaking loudly, and sat down next to the husband and his comrades. The game was over, and a profusion of beer and thick Hamburg cigars served to celebrate the winners’ success. It was the hour of Germanic banter, of intimacy between men, of slow, heavy-handed jokes, of risqué tales. The councilor presided with all his grandeur over these pranks of his friends, shrewd merchants from the Hanseatic ports who enjoyed large loans from Deutsche Bank, or shopkeepers settled in the Río de la Plata republics with numerous families. He was a warrior, a captain, and as he celebrated each slow joke with a laugh that swelled his robust neck, he felt as if he were back in the bivouac among his comrades in arms. In honor of the South Americans who, tired of strolling on deck, came aboard to listen to what the gringos were saying, the storytellers translated into Spanish the witty and bawdy tales stirred in their memories by the abundant beer. Julio admired the easy laughter with which all these men were endowed. While the foreigners remained impassive, they laughed with resounding guffaws, leaning back in their seats. And when the German audience remained unmoved, the storyteller resorted to an infallible trick to remedy his lack of success. They told this story to Kaiser, and when Kaiser heard it, Kaiser laughed heartily. He needed to say nothing more. Everyone laughed, “Ha, ha, ha!” with a spontaneous but brief laugh; a laugh in three bursts, for prolonging it could be interpreted as a lack of respect for His Majesty. Near Europe, a wave of news reached the ship. The wireless telegraph employees worked tirelessly. One evening, as Desnoyers entered the smoking room, he saw the German dignitaries gesticulating wildly, their faces animated. They weren’t drinking beer: they had opened bottles of German champagne, and the Councilor, no doubt impressed by the events, refrained from going down to her cabin. Captain Erckmann, seeing the young Argentinian, offered him a drink. “It’s war,” he said enthusiastically, “the war that’s coming… It’s about time! ” Desnoyers made a gesture of astonishment. “War!… What war is that?” He had read, like everyone else, on the bulletin board in the anteroom a telegram reporting that the Austrian government had just sent an ultimatum to Serbia, without this arousing the slightest emotion in him. He despised the Balkan issues. These were petty squabbles between lousy peoples, monopolizing the world’s attention and distracting it from more serious matters. How could this event possibly interest the bellicose advisor? The two nations would eventually reach an understanding. Diplomacy sometimes serves a purpose. The German didn’t insist fiercely; it’s war, blessed war. Russia will support Serbia, and we will support our ally… What will France do? Do you know what France will do?… Julius shrugged sullenly, as if asking to be left alone . “It is war,” the advisor continued, “the preventive war we need. Russia is growing too fast and preparing against us. Four more years of peace, and she will have finished her strategic railways , and her military force, combined with that of her allies, will be as strong as ours. It is best to strike her a decisive blow now. We must seize the opportunity… War! Preventive war!” His entire clan listened to him in silence. Some did not seem to feel the contagion of his enthusiasm. “War!”… In their minds, they saw businesses paralyzed, correspondents bankrupt, banks cutting off credit… a catastrophe more terrifying to them than the carnage of battle. But they approved with grunts and nods of their heads at Erckmann’s fierce pronouncements. He was a Herr Rath, and an officer at that. He must be privy to the secrets of his country’s destiny, and this was enough to make them silently toast to the success of the war. The young man thought the advisor and his admirers were drunk. “Look, Captain,” he said in a conciliatory tone, “what you say may lack logic.” How could war be convenient for industrious Germany? By the minute, its reach was expanding: every month it conquered a new market; every year its trade balance increased to unprecedented proportions. Sixty years earlier, it had to crew its few ships with Berlin coachmen punished by the police. Now its merchant and war fleets sailed all the oceans, and there was no port where German merchandise did not occupy the most considerable part of the docks. It only needed to continue living this way, to stay away from war adventures. Twenty more years of peace, and the Germans would be masters of the world’s markets, defeating England, their former teacher, in this bloodless struggle. And were they going to risk all this like someone gambling their entire fortune on a single card in a fight that could turn against them?… No; “War,” the advisor insisted furiously, ” preventive war. We live surrounded by enemies, and this cannot continue. It’s best we end it now. It’s them or us! Germany feels strong enough to defy the world. We must put an end to the Russian threat. And if France doesn’t keep quiet, so much the worse for her!… And if anyone else… anyone! dares to intervene against us, so much the worse for him! When I set up a new machine in my workshops, it’s to make it produce and not let it rest. We possess the first army in the world, and we must keep it moving so it doesn’t rust.” Then he added with heavy irony: ” They have established an iron ring around us to suffocate us. But Germany has a robust chest, and it is enough for her to puff it out to break the corset. We must wake up before we find ourselves bound while we sleep. Woe to anyone we find standing in front of us!”… Desnoyers felt the need to reply to these arrogant pronouncements. He had never seen the iron circle the Germans complained about. All the nations were doing was refusing to remain complacent and inactive in the face of Germanic boundless ambition. They were simply preparing to defend themselves against almost certain aggression. They wanted to uphold their dignity, constantly trampled by the most outrageous demands. “Aren’t other peoples the ones forced to defend themselves, and aren’t you the ones who pose a danger to the world?” he asked. An invisible hand reached for his under the table, as it had a few nights before, to advise him to be prudent. But now it gripped firmly, with the authority that comes from acquired rights. “Oh, sir!” sighed sweet Berta. “For such a distinguished young man, who has… to say such things!” She couldn’t continue, for her husband interrupted her. They were no longer on the seas of America, and the councilor spoke with the rudeness of a homeowner. “I had the honor of telling you, young man,” he said, imitating the sharp coldness of diplomats, “that you are nothing more than a South American, and you are ignorant of European affairs.” He didn’t call him “Indian,” but Julio heard the word inwardly just as if the German had uttered it. Alas, if only that hidden, gentle grip didn’t hold him fast with its tremors of emotion!… But this contact kept him calm and even made him smile. “Thank you, Captain!” he thought. “It’s the least you can do to get your money back.” And here ended his dealings with the councilor and his group. The
merchants, seeing themselves ever closer to their homeland, were shedding the servile desire to please that had accompanied them on their voyages to the New World. Besides, they had serious matters to attend to. The telegraph service was running nonstop. The ship’s commander conferred in his cabin with the councilor, as he was the most important compatriot. His friends sought out the most secluded places to talk amongst themselves. Even Berta began to avoid Desnoyers. She still smiled at him from afar, but her smile was directed more at memories than at present reality. Between Lisbon and the coast of England, Julio spoke to his husband for the last time. Every morning, alarming news items, transmitted by radio equipment, appeared on the bulletin board in the anteroom. The Empire was arming itself against its enemies. God would punish them, bringing down all kinds of misfortunes upon them. Desnoyers was dumbfounded by the latest news. “Three hundred thousand revolutionaries are besieging Paris at this moment. The outer districts are beginning to burn. The horrors of the Commune are being repeated.” “But these Germans have gone mad!” the young man cried at the radiogram, surrounded by a group of onlookers as astonished as he. ” We’re going to lose what little sense we have left… What revolutionaries are these? What revolution can break out in Paris if the men in government aren’t reactionaries?” A voice rose behind him, harsh and authoritarian, as if to cut off any doubts from the audience. It was the Herr, the Councilor, speaking. Young man, those reports come from the leading news agencies in Germany… And Germany never lies. After this statement, he turned his back on him, and they never saw each other again. In the early hours of the following morning, the last day of the voyage, Desnoyers’s steward woke him hurriedly. “Sir, come up on deck: a fine sight.” The sea was veiled in fog, but through the misty veils, silhouettes resembling islands with sturdy towers and sharp minarets were visible. The islands advanced slowly and majestically across the oily water, with a somber heaviness. Jules counted to eighteen. They seemed to fill the ocean. It was the English Squadron, which had just left the coast of England on orders from the government, sailing with no other purpose than to demonstrate its strength. For the first time, seeing this parade of dreadnoughts through the mist, which evoked the image of a herd of prehistoric sea monsters, Desnoyers fully grasped the magnitude of British power. The German ship passed between them, dwarfed, humiliated, quickening its pace. “Anyone would think,” thought the young man with a troubled conscience, eager to escape . Nearby, a South American passenger joked with a German. “If only war had broken out between them and you!… If only they took us prisoner!” After midday, they entered Southampton Roadstead. The Friedrich August was in a hurry to leave as soon as possible. The operations were carried out with dizzying speed. The cargo was enormous: people and luggage. Two full steamers boarded the ocean liner. A flood of Germans residing in England invaded the decks with the joy of those setting foot on friendly soil, eager to see themselves in Hamburg as soon as possible . Then the ship advanced through the canal with unusual speed for these waters. People, leaning over the sides, commented on the extraordinary encounters in this maritime boulevard, usually frequented by ships of peace. Smoke on the horizon was from the French squadron carrying President Poincaré, who was returning from Russia. The European alarm had interrupted his voyage. Then they saw more English ships circling nearby. Off its coast, like aggressive, watchful dogs, two North American battleships made themselves known by their basket-shaped masts . Then, at full steam, a Russian ship passed, white and gleaming from the tops to the waterline, bound for the Baltic . “Bad!” cried the travelers from America. “Very bad! It seems this time things are serious.” And they looked uneasily at the nearby coasts on either side. They looked the same as always, but behind them, perhaps a new period of history was being prepared. The ocean liner was due to arrive in Boulogne at midnight, waiting until dawn for the travelers to disembark comfortably. However , it arrived at ten o’clock, dropped anchor far from the port, and the captain gave orders for the disembarkation to take place in less than an hour. For this, he had accelerated the ship’s speed, wasting coal. He needed to get away as soon as possible, seeking refuge in Hamburg. The X-ray machines were working for a reason. By the light of the blue spotlights, which cast a livid glow over the sea, the transfer of passengers and luggage bound for Paris began, from the ocean liner to the tugboats. “Hurry! Hurry!” The sailors pushed the ladies who were slow to arrive, who were recounting their suitcases, thinking they had lost some. The waiters carried the children around like packages. The general haste erased the exaggerated and unctuous Germanic politeness. “They’re like lackeys,” Desnoyers thought. They believe the hour of triumph is near and don’t consider it necessary to pretend…» He found himself on a tugboat dancing on the waves, facing the black, motionless wall of the ocean liner, riddled with luminous circles and with its deck balconies packed with people waving handkerchiefs. Julio recognized Berta, who was moving a hand, but without seeing him, without knowing which tugboat he was on, driven by a need to express his gratitude for the sweet memories that were about to be lost in the mystery of the sea and the night. «Goodbye, advisor!» The distance between the departing ocean liner and the tugboats sailing toward the harbor entrance began to grow. As if it had been waiting for this moment of impunity, a stentorian voice rose from the uppermost deck, accompanied by loud laughter. «See you later! We’ll see each other soon in Paris!» And the band, the same band that thirteen days earlier had astonished Desnoyers with its unexpected rendition of the Marseillaise, struck up a war march from the time of Frederick the Great, a grenadier march with trumpet accompaniment. Thus, with the haste of flight and the insolence of imminent revenge, the last German ocean liner to reach the French coast vanished into the shadows. This had been the night before. Not even twenty-four hours had passed , but Desnoyers considered it a distant event of vague reality. His mind, always prone to contradiction, did not share the general alarm. The councilor’s arrogance now seemed to him the boasts of a bourgeois turned soldier. The anxieties of the people of Paris were the nervous tremors of a nation that lives placidly and is alarmed at the slightest glimpse of danger to its well-being. So many times they had spoken of an imminent war, only to have the conflict resolved at the last minute! Besides, he didn’t want a war, because war disrupted his plans for the future, and man accepts as logical and reasonable whatever suits his selfishness, placing it above reality. ” No; there will be no war,” he repeated as he strolled through the garden. “These people seem crazy. How can a war break out in these times?” And after crushing his doubts, which would undoubtedly resurface shortly , he focused on the present, checking his watch. Five o’clock. She would arrive any moment. He thought he recognized her from afar in a lady passing through the gate at the entrance to the rue Pasquier. She seemed somewhat different, but he reasoned that summer fashions… They could have changed her appearance. Before she approached, he was able to convince himself of his mistake. She wasn’t alone: another lady joined her. They were perhaps English or American, the kind who hold a romantic fascination with the memory of Marie Antoinette. They wished to visit the Expiatory Chapel, the former tomb of the executed queen. Julio saw them ascend the steps, crossing the inner courtyard, in whose ground lie buried eight hundred Swiss who died on August 10th , along with other victims of revolutionary cholera. Discouraged by this disappointment, he continued his stroll. His ill humor made him see the ugliness of the monument with which the Bourbon restoration had adorned the old Madeleine cemetery as considerably magnified . Time passed without her arriving. On each of his turns, he looked eagerly toward the garden entrances. And what happened in all their meetings occurred. She appeared suddenly, as if falling from above or rising from the ground like an apparition. A cough, a faint sound of footsteps, and as Julio turned, he almost bumped into her . “Margarita! Oh, Margarita!”… It was her, and yet he was slow to recognize her. He felt a certain strangeness at seeing in full reality this face that had occupied his imagination for three months, becoming ever more ethereal and indistinct with the idealism of absence. But the doubt lasted only a few moments. Then it seemed to him that time and space were abolished, that he hadn’t traveled at all and only a few hours had passed since their last meeting. Margarita sensed the outburst that would follow Julio’s exclamations, the vehement handshake, perhaps something more, and she remained cold and serene. ” No; not here,” she said with a grimace of displeasure. “What a terrible idea to have arranged to meet in this place!” They went to sit on the iron chairs, sheltered by a clump of plants, but she immediately got up. Those passing along the boulevard could see her simply by turning their eyes toward the garden. At this hour, many of her friends must have been in the vicinity, given the proximity of the department store. They sought refuge in a corner of the monument, wedging themselves between it and the Rue des Mathurins. Desnoyers placed two chairs next to a clump of vegetation, and as they sat down, they became invisible to those passing on the other side of the fence. But they were not alone. A few steps away, a stout, nearsighted gentleman was reading his newspaper, a group of women were chatting and doing needlework. A lady with a red wig and two dogs, along with some neighbor who came down to the garden to give her companions some fresh air, passed by the amorous couple several times, smiling discreetly. “What a nuisance!” Marguerite groaned. “What a bad idea to have come to this place!” They gazed intently at each other, as if trying to fully grasp the transformations wrought by time. ” You’re tanner, ” she said. “You look like a sailor. ” Julio found her more beautiful than before, acknowledging that her presence was well worth the hardships that had led to his voyage to America. She was taller than him, with an elegant and harmonious slenderness. “She has a musical gait,” Desnoyers would say, recalling her image. And the first thing he admired upon seeing her again was the loose, playful, and graceful rhythm with which she strolled through the garden, searching for a new seat. Her face wasn’t perfectly regular, but it possessed a captivating charm: a truly Parisian face . Everything that the arts of feminine beautification could invent was embodied in her, subjected to the most exquisite care. She had always lived for herself. Only a few months prior had she partially relinquished this sweet selfishness, sacrificing gatherings, teas, and visits to dedicate her afternoons to Desnoyers. Elegant and made up like an expensive doll, her supreme aspiration being to be a mannequin whose physical grace would enhance the inventions of fashion designers, she had ended up feeling the same worries and joys as other women, creating a life The core of this new life, which had remained hidden beneath her former frivolity, was Desnoyers. Then, when she imagined she had definitively organized her existence—the satisfactions of elegance for the world and the joys of love in intimate secrecy—a sudden catastrophe, the intervention of her husband, whose presence she seemed to have forgotten, disrupted her unconscious happiness. She, who believed herself to be the center of the universe, imagining that events should unfold according to her desires and tastes, suffered the cruel surprise with more astonishment than pain. “And you, how do you find me?” Margarita continued. So that Julio wouldn’t misunderstand her answer, she looked at her ample skirt, adding: “I must warn you, fashion has changed. The full skirt is out. Now short and full skirts are in style. ” Desnoyers had to attend to the dress with as much passion as to her, mixing his observations on the latest fashion with his praise of Margarita’s beauty. “Have you thought much about me?” he continued. “Haven’t you ever cheated on me ? Not even once?… Tell the truth: I know perfectly well when you’re lying. I’ve always thought of you,” he said, placing a hand on his heart as if swearing before a judge. And he said it firmly, with an accent of truth, for in his infidelities, now completely forgotten, the memory of Margarita had accompanied him. “But let’s talk about you!” Julio added. “What have you been doing all this time?” He had moved his chair as close to hers as possible. Their knees were touching. He took one of her hands, caressing it, slipping a finger through the opening of her glove. That cursed garden, which allowed no privacy and forced them to speak in hushed tones after three months apart! Despite his discretion, the gentleman reading the newspaper raised his head to glare irritably over his glasses, as if a fly were distracting him with its buzzing. To come and talk nonsense about love in a public garden, when all of Europe was threatened by catastrophe! Margarita, repelling the audacious hand, spoke calmly about her life during the last few months. ” I’ve kept myself busy as best I could, and I’m terribly bored. You know I went to live with Mama, and Mama is an old-fashioned lady who doesn’t understand our tastes. I’ve gone to the theater with my brother; I’ve paid visits to the lawyer to find out how my divorce is going and to speed things up… And nothing more. And your husband?… Let’s not talk about him, shall we? I feel sorry for the poor man. So good… so proper. The lawyer assures me he’s putting up with everything and doesn’t want to cause any trouble.” They tell me he doesn’t come to Paris, that he lives in his factory. Our old house is closed. Sometimes I feel remorse thinking I’ve been mean to him. “And me?” said Julio, withdrawing his hand. ” You’re right,” she replied, smiling. “You are life. It’s cruel, but it’s human. We must live our lives without worrying about whether we bother others. We have to be selfish to be happy.” They both fell silent. The memory of her husband had passed between them like an icy breath. Julio was the first to revive. “And you haven’t danced all this time?” ” No; how could that be? Just imagine, a lady who’s in the process of getting a divorce!… I haven’t been to any chic gatherings since you left. I wanted to mourn your absence. One day we danced the tango at a family party. How awful!… You were missing, maestro.” They shook hands again and smiled. Memories of a few months earlier paraded before her eyes, when their love had begun, from five to seven in the afternoon, dancing in the hotels of the Champs-Élysées that forged the indissoluble union of tango and tea. She seemed to tear herself away from these memories, driven by a tenacious obsession she had only forgotten in the first moments of their encounter. You, who know so much, tell me: do you think there will be a war? People talk so much!… Don’t you think everything will eventually work out? Desnoyers supported her with her optimism. She didn’t believe in the possibility of war. It was absurd. I agree. Our age isn’t one of savages. I’ve known Germans, chic and well-educated people, who surely think the same as we do. An old professor who comes to our house was explaining to Mama yesterday that wars are no longer possible in these advanced times. In two months, there would hardly be any men left; in three, the world would be without money to continue the fight. I don’t remember exactly how it went, but he explained it vividly, in a way that was a pleasure to listen to. She reflected silently, wanting to organize her confused memories; but frightened by the effort this required, she added on her own: Imagine a war. How awful! Social life paralyzed. There would be no more gatherings, no more clothes, no more theaters. It’s even possible that no new fashions would be invented. All the women in mourning. Can you imagine that?… And Paris deserted… How beautiful it was this afternoon when I came looking for you!… No, it can’t be. Imagine, next month we ‘re going to Vichy: Mama needs the waters; then to Biarritz. After that, I’ll go to a castle on the Loire. And besides, there’s our business, my divorce, our marriage, which could take place next year… And all this would be disrupted and cut short by a war! No, it’s not possible. It’s just my brother’s thinking and the thoughts of others like him, who dream of the danger from Germany. I’m sure that my husband, who only likes to concern himself with serious and troublesome matters, is also one of those who believe war is imminent and are preparing to wage it. What nonsense! Tell me it’s nonsense. I need you to tell me. And reassured by her lover’s affirmations, she changed the course of the conversation. The possibility of the new marriage she mentioned brought to her mind the purpose of Desnoyers’s trip. They had n’t had time to write to each other during their short separation. “Did you manage to get any money? With the joy of seeing you, I’ve forgotten so many things…” He spoke, adopting the air of a seasoned businessman. He had brought less than he had expected. He had found the country in the midst of one of its periodic crises. But even so, he had managed to scrape together four hundred thousand francs. In his wallet, he kept a check for this amount. Further remittances would be sent later. A gentleman from the countryside, a distant relative, was looking after his affairs. Margarita seemed satisfied. She, too, adopted a serious air, despite her frivolity. ” Money is money,” she said sententiously, “and without it, there is no sure happiness. With your four hundred thousand and what I have, we can get by … I should warn you that my husband wishes to give up my dowry. He has told my brother so . But the state of his business, the progress of his factory, does not allow him to repay as quickly as he would like . I feel sorry for the poor man… So honest and upright in all his dealings.” If only he weren’t so vulgar!… Once again, Margarita seemed to regret these spontaneous and belated compliments that were cooling their conversation. Julio seemed annoyed to hear them. And again she changed the subject. “And your family? Have you seen them?”… Desnoyers had been at his parents’ house before heading to the Expiatory Chapel. A furtive entry into the grand building on Victor Hugo Avenue. He had gone up to the first floor by the service stairs, like a supplier. Then he had slipped into the kitchen like a soldier in love with one of the maids. There his mother, poor Doña Luisa, had come to embrace him, weeping, covering him with frantic kisses, as if she thought she had lost him forever. Then Luisita, called Chichí, had appeared, always gazing at him with endearing curiosity, as if she wanted to understand what a wicked and adorable brother was like, one who led decent women astray from the path of virtue and lived a life of madness. Then came a great surprise for Desnoyers, for he saw his Aunt Elena, the one married to the German, the one who lived in Berlin surrounded by countless children, enter the kitchen with the air of a solemn actress, a noble mother from a tragedy . She’s been in Paris for a month. She’s going to spend some time with us. castle. And it seems his eldest son, my cousin “the wise one,” whom I haven’t seen in years, is also around . The interview had been repeatedly interrupted by fear. “The old man is at home; be careful,” his mother told him every time he raised his voice. And his aunt Elena walked toward the door with dramatic steps, like a heroine resolved to stab the tyrant if he crossed the threshold of her chamber. The whole family remained subject to the rigid authority of Don Marcelo Desnoyers. “Oh, that old man!” Julio exclaimed, referring to his father. “May he live many years, but how he weighs on all of us!” His mother, who never tired of watching him, had had to hasten the end of the interview, startled by certain noises. “Go; he might surprise us, and the disappointment would be enormous.” And he had run away from his parents’ house, greeted by the tears of the two ladies and the admiring glances of Chichi, blushing and pleased at once with a brother who provoked both scandal and enthusiasm among his friends. Margarita also spoke of Mr. Desnoyers. A terrible old man, an old-fashioned fellow, with whom they would never get along. The two remained silent, staring at each other. They had already discussed the most urgent matters, those that concerned their future. But other, more immediate things remained within them and seemed to peek out, timid and hesitant, before escaping in the form of words. They did not dare to speak like lovers. The number of witnesses around them grew ever greater . The lady with the dogs and the red wig passed by more frequently, shortening her strolls around the square to greet them with a knowing smile. The newspaper reader now had a bench neighbor with whom to discuss the possibilities of war. The garden was becoming a street. Seamstresses leaving the workshops and ladies returning from the department stores crossed it to gain ground. The short avenue was an increasingly popular shortcut, and all the passersby cast curious glances at the elegant lady and her companion, seated in the shelter of a clump of vegetation, with the hunched, falsely natural look of people who wish to hide while simultaneously feigning a carefree attitude. “What a nuisance!” groaned Margarita. “We’ll be caught.” A girl stared at her, and she thought she recognized an employee of a famous dressmaker. Besides, some of the friends she had glimpsed an hour earlier in the crowd filling the nearby department store might be crossing the garden. ” Let’s go,” she continued. “If they saw us together! Imagine what they’d say… And just when people have somewhat forgotten about us.” Desnoyers protested irritably. Leave?… Paris was too small for them because of Marguerite, who refused to return to the only place where they would be safe from any surprises. On another stroll, in a restaurant, wherever they went, they ran the same risk of being recognized. She only agreed to interviews in public places, and at the same time, she was afraid of people’s curiosity. If only Marguerite would go to her studio, with its sweet memories!… No; not to your house, she replied hastily. I can’t forget the last day I was there. But Jules insisted, sensing in her firm refusal the cracking of an initial hesitation. Where would they be better off? Besides, weren’t they going to get married as soon as possible?… I tell you, no, she repeated. Who knows if my husband is watching me! What a complication for my divorce if we were caught in your house! Now it was he who praised the husband, striving to demonstrate that this vigilance was incompatible with his character. The engineer had accepted the facts, judging them irreparable, and at that moment he was only thinking about rebuilding his life. ” No; it’s better to separate,” she continued. “We’ll see each other tomorrow. You ‘ll find another, more discreet place. Think; you’ll find a solution.” But he wanted an immediate solution. They had left their seats, walking slowly towards the rue des Mathurins. Julio was talking with A trembling, persuasive eloquence. Not tomorrow: now. All they had to do was call a taxi; a few minutes’ drive, and then the isolation, the mystery, the return to the sweet past, the intimacy in that study that had witnessed their best hours. They would believe that no time had passed, that they were still in their first interviews. “No,” she said with a faltering accent, searching for a last stand. “Besides, your secretary will be there, that Spaniard who accompanies you. How embarrassing to run into him!” Julio laughed. “Argensola!” Could this comrade, who knew all of his past, be an obstacle? If they found him in the house, he would leave immediately. More than once he had forced him to leave the study so that he wouldn’t get in the way. His discretion was such that it made him sense what was happening. He had surely left, anticipating an imminent visit that couldn’t have been more logical. He would be wandering the streets looking for news. Margarita fell silent, as if admitting defeat upon seeing her excuses exhausted. Desnoyers also remained silent, accepting her silence favorably. They had left the garden, and she looked around anxiously, frightened to find herself in the middle of the street beside her lover, searching for refuge. Suddenly, she saw a red car door open before her, held open by her companion’s hand. ” Get in,” Julio ordered. And she hurriedly climbed in, eager to hide as quickly as possible. The car sped off. Margarita immediately lowered the curtain of the window next to her seat. But before she had finished and could turn her head, she felt an eager mouth caressing the back of her neck. “No; not here,” she said in a pleading tone. “Let’s be serious.” And while he, undeterred by these exhortations, persisted in his passionate advances, Margarita’s voice rang out again over the clatter of old hardware as the car bounced across the pavement. “Do you really think there won’t be a war? Do you think we can get married?… Tell me again.” I need you to reassure me… I want to hear it from you . Chapter 2. The Centaur Madariaga. In 1870, Marcel Desnoyers was nineteen years old. He was born in the outskirts of Paris. He was an only child, and his father, engaged in small construction ventures, supported the family in modest comfort. The bricklayer wanted to make his son an architect, and Marcelo was beginning his preparatory studies when his father died suddenly, leaving his business in disarray. In a few months, he and his mother plummeted into poverty, forced to renounce their bourgeois comforts to live like laborers. When, at the age of fourteen, he had to choose a trade, he became a woodcarver. This craft was an art and was related to the interests awakened in Marcelo by his studies, which he had been forced to abandon. His mother retreated to the countryside seeking the protection of relatives. He progressed rapidly in the workshop, assisting his master on all the important projects he undertook in the provinces. The first news of the war with Prussia caught him in Marseille, working on a theater set. Marcelo was an enemy of the Empire, like all the young men of his generation. He was also influenced by the older workers who had participated in the Republic of 1848 and vividly remembered the coup d’état of December 2nd. One day he saw a popular demonstration in the streets of Marseille in favor of peace, which amounted to a protest against the government. The procession was made up of old republicans engaged in a relentless struggle against the emperor, members of the newly formed International, and a large number of Spaniards and Italians who had fled their countries due to recent insurrections. A
long-haired, consumptive student carried the banner. “It is peace we desire; a peace that unites all men,” the demonstrators chanted. But on earth, the noblest purposes are seldom heeded, for fate delights in twisting and diverting them. No sooner had the friends of peace entered the Cannebière with their anthem and their The banner was the only thing that met their end, and war was what confronted them, forcing them to resort to their fists and clubs. The day before, battalions of Zouaves from Algeria had landed to reinforce the border army, and these veterans, accustomed to colonial life, which was rather unscrupulous when it came to abuses, thought it appropriate to intervene in the demonstration, some with bayonets, others with their belts unbuckled. “Long live war!” And a hail of whips and blows rained down on the singers. Marcelo saw the innocent student, who had been calling for peace with priestly gravity, tumble around wrapped in his banner under the gleeful kicks of the Zouaves. He didn’t learn any more, as he received several lashes, a slight cut on his shoulder, and had to run just like the others. That day, his tenacious, proud, and irritable character was revealed for the first time , prone to the most extreme resolutions. The memory of the blows he had received enraged him, like something that demanded revenge. “Down with the war!” Since he could not protest in any other way, he would leave his country. The struggle was going to be long and disastrous, according to the enemies of the Empire. He was due to enter military service in a few months. The Emperor could settle his affairs as he saw fit. Desnoyers renounced the honor of serving him. He hesitated a little when he remembered his mother. But his relatives in the countryside would not abandon her, and he intended to work hard to send her money. Who knew if riches awaited him on the other side of the sea!… Goodbye, France! Thanks to his savings, a port broker offered him passage without papers on three ships. One was going to Egypt, another to Australia, and another to Montevideo and Buenos Aires; Which seemed best to him?… Desnoyers, recalling his reading, wanted to consult the wind and follow its course , as he had seen several heroes in novels do. But that day the wind was blowing from the sea, heading inland towards France. He also wanted to toss a coin to determine his destination. Finally, he decided on the ship that would leave first. Only when he was with his meager luggage on the deck of a steamer about to set sail did he become interested in knowing its route: “To the Río de la Plata…” And he greeted these words with a fatalistic gesture. “Off to South America!” He didn’t dislike the country. He knew it from certain travel publications, whose illustrations depicted herds of free-roaming horses, naked and feathered Indians, and shaggy gauchos swinging serpentine lassos and straps with balls over their heads. The millionaire Desnoyers always remembered his voyage to America: forty-three days at sea on a small, rickety steamer that sounded like scrap iron, groaned at every seam with the slightest swell , and stopped four times due to engine failure, left at the mercy of waves and currents. In Montevideo, he learned of the setbacks suffered by his homeland and that the Empire no longer existed. He felt ashamed to learn that the nation governed itself, tenaciously defending itself behind the walls of Paris. And he had fled! Months later, the events of the Commune consoled him for his escape. Had he stayed there, the anger over the national failures, his camaraderie, the atmosphere in which he lived—everything would have drawn him into revolt. By now, he would be shot or living in a colonial prison, like so many of his former comrades. He praised his resolve and stopped thinking about the affairs of his homeland. The need to earn a living in a foreign country, whose language he was beginning to learn, meant that he only concerned himself with his own well-being. The hectic and adventurous life of the new lands swept him through a wide variety of jobs and the most outlandish improvisations. He felt strong, with an audacity and composure he had never possessed in the Old World. “I can do anything,” he would say, “if they give me time to practice.” He even became a soldier, he who had fled his homeland rather than take up arms, and was wounded in one of the many battles between “Whites” and “Reds” of the Eastern Bank. In Buenos Aires, he returned to work as a woodcarver. The city was beginning to transform, shedding its village-like appearance. Desnoyers spent several years adorning salons and facades. It was a laborious, sedentary, and lucrative existence . But one day he grew tired of this slow saving , which could only provide him with a modest fortune in the long run. He had gone to the New World to get rich, like so many others. And at twenty-seven, he threw himself once again into full adventure, fleeing the cities, wanting to wrest money from the heart of untouched nature. He tried farming in the northern jungles, but locusts wiped them out in a matter of hours. He was a cattle trader, driving herds of steers and mules with only two laborers, crossing the snowy solitudes of the Andes to Chile or Bolivia. He lost all sense of time and space in this life, undertaking journeys that lasted months across endless plains. One moment he felt close to fortune, the next he would lose everything in an instant due to an unfortunate speculation. And it was in one of these moments of ruin and discouragement, when he was already thirty years old, that he went to work for the wealthy rancher Julio Madariaga. He knew this rustic millionaire from his cattle purchases. He was a Spaniard who had arrived in the country very young, readily adopting its customs and living like a gaucho after acquiring vast properties. Generally, he was nicknamed “the Galician Madariaga” because of his nationality, although he had been born in Castile. The country folk transferred the title of respect that precedes the given name to his surname, calling him Don Madariaga. ” My friend,” he said to Desnoyers one day, when he was in a good mood, which was rare for him, “you’re going through a lot of hardship. The lack of money is obvious from a mile away. ” Why do you continue with this wretched life?… Believe me, Frenchman, and stay here. I’m getting old and I need a man. When the Frenchman took on Madariaga, the local landowners , who lived fifteen or twenty leagues from the ranch, stopped the new employee on the roads to predict all sorts of misfortunes for him. You won’t last long. No one can stand Don Madariaga. We’ve lost count of his managers. He’s a man who should either be killed or abandoned. You’ll be gone soon. Desnoyers soon became convinced that there was some truth to these rumors. Madariaga had an insufferable temper; but, touched by a certain sympathy for the Frenchman, he tried not to upset him with his irritability. “That Frenchman is a gem,” he would say, as if excusing his displays of consideration. “I like him because he’s very serious… That’s the kind of man I like .” Desnoyers himself wasn’t entirely sure what this seriousness, so admired by his employer, consisted of, but he felt a secret pride in seeing him aggressive with everyone, even his own family, while speaking to him in a tone of paternal rudeness. His family consisted of his wife, Misiá Petrona, whom he called ” la china,” and two daughters, now grown women, who had attended a school in Buenos Aires, but upon returning to the ranch had partially reverted to their original rustic ways. Madariaga’s fortune was enormous. He had lived in the countryside since his arrival in America, when white people didn’t dare settle outside of towns for fear of the fierce Indians. He earned his first money as a heroic merchant, transporting goods in a cart from fort to fort. He killed Indians, was wounded by them twice, lived as a captive for a time, and eventually became friends with a chief. With his earnings he bought land, lots of land, little desired because of its insecurity, dedicating himself to raising cattle, which he would have to defend with a rifle in the hands of the pirates of the plains. Then he married his sweetheart, a young mestiza who went barefoot, but she owned several fields belonging to her parents. They had lived in almost savage poverty on their lands, which required several days’ walk to cross. Later, when the government was pushing the Indians towards He surveyed the borders and put the unclaimed territories up for sale, considering it a patriotic act of selflessness if someone wanted to acquire them. Madariaga bought and bought at negligible prices and with extremely long payment plans. Acquiring land and populating it with animals was his life’s mission. Sometimes, galloping with Desnoyers across his endless fields, he couldn’t suppress a feeling of pride: “Tell me, Frenchman. They say that further north than your country there are nations roughly the size of my ranches. Isn’t that right?”… The Frenchman agreed… Madariaga’s lands were larger than many principalities. This put the rancher in a good mood. ” Then it wouldn’t be so crazy if one day I proclaimed myself king. Imagine, Frenchman. Don Madariaga first!… The bad thing is that I would also be the last, because my wife won’t give me a son… She’s a lazy cow. ” The fame of his vast territories and his livestock wealth reached as far as Buenos Aires. Everyone knew Madariaga by name, though very few had ever seen him. When he went to the capital, he went unnoticed because of his rustic appearance, wearing the same gaiters he used in the countryside, his poncho rolled up like a scarf, and peeking out from it the sharp ends of a tie, a torment imposed by his daughters, who vainly tried to arrange it with loving hands to make it look somewhat neat. One day he entered the office of the wealthiest businessman in the capital. “Sir,” he said, “I know you need steers for Europe, and I’ve come to sell you a small number. ” The businessman looked down at the poor gaucho with arrogance. He could have dealt with one of his employees; he didn’t waste his time on trivial matters. But the rustic’s sly smile piqued his curiosity. “And how many steers can you sell, good sir?” ” About thirty thousand, sir.” The businessman didn’t need to hear any more. He rose from his desk and obsequiously offered him an armchair. “You can be none other than Mr. Madariaga.” To serve God and you. That moment was the most glorious of his existence. In the anteroom of the bank managers, the orderlies mercifully offered him a seat, doubting that the person on the other side of the door would deign to receive him. But as soon as his name was called inside, the manager himself would rush to open it. And the poor employee would be dumbfounded to hear the gaucho say, by way of greeting: “I’ve come to ask for three hundred thousand pesos. I have plenty of pasture, and I’d like to buy a small herd of cattle to fatten up.” His uneven and contradictory character weighed heavily on the inhabitants of his lands with a cruel yet good-natured tyranny. No vagabond passed through the ranch without being rudely greeted by him from his very first words. ” Stop with the stories, friend!” he would shout, as if he were about to hit him. “Under the awning there’s a skinned cow.” Cut and eat whatever you like, and use this to continue your journey… But no more stories! And he would turn his back on you after giving you a few pesos. One day he would be furious because a farmhand was hammering the posts of a wire fence too slowly. Everyone was stealing from him! The next day he would speak with a good-natured smile about a large sum he would have to pay for having guaranteed a loan with his signature for an “acquaintance” who was completely insolvent: “Poor fellow! His luck is worse than mine!” Upon finding the skeleton of a freshly skinned sheep on the road, he seemed to go mad with rage. It wasn’t for the meat. “Hunger knows no law, and God made meat for men to eat.” But at least they should leave the hide!… And he would comment on such wickedness , always repeating: “Lack of religion and good morals.” Other times, marauders would take the meat from three cows, leaving the hides in plain sight; And the rancher would say, smiling, “That’s the kind of people I like : honest and good-natured.” His tireless centaur-like vigor had served him well in the undertaking of populating his lands. He was capricious, despotic, and had a great facility for fatherhood, like his compatriots centuries before. Upon conquering the New World, they clarified the indigenous blood. He shared the Castilian conquistadors’ taste for copper-skinned beauty with slanted eyes and bristly hair. When Desnoyers saw him wander off on any pretext and gallop toward a nearby ranch, he would smile and say to himself, “He’s going in search of a new farmhand to work his lands in fifteen years.” The ranch hands would comment on the physical resemblance of certain young men who worked just like the others, galloping from dawn to perform the various herding tasks. Their origins were the subject of disrespectful remarks. The foreman, Celedonio, a thirty-year-old mestizo, generally detested for his harsh and avaricious nature, also bore a distant resemblance to the landowner. Almost every year, a woman would appear with an air of mystery , a dirty, ill-looking Chinese woman with sagging breasts, leading by the hand a mestizo boy with eyes like coals. She asked to speak to the owner alone; and when she was face to face with him, she reminded him of a trip she had made ten or twelve years earlier to buy a herd of cattle. “Do you remember, boss, that you spent the night at my ranch because the river was high? ” The boss remembered nothing. Only a vague instinct seemed to tell him that the woman was telling the truth. “Well, so what?” Boss, here he is… It’s better that he becomes a man by your side than anywhere else.” And she presented him with the little mestizo boy. “One more, and offered with such simplicity!… ‘Lack of religion and good morals.’ With sudden modesty, he doubted the woman’s veracity. Why should he be hers of all people?… The hesitation, however, was not very long. ” Just in case, put him with the others.” The mother left reassured, seeing the little boy’s future secured; because that man, so prolific in violence, was also so generous. In the end, his son would not lack a piece of land and a good flock of sheep. These adoptions initially provoked a rebellion from Misiá Petrona, the only one she ever allowed herself. But the centaur imposed a terrifying silence upon her. “And you still dare to speak, you lazy cow?… A woman who has only ever given me females! You should be ashamed.” The same hand that carelessly extracted crumpled bills from a pocket , handing them out whimsically without regard for quantity, wore a riding crop hanging from its wrist. It was for striking the horse, but it easily raised the crop when one of the farmhands incurred its wrath. “I hit you because I can,” it would say as an excuse once it had calmed down. One day, the man being beaten took a step back, searching for his knife in his belt. “You don’t hit me, boss. I wasn’t born in these parts… I ‘m from Corrientes. ” The boss was left with the whip raised. “You weren’t born here, were you?… Then you’re right; I can’t hit you. Here’s five pesos.” When Desnoyers entered the ranch, Madariaga was beginning to lose count of those under his authority, in the old Latin sense, who could receive his blows. There were so many that he frequently became confused. The Frenchman admired his employer’s keen eye for business. It was enough for him to observe a herd of thousands of cattle for a few brief minutes to know their exact number. He would gallop indifferently around the immense, horned, kicking group, and suddenly have several animals separated. He had discovered they were sick. With a buyer like Madariaga, the tricks and artifices of the sellers were useless. His serenity in the face of misfortune was also admirable. A drought had suddenly littered his pastures with dead cows. The plain looked like an abandoned battlefield. Black shapes were everywhere; In the air, great spirals of crows arrived from leagues around . Other times it was the cold: an unexpected drop in the thermometer covered the ground with corpses. Ten thousand animals, fifteen thousand, perhaps more, had been lost… “What to do!” Madariaga said resignedly. “Without such misfortunes, this land would be a paradise… Now what matters is saving the hides. ” He railed against the arrogance of the European immigrants, against the new customs of the poor, because he didn’t have enough hands to skin the victims quickly enough, and thousands of hides were lost as they decomposed, fused to the flesh. The bones whitened the land like mounds of snow. The farmhands were placing cow skulls with twisted horns on the fence posts, a rustic decoration that evoked the image of a procession of Hellenic lyres. ” Luckily, the land remains,” the rancher added. He galloped across his immense fields, which were beginning to green under the new rains. He had been one of the first to convert virgin lands into pastures, replacing the natural grass with alfalfa. Where one steer once lived, he now put three. “The table is set,” he would say cheerfully. “ Let’s go in search of new guests. ” And he would buy cattle, weakened by hunger in the wild, at ridiculously low prices, taking them to his opulent lands for rapid fattening. One morning, Desnoyers saved his life. He had raised his whip against a farmhand who had just entered the ranch, and the man attacked him, knife in hand. Madariaga was defending himself with lashes, convinced that he was about to receive the fatal blow, when the Frenchman arrived and, drawing his revolver, subdued and disarmed his adversary. “Thank you, Frenchman!” said the rancher, moved. “You’re a real man, and I must reward you. From today on… I’ll address you informally.” Desnoyers couldn’t quite grasp what reward this familiarity could signify. That man was so strange!… Some personal considerations , however, did improve his situation. He no longer ate in the building where the administration was located. The owner imperatively demanded that from then on he occupy a place at his own table. And so Desnoyers entered the inner circle of the Madariaga family. The wife was a silent figure when her husband was present. She would get up in the middle of the night to oversee the farmhands’ breakfast, the distribution of biscuits, the boiling of the pots of coffee or yerba mate . She would herd the chatty and lazy maids, who easily got lost in the groves near the house. She made herself felt in the kitchen and its annexes with the authority of a true mistress; but as soon as her husband’s voice was heard, she seemed to shrink into a silence of respect and fear. When the Chinese woman sat down at the table, she gazed at him with her round eyes, fixed like those of an owl, revealing a devout submission. Desnoyers came to believe that this silent admiration stemmed largely from astonishment at the energy with which the rancher, nearing sixty , continued to bring new settlers to his lands. His two daughters, Luisa and Elena, enthusiastically welcomed the visitor, who came to liven up their monotonous dining room conversations, often interrupted by their father’s outbursts of anger. Besides, he was from Paris. “Paris!” sighed Elena, the younger, rolling her eyes. And Desnoyers found himself consulted by them on matters of elegance whenever they ordered something from the ready-made clothing stores in Buenos Aires. The interior of the house reflected the diverse tastes of the two generations. The girls had a parlor with rich furniture leaning against cracked walls and ostentatious lamps that were never lit. Their father’s rudeness disturbed this room, carefully tended and admired by the two sisters. The carpets seemed to grow sad and pale beneath the muddy footprints left by the centaur’s boots. A riding crop lay on a gilded table. Samples of corn scattered their kernels across the silk of a sofa occupied only by the young ladies, who sat with a certain reverence, as if afraid of tearing it. A set of scales stood by the entrance to the dining room , and Madariaga flew into a rage when his daughters asked him to bring it to the quarters. He wasn’t about to bother himself with a trip every time he felt like checking the weight of a loose hide… A piano entered the room, and Elena spent hours practicing lessons with a desperately good faith. “God’s wrath! If only she could play the jota or the pericón!” And at siesta time, her father would go to sleep on his poncho among the nearby eucalyptus trees. This youngest daughter, whom he nicknamed “the romantic,” was the object of his anger and mockery. Where had she come from, with tastes that he and his poor little girl had never shared? Music notebooks were piled on top of the piano . In one corner of the absurd living room, several tin cans, arranged as a makeshift library by the estate’s carpenter, held books. “Look, Frenchman,” Madariaga would say. “All poetry and novels. Pure nonsense!… Nonsense! He had his own library, more important and glorious, and it took up less space.” On his desk, adorned with rifles, lassos, and silver-plated saddles, a small cabinet held the property deeds and several files, which the rancher leafed through with proud glances. ” Pay attention and you’ll hear wonders,” he announced to Desnoyers, pulling on one of the notebooks. It was the history of the famous beasts that had come to the ranch for breeding and improving his livestock; the family tree, the pedigree certificates of all the animals. He was the one who had to read the papers, for he didn’t allow even his family to touch them. And with his glasses perched on, he would spell out the story of each livestock hero. “Diamond III, grandson of Diamond I, who was owned by the King of England, and son of Diamond II, winner of every competition.” His Diamond had cost him many thousands; but the most gallant horses on the ranch, which sold for magnificent prices, were his descendants. He had more talent than some people. He was practically human. He’s the same one who’s been stuffed by the parlor door. The girls want me to throw him out… Let them dare touch him! I’ll throw them out first! Then he went on reading the story of a dynasty of bulls, each with a proper name followed by a Roman numeral, just like kings; animals acquired at the great fairs of England by the stubborn rancher. He’d never been there, but he used the cable to bid pounds sterling with British owners eager to keep such marvels for their homeland. Thanks to these breeding bulls, which crossed the ocean with the same comfort as a millionaire passenger, he’d been able to parade his steers in the Buenos Aires competitions ; they were towers of meat, edible elephants, with backs as square and smooth as a table. This is something, isn’t it, Frenchman? This is worth more than all the pictures of moons, lakes, lovers, and other such nonsense that my “romantic” wife hangs on the walls to gather dust. And he pointed to the honorary diplomas adorning the desk, the bronze goblets, and other glorious trinkets won in competitions by the children of his pedigree. Luisa, the eldest daughter, called Chicha, in the American style, deserved more respect from her father. “She’s my poor little girl,” he’d say; “the same kindness and the same drive for work, but with more poise.” Desnoyers readily accepted the “poise ,” and even considered it an incomplete and weak expression. What he couldn’t accept was that this pale, modest girl, with large black eyes and a childishly mischievous smile, bore the slightest physical resemblance to the respectable matron who had given her life. The great celebration for Chicha was Sunday Mass. It represented a three-league trip to the nearest town, a weekly contact with people who were not the same as those from the ranch. A carriage drawn by four horses took the lady and the young ladies, dressed in the latest dresses and hats brought from Europe via the shops of Buenos Aires. At Chicha’s suggestion, Desnoyers went with them, taking the reins from the coachman. The father stayed behind to tour his fields in the solitude of Sunday, learning more about the oversights of his people. He was very religious: “Religion and good morals.” But he had given thousands of pesos for the construction of the neighboring church, and a man of his fortune wasn’t going to be subject to the same obligations as the common folk. During Sunday lunch, the two young ladies would comment on the persons and merits of several young men from the town and the nearby ranches who stopped at the church door to see them. “Don’t get your hopes up, girls!” the priest would say. “Do you think they like you for your beauty?… What those scoundrels are after is old Madariaga’s money; and if they had it, they might give you a beating every day.” The ranch received numerous visitors. Some were young men from the surrounding area, who arrived on spirited horses, showing off their riding skills. They wanted to see Don Julio under the most improbable pretexts, and they took the opportunity to talk to Chicha and Elena. Other times, they were young gentlemen from Buenos Aires who asked for lodging at the ranch, saying they were just passing through. Don Madariaga would grumble: “Another son of a bitch coming here looking for the Galician’s money! If he doesn’t leave soon, I’ll kick him out!” But the suitor would soon leave, intimidated by the boss’s hostile silence. This silence continued alarmingly, even though the ranch no longer received visitors. Madariaga seemed lost in thought; and everyone in the family, even Desnoyers, respected and feared his silence. He ate sulking, his head bowed. Suddenly, he would raise his eyes to look at Chicha, then at Desnoyers, and finally fix them on his wife, as if he were going to confront her. “The romantic” didn’t exist for him. At most, he would offer her an ironic snort when he saw her standing erect in the doorway at dusk , gazing at the horizon, bloodied by the setting sun, one elbow on the doorframe and one cheek in her hand, imitating the pose of a certain white lady he had seen in a chromolithograph, awaiting the arrival of the knight of her dreams. Desnoyers had been in the house for five years when one day he entered his master’s study with the abrupt air of the timid who have made a decision. “Don Julio, I’m leaving, and I wish to settle accounts. ” Madariaga looked at him mockingly. “Leave?… Why?” But he repeated his questions in vain. The Frenchman got bogged down in a series of incoherent explanations. “I’m leaving; I must go.” ” Ah, thief, false prophet!” shouted the rancher in a stentorian voice. But Desnoyers remained unmoved by the insult. He had often heard his employer use the same words when he made a joke or haggled with cattle buyers. “Ah, thief, false prophet! Do you think I don’t know why you’re leaving? Do you imagine that old Madariaga hasn’t seen your glances and those of his daughter, that good-for-nothing, and when you and she strolled hand in hand, in front of that poor old woman, who’s practically blind?… Not a bad deal, Frenchman. With it, you get half the Galician’s money, and you can say you’ve made it big.” And while he was shouting this, or rather, howling it, he had gripped the riding crop, tapping the tip against his manager’s stomach with an insistence that could be either affectionate or hostile. ” That’s why I’ve come to say goodbye,” Desnoyers said haughtily. “I know it’s an absurd passion, and I want to leave.” “The master is leaving!” the rancher continued shouting. “This gentleman thinks he can do whatever he wants here! No, sir; no one here commands but old Madariaga, and I order you to stay… Ah, women! They only serve to turn men against each other. And yet we can’t live without them!…” He paced silently around the room several times, as if his last words had made him think of distant things, very different from what he had said until then. Desnoyers looked uneasily at the whip he still held in his right hand. Would he try to strike him like the farmhands?… He was hesitating between confronting a man who had always… He could either treat her kindly or make a discreet escape, taking advantage of one of his turns, when the rancher stood before him. “Do you really love her… really?” he asked. “Are you sure she loves you? Think carefully about what you say, because there’s a lot of deceit and blindness in matters of love. I, too, was crazy about my sweetheart when I got married.” “Do you really love each other?… Well then; take her, you devilish Frenchman, since someone has to take her, and don’t let her turn out to be a lazy cow like her mother… Let’s see if you fill the ranch with grandchildren. ” The great producer of men and beasts reappeared when he expressed this desire. And as if he considered it necessary to explain his attitude, he added: ” I’m doing all this because I love you; and I love you because you’re serious.” Once again, the Frenchman was absorbed, not knowing what this much- appreciated seriousness consisted of . Desnoyers, upon marrying, thought of his mother. If only the poor old woman could see this extraordinary leap in his fortune! But his mother had died a year earlier, believing her son to be enormously rich because he sent her one hundred and fifty pesos every month, a little over three hundred francs, taken from his salary at the ranch. His entry into the Madariaga family meant that the latter paid less attention to his business. The city drew him in, with the allure of its unknown charms. He spoke with disdain of the country women, poorly washed “chinas,” who now filled him with disgust. He had abandoned his country riding attire and displayed with childish satisfaction the suits a tailor from the capital had made for him. When Elena wanted to accompany him to Buenos Aires, he would excuse himself with troublesome business. “No, you’ll go with your mother.” The fate of the fields and cattle didn’t trouble him. His fortune, managed by Desnoyers, was in good hands. “This one is very serious,” he would say in the dining room before the assembled family. “As serious as I am… Nobody laughs at this one.” And at last, the Frenchman was able to guess that his father-in-law, when speaking of seriousness, was alluding to a man of strong character. According to Madariaga’s spontaneous declaration, from the first days he met Desnoyers, he could discern a temperament similar to his own, perhaps harsher and more resolute, but without shouting or eccentricities. For this reason, he had treated him with extraordinary benevolence, sensing that a clash between the two would be irreparable. Their only disagreements arose from the expenses Madariaga had established in earlier times. Since the son-in-law had taken over the management of the ranches, the work cost less and the people were more productive. And this was achieved without shouting, without harsh words, simply with his presence and his brief orders. The old man was the only one who stood up to him to maintain the capricious system of punishment followed by bribes. He was incensed by the meticulous, mechanical order , always the same, devoid of any extravagant arbitrariness, any benevolent tyranny. Often, some of the mestizo laborers, whom public gossip suspected of being closely related to the rancher, would appear before Desnoyers. “Boss, the old boss says to give me five pesos.” The boss would refuse, and shortly afterward, Madariaga would appear, irate in expression, but carefully choosing his words, considering that his son-in-law was as serious as he was. ” I love you dearly, son, but here no one commands more than I do… Ah, you Frenchman! You’re just like everyone else in your country: every penny you steal goes to the other side, and it won’t see the light of day again even if they crucify you… Did I say five pesos? You’ll give him ten. I’m the one who says so, and that’s that.” The Frenchman would pay, shrugging his shoulders, while his father-in-law, satisfied with his triumph, would flee to Buenos Aires. It was worth noting that the estate still belonged to the Galician Madariaga. He returned from one of his trips with a companion: a young German who, according to him, knew everything and was good for everything. His son-in-law was working too much. Karl Hartrott would help him with the accounting. And Desnoyers accepted him, feeling within a few days a budding appreciation for the new employee. That they belonged to two enemy nations meant nothing. In all There are good people in some places, and this Karl was a subordinate worthy of respect. He kept his distance from his peers and was inflexible and harsh with his inferiors. He seemed to concentrate all his faculties on serving and gaining the admiration of those above him. The moment Madariaga opened his mouth, the German nodded, preemptively supporting his words. If he said something funny, his laughter was scandalously loud. With Desnoyers, he was taciturn and diligent, working tirelessly. The moment he saw him enter the Administration building, he leaped from his seat, standing with military rigidity. He was ready to do everything. On his own initiative, he spied on the staff, denouncing their negligence and shortcomings. This service didn’t thrill his immediate superior, but he appreciated it as a sign of interest in the establishment. The old rancher praised his acquisition as a triumph, hoping his son-in-law would celebrate it equally. A very useful servant, isn’t he?… These gringos from Germany are good workers, they know a lot of things, and they don’t cost much. And then, so disciplined! So humble!… I hate to tell you this, because you’re French; but you’ve made some bad enemies. They’re a tough bunch. Desnoyers answered with a gesture of indifference. His homeland was far away, and so was the German’s. Who knows if they’d ever go back!… There they were Argentinians, and they had to think about immediate matters, without worrying about the past. Besides, they have so little pride! Madariaga continued ironically . Any of these gringos, when he’s a clerk in the capital, sweeps the shop, cooks, keeps the books, sells to the customers, types, translates four or five languages, and, if necessary, accompanies the boss’s mistress as if she were a grand lady… all for twenty-five pesos a month. Who can fight with people like that! You, Frenchman, are like me… very serious, and you’d starve to death before putting up with certain things. That’s why I tell you they’re terrifying. The rancher, after a brief thought, added: Perhaps they aren’t as good as they seem. You should see how they treat those under them. They may pretend to be simple when they aren’t, and when they smile at receiving a kick, they say to themselves: “Wait until I get one, and I’ll give you three back.” Then he seemed to regret his words. Anyway, this Karl is a poor fellow, a wretch, who, as soon as I say something, opens his mouth as if he were going to swallow flies. He claims to be from a great family, but who knows about these gringos!… All of us starving souls, when we come to America, pretend we’re the sons of princes. Madariaga had addressed this man informally from the very first moment, not out of gratitude, as he did with Desnoyers, but to make him feel his inferiority. He had also brought him into his home, but only to give piano lessons to his youngest daughter. “The romantic” no longer stood at dusk in the doorway gazing at the setting sun. Karl, once his work at the Administration was finished, would come to the rancher’s house, sitting next to Elena, who typed with a tenacity worthy of better fortune. Late in the evening, the German, accompanying himself on the piano, would sing fragments of Wagner, which made Madariaga doze in an armchair with a strong Paraguayan cigar pressed to his lips. Elena, meanwhile, watched the singing gringo with growing interest. He was not the knight of dreams the white lady had hoped for. He was almost a servant, a blond immigrant with a reddish tinge, stocky, somewhat heavy, and with bovine eyes that reflected a perpetual fear of displeasing his masters. But, day by day, she found something in him that changed her first impressions: Karl’s feminine whiteness beyond his sun-tanned face and hands; the growing martiality of his mustache; the ease with which he rode a horse; his troubadour air as he sang voluptuous romances with a somewhat muffled tenor voice, using words she could not understand. One evening, at dinnertime, he couldn’t contain himself and spoke with the feverish vehemence of someone who has made a great discovery: ” Papa, Karl is a nobleman. He belongs to a great family. ” The rancher made a gesture of indifference. Other things concerned him these days. But during the evening, he felt the need to vent the inner anger that had been gnawing at him since his last trip to Buenos Aires, and he interrupted the singer. ” Listen, gringo: what’s this nonsense about your nobility and all the other rubbish you’ve been telling the girl? ” Karl left the piano to stand and answer. Under the influence of the recent song, there was something in his demeanor reminiscent of Lohengrin at the moment of revealing the secret of his life. His father had been General von Hartrott, one of the secondary leaders of the Franco-Prussian War. The emperor had rewarded him by ennobling him. One of his uncles was a close advisor to the King of Prussia. His older brothers held officer positions in the elite regiments. He had carried a saber as a lieutenant. Madariaga interrupted him, weary of such grandeur. “Lies… nonsense… air.” To speak to him of American nobility! He had left Europe very young to immerse himself in the turbulent democracies of America, and although nobility seemed anachronistic and incomprehensible to him, he imagined that the only authentic and respectable nobility was that of his own country. He granted Americans first place in the invention of machines, in shipbuilding, in the breeding of valuable livestock, but all the counts and marquesses of the American class seemed counterfeit to him. “All farces,” he repeated. “There’s no nobility in your country, and you don’t all have five pesos combined. If you did, you wouldn’t come here to eat, nor would you send the women you send, who are… you know what they are as well as I do.” To Desnoyers’ astonishment, the German humbly accepted this outburst, nodding his head at the boss’s last words. ” If all that nonsense about titles, swords, and uniforms were true ,” Madariaga continued relentlessly, “why did you come here? What on earth did you do back home to have to leave? ” Now Karl lowered his head, confused and stammering. “Papa… Papa,” Elena pleaded. “Poor thing! How they humiliated him because he was poor!”… And she felt a deep gratitude toward her brother-in-law when she saw him break his silence to defend the German. “But I like this young man!” Madariaga said by way of excuse. “It’s the people from his country who make me angry.” When, after a few days, Desnoyers made a trip to Buenos Aires, the old man’s anger became clear. For several months he had been the protector of a German-born soprano forgotten in America by an Italian operetta company. She recommended Karl to him, a hapless compatriot who, after wandering through several American nations and working various jobs, was living next door as a gentleman singer. Madariaga had happily spent many thousands of pesos. A youthful enthusiasm accompanied him in this new existence of urban pleasures, until , upon discovering the double life the German woman led during his absences and how she laughed at him with the parasites in her entourage, he flew into a rage, bidding her farewell forever, accompanied by blows and the smashing of furniture. The last adventure of his life!… Desnoyers sensed this desire for renunciation when he heard him confess his age for the first time. He had no intention of returning to the capital. All lies! Life in the countryside, surrounded by his family and doing much good for the poor, was the only certainty. And the fearsome centaur spoke with an idyllic tenderness, with the unwavering virtue of sixty-five years, now impervious to temptation. After his scene with Karl, he had increased Karl’s salary, appealing as always to generosity to make amends for his violence. What he couldn’t forget was his nobility, which gave him cause for further jokes. That glorious tale had brought to mind the family trees of the ranch’s breeding stock. The German was A pedigree, and with this nickname he was known from then on. Seated, on summer nights, under a shed of the house, he would become patriarchally enraptured, contemplating his family gathered around him. The night’s calm would gradually fill with the buzzing of insects and the croaking of frogs. From the distant ranches came the songs of the laborers preparing their supper. It was harvest time, and large groups of migrants lodged at the estancia for the extra work. Madariaga had known sad days of wars and violence. He remembered the final years of Rosas’s tyranny, which he had witnessed upon arriving in the country. He listed the various national and provincial revolutions in which he had taken part, not wanting to be outdone by his neighbors, and which he referred to as “popular uprisings.” But all this had vanished and would never be repeated. These were times of peace, work, and abundance. “Look, Frenchman,” he’d say, shooing away the mosquitoes buzzing around him with puffs of smoke from his cigar. “I’m Spanish, you’re French, Karl’s German, my girls are Argentinian, the cook’s Russian, his assistant Greek, the stable boy English, the kitchen women— some local, others Galician or Italian—and the laborers come from all walks of life… And we all live in peace! In Europe, we might have been fighting by now; but here, we’re all friends.” And he delighted in listening to the workers’ music: mournful Italian songs accompanied by accordion, Spanish and Creole guitar strumming, and spirited voices singing of love and death. “This is Noah’s Ark,” the rancher declared. He meant the Tower of Babel, Desnoyers thought, but for the old man, it was the same thing. “I believe,” he continued, “that we live this way because in this part of the world there are no kings and armies are few, and men only think about getting by thanks to their work. But I also believe that we live in peace because there is plenty and everyone gets their share… Imagine the chaos if there were fewer rations than people!” He fell silent again, thoughtfully, before adding a little later: ” Whatever the reason, it must be acknowledged that life here is more peaceful than in the other world. Men value each other for their worth and get together without thinking about where they come from. Young men don’t go in droves to kill other young men they don’t know, whose only crime is having been born in the next town over… Man is a vile beast everywhere , I admit; but here he eats, he has plenty of land to lie down on, and he’s good, with the kindness of a well-fed dog.” There are too many of them there, living in squalor, getting in each other’s way, food is scarce, and they are easily enraged. Long live peace, Frenchman, and a tranquil existence! Wherever one feels at ease and is not in danger of being killed for things one doesn’t understand, there lies one’s true home. And as if echoing the rustic character’s musings, Karl, sitting in the parlor before the piano, hummed a Beethoven hymn. “Let us sing of the joy of life; let us sing of freedom. Never lie and betray your fellow man, even if they offer you the highest throne on earth for it.” Peace!… A few days later, Desnoyers bitterly recalled these illusions of the old man. It was war, a domestic war, that erupted in the idyllic setting of the estate. “Boss, hurry! The old boss has drawn his knife and wants to kill the German.” And Desnoyers had rushed from his desk, alerted by the shouts of a farmhand. Madariaga, knife in hand, was chasing Karl, trampling all who tried to block his path. Only Desnoyers was able to stop him, snatching the weapon away. “That shameless pedigree!” the old man shouted, his mouth livid, writhing in his son-in-law’s arms. “All those starving wretches think they only have to come to this house to take my daughters and my money… Let me go, I tell you! Let me go so I can kill him!” And with the desire to be free, he offered his excuses to Desnoyers. To him he He had accepted him as a son-in-law because he liked him: modest, honest, and… serious. But that singing pedigree, with all his arrogance! A man he had taken… he wouldn’t say from where! And the Frenchman, as well aware as he was of his early dealings with Karl, pretended not to understand him. Since the German had fled, the rancher ended up letting himself be led to his house. He was talking about giving “the romantic one” a beating and the Chinese one another, for not understanding things. He had caught his daughter holding hands with the gringo in a nearby grove, exchanging a kiss. “He’s after my money!” he howled. “He wants to make it big in America quickly at the expense of the Galician, and for this, so much humility and so much singing and so much nobility. Liar! Musician!” And he repeated insistently, “musician!” as if it were the embodiment of all his contempt. Desnoyers, firm and measured in his words, brought the conflict to a close. “The Romantic,” clinging to her mother, took refuge in the upper floors of the house. Her brother-in-law had protected her retreat, but despite this, the sensitive Elena moaned through her tears, thinking of the German: “Poor thing! Everyone against him!” Meanwhile, Desnoyers’ wife kept her father in his study, using all her influence as a judicious daughter. The Frenchman went in search of Karl, still reeling from the terrible shock, and gave him a horse so he could travel immediately to the nearest train station. He left the estate, but he wasn’t alone for long. After a few days, “the Romantic” followed him… Iseo “of the white hands” went in search of the gentleman Tristan. Madariaga’s despair was not violent and thunderous, as his son-in-law had expected. For the first time, he saw him cry. Her robust and cheerful old age vanished in an instant. In an hour, she seemed to have lived ten years. Like a child, wrinkled and trembling, she clung to Desnoyers, soaking his neck with her tears. “He’s taken her! That son of a flea… he’s taken her!” This time, he didn’t place the blame on his mistress. He wept beside her, and as if intending to console her with a public confession, he repeatedly said, ” For my sins… It’s all because of my most grievous sins.” A period of hardship and conflict began for Desnoyers. The fugitives sought him out during one of his visits to the capital, imploring his protection. “The romantic” wept, declaring that only her brother-in-law, “the most gentlemanly man in the world,” could save her. Karl looked at him like a faithful dog trusting its master. These encounters were repeated on all his journeys. Then, upon returning to the ranch, he would find the old man sullen and silent, staring fixedly ahead as if contemplating something invisible to everyone else, and suddenly saying, “It’s a punishment: the punishment for my sins.” The memory of his first dealings with the German, before bringing him to the ranch, tormented him like remorse. Some afternoons he would saddle a horse and gallop off to the nearest town. He no longer sought out hospitable ranches. He needed to spend some time in the church, to speak alone with the statues, which were there just for him, since he was the one who had paid the bills for their purchase… “Through my fault, through my most grievous fault.” But despite his repentance, Desnoyers had to work hard to get him to agree to anything. When he spoke of regularizing the fugitives’ situation by facilitating the necessary marriage procedures , he wouldn’t let him continue. “Do what you want, but don’t speak to me about them.” Many months passed. One day, the Frenchman approached with a certain air of mystery. “Elena has a son, and they call him Julio, just like you.” ” And you, you utterly useless wretch!” shouted the rancher, “and your lazy wife, you live peacefully, without giving me a grandson… Ah, you Frenchman! That’s why the Germans will end up overrunning you. You see: that bandit has a son, and you, after four years of marriage… nothing. I need a grandson, do you understand?” And to console herself for this lack of children in her home, she would go to the ranch of the foreman Celedonio, where a band of small mestizos gathered, fearful and hopeful, around the old master. Suddenly, the Chinese woman died. Poor Misiá Petrona passed away discreetly, as she had lived, trying in her last hour to avoid any upsetting her husband, asking his forgiveness with her eyes for the trouble her death might cause him. Elena arrived at the ranch to see her mother’s body, and Desnoyers, who had been supporting the fugitives behind his father-in-law’s back for more than a year, took advantage of the opportunity to overcome the latter’s anger. ” I forgive her,” the rancher said after a long resistance. ” I do it for the poor deceased and for you. Let her stay at the ranch and let that shameless gringo come with her. No dealings.” The German would be an employee under Desnoyers’s orders, and the couple would live in the Administration building, as if he weren’t part of the family. He would never speak to Karl. But as soon as he saw him arrive, he addressed him formally, giving him orders rudely, as if he were a stranger. After that, he always walked past him as if he didn’t know him. When he found Elena at his house with her older sister, he also kept walking. In vain, “the romantic,” transformed by motherhood, took every opportunity to place her little one in front of him and loudly repeated his name: “Julio… Julio.” A son of that singing gringo, white as a skinned kid with carrot-colored hair, they want to be my grandson… I prefer Celedonio’s children. And to further protest, he would go into the foreman’s house, handing out handfuls of pesos to the children. Seven years after her marriage, Desnoyers’ wife felt she was going to be a mother. Her sister already had three children. But what were they worth to Madariaga, compared to the grandson who was about to arrive? “It will be a boy,” he said firmly, “because that’s what I need. He will be called Julio, and I want him to resemble my poor departed wife.” Since his wife’s death, whom he no longer called “the Chinese woman,” he felt something akin to posthumous love for that poor woman who had endured so much from him throughout her life, always timid and silent. “My poor departed wife” came up constantly in the rancher’s conversations, with the obsession of remorse . His wishes were fulfilled. Luisa gave birth to a boy, who was named Julio, and although his still-forming features did not yet bear a strong resemblance to his grandmother, he had black hair and eyes and a pale brown complexion. Welcome!… This was a grandson. And with the generosity of joy, he allowed the German into his house to attend the christening celebration. When Julio Desnoyers was four years old, his grandfather paraded him on horseback all over the ranch, placing him in the front of the saddle. He went from ranch to ranch to show him off to the copper-skinned populace, like an elderly monarch presenting his heir. Later, when the grandson could speak fluently, he would spend hours conversing with him in the shade of the eucalyptus trees. A certain mental decline was beginning to show in the old man. He wasn’t senile yet, but his aggressiveness was taking on a childish character. Even in the greatest displays of affection, he resorted to contradiction, seeking to annoy those close to him. “Come here, false prophet!” he would say to his grandson. “You’re a Frenchman.” Julio would protest as if he were being insulted. His mother had taught him he was Argentinian, and his father advised him to add Spanish, to please his grandfather. “Well, if you’re not French,” the rancher continued, “shout, ‘Down with Napoleon!'” And he looked around to see if Desnoyers was nearby, thinking he was causing him great annoyance. But the son-in-law kept going, shrugging his shoulders. “Down with Napoleon!” Julio would say. And he would immediately hold out his hand, while the grandfather searched his pockets. Karl’s sons, now four in number, moved about around their grandfather . Like a humble chorus kept at a distance, they gazed enviously at these gifts. To please him, one day when they saw him alone, they approached resolutely, shouting in unison: “Down with Napoleon!” “You audacious gringos!” roared the old man. “That’s something your scoundrel of a father must have taught you. If you repeat it, I’ll chase you away with a whip… To insult a great man like that!” He tolerated this blond brood, but without allowing them any privacy. Desnoyers and his wife defended their nephews, calling him unjust. And to vent his dislike, he sought out Celedonio, the best of the listeners, for he answered everything: “Yes, sir.” “So be it, sir.” ” They are not to blame,” said the old man, “but I cannot love them. ” Besides, they were so like their father, so white, with hair like tattered carrots, and the two older ones wearing glasses as if they were scribes!… They don’t look like people with those glasses: they look like sharks. Madariaga had never seen sharks, but he imagined them, without knowing why, with round glass eyes, like the bottoms of bottles. At the age of eight, Julio was a horseman. “On horseback, little farmhand!” his grandfather would order. And off they would gallop across the fields, passing like lightning through the thousands upon thousands of horned cattle. The “little farmhand,” proud of his title, obeyed his master in everything. And so he learned to lasso the bulls, trapping and defeating them, to make his little horse jump wire fences, to save a deep hole from a boat, to slide down the ravines, not without rolling many times under his saddle. Ah, fine gaucho! “Here’s five pesos to buy a handkerchief for a girl,” said the grandfather, proud of these exploits. The old man, in his growing mental confusion, didn’t quite grasp the relationship between passions and age. And the young rider, as he pocketed the money, wondered which girl this was and why he should give her a gift. Desnoyers had to pull his son away from his grandfather’s teachings. It was useless to bring in tutors for Julio or try to send him to the ranch school. Madariaga would whisk his grandson away, and they would run off together to roam the countryside. The father finally enrolled the boy in a prestigious school in the capital when he was already over eleven years old. Then, the old man turned his attention to Julio’s sister, who was only three , taking her, like the other boy, from ranch to ranch on the front of his saddle. Everyone called Chicha’s daughter Chichí, but her grandfather gave her the title of “little farmhand,” just like her brother. And Chichí, who grew up vigorous and rugged, having meat for breakfast and talking about roast meat in her sleep, easily followed her old man’s ways. She dressed like a boy, rode like the men, and to deserve the title of “fine gaucho” bestowed upon her by her grandfather, she carried a knife on the back of her belt. The two of them roamed the fields from sunrise to sunset. Madariaga seemed to follow the flowing braid of the young woman like a flag. At nine years old, she was already skillfully lassoing cattle. What irritated the rancher most was that his family reminded him of his old age. He took Desnoyers’ advice to stay quietly at home as insults. As he grew older, he became more aggressive and reckless, pushing his activity to the extreme, as if he wanted to scare away death. He only accepted help from his mischievous “little farmhand.” When Karl’s sons, who were already grown men, came to hold his stirrups as he went to mount, he repelled them with indignant snorts. “Do you think I can no longer stand?… I still have a long life ahead of me, and those who are waiting for me to die to seize my wealth are in for a disappointment. ” The German and his wife, kept apart from the rest of the ranch life, had to silently endure these remarks. Karl, in need of protection, lived in the Frenchman’s shadow, seizing every opportunity to overwhelm him with praise. He could never thank him enough for what He did everything for him. He was his only defender. He longed for an opportunity to show his gratitude: to die for him, if necessary. His wife admired her brother-in-law with great enthusiasm: “The most accomplished gentleman on earth.” And Desnoyers silently appreciated this devotion, recognizing that the German was an excellent companion. Since he had complete control of the family fortune, he generously helped Karl without the old man’s knowledge. He was the one who took the initiative so that they could fulfill their greatest dream. The German longed for a visit to his country. So many years in America!… Desnoyers, for the same reason that he had no desire to return to Europe, wanted to facilitate this wish of his brothers-in-law, and gave Karl the means to make the trip with his entire family. The old man didn’t want to know who was paying the expenses. “Let them go,” he said happily, “and never come back.” The absence wasn’t long. They spent in three months what they had saved for a year. Karl, who had made his relatives aware of the great fortune his marriage represented, wanted to present himself as a millionaire, in full enjoyment of his riches. Elena returned transformed, speaking proudly of her relatives: the baron, the colonel of hussars, the commander of the Guard, the court advisor, declaring that all other nations paled in comparison to her husband’s homeland. She even adopted a somewhat protective air when praising Desnoyers, a good man, certainly, but “without birth,” “without race,” and, moreover, French. Karl, on the other hand, displayed the same devotion as before, remaining submissively modest behind his brother-in-law. He held the keys to the coffers and was his only defense against the terrible old man. He had left his two eldest sons at a boarding school in Germany. Years later, the rancher’s other grandchildren, whom he considered unpleasant and troublesome, “with carrot-top hair and shark-like eyes,” were sent off to the same destination . The old man now found himself alone. Her second “little farmhand” had been taken from her. The stern Chicha couldn’t tolerate her daughter growing up like a boy, riding horses all the time and repeating her grandfather’s coarse language . She was in a school in the capital, and the nuns who taught her had to fight hard to overcome the rebellions and mischief of their spirited pupil. When Julio and Chichí returned to the ranch during the holidays, the grandfather focused his favor on the former, as if the girl had only been a substitute. Desnoyers complained about his son’s somewhat disorderly behavior. He was no longer in school. His life was that of a student from a wealthy family who compensated for his parents’ frugality with all sorts of imprudent loans. But Madariaga came to his grandson’s defense. “Ah, fine gaucho!…” Seeing him at the ranch, he admired his handsome gentlemanly manner. He would feel his arms to test his strength; He made him recount his nightly fights, like a valiant champion of one of the gangs of licentious boys, called “patotas” in the slang of the capital. He longed to go to Buenos Aires to admire this carefree life firsthand. But alas! He wasn’t sixteen years old like his grandson. He was already over eighty. “Come here, you false prophet! Tell me how many children you have… Because you must have many children! ” “Dad!” protested Chicha, who was always nearby, fearing the grandfather’s bad teachings. “Stop nagging me!” he shouted, irritated. “I know what I’m saying.” Fatherhood inevitably figured in all his amorous fantasies. He was almost blind, and the failing eyesight was accompanied by a growing mental derangement. His senile madness took on a lewd character, expressed in language that either scandalized or amused everyone on the ranch. “Ah, you thief, and how handsome you are!” He said, looking at his grandson with eyes that saw only pale shadows. The spitting image of my poor departed mother… Have fun, your grandfather is here with his money. If you only had to rely on what your father gives you, you’d live like a hermit. The Frenchman is a hard-handed man: with him, there’s no partying possible. But I I think of you, little farmhand. Spend and prosper, that’s what your grandfather saved up money for. When his grandchildren left the ranch, he entertained himself by going from ranch to ranch. A mature mestiza woman boiled water on the stove for his mate. The old man vaguely thought she could well be his daughter. Another, about fifteen, offered him the gourd of bitter liquid, with its silver straw for sipping. A granddaughter perhaps, though he wasn’t sure. And so he spent his afternoons, motionless and silent, drinking mate after mate, surrounded by families who gazed at him with admiration and fear. Every time he mounted his horse for these excursions, his eldest daughter protested. “At eighty-four years old! Wouldn’t it be better for him to stay quietly at home? Any day now they’re going to regret a misfortune…” And misfortune came. The landowner’s horse returned one evening with a slow gait and without a rider. The old man had tumbled down a hill, and when they picked him up, he was dead… Thus ended the centaur, as he had always lived, with the whip dangling from his wrist and his legs bowed from the curve of the saddle. His will was kept by a Spanish notary in Buenos Aires, almost as old as he was. The family felt a pang of fear as they gazed upon the voluminous document. What terrible provisions had Madariaga dictated? Reading the first part reassured Karl and Elena. The old man had considerably improved Desnoyers’ wife’s position; but even so, a huge portion remained for “the romantic” and her family. “I do this,” he said, “in memory of my poor departed wife and so that people will not gossip.” Eighty-six bequests followed, forming as many chapters of the testamentary volume. Eighty-five dark-skinned individuals, men and women, who had lived on the ranch for many years as tenant farmers and sharecroppers, received the old man’s final paternal munificence. At the head of the group was Celedonio, who, during Madariaga’s lifetime, had already become wealthy simply by listening to him, repeating, “So be it, boss.” These bequests represented more than a million pesos in land and cattle. Julio Desnoyers completed the list of beneficiaries. The grandfather made special mention of him, bequeathing him a field “so that he may attend to his personal expenses, making up for what his father does not provide.” “But that represents hundreds of thousands of pesos!” protested Karl, who had become more demanding after realizing that his wife had not been forgotten in the will. The days following this reading were difficult for the family. Elena and her family looked at the other group as if they had just awakened, seeing them in a new light, with a different appearance. They forgot what they were going to receive, focusing only on the improvements made by their relatives. Desnoyers, benevolent and conciliatory, had a plan. An expert in managing these enormous assets, he knew that dividing them among the heirs would double expenses without increasing profits. He also calculated the complications and outlays of a court-ordered partition of nine sizable estates, hundreds of thousands of head of cattle, bank deposits, city houses, and outstanding debts. Wasn’t it better to continue as before? Hadn’t they lived in the blissful peace of a united family? Upon hearing his proposal, the German stood tall with pride. No; each to their own. Let each live in their own sphere. He wanted to settle in Europe, freely disposing of the assets. He needed to return to “his world.” Desnoyers looked him straight in the eye, seeing an unknown Karl, a Karl whose existence he had never suspected when he lived under his protection, timid and servile. The Frenchman, too, believed he was seeing his surroundings in a new light. “Very well,” he said. “Each to their own. It seems fair to me.” Chapter 3. The Desnoyers Family. The “Madariaga succession,” as the lawyers interested in extending it to increase their fees called it, was divided into two groups separated by the sea. Desnoyers settled in Buenos Aires. The Hartrotts moved to Berlin after Karl had sold all his assets, intending to invest the proceeds in industrial ventures and land in his homeland. Desnoyers no longer wished to live in the countryside. For twenty years he had been the head of a vast agricultural and livestock operation, commanding hundreds of men across several ranches. Now the scope of his authority had been considerably restricted by the division of the old man’s fortune with Elena’s share and numerous bequests. It infuriated him to see several foreigners, almost all Germans, settled on the lands adjacent to his, lands they had bought from Karl. Furthermore, he was growing old, his wife’s fortune amounted to some twenty million pesos, and his ambitious brother-in-law, by moving to Europe, perhaps demonstrated better judgment than he did. He leased some of his lands, entrusted the management of others to some of those favored by the will, who considered themselves family, always seeing Desnoyers as their boss, and moved to Buenos Aires. In this way, she could keep an eye on her son, who continued to lead a devilish life, failing to make progress in his engineering preparatory studies… Besides, Chichí was already a woman; her robust physique gave her a precocious appearance, beyond her years, and it wasn’t convenient to keep her in the countryside so she could become a rustic young lady like her mother. Doña Luisa seemed equally tired of life on the ranch. Her sister’s triumphs caused her some annoyance. She was incapable of feeling jealousy; but, out of maternal ambition, she wished that her children would not be left behind, shining and rising like her sister’s. For a year , the most astonishing news from Germany reached the house that Desnoyers had established in the capital. “Aunt from Berlin,” as Elena’s nephews called her, sent very long letters filled with accounts of dances, meals, hunts, and titles—many noble titles and military dignities: “our brother the colonel,” “our cousin the baron,” “our uncle the close advisor,” “our second cousin, the truly close advisor.” All the extravagances of the German social hierarchy, which incessantly invents new titles to satisfy the thirst for honors of a people divided into castes, were enumerated with relish by the former “romantic.” She even spoke of her husband’s secretary, who was no ordinary man, having earned the title of Rechnungsrath, or Calculation Advisor, as a clerk in the public offices. She also proudly mentioned the retired Oberpedell she had at home, explaining that this meant “Senior Porter.” The news concerning her children was no less glorious. The eldest was the family’s wise one. He dedicated himself to philology and historical sciences; but his eyesight was becoming increasingly impaired due to his constant reading. He would soon be a doctor, and before the age of thirty, a Herr Professor. His mother lamented that he wasn’t a soldier, considering his hobbies something that jeopardized the family’s high destiny. The teaching profession, the sciences, and literature were a refuge for Jews, who, because of their origins, were unable to obtain a rank in the army. But she consoled herself with the thought that a renowned professor could, in time, achieve a social standing almost comparable to that of a colonel. Her other four sons would be officers. Their father was paving the way for them to enter the Guard or some aristocratic regiment without their fellow officers voting against their proposed admission. The two daughters would surely marry, when they came of age, hussar officers who bore a noble title in their names, proud and charming gentlemen of whom Miss Petrona’s daughter spoke with enthusiasm. The Hartrotts’ residence was befitting their new friends. In the Berlin house, the servants wore breeches and white wigs on nights of grand feasting. Karl had bought an old castle, with pointed turrets, ghosts in the cellars, and various legends. of murders, assaults, and rapes, which enlivened her story in an interesting way. An architect decorated with many foreign orders, and who also held the title of “Counselor of Construction,” was in charge of modernizing the medieval building without losing its terrifying appearance. “The Romantic” described in advance the receptions in the gloomy hall, by the diffuse light of electric lamps that would imitate torches; the crackling of the emblazoned fireplace, with its fake logs bristling with gas flames; all the splendor of modern luxury combined with the memories of an era of omnipotent nobility, the best, according to her, in History. Furthermore, the hunts, the future hunts in an expanse of sandy and shifting land, with pine forests, in no way comparable to the rich soil of her birthplace, but which had had the honor of being trod centuries before by the Marquesses of Brandenburg, founders of the reigning house of Prussia. And all this progress, this rapid rise of the family, in just one year!… They had to contend with other overseas families who had amassed enormous fortunes in the United States, Brazil, or the Pacific coasts. But they were Germans “without birth,” crude commoners who vainly struggled to gain entry into high society by making donations to imperial projects. With all their millions, the most they could aspire to was marrying their daughters to line infantry officers . Whereas Karl!… Karl’s relatives!… And “the romantic” let her pen flow, glorifying a family into whose bosom she believed she had been born. From time to time, along with Elena’s letters, came other brief ones addressed to Desnoyers. Her brother-in-law kept him informed of his dealings, just as he had when he lived on the estate under Desnoyers’ protection. But this deference was coupled with a poorly disguised pride, a desire to avenge his past periods of voluntary humiliation. Everything he did was grand and glorious. He had invested millions in industrial enterprises in modern Germany. He was a shareholder in armaments factories as large as towns, in shipping companies that launched a vessel every six months. The emperor took an interest in these ventures, looking favorably upon those who wished to help him. Furthermore, Karl bought land. At first glance, it seemed madness that he had sold the opulent fields of his inheritance to acquire Prussian sand dunes that only produced crops with fertilizer. But as a landowner, he belonged to the “agrarian party,” the quintessential aristocratic and conservative group, and thus lived in two opposing and equally distinguished worlds: that of the great industrialists, friends of the emperor, and that of the Junkers, rural gentry, guardians of tradition, and suppliers of officers to the King of Prussia. Upon learning of this progress, Desnoyers considered the financial sacrifices it entailed. He knew Karl’s past. One day, during their stay, driven by gratitude, he had revealed to the Frenchman the reason for his journey to America. He was a former officer in his country’s army; but the desire to live ostentatiously, with no resources other than his salary, led him to commit reprehensible acts: embezzlement of regimental funds, unpaid debts, and forgery . These crimes had not been officially prosecuted out of respect for his father’s memory; but his fellow officers subjected him to a court of honor. His brothers and friends advised him to take his own life as the only solution; but he loved life and fled to America, where, at the cost of humiliation, he ultimately triumphed. Wealth erases the stains of the past more quickly than time. The news of his fortune across the ocean led his family to welcome him back on his first voyage, reintroducing him to “their world.” No one could recall embarrassing stories involving hundreds of marks from a man who spoke of his father-in-law’s lands, larger than many German principalities. Now, having settled Definitely, in the country, everything was forgotten; but what a wealth of contributions levied on his vanity!… Desnoyers guessed the thousands of marks poured out lavishly for the Empress’s charitable works, for imperialist propaganda, for veterans’ societies, for all the groups of aggression and expansion constituted by Germanic ambitions. The Frenchman, a sober man, frugal in his expenses and devoid of ambition, smiled at the grandeur of his brother-in-law. He considered Karl an excellent companion, albeit one with a childish pride. He recalled with satisfaction the years they had spent together in the countryside. He could not forget the German who hovered around him, affectionate and submissive like a younger brother. When his family commented with a somewhat envious vivacity on the glories of their relatives in Berlin, he would say, smiling: “Leave them in peace; it costs them their money.” But the enthusiasm that permeated the letters from Germany eventually created an atmosphere of unease and rebellion around her. Chichí was the first to attack. Why weren’t they going to Europe, like everyone else? All her friends had been there. Families of Italian and Spanish shopkeepers were making the journey, and she, the daughter of a Frenchman, hadn’t even seen Paris! Oh, Paris! The doctors who treated the melancholic ladies were declaring the existence of a new and fearsome disease: “the Paris disease.” Doña Luisa supported her daughter. Why shouldn’t she live in Europe, just like her sister, being as she was richer? Even Julio gravely declared that she would study more effectively in the Old World. America is not a land of scholars. And the father ended up asking himself the same question, wondering why the idea of going to Europe hadn’t occurred to him before. Thirty-four years without leaving that country that wasn’t his own! It was time to leave. He lived too close to the business side of things. It was no use trying to maintain the indifference of a retired rancher. Everyone around him was making money. At the club, at the theater, everywhere he went, people talked about land purchases, sales, quick deals with triple profits, and prodigious liquidations. The sums he kept idle in the banks were beginning to weigh on him. He would end up getting involved in some speculation, like a gambler who can’t look at the roulette wheel without reaching for his pocket. Leaving the ranch wasn’t worth it for this. His family was right: “To Paris!”… Because in the Desnoyers group, going to Europe meant going to Paris. “Aunt Berlin” could sing all sorts of praises about her husband’s homeland. “Nonsense!” Julio would exclaim, having made serious geographical and ethnic comparisons during his nights of wandering. “There’s nothing but Paris.” Chichí greeted the slightest doubt about this with an ironic sneer: “Are elegant fashions invented in Germany, perhaps?” Doña Luisa supported her children. Paris!… It had never occurred to her to go to a land of Lutherans to be protected by her sister. “Go to Paris!” said the Frenchman, as if they were speaking to him of an unknown city. He had grown accustomed to believing that he would never return to it. During his first years in America, this journey had been impossible for him, since he had not performed military service. Later, he had heard vague rumors of various amnesties. Besides, ample time had passed for the statute of limitations to expire. But a laziness of will made him consider returning to his homeland absurd and useless. He had nothing left on the other side of the sea to pull him back. He had even lost all contact with those relatives in the countryside who had sheltered his mother. In his saddest hours , he planned to occupy his time by erecting an enormous mausoleum, all of marble, in La Recoleta, the cemetery of the wealthy, to transfer Madariaga’s remains to his crypt, as the founder of a dynasty, with himself following, and then all his own, when their time came. He was beginning to feel the weight of old age. He was nearing sixty , and the rough life of the countryside, the horseback rides in the rain, The rivers forded on the swimming horse, the nights spent under the open sky, had given him rheumatism that soured his best days. But the family eventually shared their enthusiasm with him. “To Paris!…” He thought he was twenty years old. And forgetting his usual restraint, he wished that his family would travel like a royal family, in luxurious cabins with their own servants. Two copper-skinned virgins, born on the estate and elevated to the rank of maids to the lady and her daughter, accompanied them on the journey, their slanted eyes revealing no wonder at the latest novelties. Once in Paris, Desnoyers felt disoriented. He mixed up street names and suggested visits to buildings that had long since disappeared. All his attempts to show off his knowledge were met with failure. His children, guided by recent reading, knew Paris better than he did. He felt like a foreigner in his own country. At first, he even felt a certain strangeness using his native language. He had remained on the ranch for years without uttering a word in his own tongue. He thought in Spanish, and when translating his ideas into the language of his ancestors, he peppered his French with all sorts of Creole expressions. ” Where a man makes his fortune and establishes his family, there lies his true homeland,” he would say sententiously, recalling Madariaga. The image of the distant country resurfaced in him with a dominating obsession as soon as the initial impressions of the trip faded. He had no French friends, and when he went out into the street, his steps instinctively led him to the places where Argentinians gathered. The same thing happened to them. They had distanced themselves from their homeland only to feel with greater intensity the desire to talk about it at all times. He read the newspapers from there, commenting on the rise in agricultural prices, the importance of the upcoming harvest, the sale of steers. On the way home, she was also accompanied by memories of her American homeland, thinking with delight how the two Chinese women had trampled on the professional dignity of the French cook, preparing a cornmeal porridge, a carbonada, or a stew in the Creole style. The family had settled into an ostentatious house on Victor Hugo Avenue : twenty-eight thousand francs in rent. Doña Luisa had to go in and out many times to get used to the imposing appearance of the doormen: he decorated, dressed in black with white sideburns, like a notary in a comedy; she majestic, with a gold chain across her ample bosom, receiving the tenants in a red and gold drawing room. Upstairs, in the bedrooms, an ultramodern luxury, cold and glacial to the eye, with white walls and stained-glass windows of small rectangles, exasperated Desnoyers, who had been enthusiastic about the intricate carvings and rich furnishings of his youth. He himself oversaw the arrangement of the numerous rooms, which always seemed empty. Chichi protested against Papa’s avarice, seeing him buy slowly, tentatively, and hesitantly. “Avaricious?” he wouldn’t reply. “It’s just that I know the price of things.” He only liked objects when he had acquired them for a third of their value. The deception he suffered when parting with them represented a testament to his superiority. Paris offered him a place of pleasure unlike anything he could find anywhere else in the world: the Hôtel Drouot. He went there every afternoon when he didn’t find announcements in the newspapers about other important auctions. For several years, there wasn’t a famous shipwreck in Parisian life, with the consequent liquidation of the wreckage, from which he didn’t take a share. The usefulness and necessity of the acquisitions were of secondary interest; the important thing was to acquire them at ridiculously low prices. And the auctions flooded those rooms that at first were furnished with agonizing slowness. Her daughter complained that the house was getting too cluttered. The furniture and decorative objects were rich, but so much… so much! The rooms were starting to look like antique shops. The white walls They seemed to detach themselves from the magnificent chairs and overflowing display cases. Sumptuous, worn carpets, upon which several generations had walked, covered every floor. Ostentatious draperies, finding no empty space in the drawing rooms, adorned the doors leading to the kitchen. The wall moldings disappeared beneath a veneer of tightly pressed paintings, like the scales of armor. Who could accuse Desnoyers of being a miser? He spent far more than if a fashionable furniture maker were his supplier. The idea that he acquired everything for a quarter of its price made him continue these extravagant displays of a man of thrift. He could only sleep soundly when he imagined he had made a good deal that day. He bought thousands of bottles at auctions from bankruptcies. And he, who hardly drank himself, filled his cellars, recommending to the family that they use champagne as ordinary wine. The ruin of a furrier led him to acquire fourteen thousand francs worth of furs, representing a value of ninety thousand. The entire Desnoyers family seemed suddenly to feel an icy chill, as if polar icebergs were invading Victor Hugo Avenue. The father limited himself to treating himself to a fur coat, but ordered three for his son. Chichí and Doña Luisa appeared everywhere covered in silky and varied furs: one day chinchilla, another blue fox, sable, or sea lion. He himself adorned the walls with new batches of paintings, hammering them from the top of a ladder to save the expense of a worker. He wanted to offer his children examples of thrift. In his idle hours, he would rearrange the heaviest furniture, coming up with all sorts of combinations. It was a reminiscence of his better days, when he handled sacks of wheat and bales of hides on the ranch. His son, noticing him staring intently at a monumental display case, prudently moved to safety. Desnoyers felt a certain indecisiveness toward his two servants, proper, solemn figures, always in tailcoats, who didn’t hide their surprise at seeing a man with an income of over a million devoted to such duties. In the end, it was the two copper-skinned maids who assisted their employer, joining him with the familiarity of fellow exiles. Four automobiles completed the family’s luxury. The children would have been content with just one, small, brand-new, displaying the latest brand. But Desnoyers wasn’t a man to let good opportunities slip by, and, one after another, he had acquired all four, tempted by the price. They were enormous and majestic like antique carriages. Their entrance into a street turned the heads of passersby. The chauffeur needed two assistants to attend to this herd of behemoths. But the owner only reminisced about how cleverly he thought he had deceived the vendors, eager to part with such monuments. He advised his children to be modest and frugal. “ We are less rich than you think. We have many possessions, but they yield little income.” And after refusing a household expense of two hundred francs, he would spend five thousand on an unnecessary purchase, simply because, according to him, it represented a great loss for the vendor. Julio and his sister protested to Doña Luisa. Chichí even went so far as to declare that she would never marry a man like her father. “Be quiet!” the Creole woman would say, scandalized. “He has his temper, but he’s a very good man. He’s never given me a reason to complain. I hope you find someone like him. ” Her husband’s quarrels, his irritable nature, his overbearing will, lost all importance for her when she thought of his fidelity. In so many years of marriage… nothing! She had been of unwavering virtue, even in the countryside, where people, surrounded by beasts and enriched by their offspring, seemed to be tainted by the amorality of the flocks. She, who remembered her father so fondly!… Her own sister must have lived less peacefully with the vain Karl, capable of infidelity without any desire, simply to imitate the gestures of the Powerful. Desnoyers marched alongside his wife, bound by an affectionate routine. Doña Luisa, in her limited imagination, recalled the teams of oxen on the ranch, which refused to move forward when a strange animal replaced the absent one. Her husband was easily angered, blaming her for all the troubles his children caused him , but he couldn’t go anywhere without her. The afternoons at the Hotel Drouot seemed bland to him when he didn’t have this confidante of his plans and his anger by his side. “There’s a jewelry sale today: shall we go?” He made his suggestion in a soft, insinuating voice, a voice that reminded Doña Luisa of their first conversations around her parents’ house. And they traveled by different routes. She in one of her monumental vehicles, for she didn’t like to walk, accustomed as she was to the quietude of the ranch or to riding across the countryside. Desnoyers, the man with the four cars, abhorred them, being resistant to the dangers of novelty, out of modesty, and because he needed to walk, giving his body exercise to compensate for the lack of work. When they gathered in the crowded salesroom, they examined the jewelry, agreeing beforehand on what they intended to offer. But he, quick to become agitated by disagreement, always went further, looking at his rivals as he announced the figures as if he were throwing punches. After such expeditions, the lady appeared majestic and dazzling like a Byzantine basilica: her ears and neck adorned with thick pearls, her chest studded with diamonds, her hands radiating needles of light in all the colors of the rainbow. Chichi protested: “Too much, Mama.” They were going to mistake her for a cloakroom. But the Creole woman, pleased with her splendor, which was the crowning achievement of a humble life, attributed such complaints to envy. Her daughter was a young lady and couldn’t display these treasures. But later she would thank her for having acquired them for her. The house was already too small to hold so many purchases. Furniture, paintings, statues, and curtains were piled up in the attics, enough to decorate many homes. Don Marcelo complained about the smallness of a twenty-eight thousand franc apartment that could house four families like his own. He was beginning to think sadly about forgoing so many tempting opportunities when a real estate agent, one of those with an eye for foreigners, rescued him from this embarrassing situation. Why didn’t he buy a castle?… The whole family accepted the idea. A historic castle, the most historic one they could find, would complete their grand estate. Chichí paled with pride. Some of her friends had castles. Others, from old colonial families , accustomed to looking down on her for her peasant origins, would roar with envy upon learning of this acquisition, which almost represented a noble ennoblement. His mother smiled, hoping for several months in the countryside that would remind her of the simple, happy life of her youth. Julio was the least enthusiastic. The “old man” would have liked to keep him away from Paris for long periods, but he eventually resigned himself, thinking that this would provide an opportunity for frequent car trips. Desnoyers remembered his relatives in Berlin. Why shouldn’t he have his own castle, like the others?… The opportunities were tempting. Dozens of historic mansions were offered to him. Their owners were eager to part with them, burdened by the costs of upkeep. And so he bought the Château de Villeblanche-sur-Marne, built during the Wars of Religion, a mixture of palace and fortress, with an Italian Renaissance façade, somber turrets with pointed caps, and moats where swans swam. He could not live without a piece of land over which to exercise his authority, battling the resistance of men and things. Furthermore, the vast proportions of the castle’s rooms, devoid of furniture, tempted him. An opportunity to house the surplus from his caves, indulging in new purchases. In this atmosphere of gloom In the stately home, objects from the past would easily fit in, without the cry of protest they seemed to utter upon contact with the white walls of the modern rooms. The historic dwelling demanded considerable outlays; it had changed hands many times, after all. But he and the land knew each other perfectly. And while filling the building’s salons, he attempted to cultivate crops and raise livestock in the extensive park, as a scaled-down version of his American ventures. The property had to be self-sustaining. It wasn’t a fear of expenses: it was that he “wasn’t used to losing money.” The acquisition of the castle brought him an honorable friendship, which he saw as the greatest advantage of the business. He entered into a relationship with a neighbor, Senator Lacour, who had been a minister twice and now vegetated in the Upper House, silent during sessions, restless and verbose in the corridors, in order to maintain his influence. He was a leading figure of the republican nobility, an aristocrat of the regime, whose lineage was steeped in the upheavals of the Revolution, just as noblemen of noble lineage trace theirs to the Crusades. His great-grandfather had belonged to the Convention; his father had played a role in the Republic of 1848. He, as the son of an outlaw who died in exile, marched at a very young age behind the grandiloquent figure of Gambetta, and spoke constantly of the master’s glory so that a ray of it might be reflected upon the disciple. His son René, a student at the École Centrale, found his father’s romantic and humanitarian republicanism to be an “old joke,” chuckling a bit. But this did not prevent him from hoping, when he became an engineer, for the official patronage amassed by four generations of Lacours dedicated to the service of the Republic. Don Marcelo, who viewed every new friendship with apprehension, fearing a demand for a loan, enthusiastically embraced the company of the “great man.” The man admired wealth and, for his part, found a certain talent in this millionaire from across the sea who spoke of boundless pastures and immense flocks. Their relationship went beyond the selfishness of a rural neighborly relationship, continuing in Paris. René ended up visiting the house on Avenue Victor Hugo as if it were his own. The only troubles in Desnoyers’ life came from his children. Chichi irritated him with her independent tastes. She didn’t love old things, however solid and splendid they might be. She preferred the frivolities of the latest fashion. She accepted all her father’s gifts coldly. Faced with a centuries-old lace dress acquired at auction, she would grimace: “I’d much rather have a new dress for three hundred francs.” Moreover, she relied on her brother’s bad example to confront “the old folks.” Her father had entrusted her completely to Doña Luisa. The girl was now a woman. But the former “little farmhand” showed little respect for the advice and orders of the kind-hearted Creole woman. He had enthusiastically taken up skating, considering it the most elegant of amusements. Every afternoon he went to the Palais de Glace, and Doña Chicha followed him, foregoing her husband’s shopping trips. The hours of deadly boredom before the ice rink, watching the swaying human figures, alone or in a line, glide across the white circle on knives to the sounds of an organ!… Her daughter , red-faced with excitement, ran back and forth before her eyes, tossing back the curls of her hair that escaped her hat, making the folds of her skirt clatter behind her skates—a beautiful, tall, and strong girl, with the insolent health of a child who, according to her father, “had been weaned on steaks.” Finally, Doña Luisa grew tired of this tiresome surveillance. She preferred to accompany her husband on his hunt for cheap riches. And Chichí went skating with one of the copper-skinned maidens, spending the afternoon among her sporting friends, all from the New World. They shared their ideas under the dazzling allure of the easy life of Paris. Free from the scruples and worries of their homeland, they all felt as though they had been born months earlier, recognizing in themselves merits previously unsuspected. The change of hemisphere had enhanced their values. Some even wrote verses in French. And Desnoyers grew alarmed, giving free rein to his ill humor, when at night Chichí would recite aphorisms, summarizing what she and her companions had come up with from their readings and observations: “Life is life , and you have to live it.” “I’ll marry the man I like, whoever he may be.” But these annoyances of her father paled in comparison to those caused by the other. Ah, the other!… Julio, upon arriving in Paris, had altered the course of his aspirations. He no longer thought of becoming an engineer: he wanted to be a painter. Don Marcelo resisted with astonishment, but finally yielded. So much for painting! The important thing was that he not be without a profession. He considered property and wealth sacred, but deemed unworthy of their pleasures those who had not worked. He also recalled his years as a woodcarver. Perhaps the same talents, stifled in him by poverty, were being reborn in his descendant. Would this lazy but quick-witted boy, who hesitated before embarking on his path in life, become a great painter ?… He indulged all of Julio’s whims, who, still in his first attempts at drawing and coloring, demanded a separate existence to work more freely. His father installed him near their home, in a studio on the rue de la Pompe that had belonged to a foreign painter of some renown. The workshop and its annexes were too large for an apprentice. But the master had died, and Desnoyers seized the opportunity offered by the heirs, buying furniture and paintings en masse. Doña Luisa visited the workshop daily, like a good mother who looks after her son’s well-being so that he would work better. She herself, removing her gloves, emptied the bronze saucers overflowing with cigarette butts and wiped the pipe ash off the furniture and carpets. Julio’s visitors, long-haired young men who spoke of things she couldn’t understand, were rather careless in their manners… Later , she encountered scantily clad women and was met with a sour expression by her son. Wouldn’t his mother allow him to work in peace?… And the poor woman, leaving her house every morning, would head towards the rue de la Pompe, but would stop halfway, going into the church of Saint Honorée d’Eylau. The father was more cautious. A man of his age couldn’t mingle in the company of a young artist. After a few months, Julio spent entire weeks without sleeping at his father’s house. Finally, he settled into his studio, making quick stops by his house to reassure the family that he still existed… Some mornings, Desnoyers would arrive at the rue de la Pompe to ask the doorkeeper questions. It was ten o’clock: the artist was asleep. Returning at midday, he was still fast asleep. After lunch, another visit to get better news. It was two o’clock: the young master was getting up at that very moment. And his father would storm off in a rage. But when did this painter ever paint?… At first, he had tried to make a name for himself with his brush, considering it an easy undertaking. Being an artist placed him above his friends, South American boys with no other occupation than enjoying life, throwing money around noisily so everyone would know of their extravagance. With serene audacity, he set about painting pictures. He loved pretty, “distinguished,” elegant paintings; paintings as saccharine as a romance, and which only copied the female form. He had money and a good studio; His father was behind him, ready to help: why shouldn’t he do what so many others who lacked his means did?… And he undertook the task of painting a canvas, giving it the title The Dance of the Hours: a pretext for copying good He would sketch young women and choose models. He drew with frenetic speed, filling the outlines with masses of color. So far, so good. But then he hesitated, remaining inactive before the canvas, finally setting it aside to await better times. The same thing happened when he attempted several studies of female heads. He couldn’t finish anything, and this brought him a certain despair. Then he resigned himself, like someone who lies wearily before an obstacle and awaits a providential intervention to help him overcome it. The important thing was to be a painter… even if he didn’t paint. This allowed him to give cards with pretexts of high aesthetics to cheerful women, inviting them to his studio. He lived at night. Don Marcelo, when he inquired about the artist’s work, couldn’t contain his indignation. Every morning, the two of them saw the first light: the father leaping out of bed; the son on his way to his studio, to get between the sheets and not wake until mid-afternoon. The credulous Doña Luisa invented the most absurd explanations to defend her son. Who knows! Perhaps he painted at night, using new techniques. Men invent so many mischievous things these days!… Desnoyers was familiar with these nocturnal activities: scandals in the restaurants of Montmartre, and fights, many fights. He and his gang, who at seven in the evening believed a tailcoat or a tuxedo was indispensable, were like a band of Indians implanting the violent customs of the desert in Paris. Champagne was, for them, a wine of brawls. They would break things and pay, but their generosity was almost always followed by a fight. No one had a quick slap and a ready credit card like Julio . His father accepted with gestures of sadness the news from certain friends who imagined they were flattering his vanity by telling him about chivalrous encounters in which his firstborn always tore the skin of his adversary. The painter knew more about fencing than about his art. He was a champion in several weapons, he boxed, and he even possessed the favorite punches of the paladins who roamed the fortifications. “Useless and dangerous like all drones,” his father protested. But he felt an irresistible satisfaction, an animal pride, stirring deep within his mind , considering that this fearsome bewildered creature was his own creation. For a moment, he believed he had found a way to remove him from such an existence. The relatives from Berlin visited the Desnoyers at their castle in Villeblanche. Karl von Hartrott appreciated with benevolent superiority his brother-in-law’s rich and somewhat extravagant collections. They weren’t bad: he recognized a certain cachet in the house in Paris and the castle. They could serve to complement and lend patina to a noble title. But Germany!… The comforts of his homeland!… He wanted his brother-in-law, in turn, to admire how he lived and the noble friendships that embellished his opulence. He insisted so much in his letters that the Desnoyers made the trip. This change of scenery might change Jules. Perhaps it would awaken his emulation, seeing firsthand the industriousness of his cousins, all of whom had careers. Besides, the Frenchman believed in the corrupting influence of Paris and in the purity of morals of patriarchal Germany. They were there for four months. Desnoyers soon felt a desire to flee. To each their own; he could never get along with those people. Very friendly, with a cloying friendliness and a visible desire to please, but constantly stumbling due to an irremediable lack of tact, a desire to make their superiority felt. The Hartrotts’ friends made displays of love for France: the pious love inspired by a mischievous and weak child in need of protection. And they accompanied this with all sorts of unwelcome reminders of the wars in which the French had been defeated. Everything German—a monument, a railway station, a simple dining room item—gave rise to glorious comparisons: ” You don’t have that in France.” “Undoubtedly, you haven’t seen anything like it in America .” Don Marcelo left, weary of so much Protection. His wife and daughter had resisted accepting that Berlin’s elegance was superior to that of Paris. Chichi, in a fit of sacrilegious audacity, scandalized his cousins by declaring that he could not abide the young officers with their corseted waists and unyielding monocles, who bowed before young women with automatic rigidity, adding a sneer of superiority to their gallantries. Julio, under the guidance of his cousins, immersed himself in the virtuous atmosphere of Berlin. The eldest, “the wise one,” was not to be reckoned with. He was an unhappy man, devoted to his books, and regarded the entire family with a protective air. The others, sub-lieutenants or sword-bearer cadets, proudly showed him the progress of Germanic exuberance. He discovered nightclubs that were imitations of those in Paris, but much larger. The women, who there were counted by the dozens, here numbered in the hundreds. The scandalous drunkenness wasn’t an incident, but something deliberately sought after, as if essential to the joy. Everything was grandiose, brilliant, colossal. The revelers partied in droves, the public got drunk in groups, the prostitutes formed regiments. He felt a sense of disgust at the servile and timid women, accustomed to hardship, who eagerly sought to recoup the great losses and disappointments suffered in their trade. It was impossible for him to celebrate, like his cousins, with uproarious laughter the disenchantment of these women when they saw their time wasted, achieving nothing but copious amounts of drink. Moreover, he was bothered by the crude, noisy, and public debauchery, like a display of wealth. “This doesn’t exist in Paris,” his companions would say, admiring the enormous salons with hundreds of couples and thousands of drinkers; “no, it doesn’t exist in Paris.” He grew weary of such immeasurable grandeur . He thought he was attending a party of starving sailors, eager to make up in one fell swoop for all their past privations. And he felt the same desire to flee as his father. Marcel Desnoyers returned from this trip with a melancholic resignation. Those people had progressed greatly. He was not a blind patriot, and he recognized the obvious. In just a few years, they had transformed their country; their industry was powerful… but they were irresistible to deal with. Each in his own home, and if only it would occur to them to envy their neighbor’s! But he immediately repelled this last suspicion with his businessman’s optimism. “They’re going to be very rich,” he thought. “Their businesses are running smoothly, and a rich man has no desire to quarrel. The war that four madmen dream of is impossible.” The young Desnoyers resumed his Parisian life, living always in his studio and appearing only occasionally at his father’s house. Doña Luisa began to speak of a certain Argensola, a young Spaniard of great wisdom, acknowledging that his advice could be very useful to her son. He wasn’t sure if the new companion was a friend, a teacher, or a servant. Visitors suffered from a similar uncertainty. Literary aficionados spoke of Argensola as a painter; painters only recognized his literary superiority. He could never recall exactly where he had first seen him. He was one of those who came up to his study on winter afternoons, drawn by the red glow of the stove and the wines secretly provided by his mother. The Spaniard thundered before the liberally replenished bottle and the open pack of cigarettes on the table, speaking authoritatively about everything. One night he stayed overnight on a divan. He had no fixed address. And after that first night, he spent every night in the study. Julio ended up admiring him as a reflection of his own personality. How much that Argensola knew, having come from Madrid third class with twenty francs in his pocket to “violate glory,” in his own words! When he saw that she painted with as much harshness as he did, using the same puerile and clumsy drawing style, he was moved. Only false artists, men “of the trade,” unthinking performers, worry of color and other such nonsense. Argensola was a psychological artist, a painter of souls. And the disciple felt astonishment and resentment upon learning how easy it was to paint a soul. On a bloodless face, with a chin as sharp as a dagger, the Spaniard would sketch almost round eyes and to each pupil he would deliver a white brushstroke, a point of light… the soul. Then, standing before the canvas, he would classify this soul with his inexhaustible eloquence, attributing to it all kinds of conflicts and crises. And such was his power of obsession that Julio saw what the other imagined he had put in the round, bushy eyes. He too would paint souls… women’s souls. As easy as this work of psychic creation was, Argensola preferred to chat reclining on a divan or read by the warmth of the stove while his friend and protector was out. Another advantage of this love of reading for young Desnoyers was that, upon opening a book, he would go directly to the back pages or the index, wanting to “get a feel for it,” as he put it. Sometimes, in salons, he had confidently asked an author which was his best book. And his clever smile suggested it was a precaution against wasting time with the other volumes. Now he no longer needed to make such blunders. Argensola would read for him. When he sensed Desnoyers’ interest in a book, he demanded immediate input: “Tell me the plot.” And the “secretary” not only summarized comedies and novels, but also explained to him the “arguments” of Schopenhauer or Nietzsche… Then, Doña Luisa would almost shed tears upon hearing that visitors treated her son with the benevolence that wealth inspires: “The lad’s a bit of a devil, but how well-prepared he is!” In exchange for his lessons, Argensola received the same treatment as a Greek slave who taught rhetoric to the young patricians of decadent Rome. In the middle of an explanation, his master and friend would interrupt him: ” Prepare a dress shirt for me. I’m invited tonight.” Other times, when the master was experiencing a feeling of animalistic well-being with a book in his hand by the whirring stove, watching the gray and rainy afternoon through the window, the disciple would suddenly appear : “Quickly… out into the street! A woman is coming.” And Argensola, with the air of a dog shaking its fur, would go off to continue his reading in some uncomfortable little café nearby. His influence descended from the heights of intellectual life to intervene in the vulgarities of material existence. He was the employer’s steward; the mediator between his money and those who came to claim it, invoice in hand. “Money,” he would say laconically at the end of the month. And Desnoyers would burst into complaints and curses. Where was he going to get it? The old man was rigidly strict and wouldn’t tolerate the slightest advance on the following month’s allowance. He had him subjected to a regime of misery. Three thousand francs a month: what could a decent person do with that?… Eager to reduce him, he tightened the noose, intervening directly in the administration of his household so that Doña Luisa couldn’t make any gifts to her son. In vain he had contacted several usurers in Paris, telling them about his property across the ocean. These gentlemen had the country’s youth at their fingertips and didn’t need to risk their capital abroad. He met with the same failure when, with sudden displays of affection, he tried to convince Don Marcelo that three thousand francs a month was a pittance. The millionaire roared with indignation. “Three thousand francs, a pittance! And besides, there were the debts of his son that he had had to pay on several occasions!… When I was your age…” he would begin. But Julio would cut the conversation short. He had heard his father’s story many times . “Ah, you miserly old man! What he gave him every month was nothing more than the income from his grandfather’s inheritance…” And on Argensola’s advice, he dared to claim the land. The administration of that land thought He entrusted it to Celedonio, the former foreman, who was now a prominent figure in his country, and whom he ironically called “my uncle.” Desnoyers received his defiance coldly. “That seems fair to me. You’re of age now.” And after handing over the inheritance, he tightened his control over household expenses, preventing Doña Luisa from handling any money. From then on, he regarded his son as an adversary he needed to defeat, treating him during his brief appearances on Victor Hugo Avenue with glacial courtesy, as if he were a stranger. A temporary opulence spurred his studies for a time. Julio had increased his spending, considering himself rich. But letters from his uncle in America dispelled these illusions. At first, the remittances barely exceeded the monthly amount his father gave him. Then they decreased alarmingly. All the calamities of the world seemed to have befallen the estate at once, according to Celedonio. Pastures were scarce: sometimes due to lack of rain, other times due to flooding, and hundreds of cattle perished. Julio needed more income, and the cunning mestizo sent him what he asked for, but only as a loan, reserving the repayment for when they settled accounts. Despite such assistance, young Desnoyers was in dire straits. He was now gambling at an elegant club, believing he could compensate for his periodic shortages, and this only served to make the sums received from America disappear even faster… That a man like him should be tormented by the lack of a few thousand francs! What good was it to have a father with so many millions? If the creditors became threatening, he would go to the “secretary.” He had to see his mother immediately: he wanted to avoid her tears and reprimands. And Argensola would slip like a thief down the service stairs of the mansion on Avenue Victor Hugo. The location of his embassies was always the kitchen, with the great danger that the dreaded Desnoyers might arrive there in one of his laborious maneuvers , surprising the intruder. Doña Luisa wept, moved by the messenger’s dramatic words. What could she do? She was poorer than her servants; jewels, many jewels, but not a single franc. It was Argensola who proposed a solution, worthy of his experience. He would save the good mother by taking some of her jewels to the pawnshop. He knew the way. And the lady accepted the advice; but she only handed over jewels of moderate value, suspecting that she would never see them again. Belated scruples sometimes made her burst into outright refusals. Her Marcelo could find out: how awful!… But the Spaniard considered it degrading to leave there without taking something, and lacking money, he carried a basket of bottles from Desnoyers’s rich cellar. Every morning, Doña Luisa entered Saint Honorée d’Eylau to pray for her son. She cherished this church as something of her own. It was a welcoming, familiar island in the uncharted ocean of Paris. She exchanged discreet greetings with the regular parishioners, people from the neighborhood who had come from the various republics of the New World. She felt closer to God and the saints when she heard conversations in their own languages in the atrium. Moreover, it was like a parlor where the great events of the South American community unfolded. One day it was a wedding, with flowers, an orchestra, and singing. She, with her Chichí at her side, greeted acquaintances and then offered her congratulations to the bride and groom. Another day it was the funeral of a former president or some other overseas figure who had ended his tumultuous life in Paris. “Poor president! Poor general!”… Doña Luisa would remember the deceased. I had seen him in that church many times, devoutly attending Mass, and he was indignant at the malicious tongues that, in the guise of funeral orations, brought up executions and bankruptcies back in his country. Such a good and religious man! May God have him in his glory!… And as he went out into the square, he gazed with tender eyes at the horsemen and women heading towards the Forest, the luxurious automobiles, the radiant morning In the sunlight, all the fresh childlike innocence of the early morning hours, she recognized how beautiful life truly is. Her gaze, filled with gratitude for all that exists, would eventually caress the monument in the center of the square, bristling with wings, as if it were about to take flight. Victor Hugo!… It was enough for her to hear this name from her son to contemplate the statue with familial interest . The only thing she knew about the poet was that he had died. Of that she was almost certain. But she imagined him, in life, as a great friend of Julio’s, given how often he repeated his name. Oh, her son!… All her thoughts, her conjectures, her desires converged on him and on her irrepressible husband. She longed for the two men to understand each other, ending a struggle in which she was the only victim. Wouldn’t God perform a miracle?… Like a sick person who changes sanatoriums, chasing after health, she abandoned the church on her street to frequent the Spanish Chapel on Friedland Avenue. Here she felt even more at home among her own kind. Through the fine, elegant South American women, as if they had stepped out of a fashion magazine spread, her eyes searched with admiring glances for other ladies, less well-dressed, plump, adorned with theatrical ermine and antique jewels. When these ladies met in the atrium, they spoke in loud voices with expressive gestures, sharply enunciating each word. The rancher’s daughter dared to greet them, having subscribed to all their charitable works, and upon receiving a greeting in return, she experienced a satisfaction that momentarily made her forget her sorrows. They belonged to those families her father admired without knowing why; they came from what was called across the sea “the mother country,” all of them most excellent and noble in the eyes of good Doña Chicha, and related to kings. She didn’t know whether to shake their hands or kneel, as she had vaguely heard was the custom at court. But suddenly he remembered his worries, and went on to direct his prayers to God. Oh, that He would remember her! That He wouldn’t forget his luxury for long!… It was glory that remembered Julio, embracing him in its arms of light. He suddenly found himself with all the honors and advantages of celebrity. Fame surprises cautiously along the most tortuous and unknown paths. Neither the painting of souls nor an eventful life full of costly love affairs and complicated duels brought young Desnoyers his renown. Glory took him by the feet. A new pleasure had come from across the seas, to the happiness of humankind. People questioned each other in salons with the mysterious tone of initiates seeking recognition: “Do you know how to tango?”… The tango had taken over the world. It was the heroic anthem of a humanity that suddenly concentrated its aspirations on the harmonious sway of hips, measuring intelligence by the agility of feet. An incoherent and monotonous music, of African inspiration, satisfied the artistic ideal of a society that needed nothing more. The world danced… danced… danced. A dance of Black people from Cuba, introduced to the Antilles, conquered the entire earth in a few months, circled its globe, leaping victoriously from nation to nation… just like the Marseillaise. It penetrated even the most ceremonious courts, shattering the traditions of modesty and etiquette, like a song of revolution: the revolution of frivolity. The Pope had to become a dance master, recommending the “furlana” over the “tango,” since the entire Christian world, regardless of sect, was united in the common desire to move their feet with a frenzy as tireless as that of the possessed in the Middle Ages. Julio Desnoyers, finding this dance of his adolescence reigning supreme and triumphant in the heart of Paris, surrendered to it with the confidence one feels for an old lover. Who would have told him, when he was a student frequenting the most abject dances in Buenos Aires, watched over by the police, that he was learning the art of the Glory!… From five to seven, hundreds of eyes followed him with admiration in the salons of the Champs-Élysées, where a cup of tea cost five francs and included the right to participate in the sacred dance. “He’s got the figure,” the ladies would say, appreciating his slender body, of medium height and strong physique. And he, in his frock coat, fitted at the waist and puffed out at the chest, his femininely small feet encased in patent leather and white pumps on high heels, danced gravely, thoughtfully, silently, like a mathematician deep in the crunch of a problem, while the lights cast a blue hue on the two dark, tightly woven, and shimmering curtains of his hair. Women asked to be introduced to him, with the sweet hope that their friends would envy them, seeing them in the master’s arms. Invitations rained down on Jules. The most inaccessible salons opened their doors to him . Every afternoon he acquired a dozen new friends. Fashion had brought teachers from across the sea, tough guys from the Buenos Aires slums, proud and confused to find themselves acclaimed just like a famous tenor or lecturer. But above these dancers of a kind of vulgar, yet demanding payment, Julio Desnoyers triumphed. The incidents of his former life were discussed by the women as the exploits of a romantic leading man. ” You’re killing yourself,” Argensola would say. “You dance too much.” His friend’s fame brought new annoyances for him. His peaceful reading by the stove was now interrupted daily. It was impossible to read more than a chapter. The celebrated man would urge him to go out into the street. “A new lesson,” the parasite would say. And when he was alone, numerous visitors, all women—some inquisitive and aggressive, others melancholic, with an air of abandonment—would come to interrupt his reflective pastime. One of these women terrified the studio’s inhabitants with her persistence . She was a North American, of troubled age, somewhere between thirty-two and fifty-nine, always wearing short skirts that, when she sat down, billowed up indiscreetly, as if moved by a spring. Several dances with Desnoyers and a visit to the rue de la Pompe represented sacred, acquired rights for her, and she pursued the maestro with the desperation of an abandoned believer. Julio had fled upon learning that this beauty, with a youthful slenderness seen from behind, had two grandchildren. “Master Desnoyers has gone out,” Argensola would invariably say upon receiving her. And the grandmother would weep, bursting into threats. She wanted to commit suicide right there, so that her corpse would frighten away the other women who came to take what she considered hers. Now it was Argensola who saw his companion off when he wished to be alone. “I think the Yankee is coming,” he would say indifferently . And the great man would flee, often using the service staircase. It was during this time that the most important event of his life began to unfold. The Desnoyers family was to unite with that of Senator Lacour. René, the latter’s only son, had finally inspired in Chichi a certain interest that bordered on love. The man desired for his offspring boundless fields, immense herds of cattle, the description of which moved him like a marvelous tale, and banquets. Every new celebrity immediately suggested a luncheon invitation. No passing celebrity in Paris, no polar traveler, no famous singer escaped without being paraded in Lacour’s dining room. Desnoyers’ son, whom he had barely noticed until then, inspired a sudden sympathy in him. The senator was a modern man, and he didn’t classify glory or distinguish reputations. It was enough for him that a surname resonated for him to accept it with enthusiasm. When Julio visited him, he proudly introduced him to his friends, almost calling him “dear maestro.” Tango dominated all the conversations. Even at the Academy they had discussed it, eloquently demonstrating that the youth of ancient Athens enjoyed something similar… And Lacour had dreamed all his life of An Athenian republic for his country. At these gatherings, the young Desnoyers met the Laurier couple. He was an engineer who owned an automobile engine factory near Paris: a tall, somewhat heavy, quiet man of thirty-five, who cast a slow gaze around him , as if he wished to penetrate more deeply into people and objects. Madame Laurier was ten years younger than her husband and seemed to stand apart from him by the force of a stark contrast. She was lighthearted, elegant, frivolous, and loved life for the pleasures and satisfactions it offered. She seemed to accept with smiling acquiescence the silent and solemn adoration of her husband. She could do no less for a creature of his merits. Moreover, she had brought to the marriage a dowry of three hundred thousand francs, capital that the engineer used to expand his business. The senator had intervened in the arrangement of this marriage. Laurier interested him because he was the son of a friend from his youth. Julio’s presence was a ray of sunshine for Margarita Laurier in the dull salon of Lacour. She danced the fashionable dance, frequenting the “tea tangos” where Desnoyers was admired. To suddenly find herself next to this celebrated and interesting man, so sought after by all the women!… So that she wouldn’t be mistaken for just another bourgeois woman like the other women who frequented the senator’s salon, she spoke of her dressmakers, all from the rue de la Paix, declaring gravely that a woman who respected herself couldn’t go out in a dress costing less than eight hundred francs, and that the thousand-franc hat, an object of astonishment just a few years before, was now vulgar. This knowledge meant that “little Laurier,” as her friends called her, despite her good height, found herself sought after by the maestro at dances, going out to dance with him amidst looks of spite and envy. What a triumph for the wife of a simple engineer, who went everywhere in her mother’s car!… At first, Julio felt the pull of novelty. He had thought her just like all the others who languished in his arms, following the intricate rhythm of the dance. Then he found her different. Her resistance after their first verbal intimacies heightened his desire. In truth, he had never been with a woman of her class. Those from his early days were regulars at nightclubs, who ended up making him pay. Now, celebrity brought to his arms ladies of high standing, but with an unconfessed past, eager for novelty and excessively mature. This bourgeois woman who marched toward him and, at the moment of surrender, recoiled with abrupt resurgences of modesty, represented something extraordinary. The tango halls suffered a great loss. Desnoyers was seen less frequently, leaving his glory to the professionals. Entire weeks would pass without the devotees being able to admire, between five and seven, her black tresses and her patent leather feet gleaming in the lights as she moved gracefully. Margarita Laurier, too, fled these places. The meetings between the two unfolded according to what she had read in the love stories set in Paris. She would go in search of Julio, fearing recognition, trembling with emotion, choosing the most somber dresses, covering her face with a thick veil, “the veil of adultery,” as her friends called it. They would meet in the less frequented neighborhood squares, changing locations like timid birds that, at the slightest disturbance, take flight to perch far away. Sometimes they met in the Buttes Chaumont, other times they preferred the gardens on the Left Bank of the Seine, the Luxembourg Gardens, and even the remote Parc de Montsouris. She felt a chill of terror at the thought that her husband might catch her, while the hardworking engineer was at the factory, a world away from reality. Her flustered expression, her excessive precautions to slip by unnoticed, always ended up attracting the attention of passersby. Julio grew impatient with the troubles of this wandering love, which yielded nothing but a few furtive kisses. But he fell silent at last, won over by Margarita’s pleading words. He didn’t want to be his like any other woman : he needed to convince himself that this love would last forever. It was his first transgression, and he hoped it would be his last. Alas! His reputation, untarnished until then!… The fear of what people might say!… They both regressed to adolescence; they loved each other with the trusting, childlike passion of fifteen, a passion they had never known. Julio had leaped from childhood to the pleasures of debauchery, traversing in one fell swoop the entire initiation of life. She had desired marriage to do as others did, to acquire the respect and freedom of a married woman, feeling only a vague gratitude toward her husband . “We end up where others begin,” Desnoyers used to say. Their passion took all the forms of an intense, devout, and vulgar love. They were tenderly touched by a romantic sentimentality as they clasped hands and exchanged a kiss on a garden bench at twilight. He kept a lock of Margarita’s hair, though doubting its authenticity, with the vague suspicion that it might well be one of the additions imposed by fashion. She would rest her head on one of his shoulders, curl up against him, as if imploring his domination; but always in the open air. The moment he attempted a carriage, Madame vigorously repelled him. A contradictory duality seemed to inspire her actions. Every morning she awoke ready for final conquest. But then, upon finding herself with him, the petty bourgeois woman reappeared, jealous of her reputation, faithful to her mother’s teachings. One day she agreed to visit his studio, with the interest inspired by places inhabited by a beloved. “Swear to me that you will respect me.” He had an easy time swearing oaths, and he swore by everything Margarita desired… And from that day forward, they no longer met in the gardens nor wandered about, pursued by the winter wind. They stayed in the studio, and Argensola had to alter her existence, seeking out the stove of some painter friend to continue her reading. This situation lasted two months. They never knew what secret force suddenly shattered their tranquil happiness. Perhaps it was a friend of hers who, guessing what was happening, informed her husband through an anonymous letter; perhaps the wife herself unconsciously betrayed herself with her inexplicable joys, her late returns home when the meal was already on the table, and the sudden aversion she showed to the engineer during their intimate moments, to remain faithful to the memory of the other. Sharing herself between her legal partner and the man she loved was a torment that her simple and vehement enthusiasm could not bear . As she trotted along the rue de la Pompe one evening, glancing at her watch and trembling with impatience at not finding a car or even a simple taxi, a man blocked her path—Esteban Laurier! She still shuddered with fear at the memory of that tragic hour. For a moment, she thought he was going to kill her. Serious, timid, and submissive men are terrible in their outbursts of anger. Her husband knew everything. With the same patience he employed in solving his business problems, he had studied her day after day, without her being able to discern this surveillance in his impassive face. Then he had followed her, until he had acquired complete proof of her misfortune. Marguerite had never imagined him so vulgar and boisterous in his passions. She had hoped he would accept the facts coldly, with a slight touch of philosophical irony, as truly distinguished men do , as the husbands of many of her friends had done. But the poor engineer, who saw only his wife beyond her work , loving her as a woman and admiring her as a delicate and superior being, the epitome of all grace and elegance, could not resign himself, and shouted and threatened without any restraint, causing the scandal to spread throughout his circle of friends. The senator She felt a great deal of discomfort remembering that it was in her respectable home where the culprits had met. But she directed her anger at her husband. What a lack of manners! Women are women, and everything can be sorted out. But after the imprudence of this madman, an elegant solution was impossible, and divorce proceedings had to be initiated. Old Desnoyers was irritated upon learning of his son’s latest escapade. Laurier inspired great affection in him. The instinctive solidarity that exists among hardworking, patient, and silent men had brought them together. At the senator’s gatherings, he would ask the engineer for news about the progress of his businesses, showing interest in the development of that factory, which he spoke of with a father’s tenderness. The millionaire, who had a reputation for avarice, had even offered him selfless support , should he ever need to expand his business ventures. And this good man had his happiness stolen by his son, a frivolous and useless dancer!… Laurier, in the first moments, spoke of fighting. His anger was like that of a workhorse that breaks the harness of the machine, bristles its coat with maddened whinnies, and bites. The father was indignant at his determination… Another scandal! Julio had dedicated the best part of his life to the handling of weapons. “He’ll kill him,” the senator said. “I’m sure he will. It’s the logic of life: the useless always kill the one who is useful. ” But there was no death. The father of the Republic knew how to handle both sides with the same skill he displayed in the halls of the Senate when a ministerial crisis arose. The scandal was silenced. Margarita went to live with her mother, and the first steps toward divorce began . Some afternoons, when the studio clock struck seven, she would say sadly, between the spasms of her amorous weariness: “To leave… To leave when this is my true home… Oh, why aren’t we married!”… And he, who felt a whole garden of bourgeois virtues, hitherto unknown, blossoming in his soul , would repeat with conviction: “It’s true, why aren’t we married!” Their desires could be fulfilled. The husband facilitated their path with his unexpected intervention. And young Desnoyers left for America to raise money and marry Margarita. Chapter 4. The Cousin from Berlin. Julio Desnoyers’ studio occupied the top floor above the street. The elevator and the main staircase ended at his door. Behind it , two small apartments received light from an interior courtyard, their only means of communication being the service staircase, which ascended to the attics. Argensola, having stayed in the studio during his companion’s trip, had sought the friendship of these neighbors. The largest room was unoccupied during the day. Its owners only returned after eating at the restaurant. They were a married couple who worked as clerks and only stayed home on holidays. The man, vigorous and with a military bearing, was an inspector at a large department store. He had served in the military in Africa, wore a decoration, and held the rank of second lieutenant in the reserve army. She was a blonde, plump and somewhat anemic, with light eyes and a sentimental expression. On holidays, she spent long hours at the piano, recalling her musical memories, always the same ones. Other times, Argensola would see her through an interior window working in the kitchen, helped by her partner, the two of them laughing at their clumsiness and inexperience in improvising Sunday lunch. The doorman thought this woman was German, but she insisted she was Swiss. She worked as a cashier at a store that wasn’t her partner’s. In the mornings they would go out together, only to part ways at the Plaza de la Estrella, each going in a different direction. At seven in the evening they would greet each other with a kiss in the street, like lovers meeting for the first time, and then after their meal They returned to their nest on the rue de la Pompe. Argensola was rebuffed in all his attempts at friendship by the selfishness of this couple. They answered him with glacial courtesy: they lived only for themselves. The other apartment, consisting of two rooms, was occupied by a single man. He was a Russian or a Pole, who almost always returned with bundles of books and spent long hours writing by a window overlooking the courtyard. From the first moment, the Spaniard considered him a mysterious man who perhaps concealed enormous merits: a true character from a novel. He was struck by Tchernoff’s exotic appearance: his disheveled beard, his oily hair, his glasses perched on a broad nose that looked as if it had been deformed by a punch. Like an invisible halo, a certain stench surrounded him, a mixture of cheap wine and sweaty clothes; Argensola perceived it through the service door: “Our friend Tchernoff is back.” And he would go out onto the interior staircase to speak with his neighbor. He resisted for a long time, refusing access to his home. The Spaniard even came to believe he practiced alchemy and other mysterious operations. When he finally managed to enter, he saw books, many books, books everywhere, scattered on the floor, lined up on boards, piled in the corners, encroaching on rickety chairs, old tables, and a bed that was only remade occasionally, when the owner, alarmed by the growing invasion of dust and cobwebs, called upon a friend of the doorman for help. Argensola finally acknowledged, with a certain disenchantment, that there was nothing mysterious about this man’s life. What he wrote by the window were translations: some commissioned, others done voluntarily for socialist newspapers. The only astonishing thing about him was the number of languages he knew. “He knows them all,” he told Desnoyers when describing this neighbor. ” He only has to hear a new one to master it within a few days.” He possesses the key, the secret of living and dead languages. He speaks Castilian like us, yet he has never been to a Spanish-speaking country. Argensola experienced a renewed sense of mystery as he read the titles of many of the piled-up volumes. They were mostly old books, many in languages he couldn’t decipher, collected cheaply from secondhand bookstores and the booksellers’ boxes perched on the banks of the Seine. Only this man, who held “the key to languages,” could acquire such volumes. An atmosphere of mysticism, of superhuman initiations, of secrets untouched through the centuries, seemed to emanate from these dusty stacks of books, some with worn pages. And mingled with the ancient books were others with gleaming red covers : socialist propaganda pamphlets, leaflets in every European language, and newspapers—many newspapers—with titles that evoked the revolution. Tchernoff didn’t seem to enjoy visits or conversations. He smiled enigmatically through his ogre-like beard, sparing his words to end the interview quickly. But Argensola had a way of winning over this sullen character. A wink with an expressive invitation was enough. “Shall we?” And the two of them would settle on a Desnoyers divan or in the kitchen of the studio, in front of a bottle from Victor Hugo Avenue. Don Marcelo’s exquisite wines softened the Russian, making him more communicative. But even with this help, the Spaniard knew little about his existence. Sometimes he mentioned Jaurès and other socialist orators. His most reliable source of income was translating for the party newspapers. On several occasions, the name Siberia slipped out, declaring that he had been there for a long time. But he didn’t want to talk about the distant country he had visited against his will. He smiled modestly, not offering any further revelations. The day after Julio Desnoyers arrived, Argensola was talking with Tchernoff on the landing of the service staircase in the morning when the doorbell rang at the studio door that connected with the main staircase. A great disappointment. The Russian, who knew the progressive politicians, was informing him of the efforts made by Jaurès to maintain the peace. There were still many who felt hopeful. He, Tchernoff, commented on these illusions with his flattened, sphinx-like smile. He had his reasons to doubt… But the doorbell rang again, and the Spaniard rushed to open it, abandoning his friend. A gentleman wished to see Julio. He spoke French correctly, but his accent was a revelation to Argensola. Upon entering the bedroom in search of his companion, who had just gotten up, he said confidently: “It’s your cousin from Berlin who has come to say goodbye. It can’t be anyone else.” The three men joined together in the study. Desnoyers introduced his comrade, so that the newcomer wouldn’t be mistaken about his social standing. “I’ve heard of him. The gentleman is Argensola, a young man of great merit.” And Dr. Julius von Hartrott said this with the self-importance of a man who knows everything and wishes to please an inferior by granting him the alms of his attention. The two cousins regarded each other with a curiosity not without suspicion. They were bound by a close kinship, but knew very little of one another, sensing a complete divergence of opinions and tastes. Upon examining this scholar, Argensola found him to have a certain air of an officer in civilian clothes. One could discern in him a desire to imitate those of the military when they occasionally adopt civilian attire; the aspiration of every German bourgeois to be mistaken for those of the upper class. His trousers were narrow, as if intended to be tucked into riding boots. The jacket, with two rows of buttons, had a gathered waist, a wide and long tail, and high lapels , vaguely imitating a military frock coat. The reddish mustache above a strong jaw and the buzz cut completed this warrior-like appearance. But his eyes—study eyes, with matte pupils, large, astonished, and myopic—were hidden behind thick-lensed glasses, giving him the appearance of a peaceful man. Desnoyers knew that he was an assistant professor at the University, that he had published several volumes, thick and heavy as bricks, and that he was among the contributors to a “Historical Seminar,” an association for the search for documents, directed by a famous historian. On one lapel, he wore the rosette of a foreign Order. His respect for the family sage was accompanied by a certain disdain. He and his sister Chichí had felt, since childhood, an instinctive hostility toward their cousins from Berlin. It also bothered him to see this pedant, who only knew life through books and spent his existence investigating what men had done in other eras in order to draw conclusions according to his German opinions, cited by his family as a worthy example to emulate. Julio had a great capacity for admiration and revered all the writers whose “arguments” Argensola had told him about, but he could not accept the intellectual greatness of his illustrious relative. During his time in Berlin, a vulgar German word had served to categorize him. Books of meticulous and ponderous research were published by the dozen every month. There wasn’t a professor who failed to build their enormous volume, written in a clumsy and confusing style, on the basis of a single detail . And people, appreciating these short-sighted authors, incapable of a brilliant overall vision, called them “Sitzfleisch haben” (literally, “butts”) , alluding to the extremely long, drawn-out passages that their works represented. This was his cousin to him: a Sitzfleisch haben. Dr. von Hartrott, explaining his visit, spoke in Spanish. He used this language because it had been the family’s during his childhood and also out of caution, for he looked around repeatedly, as if afraid of being overheard. He had come to say goodbye to Julio. His mother had told him of his arrival, and he didn’t want to leave without seeing him. He was about to leave Paris in a few hours; the circumstances were pressing. But do you think there will be war? Desnoyers asked. War will be tomorrow or the day after. There’s no avoiding it. It’s a necessary fact for the health of humanity. There was a silence. Julio and Argensola looked in astonishment at this peaceful-looking man who had just spoken with bellicose arrogance. The two guessed that the doctor was visiting out of a need to communicate his opinions and enthusiasms to someone. At the same time, perhaps he wanted to know what they thought and knew, like one of the many expressions of the Parisian crowd. You’re not French, he added, addressing his cousin; you were born in Argentina, and in your presence the truth can be told. And weren’t you born there? Julio asked, smiling. The doctor made a protesting movement, as if he had just heard something insulting. No; I’m German. Wherever one of us is born, he always belongs to Mother Germany. Then he continued, addressing Argensola: “ This gentleman is also a foreigner. He comes from noble Spain, which owes us its finest possessions: the cult of honor, the chivalric spirit.” The Spaniard tried to protest, but the wise man wouldn’t allow it, adding in a professorial tone: “You were wretched Celts, mired in the vileness of an inferior race and mixed with the Latinism of Rome, which made your situation even sadder. Fortunately, you were conquered by the Goths and other peoples of our race, who instilled in you the dignity of human beings. Don’t forget, young man, that the Vandals were the ancestors of today’s Prussians.” Argensola tried to speak again, but his friend signaled him not to interrupt the professor. The latter seemed to have forgotten his earlier reticence , becoming enthralled with his own words. “We are about to witness great events,” he continued. “Fortunate are those of us born in the present age, the most interesting in history. Humanity is changing course at this very moment.” Now, true civilization begins. The coming war, he believed, would be unprecedentedly brief. Germany had prepared itself to deliver the decisive blow without causing prolonged disruption to the world’s economy. A month would suffice to crush France, its most formidable adversary. Then it would march against Russia, which, slow in its movements, could not mount an immediate defense. Finally, it would attack proud England, isolating it on its archipelago so that its dominance would no longer hinder German progress. This series of swift blows and lightning victories would only take the course of a summer. The falling leaves of autumn would herald Germany’s definitive triumph. With the confidence of a professor who expects no rebuttal from his audience, he explained the superiority of the Germanic race. Men were divided into two groups: dolichocephalic and brachycephalic, according to the shape of their skulls. Another scientific distinction divided them into men with blond or black hair. Dolichocephalic men represented racial purity and a superior intellect. Brachycephalic men were mixed-race, bearing all the marks of degeneration. The Germanic man, dolichocephalic par excellence, was the sole heir of the primitive Aryans. All other peoples, especially those of Southern Europe, called “Latins,” belonged to a degenerate humanity. The Spaniard could no longer contain himself. But these theories of racism were antiquated, no moderately enlightened person believed in them anymore ! There was no such thing as a pure people, since they all had a thousand mixtures in their blood after so much historical interbreeding! Many Germans exhibited the same ethnic characteristics that the professor attributed to inferior races. “There’s some truth to that,” Hartrott said. “But even if the Germanic race is not pure, it is the least impure of all, and the governance of the world belongs to it .” His voice took on a sharp, ironic edge when he spoke of the Celts, inhabitants of the southern lands. They had hindered the progress of humanity, leading it astray. The Celt is individualistic, and consequently, an ungovernable revolutionary who tends toward egalitarianism. Moreover, he is humanitarian and makes piety a virtue, defending the existence of the weak who are good for nothing. The noblest German places order and strength above all else. Chosen by Nature to rule the eunuch races, he possesses all the virtues that distinguish leaders. The French Revolution had simply been a clash between Germans and Celts. The nobles of France descended from the German warriors who settled in the country after the so-called barbarian invasion. The bourgeoisie and the people represented the Gallo-Celtic element. The inferior race had triumphed over the superior one, disorganizing the country and disturbing the world. Celticism was the inventor of democracy, of socialist doctrine, of anarchy. But the hour of Germanic revenge was about to strike, and the Nordic race would return to restore order, for this was the purpose for which God had favored it by preserving its indisputable superiority. A people, he added, can only aspire to great destinies if it is fundamentally Germanic. The less Germanic it is, the lesser its civilization will be. We represent the aristocracy of humanity, “the salt of the earth,” as our William said. Argensola listened with astonishment to these proud pronouncements. All great peoples had experienced the fever of imperialism. The Greeks aspired to hegemony, for being the most civilized and believing themselves the most capable of giving civilization to other men. The Romans, upon conquering lands, established law and the rules of justice. The French of the Revolution and the Empire justified their invasions with the desire to liberate men and sow new ideas. Even the Spaniards of the 16th century, battling half of Europe for religious unity and the extermination of heresy, were working for a misguided, obscure, but selfless ideal. Everyone in history was driven by something they considered generous and that transcended their own interests. Only the Germany of that professor attempted to impose itself on the world in the name of the superiority of its race, a superiority that no one had recognized, that it claimed for itself, giving its assertions a veneer of pseudoscience. ” Until now, wars have been fought by soldiers,” Hartrott continued. “The one that is about to begin will be fought by soldiers and professors. In its preparation, the University has played as much part as the General Staff. Germanic science, the foremost of all, is forever linked to what the Latin revolutionaries disdainfully call militarism. Force, mistress of the world, is what creates law, what will impose our civilization, the only true one.” Our armies are the representatives of our culture, and in a few weeks they will deliver the world from its Celtic decadence, rejuvenating it. The immense future of his race made him speak with lyrical enthusiasm . William I, Bismarck, all the heroes of past victories inspired veneration in him, but he spoke of them as of dying gods, whose hour had passed. They were glorious forefathers, of modest ambitions, who limited themselves to expanding the borders, to achieving the unity of the Empire, then opposing, with the prudence of the infirm, all the audacity of the new generation. Their ambitions did not extend beyond continental hegemony… But then came William II, the complex hero the country needed. My teacher Lamprecht, Hartrott said, has painted the portrait of his greatness. He is tradition and the future, order and audacity. He is convinced that he represents the monarchy by the grace of God, just like his grandfather. But his lively and brilliant intelligence recognizes and accepts modern innovations. At the same time, he is romantic, feudal, and A supporter of agrarian conservatives, he was a man of the times: he sought practical solutions and displayed a utilitarian, American-style spirit. In him, instinct and reason were balanced. Germany, guided by this hero, had been gathering its forces and recognizing its true path. The University acclaimed him with even more enthusiasm than its armies. Why store up so much aggressive power and keep it idle?… World rule belonged to the Germanic people. The historians and philosophers, disciples of Treitschke, were going to be in charge of forging the rights that justified this world domination. And Lamprecht, the psychological historian, launched, like the other professors, the creed of the absolute superiority of the Germanic race. It was right that it should dominate the world, since it alone possessed the necessary force. This “telluric Germanization” would result in immense benefits for humankind. The earth was going to be happy under the rule of a people born to be masters. The German state, a “tentacular” power, would eclipse with its glory the most illustrious empires of the past and present. God is with us. Who can deny that, as my teacher says, there exists a Germanic Christian God, the “Great Ally,” who manifests himself to our foreign enemies as a strong and jealous divinity?… Desnoyers listened in astonishment to his cousin, while at the same time looking at Argensola. The latter, with the movement of his eyes, seemed to be speaking to him. “He’s crazy,” he said. “These Germans are crazy with pride.” Meanwhile, the professor, unable to contain his enthusiasm, continued to expound on the greatness of his race. Faith suffers eclipses even in the most superior minds. This is why the providential Kaiser had shown inexplicable weaknesses. He was too good and kind. “Deliciousness of the human race,” as Professor Lasson, also Hartrott’s teacher, used to say. Having the immense power to annihilate everything, he limited himself to maintaining peace. But the nation refused to stop, and pushed back against the leader who had set it in motion. It was useless to apply the brakes. “He who does not advance, falls behind”: such was the cry of Pan-Germanism to the emperor. They had to move forward, until they conquered the entire earth. And the war is coming, he continued. We need the colonies of others, since Bismarck, through an error born of his stubborn old age, demanded nothing at the time of the world’s division, letting England and France take the best lands. We need all the countries that have Germanic blood and that have been civilized by our ancestors to belong to Germany. Hartrott listed the countries. Holland and Belgium were German. France was also German through the Franks: a third of its blood came from the Germans. Italy… here the professor paused, recalling that this nation was an ally, certainly not a reliable one, but still bound by diplomatic commitments. However, he mentioned the Lombards and other races from the North. Spain and Portugal had been populated by the blond Goths, and they too belonged to the Germanic race. And since most of the nations of America were of Hispanic or Portuguese origin, they were included in this claim. It is still premature to think about them, the doctor added modestly, but one day the hour of justice will strike. After our continental triumph, we will have time to think about their fate… North America must also receive our civilizing influence. There are millions of Germans there, who have created its greatness. He spoke of future conquests as if they were tokens of distinction with which his country would favor other peoples. These would continue to live politically as before, with their own governments, but subject to the direction of the Germanic race, like minors who need the firm hand of a master. They would form the United States of the world, with a hereditary and all-powerful president, the Emperor of Germany, receiving the benefits of Germanic culture, working Disciplined under his industrial direction… But the world is ungrateful, and human wickedness always opposes all progress. ” We have no illusions,” the professor said with haughty sadness. ” We have no friends. Everyone looks at us with suspicion, as if we were dangerous beings , because we are the most intelligent, the most active, and we are superior to the others… But since they don’t love us, let them fear us. As my friend Mann says, Kultur is the spiritual organization of the world, but it doesn’t exclude ‘bloody savagery’ when it becomes necessary. Kultur sublimates the demonic element within us and is above morality, reason, and science. We will impose Kultur by force. ” Argensola continued to express his thoughts with his eyes: “They are mad, mad with pride… What awaits the world with these people!” Desnoyers intervened, to clarify the gloomy monologue with a bit of optimism . War had not yet been declared: diplomacy was still negotiating. Perhaps everything would be settled peacefully at the last minute, as had happened before. His cousin saw things somewhat distorted by an aggressive enthusiasm. The doctor’s ironic, fierce, cutting smile!… Argensola had never met old Madariaga, and yet it occurred to him that sharks must smile like that, even though he had never seen one. “It’s war,” Hartrott affirmed. “When I left Germany two weeks ago, I already knew that war was imminent.” The certainty with which he said it dispelled all of Julio’s hopes. Besides, he was troubled by this man’s trip under the pretext of seeing his mother, from whom he had recently separated… What had Dr. Julius von Hartrott come to Paris to do?… Then Desnoyers asked, “What was the purpose of so many diplomatic meetings?” Why is the German government intervening, even half- heartedly, in the conflict between Austria and Serbia? Wouldn’t it be better to declare war outright? The professor answered simply: Our government undoubtedly wants others to declare it. The role of the aggrieved party is always the most agreeable and justifies all subsequent measures, however extreme they may seem. There are people there who live well and do not want war. It is convenient to make them believe that it is the enemy who is imposing it on us, so that they feel the need to defend themselves. Only superior minds reach the conviction that great advances are only achieved with the sword, and that war, as our great Treitschke said, is the highest form of progress. Again he smiled with a fierce expression. Morality, according to him, should exist among individuals, since it serves to make them more obedient and disciplined. But morality hinders governments and should be suppressed as a useless obstacle. For a state, there is neither truth nor falsehood: it only recognizes the expediency and utility of things. The glorious Bismarck, to achieve war with France, the foundation of German greatness, did not hesitate to forge a telegram . And you will acknowledge that he is the greatest hero of our time. History looks kindly upon his feat. Who can accuse the victor?… Professor Hans Delbruck rightly wrote: “Blessed be the hand that forged the Ems Telegram!” It was fitting that war should break out immediately, now that circumstances were favorable to Germany and its enemies were careless. It was the preventive war recommended by General Bernhardi and other illustrious compatriots. It was dangerous to wait until the enemies were prepared and declared war themselves . Besides, what obstacles did law and other fictions invented by weak nations to perpetuate their misery pose for the Germans?… They had the power, and power creates new laws. If they emerged victorious, history would not hold them accountable for their actions. It was Germany that was doing the fighting, and priests of all faiths would eventually sanctify the war with their hymns. Blessed, if it led to victory. We do not wage war to punish the regicidal Serbs, nor to liberate the Poles and other oppressed peoples of Russia, then resting on the admiration of our selfless magnanimity. We want to wage it because we are the foremost people on earth and we must extend our influence over the entire planet. Germany’s hour has struck. We are going to occupy our place as the leading power of the world, as Spain did in other centuries, and France later, and England now. What those nations achieved with years of preparation, we will achieve in four months. The storm banner of the Empire will sweep across seas and nations: the sun will illuminate great massacres… Ancient Rome, dying, called the Germanic peoples who dug its grave barbarians. The world of today also smells of death , and surely it will call us barbarians… So be it! When Tangier and Toulon, Antwerp and Calais, are subjected to Germanic barbarism, then we shall discuss that in more detail… We have the force, and he who possesses it neither argues nor pays heed to words… Force! This is what is beautiful: the only word that sounds bright and clear… Force! One well-aimed punch, and all arguments are answered. But are you so sure of victory? asked Desnoyers. Sometimes, fate offers terrible surprises. There are hidden forces that we do not count on and that disrupt the best-laid plans. The doctor’s smile was now one of sovereign contempt. Everything had been foreseen and studied long beforehand, with the meticulous Germanic method. What did they have before them?… The most fearsome enemy was France, incapable of resisting the enervating moral influences, the sufferings, the efforts, and the privations of war; A physically weakened people , poisoned by the revolutionary spirit, and who had gradually abandoned the use of arms out of an exaggerated love of comfort. Our generals, he continued, are going to leave her in such a state that she will never dare to cross our path. There remained Russia, but her amorphous masses were slow to assemble and difficult to move. The General Staff in Berlin had arranged everything with meticulous precision for the crushing of France in four weeks, then to bring its enormous forces against the Russian Empire before it could even begin its attack. ” We will finish off the bear after we have killed the rooster,” the professor declared victoriously. But anticipating an objection from his cousin, he hastened to continue: ” I know what you are going to say. There remains another enemy: one who has not yet entered the arena, but whom all Germans await. He inspires more hatred in us than the others because he is of our blood, because he is a traitor to the race… Ah, how we abhor him!” And in the tone with which he spoke these words, there pulsed an expression of hatred and a desire for revenge that impressed both listeners. “ Even if England attacks us,” Hartrott continued, “we will not fail to win. This adversary is no more fearsome than the others. For a century, it has reigned over the world. When Napoleon fell, it reasserted continental hegemony at the Congress of Vienna, and it will fight to retain it. But what is the value of its energy?… As our Bernhardi says, the English people are a nation of rentiers and sportsmen. Their army is made up of the nation’s dregs. The country lacks a military spirit. We are a nation of warriors, and it will be easy for us to defeat the English, weakened by a false conception of life.” The doctor paused and added: “ We also have the internal corruption of our enemies, their lack of unity. God will help us by sowing confusion among these hateful peoples. Not many days will pass before His hand is seen.” The revolution is going to break out in France at the same time as the war. The people of Paris will erect barricades in the streets: the anarchy of the Commune will be repeated . Tunis, Algiers, and other possessions are going to rise up against the metropolis. Argensola thought it appropriate to smile with aggressive disbelief. “I repeat,” Hartrott insisted, “this country is going to see revolutions here and insurrections in its colonies. I know what I’m saying… Russia will also have its internal revolution, a revolution with a red flag, which will force the Tsar to beg us for mercy on his knees. You only have to read in the newspapers about the recent strikes in St. Petersburg, the demonstrations by the strikers under the pretext of President Poincaré’s visit… England will see its requests for support rejected by the colonies . India is going to revolt against her, and Egypt believes the moment of its emancipation has arrived. ” Julio seemed impressed by these assertions, formulated with a doctoral certainty. He almost became irritated with the incredulous Argensola, who continued to look insolently at the professor and repeated with his eyes: “He’s crazy: crazy with pride.” That man must have had serious reasons for formulating such prophecies of misfortune. His presence in Paris, precisely because it was inexplicable to Desnoyers, gave his words a mysterious authority. “But the nations will defend themselves,” he argued to his cousin. ” Victory will not be as easy as you think. Yes, they will defend themselves. The fight will be fierce. It seems that in recent years France has taken better care of its army. We will encounter some resistance; triumph will be more difficult, but we will prevail… You do not know the full extent of Germany’s offensive power. No one knows for sure beyond its borders. If our enemies knew it in all its intensity, they would fall to their knees, foregoing useless sacrifices.” There was a long silence. Julius von Hartrott seemed lost in thought. The memory of the elements of strength accumulated by his race plunged him into a kind of mystical adoration. ” The preliminary victory,” he said suddenly, “we have long since obtained. Our enemies abhor us, and yet they imitate us. Everything that bears the mark of Germany is sought after throughout the world. The very countries that try to resist our arms copy our methods in their universities and admire our theories, even those that have not succeeded in Germany.” We often laugh among ourselves, like Roman augurs, appreciating the servility with which they follow us… And then they refuse to acknowledge our superiority! For the first time, Argensola approved Hartrott’s words with his eyes and gestures . Exactly what he said: the world was a victim of ” German superstition.” An intellectual cowardice, a fear of the strong, led to the admiration of everything of Germanic origin, without any discernment, wholesale, for the intensity of its brilliance: gold mixed with talc. The so-called Latins, in surrendering to this admiration, doubted their own strength with irrational pessimism. They were the first to decree their own demise. And the proud Germans had only to repeat the words of these pessimists to reaffirm their belief in their superiority. With the fervor of the South, which leaps without gradation from one extreme to the other, many Latins had proclaimed that in the future world there would be no place left for Latin societies, in their death throes, adding that only Germany still held latent civilizing forces. The French, shouting amongst themselves, resorting to the greatest exaggerations, unaware that there were those listening on the other side of the gates, had repeated for many years that France was in full decay and marching to its death. Why then were they indignant at the contempt shown by their enemies!… How could these enemies not share their beliefs!… The professor, misinterpreting the silent approval of that young man who until then had listened to him with a hostile smile, added: It is time to try German culture in France, implanting it as victors. Here Argensola interrupted him: “And what if German culture did not exist, as a famous German claims?” He needed to contradict this pedant who overwhelmed them with his pride. Hartrott almost jumped out of his seat upon hearing such doubt. “Which German is that? Nietzsche!” The professor looked at him with pity. Nietzsche had told men, “Be tough,” asserting that “a good war sanctifies every cause.” He had praised Bismarck; he had taken part in the Franco-Prussian War; he had glorified the German when he spoke of the “laughing lion” and the ” blond beast.” But Argensola listened to him with the tranquility of one who treads on solid ground. “Oh, those afternoons of peaceful reading by the fireplace in the study, listening to the rain patter against the windowpanes!… The philosopher said that,” he replied, “and he said other things, like all those who think deeply. His doctrine is one of pride, but individual pride, not national or racial pride. He always spoke out against ‘the lying deception of races.'” Argensola remembered his philosopher word for word. A culture, according to him, was “the unity of style in all manifestations of life.” Science does not imply culture. Great knowledge can be accompanied by great barbarism, due to the absence of style or the chaotic confusion of all styles. Germany, in Nietzsche’s opinion, lacked its own culture because of its lack of style. “The French,” he said, “are at the forefront of an authentic and fruitful culture, whatever its value, and to this day we have all drawn from it.” His hatred was concentrated on his own country. “I cannot bear life in Germany. The spirit of servility and pettiness pervades everything … I believe only in French culture, and everything else that is called cultured Europe seems to me a mistake. The rare cases of high culture that I have found in Germany were of French origin.” You know, Argensola continued, that when he argued with Wagner about the excessive German influence in his art, he proclaimed the need to Mediterraneanize music. His ideal was a culture for all of Europe, but with a Latin foundation. Julius von Hartrott answered disdainfully, repeating the Spaniard’s words. “Men who think a lot say a lot of things. Besides, Nietzsche was a poet who had died in the throes of madness, and he wasn’t among the scholars of the University. His fame had been forged abroad…” And he paid no further attention to that young man, as if he had vanished after his audacious objections. All his attention was now focused on Desnoyers. “This country continues, carrying death in its very core. How can anyone doubt that a revolution will erupt here as soon as war breaks out?… You haven’t witnessed the disturbances on the boulevard during the Cailloux trial. Reactionaries and revolutionaries were hurling insults at each other until three days ago. I saw them challenging each other with shouts and chants, striking each other in the middle of the street. And this division of opinion will only intensify when our troops cross the borders. It will be civil war.” The antimilitarists cry out, believing that it is in the hands of their government to avoid the clash… A country degenerated by democracy and by the inferiority of its triumphant Celticism, yearning for all freedoms!… We are the only free people on earth, because we know how to obey. The paradox made Julio smile. Germany, the only free people!… That’s right, von Hartrott affirmed energetically. We have the freedom that befits a great people: economic and intellectual freedom. And political freedom?… The professor greeted this question with a gesture of disdain. Political freedom!… Only decadent and ungovernable peoples , inferior races, eager for equality and democratic confusion, speak of political freedom. We Germans don’t need it. We are a nation of masters, who recognize hierarchies and wish to be ruled by those born superior. We have the genius for organization. This, according to the doctor, was the great German secret, and the Germanic race, upon conquering the world, would share its discovery with everyone. Nations would be organized in such a way that the individual would give their maximum contribution to society. Men Regulated for all kinds of production, obeying like machines a superior command and giving the greatest possible amount of work: this is the perfect state. Freedom was a purely negative idea if it was not accompanied by a positive concept that made it useful. The two friends listened with astonishment to the description of the future that Germanic superiority offered the world. Each individual subjected to intensive production, like a plot of land from which the owner wishes to extract the greatest number of vegetables… Man turned into a mechanism… no useless operations that do not provide an immediate result… And the people who proclaimed this grim ideal were the same as the philosophers and dreamers, who had given contemplation and reflection the first place in their existence! Hartrott again insisted on the inferiority of the enemies of his race. To fight, one needed faith, an unwavering confidence in the superiority of one’s own forces. At this hour, in Berlin everyone accepts the war, everyone believes victory is certain, while here… I’m not saying the French are afraid. They have a history of bravery that galvanizes them at certain moments. But they are sad; one senses they would make any sacrifice to avoid what is coming. The people will shout with enthusiasm at the first moment, as they always do when they are led to their doom. The upper classes have no confidence in the future; they remain silent or lie, but in everyone one senses the premonition of disaster. Yesterday I spoke with your father. He is French and wealthy. He is indignant with his country’s government for involving it in European conflicts to defend distant and uninterested peoples. He complains of the fervent patriots who have kept the chasm between Germany and France wide open, preventing any reconciliation. He says that Alsace and Lorraine aren’t worth what a war will cost in men and money… He acknowledges our greatness: he assures us that we have progressed so rapidly that other nations will never be able to catch up… And like your father, many others think: all those who are content with their well-being and fear losing it. Believe me: a country that hesitates and fears war is defeated before the first battle. Julio showed a certain unease, as if he intended to cut the conversation short. Leave my father alone. He says that today because war isn’t yet a reality, and he needs to contradict, to be indignant about everything within his reach. Tomorrow he might say the opposite… My father is a Latin. The professor looked at his watch. He had to leave: he still had many things to do before heading to the station. The Germans stationed in Paris had fled in large numbers, as if a secret order were circulating among them . That afternoon, the last ones who were still openly remaining in the capital were going to leave . I came to see you out of family affection, because it was my duty to give you a warning. You are a foreigner, and nothing keeps you here. If you wish to witness a great historical event, stay. But it would be better if you left. The war is going to be hard, very hard, and if Paris tries to resist as it did last time, we will witness terrible things. The means of offense have changed a great deal. Desnoyers made a gesture of indifference. “The same as your father,” the professor continued. “Last night, he and your family answered me in the same way. Even my mother prefers to stay by her sister’s side, saying that the Germans are very good, very civilized , and there is nothing to fear from them when they triumph.” The doctor seemed annoyed by this favorable opinion. ” They don’t realize what modern warfare is; they are unaware that our generals have studied the art of quickly subduing the enemy and that they will employ it with a ruthless method. Terror is the only means, since it disturbs the enemy’s intelligence, paralyzes their actions, and crushes their resistance.” The more ferocious the war, the shorter it will be: harsh punishment is the humane course of action. And Germany will be cruel, with unprecedented cruelty, so that the war will not be prolonged. The struggle. He had left his seat, requesting his cane and straw hat . Argensola regarded him with open hostility. The professor, as he passed by, merely gave a stiff and disdainful nod. Then he headed for the door, accompanied by his cousin. The farewell was brief. ” I repeat my advice. If you don’t love danger, leave. I may be mistaken, and these people, convinced that their defense is useless, may willingly surrender… In any case, we will see each other soon. I will have the pleasure of returning to Paris when the flag of the Empire flies over the Eiffel Tower. A matter of three or four weeks. At the beginning of September, certainly.” France was going to disappear; for the doctor, its demise was certain. ” Paris will remain,” he added, “the French will remain, because a people is not easily eliminated; but they will occupy their rightful place.” We will govern the world: they will take care to invent fashions, make life pleasant for visiting foreigners, and in the intellectual sphere we will encourage them to educate beautiful actresses, produce entertaining novels, and devise witty comedies… Nothing more. Desnoyers laughed as he shook his cousin’s hand, pretending to take his words as paradoxes. “I am serious,” Hartrott continued. “The last hour of the French Republic as a significant nation has sounded. I have seen it up close, and it deserves no other fate. Disorder and lack of confidence at the top; sterile enthusiasm at the bottom. ” Turning his head, he saw Argensola’s smile again. ” And we understand a thing or two about this,” he added aggressively. “We are accustomed to examining peoples that once were, to studying them fiber by fiber, and we can know with a single glance the psychology of those who still live.” The Bohemian thought he saw a surgeon speaking smugly about the mysteries of the will before a corpse. What did this pedantic interpreter of dead documents know of life !… When the door closed, he went to meet his friend, who was returning disheartened. Argensola no longer considered Dr. Julius von Hartrott mad . “What a brute!” he exclaimed, throwing up his arms. “And to think that these purveyors of gloomy errors live at large!… Who would have thought they are from the same land that produced Kant the pacifist, the serene Goethe, Beethoven… To have believed for so many years that they formed a nation of dreamers and philosophers occupied with working selflessly for all humankind… The farce of a German geographer revived in his memory as an explanation: “The German is two-headed. With one head he dreams and writes poetry, while with the other he thinks and executes.” Desnoyers was desperate because of the certainty of war. This professor seemed more fearsome to him than the councilor and the other German bourgeois he had met on the ship. His sadness wasn’t solely due to the selfish thought that the catastrophe would hinder the fulfillment of his and Margarita’s desires. He suddenly discovered, in this hour of uncertainty, that he loved France. He saw in it the homeland of his father and the country of the great Revolution… He, although he had never involved himself in political struggles, was a republican and had often laughed at certain friends of his who worshipped kings and emperors, considering this a sign of distinction. Argensola tried to revive him. Who knows! This is a country of surprises. You have to see the Frenchman when he tries to remedy his oversights. Whatever that barbarian of a cousin of yours says , there’s enthusiasm, there’s order… Those who lived days before Valmy must have been worse off than we were . Everything was disorganized: their only defense, battalions of workers and peasants who were taking up a rifle for the first time. And yet, for twenty years, the Europe of the old monarchies did not know how to rid itself of these makeshift warriors. Chapter 5. Where the Four Horsemen Appear. The two friends lived a feverish life in the following days, The situation was considerably magnified by the rapid pace of events . Each hour brought a new development, most often false, that stirred public opinion with a violent back and forth. The moment the danger of war seemed averted, rumors would circulate that mobilization was to be ordered within minutes. Twenty-four hours represented the anxieties, the restlessness, the nervous strain of a normal year. And what further aggravated this situation was the uncertainty, the waiting for the dreaded and still invisible event, the anguish over the danger that never quite arrived. History spilled over, events unfolding like the waves of a flood. Austria declared war on Serbia, while the diplomats of the great powers continued working to avert conflict. The electrical grid strung around the planet vibrated incessantly in the depths of the oceans and across the continents, transmitting hopes or pessimism. Russia mobilized part of its army. Germany, with its troops ready under the pretext of maneuvers, declared a state of “threat of war.” The Austrians, without waiting for diplomatic efforts , began bombarding Belgrade. Wilhelm II, fearing that intervention by the great powers would resolve the conflict between the Tsar and the Emperor of Austria, forced the course of events by declaring war on Russia. Then, Germany isolated itself, cutting railway and telegraph lines to secretly amass its invasion force. France witnessed this avalanche of events, restrained in words and displays of enthusiasm. A cold and grave resolve animated everyone inwardly. Two generations had come into the world receiving, upon opening their eyes to reason, the image of a war that would inevitably come. No one desired it: it was imposed by the adversaries… But everyone accepted it, with the firm intention of fulfilling their duty. Paris remained silent during the day, sulking with its anxieties. Only a few groups of fervent patriots, following the three colors of the flag, passed through the Place de la Concorde to cheer before the statue of Strasbourg. People approached each other amicably in the streets. Everyone knew each other without ever having met. Eyes met eyes; smiles seemed to bind one another with the shared sympathy of a common idea. The women were sad, but spoke loudly to hide their emotions. In the long summer twilight, the boulevards filled with crowds. The outlying districts converged on the city center, as in the distant days of the revolutions. Groups joined together, forming an endless mass, from which shouts and chants arose. The demonstrations passed through the center, under the newly lit electric lamps. The parade continued until midnight, and the national flag appeared above the marching throng, escorted by the flags of other nations. It was on one of these nights of genuine enthusiasm that the two friends heard unexpected, absurd news: “Jaurès has been killed.” Groups of people repeated it with a bewilderment that seemed to override their grief: “Jaurès assassinated! And why?” The common sense, which instinctively seeks an explanation for every attack, was suspended, unable to find its bearings. The tribune dead precisely at the moment when his words, as a rouser of the masses, could have been most useful! Argensola immediately thought of Tchernoff: “What will our neighbor say?” The people of order feared a revolution. Desnoyers believed for a few moments that his cousin’s grim predictions were about to come true. This assassination, with its corresponding reprisals, could be the sign of a civil war. But the masses of the people, overcome with grief at the death of their hero, remained in tragic silence. Beyond the corpse, everyone saw the image of their homeland. By the following morning, the danger had passed. The workers They spoke of generals and war, showing each other their soldier’s booklets, announcing the date they were to leave as soon as the mobilization order was published: “I’m leaving on the second day.” “I’m leaving on the first.” Those in the active army who were on leave at home were summoned individually to the barracks. Events unfolded rapidly, all pointing in the same direction: war. The Germans were invading Luxembourg; the Germans were advancing on the French border while their ambassador was still in Paris making promises of peace. The day after Jaurès’s death, on August 1st, in the mid-afternoon, the crowd surged around some hastily handwritten scraps of paper. These papers preceded larger, printed ones, each bearing two crossed flags at the top. “It’s here; it’s a done deal…” It was the general mobilization order. All of France was about to take up arms. And their chests seemed to expand with a sigh of relief. Their eyes shone with satisfaction. The nightmare was over! Cruel reality was preferable to an uncertainty that dragged on for days on end, as if they were weeks. In vain, President Poincaré, buoyed by a last glimmer of hope, addressed the French people to explain that “mobilization is not war” and that a call to arms was merely a preventive measure. “It is war, inevitable war,” the crowds said with fatalistic expressions. And those who were to leave that very night or the next day were the most enthusiastic and spirited: “Since they’re looking for us, they’ll find us. Long live France!” The Departure Song, the marching anthem of the volunteers of the First Republic, had been unearthed by the instinct of the people, who call upon art for its voice in critical moments . The verses of the conventional Chénier, set to a music of warlike gravity, resounded in the streets at the same time as the Marseillaise. The Republic calls us, Sachons vanquish or sachons perir; A Frenchman must live for her, For her a Frenchman must die. The mobilization began at midnight. From dusk onwards, groups of men circulated through the streets heading for the stations. Their families marched with them, carrying suitcases or bundles of clothes. Neighborhood friends escorted them. A tricolor flag led these platoons. The reserve officers donned their uniforms, which offered all the discomforts of long-forgotten attire. With their bellies pressed by the new belt and their revolvers at their sides, they walked in search of the train that would take them to the assembly point. One of his sons carried his saber concealed in a cloth sheath. The woman, leaning on his arm, both sad and proud, whispered her final instructions in a loving voice. Trams, cars, and carriages sped by. Never before had so many vehicles been seen on the streets of Paris. And yet, those who needed one called out to the drivers in vain. No one wanted to serve civilians. All means of transport were for the military; all races ended at the train stations. The heavy Quartermaster trucks, laden with sacks, were greeted with general enthusiasm: “Long live the army!” The soldiers in combat fatigues, lying prone atop the rolling pyramid, responded to the acclamation by waving their arms and shouting things no one could understand. Fraternity had created an unprecedented tolerance. The crowd jostled each other, maintaining impeccable manners in their encounters. The vehicles collided , and when the drivers, driven by habit, were about to insult each other, the crowd intervened and they ended up shaking hands. “Long live France!” The passersby who escaped from between the wheels of the cars laughed, gently chiding the chauffeur. “To kill a Frenchman on his way to his regiment!” And the driver replied: “I too will be leaving in a few hours. This is my last journey.” The trams and buses ran with increasing irregularity as the night wore on. Many employees had left their posts to say goodbye to their families and catch the train. All of Parisian life was concentrated in half a dozen human rivers flowing into the stations. Desnoyers and Argensola met in a café on the boulevard near midnight. Both were fatigued by the day’s excitement, with the nervous depression that follows noisy and violent spectacles. They needed to rest. The war was a fact, and after this certainty, they felt no anxiety about acquiring new news. Staying in the café became intolerable. In the sweltering , smoke-filled atmosphere, the patrons sang and shouted, waving small flags. All the anthems, past and present, were sung in chorus, accompanied by the clinking of glasses and cymbals. The somewhat cosmopolitan crowd surveyed the nations of Europe, greeting them with roars of enthusiasm. All of them, absolutely all of them, were going to stand with France. “Long live… long live!” An elderly couple sat at a table next to the two friends. They were rentiers, leading orderly and mediocre lives, who perhaps couldn’t remember ever having been awake at such an hour. Swept away by the enthusiasm, they had come down to the boulevard to “see the war up close.” The foreign language the neighbors were using gave the husband a lofty sense of its importance. “Do you think England will march with us?” Argensola knew as much as he did, but answered authoritatively: “Certainly; it’s a done deal. ” The old man stood up: “Long live England!” And, caressed by his wife’s admiring gaze, he began to sing a forgotten patriotic song, marking the refrain with arm movements, which very few could follow. The two friends had to walk home. They couldn’t find a vehicle that would take them: all were going in the opposite direction, towards the train stations. Both were in a bad mood, but Argensola couldn’t walk in silence. “Ah, women!” Desnoyers had known about his discreet affair for some months with a young woman from the rue Taitbout. Sunday strolls around Paris, several trips to the cinema, discussions about the merits of the latest novel published in the serials of a popular newspaper, goodbye kisses when she took the train from Bois Colombes at dusk to sleep at her parents’ house: that was all. But Argensola maliciously counted on time, which ripens even the most bitter virtues. That afternoon they had had an aperitif with a French friend who was leaving the next morning to join his regiment. The girl had seen him with him a few times , without it attracting any particular attention from her; But now she admired him suddenly , as if he were a different person. He had given up returning to his parents’ house that night: he wanted to see how a war began. The three of them ate together, and all her attention was devoted to the one who was leaving. She was even offended with sudden shame when Argensola tried to exercise his right of first refusal by reaching under the table for her hand. Meanwhile, she almost plopped her head on the shoulder of the future hero, showering him with admiring glances. “And they’re gone!… They’ve gone together!” she said bitterly. “I had to leave them so as not to prolong my sad situation. To have worked so hard… for someone else!” She paused for a moment, and changing the course of her thoughts, added: ” I admit, however, that their conduct is admirable.” How generous women are when they believe the time has come to offer!… Her father inspires great fear in her because of his temper, and yet she spends a night away from home with someone she barely knows and whom she hadn’t been thinking about until mid-afternoon… The nation feels gratitude for those who are about to risk their lives, and she, the poor thing, wishes to do something also for those destined to die, to give them a little happiness in their final hour… And he gives away the best he owns, that which can never be recovered. I’ve made a bad impression… Laugh at me, but admit that this is beautiful. Desnoyers did indeed laugh at his friend’s misfortune, even though he too was suffering great hardships, kept secret. He hadn’t seen Margarita since their first meeting. He only heard from her through various letters… Damned war! What a disturbance for happy people! Margarita’s mother was ill. She was thinking about her son, who was an officer and was due to leave on the first day of mobilization. Margarita was equally worried about her brother and considered it inappropriate to go to her studies while her mother was moaning at home. When would this situation end?… She was also concerned about that check for four hundred thousand francs brought from America. The day before, the bank had refused to pay it due to lack of notification. Then they claimed to have received the notification, but still they didn’t give her the money. That afternoon, when the banks were already closed, the government had issued a decree establishing a moratorium to prevent a general bankruptcy resulting from financial panic. When would he be paid? Perhaps when the war that hadn’t even started was over; perhaps never. He had no cash other than the meager two thousand francs he had left over from his trip. All his friends were in a desperate situation, unable to access the money they had deposited in the banks. Those who had any money were forced to embark on a pilgrimage from shop to shop or queue outside the banks to exchange a banknote. Ah, the war! The stupid war! In the middle of the Champs-Élysées, they saw a man in a wide-brimmed hat walking slowly ahead of them, talking to himself. Argensola recognized him as they passed a lamppost: “Our friend Tchernoff.” The Russian, returning the greeting, released a faint scent of wine from the depths of his beard. Without any invitation, he aligned himself with them, following them toward the Arc de Triomphe. Julio had only exchanged silent greetings with this friend of Argensola when they met in the entrance hall of the house. But sadness softens the spirit and makes one seek the friendship of the humble like a refreshing shade. Tchernoff, for his part, looked at Desnoyers as if he had known him all his life. He had interrupted his monologue, which only the masses of dark vegetation, the solitary benches, the blue shadow pierced by the reddish tremor of the lanterns, and the summer night with its dome of warm breezes and celestial twinkles could hear. He took a few steps without speaking, as a sign of consideration for his companions, and then resumed his reasoning, picking it up where he had left off, without giving any explanation, as if he were walking alone. …And at this hour they will shout with enthusiasm just like those here, they will sincerely believe they are defending their provoked homeland, they will want to die for their families and homes that no one has threatened. Who are these people, Tchernoff? asked Argensola. The Russian looked at him intently, as if surprised by his question. They, he said laconically. They both understood him… They! It couldn’t be anyone else. I lived ten years in Germany, he continued, giving more weight to his words now that he was being listened to. I was a newspaper correspondent in Berlin, and I know those people. Passing along the boulevard full of crowds, I have imagined what is happening there at this hour. They too sing and roar with enthusiasm, waving flags. Outwardly they are all the same, but what a difference, inside!… Last night, on the boulevard, people chased some loudmouths who were shouting: “To Berlin!” It is a cry of bad memory and in even worse taste. France does not want conquests; Her only wish is to be respected, to live in peace, without humiliation or anxiety. Tonight, two of the mobilized soldiers said as they left: “When we enter Germany, we will impose the Republic on them…” The Republic is not a perfect thing, my friends, but it represents something. Better than living under an irresponsible monarch, by the grace of God. At the very least, it offers tranquility and the absence of personal ambitions that might disturb one’s life. And I have been moved by the generous sentiment of these two workers who, instead of thinking of exterminating their enemies, want to correct them by giving them what they consider best. Tchernoff was silent for a few moments, smiling ironically at the spectacle unfolding before his imagination. In Berlin, the masses express their enthusiasm in a lofty manner, as befits a superior people. Those below, who console themselves for their humiliations with a crude materialism, are shouting at this hour: “To Paris! Let’s drink free champagne!” The pietistic bourgeoisie, capable of anything to attain new honor, and the aristocracy, which has given the world the greatest scandals of recent years, are likewise shouting: “To Paris!” Paris is the Babylon of sin, the city of the Moulin Rouge and the restaurants of Montmartre, the only places they know… And my comrades in the Social Democrats are also shouting; but they’ve been taught a different chant: “To Moscow! To Petersburg! Russian tyranny, the danger to civilization, must be crushed !” The Kaiser wielding the tyranny of another country like a bogeyman for his own people… what a laugh! And the Russian’s laughter echoed in the silence of the night like a clattering of bells. “We are more civilized than the Germans,” he said when he stopped laughing. Desnoyers, who was listening with interest, made a surprised movement and said to himself: “This Tchernoff has been drinking.” ” Civilization,” he continued, “doesn’t consist solely of large industries, many ships, armies, and numerous universities that teach only science. That is a material civilization. There is another, higher one, that elevates the soul and does not allow human dignity to suffer continuous humiliations without protest.” A Swiss citizen living in his wooden chalet, considering himself equal to all other men in his country, is more civilized than the Herr Professor who has to give way to a lieutenant, or the wealthy man from Hamburg who bows like a lackey before someone bearing the prefix “von.” Here the Spaniard nodded, as if he could guess what Tchernoff was about to add. “We Russians suffer under a great tyranny. I know something about this. I know the hunger and cold of the dungeons; I have lived in Siberia… But against our tyranny there has always been a revolutionary protest. A part of the nation is half barbaric, but the rest has a superior mentality, a spirit of high morality that makes it face dangers and sacrifices for freedom and truth… And Germany? Who has ever protested there to defend human rights? What revolutions have been known in Prussia, land of great despots?” The founder of militarism, Frederick William, when he tired of beating his wife and spitting in his children’s food, would go out into the streets, club in hand, to beat the subjects who didn’t flee in time. His son, Frederick the Great, declared that he was dying, bored of ruling a nation of slaves. In two centuries of Prussian history, there was only one revolution: the barricades of 1848, a poor Berlin imitation of the Paris revolution, and it had no effect whatsoever. Bismarck clenched his fist to crush the last attempts at protest, if indeed they existed. And when his friends threatened him with a revolution, the ferocious Junker would clutch his sides, letting out his most insolent laughs. A revolution in Prussia!… No one knew his people like he did. Tchernoff was not a patriot. Argensola had often heard him speak against his country. But he was indignant at the contempt with which German pride treated the Russian people. Where, in the last forty years of imperialist grandeur, was the intellectual hegemony the Germans boasted of?… Excellent pawns of science; tenacious and short-sighted scholars, each confined to his specialty; Benedictines of the laboratory, who worked hard and got some things right. Sometimes through enormous errors presented as truths simply because they were his: that was all. And alongside so much patient and respectable industriousness , what charlatanism! What great names exploited like shop displays! How many wise men turned sanatorium hoteliers!… A Herr Professor would discover the cure for tuberculosis, and the consumptives continued to die as before. Another would label with a number the victorious remedy for the most unmentionable of diseases, and the genital plague continued to ravage the world. And all these errors represented considerable fortunes: each saving panacea gave rise to the constitution of an industrial society, the products being sold at high prices, as if suffering were a privilege of the rich. How far removed from this bluff was Pasteur and other wise men of lesser nations, who gave the world their secrets without lending themselves to monopolies! German science, Tchernoff continued, has given much to humanity, I acknowledge; But the science of other nations has contributed much as well. Only a people mad with pride can imagine that they are everything to civilization and that others are nothing… Apart from its learned specialists, what genius has this Germany, which believes itself to be universal, produced in our times? Wagner is the last Romantic; he closes an era and belongs to the past. Nietzsche was determined to prove his Polish origins and abhorred Germany, a country, according to him, of pedantic bourgeois. His Slavism was so pronounced that he even prophesied the crushing of the Germans by the Slavs… And there are no more. We, a savage people, have given the world in recent times artists of admirable moral greatness. Tolstoy and Dostoevsky are universal. What names can Wilhelm II’s Germany place before them ?… His country was the homeland of music, but present-day Russian musicians are more original than the continuators of Wagnerism, who take refuge in orchestral excesses to conceal their mediocrity… The German people had geniuses in their time of suffering, when Pan-German pride had not yet been born, when the Empire did not exist. Goethe, Schiller, Beethoven were subjects of small principalities. They received the influence of other countries, they contributed to universal civilization, as citizens of the world, without it occurring to them that the world should become Germanic because it paid attention to their works. Tsarism had committed atrocities. Tchernoff knew this from experience and did not need the Germans to come and tell him. But all the educated classes of Russia were enemies of tyranny and rose up against it. Where were the intellectuals in Germany who were enemies of Prussian Tsarism? They remained silent or burst into flattery of God’s anointed, a musician and comedian like Nero, possessing a lively and superficial intelligence, who, by touching everything, believed he knew everything. Eager to attain a prominent position in history, he had ended up afflicting the world with the greatest of calamities. Why must the tyranny that weighs upon my country be Russian? The worst tsars were imitators of Prussia. In our times, whenever the Russian or Polish people have attempted to assert their rights, the reactionaries have used the Kaiser as a threat, claiming he would come to their aid. Half of the Russian aristocracy is German; German are the generals who have most distinguished themselves by stabbing the people; German are the officials who uphold and advise the tyranny; German are the officers who are in charge of punishing workers’ strikes and the rebellion of annexed peoples with massacres. The reactionary Slav is brutal, but he possesses the sentimentality of a race in which many princes become nihilists. He readily raises the whip , but then repents and sometimes weeps. I have seen Russian officers commit suicide rather than march against the people or out of remorse for having carried out massacres. The German in the service of Tsarism feels no scruples nor regrets his conduct: he kills coldly, with A meticulous and precise method, like everything he does. The Russian is a barbarian, he strikes and repents; the civilized German shoots without hesitation. Our Tsar, in a Slavic humanitarian dream, cherished the generous utopia of universal peace, organizing the Hague Conferences. The Kaiser of culture has worked for years and years assembling and fine-tuning a destructive organism the likes of which has never been seen, to crush all of Europe. The Russian is a humble, egalitarian, democratic Christian, thirsting for justice; the German boasts of Christianity, but is an idolater like the Germans of other centuries. His religion loves blood and maintains the castes; his true cult is that of Odin, only now the god of slaughter has changed his name, and is called the State. Tchernoff paused for a moment, perhaps to better appreciate the strangeness of his companions, and then said simply: I am a Christian. Argensola, who was familiar with the Russian’s ideas and history, made a gesture of astonishment. Julio insisted on his suspicions: ” This Tchernoff is definitely drunk.” “It’s true,” he continued, “that I care little for God and don’t believe in dogmas, but my soul is Christian, like that of all revolutionaries. The philosophy of modern democracy is a secular Christianity. We socialists love the humble, the needy, the weak. We defend their right to life and well-being, just like the great religious zealots who saw a brother in every unfortunate person. We demand respect for the poor in the name of justice; the others demand it in the name of compassion. This is the only thing that separates us. But both sides seek to bring people together for a better life; for the strong to sacrifice themselves for the weak, the powerful for the humble, and for the world to be governed by fraternity, striving for the greatest possible equality.” The Slavic man summed up the history of human aspirations. Greek thought had placed well-being on earth, but only for a select few, for the citizens of their small democracies, for free men, abandoning the slaves and barbarians, who constituted the majority, to their misery. Christianity, the religion of the humble, had recognized the right to happiness for all beings, but placed this happiness in heaven, far from this world, this “vale of tears.” The Revolution and its heirs, the socialists, placed happiness in the immediate realities of the earth, just as the ancients did, and made all people participants in it, just as the Christians did. Where is the Christianity of present-day Germany?… There is more Christian spirit in the socialism of the secular French Republic, defender of the weak, than in the religiosity of the conservative Junkers. Germany has fashioned a God in its own image, and when it believes it is worshipping Him, it is its own image it is worshipping. The German God is a reflection of the German state, which considers war the primary function of a people and the noblest of occupations. Other Christian peoples, when they have to wage war, feel the contradiction between their conduct and the Gospel, and excuse themselves by citing the cruel necessity of self-defense. Germany declares that war is pleasing to God. I know of German sermons proving that Jesus was a proponent of militarism. Germanic pride, the conviction that their race is providentially destined to dominate the world, united Protestants, Catholics, and Jews. Above their differences in dogma is the God of the state, who is German; the warrior God, whom Wilhelm perhaps calls at this time “my respected ally.” Religions have always tended toward universality. Their purpose is to connect people with God and to sustain relationships among all people. Prussia has regressed to barbarism by creating for its personal use a second Jehovah, a deity hostile to most of humankind, who embraces the resentments and ambitions of the German people. Then Tchernoff explained, in his own way, the creation of this Germanic God: ambitious, cruel, and vengeful. The Germans were Christians of the eve of their time. Their Christianity dated back only six centuries, while that of the other peoples of Europe was ten, fifteen, or even eighteen centuries old. When the Crusades were ending, the Prussians were still living in paganism. Their racial pride, by driving them to war, revived the dead deities. Like the ancient Germanic God, who was a military leader, the God of the Gospel was adorned by the Germans with a spear and shield. Christianity in Berlin wears a helmet and riding boots. God is mobilized at this moment, just like Otto, Fritz, and Franz, to punish the enemies of the chosen people. It matters not that he commanded, “Thou shalt not kill,” and that his son said on earth, “Blessed are the peacemakers.” Christianity, according to German priests of all denominations, can only influence the individual improvement of men and should not interfere in the life of the State. The God of the Prussian State is the “old German God,” an heir to the ferocious Germanic mythology, an amalgam of war-hungry deities. In the silence of the avenue, the Russian conjured up the red figures of the implacable gods. They were to awaken that night, hearing the beloved clash of weapons and smelling the acrid scent of blood. Thor, the brutal god with the small head, stretched his biceps, wielding the hammer that crushes cities. Wotan sharpened his spear, which has lightning for its iron and thunder for its ferrule. Odin, the one-eyed, yawned with gluttony atop his mountain, awaiting the dead warriors who would pile up around his throne. The disheveled Valkyries, sweaty virgins smelling of colts, began to gallop from cloud to cloud, goading men with howls, to carry off the corpses, folded like saddlebags, on the haunches of their flying nags. Germanic religiosity, the Russian continued, is the negation of Christianity. For it, men are not equal before God. He only values the strong, and supports them with his influence so that they dare to do anything. Those born weak must submit or perish. Peoples are not equal either: they are divided into leading peoples and inferior peoples whose destiny is to be crushed and assimilated by the former. This is God’s will. And it is pointless to say that the great leading people is Germany. Argensola interrupted him. German pride was not based solely on its God; it also appealed to science. “I know that,” said the Russian, interrupting him: “determinism, inequality, selection, the struggle for life… The Germans, so proud of their worth, build their intellectual monuments on foreign soil, borrowing foundation materials from abroad when they undertake new construction. A Frenchman and an Englishman, Gobineau and Chamberlain, have given them the arguments to defend the superiority of their race. With leftover rubble from Darwin and Spencer, their old man Haeckel has fabricated ‘monism,’ a doctrine which, applied to politics, scientifically enshrines German pride and recognizes its right to dominate the world, by virtue of being the strongest. ” “No,” he said, a thousand times he didn’t continue energetically after a brief silence. “ All that talk of the struggle for life with its retinue of cruelties may be true in lower species, but it must not be true among men. We are beings of reason and progress, and we must free ourselves from the fatalism of our environment, modifying it to our advantage. Animals know neither law, nor justice, nor compassion; He lives enslaved by the darkness of his instincts. We think, and thought means freedom. The strong, to be strong, need not be cruel; they are greater when they do not abuse their strength and are good. All have a right to life, since they were born; and just as proud and humble beings, beautiful and weak, subsist, they must continue to live. Nations large and small, old and young. The purpose of our existence is not struggle, not killing, so that we may then be killed , and our killer in turn fall dead. Let us leave that to blind Nature. Civilized peoples, if they are to follow a common thought, must adopt that of Mediterranean Europe, realizing the most peaceful and gentle conception of life possible. A cruel smile stirred the Russian’s beard. But there is Kultur, which the Germans want to impose on us and which is the very opposite of civilization. Civilization is the refinement of the spirit, respect for one’s fellow human being, tolerance of others’ opinions, and gentleness of customs. Kultur is the action of a State that organizes and assimilates individuals and communities to serve it in its mission. And this mission consists mainly of placing itself above other States, crushing them with its greatness, or what amounts to the same thing, pride, ferocity, and violence. They had arrived at Star Square. The Arc de Triomphe stood out, its dark mass silhouetted against the starry sky. The avenues scattered a double row of lights in every direction. The lanterns surrounding the monument illuminated its gigantic base and the feet of the sculptural groups. Higher up, the shadows closed in, giving the gleaming monument the black density of ebony. They crossed the square and passed under the Arc. Finding themselves beneath the vault, which amplified the echo of their footsteps, they stopped. The night breeze took on a wintry chill as it drifted through the interior of the structure. The vault’s sharp edges were etched against the diffuse blue of the sky. Instinctively, the three of them turned their heads to glance at the Champs-Élysées, which they had left behind. They saw only a river of shadow in which strings of red stars floated between two long, black escarpments formed by the buildings. But they were familiar with the scene, and they thought they could see in the darkness, without any effort, the majestic slope of the avenue, the double row of palaces, the Place de la Concorde in the background with its Egyptian spire, the groves of the Tuileries. “This is beautiful,” said Tchernoff, who saw more than just shadows. ” An entire civilization that loves peace and the sweetness of life has passed through here. ” A memory touched the Russian. Many afternoons, after lunch, he had met in that very spot a robust, square-framed man with a blond beard and kind eyes. He seemed like a giant stopped in his growth. A dog accompanied him. It was Jaurès, his friend Jaurès, who, before going to the Chamber, would take a stroll from his house in Passy to the Arc de Triomphe. “He liked to stand where we are now. He would contemplate the avenues, the distant gardens, all of Paris that unfolds before us from this height.” And he said to me, deeply moved: “This is magnificent. One of the most beautiful vistas one can find in the world…” Poor Jaurès! The Russian, through an association of ideas, recalled the image of his compatriot Mikhail Bakunin, another revolutionary, the father of anarchism, weeping with emotion at a concert after hearing Beethoven’s symphony with choirs, conducted by a young friend of his named Richard Wagner. “When our revolution comes,” he cried, shaking the maestro’s hand, “and all that exists perishes, we must save this at all costs.” Tchernoff was pulled from his memories to look around and say sadly: “They have passed through here. ” Every time he crossed the Arch, the same image arose in his mind. They were thousands of hooves gleaming in the sun; thousands of heavy boots rising with mechanical rigidity, all at once; short trumpets, fifes, flat drums, disturbing the august silence of the stone; Lohengrin’s war march echoed through the deserted avenues before the closed houses. He, a foreigner, felt drawn to this monument, with the attraction of venerable buildings that hold the glory of the ancestors. He didn’t want to know who had created it. Men build believing they are solidifying an immediate idea that flatters their pride. Then humanity, with its broader vision, comes along, changing the meaning of the work and magnifying it, stripping it of its primitive egoism. Greek statues, models of supreme beauty, had originally been simple sanctuary images, gifts from the piety of the devout women of those times. When evoking Roman grandeur, everyone imagined the enormous Colosseum, a circle of slaughter, or the arches raised to the glory of inept Caesars. The representative works of peoples had two meanings: the internal and immediate one given to them by their creators, and the external one, of universal interest, which the centuries later imparted, making them a symbol. The Arch, Tehernoff continued, is French on the inside, with its names of battles and generals that lend themselves to criticism. Outwardly, it is the monument of the people who made the greatest of revolutions, and of all peoples who believe in liberty. The glorification of man is down there, on the column in the Place Vendôme. There is nothing individual here. Its builders raised it to the memory of the Grand Army, and that Grand Army was the people in arms spreading the revolution throughout Europe. The artists, who are great intuitives, sensed the true meaning of this work. The warriors of Rude singing the Marseillaise in the group on our left are not career soldiers, they are armed citizens marching to carry out their sublime and violent apostolate. Their nakedness makes me see in them sans-culottes with Greek helmets… Here there is something more than the narrow and selfish glory of a single nation. All of us in Europe awoke to a new life thanks to these crusaders of liberty… Peoples evoke images in my mind. If I think of Greece, I see the colonnades of the Parthenon; Rome, mistress of the world, is the Colosseum and the Arch of Trajan; revolutionary France is the Arc de Triomphe. It was something more, according to the Russian. It represented a great historical revenge: the peoples of the South, the so-called Latin races, answering after many centuries the invasion that had destroyed Roman power; Mediterranean men spreading victoriously across the lands of the ancient barbarians. They had swept away the past like a destructive wave, only to retreat immediately. The great tide deposited everything it had engulfed, like the waters of certain rivers that fertilize by flooding. And as the men withdrew, the land remained enriched by new and generous ideas. “If only they would return!” Tchernoff added with a gesture of unease. ” If only they would tread these flagstones again!… Last time they were just a few poor people, astonished by their rapid fortune, who passed through here like a peasant through a drawing room.” They were content with pocket money and two provinces to perpetuate the memory of their victory… But now it won’t be just soldiers marching against Paris. At the rear of the armies come, like irate canteen women, the Herr Professors, carrying at their sides the little barrel of wine laced with gunpowder that drives the barbarian mad, the wine of the Kultur. And in the wagons comes, likewise, an enormous baggage of scientific savagery, a new philosophy that glorifies force as the principle and sanctification of all things, denies freedom, suppresses the weak, and places the entire world under the control of a minority chosen by God, simply because it possesses the quickest and surest means of killing. Humanity must tremble for its future if, once again, the Germanic boots echo beneath this vault, following a march by Wagner or any regimental Kapellmeister. They moved away from the Arc, following the Avenue Victor Hugo. Tchernoff marched silently, as if saddened by the image of this hypothetical parade. Suddenly, he continued his thoughts aloud : “And even if they did enter, what does it matter?… The Law would not die because of this.” It suffers eclipses, but it is reborn; it may be unknown, trampled underfoot, but it does not cease to exist, and all good souls recognize it as the sole rule of life. A nation of madmen wants to place violence on the pedestal that others have raised to Law. A futile endeavor. The aspiration of humankind will eternally be for ever more freedom, more fraternity, more justice. With this statement, the Russian seemed to calm down. He and his companions spoke of the spectacle that Paris presented as it prepared for war. Tchernoff felt pity for the great suffering caused by the catastrophe, for the thousands upon thousands of domestic tragedies unfolding at that moment. Nothing had apparently changed. In the city center and around the stations, extraordinary activity was taking place, but the rest of the immense metropolis betrayed no sign of the great upheaval in its existence. The solitary street presented the same appearance as every night. The breeze gently stirred the leaves of the trees. A solemn peace seemed to emanate from the air. The houses slept, but behind closed windows one could sense the sleeplessness in bloodshot eyes, the heaving of chests anxious with the approaching threat, the trembling agility of hands preparing war gear, perhaps the last gesture of love, exchanged without pleasure, with kisses ending in sobs. Tchernoff remembered his neighbors, that couple who occupied the other interior apartment behind the study. Her piano was no longer playing . The Russian had heard the sound of arguments, the slamming of doors , and the man’s footsteps as he left in the dead of night, fleeing the woman’s cries. A drama had begun to unfold on the other side of the walls: a common drama, a repetition of others happening simultaneously. “She’s German,” the Russian added. “Our doorman has thoroughly investigated her nationality. He must have left by now to join his regiment. I could barely sleep last night.” I heard her moans through the wall; a slow, desperate cry, like that of an abandoned child, and the man’s voice, who tried in vain to silence her… What a rain of sorrows falls upon the world! That very afternoon, upon leaving the house, I had found her standing in front of her door. She seemed like a different woman, with an air of old age, as if she had lived fifteen years in a few hours. In vain I had tried to cheer her up, advising her to calmly accept her man’s absence so as not to harm the other being she carried within her. For that poor woman is going to be a mother. She hides her condition with a certain modesty, but I caught her from my window arranging baby clothes. The woman had listened to him as if she didn’t understand him. Words were powerless against her despair. She had only been able to stammer, as if speaking to herself: “I am German… He is leaving; he has to leave… Alone… alone forever!…” She thinks of her nationality, which separates her from the other; She thinks of the concentration camp, where they will take her with her compatriots: She fears abandonment in a hostile country that has to defend itself against aggression from its own people… And all this when she is about to become a mother. What misery! What sadness! They arrived at the rue de la Pompe, and upon entering the house, Tchernoff said goodbye to his companions and went up the service staircase. Desnoyers wanted to prolong the conversation. He was afraid of being left alone with his friend and that his bad temper would resurface due to recent setbacks. The conversation with the Russian interested him. The three of them went up in the elevator. Argensola spoke of the opportunity to open one of the many bottles he kept in the kitchen. Tchernoff could return to his apartment through the study door that led to the service staircase. The large window had its panes open; the openings onto the inner courtyard were also open; A continuous breeze made the curtains flutter, swaying the antique lanterns, moth-eaten flags , and other decorations of the romantic studio. They sat around a small table by the window, away from the lights that illuminated one end of the large room. They were in the dim light, their backs to the interior. Before them lay the rooftops across the way and an enormous rectangle of blue shadow pierced by the cold sharpness of the stars. The city lights colored the somber space with a bloody reflection. Tchernoff drank two glasses, clicking his tongue to affirm the merit of the liquid. The three were silent, with the admiring and fearful silence that the grandeur of the night imposes on men. Their eyes leaped from star to star, grouping them in ideal lines, forming triangles or quadrilaterals of fantastic irregularity. Sometimes the flickering brilliance of a star seemed to catch the ray of their gaze, holding it in hypnotic fixity. The Russian, without breaking his contemplation, poured himself another glass. Then he smiled with cruel irony. His bearded face took on the expression of a tragic mask peeking out from behind the curtains of night. “What do they think up there of men!” he murmured. “Does any star know that Bismarck existed?… Do the stars know of the divine mission of the Germanic people?” And he continued laughing. Something distant and uncertain disturbed the silence of the night, creeping along the bottom of one of the cracks that cut across the immense plain of rooftops. The three leaned forward to listen better… They were voices. A male choir was intoning a simple, monotonous, solemn hymn. They guessed it more with their minds than perceived it with their ears. Several isolated notes, reaching them with greater intensity in one of the fluctuations of the breeze, allowed Argensola to reconstruct the brief chant ending in a melodic howl; A true war song: Cest l’Alsace et la Lorraine, Cest l’Alsace quil nous faut. Oh, oh, oh, oh. A new group of men was walking in the distance, along the end of a street, in search of the train station, gateway to the war. They must have been from the outlying districts, perhaps from the countryside, and as they crossed Paris enveloped in silence, they felt the desire to sing of the great national aspiration, so that those who kept watch behind the dark facades would dispel all perplexity, knowing they were not alone. Just like in the operas, Julio said, following the last sounds of the invisible chorus, which was fading away… fading away, devoured by the distance and the night’s breathing. Tchernoff continued drinking, but with a distracted air, his eyes fixed on the reddish mist that floated above the rooftops. The two friends could sense his mental labor in the furrowing of his brow, in the muffled grunts he let out, like an echo of his inner monologue. Suddenly, he leaped from reflection to speech, without any preparation, continuing aloud the course of his reasoning. …And when the sun rises in a few hours, the world will see the four horsemen, enemies of mankind, galloping across its fields… Already their evil horses paw the ground with the impatience of the race; already their riders of misfortune conspire and exchange their last words before leaping into their saddles. “Which horsemen are those?” asked Argensola. “Those who precede the Beast. ” The two friends found this reply as unintelligible as the previous words. Desnoyers repeated to himself again: “He’s drunk.” But his curiosity made him persist. “And what beast was that?” The Russian looked at him as if surprised by the question. He thought he had been speaking aloud from the beginning of his reflections. “The one from the Apocalypse.” There was a silence; but the Russian’s laconicism did not last long . He felt the need to express his enthusiasm for the dreamer of the sea-rock of Patmos. The poet of grandiose and obscure visions exerted his influence, across two thousand years, on this revolutionary mystic who had taken refuge on the top floor of a house in Paris. Juan had foreseen it all. His delusions, unintelligible to him The common folk held the mystery of great human events. Tchernoff described the apocalyptic beast rising from the depths of the sea. It resembled a leopard, its feet like those of a bear, and its mouth a lion’s snout. It had seven heads and ten horns. From the horns hung ten diadems, and on each of the seven heads was written a blasphemy. These blasphemies were not uttered by the evangelist, perhaps because they varied according to the times, changing every thousand years when the beast reappeared. The Russian read those that now blazed from the monster’s heads: blasphemies against humanity, against justice, against everything that makes human life tolerable and sweet. “Might makes right …” “The weak should not exist…” “Be strong to be great…” And the beast, in all its ugliness, sought to rule the world and demand that men worship it. But what about the four horsemen? Desnoyers asked. The four horsemen preceded the appearance of the monster in John’s dream . The seven seals of the book of mystery were broken by the lamb in the presence of the great throne where someone who seemed to be made of jasper sat . The rainbow formed an emerald canopy around his head. Twenty-four thrones extended in a semicircle, and on them sat twenty-four elders in white robes and golden crowns. Four enormous animals covered with eyes and with six wings seemed to guard the greatest throne. Trumpets sounded, heralding the breaking of the first seal. “Look!” one of the animals shouted to the visionary poet in a stentorian voice… And the first horseman appeared on a white horse. In his hand he carried a bow and on his head a crown: he was the Conquest, according to some; the Pestilence, according to others. He could be both at once. He wore a crown, and this was enough for Tchernoff. “Arise!” cried the second animal, moving its thousand eyes. And from the broken seal leaped a reddish horse. Its rider brandished a huge sword above his head . It was War. Tranquility fled from the world before its furious gallop: humanity was about to be exterminated. As the third seal was opened, another of the winged animals bellowed like thunder: “Appear!” And John saw a black horse. Its rider held a pair of scales in his hand to weigh the sustenance of humankind. It was Famine. The fourth animal greeted the breaking of the fourth seal with a roar. “Leap!” And a pale horse appeared. “Its rider is named Death, and he was given power to kill people by sword, famine, plague, and by wild beasts.” The four horsemen began a mad, crushing race over the heads of terrified humanity. Tchernoff described the four scourges of the earth as if he were seeing them firsthand. The rider on the white horse was dressed in an ostentatious and barbaric outfit. His oriental face contorted odiously, as if sniffing out victims. While his horse continued galloping, he readied his bow to unleash the plague. On his back swung the bronze quiver full of poisoned arrows containing the germs of all diseases, both those that strike peaceful folk in their retreat and those that poison the wounds of soldiers on the battlefield. The second rider, on the red horse, wielded his enormous greatsword above his hair, which bristled from the force of the gallop. He was young, but his fierce brow and tight mouth gave him an expression of implacable ferocity. His garments, billowing from the force of the gallop, revealed athletic musculature. Old, bald, and horribly emaciated, the third rider leaped onto the sharp back of the black horse. His withered legs pressed against the flanks of the gaunt beast. With a withered hand, he displayed the scales, a symbol of the meager food that was about to reach the value of gold. The fourth rider’s knees, sharp as spurs, pricked the pale horse’s sides. Its parchment-like skin revealed the The skeletal edges and hollows. Its skull-like face contorted with the sardonic laughter of destruction. Its cane-like arms twirled a gigantic scythe. From its angular shoulders hung a tattered shroud. And the furious cavalcade of the four horsemen swept like a hurricane over the immense multitude of humans. The sky above their heads took on a livid, twilight twilight. Horrid, misshapen monsters swirled in spirals above the furious raid, like a repulsive escort. Poor humanity, mad with fear, fled in all directions at the sound of the galloping of Plague, War, Famine, and Death. Men and women, young and old, pushed and fell to the ground in every attitude and gesture of terror, astonishment, and despair . And the white, red, black, and pale horses crushed them indifferently beneath their relentless hooves: the athlete heard the crack of his broken ribs, the child lay dying, clinging to his mother’s breast, the old man closed his eyelids forever with a child’s whimper. “God has fallen asleep, forgetting the world,” the Russian continued. “He will take a long time to awaken, and while He sleeps, the four feudal horsemen of the Beast will roam the earth as its sole lords.” He became impassioned with his words. Leaving his seat, he paced back and forth . He thought his description of the four calamities seen by the somber poet weak. A great painter had given physical form to these terrible dreams. “I have a book,” he murmured, “a precious book…” And suddenly he fled the study, heading for the inner staircase to enter his rooms. He wanted to bring the book so his friends could see it. Argensola accompanied him. Shortly afterward, they returned with the volume. They had left the doors open behind them. A stronger draft settled between the gaps in the facades and the inner courtyard. Tchernoff placed his precious book under a lamp. It was a volume printed in 1511, with Latin text and engravings. Desnoyers read the title: Apocalipsis cum figuris. The engravings were by Albrecht Dürer: an early work, when the master was only twenty-seven. The three men stood in ecstatic admiration before the plate depicting the mad race of the apocalyptic horsemen. The fourfold scourge hurtled down with overwhelming force on their fantastic mounts, crushing humanity in a frenzy of terror. Something suddenly happened that pulled the three men from their admiring contemplation; something extraordinary, indefinable: a great crash that seemed to enter directly into their brains without passing through their ears; a shock to their hearts. Instinct warned them that something grave had just occurred. They stood in silence, staring at each other: a silence of seconds that seemed endless. Through the open doors came an alarm from the courtyard: shutters being flung open, hurried footsteps on the various floors, cries of surprise and terror. The three of them instinctively ran toward the interior windows. Before reaching them, the Russian had a premonition. My neighbor… It must be my neighbor. Perhaps she’s killed herself. When they looked out, they saw lights in the distance; people bustling around a bundle lying on the tiles. The alarm had instantly filled every window. It was a sleepless night, a night of anxiety, keeping everyone in a painful vigil. ” She’s killed herself,” said a voice that seemed to rise from a well. “It’s the German woman, she’s killed herself.” The doorman’s explanation jumped from window to window until it reached the top floor. The Russian shook his head with a fatal expression. The unfortunate woman hadn’t taken her own life alone. Someone was witnessing her despair: someone had pushed her… The horsemen! The four horsemen of the Apocalypse!… They were already in their saddles; they were already beginning their relentless, overwhelming gallop. The blind forces of evil were about to run free across the world. The torment of humanity was beginning under the savage ride of their Four Enemies. PART TWO. Chapter 6. Don Marcelo’s Envy. Old Desnoyers’ first reaction was astonishment upon realizing that war was inevitable. Humanity had gone mad. Was war even possible with so many railroads, so many merchant ships , so much machinery, so much activity developing within the earth’s crust and its depths?… Nations would be ruined forever. They were accustomed to needs and expenses unknown to the peoples of a century ago. Capital ruled the world, and the war was going to kill it; but in turn, it would die within a few months, lacking the funds to sustain itself. His businessman’s soul was outraged at the hundreds of billions that the mad adventure was going to squander on smoke and bloodshed. Since his indignation needed to be focused on something immediate, he blamed his own countrymen for this great folly. So much talk of revenge! To worry for forty-four years about two lost provinces, when the nation owned vast and useless lands on other continents! The consequences of such exasperated and noisy folly were about to be felt. For him, war meant imminent disaster. He had no faith in his country: the era of France was over. Now the victors were the peoples of the North, and above all, that Germany he had seen up close, admiring with a certain dread its discipline, its rigid organization. The former worker felt the conservative and selfish instinct of all those who manage to amass millions. He despised political ideals , but out of class solidarity, he had accepted in recent years all the pronouncements against the scandals of the regime. What could a corrupt and disorganized Republic do against the most solid and powerful Empire on earth? “We are going to our deaths,” he said to himself. “Worse than in ’70! We will see horrible things.” The order and enthusiasm with which the French answered the nation’s call, becoming soldiers, filled him with immense wonder. Spurred by this moral shock, he began to believe in something. The great mass of his country was good: the people were as valuable as ever. Forty-four years of alarm and anguish had brought those old virtues to the fore. But what about the leaders? Where were the leaders to march to victory?… Many were repeating this question. The anonymity of the democratic regime and the peace kept the country in complete ignorance about its future leaders. Everyone saw the armies forming hour by hour ; very few knew the generals. One name began to be whispered from mouth to mouth: “Joffre… Joffre.” His first portraits drew crowds of curious onlookers. Desnoyers studied him closely: “He looks like a good person.” His instincts as a man of order were flattered by the general’s grave and serene air . He suddenly felt a great confidence, similar to that inspired by well-presented bank managers. This gentleman could be entrusted with one’s interests without fear of him doing anything reckless. The avalanche of enthusiasm and emotion eventually swept Desnoyers away. Like everyone around him, he experienced minutes that felt like hours and hours that seemed like years. Events raced by; the world seemed to make up in a week for the long quietism of peace. The old man lived in the streets, drawn by the spectacle of the civilian crowds greeting the uniformed multitudes departing for war. At night, he witnessed the marches along the boulevards. The tricolor flag fluttered its colors under the electric headlights. The cafés, overflowing with people, blasted from their doors and windows the musical roar of patriotic songs. Suddenly, the crowd parted in the middle of the street amidst applause and cheers. All of Europe was passing by; all of Europe, except for the two enemy empires, spontaneously greeted France with their acclamations. Danger. The flags of various peoples paraded by, in all the colors of the rainbow, and behind them the Russians, with their clear, mystical eyes; the English, bareheaded, chanting hymns of religious solemnity; the Greeks and Romanians, with their aquiline profiles; the Scandinavians, white and red; the North Americans, with the clamor of a somewhat childish enthusiasm; the stateless Jews, friends of the land of egalitarian revolutions; the Italians, arrogant like a chorus of heroic tenors; the Spaniards and South Americans, tireless in their cheers. They were students and workers perfecting their skills in schools and workshops, refugees who had sought refuge on the hospitable shores of Paris like castaways from wars and revolutions. Their shouts had no official significance. All these men moved with spontaneous impulse, eager to demonstrate their love for the Republic. And Desnoyers, moved by the spectacle, thought that France was still something in the world, that it still exerted a moral force on nations, and that its joys or misfortunes concerned all of humanity. “In Berlin and Vienna, it was said, they too will shout with enthusiasm at this moment… But only those from the country. Surely no foreigner will openly join their demonstrations.” The people of the Revolution, legislators of the Rights of Man, were reaping the gratitude of the masses. He began to feel a certain remorse at the enthusiasm of the foreigners who were offering their blood to France. Many lamented that the government was delaying the admission of volunteers for twenty days, until the mobilization operations were complete. And he, who had been born French, was doubting his country just hours before!… By day, the popular current carried him to the Gare du Est. A human mass pressed against the gate, spilling out in tentacles into the nearby streets. The station, which was acquiring the significance of a historical site, resembled a narrow tunnel through which an entire river was trying to squeeze, crashing and churning against its walls. A portion of France in arms was launching itself through this exit from Paris toward the battlefields of the border. Desnoyers had only been there twice, on the way to and from his trip to Germany. Others were now embarking on the same journey. Crowds flocked from the far reaches of the city to watch as geometrically shaped masses of uniformly dressed people disappeared inside the station , accompanied by flashes of steel and the rhythmic clang of metal. The semicircular glass arches , which gleamed in the sun like fiery mouths, swallowed people one after another. At night the procession continued by the light of electric spotlights . Thousands upon thousands of horses passed through the gates; Men with iron-clad chests and hair hanging from their helmets, like paladins of bygone centuries; enormous crates that served as cages for the condors of aviation; strings of long, narrow cannons, painted gray, protected by steel bulkheads, more like astronomical instruments than mouths of death; masses upon masses of red kepis moving with the rhythm of the march, and rows of rifles, some black and bare, forming somber cane fields, others tipped with bayonets that looked like luminous ears of corn. And over these restless fields of steel harvests, the regimental flags trembled in the air like colorful birds: the body white, one wing blue, the other red, a gold tie around the neck, and atop it the bronze beak, the iron of the lance pointing towards the clouds. From these farewells, Don Marcelo returned home vibrant and with frayed nerves, like someone who had just witnessed a spectacle of raw emotion. Despite his tenacious character, which always resisted admitting its own error, the old man began to feel ashamed of his earlier doubts. The nation was alive, France was a great people; appearances had deceived him as they had so many others. Perhaps most of his compatriots were of a frivolous and forgetful nature, excessively indulged in life’s sensual pleasures; but when danger struck , they simply fulfilled their duty, without needing the harsh impositions suffered by peoples subjected to rigid organizations. On the morning of the fourth day of mobilization, upon leaving his house, instead of heading for the city center, he walked in the opposite direction, toward the rue de la Pompe. A few imprudent words from Chichi and the anxious glances of his wife and sister-in-law made him suspect that Julio had returned from his trip. He felt the need to look at the studio windows from afar , as if this might provide him with news. And to justify to his own conscience an exploration that contradicted his intentions of forgetting, he remembered that his carpenter lived on that street. “Let’s go see Roberto. He promised to come a week ago.” This Roberto was a strapping young man who had “emancipated himself from the tyranny of the boss,” in his own words, working alone at home. A nearly subterranean room served as both his bedroom and workshop. His partner, whom he called “my associate,” took care of him and the household, while a child grew up clinging to her skirts. Desnoyers indulged Roberto’s tirades against the bourgeoisie because he catered to all his whims as a tireless furniture repairman. In the luxurious house on Victor Hugo Avenue, the carpenter would sing the Internationale while wielding his saw or hammer. This, along with his bold use of language, was forgiven by the gentleman, given the low cost of his work. Upon arriving at the small workshop, he saw him with his cap perched on one ear, wearing wide corduroy trousers, hobnailed boots, and several small tricolor flags and cockades on his jacket lapels. “You’re late, boss,” he said cheerfully. “The factory’s about to close. The owner’s been mobilized and will be joining his regiment in a few hours. ” He pointed to a handwritten note posted on the door of his hovel, like the printed posters displayed in every establishment in Paris to indicate that employers and employees had obeyed the mobilization order. It had never occurred to Desnoyers that his carpenter might become a soldier. He rebelled against any imposition of authority. He hated the flics, the Paris police, with whom he had exchanged punches and blows with sticks in every riot. Militarism was his obsession. At the rallies against the tyranny of the barracks, he had been one of the loudest demonstrators. And this revolutionary was going to war with the best of intentions, without any effort whatsoever?… Robert spoke enthusiastically about the regiment, about life among comrades, with death just a few steps away. “I believe in my ideas as much as before,” the boss continued, as if he could read the other man’s mind; “but war is war, and it teaches many things; among them, that freedom must be accompanied by order and command. Someone must lead and the others must follow, willingly, by consent… but they must follow. When war comes, you see things differently than when you’re at home doing whatever you want.” The night Jaurès was assassinated, he roared with anger, announcing that the following morning would be one of revenge. He had sought out his comrades in his section to find out what they were planning against the bourgeoisie. But war was about to break out. There was something in the air that opposed civil strife, that momentarily set aside individual grievances, concentrating all souls in a common aspiration. “A week ago,” he continued, “I was an antimilitarist. How distant that seems ! As if a year had passed… I still think as before: I love peace, I hate war; And like me, all my comrades. But we French haven’t provoked anyone, and they threaten us, they want to enslave us… Let’s be fierce, since they force us to be; and to We must defend ourselves well, no one must leave the line, everyone must obey. Discipline is not incompatible with revolution. Remember the armies of the First Republic: all citizens, generals and soldiers alike ; but Hoche, Kleber, and the others were rough cronies who knew how to command and enforce obedience. The carpenter was well-educated. Besides the newspapers and pamphlets of “the idea,” he had read Michelet and other historians in loose notebooks . “We are going to wage war against war,” he added. “We will fight so that this war will be the last.” His statement did not seem clear enough to him, and he continued: ” We will fight for the future; we will die so that our grandchildren will not know these calamities. If the enemy were to triumph, the continuation of war and conquest would triumph as the only means of aggrandizement. First they would seize Europe, then the rest of the world.” The dispossessed would rise up later: new wars!… We do not want conquests. We wish to recover Alsace and Lorraine because they were ours and their inhabitants want to return to us… And nothing more. We will not imitate our enemies by seizing territories and endangering the peace of the world. We had enough with Napoleon: we must not repeat the adventure. We are going to fight for our security and at the same time for the security of the world, for the lives of weak nations. If it were a war of aggression, of vanity, of conquest, we would remember our antimilitarism. But it is a war of defense, and the rulers are not to blame for it. We are under attack, and we must all march together. The carpenter, who was anticlerical, displayed a generous tolerance, a breadth of thought that encompassed all men. The day before, he had met a reservist at the town hall of his district who was going to leave with him, joining the same regiment. A glance had been enough for him to recognize that he was a priest. “I’m a carpenter,” he had said, introducing himself. “And you, friend… do you work in churches?” He used this euphemism so the priest wouldn’t suspect any offensive intentions. The two shook hands. “I’m not into the revolution,” he continued, addressing Desnoyers. “ I had a falling out with God a long time ago. But there are good people everywhere , and good people should get along in times like these. Don’t you think so, boss?” The war flattered his egalitarian leanings. Before it, when speaking of the coming revolution, he felt a wicked pleasure imagining that all the rich, deprived of their fortunes, would have to work to survive. Now he was thrilled that all the French would share the same fate, without distinction of class. Everyone with a knapsack on their back and eating rations. And he extended this military austerity to those who remained behind the army. The war would bring great shortages: everyone would know ordinary bread. And you, boss, too old to go to war, will have to eat like me, with all your millions… Admit it, this is beautiful. Desnoyers wasn’t offended by the carpenter’s malicious satisfaction at his future privations. He was thoughtful. A man like that, an adversary of everything that exists and who had nothing material to defend, was marching to war, to his death, for a generous and distant ideal, to prevent future generations from knowing the horrors of the present. In doing this, he didn’t hesitate to sacrifice his old faith, all the beliefs he had cherished until the very last moment… And he, who was one of the privileged few, who possessed so many tempting things in need of defense, given over to doubt and criticism!… Hours later, he found the carpenter again near the Arc de Triomphe. He formed a group with several workers who looked just like him, and this group was joined by others who were like a representation of all social classes: well-dressed bourgeois, refined and anemic young gentlemen, graduates in threadbare frock coats, pale faces and thick glasses, Young priests smiled with a certain malice, as if they were embarking on some mischievous escapade. At the head of the human flock walked a sergeant, and at the rear, several soldiers with rifles slung over their shoulders. “Forward, reservists!”… And a musical bellow, a deep, menacing, and monotonous chant, rose from this mass of round mouths, swinging arms, and legs that opened and closed like musical measures. Roberto energetically intoned the warlike refrain. His eyes and drooping Gallic mustache trembled. Despite his corduroy suit and his overflowing canvas bag, he had the same grand and heroic air as Rude’s figures on the Arc de Triomphe. The “associate” and the child trotted along the nearby sidewalk to accompany him to the station. He looked away from them to speak with a fellow marcher, clean-shaven and with a serious expression: undoubtedly the priest he had met the day before. Perhaps they were already on familiar terms, with the fraternity that the touch of death inspires in men. The millionaire continued to regard his carpenter with respect, the man’s stature magnified by his presence in this human avalanche. And in his respect there was a hint of envy: the envy born of an insecure conscience. When Don Marcelo spent sleepless nights, suffering nightmares, a single source of terror, always the same, tormented his imagination. He rarely dreamed of mortal dangers for himself or his family. The dreadful vision always consisted of being presented with promissory notes bearing his signature, and he, Marcelo Desnoyers, the man faithful to his commitments, with a past of impeccable probity, being unable to pay them. The possibility of this made him tremble, and even after waking he still felt his chest oppressed by terror. In his mind, this was the greatest dishonor a man could suffer. As his existence was disrupted by the upheavals of war, the same anxieties resurfaced. Fully awake, in full possession of his faculties, he suffered a torment equal to that which he experienced in dreams, seeing his dishonored name at the foot of an uncollectible document. The entire past emerged before his eyes with extraordinary clarity, as if until then it had remained blurred, in a hazy confusion. The threatened land of France was his own. Fifteen centuries of history had labored for him, so that upon opening his eyes he would find progress and comforts unknown to his ancestors. Many generations of Desnoyers had prepared his arrival into life by battling the land, defending it from enemies, giving him at birth a free family and home… And when his turn came to continue this endeavor, when his moment arrived in the chain of generations, he fled like a debtor shirking payment! Upon entering the world, he had made commitments to the land of his parents, to the human group to which he owed his existence. This obligation had to be paid with his own hands, with the sacrifice that rejects danger… And he had evaded the recognition of his signature, fleeing and betraying his ancestors. Ah, wretch! The material success of his life, the wealth acquired in a distant land, mattered nothing. There are transgressions that cannot be erased with millions. The unease in his conscience was proof. So too were the envy and respect he felt for that poor craftsman marching to meet death with other equally humble beings, all inflamed by the satisfaction of duty fulfilled, of sacrifice accepted. The memory of Madariaga arose in his mind. “Where we become rich and raise a family, there is our homeland.” No, the centaur’s statement was not true. In normal times, perhaps . Far from one’s country of origin and when it is not in any danger, one can forget it for a few years. But he now lived in France, and France had to defend itself against enemies who wished to destroy it. The sight of all its inhabitants rising up en masse was a shameful torture for Desnoyers. He constantly witnessed what He should have done it in his youth, but chose not to. Veterans of the 1870s walked the streets, displaying their green and black ribbons on their lapels, reminders of the hardships of the Siege of Paris and of the heroic and ill-fated campaigns. The sight of these men, content with their past, made him pale. No one remembered his own; but he knew his, and that was enough. In vain did his reason try to calm this inner storm… Those times had been different: there was no unanimity like today; the Empire was unpopular; all was lost… But the memory of a famous phrase clung to him like an obsession: “France remained!” Many had thought the same as he had in their youth, and yet they had not fled to avoid military service; they had stayed, attempting one last, desperate stand. His reasoning, seeking excuses, was useless. Great feelings dispense with reason, for it is pointless. To make political and religious ideals understood, explanations and demonstrations are indispensable: patriotism needs none of this. The homeland… is the homeland. And the city worker, incredulous and mocking, the selfish peasant, the solitary shepherd—all are moved by the spell of this word, understanding it instantly, without prior instruction. “It is necessary to pay,” Don Marcelo repeated mentally. “I must pay my debt.” And he experienced, as in a dream, the anguish of the honest and desperate man who wishes to fulfill his commitments. Pay!… And how? It was already late. For a moment, the heroic idea of volunteering occurred to him, of marching with his satchel at his side in one of those groups of future combatants, just like his carpenter. But the futility of the sacrifice arose in his mind. What good could it do?… He seemed robust, he was still strong for his age, but he was over sixty, and only young men can be good soldiers. Anyone can fight. He had more than enough courage to take up a rifle. But combat is merely an incident in the struggle. What is arduous, what is overwhelming, are the operations and sacrifices that precede the battle: the endless marches, the harsh temperatures, the nights under the open sky, tilling the earth, digging trenches, loading wagons, enduring hunger… No; it was too late. He didn’t even have an illustrious name so that his sacrifice could serve as an example. Instinctively, he looked back. He wasn’t alone in the world: he had a son who could answer for his father’s debt… But this hope lasted only a moment. His son wasn’t French: he belonged to another people; half his blood was of a different origin. Besides, how could he feel the same worries as him? Would he ever understand them if his father explained them to him?… It was useless to expect anything from this graceful dancer sought after by women; from this brave man of frivolous courage, who risked his life in duels to satisfy a childish honor. The modesty of the gruff Mr. Desnoyers after these reflections!… His family was astonished to see the stoop and gentleness with which he moved within the house. The two imposing servants had gone to join their regiments, and the greatest surprise that the declaration of war held in store for them was their master’s sudden kindness, the abundance of gifts at their farewell, and the paternal care with which he oversaw their travel preparations. The formidable Mr. Marcel embraced them with moist eyes. The two had to exert themselves to prevent him from accompanying them to the station. Outside his house, he moved with humility, as if silently apologizing to those around him. Everyone seemed superior to him. These were times of economic crisis: the rich were momentarily experiencing poverty and anxiety; the banks had suspended operations and were only paying a meager portion of their deposits. The millionaire found himself deprived of his wealth for a few weeks. Furthermore, he felt uneasy as he considered the uncertain future. How long would he… How long would it take before they sent him money from America? Wouldn’t the war wipe out fortunes just as it wiped out lives?… And yet , Desnoyers never valued money less, nor did he ever spend it more generously. Numerous conscripts of humble appearance, walking independently toward the train stations, encountered a gentleman who timidly stopped them, put a hand in his pocket, and placed a twenty-franc note in his right hand , then fled before their astonished eyes. Tearful working women returning from bidding farewell to their men saw the same gentleman smile at the children marching beside them, stroke their cheeks, and walk away, leaving the five-franc note in their hands . Don Marcelo, who had never smoked, frequented tobacco shops. He would leave them with his hands and pockets overflowing, ready to overwhelm the first soldier he met with a prodigality of cigarette packs. Sometimes the recipient would smile politely, offering thanks with words that revealed a higher social standing, and pass the gift on to other comrades wearing greatcoats as coarse and ill-cut as his own. Compulsory service often led him to make these mistakes. The rough hands, pressing his in a grateful grip, satisfied him for a few minutes. Alas, not being able to do more!… The government, in mobilizing vehicles, had taken three of his monumental automobiles. Desnoyers was saddened that they weren’t taking his fourth behemoth. What good was it! The shepherds of the monstrous flock, the chauffeur and his assistants, had also left to join the army. Everyone was leaving. Finally, only he and his son would remain: two useless men. He roared upon learning of the enemy’s entry into Belgium, considering this event the most unprecedented betrayal in history. He was ashamed to recall that in the early days he had blamed the fervent patriots of his country for the war… What perfidy, methodically planned years in advance! The accounts of looting, fires, and massacres made him pale, his teeth grinding. The same fate as the unfortunate Belgians could befall him, Marcelo Desnoyers, if the barbarians invaded his country. He had a house in the city, a castle in the country, a family. Through an association of ideas, the women who were victims of the soldiers made him think of his Chichí and the good Doña Luisa. The burning buildings evoked the memory of all the rare and expensive furniture piled up in his two homes, like emblems of his social standing. The elderly shot, the mothers with their entrails ripped open, the children with their hands severed—all the sadism of a war of terror—awakened the violence in his nature. And this can happen with impunity in our time!… To convince himself that punishment was imminent, that vengeance was marching to meet the guilty, he felt the need to mingle daily with the crowds gathered around the East Station. The bulk of the troops were operating on the borders, but this did not diminish the activity in this place. Entire battalions were no longer embarking , but day and night combat men were entering the station, individually or in groups. They were reservists without uniforms marching to join their regiments, officers who had been occupied until then with the work of mobilization, and armed platoons destined to fill the great gaps left by death. The crowd, pressed against the railings, greeted those who were leaving, following them with their eyes as they crossed the large courtyard. The latest editions of the newspapers were announced with shouts. The dark mass was speckled with white, avidly reading the printed pages. Good news: “Long live France!…” A confusing dispatch that foreshadowed disaster: “It doesn’t matter. We must hold out anyway. The Russians will advance from behind. ” And while the Dialogues inspired by these new developments, and many young women turned vendors mingled among the groups, offering small flags and tricolor cockades . Men and more men, going off to war, continued passing through the deserted courtyard, disappearing behind the glass doors . A reserve sublieutenant, with a sack over his shoulder, arrived with his father at the line of policemen blocking the crowd’s path. Desnoyers found the officer somewhat resemblance to his son. The old man wore on his lapel the green and black ribbon of 1870: the decoration that evoked remorse. He was tall, lean, and tried to appear even more upright, adopting a grim expression. He wished to appear fierce, inhuman, to conceal his emotion. “Goodbye, boy! Behave yourself. Goodbye, father!” They did not shake hands: they avoided eye contact. The officer smiled like an automaton. The father abruptly turned his back and, pushing through the crowd, went into a café. He needed the darkest corner, the most hidden bench, to conceal his emotion for a few minutes. And Mr. Desnoyers envied this sorrow. Some reservists advanced singing, preceded by a flag. They pushed and joked, their excitement hinting at long stops in every tavern they encountered along the way. One of them, without interrupting his song, pressed his hand to the right of an old woman who marched serenely beside him , her eyes dry. The mother gathered her strength to accompany her young man, with a feigned cheerfulness, to the very end. Others arrived separately, detached from their companions, but they were not alone. The rifle slung over one shoulder, his back burdened by the hump of his backpack, his red legs peeping out and disappearing beneath the turned-up wings of his blue greatcoat, his pipe smoking under the visor of his kepi. Four children walked in front of one of them, lined up by height. They turned their heads to admire their father, suddenly magnified by his military regalia. Beside him marched his companion, affable and submissive, just as she had been in the first weeks of their relationship, feeling in her simple soul a rekindling of love, an untimely spring, born in the face of danger. The man, a Parisian laborer who perhaps a month before had sung the Internationale, calling for the abolition of armies and the brotherhood of all humankind, was now going in search of death. His wife stifled her sobs and admired him. Affection and compassion compelled her to reiterate her advice. In her knapsack she had packed her best handkerchiefs, the few provisions she kept at home, all her money. Her husband shouldn’t worry about her and the children. They would manage somehow. The government and kind souls would see to their fate. The soldier joked about his wife’s somewhat misshapen figure, greeting the soon-to-be-born citizen, announcing a birth in the midst of victory. A kiss for his companion, a loving tug for the offspring, and then he joined his comrades… No tears. Courage!… Long live France! The words of those leaving were heeded. No one wept. But as the last pair of red trousers disappeared, many hands convulsively gripped the iron bars of the gate, many handkerchiefs were chewed with gritted teeth, many heads were hidden under arms with anguished gasps. And Monsieur Desnoyers envied these tears. The old woman, losing the touch of her son’s right hand in her wrinkled grip, turned toward what she believed to be the hostile country, waving her arms with murderous fury: “Ah, bandit!… Bandit!” She saw again in her mind’s eye the face so often seen in the illustrated pages of newspapers: a mustache of insolent turmoil; a mouth with wolfish teeth, laughing… laughing as the men of the caveman era must have laughed. And Monsieur Desnoyers envied this anger. Chapter 7. New Life. When Marguerite was able to return to her studio on the rue de la Pompe, Jules, He, who lived in perpetual ill humor, seeing everything in gloomy colors, was suddenly buoyed by optimism. The war was not going to be as cruel as everyone had initially imagined . Ten days had passed, and the movement of troops was becoming less visible. As the number of men in the streets decreased, the female population seemed to have increased. People complained of a lack of money; the banks remained closed for payments. In contrast, the masses felt a need for extraordinary expenses to stockpile provisions. The memory of 1870, with the cruel shortages of the siege, haunted their minds. A war had broken out with the same enemy, and everyone felt that a repetition of similar events was inevitable. Food stores were besieged by women, who stockpiled stale food at exorbitant prices to store in their homes. The prospect of future famine produced greater terror than the immediate dangers. These, for Desnoyers, were all the transformations the war had wrought around him. People would eventually grow accustomed to the new existence. Humanity possesses an adaptive force that allows it to mold itself to anything in order to continue surviving. He expected to continue his life as if nothing had happened. For this, it was enough that Margarita remain faithful to her past. Together they would watch events unfold with the cruel voluptuousness of one who contemplates a flood, without any risk, from an inaccessible height. This calm, selfish witness to events had been instilled in him by Argensola. “Let us be neutral,” the Bohemian affirmed. “Neutrality does not mean indifference. Let us enjoy the grand spectacle, since in our entire lives another like it will never be offered again.” It was a pity the war caught them with so little money… Argensola hated banks even more than the Central Powers, distinguishing with particular antipathy the credit institution that delayed payment on Julio’s check. How wonderful it would have been to witness the events in complete comfort, thanks to this enormous quantity!… To alleviate their domestic hardships, he again sought Doña Luisa’s help. The war had weakened Don Marcelo’s precautions , and the family now lived in a state of generous neglect. The mother, imitating other housewives, stockpiled provisions for months on end, acquiring every kind of food she could find. He took advantage of this, frequently visiting the house on Victor Hugo Avenue to bring down large packages via the service stairs, adding to the supplies in the study. He experienced all the joys of a good housekeeper upon seeing the treasures stored in her kitchen: large tins of corned meat, pyramids of jars, sacks of dried legumes. There he had enough to feed a large family. Moreover, the war had served as a pretext for him to make further visits to Don Marcelo’s storeroom. “They can come,” he would say with a heroic gesture as he inspected his storehouse. ” They can come whenever they want. We are prepared to face them.” The care and increase of his provisions and the gathering of news were the two tasks that occupied his life. He needed to acquire ten, twelve, fifteen newspapers a day: some because they were reactionary, and he was thrilled by the novelty of seeing all the French united; others because, being radical, they should be better informed of the news received by the government. They appeared at noon, at three, at four, at five in the afternoon. A half-hour delay in the publication of a new issue instilled great hopes in the public, who imagined they would find wonderful news. Everyone snatched up the latest supplements; everyone carried their pockets bulging with paper, anxiously awaiting new publications to acquire. And all the papers said approximately the same thing. Argensola perceived how a simple, enthusiastic, and credulous soul was forming within him , capable of accepting the most improbable things. This He sensed this same kind of soul in everyone who lived near him. At times, his old critical spirit seemed to rear up; but doubt was rejected as dishonorable. He lived in a new world, and it was natural that extraordinary things should happen that could not be measured or explained by the old reasoning. And he commented with childlike joy on the marvelous stories in the newspapers: battles between a platoon of French or Belgian soldiers and entire regiments of the enemy, putting them into a disorderly flight; the Germans’ fear of the bayonet, which made them run like hares as soon as the charge sounded; the ineffectiveness of the German artillery, whose shells exploded poorly. It was ordinary and logical for him that little Belgium should defeat colossal Germany: a repetition of the encounter between David and Goliath, with all the metaphors and images that this unequal clash had inspired throughout the centuries. Like most of the nation, he had the mindset of a reader of chivalric romances who feels let down when the hero, a single man, doesn’t slay a thousand enemies with a single blow. He favored the most sensationalist newspapers, those that published the most stories of isolated encounters, of individual actions whose exact locations were unknown. England’s intervention at sea led him to imagine a dreadful, sudden, providential famine that tormented the enemy. After ten days of the naval blockade, he sincerely believed that in Germany people were living like a group of shipwrecked sailors on a raft of planks. This prompted him to make frequent visits to the kitchen, admiring his packages of provisions with excitement. “What they’d give in Berlin for my treasure!” he’d exclaim . Argensola never ate better. The thought of the great shortages suffered by the adversary spurred his appetite, giving it a monstrous capacity . White bread, with its golden, crisp crust, plunged him into a religious ecstasy. “If only our friend William could get hold of this!” he would say to his companion. He chewed and swallowed with avidity; food and liquids, as they passed through his mouth, acquired a new, rare, and divine flavor. The hunger of others was an excitant for him, a sauce of endless delight. France inspired enthusiasm in him, but he gave Russia greater credence. “Ah, the Cossacks!”… He spoke of them as if they were close friends. He described the fearsome horsemen with their dizzying gallop, impalpable as phantoms, and so terrible in their anger that their adversary could not look them in the face. At the gate of his house and in various establishments on the street, they listened to him with all the respect due to a gentleman who, being a foreigner, could speak better than others about foreign affairs. ” The Cossacks will settle accounts with those bandits,” he would conclude with absolute certainty. “Before a month is out, they will have entered Berlin.” And his audience, composed largely of women, wives or mothers of those who had gone off to war, modestly approved, with the irresistible desire we all feel to place our hopes in something distant and mysterious. The French would defend the country, even reconquering the lost territories; but it was the Cossacks who were going to deliver the final blow, those Cossacks everyone talked about but so few had seen. The only one who knew them well was Tchernoff, and to Argensola’s great dismay, he listened to his words without showing any enthusiasm. For him, the Cossacks were simply a branch of the Russian army. Good soldiers, but incapable of performing the miracles everyone attributed to them. “That Tchernoff!” Argensola would exclaim. “Because he hates the Tsar, he finds everything about his country wrong. He’s a fanatical revolutionary… and I’m an enemy of all fanaticism.” Julio listened distractedly to his companion’s news, the vibrant articles recited in a declamatory tone, the campaign plans he discussed before an enormous map fixed to a wall of the study and bristling with little flags marking the positions of the warring armies. Each newspaper forced the Spaniard to perform a new dance of pins on the map, followed by comments of an optimistic… Bomb test. We’ve entered Alsace: very good!… It seems we’re now leaving Alsace: perfect! I can guess the reason. It’s to re-enter through a better route, catching the enemy from behind… They say Liège has fallen. Lies!… And if it falls, it doesn’t matter. Just an incident. There are the others… the others! who are advancing from the east and are going to enter Berlin. News from the Russian front was his favorite; but he was left in suspense every time he searched the letter for the convoluted names of those places where the admired Cossacks were performing their feats. Meanwhile, Julius continued the course of his thoughts. Margarita!… She had finally returned, and yet she seemed to live ever more distant from him… In the first days of the mobilization, he lingered near her house, believing he was deceiving her desire with this illusory closeness. Margarita had written to him to advise him to remain calm. Lucky him, being a foreigner, he wouldn’t suffer the consequences of the war! His brother, a reserve artillery officer, was about to leave . His mother, who lived with this unmarried son, had shown astonishing composure at the last minute, after weeping a great deal in the preceding days, when the war was still uncertain. She herself packed the soldier’s kit, ensuring the small suitcase contained everything indispensable for life on campaign. But Margarita sensed the poor woman’s inner torment and her struggle to keep it from showing outwardly in the moisture of her eyes, in the nervousness of her hands. It was impossible for her to leave her mother for a single moment… Then came the farewell. “Goodbye, my son! Do your duty, but be prudent.” Not a tear, not a sign of weakness. The whole family had objected to her accompanying him to the train. His sister would go with him. And when Margarita returned home, she found her mother in an armchair, rigid, with a sullen expression, avoiding mentioning her son, speaking of the friends who were also sending their sons to war , as if only they knew this torment. “Poor Mama! I must be with her, now more than ever… Tomorrow, if I can, I’ll come to see you.” Finally, she returned to the rue de la Pompe. Her first concern was to explain to Giulio the modesty of her tailored suit, the absence of jewelry in her attire. “The war, my friend. Now the fashionable thing is to adapt to the circumstances, to be sober and modest like soldiers. Who knows what awaits us!” The concern about clothing accompanied her at every moment of her life. Giulio noticed in her a persistent distraction. It seemed that her spirit was leaving the confines of her body, wandering over vast distances. Her eyes looked at him, but perhaps they did not see him. She spoke slowly, as if she were subjecting each word to a preliminary examination, fearing to betray some secret. This spiritual distance did not, however, prevent their physical closeness. They were drawn to one another by the irresistible force of physical attraction. She surrendered willingly, sliding down the gentle slope of habit; but upon regaining her composure, she showed a vague remorse. “Is what we are doing right?… Isn’t it unwise to continue this same existence when so many misfortunes are about to befall the world?” Julio dismissed these scruples. ” But we are going to get married as soon as we can!… We are already husband and wife!” She replied with a gesture of surprise and discouragement. “Get married!… Ten days before, she desired nothing else. Now, only occasionally did the possibility of marriage arise in her mind. Why dwell on distant and uncertain events! More immediate matters occupied her thoughts.” Her brother’s farewell at the station was a scene etched in her memory. Going to her study, she resolved not to think of it, sensing that this account might upset her lover. And it was enough for her to swear silence for her to feel an irresistible urge to tell everything. She had never suspected that she loved her brother so much. Her affection Fraternal affection was tinged with a slight feeling of jealousy because Mama favored the eldest son. Besides, he was the one who had introduced Laurier to the family: they both had degrees in industrial engineering and had been inseparable since school… But seeing him about to leave , Margarita suddenly recognized that this brother, always considered second best, held a special place in her heart. He looked so handsome, so interesting, in his lieutenant’s uniform! He seemed like a different person. I confess that I walked proudly beside him, leaning on his arm. People thought we were married. Seeing me cry, some poor women tried to console me. “Courage, madam! Your husband will return.” And he laughed at these misunderstandings. He only showed sadness when he thought of our mother. They had parted at the station gate. The sentries wouldn’t let them go any further. She handed him her saber, which she had wanted to carry until the very last moment. ” It’s wonderful to be a man,” he said enthusiastically. “I’d like to wear a uniform, go to war, be of some use.” She refused to speak further, as if suddenly realizing the inappropriateness of her last words. Perhaps she noticed a twitch in Julio’s face. But she was excited by the memory of that farewell, and after a long pause, she could no longer resist the urge to express her thoughts. At the station entrance, while kissing her brother for the last time, she had had an encounter, a great surprise. He had arrived, also dressed as an artillery officer, but alone, having to entrust his suitcase to a kind man from the crowd. Julio made a questioning gesture. Who was he? He suspected, but feigned ignorance, as if afraid to learn the truth. ” Laurier,” she answered laconically. “My former husband.” The lover displayed cruel irony. It was a cowardly act to denigrate this man who had gone to do his duty. He recognized his vileness, but a malignant and irresistible instinct made him persist in his mockery, to humiliate him in Margarita’s eyes. “Laurier the soldier!… He must have looked ridiculous in uniform. Laurier the warrior!” she continued in a sarcastic voice that struck her as odd, as if it came from someone else. “Poor man!”… She hesitated in her reply so as not to upset Desnoyers. But the truth prevailed, and she said simply: “No… he didn’t look bad. He was someone else. Perhaps it was the uniform; perhaps it was his sadness at marching alone, completely alone, without a hand to clasp his. It took me a while to recognize him. When he saw my brother, he came closer; but then, seeing me, he kept going… Poor man! I feel sorry for him! ” Her feminine instinct must have told her that she was talking too much, and she abruptly cut her off. The same instinct also told her why Julio’s face was darkening and his mouth was forming a bitter smile. She wanted to console him, and added: ” Luckily, you’re a foreigner and you won’t be going to war.” “How awful it would be if I lost you!”… She said it sincerely… Moments before, she had envied men, admiring the gallantry with which they faced life, and now she trembled at the thought that her lover could be one of them. He did not appreciate her selfish love, which set him apart from others, like a delicate and fragile being, fit only for feminine adoration . He preferred to inspire the envy she had felt upon seeing her brother clad in warlike trappings. It seemed to him that something had just come between him and Margarita, something that would never crumble, that would only widen, repelling them in opposite directions… far… very far away, until they could no longer recognize each other when their eyes met. He continued to harp on this obstacle in their subsequent meetings. Margarita exaggerated her words of affection, looking at him with moist eyes. Her caressing hands seemed more like a mother’s than a lover’s; her tenderness was accompanied by an extraordinary disinterest and modesty. She stubbornly stayed in her study, avoiding going to the other rooms. rooms. We’re fine here… I don’t want to: it’s useless. I would have remorse… To think of such things at this moment!… The atmosphere was saturated with love for her; but it was a new love, a love for the suffering man, a desire for selflessness, for sacrifice. This love evoked an image of white headdresses, of trembling hands tending to torn and bleeding flesh. Every attempt at possession provoked in Margarita a vehement and modest protest, as if the two were meeting for the first time. It’s impossible, she would say: I think of my brother; I think of so many I know who may have died by now. News of battles was arriving; blood was beginning to flow freely . No, I can’t, she would repeat. And when Julio managed to get what he wanted, using supplication or passionate violence, he would crush in his arms a being devoid of will, who abandoned a part of her body to insensibility, while her head independently continued its mental work. One afternoon, Margarita announced that they would see each other less frequently from now on. She had to attend her classes: she only had two days off left. Desnoyers listened, dumbfounded. Her classes?… What were her studies?… She seemed irritated by his mocking gesture. “Yes; I was studying; I had been attending classes for a week. Now the lessons were going to be more frequent: the teaching had been organized; there were more teachers . I want to be a nurse. I suffer greatly when I consider my uselessness… What good have I been until now?” She paused for a moment, as if taking in her entire past with her imagination. ” Sometimes I think,” she continued, “that war, with all its horrors, has something good about it. It serves to make us useful to our fellow human beings. We appreciate life more seriously; misfortune makes us understand that we have come into the world for something… I believe that we must love existence not only for the pleasures it provides.” There must be great satisfaction in sacrifice, in dedicating ourselves to others, and this satisfaction, I don’t know why, perhaps because it is new, seems superior to the others. Julio looked at her with surprise, imagining what might exist inside her adored and frivolous little head. What was forming beyond her brow, contracted by the rough movement of ideas, which until then had only reflected the faint shadow of thoughts swift and fluttering like birds?… But the Margarita of before still lived. He saw her reappear with a graceful pout amidst the worries that the war made grow over souls like somber foliage. You have to study hard to get a nursing diploma. Have you noticed the dress?… It’s most distinguished: white suits blondes and brunettes alike. Then there’s the cap, which allows for curls over the ears, the fashionable hairstyle; And the blue cape over the uniform, which offers a lovely contrast… An elegant woman can enhance all this with understated jewelry and chic shoes. It’s a mixture of nun and grand lady that doesn’t look bad. She was going to study with real fury to be of service to her fellow human beings… and soon wear the admired uniform. Poor Desnoyers!… The need to see her and the lack of occupation during those interminable afternoons, which until then had been more pleasantly occupied, drew him to linger near a perpetually unoccupied palace, where the government had just established the nursing school. Standing on a corner, waiting for the flutter of a skirt and the little trot of feminine feet on the sidewalk , he imagined he had traveled back in time and was still eighteen years old, just as he had been when he waited near a famous dressmaker’s workshop. The groups of women who emerged from that palace at certain times made this resemblance even more believable. They were dressed with affected modesty: many of them looked more humble than the fashion industry workers. But they were Grand ladies. Some arrived in cars whose chauffeurs wore military uniforms, as they were official government vehicles. These long waits afforded him unexpected encounters with the elegant students coming and going. “Desnoyers!” exclaimed female voices behind him. “Isn’t that Desnoyers?”… And he was obliged to dispel the doubt by greeting some ladies who gazed at him as if he were a ghost. They were friends from a distant time, from six months before; ladies who had admired and pursued him, trusting in his masterly wisdom to traverse the seven circles of the science of tango. They examined him as if between their last meeting and this present moment a great cataclysm had occurred, transforming all the laws of existence, as if he were the sole and miraculous survivor of a completely vanished humanity. They all ended up asking the same questions: “Aren’t you going to war?… Why aren’t you wearing a uniform?” He tried to explain himself, but they interrupted him after the first few words: ” It’s true… You’re a foreigner.” They said it with a certain envy. They were undoubtedly thinking of their loved ones who were enduring the privations and risks of war at that very moment … But his status as a foreigner instantly created a certain spiritual distance, a strangeness that Julio hadn’t known in the good old days, when people sought each other out without regard for origin, without experiencing the withdrawal that danger imposes, which isolates and concentrates human groups. The ladies took their leave with a malicious suspicion. What was he doing there waiting? Was some new adventure in store for him by his good fortune?… And their smiles held something grave about them: the smiles of older people who know the true meaning of life and feel pity for the deluded souls who still amuse themselves with frivolities. This hurt Julio, as if it were a manifestation of pity. They imagined him performing the only function he was capable of; he couldn’t be good for anything else. In contrast, those flighty women, who still retained something of their former selves, seemed animated by a profound maternal instinct: an abstract maternal instinct that encompassed all the men of their nation, a desire to sacrifice themselves, to experience firsthand the privations of the humble, to suffer alongside all the miseries of diseased flesh. Margarita felt this same fervor as she left her lessons. She progressed from one astonishment to another, hailing the first rudiments of surgery as great scientific marvels. She marveled at herself for the eagerness with which she grasped these mysteries, never before suspected . At times, with charming immodesty, she believed she had strayed from the true purpose of her existence. “Who knows if I was born to be a great doctor!” she would say. Her fear was that she would lack composure when it came to putting her new knowledge into practice. The sight of the stench of open wounds, the sight of the gushing blood, was horrifying to her, for she had always felt an invincible revulsion toward the base necessities of ordinary life. But her hesitations were short-lived: a manly energy suddenly stirred within her. These were times of sacrifice. Didn’t men tear themselves away from all the comforts of a sensual existence to follow the harsh path of the soldier?… She would be a soldier in skirts, staring pain in the face, battling it, plunging her hands into the putrefaction of decomposing matter , penetrating like a smile of light into the places where soldiers groaned, awaiting death. She proudly recounted to Desnoyers all the progress she made at the school, the intricate bandages she managed to apply, sometimes on the limbs of a mannequin, other times on the flesh of an employee who agreed to feign the posture of a wounded man. She, so delicate, incapable of the slightest physical effort at home, learned the most skillful procedures for lifting a human body from the ground Carrying him on her back. Who knew if she would ever serve on the battlefields! She was ready for the greatest daring feats, with the ignorant audacity of women when a gust of heroism drives them. All her admiration was for the nurses of the English army, lean ladies of nervous vigor, who appeared in newspaper photographs wearing trousers, riding boots, and white helmets. Julio listened to her in astonishment. But was this woman really Margarita?… The war had erased her graceful frivolity. She no longer marched like a bird. Her feet planted firmly on the ground, manly, calm, and confident in the new strength developing within her . When one of his caresses reminded her of her womanhood, she always said the same thing: “How lucky you are a foreigner!… How wonderful to see you free from the war!” In her yearning for sacrifice, she wanted to go to the battlefields, and at the same time, she celebrated as a blessing to see her lover free from military duties. This illogical situation was not received by Julio with gratitude; rather, it irritated him like an unconscious insult. “Anyone would think she’s protecting me,” he thought. “She’s the man, and she’s glad that the weak companion, which is me, is safe from danger… What a grotesque situation!” Fortunately, some afternoons, when Margarita appeared in the study, she was the same as before, making him instantly forget his worries. She arrived with the carefree joy of a schoolboy or an employee on their days off. Having been burdened with obligations, she had learned the value of time. ” No class today!” she would shout upon entering. And throwing her hat onto a divan, she would begin a little dance step, fleeing with childish shrugs from her lover’s arms. After a few minutes, she would regain her composure, the grave expression that had been common in her since the beginning of the hostilities. She spoke of her mother, always sad, striving to hide her grief and sustained by the hope of a letter from her son; she spoke of the war, commenting on the latest actions according to the rhetorical optimism of the official reports. She meticulously described the first flag captured from the enemy, as if it were a garment of unprecedented elegance. She had seen it in a window of the War Ministry. She grew tender as she repeated the stories of some Belgian refugees who had arrived at her hospital. They were the only patients she had been able to care for until then. Paris was not yet receiving war wounded; by order of the government, they were being sent from the front to hospitals in the South. She no longer offered the resistance she had shown in the first few days to Julio’s wishes. Her nursing apprenticeship gave her a certain passivity. She seemed to disdain the allurements of the material world, stripping them of the spiritual importance she had attributed to them until recently. She surrendered without resistance, without desire, with a smile of tolerance, content to be able to offer a little happiness, in which she herself did not share. Her attention had been focused on other concerns. One afternoon, while in the bedroom of the study, she felt the need to communicate certain news that had filled her thoughts since the previous day . She jumped out of bed, searching among her disheveled clothes for her handbag, which contained a letter. She wanted to read it once more, to communicate its contents to someone with the irresistible impulse that compels one to confession. It was a letter her brother had sent her from the Vosges Mountains. In it, he spoke more of Laurier than of himself. They belonged to different batteries, but were part of the same division and had fought in the same battles. The officer admired his former brother-in-law. Who could have guessed a future hero in that quiet, unassuming engineer!… And yet, he was a true hero. Margarita’s brother proclaimed it , and with him all the officers who had seen him calmly fulfill his duty, facing death with the same coldness as if he were in his factory, near Paris. He requested the risky position of observer, sneaking as close as possible to the enemy to monitor the accuracy of the artillery fire, correcting it with his telephone signals. A German shell had demolished the house in whose roof he was hiding. Laurier, emerging unscathed from the rubble, readjusted his telephone and calmly went to continue the same work in the branches of a nearby grove. His battery, discovered in an unfavorable engagement by enemy aircraft, had received concentrated fire from the artillery in front. In a few minutes, all the personnel were on the ground : the captain and several soldiers were dead, the officers and almost all the gun crews were wounded. Only Laurier the Imperturbable, as his comrades called him, remained as commander, and aided by the few gunners who were still standing, he continued firing, under a hail of iron and fire, to cover the retreat of a battalion. “They’ve mentioned him twice in the daily orders,” Margarita continued reading. I think he’ll get the cross soon. He’s quite the brave man. Who would have believed it a few weeks ago!…» She didn’t share this astonishment. Living with Laurier, she had often glimpsed the firmness of his character, the daring concealed by his placid exterior. Instinct had warned her, making her fear her husband’s wrath in the early days of her infidelity. She remembered the man’s gesture when he surprised her one night as she left Julio’s house. He was the kind of passionate men who kill. And yet, he hadn’t attempted the slightest violence against her… The memory of this respect awakened in Margarita a feeling of gratitude. Perhaps he had loved her like no other man. Her eyes, with an irresistible desire for comparison, were fixed on Desnoyers, admiring his youthful gentleness. The image of Laurier, heavy and vulgar, came to her memory as a consolation. It was true that the officer she had interviewed at the station while seeing her brother off didn’t resemble her former husband. But Margarita wanted to forget the pale, sad-looking lieutenant who had passed before her eyes, to remember only the industrialist preoccupied with profits and incapable of understanding what she called “the refinements of a chic woman.” Decidedly, Julio was more seductive. He didn’t regret his past: he didn’t want to. And his amorous selfishness made him repeat the same exclamations once more : “How lucky you are a foreigner!… How wonderful to see you free from the dangers of war!” Julio felt his usual irritation upon hearing this. He almost clamped his hand over his lover’s mouth. Did she want to mock him?… It was an insult to set him apart from other men. Meanwhile, she, in the illogical state of her bewilderment, insisted on talking about Laurier, commenting on his exploits. ” I don’t love him, I never have. Don’t look so sad.” How can the poor fellow compare himself to you?… But one must admit that his new life offers a certain interest. I rejoice in his exploits as if they were those of an old friend, a visit from my family whom I haven’t seen in a long time… The poor fellow deserved better: to have found a woman other than me, a companion on par with his aspirations… I tell you, I pity him. And this pity was so intense that it moistened his eyes, awakening in the lover the torment of jealousy. Desnoyers emerged from these meetings sullen and gloomy. ” I suspect we’re in a false situation,” he said one morning to Argensola; “life is going to become increasingly painful for us. It’s difficult to remain calm, continuing the same existence as before, in the midst of a nation at war.” The companion believed the same. He, too, considered his existence as a young foreigner in this war-torn Paris unbearable . One must constantly show one’s papers so that the police are convinced they haven’t found a deserter. The other afternoon, in a subway car, I had to explain to some girls that I was Spanish . They were surprised I wasn’t at the front… One of them, after learning my nationality, simply asked me why I didn’t volunteer… Now they’ve invented a word: “ambushed.” I’m fed up with the ironic looks my youth receives everywhere ; it infuriates me that they mistake me for a French “ambushed.” A surge of heroism shook the impressionable bohemian. Since everyone was going to war, he wanted to do the same. He wasn’t afraid of death: the only thing that terrified him was military servitude, the uniform, the mechanical obedience at the sound of a trumpet, the blind submission to the officers. Fighting itself presented no difficulties for him, but only if he acted freely or commanded others, for his temperament bristled at anything that smacked of discipline. The foreign groups in Paris were each trying to organize their legion of volunteers, and he was also planning his own: a battalion of Spaniards and Latin Americans, naturally reserving for himself the presidency of the organizing committee and then the command of the corps. He had placed advertisements in the newspapers: the registration point was his studio on the rue de la Pompe. In ten days, two volunteers had come forward : an office worker, suffering from a cold in the middle of summer, who demanded to be an officer because he wore a morning coat, and a Spanish tavern owner who, at first , tried to strip Argensola of his command on the flimsy pretext of having been a soldier in his youth, while the other was merely a painter. Twenty Spanish battalions were being formed simultaneously with equal success in different parts of Paris. Each enthusiast wanted to be the leader of the others, with the individualistic pride and aversion to discipline typical of the race. Finally, the future leaders, lacking soldiers, sought to enlist as mere volunteers… but in a French regiment. “I’ll wait and see what the Garibaldis do,” Argensola said modestly. “Perhaps I’ll go with them.” This glorious name made the military servitude tolerable. But then he hesitated: he would have to obey someone in this volunteer corps anyway , and he was averse to obedience that wasn’t preceded by lengthy discussions… “What to do? Life has changed in half a month,” he continued. “It seems we’ve landed on another planet: our former skills are useless. Others rise to the front ranks, the humblest and most obscure, those who previously occupied the lowest rung. The refined man of intellectual complexity has sunk, who knows for how many years… Now the simple man, with limited but firm ideas, who knows how to obey, rises to the surface as a triumphant figure . We’re no longer in fashion.” Desnoyers nodded. That was it: they were no longer in fashion. He could attest to it, having known notoriety and now passing as a stranger among the very people who had admired him months before. ” Your reign is over,” Argensola said, laughing. “Being handsome is of no use to you. I, in uniform and with a cross on my chest, would beat you now in a love match. The officer only makes provincial young ladies dream in times of peace. But we are at war, and every woman harbors the ancestral enthusiasm her distant grandmothers felt for the aggressive and strong beast… The great ladies who months ago complicated their desires with psychological subtleties now admire the soldier with the same simplicity as a maid who seeks out a regular soldier . They feel before the uniform the humble and servile enthusiasm of lower animalities before the crests, manes, and plumage of their fighting males. Look, maestro!… We must follow the new course of time or resign ourselves to perishing obscurely: the tango is dead.” And Desnoyers thought that, indeed, they were two beings who were on the margins of life. Life had taken a leap, changing course. There was no place left in the new existence for that poor painter of souls and for him, hero of a frivolous life, who had achieved, between five and seven in the evening, the triumphs most envied by men. Chapter 8. The retreat. The war had extended one of its tentacles as far as Victor Hugo Avenue . It was a silent war, in which the enemy, soft, shapeless, gelatinous, seemed to slip through their fingers only to resume hostilities a little further on. “I have Germany in my house,” Marcelo Desnoyers said. Germany was Doña Elena, von Hartrott’s wife. Why hadn’t her son, that professor of unbearable inadequacy, whom he now considered a spy, taken her with him?… What sentimental whim had made him want to stay by his sister’s side, missing the opportunity to return to Berlin before the borders closed?… The presence of this woman was a source of remorse and alarm for him. Fortunately, the servants, the chauffeur, all the male servants, were in the army. The two Chinese women received an order in a threatening tone. Be very careful when speaking to the other French maids; not the slightest allusion to the nationality of Doña Elena’s husband or to his family’s address. Doña Elena was Argentinian… But despite the maids’ silence, Don Marcelo feared some denunciation from the fervent patriots, who tirelessly hunted for spies, and that his wife’s sister would be confined to a concentration camp as a suspect in dealings with the enemy. Mrs. von Hartrott responded poorly to these anxieties. Instead of maintaining a discreet silence, she sowed discord in the house with her opinions. During the first days of the war, she remained locked in her room, joining the family only when summoned to the dining room. With pursed lips and a vacant stare, she sat at the table, pretending not to hear Don Marcelo’s outbursts of enthusiasm . He described troop sorties, the moving scenes in the streets and train stations, commenting with an unwavering optimism on the first news of the war. Two things he considered above all discussion. The bayonet was the Frenchman’s secret weapon, and the Germans felt a shudder of terror at its gleam, inevitably fleeing. The 75-pounder cannon had proven itself a unique jewel. Only its shots were accurate. He felt sorry for the enemy artillery , because if it ever happened to hit its target, its shells never exploded… Besides, the French troops had entered Alsace victoriously: several towns were already theirs. ” Now it’s not like in ’70,” he said, brandishing his fork or waving his napkin. “We’re going to kick them to the other side of the Rhine. Kick them !… That’s it!” Chichi nodded enthusiastically, while Doña Elena raised her eyes as if silently protesting to someone hidden in the ceiling, calling them to witness so many errors and blasphemies. Doña Luisa would later seek her out in the seclusion of her room, believing her to be in need of comfort from living so far from her family. “The Romantic” could not maintain her dignified silence before this sister who had always obeyed her superior instruction. And the poor lady was left bewildered by the account she gave of Germany’s enormous forces, delivered with all the authority of the wife of a great German patriot and the mother of a nearly famous professor. Millions of men poured forth from her lips; then thousands of cannons paraded by, monstrous mortars, enormous as towers. And above these immense forces of destruction appeared a man who alone was worth an army, who knew everything and could do everything, handsome, intelligent, and infallible as a god: the Emperor. ” The French are unaware of what lies before them,” Doña Elena continued. “They will be annihilated. It’s a matter of a couple of weeks. Before the end of August, the Emperor will have entered Paris.” Impressed by these prophecies, Mrs. Desnoyers could not hide them from her family. Chichí was indignant at his mother’s credulity and his aunt’s Germanic beliefs. A belligerent fervor had seized the former “little farmhand.” Oh, if only women could go to the War!… She pictured herself riding in a dragoon regiment, charging the enemy alongside other Amazons as haughty and beautiful as herself. Then, her passion for skating took precedence over her riding aspirations, and she longed to be an alpine hunter, a “blue devil” who glided on long skates, rifle on his back and alpenstock in his right hand, down the snowy slopes of the Vosges. But the government despised women, and she could gain no other participation in the war than admiring the uniform of her fiancé , René Lacour, now a soldier. The senator’s son was quite a sight. Tall, blond, with a somewhat feminine delicacy reminiscent of his late mother, René was a “sugar little soldier” in his sweetheart’s opinion. Chichi felt a certain pride when she went out into the street beside this warrior, finding that the uniform had enhanced his charm . But a setback gradually clouded her joy. The senatorial prince was nothing more than a common soldier. His illustrious father, fearing that the war would forever end the Lacour dynasty, so precious to the State, had him assigned to the army’s auxiliary services. In this way, Lacour the younger would never leave Paris. But in such a situation, he was a soldier no different from those who knead bread or mend greatcoats. Only by going to the front lines could his status as a student at the École Centrale make him a second lieutenant attached to the reserve artillery. “How wonderful that you’re staying in Paris! How I love that you’re just a simple soldier!”… And at the same time that Chichi was saying this, she was thinking enviously of her friends whose boyfriends and brothers were officers. They could go out into the street escorted by a braided kepi that attracted the glances of passersby and the salutes of their inferiors. Every time Doña Luisa, terrified by her sister’s predictions, tried to share her fear with her daughter, the latter would react furiously: “Auntie’s lying!… Since her husband is German, he sees everything according to his own desires. Papa knows better; René’s father is better informed about things. We’re going to give them a good thrashing. How wonderful it would be to see my uncle in Berlin and all my pretentious cousins beaten up!” ” Shut up,” the mother moaned. “Don’t talk nonsense. The war has driven you mad, just like your father.” The good lady was scandalized by the outburst of her savage desires whenever she thought of the emperor. In times of peace, Chichi had somewhat admired this man. “He’s handsome,” she’d say, “but with a very common smile.” Now she focused all her hatred on him. “The women who were crying because of him at this hour!” Mothers without children, women without husbands, poor abandoned children before burning towns!… Ah, evil man!… In her right hand appeared the old “peoncito” knife, a dagger with a silver hilt and chiseled sheath, a gift from her grandfather, which she had unearthed from among the mementos of her childhood, forgotten in a suitcase. The first German who approached her was condemned to death. Doña Luisa was terrified watching her brandish the weapon before the mirror of her dressing table. She no longer wanted to be a cavalry soldier or a “blue devil.” She was content to be left in an enclosed space, facing the hateful monster. In five minutes she would resolve the world conflict. “Defend yourself, Boche!” she would shout, taking up a fighting stance, as she had seen the ranch hands do in her childhood. And with a slash from bottom to top, she would spill out the majestic entrails. Immediately afterward, an acclamation resounded in her brain, the gigantic sigh of millions of women who saw themselves freed from the bloodiest of nightmares thanks to her, who was Judith, Charlotte Corday, a summary of all the heroic women who killed for good. Her saving fury made her continue, knife in hand, the imaginary slaughter. Second blow!: the crown prince rolling to one side and his head to the other. A rain of stabs!: all the invincible generals her aunt spoke of fleeing with their entrails hanging out. Her hands, and trailing behind them, like a flattering lackey who also received his share, was the uncle from Berlin… Oh, if only he had the chance to fulfill his desires! “You’re crazy!” protested the mother: “Completely crazy. How can a young lady say such a thing?”… Doña Elena, upon catching glimpses of these delusions of her niece, would raise her eyes to heaven, henceforth refraining from sharing her opinions with her, reserving them entirely for the mother. Don Marcelo’s indignation took another form when his wife repeated the news from his sister. “All lies!”… The war was progressing perfectly. On the eastern border, the French armies had advanced through the interior of Alsace and the annexed Lorraine. “But what about the invaded Belgium?” asked Doña Luisa. “And the poor Belgians? ” Desnoyers replied indignantly: “That business with Belgium is treason… And treason is worthless among decent people.” He said it in good faith, as if the war were a duel where the traitor was disqualified and unable to continue his treachery. Moreover, the heroic resistance of Belgium filled him with absurd illusions. The Belgians seemed to him like supernatural men destined for the most astonishing feats… And he, who until then had paid no attention whatsoever to this people! For a few days, he saw Liège as a holy city before whose walls all Germanic power would be shattered . When Liège fell, his unwavering faith found new support. There were many more Lièges inland. The Germans could penetrate further: then it remained to be seen how many would manage to escape. The surrender of Brussels did not unsettle him. An open city! Its surrender was expected: this way the Belgians would be better able to defend themselves in Antwerp. The German advance toward the French border also alarmed him. In vain, his sister-in-law, with malicious brevity, kept mentioning in the dining room the progress of the invasion, reported vaguely by the newspapers. The Germans were already at the border. “So what?” Don Marcelo shouted. “They’ll soon find someone to talk to. Joffre is standing in their way. Our armies were in the East, where they belonged, at the true border, at our doorstep . But this one is a traitorous and cowardly friend, who instead of facing us, sneaks in from behind, jumping over the farmyard walls, just like thieves … His treachery will do him no good. The French are already in Belgium and will settle accounts with the Germans. We will crush them, so they never again disturb the peace of the world. And that damned fellow with the stiff mustache we will display in a cage in the Place de la Concorde.” Chichi, encouraged by her father’s pronouncements, began to imagine a series of vengeful tortures and humiliations to accompany such an exhibition. What irritated Mrs. von Hartrott most were the allusions to the Emperor. In the early days of the war, her sister had found her weeping at the caricatures in the newspapers and leaflets sold on the streets. “Such an excellent man… such a gentleman… such a good father ! He’s not to blame for anything. It’s the enemies who have provoked him. ” And her veneration of the powerful made her consider the insults against the admired figure with more vehemence than if they were directed at her own family. One evening, while in the dining room, she abandoned her tragic silence. Several sarcastic remarks made by Desnoyers against the hero brought tears to her eyes. This outburst served to remind her of her sons, who were undoubtedly in the invading army. Her brother-in-law desired the extermination of all the enemies. “Let not a single one of those barbarians with pointed helmets remain, those who had just set fire to Leuven and other towns, shooting defenseless civilians, women, the elderly, children!… You forget that I am a mother,” moaned Madame de Hartrott. “You forget that among those whose extermination you demand are my children.” And she burst into tears. Desnoyers suddenly saw the chasm that existed between He and that woman staying in his own house. His indignation overcame any family considerations… He could weep for his sons as much as he wanted: it was his right. But these sons were aggressors and did evil willingly. He was only interested in the other mothers who lived peacefully in the cheerful Belgian towns and had suddenly seen their sons shot, their daughters run over, their homes burning. Doña Elena wept harder, as if this description of horrors were a new insult to her. All lies! The Kaiser was an excellent man, his soldiers gentlemen, the German army an example of civilization and kindness. Her husband had belonged to this army; her sons marched in its ranks. And she knew her sons: well-mannered young men, incapable of any wrongdoing. Slander from the Belgians, which she could not calmly listen to… And she threw herself with dramatic abandon into her sister’s arms. Mr. Desnoyers felt furious at fate, which forced him to live with this woman. What a burden for the family!… And the borders remained closed, making it impossible to break free from her. “Very well,” he said; “let’s not speak of it anymore: we’ll never understand each other. We belong to two different worlds. It’s a pity you can’t go with your own people!”… From then on, he refrained from speaking of the war when his sister-in-law was present. Chichi was the only one who retained her aggressive and boisterous enthusiasm . When she read in the newspapers news of executions, looting, the burning of cities, the painful exodus of people who saw everything that brought joy to their lives reduced to ashes, she felt once again the need to repeat her imaginary stabbings. Oh, if only she had one of those bandits at hand ! What were good men doing that they didn’t exterminate them all?… Then he would see René in his brand-new uniform, gentle in his manner, smiling, as if everything that was happening meant only a change of clothes to him, and he would exclaim in an enigmatic tone: “How lucky you’re not going to the front!… How wonderful that you’re not in danger!” The groom accepted these words as proof of loving concern. One day, Don Marcello was able to witness the horrors of war without leaving Paris . Three thousand Belgian refugees were being temporarily housed in a circus, before being distributed to the provinces. Desnoyers entered this establishment, which he had visited months before with his family. The advertisements for the joyous spectacles he had seen were still displayed in the lobby . Inside, he perceived a stench of a sick, miserable, and crammed-together crowd, similar to the smell one gets in a prison or a poor hospital. He saw people who seemed mad or stupid with grief. They didn’t know exactly where they were; they had arrived there without knowing how. The horrific spectacle of the invasion lingered in their memory, occupying it entirely, leaving no room for subsequent impressions. They still saw the avalanche of helmeted men entering their peaceful villages: houses suddenly engulfed in flames, soldiers firing on those who fled, women dying, torn apart by the relentless onslaught of carnal outrage, the elderly burned alive, children hacked to pieces with sabers in their cradles—all the sadism of the human beast inflamed by alcohol and impunity… Some octogenarians recounted, weeping, how the soldiers of a civilized nation cut off women’s breasts to nail them to doors, how they paraded a newborn impaled on a bayonet as a trophy, how they shot the elderly in the very armchairs where their painful old age had rendered them immobile, after first torturing them with ludicrous tortures . They had fled without knowing where they were going, pursued by fire and shrapnel, mad with terror, like medieval crowds fleeing before the galloping hordes of Huns and Mongols. And this escape had been through Nature in full bloom, in the most opulent of months. When the earth bristled with ears of grain, when the August sky was brightest and the birds greeted the bounty of the harvest with their raucous cries, the vision of the immense crime resurfaced in that circus teeming with wandering crowds. Children whimpered with cries like the bleating of lambs; men looked around with terrified eyes; some women howled like madwomen. Families had scattered in the terror of flight. One mother of five children had only one left. The parents, finding themselves alone, thought anxiously of the missing. Would they ever find them again?… Had they died by now?… Don Marcelo returned home gritting his teeth, waving his cane in an alarming manner. Ah, bandits!… He suddenly wished his sister-in-law could change sex; why wasn’t she a man?… It seemed even better to him if she could suddenly take the form of her husband, von Hartrott. What an interesting interview the two brothers-in-law had! The war had awakened religious sentiment in men and increased the devotion of women. The churches were full. Doña Luisa no longer limited her excursions to the churches of her district. With the audacity that extraordinary circumstances inspire, she would set off on foot across Paris, going to the Madeleine, Notre Dame , or the distant Sacré-Cœur atop Montmartre. Religious festivals were enlivened by the passion of popular assemblies. The preachers were tribunes. Patriotic enthusiasm sometimes punctuated the sermons with applause. Every morning, upon opening the newspapers, before looking for the war telegrams , Madame Desnoyers would pursue another piece of news. “Where will Monsignor Amette go today?” Then, beneath the vaults of the church, she would join her voice to the devout choir imploring supernatural intervention. “Lord, save France!” Patriotic piety placed Saint Genevieve at the head of the blessed. And from all these celebrations she returned trembling with faith, hoping for a miracle like the one the saint of Paris had performed before Attila’s invading hordes . Doña Elena also visited churches, but only those closest to the house. Her brother-in-law saw her enter Saint Honorée d’Eylau one afternoon. The church was packed with the faithful; on the altar, the flags of France and the allied nations were displayed in a bundle. The imploring crowd was not composed solely of women. Desnoyers saw men her own age, upright, solemn, moving their lips, fixing a glassy gaze on the altar that reflected the candle flames like lost stars … And she felt envy again… They were fathers remembering the prayers of their childhood, thinking of the battles and their sons. Don Marcelo, who had always regarded religion with indifference, suddenly recognized the necessity of faith. He wanted to pray like the others, with a vague, undefined prayer, encompassing in it all those who fought and died for a land he had failed to defend. He watched in dismay as Hartrott’s wife knelt among these people, then raised her eyes to fix them on the cross with a look of anguished supplication. She prayed to heaven for her German husband, who perhaps at that very moment was employing all his fanatical faculties in the more efficient organization of the crushing of the weak; she prayed for her sons, officers of the King of Prussia, who, revolvers in hand, entered villages and farms, leading the terrified crowds before them, leaving fire and death in their wake. And these prayers were going to be mingled with those of the mothers who begged for the youth charged with holding back the barbarians, with the pleas of those grave and rigid men in their tragic grief!… He had to restrain himself from shouting, and he left the temple. His sister-in-law had no right to kneel among those people. They should expel her, he muttered indignantly. She puts God in a difficult position with her absurd prayers. But, despite his anger, he had to endure her near him, striving At the same time, he was concerned to prevent the second nationality he had acquired through marriage from becoming public knowledge . It was a great torment for Don Marcelo to restrain his words when he was in the dining room with his family. He wanted to spare his sister-in-law, who would burst into tears and sighs at the slightest allusion against her hero, the nervousness she would display; he equally feared the complaints of his wife, always quick to defend her sister as if she were a victim… That a man of his character should be forced in his own home to watch his tongue and speak in euphemisms! The only satisfaction he could afford was to give news of military operations. The French had entered Belgium. “It seems the Germans have suffered a heavy blow.” The slightest cavalry clash, a mere encounter between advance guards, he glorified as a decisive event. ” We swept them aside in Lorraine too …” But suddenly , the wellspring of optimism seemed to dry up. Nothing extraordinary was happening in the world, judging by the newspapers. They kept publishing war comics to maintain enthusiasm, but no reliable news. The government issued communiqués with vague and rhetorical sound. Desnoyers grew alarmed: his instinct warned him of danger. “Something ‘s wrong,” he thought; “something must have broken.” This lack of news coincided with a sudden change in Doña Elena’s demeanor. Who was that woman talking to? What were her encounters when she went out into the street?… Without losing her victimly humility, with a pained gaze and a slightly twisted mouth, she talked and talked treacherously. Don Marcelo’s torment at hearing the enemy sheltered in his house!… The French had been defeated simultaneously in Lorraine and Belgium. An army corps had scattered: many prisoners, many cannons lost. “Lies, exaggerations by the Germans!” Desnoyers shouted. And Chichi drowned out the news from her aunt in Berlin with her insolent girlish laughter. “I don’t know,” she continued with malicious annoyance, “perhaps it’s not true. I heard it said.” Her brother-in-law was indignant. Where had she heard it said? Who was giving her such news?… And to vent his ill humor, he would burst into imprecations against enemy espionage, against the negligence of the police, who tolerated the presence of so many Germans hidden in Paris. But suddenly he had to fall silent, thinking about his own conduct. He, too, was unwittingly contributing to maintaining and harboring the enemy. The fall of the ministry and the formation of a national defense government made him realize that something serious was happening. Doña Luisa’s alarms and tears increased his nervousness. The good lady no longer returned from her visits to the churches enthusiastic and heroic. Conversations alone with his sister instilled in him a terror that he then tried to pass on to his husband. “All is lost… Elena is the only one who knows the truth.” Desnoyers went in search of Senator Lacour. He knew all the ministers: no one was better informed than he. “Yes, my friend,” the man said sadly, “two major defeats at Morhange and Charleroi, to the East and the North. The enemy is going to invade French soil … But our army remains intact and is retreating in good order. Fortune can still change. A great misfortune, but all is not lost.” The preparations for the defense of Paris were being activated… somewhat late. The forts were being armed with new cannons; the shacks built in the firing range during the years of peace disappeared under the pickaxes of official demolition; the trees on the outer avenues were cut down to broaden the horizon; barricades of sandbags and logs blocked the gates of the old walls. Curious onlookers wandered around to admire the newly dug trenches and barbed wire fences. The Bois de Boulogne was filling with flocks. Beside mounds of dry alfalfa, bulls and sheep gathered in the meadows of fine grass. The security of their livelihood worried a population that The memory of the hardships suffered in 1870 was still vivid. Each night the streetlights grew dimmer. The sky, however, was incessantly streaked with the beams of searchlights. The fear of an air raid only increased public anxiety. Fearful people spoke of zeppelins, attributing to them an irresistible power , with the exaggeration that accompanies mysterious dangers . Doña Luisa overwhelmed her husband with her panic. He spent his days in a constant state of alarm, having to try to reassure his trembling, weeping wife. “They’re coming, Marcelo; my heart tells me so. I can’t live like this. The girl… the girl!” He blindly accepted all his sister’s assertions. The only thing he questioned was the chivalry and discipline of those troops in which his nephews served. The news of the atrocities committed against women in Belgium earned her as much faith as the enemy advances announced by Elena. “The girl, Marcelo… the girl!” And the fact was that the girl, the object of such anxieties, laughed with the insolence of her vigorous youth, upon hearing her mother: “Let those scoundrels come. I’d like to see their faces.” And she clenched her right hand, as if she were already grasping the avenging knife. The father grew tired of this situation. He still had one of his monumental automobiles, which a foreign chauffeur could drive. Senator Lacour obtained the necessary papers for the family’s trip, and Desnoyers gave orders to his wife in a tone that brooked no argument. They were to go to Biarritz or to the summer resorts of Northern Spain. Almost all the South American families had left in the same direction. Doña Luisa tried to object: it was impossible for her to leave without her husband. In all their years of marriage, they had never been apart . But Don Marcelo’s sullen refusal cut short her protests. He was staying. Then the poor woman ran to the Rue de la Pompe. “Her son!”… Julio barely heard his mother. “Oh, he was staying too!” And at last, the imposing automobile set off south, carrying Doña Luisa, her sister, who gladly accepted this separation from the Emperor’s admired troops, and Chichi, happy that the war afforded her an excursion to the fashionable beaches frequented by her friends. Don Marcelo found himself alone. The copper-skinned maids had followed the ladies’ escape by train. At first, he felt disoriented in this solitude; he found the meals in the restaurant strange, as well as the nights spent in deserted, enormous rooms that still bore the traces of his family. The other floors of the house were equally empty. All the inhabitants were foreigners who had discreetly escaped, or Frenchmen caught off guard by the war while summering on their country estates. Instinct led him on his walks to the rue de la Pompe, gazing from afar at the studio window. What would his son do?… Surely he was continuing his carefree and pointless life. For men like him, nothing existed beyond the frivolities of their selfishness. Desnoyers was satisfied with his resolve. Following the family seemed a crime to him. The memory of their escape to America tormented him enough . “No, they won’t come,” he told himself repeatedly, with the optimism of enthusiasm. “I have a feeling they won’t reach Paris. And if they do…!” The absence of his family gave him the cheerful and carefree courage of youth. Because of his age and his ailments, he was incapable of fighting in the open field, but he could fire a rifle, motionless in a trench, without fear of death. Let them come!… He longed for it with the fervor of a good payer eager to settle an old debt as soon as possible. He encountered many groups of fugitives in the streets of Paris. They were from the North and East of France and had fled before the German advance . Of all the accounts of this suffering multitude, who didn’t know where to go and had no recourse but the pity of the What impressed him most were the attacks on property. Executions and murders made him clench his fists, erupting with desires for revenge. But the thefts authorized by the leaders, the mass looting by superior order, followed by arson, seemed so unheard of that he remained silent, as if stupefaction paralyzed his thoughts. And a people with laws could wage war in this way, just like a tribe of Indians going into battle to steal! His veneration of property rights turned furiously against these sacrileges. He began to worry about his castle at Villeblanche. Everything he owned in Paris suddenly seemed of little importance compared to what he kept in the “historic mansion.” His best paintings were there, adorning the gloomy salons; there too were the furnishings wrested from antique dealers after a bidding war, and the overflowing display cases, the tapestries, the silverware. He reviewed every object in his memory, not one escaping this mental inventory. Things he had forgotten resurfaced in his recollection, and the fear of losing them seemed to give them greater brilliance, magnifying their size, infusing them with new value. All of Villeblanche’s riches were concentrated in one acquisition, the one most admired by Desnoyers, who saw in it the glory of his enormous fortune, the greatest display of luxury a millionaire could afford. “The golden bathtub,” he thought. “I have my golden tub there.” He had acquired this bath of precious metal at an auction, judging such a purchase the culminating act of his opulence. He didn’t know for certain its origin: perhaps it was a piece of furniture belonging to princes; perhaps it owed its existence to the whim of a courtesan eager for ostentation. He and his family had spun a legend around this golden basin adorned with lion’s claws, dolphins, and busts of naiads. Undoubtedly, it came from kings. Chichi gravely asserted that it was Marie Antoinette’s bathroom. And the entire family, considering their apartment on Avenue Victor Hugo too modest and bourgeois to house this jewel, had agreed to deposit it in the castle, respected, useless, and solemn like a museum piece… And could the enemy take this if they advanced to the Marne, along with the other riches gathered with such patience?… Ah, no! His collector’s soul was capable of the greatest acts of heroism to prevent it. Each day brought a new wave of bad news. The newspapers said little; the government spoke in obscure language, which plunged everyone into perplexity. However, the truth mysteriously made its way out, driven by the pessimism of the alarmists and the machinations of enemy spies hidden in Paris. People whispered the fatal news to one another: “They’ve already crossed the border…” “They’re already in Lille…” They advanced at a rate of fifty kilometers a day. The name von Kluck was becoming familiar. The English and French were retreating before the invaders’ flanking maneuver. Some were expecting another Sedan. Desnoyers followed the enemy’s advance, going daily to the North Station. Every twenty-four hours, the radius of travel for passengers shrank. Notices announcing that tickets were not being sold to certain northern towns indicated how these were falling, one after another, to the invaders. The shrinking of the national territory was carried out with methodical regularity, at a rate of fifty kilometers per day. By looking at a clock, one could predict the hour when the first Hulans would greet the appearance of the Eiffel Tower on the horizon with their lances . The trains arrived packed, clusters of people overflowing from their carriages. And it was in these moments of general anguish that Don Marcelo visited his friend Senator Lacour to astonish him with the most unheard-of request. He wanted to go to his castle immediately. While everyone else was fleeing towards Paris, he needed to go in the opposite direction. The senator did not He could hardly believe what he was hearing. “You’re crazy!” he exclaimed. “We have to leave Paris, but heading south. I’m telling you this only to you, and keep it to yourself, because it’s a secret. We’re leaving any minute now; we’re all leaving: the president, the government, the Chambers. We’ll settle in Bordeaux, just like in 1870. The enemy is coming: it’s a matter of days… of hours. We know little of what ’s happening, but all the news is bad. The army is holding firm, it’s still intact, but it’s retreating… retreating, giving ground… Believe me, the best thing is to leave Paris. Gallieni will defend it, but the defense will be hard and arduous… Even if Paris falls, France won’t fall. We’ll continue the war, if necessary, all the way to the Spanish border… But this is sad, very sad!” And he offered to take his friend with him on the retreat to Bordeaux, which very few people knew at that time. Desnoyers shook his head. “No; He longed to go to the Château de Villeblanche. Its furnishings… its riches… its park. “But you’ll be taken prisoner!” protested the senator. “Perhaps they’ll kill you!” A gesture of indifference was the reply. He considered himself strong enough to fight against all the armies of Germany defending his property. The important thing was to settle there, and that no one dare touch what was his! The senator looked in astonishment at this bourgeois, enraged by the feeling of possession. He remembered the Arab merchants, usually humble and peaceful, who fight and die like wild beasts when thieving Bedouins try to seize their goods. The moment was not for arguments: each man had to think of his own fate. The senator finally yielded to his friend’s wish. If that was his desire, he could grant it. And with his influence, he arranged for him to leave that very night on a military train bound to meet the army. This journey brought Don Marcelo face to face with the extraordinary activity that the war had generated on the railways. His train took fourteen hours to cover a distance normally traveled in two. It consisted of freight cars filled with provisions and cartridges, their doors closed and sealed. A third-class car was occupied by the train’s escort: a platoon of territorial troops. Desnoyers, along with the lieutenant commanding this group and several officers who were going to join their regiments after completing the mobilization operations in the towns they had garrisoned before the war, settled in a second-class car. The rear cars held their horses. The train stopped many times to let others pass, either those ahead of it packed with soldiers or those returning to Paris with fleeing crowds. These latter trains consisted of loading platforms, crammed with women, children, and the elderly, amidst bundles of clothing, suitcases, and wheelbarrows they had used to transport what remained of their belongings to the station. They were like mobile camps, immobilized for hours, even days, at sidings, clearing the way for the convoys driven by the pressing needs of the war. The crowds, accustomed to interminable delays, spilled out of the train, settling before the idled locomotive or spreading out into the nearby fields. At stations of any importance, all the tracks were occupied by strings of wagons. The engines, working at high speed, whistled, impatient to depart. Groups of soldiers hesitated before the various trains, getting lost, disembarking from some cars only to settle into others. The employees, calm and weary, bustled about , guiding the men, giving explanations, and arranging the loading of mountains of objects. In the convoy carrying Desnoyers, the territorial guards dozed, accustomed to the monotonous task of escorting. The horse handlers had opened the sliding doors of the wagons and sat on the edge with their legs dangling. The train moved slowly through the night, across the Fields of shadow, pausing before the red headlights to announce their presence with long whistles. At some stations, young women dressed in white, with cockades and small flags on their chests, appeared . Day and night they were there, taking turns, so that no train passed without their visit. They offered gifts to the soldiers in baskets and trays: bread, chocolate, fruit. Many, overcome with gluttony, tried to resist, but finally had to yield to the sad gestures of the young women. Even Desnoyers was overwhelmed by these gifts of patriotic fervor. He spent much of the night talking with his fellow travelers. The officers had only vague clues as to where they might find their regiments. The operations of the war changed their situation daily. But faithful to duty, they pressed on, hoping to arrive in time for the decisive battle. The head of the escort had made several trips and was the only one who knew the exact route of the retreat. Each time, the train covered a shorter distance. Everyone seemed disoriented. Why the retreat?… The army had undoubtedly suffered setbacks, but it was intact, and in his opinion, it should seek revenge in the same places. The retreat left the enemy’s advance free. How far would they retreat?… They, who just two weeks before had been discussing in their garrisons the point in Belgium where the adversaries would receive the mortal blow and through which routes the victorious troops would invade Germany!… Their disappointment did not betray discouragement. An uncertain but firm hope emerged above their hesitations: the commander-in-chief was the only one who possessed the secret of events. And Desnoyers approved, with the blind enthusiasm that people inspired in him when he placed his trust in them. Joffre!… The serious and calm leader would finally arrange everything. No one should doubt his fortune: he was one of those men who always have the last word. At dawn, he left the wagon. “Good luck.” And he shook the hands of those spirited young men, who were perhaps about to die. The train was able to continue its journey immediately upon finding the track clear, and Don Marcelo found himself alone in a station. In normal times, a branch line departed from there, passing through Villeblanche; but the service was suspended due to a lack of personnel. The employees had transferred to the main lines, which were crammed full of war transports . He searched in vain, with the most generous offers, for a horse, a simple cart pulled by any beast, to continue his journey. The mobilization had taken up the best of the people, and the other means of transport had disappeared with the flight of the fearful. He had to walk fifteen kilometers. The old man did not hesitate: “Onward!” And he began to walk along a straight, dusty, white road, between flat, even lands that stretched to infinity. A few clumps of trees, some green hedges, and the roofs of several farmhouses broke the monotony of the landscape. The fields were covered with stubble from the recent harvest. Haystacks puffed up the ground with their yellowing cones, which were beginning to darken, taking on a rusty gold hue. Birds fluttered on the fences, shaking off the morning dew. The first rays of the sun heralded a hot day. Around the haystacks, Desnoyers saw a flurry of people getting up, dusting off their clothes and waking others still asleep. They were fugitives who had camped near the station, waiting for a train that would take them far away, not knowing for sure where they wanted to go. Some came from distant departments: they had heard the cannon, had seen the war approaching, and had been marching aimlessly for several days . Others, feeling the contagion of this panic, had also fled, fearing to know the same horrors… He saw mothers with their little ones in their arms; painful old people who could only move forward with one hand on their cane and the other on the arm of one of their family members; Old, wrinkled women, motionless as mummies, slept and traveled lying in a wheelbarrow. As the sun awoke, this wretched throng clumsily sought one another, still numb from the night, reforming the same groups as the day before. Many advanced toward the station, hoping for a train that never arrived , believing they would be happier in the day that had just dawned. Some continued along the tracks, thinking that fortune would be more favorable elsewhere. Don Marcelo walked all morning. The straight, white ribbon of the road was dotted with groups coming toward him, resembling in the distance a string of ants. He didn’t see a single traveler going in the same direction. They were all fleeing south; and upon encountering this gentleman from the city, who walked well-shod, with a walking stick and a straw hat, they made a gesture of surprise. They perhaps mistook him for an official, a prominent figure, someone from the government, seeing him marching alone toward the country they were abandoning, driven by terror. At midday, he managed to find a piece of bread, some cheese, and a bottle of white wine in a tavern near the road. The owner was away at war; his wife moaned in bed. The mother, a somewhat deaf old woman, surrounded by her grandchildren, watched from the doorway this procession of fugitives that had lasted three days. “Why are you fleeing, sir?” she said to the traveler. “War only interests soldiers. We country folk do no harm to anyone and have nothing to fear.” Four hours later, descending one of the slopes that form the Marne valley, he saw in the distance the rooftops of Villeblanche surrounding its church, and emerging from a grove of trees, the slate caps that crowned the turrets of its castle. The village streets were deserted. Only around the square did he see a few women sitting, as on the placid afternoons of other summers. Half the neighborhood had fled; the other half remained in their homes, trapped by sedentary routine, deluding themselves with blind optimism. If the Prussians arrived, what could they do to them?… They would obey orders without offering any resistance, and a people who obey cannot be punished… Anything was preferable to losing the homes built by their ancestors, homes they had never left. In the square, he saw the mayor and the leading citizens, standing together . All of them, as well as the women, stared in astonishment at the owner of the castle. It was the most unexpected of appearances. When so many were fleeing to Paris, this Parisian had come to join them, sharing their fate. A smile of affection, a look of sympathy, seemed to pierce their rough, rustic exteriors, the shell of distrustful country folk. Desnoyers had long been on bad terms with the entire village. He fiercely defended his rights, admitting no tolerance in matters of property. He often spoke of prosecuting the mayor and sending half the neighborhood to jail, and his enemies responded by treacherously invading his lands, killing his game, and overwhelming him with lawsuits and incoherent legal claims. His hatred of the municipality had brought him closer to the priest, who lived in open hostility toward the mayor. But his relations with the Church were as fruitless as his struggles with the State. The priest was a good-natured fellow, whom he found to bear a certain physical resemblance to Renan, and who was only concerned with extracting alms for the poor, his benevolent boldness even extending to excusing trespassers on his property. How distant the struggles he had waged just a month before now seemed to him! The millionaire was greatly surprised to see the priest, as he left his house to enter the church, greet the mayor with a friendly smile. After long years of hostile silence, they had met on the afternoon of August 1st at the foot of the church tower. The bell was ringing the alarm to announce the mobilization of the men in the fields. And the two enemies, instinctively, had embraced. The hand. All French! This affectionate unanimity also extended to the hated lord of the castle. He had to greet people on either side , shaking hard hands. Behind him, people burst into affectionate acknowledgments. “A good man, with no fault other than the violence of his temper…” And Monsieur Desnoyers experienced for a few minutes the pleasant atmosphere of popularity. Upon seeing himself at the castle, he considered the fatigue of the march, which made his legs tremble, well spent. Never had his park seemed so grand and majestic as on this summer evening; never had the swans, gliding doubled by the reflection, across the still waters, been so white; never had the building, its image mirrored inverted by the green expanse of the moats, been so stately. He felt the need to see the stables with their cattle immediately; then he glanced at the empty horse pens. The mobilization had taken his best workhorses. His staff had also vanished. The foreman and several servants were away in the army. Only the caretaker, a man over fifty with a chest ailment, remained in the entire castle with his family: his wife and daughter. The three of them tended to the cows’ mangers, milking their neglected udders from time to time . Inside the building, he congratulated himself once more on the decision that had brought him there. How could he abandon such riches! He gazed at the paintings, the display cases, the furniture, the curtains, all bathed in gold by the dying glow of the day, and felt the pride of possession. This pride instilled in him an absurd, unbelievable courage, as if he were a gigantic being from another planet and all the humanity surrounding him a mere anthill he could wipe out with his feet. Let the enemies come! He felt strong enough to defend himself against them all… Then, when reason was wrenched from his heroic delusion, he tried to calm himself with an optimism equally lacking in substance. They wouldn’t come. He didn’t know why, but his heart told him the enemy wouldn’t reach that far. The next morning he spent wandering through the artificial meadows he had created behind the park, lamenting their neglect after his men left, trying to open the sluice gates to water the grass, which was beginning to dry out. The vines lined their masses of tendrils along the wire fences that supported them. The full bunches of grapes, nearing ripeness, peeked out from between the leaves, their granular triangles peeking out. Oh, who would gather this bounty!… In the afternoon he noticed extraordinary activity in the village. Georgette, the caretaker’s daughter, brought news that enormous cars, many cars, and French soldiers , many soldiers, were beginning to pass along the main street. A short while later, the procession began along a road near the castle, leading to the bridge over the Marne. They were closed or open trucks that still bore their old commercial signs beneath a layer of hardened dust and splashes of mud. Many displayed the names of Parisian companies; others, the business names of provincial establishments. Along with these industrial vehicles requisitioned for the mobilization, others from the public service passed by, which had the same effect on Desnoyers as familiar faces glimpsed in an unfamiliar crowd. They were Parisian omnibuses that still bore the names indicating their former routes on their roofs: Madeleine Bastille, Passy Bourse, and so on. Perhaps he had traveled many times in these same vehicles, faded, aged by twenty days of intense activity, their metal sheets dented, their metal twisted, creaking and riddled with holes like sieves. Some carriages displayed white circles with a red cross in the center; others bore letters and numbers as markings that only those initiated into the secrets of military administration could understand. And on all these vehicles, which retained only new and vigorous His engines, he saw soldiers, many soldiers, but all wounded, their heads and legs bound, pale faces made even more tragic by overgrown beards, feverish eyes staring fixedly, mouths dilated as if the groan of pain had solidified within them. Doctors and nurses occupied several carriages in this convoy. A few platoons of cavalry escorted it. And amidst the slow march of horses and automobiles passed groups of soldiers on foot, their greatcoats unbuttoned or draped over their shoulders like capes; wounded men who could walk and joked and sang, some with an arm swathed across their chest, others with their heads bandaged, the blood seeping through the fabric. The millionaire wanted to do something for them; but as soon as he tried to distribute a few bottles of wine, some loaves of bread, whatever he could find, a doctor intervened, addressing him as if he were committing a crime. His gifts could prove fatal. And he had to remain by the roadside , powerless and sad, watching the sorrowful convoy with somber eyes… As night fell, it was no longer vehicles laden with sick men that passed by. He saw hundreds of trucks, some hermetically sealed, with the caution required for explosive materials; others with bales and boxes that spread a musty smell of provisions. Then came great herds of oxen, swirling in the narrow sections of the road, moving forward under the shouts and calls of the shepherds in their caps. He spent the night awake, lost in thought. It was the retreat people were talking about in Paris, but which many refused to believe; the retreat that had reached this point and was continuing its indefinite withdrawal, for no one knew where its limit would be. Optimism suggested to him an improbable hope. Perhaps this retreat only included the hospitals, the warehouses, everything that is stationed behind an army. The troops wanted to be free of any impediment, to move more freely, and they were sending it far away by rail and road. This was the only way it had to be. And in the noises that persisted throughout the night, he could only make out the passing of vehicles full of wounded, ammunition, and provisions, just like those that had paraded by in the afternoon. Near dawn, exhaustion made him doze, and he awoke well into the day. His first glance was at the road. He saw it full of men and horses pulling wheeled objects. But the men carried rifles and formed battalions, regiments. The beasts dragged artillery pieces. It was an army… it was a retreat. Desnoyers ran to the side of the road to better convince himself of the truth. Alas! They were regiments like the ones he had seen leaving the stations of Paris… but with a very different appearance. The blue greatcoats had become ragged, yellowish garments; The red trousers bleached white like poorly fired brick; the shoes were balls of mud. Their faces wore fierce expressions, with rivulets of dust and sweat in every crack and hollow, with newly grown beards sharp as thorns, with a weariness that revealed a desire to halt, to remain there forever, killing or dying, but without taking another step. They marched… marched… marched. Some marches had lasted thirty hours. The enemy followed in their footsteps, and the order was to march and not fight, escaping by their swiftness of foot the flanking maneuvers attempted by the invader. The officers could sense the state of mind of their men. They could demand the sacrifice of their lives, but to order them to march day and night, always fleeing from the enemy, when they did not consider themselves defeated, when they felt the fierce anger, the mother of heroism, growling within them !… Their desperate glances sought the nearest officer, the commanders, even the colonel himself. They couldn’t take it anymore! A huge, overwhelming march in so few days, and for what?… The superiors, who knew the same as they did, seemed to answer with their eyes, as if They possessed a secret: “Courage! One more effort… This will be over very soon.” The beasts, vigorous but devoid of imagination, endured less than the men. Their appearance was deplorable. How could they be the same strong, lustrous horses he had seen in the parades in Paris at the beginning of the previous month? A twenty-day campaign had aged and exhausted them. Their dull gaze seemed to implore mercy. They were thin, with a gauntness that made the sharp edges of their bones stand out and increased the bulging of their eyes. As they moved, the harnesses revealed their skin with its plucked hairs and bloody gashes. They advanced with a supreme pull, concentrating their last strength, as if the reason of men were working upon their dark instincts. Some could go no further and suddenly collapsed, abandoning their companions in fatigue. Desnoyers watched as the gunners swiftly stripped them of their harnesses, turning them over and out of the way so they wouldn’t obstruct traffic. There they lay, their skeletal nakedness, concealed until then by the straps, their legs stiff and their eyes glazed and fixed, as if spying on the first flies drawn to their sorry carcass. The gray-painted cannons, the gun carriages, the gun bodies— Don Marcelo had seen them all clean and gleaming, with that loving care that man has devoted to weapons since ancient times, more tenacious than that of women to household objects. Now everything seemed dirty, with the patina of unrestrained use, the wear and tear of inevitable neglect: the wheels were deformed on the outside by mud, the metal darkened by the fumes of the explosion, the gray paint stained by damp moss. In the gaps between the parade, in the open spaces between a battery and a regiment, ran platoons of civilians: wretched groups thrown ahead by the invasion; entire populations scattered, following the army in its retreat. The advance of a new unit forced them off the road, continuing their march across the fields. Then, at the slightest break in the mass of troops, they would glide again along the white, even surface of the road. They were mothers pushing carts piled high with furniture and children; the sick, almost crawling; octogenarians carried on the shoulders of their grandchildren; grandfathers holding children in their arms; old women with little ones clinging to their skirts like a silent brood. No one objected now to the generosity of the castle’s owner. His entire wine cellar seemed to overflow onto the road. Barrels of the latest harvest rolled by , and soldiers filled the metal ladles hanging from their waists with the red stream . Then the bottled wine was brought out in chronological order, instantly lost in the river of men that flowed on and on. Desnoyers proudly surveyed the effects of his munificence. Smiles reappeared on fierce faces; French banter leaped from rank to rank; as the groups withdrew, they broke into song. Later, he found himself in the town square among several officers giving their horses a short rest before rejoining the column. With furrowed brows and somber eyes, they spoke of this retreat, inexplicable to them. Days before, at Guise, they had inflicted a defeat on their pursuers. And yet, they continued to retreat, obedient to a peremptory and severe order. “We don’t understand,” they said. “We don’t understand.” The orderly and methodical tide swept along these men who longed to fight but had to withdraw. They all suffered the same cruel doubt: “We don’t understand.” And their doubt made the relentless march even more painful, a march that lasted day and night with only brief rests, the corps commanders constantly alarmed by the fear of being cut off and separated from the rest of the army. “One more effort, my sons. Courage! We will soon rest.” The columns, in their retreat, covered hundreds of kilometers. Desnoyers saw only one of them. Others upon others were making the same retreat at the same time, covering half the width of France. All were moving backward with the same disheartened obedience, and their men were undoubtedly repeating the same thing as the officers: “We don’t understand… We don’t understand.” Don Marcelo suddenly felt the sadness and disorientation of these soldiers. He, too, didn’t understand. He saw what was immediately apparent, what everyone could see: the territory invaded without the Germans encountering any tenacious resistance; entire departments, cities, towns, multitudes falling into enemy hands behind an army that was retreating incessantly. His enthusiasm plummeted like a deflating balloon. His old pessimism reappeared. The troops were showing energy and discipline; but what good could this be if they were retreating almost without fighting, unable, by a stern order, to defend the ground? “Just like in ’70,” he thought. Outwardly, there was more order, but the outcome was going to be the same. Like an echo that answered his sadness negatively, he heard a soldier’s voice speaking to a peasant: ” We’re retreating, but it’s only to pounce on the Germans with even greater force. Grandfather Joffre will have them in his pocket whenever and wherever he chooses. ” Desnoyers revived at the mention of the general’s name. Perhaps this soldier, who had maintained his faith intact through the endless and demoralizing marches, sensed the truth better than the reasoning and studious officers. He spent the rest of the day giving gifts to the last groups of the column. His wine cellar was emptying. In chronological order, the thousands of bottles stored in the castle’s dungeons continued to be distributed . As night fell, he gave bottles covered in years of dust to the men who seemed weak to him. As the column marched on, it presented an increasingly sad appearance of weariness and exhaustion. The stragglers passed by, dragging their raw, bleeding feet in their shoes. Some had escaped this torturous confinement and marched barefoot, their heavy boots dangling from one shoulder, leaving bloodstains on the ground . But all, overwhelmed by mortal fatigue, held onto their weapons and equipment, thinking of the enemy that was near. Desnoyers’ generosity astonished many of them. They were used to crossing their homeland having to contend with the selfishness of the farmers. No one offered anything. Fear of danger made the inhabitants of the countryside hide their provisions, refusing to provide the slightest assistance to their compatriots who were fighting for them. The millionaire slept poorly that second night in his ornate bed of columns and plumes that had belonged to Henry IV, according to the sellers. The flow of troops was no longer constant. From time to time, a detached battalion, a battery, a group of cavalrymen—the last of the rearguard forces that had taken up positions near the village to cover the retreat— would pass by . The profound silence that followed these noisy processions stirred a feeling of doubt and unease in him. What was he doing there when the armed multitude was withdrawing? Wasn’t it madness to stay?… But immediately, all the riches stored in the castle galloped through his mind . If only he could take them with him!… It was impossible, due to lack of resources and time. Besides, his stubbornness considered this flight shameful. “One must finish what one starts,” he repeated mentally. He had made the journey to safeguard his possessions, and he shouldn’t flee at the first sign of danger… When he went down to the village the next morning, he saw hardly any soldiers. Only a squadron of dragoons was on the outskirts to cover the last remnants of the retreat. The horsemen raced in platoons through the woods, pushing back the stragglers and engaging the enemy advance guard. Desnoyers was right at the edge of the town. The dragoons had The street was blocked with a barricade of carts and furniture. On foot, rifles in hand, they watched from behind this obstacle the white strip of road that rose solitary between two tree-covered hills. From time to time, isolated shots rang out, like the crack of a whip. “Ours,” the dragoons said. They were the last detachments firing on the advance guard of the Hulans. The cavalry’s mission was to maintain contact with the enemy from the rear, to offer continuous resistance, repelling the German detachments that tried to infiltrate along the columns. He saw the last stragglers of infantry arriving along the road . They weren’t marching; rather, they seemed to be crawling, with a firm will to advance, but betrayed in their desire by stiff legs , by bloody feet. They had sat for a moment at the roadside, utterly exhausted, to breathe without the weight of their packs, to free their feet from their shoes, to wipe away the sweat, and when they tried to resume their march, they found it impossible to rise. Their bodies felt like stone. Fatigue plunged them into a state akin to catalepsy. They watched the rest of the army pass by like a fantastic parade: battalions upon battalions, artillery batteries, droves of horses. Then, silence, night, a sleep upon the dust and stones, jolted by terrible nightmares. At dawn, they were awakened by platoons of cavalry scouting the terrain, gathering the remnants of the retreat. Alas! Impossible to move! The dragoons, revolvers in hand, had to resort to threats to rouse them. Only the certainty that the enemy was near and could take them prisoner gave them a momentary burst of strength. And they rose , staggering, dragging their legs, leaning on their rifles as if they were walking sticks. Many of these men were young men who had aged in an hour and walked like invalids. Unhappy souls! They wouldn’t get far. Their desire was to continue, to rejoin the column; but upon entering the town, they examined the houses with pleading eyes, longing to enter them, feeling a yearning for immediate rest that made them forget the enemy’s proximity. Villeblanche was more deserted than before the troops had arrived. The previous night, some of its inhabitants had fled, infected by the terror of the crowds following the army’s retreat. The mayor and the priest remained. Reconciled with the lord of the castle by his unexpected presence and admiring his generosity, the town official approached him with news . The engineers were mining the bridge over the Mame. They were only waiting to blow it up until the dragoons withdrew. If he wished to leave, there was still time. Desnoyers hesitated again. It was madness to remain there. But a glance at the grove, above whose branches the castle’s turrets peeked out, ended his doubts. No, no… “One must finish what one starts.” The last groups of dragoons appeared, emerging onto the road from various points in the woods. They rode their horses at a walk, as if this retreat pained them. They looked back, carbines in hand, ready to halt and fire. The others who had manned the barricade were already mounted. The squadron reformed, the officers’ voices rang out, and a brisk trot accompanied by the clanging of metal bells receded behind Don Marcelo. He remained by the barricade, in a profound silence, as if the world had suddenly emptied. Two dogs, abandoned by their masters’ flight, circled and sniffed around him, imploring his protection. They couldn’t find the desired trail in that land, trampled and disfigured by the passage of thousands of men. A famished cat spied on the birds that were beginning to invade this place. With timid flutters, they pecked at the scraps of food expelled by the dragons’ horses. A stray hen It appeared, too, to dispute its feast with the winged rabble, hidden until then in trees and under eaves. The silence brought back the murmur of the fallen leaves, the buzzing of insects, the summer breath of the sun-baked earth—all the sounds of Nature, which seemed to have fearfully contracted under the weight of the armed men. Desnoyers was not entirely aware of the passage of time. He believed all that had come before to be a bad dream. The calm that surrounded him made everything he had witnessed seem unbelievable. Suddenly, he saw something move at the far end of the road, at the very top of the slope, where the white ribbon touched the blue of the horizon. They were two men on horseback, two lead soldiers who looked as if they had escaped from a toy box. He had brought with him binoculars , which he used to detect incursions onto his property, and he looked. The two horsemen, dressed in greenish-gray, carried lances, and their helmets were topped with horizontal plates… Them! There was no doubt: he had before him the first Hulans. They remained motionless for some time, as if scanning the horizon. Then, from the dark masses of vegetation that bulged along the sides of the road, others emerged, and others, until they formed a group. The lead soldiers no longer stood out against the blue horizon. The whiteness of the road now served as their backdrop, rising above their heads. They advanced slowly, like a troop that fears ambushes and examines its surroundings. The need to retreat as soon as possible made Don Marcelo stop looking. It was dangerous to be surprised in that place. But as he lowered his binoculars, something extraordinary passed through the field of vision . At close range, as if he could touch them, he saw many men marching under the cover of the trees on both sides of the road. His surprise was even greater when he realized they were French, for they all wore kepis. Where had they come from?… He examined them again without the aid of his binoculars, now close to the barricade. They were stragglers, in a pitiful state, presenting a picturesque variety of uniforms: line soldiers, Zouaves, dragoons without horses. And mixed in with them were forest rangers and gendarmes from villages that had received news of the retreat late. In all, about fifty. Some were strong and vigorous; others were standing with superhuman effort. All still had their weapons. They reached the barricade, constantly looking back to watch, under the cover of the trees, the slow advance of the Hulans. At the head of this motley troop was an old, obese gendarmerie officer, revolver in his right hand, his mustache bristling with excitement, and a murderous gleam in his blue eyes, veiled by the heaviness of his eyelids. They slipped past the wagon barrier without noticing this curious local man. They were about to continue their advance through the town when a tremendous explosion shook the horizon before them, making the houses tremble. “What’s that?” the officer asked, looking at Desnoyers for the first time. Desnoyers offered an explanation: it was the bridge, which had just been destroyed. The officer swore an oath upon hearing the news. But his confused troops, haphazardly gathered at the sight of the encounter, remained indifferent, as if they had lost all touch with reality. “It’s all the same to die here as anywhere else,” the officer continued. Many of the fugitives readily obeyed this decision, which freed them from the ordeal of walking. They almost welcomed the explosion that blocked their path. Instinctively, they took up positions in the most concealed parts of the barricade. Others entered abandoned houses, whose doors the dragoons had forced open to access the upper floors. All seemed content to be able to rest, even if it meant fighting. The officer moved from group to group, relaying his orders. They were not to fire until he gave the command. Don Marcelo witnessed these preparations with the stunned silence of surprise. The stragglers’ appearance had been so swift and unexpected that he still thought he was dreaming. There could be no danger in this surreal situation: it was all a lie. And he remained where he was, not understanding the lieutenant, who was ordering him to flee in harsh words. Stubborn countryman!… The echo of the explosion had filled the road with horsemen. They were coming from all directions, joining the original group. The Hulans galloped with the certainty that the town was deserted. Fire!… Desnoyers was enveloped in a cloud of cracking sounds, as if the wood of every tree before his eyes were being split . The impetuous squadron stopped abruptly. Several men rolled on the ground. Some got up to jump out of the way, crouching low to make themselves less visible. Others lay on their backs or faces down, arms outstretched in front of them. The riderless horses broke into a mad gallop across the fields, their reins trailing, spurred on by their loose stirrups. And after the rough jolt caused by surprise and death, it scattered, disappearing almost instantly, absorbed by the grove. Chapter 9. By the sacred grotto. Argensola had a new occupation, more exciting than marking the armies’ positions on the map. ” I now dedicate myself to following the taube,” he told his friends. He appears between four and five, with the punctuality of a proper person arriving for tea. Every afternoon, at the aforementioned hour, a German airplane flew over Paris, dropping bombs. This intimidation did not produce terror: people accepted the visit as an extraordinary and interesting spectacle. In vain did the aviators drop German flags over the city, bearing ironic messages detailing the defeats of the retreating army and the failures of the Russian offensive. Lies, all lies! In vain did they drop bombs, shattering garrets and killing or wounding the old, women, and children. “Ah, bandits!” The crowd shook their fists at the malignant mosquito, barely visible from two thousand meters above, and after this outburst, followed it with their eyes from street to street or stood motionless in the squares to watch its movements. One of the most punctual spectators was Argensola. At four o’clock he was in the Place de la Concorde, head held high and eyes wide open, alongside other people bound to him by cordial ties of camaraderie. They were like season ticket holders at the same theater, who, through constant interaction, end up becoming friends. “Will it come?… Won’t it come today?” The women seemed the most fervent. Some arrived flushed and breathless with haste, fearing they had arrived too late for the spectacle… A tremendous cry: “It’s coming!… There it is!” Thousands of hands pointed at a vague spot on the horizon. Faces were magnified with binoculars and telescopes; street vendors offered all kinds of optical goods… And for an hour the thrilling spectacle of the aerial hunt unfolded , noisy and futile. The insect tried to approach the Eiffel Tower, and from its base came explosions, while its various platforms spat out the ferocious rattle of machine guns. As it circled over the city, volleys of rifle fire echoed from the rooftops and the bottom of the streets. Everyone was firing: the neighbors who had a weapon in their house, the soldiers on guard, the English and Belgian military personnel passing through Paris. They knew their shots were useless, but they fired for the sheer pleasure of harassing the enemy, even if only intentionally, hoping that chance, in one of its whims, would work a miracle. But the only miracle was that the shooters didn’t kill each other with this hasty and fruitless fire. Even so, some passersby fell wounded by bullets of unknown origin. Argensola went from street to street following the flurry of the enemy bird. Wanting to guess where their projectiles would fall, wishing to be among the first to arrive in front of the bombed house, fired up by the volleys returning from below. How he wished he had a carbine like the English in khaki or those Belgians with garrison caps and tassels on their foreheads!… Finally, the Taube, tired of its maneuvers, disappeared. “Until tomorrow,” the Spaniard thought. “Tomorrow’s might be more interesting.” He spent his free time between geographical observations and aerial contemplations loitering near the stations, especially the Quai d’Orsay, watching the throngs of travelers fleeing Paris. The sudden vision of the truth after the illusions created by the government with its optimistic reports, the certainty that the Germans were near, when just a week before many had imagined them in complete defeat, the Taubes flying over Paris, the mysterious threat of the Zeppelins, drove a portion of the neighborhood mad. The stations, heavily guarded, only admitted those who had purchased a ticket in advance. Some waited for days for their turn to depart. The most impatient set off on foot, eager to be out of the city as soon as possible. They blackened the roads with the crowds advancing along them, all in the same direction. They were heading south by car, horse-drawn carriage, market gardener’s cart, on foot. Argensola observed this exodus with serenity. He was one of those who stayed behind. He had admired many men for having witnessed the siege of Paris in 1870. Now his good fortune granted him the opportunity to witness a historical drama perhaps even more interesting. What he could recount in the future! But he was bothered by the distraction and indifference of his present audience. He returned to his study satisfied with the news he carried, eager to communicate it to Descoyers, and Descoyers listened as if he didn’t hear him. The night he informed her that the government, the Chambers, the diplomatic corps, and even the artists of the Comédie- Française were leaving at that very hour on special trains for Bordeaux, her companion responded with a gesture of indifference. He had other concerns. In the morning, he had received a letter from Marguerite: two simple lines scribbled in haste. She was leaving: she was departing immediately, accompanying her mother. Goodbye!… And nothing more. Panic made one forget many affections, severed long-standing relationships, but she was superior by nature to these inconsistencies born of the anxiety to flee. Julio saw something unsettling in her laconic nature. Why didn’t she indicate where she was going?… In the afternoon, he took a bold step she had always forbidden. He entered the house where Marguerite lived, speaking at length with the doorkeeper to gather information. The good woman was thus able to give vent to her loquacity, abruptly cut short by the flight of the tenants and their servants. The lady of the main floor, Margarita’s mother, had been the last to leave the house, even though she had been ill since her son’s departure. They had left the day before, without saying where they were going. All she knew was that they had taken the train from the Orsay station. They were fleeing south, like all the wealthy. And she expanded on her revelations with the vague news that her daughter was very shaken by the reports she had received from the front lines . Someone in the family was wounded. Perhaps it was her brother, but the concierge didn’t know. With so many new developments, surprises, and impressions, it was difficult to keep track of things. She, too, had her own man in the army and was preoccupied with her own affairs. “Where could he be?” Julio wondered during the day. “Why does he want me to know his whereabouts?” When, that evening, her comrade informed her of the rulers’ journey with all the mystery of news that was not yet public, she simply replied , after a thoughtful silence: ” They’re right… I’ll leave tomorrow too, if I can.” Why stay in Paris? His family was gone. According to Argensola’s inquiries, his father had also left, without saying where. With Margarita’s mysterious disappearance, he was left alone, in a solitude that filled him with remorse. That afternoon, while strolling along the boulevards, he had bumped into an elderly friend, a fellow member of the fencing club he frequented. He was the first he had seen since the beginning of the war, and together they reviewed all the comrades who had joined the army. Desnoyers’ questions were answered by the old man. So-and-so?… had been wounded in Lorraine and was in a hospital in the South. Another friend?… killed in the Vosges. Another?… disappeared in Charleroi. And so the heroic and mournful procession continued. Most were still alive, performing feats of bravery. Other members of foreign origin—young Poles, Englishmen living in Paris, Americans from the Southern republics— had just enlisted as volunteers. The Circle should be proud of these young men who were training with weapons during peacetime: they were all at the front, risking their lives… And Desnoyers looked away, as if he feared to see an ironic, questioning expression in his friend’s eyes. Why wasn’t he marching, like the others, to defend the land where he lived?… ” I’ll leave tomorrow,” Julio repeated, his mind clouded by this memory. But he was leaving for the South, like all those fleeing the war. The next morning, Argensola arranged for a train ticket to Bordeaux. The value of money had increased considerably. Fifty francs, handed over on time, worked the miracle of securing him a numbered piece of cardboard, the acquisition of which , for many, represented days of waiting. “It’s for today,” he told his comrade. “You must leave on tonight ‘s train . ” The luggage didn’t require much preparation. The trains refused to accept any bags other than those carried by hand. Argensola refused Julio’s offer of generosity, who wanted to share all his money with him. Heroes need very little, and the painter of souls felt animated by a heroic resolve. He made Gallieni’s brief address upon assuming command of the defense of Paris his own. He intended to hold out to the last breath, just like the stern general. “Let them come!” he said with a tragic expression. “They will find me in my place!”… His place was his studio. He wanted to see things up close so he could recount them to future generations. He would remain steadfast, with his provisions of food and wine. Moreover, he planned, once his companion disappeared, to take in certain female friends who wandered about in search of a meal and felt afraid in the solitude of their homes. Danger brings good people closer and adds a new allure to the pleasures of community. The amorous outbursts of the prisoners of the Terror, as they awaited their imminent march to the guillotine, came flooding back to his memory. Let us swallow life whole, since we must all die!… The studio on the rue de la Pompe was about to witness the same mad and desperate revelry as a ship aground with abundant provisions. Desnoyers left the Orsay station in a first- class compartment. He mentally praised the good order with which the authorities had arranged everything. Each traveler had his seat. But at the Austerlitz station, a human avalanche stormed the train. The doors flew open as if about to burst; packages and children poured through the windows like projectiles. People pushed and shoved each other with the roughness of a crowd fleeing a fire. Fourteen people squeezed into the space reserved for eight; The aisles were forever blocked with piles of suitcases, which served as seats for new travelers. Social distances had vanished. The common people preferentially invaded the luxury carriages, believing they would find more space there. Those with first-class tickets traveled in He searched for the worst cars, with the vain hope of traveling comfortably. On the sidings, long trains made up of cattle cars had been waiting since the day before their departure time. The rolling stables were packed with people sitting on the wooden floorboards or on chairs brought from their homes. Each train was a camp eager to get moving, and while it remained motionless, a layer of greasy papers and fruit peels accumulated along its length . The shoving crowds, as they pushed each other, tolerated and forgave one another fraternally. “All’s fair in love and all’s fair in love,” they said as a last excuse. And each one squeezed against his neighbor to snatch a few inches of seat, to wedge his meager luggage among the bundles suspended above the people in the most improbable balances. Desnoyers gradually lost his advantages as the first passenger. He felt pity for these poor people who had waited for the train from four in the morning until eight at night. The women groaned with exhaustion, sitting upright in the corridor, eyeing those who occupied a seat with fierce envy. The children cried like hungry goats. Julio finally gave up his place, distributing all the food Argensola had provided him among the needy and the careless. The station restaurants looked as if they had been looted. During the long waits for the train, only soldiers could be seen on the platforms: soldiers who ran at the sound of the bugle call to return to their places in the strings of carriages that climbed higher and higher toward Paris. At the sidings, long war trains waited for the track to be clear to continue their journey. The cuirassiers, wearing yellow vests over their steel chests, sat with their legs dangling over the doors of the stable cars, from which neighing sounds emanated. Gray railcars lined the platforms. The slender throats of the 75s pointed upwards like telescopes. He spent the night in the corridor, sitting on the edge of a suitcase, watching others doze, dulled by exhaustion and excitement. It was a cruel and interminable night of jolts, crashes, and pauses punctuated by snores. At each station, trumpets blared rapidly, as if the enemy were near. Soldiers from the South rushed to their posts, and a new stream of men dragged themselves along the rails towards Paris. They seemed cheerful and eager to reach the slaughter sites quickly. Many lamented, believing they were arriving late. Julio, leaning out of a window, listened to the conversations and shouts on these platforms, permeated with the pungent smell of men and mules. They all displayed unwavering confidence. “The Germans!… So many of them, with huge cannons, with lots of machine guns… but all we had to do was charge with bayonets and they fled like hares.” The faith of those going to meet their deaths contrasted sharply with the panic and doubt of those escaping Paris. An old, decorated gentleman, the kind of retired civil servant, asked Desnoyers questions as the train resumed its journey. “Do you think they’ll reach Tours?” Before receiving an answer, he would doze off. The dulling sleep crept down the corridor on leaden feet. Then, the old man would suddenly wake up. “Do you think they’ll make it to Bordeaux?”… And his desire not to stop until he and his family reached absolute safety made him accept the vague answers as oracles. At dawn, they saw the local police guarding the tracks. They were armed with old rifles; they wore a red kepi as their only military insignia . Military trains continued to pass by in the opposite direction. At Bordeaux station, the civilian crowd, struggling to get off or to storm more carriages, mingled with the troops. Trumpets sounded incessantly to assemble the soldiers. Many were men of color, indigenous riflemen in wide gray breeches and a red cap over their black or tanned faces. He continued north. The iron roll of the armed masses. Desnoyers saw a train of wounded coming from the battles of Flanders and Lorraine. The uniforms, filthy with weariness, were refreshed by the whiteness of the bandages that supported aching limbs or protected broken heads. They all seemed to smile with their livid mouths and feverish eyes at the first lands of the South that appeared through the morning mist, crowned with sun, covered in the regal garment of their vines. The men from the North held out their hands for the fruit offered to them by the women, pecking with delight at the sweet local grapes. He lived four days in Bordeaux, dazed and disoriented by the agitation of a provincial city suddenly transformed into a capital. The hotels were full; many people were content with a servant’s room. The cafés didn’t have a single empty chair; the sidewalks seemed to repel this extraordinary crowd. The head of state took up residence in the Prefecture, the ministries were housed in schools and museums; two theaters were prepared for the future meetings of the Senate and the People’s Chamber. Jules found a sordid and dubious hotel at the end of an alleyway constantly dampened by passersby. A cherub adorned the glass of the door. In his room, the mirror was engraved with women’s names and unspeakable phrases, as a memento of his hourly stays… And yet some Parisian ladies, busy searching for lodging, envied such good fortune. Their inquiries proved fruitless. The friends he found in the fleeing crowd were preoccupied with their own fate. They could only speak of the incidents surrounding his arrival; they repeated the news they had overheard from the ministers, with whom they lived in close proximity; they mentioned with a mysterious air the great battle that had begun to unfold from the outskirts of Paris to Verdun. A disciple from his glory days, who retained her former elegance in her nurse’s uniform, gave him vague information. “Little Madame Laurier?… She remembered hearing someone who lived nearby… Perhaps in Biarritz.” Julio needed no more to resume his journey. To Biarritz! The first person he met upon arrival was Chichí. She declared the town uninhabitable because of the wealthy Spanish families who summered there: “They’re mostly Germans. I spend my life arguing. I’ll end up living alone.” Then he found his mother: hugs and tears. Afterward, he saw his Aunt Elena in a hotel lounge, enthusiastic about the country and its vacationers. She could talk at length with many of them about the decline of France. They all expected news of the Kaiser’s entry into the capital at any moment. Grave men who had done nothing in their entire lives criticized the shortcomings and negligence of the Republic. Young people whose refinement thrilled Doña Elena erupted in tirades against the corruptions of Paris, corruptions they had thoroughly studied, staying up until sunrise in the virtuous schools of Montmartre. They all adored Germany, a place they had never visited or knew only as a succession of cinematic images. They applied a bullfighting mentality to events . The Germans were the ones who hit the hardest. “You don’t mess with them: they’re too rough.” And they seemed to admire brutality as the most respectable of merits. “Why don’t they say that at home, on the other side of the border?” Chichí protested. “Why do they come to their neighbor’s house to mock their worries?… And perhaps they think they’re well-bred!” Julio hadn’t gone to Biarritz to live with his family… On the very day of his arrival, he saw Margarita’s mother from afar. She was alone. His inquiries revealed that the daughter lived in Pau. She was a nurse and was caring for a wounded member of her family. “The brother… undoubtedly, it’s the brother,” Julio thought. And he resumed his journey, heading for Pau. His visits to the hospitals proved fruitless. No one knew Margarita. Every day the train arrived with a new shipment of His flesh was mangled, but his brother was not among the wounded. A nun, believing he was searching for a relative, took pity on him and gave him directions. He should go to Lourdes: there were many wounded there, as well as lay nurses. And Desnoyers immediately made the short journey between Pau and Lourdes. He had never visited the holy town whose name his mother so often repeated. For Doña Luisa, the French nation was Lourdes. In discussions with her sister and other foreign ladies who called for the extermination of France for its impiety, the good lady always summed up her opinion with the same words: “When the Virgin wanted to appear in our times, she chose France. This country can’t be as bad as they say… When I see her appear in Berlin, we’ll talk again.” But Desnoyers was in no mood to dwell on his mother’s naive opinions . No sooner had he settled into his hotel by the river than he rushed to the large inn converted into a hospital. The guards told him he wouldn’t be able to speak with the director until the afternoon. To pass the time, he strolled along the street leading to the basilica, lined with barracks and shops selling religious prints and souvenirs, making it a sprawling bazaar. Here and in the gardens adjacent to the church, he saw only convalescent wounded men whose uniforms still bore the marks of battle. Their greatcoats were filthy despite repeated brushing. Mud, blood, and rain had left indelible stains, giving them a cardboard-like stiffness. Some wounded men tore off the sleeves to avoid cruel chafing their mangled arms . Others still displayed the cannonball wounds on their trousers . They were combatants of all branches and races: infantry, cavalry, artillery; soldiers from the metropolis and the colonies; French peasants and African sharpshooters; blond heads, faces with a pallor reminiscent of Muslims, and the dark faces of Senegalese men, with fiery eyes and bluish lips, some displaying the affable air and sedentary obesity of the bourgeois suddenly transformed into a warrior; others, lean, nervous, with aggressive profiles, like men born for fighting and trained in exotic campaigns. The city, visited by hopeful souls afflicted by Catholicism, was now invaded by a no less sorrowful crowd, but dressed in carnival colors. All, despite their physical exhaustion, had a certain air of nonchalance and satisfaction. They had seen death up close, slipping through their bony claws, and were finding a new taste for the joy of living. With their greatcoats adorned with decorations, their theatrical caps, their kepis, and their African hats, this heroic crowd nevertheless presented a pitiful appearance. Very few retained that noble upright posture, the pride of human superiority. They advanced hunched over, limping, crawling, leaning on a cane or a friendly arm. Others let themselves be pushed, lying in the carts that had often served to transport pious patients from the station to the grotto of the Virgin. Some walked blindfolded, alongside a child or a nurse. The first clashes in Belgium and the East, half a dozen battles, had been enough to produce these physical ruins, in which manly beauty appeared amidst the most horrific outrages… These bodies, tenaciously striving to survive, parading their resurgent energies under the sun, represented only a small part of the great reaping of death. Behind them lay thousands upon thousands of comrades groaning in hospital beds , perhaps never to rise again. Thousands upon thousands lay forever hidden in the bowels of a land drenched by its agonizing saliva, a fatal land that, upon receiving a rain of projectiles, yielded as its harvest thickets of crosses. The war revealed itself to Desnoyers’ eyes in all its cruel ugliness. He had spoken of it until then as we speak of death in the midst of it. Health, knowing it exists and that it is horrible, but seeing it so far away… so far away! that it doesn’t inspire any real emotion. The explosions of the shells accompanied their destructive brutality with a ferocious mockery, grotesquely disfiguring the human body. He saw wounded men beginning to regain their vital force, mere sketches of men, hideous caricatures, human rags saved from the grave by the audacity of science: headless torsos dragging themselves along the ground on a wheelbarrow, incomplete skulls whose brains throbbed beneath an artificial covering, beings without arms or legs resting at the bottom of a small cart like sculptural sketches or dissection specimens, faces without noses that, like the skulls, displayed the black cavities of their nostrils. And these half-men talked, smoked, laughed, content to see the sky, to feel the caress of the sun, to have returned to existence, animated by the sovereign will to live, which confidently forgets present misery in anticipation of something better. Such was his impression that he forgot for a time the reason that had brought him there… If only those who provoke war from diplomatic offices or the desks of a General Staff could contemplate it, not on the battlefields, with the enthusiasm that disturbs the senses, but coldly, as one sees it in hospitals and cemeteries from the remains it leaves in its wake!… The young man saw in his imagination the globe as an enormous ship sailing through the vastness. Its crew, the poor humans, had been exterminating each other on deck for centuries. They didn’t even know what existed beneath their feet, in the depths of the vessel. To occupy the largest surface in the sunlight was the desire of each group. Men considered superior drove these masses to extermination, to scale the highest deck and seize the helm, giving the ship a definite course. And all those who harbored these ambitions for absolute command knew the same thing… nothing! None of them could say with certainty what lay beyond the visible horizon, nor where the ship was headed. The dull hostility of mystery surrounded them all; their lives were fragile, requiring constant care to sustain them; and despite this, the crew, for centuries upon centuries, had not had a single moment of agreement, of common work, of clear reason. Periodically, one half of it clashed with the other half; they killed each other to enslave one another on the shifting deck, floating above the abyss; they struggled to throw each other overboard; the ship’s wake was littered with corpses. And from the utterly frenzied crowd still emerged gloomy sophists to declare that this was the perfect state, that everyone should remain like this eternally, and that it was a bad dream to wish that the crew members should regard each other as brothers following a common destiny and seeing around them the snares of an aggressive mystery… Ah, human misery! Julio felt his thoughts pulled away by the childlike joy displayed by some of the convalescents. They were Muslims, sharpshooters from Algeria and Morocco. They were in Lourdes as they could have been anywhere else, attentive only to the gifts of the civilians, who followed them with patriotic tenderness. They all gazed indifferently at the basilica inhabited by the “white lady.” Their only concern was asking for cigars and sweets. Seeing themselves feted by the dominant race of their countries, they grew proud, daring to do anything, like unruly children. Their greatest pleasure was having the ladies shake their hands. Blessed war that allowed them to approach and touch these white, perfumed, smiling women, just as the paradisiacal females reserved for the blessed appear in dreams! “Madam… Madam,” they sighed, their ink-colored pupils blazing with flames. And not content with the hand, their dark claws ventured along the arm, while the ladies laughed at this trembling adoration. Others advanced through the crowd, offering their right hand to every woman. “Let’s shake hands.” And they would walk away satisfied after receiving the handshake. Desnoyers wandered for a long time around the basilica. Under the shelter of the trees, carts filled with the wounded were lined up . Officers and soldiers remained for long hours in the blue shade, watching other comrades who could walk pass by . The holy grotto shone with the flickering flames of hundreds of candles. The devout crowd, kneeling in the open air, fixed their pleading eyes on the sacred stones, while their thoughts flew far away to the battlefields, with the faith in the divine that accompanies all anxiety. From the kneeling mass emerged soldiers with bandages on their heads, their kepis in one hand, and tearful eyes. Up and down the double staircase of the basilica went women dressed in white, their headdresses trembling so much that from afar they looked like fluttering doves. They were nurses, ladies of charity guiding the wounded. Desnoyers thought he recognized Marguerite in each of them. But the disillusionment that followed such discoveries made him doubt the success of his trip. She wasn’t in Lourdes either. He would never find her in this France, so vastly expanded by the war, which had turned every town into a hospital. In the afternoon, his inquiries yielded no better results. The staff listened to his questions with a distracted air: he could come back later. They were preoccupied with the announcement of a new medical train. The great battle raged near Paris. They had to improvise accommodations for the new influx of wounded. Desnoyers returned to the gardens near the grotto. His stroll was merely to pass the time. He planned to return to Pau that night: he had nothing left to do in Lourdes. Where would he direct his investigations next?… He suddenly felt a shudder run down his spine: the same indefinable sensation that warned him of her presence when they met in a Parisian garden. Margarita was going to appear suddenly, as on the other occasions, without him knowing for sure where she came from, as if she were emerging from the earth or descending from the clouds. After thinking this, he smiled bitterly. Lies of desire! Illusions!… Turning his head, he recognized the falsity of his hope. No one was following him: he was the only one walking down the middle of the avenue. On a nearby bench rested an officer with his eyes blindfolded. Beside him, with the diaphanous whiteness of guardian angels, stood a nurse. Poor blind man!… Desnoyers was going to continue on; but a quick movement by the woman dressed in white, a visible desire to go unnoticed, to hide her face by turning her eyes toward the plants, attracted his attention. It took him a while to recognize her. Two curls peeking out from the edge of her cap hinted at her hidden hair; her white-shod feet provided clues to reconstructing a body somewhat disfigured by a uniform devoid of charm. Her face was pale and grave. Nothing remained of the old makeup that had given her a childlike, doll-like beauty. Her eyes seemed to reflect the present with new forms within dark halos of weariness… Margarita! They gazed at each other for a long time, as if hypnotized by surprise. She showed unease when she saw Desnoyers take a step forward. No… no. Her eyes, her hands, her whole body, seemed to protest, to repel him, to fix him in her immobility. The fear of his approach made her walk toward him. She said a few words to the soldier, who remained on the bench, receiving a ray of sunlight on the bandage covering his face, a ray he seemed not to feel. Then he got up, went to meet Julio, and continued on, gesturing for him to stand farther away, where the wounded man couldn’t hear them. He stopped on a side path. From there he could see the blind man entrusted to his care. They stood motionless, face to face. Desnoyers wanted to say many things, so many! But he hesitated, not knowing how. to clothe his complaints, his pleas, his flattery in words. Above this avalanche of thoughts emerged one, fatal, dominant, and choleric. Who is that man?… The spiteful accent, the harsh voice with which he spoke these words, surprised him, as if they came from another mouth. The nurse looked at him with her clear, wide, serene eyes, eyes that seemed forever free from the contractions of surprise and fear. The answer slipped out with the same clarity as the gaze. It’s Laurier… He’s my husband. Laurier!… Julio’s eyes examined the military man with long doubt before he was convinced. Laurier, this blind officer who remained motionless on the bench like a symbol of heroic suffering!… He was aged, with a tanned complexion, a bronze color furrowed with cracks that converged like rays around every opening of his face. His hair was beginning to turn white at his temples and in the beard that now covered his cheeks. He had lived twenty years in a month… At the same time, he seemed younger, with a youthful vigor radiating from within, with the strength of a soul that had endured the most violent emotions and could no longer know fear, with the firm and serene satisfaction of duty fulfilled. Looking at him, she felt both admiration and jealousy. She was ashamed to realize the aversion this man inspired in her, a man in his utter misfortune, unable to see what surrounded him. Her hatred was cowardice; yet she persisted, as if another soul had awakened within her , a second personality that filled her with dread. How she remembered Margarita’s eyes as she turned away from the wounded man for a few moments! She had never looked at him like that. She knew all the loving gradations of her eyelids, but her gaze upon the wounded man was something different, something he had never seen before. He spoke with the fury of a lover who discovers infidelity. “And that’s why you left without a word, without warning!… You abandoned me to come looking for him… Tell me, why have you come? Why have you come?” She remained unmoved by his angry tone and hostile glances. ” I came because my duty was here.” Then she spoke like a mother who seizes a moment of surprise in her irascible child to advise him to be sensible. She explained her actions. She had received news of Laurier’s wound as she and her mother were preparing to leave Paris. She didn’t hesitate for a moment: her duty was to rush to this man’s side. She had reflected a great deal in recent weeks. The war had made her ponder the value of life. Her eyes beheld new horizons; our destiny is not in pleasure and selfish satisfactions: we owe ourselves to pain and sacrifice. She wished to work for her country, to bear a share of the common suffering, to serve like the other women; And being so willing to give all her care to strangers, wasn’t it natural that she should prefer this man whom she had caused so much harm?… She still remembered the moment when she saw him arrive at the station completely alone among so many who had the comfort of loving arms as they departed in search of death. Her pity had been even more intense when she learned of his misfortune. A shell had exploded near him, killing those around him. Of his various wounds, the only serious one was to his face. He had lost one eye completely; the doctors kept the other blind , hoping to save it. But she doubted; it was almost certain that Laurier would remain blind. Margarita’s voice trembled as she said this, as if she were about to weep; but her eyes remained dry. They felt no irresistible need for tears. Weeping was now something superfluous, like so many other things in times of peace. Her eyes had seen so much in just a few days!… “How you love him!” Julio exclaimed. She had addressed him formally until this moment, for fear of being overheard and to keep her distance, as if speaking to a friend. But the Her lover’s sadness shattered her coldness. ” No; I love you… I will always love you.” The simplicity with which she said this, and her sudden use of the familiar “tú” form, instilled confidence in Desnoyers. “And the other one?” he asked anxiously. Upon hearing her reply, he felt as if something had just happened before the sun, momentarily veiling its light. It was like a cloud drifting across the earth and over his thoughts, spreading a chill. “I love him too.” She said it looking at him as if imploring his forgiveness, with the painful sincerity of a soul that has struggled with lies and weeps at the thought of the harm they cause. He felt his hardened anger crumble at once, like a mountain cracking open. “Ah, Margarita!” His voice was trembling and humble. Could everything between them end so simply? Were their old vows lies?… They had sought each other with irresistible affinity, to become one, to be single… and now, suddenly hardened by indifference, were they going to clash like two hostile bodies repelling each other?… What did this absurdity mean— loving him as always and loving her former husband at the same time? Margarita lowered her head, murmuring in despair: You are a man, I am a woman. You won’t understand me no matter how much I speak. Men cannot grasp certain mysteries of ours… A woman would understand me better. Desnoyers wanted to know her misfortune in all its cruelty. She could speak without fear. She felt strong enough to bear the blows… What did Laurier say when he saw himself cared for and caressed by Margarita?… He doesn’t know who I am… He thinks I’m a nurse like the others, who takes pity on him seeing him alone and blind, without relatives to write to him and visit him… At times I’ve even suspected he might be guessing the truth. My voice, the touch of my hands, initially made him bristle with a gesture of surprise. I told him I was a Belgian lady who had lost her family and was alone in the world. He briefly recounted his former life , like someone wishing to forget a hateful past… Not a single unpleasant word about his former wife. There are nights when I suspect he knows me, that he uses his blindness to prolong his feigned ignorance, and this torments me… I long for him to regain his sight, for the doctors to save one of his eyes, and at the same time I am afraid. What will he say when he recognizes me?… But no: it’s better that he see, and whatever happens, happens. You can’t understand these worries, you don’t know what I suffer. He fell silent for a moment to concentrate, once again assessing the anxieties of his soul. “Oh, the war!” he continued. “What changes in our lives!” Two months ago, my situation would have seemed extraordinary, unbelievable… Me, caring for my husband, fearing he’d discover me and leave me, while at the same time hoping he’d recognize me and forgive me… I’ve only been living with him for a week. I disguise my voice as much as possible, avoiding phrases that would reveal who I am… But this can’t go on. Only in novels are such situations acceptable. Doubt suddenly clouded her resolve. ” I think,” she continued, “that he recognized me from the very beginning… He’s silent and feigns ignorance because he despises me… because he’ll never forgive me. I’ve been so cruel!… I’ve hurt him so much!”… She remembered the long, thoughtful silences the wounded man would have had after some imprudent words. Two days after receiving her care, he’d had a moment of rebellion, refusing to go for walks with her. But, blinded by his own shortsightedness, realizing the futility of his resistance, he’d finally surrendered with silent passivity. “Let him think what he wants,” Margarita concluded cheerfully, “let him despise me. I am here; where I should be. I need his forgiveness; and if he doesn’t forgive me, I will still stay by his side… There are times when I wish he would never regain his sight. That way, he would always need me, I could spend my whole life by his side sacrificing myself for him… ” “And me?” said Desnoyers. Margarita looked at him with astonished eyes, as if she were waking up. It was true; and the other man?… Enraged by her sacrifice, which represented an expiation, she had forgotten the man before her. “You!” she said after a long pause; “you must leave me… Life is not as we had conceived it. Without the war, perhaps we would have realized our dreams, but now!… Look closely. I carry for the rest of my life a most heavy and at the same time sweet burden, for the more it overwhelms me, the more pleasing it seems. I will never be separated from that man whom I have offended so much, who finds himself alone in the world and needs protection like a child. Why should you share my fate? How can I live in love with a perpetual nurse, beside a good and blind man, whom we would continually outrage with our passion?… No; it is better that you go away. Go your own way, alone and unburdened.” Leave me be: you will find other women who will make you happier than I ever could. You are destined to find new happiness at every turn. She persisted in her praise. Her voice was calm, but deep within it trembled the emotion of a final farewell to a joy that was slipping away forever . The beloved man would belong to others; and she herself was giving him away! But the noble sadness of the sacrifice instilled serenity in her. It was one more renunciation to atone for her sins. Julio lowered his eyes, perplexed and defeated. He was terrified by the image of the future Margarita had painted for him. Living beside the nurse, taking advantage of the blind man’s ignorance to inflict a new insult upon him every day with her affections—ah, no! It was villainy. He remembered now with shame the malice with which he had regarded this unfortunate and good man not long before. He recognized that he had no strength left to fight him. Weak and powerless on that garden bench, he was larger and more respectable than Julio Desnoyers with all his youth and gallantry. He had served a purpose in his life; he had done what Desnoyers dared not do. This conviction of his inferiority made him moan like an abandoned child: “What will become of me?…” Margarita, considering the love that was gone forever, the vanished hopes , the future illuminated by the satisfaction of a duty fulfilled, but monotonous and painful, murmured likewise: “And me?… What will become of me?…” Desnoyers seemed to revive, as if he had suddenly found a solution. “Listen, Margarita: I can read your soul. You love that man, and you’re right to. He’s superior to me, and women are attracted to all superiority… I am a coward. Yes, don’t protest; I am a coward, with all my youth, with all my strength.” How could you not be impressed by that man’s conduct?… But I will recover what I’ve lost… This country is yours, Margarita; I will fight for it. Don’t say no… And inflamed by his sudden enthusiasm, he drew up a plan of heroic deeds. He was going to become a soldier. Soon she would hear of him. His purpose was to lie dead on the field at the first encounter or to astonish the world with his exploits. One way or another, he would resolve his shameful situation: the oblivion of death or glory. “No!” she exclaimed, interrupting him in anguish. “Not you. There’s enough with the other one… How awful! You too, wounded, mutilated forever , perhaps dead… No; live. I prefer that you live, even if you belong to another. That I know you exist, that I see you someday even if you have forgotten me, even if you pass by indifferently as if you didn’t know me.” In her protest, she cried out for ardent love, impulsive and heroic love, accepting all suffering so that the beloved may continue to exist. But then, so that Julio would not feel the deception of a false hope, she added: Live; you must not die; it would be a new torment for me… But live without me. Forget me. It is useless what we say: my destiny is forever marked by the other’s side. Desnoyers again succumbed to despair, sensing the futility of pleas and protests. Ah, how you love him!… How you deceived me! As a final explanation, she repeated what she had said at the beginning of the interview. She loved Julio… and she loved her husband. They were different loves. She wouldn’t say which was more ardent, but misfortune compelled her to choose between the two, and she accepted the more painful one, the one with the greatest sacrifices. ” You are a man and you will never understand me… A woman would understand me.” Julio, glancing around, thought the afternoon had been affected by a celestial phenomenon. The garden was still illuminated by the sun, but the green of the trees, the yellow of the ground, the blue of the sky, the white foam of the river—everything seemed dark and blurred, as if a rain of ash were falling. “So… is it all over between us?” His trembling, pleading voice, heavy with tears, made her turn her head away to hide her emotion. Then, in the painful silence, the two despairing souls asked the same question, as if they were interrogating the shadows of the future. “What will become of me?” the man murmured. And like an echo, her lips repeated: “What will become of me?” Everything had been said. Irreparable words rose between them like an obstacle that would widen by the moment, propelling them in opposite directions. Why prolong the painful encounter?… Margarita displayed the quick and energetic resolve of every woman who wishes to end a scene: “Goodbye!” Her face had taken on a yellowish pallor, her pupils were lifeless, smoky, like the glass of a lantern whose light is going out. “Goodbye!” She had to return to her wounded man’s side. She left without looking at him, and Desnoyers, instinctively, walked in the opposite direction. When, having calmed down, he tried to retrace his steps, he saw her walking away, arm in arm with the blind man, without turning her head even once. He was convinced that he would never see her again, and a suffocating anguish tightened in his throat. And could two beings who, just days before, had contemplated the universe embodied in their very being, be separated so easily and eternally ?… His despair at being left alone made him accuse himself of clumsiness. Now his thoughts came rushing in, and each one seemed enough to convince Margarita. Undoubtedly, he hadn’t known how to express himself: he needed to speak with her again… And he decided to stay in Lourdes. He spent a night of torture in the hotel, listening to the river’s murmur among the stones. Insomnia held him in its ferocious jaws, gnawing at him with endless torment. He turned on the light several times, but he couldn’t read. His eyes stared with stupid fixity at the designs on the wallpaper, the pious prints in this room that had served as lodging for wealthy pilgrims. He remained motionless and abstracted, like those Orientals who contemplate their absolute lack of thoughts. A single idea danced in the emptiness of his skull: “And I will never see her again… is this possible?” He dozed for a few moments, only to awaken with the sensation of a horrifying explosion that sent him flying. He lay awake, sweating with anguish, until a square of milky light began to emerge in the shadows of the room. Dawn was beginning to reflect on the window curtains. The velvety caress of day finally allowed him to close his eyes. Upon waking, well into the morning, he rushed to the grotto gardens… The hours of trembling, futile waiting, believing he recognized Margarita in every white lady who advanced, guiding a wounded man! In the afternoon, after a luncheon whose dishes were passed around untouched, he returned to the garden in search of her. Upon recognizing her arm in arm with the blind officer, he felt a wave of despair. She seemed taller , thinner, with a sharp face, two hollow shadows on her cheeks, her eyes bright with fever, her eyelids drawn shut with exhaustion. She foresaw a night of torment, of few and persistent thoughts, of painful stupefaction like her own in the hotel room. She suddenly felt the full weight of insomnia and lack of appetite, all The depressing emotion of the cruel sensations experienced in the last few hours. How wretched they both were!… She advanced cautiously, glancing from side to side, like one who senses danger. Upon discovering him, she pressed herself against the blind man, casting a pleading, desperate look at her former lover, imploring mercy… Ah, that look! He felt shame; his personality seemed to have split in two: he beheld himself with the eyes of a judge. What was this so-called Julio Desnoyers, a seductive and useless man, doing there, tormenting a poor woman with his presence, trying to divert her from her noble repentance, insisting on his selfish and petty desires, when all of humanity was thinking of other things?… His cowardice irritated him. Like a thief taking advantage of his victim’s sleep, he stalked a good and courageous man who couldn’t see him, who couldn’t defend himself, to steal the only affection he had in the world, an affection that miraculously turned back on him. Very well, Mr. Desnoyers!… Ah, you scoundrel! These outward insults made him stand tall, haughty, cruel, inexorable, against that other self worthy of his contempt. He tilted his head: he didn’t want to meet Margarita’s pleading eyes; he feared her silent reproach. Nor did he dare look at the blind man, in his shaven, heroic uniform, his face aged by duty and glory. He feared him as he feared remorse. He turned his back on the group: he walked away. Goodbye, love! Goodbye, happiness!… He marched now with a firm step; a miracle had just taken place within him: he had found his path. To Paris!… A new illusion was about to fill the immense void of his aimless existence. Chapter 10. The Invasion. Don Marcelo was fleeing to take refuge in his castle when he encountered the mayor of Villeblanche. The roar of the volley had sent him running toward the barricade. Upon learning of the arrival of the group of stragglers, he raised his arms in despair. They were mad. Their resistance was going to be fatal for the town. And he continued running to beg them to give it up. A long time passed without disturbing the calm of the morning. Desnoyers had climbed to the top of one of his towers and was scanning the countryside with his spectacles. He couldn’t make out the road; he could only see the nearby groves of trees. He imagined some hidden activity beneath the foliage: masses of men halting , troops preparing for attack. The unexpected defense of the fugitives had disrupted the course of the invasion. Desnoyers thought of this handful of madmen and their stubborn leader: what fate awaited them ?… As he focused his binoculars on the vicinity of the village, he saw the red patches of their kepis drifting like poppies across the green meadows. It was them retreating, convinced of the futility of their resistance. Perhaps they had been shown a ford or a forgotten boat to cross the Marne, and they continued their retreat toward the river. At any moment, the Germans would enter Villeblanche. Half an hour of profound silence passed. The village stood out against a backdrop of hills, its mass of rooftops and the church tower topped by a cross and an iron rooster. Everything seemed calm, as in the best days of peace. Suddenly, he saw the forest vomit something noisy and subtle in the distance, a bubble of vapor accompanied by a muffled explosion. Something else also streaked across the air in a strident arc. Then a roof of the village opened up like a crater, hurling timbers, fragments of wall, and broken furniture. The entire interior of the house escaped in a plume of smoke, dust, and splinters. The invaders bombarded Villeblanche before attempting the attack, as if they feared encountering fierce resistance in its streets. More shells rained down. Some, passing over the houses, exploded between the village and the castle. The turrets of the Desnoyers estate were beginning to attract the gunners’ aim. He was considering the opportunity to abandon his perilous vantage point when he saw something white, like a tablecloth or a sheet, floating on the church tower. The neighbors had hoisted this peace signal to avoid bombardment. A few more projectiles fell; then silence fell. Don Marcelo was now in his garden, watching the caretaker bury the hunting weapons kept at the castle at the foot of a tree. Then he went toward the gate. The enemy was coming, and they had to be received. In this unsettling wait, regret returned to torment him. What was he doing there? Why had he stayed?… But his tenacious character immediately dismissed the doubts of fear. He was there because he had a duty to guard what was his. Besides, it was too late to think about such things. Suddenly, it seemed to him that the morning silence was broken by a dull tear in stiff fabric. “Gunshots, sir,” said the caretaker. “A volley. It must be in the square.” Minutes later they saw a woman from the village arrive, an old woman with withered, dark limbs, panting from the violent rush, casting wild glances around. She was fleeing without knowing where to go, driven by the need to escape danger, to rid herself of horrible visions. Desnoyers and the doormen listened to her explanation, punctuated by hiccups of terror. The Germans were in Villeblanche. First, a car had entered at full speed, speeding from one end of the village to the other. Its machine gun was firing indiscriminately at closed houses and open doors, knocking down people who had dared to look out. The old woman opened her arms in a gesture of terror… Dead… many dead… wounded… blood. Then, other armored vehicles had stopped in the square, and behind them, groups of cavalry, infantry battalions , numerous battalions, arriving from all sides. The men in helmets seemed furious: they accused the inhabitants of having fired upon them. In the square, the mayor and several residents who came out to meet him had been beaten. The priest, bent over some dying people, had also been run over… All were taken prisoner. The Germans were to shoot them. The old woman’s words were cut short by the sound of approaching cars. ” Open the gate,” the owner ordered the caretaker. The gate remained open, and it never closed again. The right of ownership had ended. A huge car, covered in dust and full of men, stopped in front of the entrance . Behind it, the horns of other vehicles blared, warning each other as they stopped with a sharp slam of their brakes. Desnoyers saw soldiers leaping out, all dressed in greenish-gray, with a helmet cover of the same color over their pointed helmets. One of them, who was marching in front, put his revolver to his forehead. “Where are the snipers?” he asked. He was pale, with a pallor of anger, of vengeance, and of fear. His cheeks trembled with the threefold emotion. Don Marcelo explained slowly, his eyes fixed on the black, menacing barrel. He hadn’t seen any snipers. The castle’s only inhabitants were the caretaker and his family, and himself, the owner. The officer looked at the building and then examined Desnoyers with visible surprise, as if he found him too humble-looking to be its owner. He had believed him to be a mere employee, and his respect for social hierarchies made him lower his revolver. This did not deter him from his imperious gestures. He urged Don Marcelo to lead the way; he made him march ahead of him, while about forty soldiers gathered behind them. They advanced in two lines, under the cover of the trees that lined the central avenue, rifles ready to fire, glancing anxiously at the castle windows, as if expecting a volley of gunfire. Desnoyers marched calmly through the center, and the officer, who had imitated the Out of caution, his men eventually joined him as he crossed the drawbridge. The armed men spread through the rooms in search of enemies. They stuck bayonets under beds and divans. Others, with a destructive automatism, tore through the curtains and the rich bedspreads . The owner protested: “What is the point of this useless destruction?”… He was experiencing unbearable torture seeing the enormous boots staining the carpets with mud, hearing the clash of rifle butts and backpacks against the fragile furniture, from which objects fell. “Poor historic mansion!”… The officer looked at him strangely, astonished that he protested for such futile reasons. But he gave an order in German, and his men ceased their rough searches. Then, as if to justify this extraordinary respect, he added in French: ” I believe you will have the honor of hosting the general of our army corps. ” The certainty that no enemies were hiding in the castle made him more amenable. However, he persisted in his anger against the snipers. A group of villagers had opened fire on the Hulans as they advanced carelessly after the French retreat. Desnoyers felt a protest was necessary. They were neither villagers nor snipers: they were French soldiers. He was careful to conceal his presence at the barricade, but claimed he had spotted the uniforms from a tower of his castle. The officer made an aggressive gesture. “You too?… You, who seem like a reasonable man, repeat such nonsense?” And to cut the discussion short, he said arrogantly: ” They were wearing uniforms, if you insist on saying so, but they were snipers. The French government has distributed weapons and uniforms to the peasants so they can murder us. The Belgian government did the same… But we know their tricks and we will know how to punish them.” The village was to be burned. The four German corpses lying on the outskirts of Villeblanche, near the barricade, had to be avenged. The mayor, the priest, the leading citizens—all shot. They were visiting the top floor at that moment. Desnoyers saw a dark mist floating above the foliage of his park, its outlines reddened by the sun. The top of the bell tower was the only part of the town visible from there. Around the iron rooster swirled delicate rags, like black cobwebs carried by the wind. The smell of old, burnt wood reached the castle. The German greeted this sight with a cruel smile. Then, descending to the park, he ordered Desnoyers to follow him. His freedom and his dignity were over. From now on, he would be a thing under the control of these men, who could dispose of him as they pleased. Oh, why had he stayed?… He obeyed, getting into a car next to the officer, who still held his revolver in his right hand. His men spread out throughout the castle and its outbuildings to prevent the escape of an imaginary enemy. The caretaker and his family seemed to bid him farewell with their eyes. Perhaps they were taking him to his death… Beyond the groves of the castle, a new world began to emerge. The short journey to Villeblanche felt to him like a leap of millions of leagues, a fall onto a red planet, where men and things bore the patina of smoke and the glow of fire. He saw the town under a dark canopy speckled with sparks and glittering embers. The bell tower burned like an enormous torch; the church roof exploded, spewing jets of flame. A stench of burning permeated the air. The blaze’s intensity seemed to shrink and pale before the impassive light of the sun. Women and children ran across the fields with the speed of desperation, screaming. The beasts had escaped from the stables, driven by the flames, to begin a mad dash. The cow and the workhorse had ropes hanging from their necks, broken by the pull of fear. Their flanks were smoking and smelled of bare hair. Burned. Pigs, sheep, and chickens ran likewise, mingled with cats and dogs. All domestic animals reverted to a wild existence, fleeing civilized man. Gunshots and brutal laughter rang out. Soldiers on the outskirts of the village gleefully persisted in this hunt for fugitives. Their rifles were aimed at the beasts and wounded the people. Desnoyers saw men, many men, men everywhere. They were like gray anthills marching and marching south, emerging from the woods, filling the roads, crossing the fields. The green of the vegetation dissolved beneath their steps; fences fell broken; dust rose in spirals behind the muffled roll of cannons and the rhythmic trot of thousands of horses. Several battalions, with their accompanying vehicles and pack animals, had halted along the sides of the road. They rested before resuming their march. He knew this army. He had seen it at the parades in Berlin, and it seemed changed to him, just like the one the day before. Very little remained of the somber, imposing brilliance, the mute, boastful rigidity that had moved his brothers-in-law to tears of admiration. The war, with its harsh realities, had erased all the theatricality from that formidable organism of death. The soldiers looked dirty and weary. A breath of pale, stale, sweaty flesh, mingled with the stench of leather, hung over the regiments. Every man looked starved. They had been marching for days on end, incessantly following the tracks of an enemy who always managed to escape. In this forced advance, the supplies from the Quartermaster Corps arrived late to the encampments. They could only rely on what they carried in their knapsacks. Desnoyers saw them lined up by the roadside, devouring pieces of dark bread and moldy sausages. Some scattered across the fields, digging up beets and other tubers, chewing their tough flesh amidst the crunch of earth. A second lieutenant shook the fruit trees, using his regimental flag as a perch. The glorious banner, adorned with mementos from 1870, helped him reach still-green plums. Those sitting on the ground took advantage of this break, pulling their swollen, sweaty feet out of their high boots, which exuded an unbearable vapor. The infantry regiments Desnoyers had seen in Berlin, their metal and webbing reflecting the light, the luxurious and terrifying hussars, the cuirassiers in their white uniforms resembling the paladins of the Holy Grail, the artillerymen with their chests crisscrossed with white sashes—all the soldiers who, in parades, had elicited sighs of admiration from the Hartrotts—now appeared unified and indistinguishable from one another, all in mustard green, like powdered lizards crawling to blend into the ground. The persistence of iron discipline was palpable. A harsh word from the officers, a blow of the whistle, and they would all pile up, the man disappearing into the thick mass of automatons. But danger, exhaustion, the certainty of victory had momentarily drawn soldiers and officers closer together, erasing the differences of caste. The commanders emerged somewhat from the isolation imposed by their pride and deigned to converse with their men to boost their morale. One more effort, and they would encircle the French and English, repeating the feat of Sedan, whose anniversary was being celebrated in those days. They were going to enter Paris: it was a matter of a week. Paris! Grand stores full of riches, famous restaurants, women, champagne, money… And the men, proud that their leaders deigned to speak with them, forgot fatigue and hunger, reviving themselves like the multitudes of the Crusade before the image of Jerusalem. “To Paris!” The joyful cry circulated from the head to the tail of the marching columns, “To Paris! To Paris!…” They compensated for the scarcity of food with the products of a land rich in wines. When they looted houses, they rarely found provisions, but Always a wine cellar. The humble German, fueled by beer and considering wine a privilege of the rich, could empty the barrels with rifle butts, his feet splashing in waves of the precious liquid. Each battalion left a trail of empty bottles in its wake ; a halt in a field was strewn with glass cylinders. The regimental wagons, unable to replenish their rations , loaded up on wine in every town. The soldier, lacking bread, received alcohol… And this gift was accompanied by sound advice from the officers. War is war: no mercy for adversaries who didn’t deserve it. The French shot prisoners , and their women gouged out the eyes of the wounded. Every dwelling was a den of intrigue. The simple, innocent German who entered alone walked toward certain death. The beds sank into terrifying underground tunnels, the wardrobes were concealed doors, every corner held a hidden assassin. This treacherous nation, which had prepared its soil like a melodrama stage, had to be punished. Municipal officials, priests, and schoolteachers directed and protected the snipers. Desnoyers was horrified to see the indifference with which these men marched around the burning village. They didn’t see the fire and the destruction; everything was worthless in their eyes: it was just another ordinary sight. Since crossing the borders of his country, villages in ruins, burned by the vanguard, and villages just beginning to blaze, ignited by their own passage, had marked the stages of their advance across Belgian and French soil. As the car entered Villeblanche, he had to slow down. Charred walls had collapsed onto the street, half-charred beams blocked the way, forcing the vehicle to swerve through the smoldering rubble. The vacant lots burned like braziers among the houses that still stood, looted, their doors broken, but untouched by the fire. Desnoyers saw in these rectangles filled with embers chairs, beds, sewing machines, iron stoves—all the furnishings of peasant comfort—being consumed or twisted. He thought he also saw an arm emerging from the rubble, beginning to burn like a candle. No; it wasn’t possible… A stench of hot grease mingled with the sooty breath of wood and debris. He closed his eyes: he didn’t want to see. For a moment he thought he was dreaming. It was implausible that such horrors could have unfolded in little more than an hour. He believed human wickedness powerless to change the face of a town in such a short time. A sudden stop of the carriage made him look. This time the corpses were in the middle of the street: two men and a woman. Perhaps they had fallen under the bullets of the machine gun that had driven through the town preceding the invasion. A little further on, with their backs to the dead, as if unaware of their presence, several soldiers sat on the ground eating. The chauffeur shouted to them to clear the way. With their rifles and their feet, they pushed the still-warm corpses, which left a trail of blood with each turn. As soon as there was a little space between them and the wall, the vehicle moved forward… A creak, a jolt. The rear wheels had crushed a fragile obstacle. Desnoyers remained in his seat, huddled up, stunned, his eyes closed . The horror made him think about his own fate. Where was that lieutenant taking him ?… In the square, he saw the town hall burning; The church was nothing more than a stone shell bristling with tongues of fire. The houses of the well-to-do neighbors had their doors and windows smashed with axes. Inside , soldiers bustled about in a methodical back-and-forth. They entered empty-handed and emerged laden with furniture and clothing. Others, from the upper floors, threw down objects, accompanying their deliveries with jokes and laughter. Suddenly, they had to flee. The fire would erupt instantly, with the violence and speed of An explosion. He followed a group of men carrying crates and metal cylinders. Someone at the front designated the buildings, and as pellets and jets of liquid poured through their broken windows, the catastrophe unfolded with lightning speed. He saw two men emerge from a burning building, looking like piles of rags, dragged along by several Germans. Through the blue stain of their greatcoats, he made out pale faces, eyes wide with agony. Their legs dragged on the ground, sticking out from between the strips of their torn red trousers. One of them still wore his kepi. Blood was pouring from various parts of their bodies, leaving behind a trail of white, unraveling bandages. They were wounded French soldiers, stragglers who had remained in the village, too weak to continue the retreat. Perhaps they belonged to the group that, when cut off, had attempted a desperate stand. Wanting to restore the truth, he looked at the officer beside him and wanted to speak. But the officer stopped him: “Disguised snipers, who are about to receive their punishment.” German bayonets sank into their bodies. Then a rifle butt fell on one of their heads… And the blows were repeated with a dull hammering on the bone capsules, which cracked as they broke. Again the old man thought about his own fate. Where was this lieutenant leading him through so many visions of horror?… They arrived at the outskirts of the village, where the dragoons had set up their barricade. The wagons were still there, but to one side of the road. They got out of the car. He saw a group of officers dressed in gray, with their helmets in their cases, identical in every way to the others. The one who had led him to this place stood motionless, rigid, with one hand on his visor, speaking to a soldier who was a few paces ahead of the group. He looked at this man, and the man looked back at him with sharp, blue eyes that pierced his gaunt face, furrowed with wrinkles. It must be the general. The arrogant, searching gaze took him in from head to toe. Don Marcelo had a premonition that his life depended on this examination. One bad thought crossing his mind, a cruel whim of his imagination, and he was lost. The general shrugged and said a few words with a disdainful gesture. Then he got into a car with two of his aides, and the group dispersed. The old man’s cruel uncertainty made the moments it took for the officer to return to his side seem endless. “Your Excellency is very kind,” he said. “I could have shot you, but you spared you. And you still call us savages!”… With the unconsciousness of his contempt, he explained that he had brought him there convinced that he would be shot. The general wished to punish the leading citizens of Villeblanche, and he had decided on his own initiative that the owner of the castle should be one of them. Military duty, sir… War demands it. After this excuse, he resumed his praise of His Excellency. He was going to stay at Don Marcelo’s property, and for this reason, he was sparing his life. He should thank him… Then his cheeks trembled with anger again. He pointed to some bodies lying by the roadside. They were the corpses of the four Hulans, covered with greatcoats, the enormous soles of their boots showing beneath them. “Murder!” he exclaimed. “A crime the guilty will pay dearly for !” His indignation made him consider the death of the four soldiers an unprecedented and monstrous act , as if in war only the enemy should fall, while the lives of his countrymen remained untouched. A group of infantry arrived, commanded by an officer. As their ranks parted, Desnoyers saw several civilians being roughly shoved among the gray uniforms. Their clothes were torn. Some had blood on their faces and hands. He recognized them one by one as they were lined up against a wall, twenty paces from the picket line: the mayor, the priest, the forester, some wealthy neighbors whose houses he had seen They were going to be shot … To avoid any doubt, the lieutenant continued his explanation. “I wanted you to see this. It’s important to learn. That way you’ll be better able to appreciate His Excellency’s kindness. ” None of the prisoners spoke. They had exhausted their voices in a useless protest. Their whole lives were concentrated in their eyes, looking around in astonishment… And it was possible that they would be killed coldly, without hearing their protests, without admitting the proofs of their innocence! The certainty of death suddenly gave almost all of them a noble serenity. It was useless to complain. Only a rich peasant, famous in the village for his avarice, whimpered desperately, repeating: “I don’t want to die… I don’t want to die.” Trembling and with tears in his eyes, Desnoyers hid behind his implacable companion. He knew them all, he had fought them all , and now he regretted his old quarrels. The mayor had a large, red gash on his forehead. A tricolor rag fluttered across his chest: the municipal sash, which he had worn to welcome the invaders and which they had torn from him. The priest stood erect, his small, round body trying to encompass in a resigned glance the victims, the executioners, the whole earth, the sky. He seemed heavier. The black sash, torn by the soldiers’ violence, left his abdomen bare and his cassock billowing. His silver hair dripped blood, spattering red drops onto the white clerical collar. As they saw him advance across the execution field, his steps faltering because of his obesity, a savage laugh broke the tragic silence. The groups of unarmed soldiers who had come to witness the torture greeted the old man with laughter. “Death to the priest!” The fanaticism of the religious wars vibrated in their mockery. Almost all of them were devout Catholics or Protestants; but they only believed in the priests of their own country. Outside of Germany, everything seemed contemptible, even religion itself. The mayor and the priest exchanged places in the line, seeking each other out. They offered each other the center of the group with solemn courtesy. ” Here, Mr. Mayor; this is your place: at the head of everyone.” ” No; after you, Father.” They argued for the last time, but at this supreme moment it was to yield the right of way, each wanting to humble himself before the other. They had joined hands instinctively, looking straight ahead at the firing squad, which lowered its rifles in a rigid horizontal line. Behind them, lamentations sounded. “Goodbye, my children… Goodbye, life… I don’t want to die… I don’t want to die!…” The two men felt the need to say something, to close the page of their existence with an affirmation. “Long live the Republic!” shouted the mayor. ” Long live France!” said the priest. Desnoyers believed they had both shouted the same thing. Two vertical lines rose above their heads: the priest’s arm traced a sign in the air, the picket leader’s saber flashed lividly at the same time… A dry, resounding thunderclap, followed by several delayed explosions. Don Marcelo felt pity for poor humanity as he saw the grotesque forms it assumed at the moment of death. Some collapsed like half-empty sacks; others bounced on the ground like balls; some leaped like gymnasts, arms raised, falling backward or face down, in a swimmer’s stance. He saw legs contorted by the shudders of agony emerge from the human pile… Some soldiers advanced with the same gesture as hunters going to retrieve their game. From the throbbing limbs rose white manes and a weak hand that struggled to repeat its sign. Several shots and blows with rifle butts struck the livid, dripping heap of blood… And the last glimmers of life were erased forever. The officer had lit a cigar. ” Whenever you like,” he said to Desnoyers with ironic courtesy. They got into the car to drive through Villeblanche, returning to the The castle. The ever-increasing fires and the corpses strewn in the streets no longer impressed the old man. He had seen so much! What could possibly disturb his sensibilities now? He longed to leave the town as soon as possible, in search of the peace of the countryside. But the countryside had vanished beneath the invasion: soldiers, horses, cannons everywhere . The groups at rest destroyed everything around them with their mere touch. The marching battalions had invaded all the roads, noisy and automatic as a machine, preceded by fifes and drums, occasionally letting out, to bolster their spirits, their cry of joy: “Nach Paris!” The castle, too, was disfigured by the invasion. The number of its guards had greatly increased during the owner’s absence. He saw an entire infantry regiment encamped in the park. Thousands of men bustled about under the trees, preparing their meals in mobile kitchens . The flowerbeds in his garden, the exotic plants, the carefully sanded and swept avenues—all broken and battered by the onslaught of men, beasts, and vehicles. A commander, sporting the distinctive armband of the military administration on his sleeve, barked orders as if he owned the place. He didn’t even deign to glance at the civilian marching beside a lieutenant, cowering like a prisoner. The stables were empty. Desnoyers saw his last cows being herded out with sticks by helmeted shepherds . The expensive breeding stock were all slaughtered in the park like mere animals. Not a single bird remained in the henhouses and dovecotes. The stables were full of scrawny horses gorging themselves at the overflowing mangers. The stored hay was scattered lavishly along the avenues, much of it wasted before it could be used. The horses of several squadrons roamed freely across the meadows, destroying underfoot the canals, the edges of the embankments, the leveled ground—all the work of many months. Dry firewood burned in the park with a pointless blaze. Whether through carelessness or malice, someone had set fire to its piles. The trees, their bark parched by the summer heat, crackled as the flames licked at them. The building was equally occupied by a multitude of men who obeyed this commander. Its open windows revealed a constant flow of people through the rooms. Desnoyers heard thumps that resonated within his chest. Alas, his historic mansion!… The general was about to take up residence there, having inspected the work of the pontooners on the banks of the Marne, who were constructing several crossings for the troops. His owner’s fear made him speak. He was afraid they would break down the doors of the locked rooms; he wanted to go and fetch the keys to hand them over. The commissioner didn’t listen to him; he still didn’t know he existed. The lieutenant replied curtly: ” It’s not necessary; don’t bother.” And he left to rejoin his regiment. But before Desnoyers lost sight of him, the officer wanted to give him some advice. Stay put in your castle; outside, they might take you for a spy, and he was already aware of the speed with which the emperor’s soldiers settled their affairs. He couldn’t remain in the garden gazing at his house from afar. The Germans who came and went mocked him. Some marched straight toward him, as if they didn’t see him, and he had to step aside to avoid being knocked down by this mechanical, rigid advance. Finally, he took refuge in the caretaker’s pavilion. The woman saw him with astonishment, slumped in a chair in her kitchen, disheartened, his gaze on the floor, suddenly aged by the loss of the energy that animated his robust old age. “Ah, sir!… Poor sir!” Of all the invading forces’ atrocities, the most unbelievable for the poor woman was seeing her husband taking refuge in his own home. “What will become of us!” she moaned. Her husband was frequently summoned by the invaders. His Excellency’s attendants, stationed in the castle’s cellars, called for him. to inquire about the whereabouts of things they couldn’t find. From these trips he returned humiliated, his eyes filled with tears. He had a black mark on his forehead from a blow; his jacket was torn. These were traces of a feeble attempt at resistance during the owner’s absence when the Germans began looting the stables and halls. The millionaire felt bound by misfortune to people he had previously regarded with indifference. He was deeply grateful for the loyalty of this sick and humble man. He was touched by the poor woman’s concern, who looked at the castle as if it were her own. The daughter’s presence brought to his mind the image of Chichi. He had passed by her without noticing her transformation, seeing her as he had when she accompanied Miss Desnoyers, with a stilted trot, on her excursions through the park and surrounding area. Now she was a woman, with the slenderness of her final growth spurt, the first signs of feminine grace appearing on her fourteen-year-old body. His mother wouldn’t let him leave the pavilion, fearing the soldiers, whose overflowing horde invaded everything , seeping into open spaces, breaking through any obstacles in their path. Desnoyers broke his desperate silence to confess that he was hungry. He was ashamed of this need, but the day’s events, the close proximity of death, the still-present danger, had awakened a frantic appetite within him. The thought that he was a wretch amidst his riches and could dispose of nothing in his domain only intensified his hunger. “Poor man!” the woman said again. And she watched in astonishment as the millionaire devoured a piece of bread and a triangle of cheese, the only things he could find in his home. The certainty that he would find no other food, no matter how hard he looked, only fueled Don Marcelo’s torment. To have amassed an enormous fortune, only to suffer hunger at the end of one’s life!… The woman, as if sensing his thoughts, moaned, raising her eyes. From the early hours of the morning, the world had changed course: everything seemed upside down. Ah, war!… Throughout the rest of the afternoon and part of the night, the owner received the news brought to him by the caretaker after his visits to the castle. The general and numerous officers occupied the rooms. Not a single door remained closed: all were wide open, forced shut with rifle butts and axes. Many things had disappeared; the doorman didn’t know how, but they had vanished, perhaps broken, perhaps snatched by those coming and going. The commander of the regiment went from room to room examining everything, dictating in German to a soldier who was writing. Meanwhile, the general and his men were in the dining room. They drank copiously and consulted maps spread out on the floor. The poor man had had to descend into the caves in search of the finest wines. At nightfall, a surge of movement was observed in that human tide that covered the fields as far as the eye could see. Several bridges had been established across the Marne, and the invasion resumed its advance. The regiments set out, shouting their enthusiastic cry: “Nach Paris!” Those who remained to continue the next day settled in the ruined houses or in the open air. Desnoyers heard singing. Under the glow of the first stars, the soldiers gathered like choirboys, forming with their voices a solemn and sweet chorale, of religious gravity. Above the trees floated a red cloud, intensified by the shadows. It was the reflection of the town, still ablaze. In the distance, other bonfires from farms and hamlets pierced the night with their bloody flickers. The old man finally fell asleep in his caretakers’ bed, overcome by the heavy, numbing sleep of exhaustion, without any jolts or nightmares. He fell and fell into a gloomy, bottomless abyss. When he awoke, he imagined he had only slept for a few minutes. The sun was painting the window curtains orange . Through their fabric, he saw some tree branches. And birds hopping and chirping among the leaves. He felt the same joy as the fresh dawns of summer. Beautiful morning! But what room was this?… He looked with bewilderment at the bed and everything around him. Suddenly, reality assaulted his brain, gently paralyzed by the first splendors of the day. From this mental fog emerged the long staircase of his memory, with a final black and red rung: the mass of emotions that represented the previous day. And he had slept peacefully surrounded by enemies, subject to an arbitrary force that could destroy him on a whim!… Upon entering the kitchen, his caretaker gave him news. The Germans were leaving. The regiment encamped in the park had left at dawn, and after it, others and others. In the town, only one battalion remained, occupying the few intact houses and the ruins of those that had been burned. The general had also left with his large staff. Only the commander of a brigade, whom his attendants called “the Count,” and several officers remained in the castle. After hearing this news, he dared to leave the pavilion. He saw his garden , ravaged but beautiful. The trees impassively bore the marks of the outrages inflicted on their trunks. The birds fluttered with surprise and joy at finding themselves once again masters of the space abandoned by the human flood. Desnoyers soon regretted his departure. Five trucks were lined up by the moats, in front of the castle bridge. Several groups of soldiers were leaving, carrying enormous pieces of furniture on their shoulders, like laborers moving furniture. A bulky object wrapped in silk curtains, which served as a substitute for packing canvas, was being pushed by four men into one of the trucks. The owner guessed. His bathroom: the famous golden tub! Then, with a sudden change of heart, he felt no sorrow for this loss. He now hated the ostentatious piece, attributing to it a fatal influence. It was his fault he was there. But alas!… the other furniture piled up in the trucks!… At that moment he could grasp the full extent of his misery and powerlessness. It was impossible for him to defend his property; he couldn’t argue with that officer who was calmly looting the castle, ignoring the owner’s presence. “Thieves! Thieves!” And he went back into the pavilion. He spent the whole morning with his elbow on a table and his jaw resting on his hand, just like the day before, letting the hours slowly slip by, not wanting to hear the muffled rumble of the vehicles carrying away the tokens of his opulence. Around noon, the caretaker informed him that an officer who had arrived an hour earlier by car wished to see him. Upon leaving the pavilion, he encountered a captain just like the others, with his pointed helmet in its case, his mustard-colored uniform, red leather boots, saber, revolver, cufflinks, and a map in a case hanging from his belt. He looked young; He wore the General Staff armband on one sleeve . “Do you know me?… I didn’t want to pass by without seeing you.” He said this in Spanish, and Desnoyers experienced a greater surprise than all the ones he had felt during his long hours of anguish since the previous morning. “You really don’t know me?” the German continued, still in Spanish. “I’m Otto… Captain Otto von Hartrott.” The old man descended, or rather tumbled, down the staircase of his memory, stopping on a distant step. He saw the room, saw his brothers-in-law with their second son. “I’ll name him Bismarck,” Karl said. Then, climbing many steps, he saw himself in Berlin during his visit to the Hartrotts. They spoke with pride of Otto, almost as wise as his older brother, but who applied his talent to the war. He was a lieutenant and was continuing his studies to join the General Staff. “Who knows if he’ll become another Moltke?” his father said. And the boisterous Chichi christened him with a nickname, accepted by the family. From then on, Otto was Moltkecito to his relatives in Paris. Desnoyers marveled at the transformations wrought by the years. That vigorous, insolent-looking captain, who could have him shot, was the same little boy he’d seen running around the farmhouse, the beardless Moltkecito his daughter laughed at… Meanwhile, the officer explained his presence there. He belonged to another division. There were many… many! divisions advancing, forming a long, deep wall from Verdun to Paris. His general had sent him to maintain contact with the immediate division, but finding himself near the castle, he’d wanted to visit. Family isn’t just a simple word. He remembered the days he’d spent in Villeblanche, when the Hartrott family had come to live for a while with their relatives in France. The officers occupying the building had kept him there to have lunch with them. One of them casually mentioned the owner of the property, implying that he was nearby, although no one was paying him any attention. A great surprise for Captain von Hartrott. And he had made inquiries until he found him, grieving to see him sheltering in his porters’ room. ” You must come out of there: you are my uncle,” he said proudly. “Go back to your home, where you belong. My comrades will be very pleased to meet you; they are very distinguished men.” He then lamented what the old man might have suffered. He didn’t know for sure what such suffering consisted of, but he guessed that the first moments of the invasion must have been cruel for him. “What do you expect!” he repeated several times. “It’s war.” At the same time, he was glad that he had remained on his property. They had orders to punish the property of fugitives with particular favor. Germany wanted the inhabitants to remain in their homes, as if nothing extraordinary were happening. Desnoyers protested… “But the invaders were shooting innocent people and burning their houses!” The nephew stopped him from speaking further. He paled, as if a wave of ash had spread behind his skin; his eyes gleamed, his cheeks trembled, just like the lieutenant who had taken possession of the castle. “You’re referring to the execution of the mayor and the others… My comrades just told me. The punishment was still too lenient; they should have razed the whole town: they should have killed even the children and women. We have to get rid of the snipers.” The old man looked at him in astonishment. His Moltkecito was as dangerous and ferocious as the others… But the captain cut the conversation short, repeating once more the eternal and monstrous excuse: ” Very horrible, but what can you do?… That’s war.” Then he asked for news of his mother, pleased to learn that she was in the South. He had been very worried by the idea of her remaining in Paris. With all the revolutions that had taken place there recently !… Desnoyers hesitated, as if he had misheard. What revolutions were these?… But the officer had moved on without further explanation to speak of his own family, believing that Desnoyers would be impatient to learn the fate of the German relatives. They were all in excellent circumstances. Their illustrious father was president of several patriotic societies, since his age prevented him from going to war, and he was also organizing future industrial ventures to exploit the conquered countries. His brother, “the wise one,” gave lectures about the peoples that the victorious Empire should annex, thundering against the bad patriots who showed themselves to be weak and petty in their ambitions. The three remaining brothers were in the army: one of them had been decorated in Lorraine. The two sisters, somewhat saddened by the absence of their fiancés, lieutenants in the hussars, occupied themselves by visiting the hospitals and asking God to punish traitorous England. Captain von Hartrott slowly led his uncle toward the castle. The gray, stiff soldiers, who until then had been unaware of Don Marcelo’s existence, followed him with interest, watching him in friendly conversation with a staff officer. He guessed that these men They were going to become humanized for him, losing their inexorable and aggressive automatism . Upon entering the building, something contracted in his chest with shudders of anguish. He saw painful emptiness everywhere, reminding him of the objects that had previously occupied the same space. Rectangular patches of a stronger color betrayed the placement of the missing furniture and paintings on the wallpaper. With what promptness and methodical skill that man with the armband on his sleeve had worked!… To the sadness he felt at the cold and orderly dispossession was added his indignation as a man of economy, seeing torn curtains, stained carpets, broken porcelain and crystal objects—all the vestiges of a rough and unscrupulous occupation. The nephew, guessing what he was thinking, repeated the eternal excuse: “What can you do?… It’s war.” But with Moltkecito, he had no reason to show the deference of fear. ” This isn’t war,” he said with a spiteful tone. It’s a bandit expedition … Your comrades are thieves. Captain von Hartrott suddenly grew taller with a violent growth spurt. He separated from the old man, staring at him intently, while speaking in a low voice, slightly hissing with the trembling of anger. “Listen, uncle!” Fortunately, he had spoken in Spanish, and those nearby couldn’t understand him . If he dared to persist with such remarks, he risked being shot in response. The Emperor’s officers do not tolerate insults. And everything about him demonstrated how easily he could forget his kinship if he received orders to proceed against Don Marcelo. The latter fell silent, lowering his head. What could he do?… The captain resumed his courtesies, as if he had forgotten what he had just said. He wanted to introduce him to his comrades. His Excellency Count Meinbourg, Major General, upon learning that he was related to the Hartrotts, extended the honor of inviting him to his table. Invited into his own home, he entered the dining room, where many men dressed in mustard-colored suits and wearing high boots were gathered. Instinctively, he took in the state of the room with a quick glance. Everything was in order, nothing broken: walls, curtains, and furniture remained untouched. But when he looked inside the monumental sideboards, he experienced another painful sensation. Everywhere, the darkness of oak. Two silver dinner services and another of antique porcelain had disappeared, without leaving a trace of even the smallest piece. He had to respond with grave greetings to the introductions his nephew was making, and he shook the hand the count extended with aristocratic nonchalance. His enemies regarded him with benevolence and a certain admiration, knowing that he was a millionaire from the distant land where men grow rich quickly. He suddenly found himself sitting like a stranger at his own table, eating from the same plates his family used, served by men with shaved heads who wore striped aprons over their uniforms . What he ate was his own, the wine came from his cellar, everything that adorned the room he had bought, the trees that stretched their branches beyond the window belonged to him as well… And yet, he felt as if he were in this place for the first time, suffering the unease of strangeness and mistrust. He ate because he was hungry, but the food and wine seemed to him from another planet. He examined with astonishment these enemies who occupied the same places as his wife, his children, the Lacours… They spoke German among themselves, but those who knew French frequently used that language so that the guest could understand them. Those who only spoke a few words repeated them with friendly smiles. A desire to please the owner of the castle was evident in all of them . “You are going to lunch with barbarians,” said the count, offering him a seat beside him. Aren’t you afraid they’ll eat you alive?… The Germans laughed uproariously at His Excellency’s joke. All They tried to prove with their words and gestures that the barbarity attributed to them by their enemies was false. Don Marcelo looked at them one by one. The fatigues of war, especially the accelerated march of the last few days, were visible on their bodies. Some were tall and thin, with an angular slenderness; others, square and stocky, with short necks and heads sunk between their shoulders. These latter had lost their fat reserves in a month of campaigning, their wrinkled, flabby skin hanging loosely in various parts of their faces. All had shaved heads, just like the soldiers. Around the table, two rows of pink or brown skulls gleamed . Their ears protruded grotesquely; their jaws were marked with the bony relief of emaciation. Some had kept their mustaches erect, in the emperor’s fashion; most were clean-shaven or had short, brush-like mustaches. A gold bracelet gleamed beneath the count’s hand, which rested on the table. He was the oldest of them all and the only one who still had his hair, a dark blond tinged with gray, carefully combed and gleaming with pomade. Nearing fifty, he maintained a feminine vigor, cultivated by strenuous exercise. Lean, bony, and strong, he tried to disguise his rough fighting style with a gentle, languid indifference. The officers treated him with great respect. Hartrott had spoken of him to his uncle as a great artist, musician, and poet. The emperor was his friend; they had known each other since their youth. Before the war, certain scandals in his private life had distanced him from court: outcry from rabble-rousers and socialists . But the sovereign kept his affection for him, as a former classmate, a secret. Everyone remembered a ball he had written, The Caprices of Scheherazade, performed with great pomp in Berlin at the recommendation of his powerful companion. He had lived for some years in the Orient. In short, a great gentleman and an artist of exquisite sensitivity, as well as a soldier. The Count could not tolerate Desnoyers’ silence. He was his guest, and the Count thought it necessary to get him to speak so that he could participate in the conversation. When Don Marcelo explained that he had only left Paris three days before, everyone perked up, eager to hear news. “Did you see any of the uprisings?” “Did the troops have to kill many people?” “How did Poincaré’s assassination happen?” They asked him these questions all at once, and Don Marcelo, bewildered by their implausibility, didn’t know what to answer. He thought he had stumbled into a gathering of madmen. Then he suspected they were making fun of him. Uprisings? The assassination of the President?… Some looked at him with pity for his ignorance; others with suspicion, seeing that he was pretending not to know about events that had unfolded right before his eyes. His nephew insisted. The German newspapers are full of it. The people of Paris rose up against the government two weeks ago, storming the Élysée Palace and assassinating the President. The army had to use machine guns to restore order… Everyone knows it. But Desnoyers insisted he didn’t know: he hadn’t seen anything. And since his words were met with a gesture of malicious doubt, he preferred to remain silent. His Excellency, a superior spirit, incapable of succumbing to the credulity of the common people, intervened to set the record straight. The assassination might not have been true: the German newspapers could be exaggerating in good faith. Just a few hours earlier, the General Staff had informed him of the French government’s retreat to Bordeaux. But the uprising of the people of Paris and their clash with the troops was indisputable. “The gentleman certainly saw it, but he doesn’t want to say so.” Desnoyers had to contradict the man, but his refusal was no longer heeded. Paris! This name had made their eyes light up, stirring everyone’s talkativeness. They longed to reach the Eiffel Tower as soon as possible, to enter the city in triumph, to satiate themselves after the privations and fatigues of a month’s campaign. They were worshippers of the Military glory, they considered war necessary for life, and yet they lamented the suffering it brought them. The count breathed an artist’s complaint. “How the war has harmed me!” he said languidly. “This winter they were going to premiere one of my dances in Paris.” Everyone protested his sadness: his work would be imposed after the triumph, and the French would have to applaud it. ” It’s not the same,” continued the count. “I confess that I love Paris… What a pity those people never wanted to understand us!” And he sank into his melancholy of a misunderstood man. Desnoyers suddenly recognized one of the officers who was speaking of the riches of Paris with covetous eyes by the armband he wore on his sleeve. It was the one who had sacked the castle. As if reading his thoughts, the commissioner excused himself. ” It’s the war, sir… Just like the others! The war had to be paid for with the goods of the vanquished. ” It was the new German system; a healthy return to the warfare of ancient times: tributes imposed on cities and isolated looting of houses. In this way, the enemy’s resistance was overcome, and the war ended sooner. He shouldn’t be saddened by the plunder. His furniture and jewels would be sold in Germany. He could file a claim with the French government for compensation after the defeat: his relatives in Berlin would support the claim. Desnoyers listened to such advice with horror. What kind of mentality did these men have ! Were they mad, or did they want to make a fool of him?… After lunch, some officers rose, requesting their sabers for official duties. Captain von Hartrott also rose: he needed to return to his general’s side; he had devoted enough time to family pursuits. His uncle accompanied him to the car. Moltkecito once again apologized for the damage and looting suffered by the castle. It’s war… We must be harsh to make it brief. True kindness lies in cruelty, for in this way, the terrified enemy surrenders more quickly, and the world suffers less. Don Marcelo shrugged at the sophistry. They were at the door of the building. The captain gave orders to a soldier, who returned shortly afterward with a piece of chalk used to mark quarters . Von Hartrott wished to protect his uncle. And he began to write an inscription on the wall by the door: “Please do not loot. They are friendly people…” Then he translated it, given the old man’s repeated questions. It means: “Please do not loot. The inhabitants of this house are friendly people…” Ah, no!… Desnoyers vehemently rejected this protection. He did not want to be friendly. He remained silent because he could do nothing else… yet a friend of the invaders of his country!… The nephew erased part of the sign, leaving only the beginning: “Bitte, nicht plündern.” “Please do not loot.” Then, at the park entrance, he repeated the inscription. He considered this warning necessary; His Excellency could leave, other officers could take up residence in the castle. Von Hartrott had seen much, and his smile suggested that nothing , however enormous, would ever surprise him. But the old man continued to scorn his protection and laugh sadly at the sign. What more could they loot?… They had already taken the best. Goodbye, Uncle. We’ll see each other soon in Paris. The captain got into his car after shaking a cold, soft hand that seemed to repel him with its inertia. On his way home, he saw a table and chairs in the shade of a group of trees . His Excellency was having coffee outdoors and made him sit beside him. Only three officers accompanied him… They consumed a great deal of liquor from his cellar. They spoke among themselves in German, and Don Marcelo remained motionless for nearly an hour, wanting to leave but unable to find the opportune moment to abandon his seat and disappear. A large troop movement could be discerned outside the park. Another officer passed by. A corps of troops with the muffled roll of the tide. Curtains of trees concealed this ceaseless procession heading south. An inexplicable phenomenon disturbed the luminous calm of the afternoon. A continuous rumble of thunder sounded in the distance, as if an invisible storm were rolling across the blue horizon. The Count interrupted his conversation in German to speak to Desnoyers, who seemed intrigued by the noise. ” It’s the cannon. A battle has broken out. We will soon be engaged. ” The prospect of having to leave his lodgings, the most comfortable he had found during his entire campaign, put him in a bad mood. “War!” he continued. “A glorious life, but filthy and brutalizing. In a whole month, today is the first day I live like a man. ” And as if drawn to the comforts he would soon be leaving, he rose and headed for the castle. Two Germans left for the village, and Desnoyers remained with the other, admiringly savoring his liquors. He was the commander of the battalion stationed in Villeblanche. “What a sad war, sir!” he said in French. Of the entire group of enemies, this was the only one who had inspired in Don Marcelo a vague feeling of attraction. “Although he’s German, he seems like a good person,” he thought, looking at him. He must have been obese in peacetime, but now he presented the loose, flabby exterior of a body that had just suffered a loss of volume. One could discern in him a former existence of tranquil and vulgar sensuality, a bourgeois happiness that the war had rudely cut short. “What a life, sir!” he continued. “May God punish those who have caused this catastrophe. ” Desnoyers was almost moved. He saw the Germany he had imagined so many times: a tranquil, gentle Germany, with somewhat clumsy and tiresome bourgeois, but who compensated for their original rudeness with an innocent and poetic sentimentality. This Blumhardt, whom his comrades called Bataillon Kommandeur, was a good family man . He pictured him strolling with his wife and children under the linden trees in a provincial square, all listening with religious devotion to the melodies of a military band. Then he saw him in the beer hall with his friends, discussing metaphysical problems between business conversations. He was a man of old Germany, a character straight out of a Goethe novel. Perhaps the glories of the Empire had altered his life, and instead of going to the beer hall he frequented the officers’ club, while his family remained separate, isolated from civilians by the pride of the military caste; but deep down he was always the good German, with patriarchal customs, quick to shed tears at a family scene or a fragment of good music. Commander Blumhardt remembered his own family, who lived in Kassel. ” Eight children, sir,” he said with a visible effort to contain his emotion. “The two eldest are training to be officers. The youngest started school this year… That’s right.” And he pointed with one hand to the height of his boots. He trembled nervously with laughter and sorrow at the memory of his little boy. Then he praised his wife, an excellent head of the household, a mother who modestly sacrificed herself for her children and her husband. Oh, sweet Augusta!… Twenty years of marriage had passed, and he adored her as much as the day they first met. He kept in a pocket of his uniform all the letters she had written to him since the beginning of the campaign. Look at them, sir… These are my children. He took from his chest a silver medallion adorned with Munich art, and pressing a spring, made it open into circles, like the pages of a book, revealing the faces of the whole family: the Frau Kommandeur, of an austere and rigid beauty, imitating the gesture and hairstyle of the Empress; then the daughters, the Fraulin Kommandeur, dressed in white, their eyes raised as if singing a romance; And finally, the children, in uniforms from army schools or private institutions. And to think I could lose these loved ones with just that a piece of iron should touch him!… And he had to live far from them now that it was the good season, the time for walks in the countryside!… “Sad war!” he repeated. ” May God punish the English.” With a concern that moved Don Marcelo, he in turn asked him questions about his family. He felt pity upon learning how few children he had; he smiled a little at the enthusiasm with which the old man spoke of his daughter, greeting Fraulin Chichí as a funny little devil; he made a contrite face upon learning that his son had caused him great distress with his behavior. “A charming commander!… He was the first kind and humane man he had encountered in the hell of the invasion. “There are good people everywhere ,” he told himself. He hoped he wouldn’t leave the castle. If the Germans were to remain there, it was better to have him than others. An orderly came to summon Don Marcelo on behalf of His Excellency. He found the count in his own bedroom, after passing through the drawing rooms with his eyes closed to spare himself the pain of pointless anger. The doors had been forced, the floors stripped of carpets, the alcoves uncovered. Only the furniture broken in the initial moments remained in its former place. The bedrooms had been ransacked more systematically, with only what was not immediately useful being removed. The fact that the general and his entire entourage had stayed there the day before had spared them from capricious destruction. The count received him with the courtesy of a great lord who wishes to attend to his guests. He could not allow Herr Desnoyers, a relative of a von Hartrott whom he vaguely remembered seeing at court, to live in the porters’ quarters. He should occupy his bedroom, that solemn bed like a catafalque, with plumes and columns, which had had the honor of serving an illustrious general of the Empire just hours before. “I prefer to sleep here. This other room suits my tastes better.” He had entered Madame Desnoyers’ bedroom, admiring her exquisitely authentic Louis XV furniture, its golds faded and its tapestries landscapes darkened by time. It was one of Don Marcelo’s finest purchases. The Count smiled with the disdain of an artist, recalling the Intendant in charge of the official looting. “What an ass!… To think he left this behind because it was old and ugly…” Then he looked directly at the owner of the castle. ” Monsieur Desnoyers,” he said, “I believe I am not doing anything improper, and I even imagine I am interpreting your wishes, when I tell you that I am taking these furnishings . They will be a memento of our acquaintance, a testament to our friendship that is just beginning… If this remains here, it is in danger of being destroyed. Warriors are not obliged to be artists. I will keep these treasures in Germany, and you can see them whenever you like. Now we are all going to be one… My friend the Emperor will proclaim himself sovereign of the French.” Desnoyers remained silent. What could he answer to the cruel irony , to the look with which the great lord emphasized his words?… ” When the war is over, I’ll send you a gift from Berlin,” he added protectively. The old man didn’t reply either. He stared at the empty spaces on the walls left by several small paintings. They were by famous 18th-century masters . The commissioner must have dismissed them as insignificant as well. A slight smile from the count revealed his true whereabouts. He had searched the entire room, the next bedroom, which was Chichí’s, the bathroom, even the family’s women’s wardrobe, which still contained some dresses belonging to Mademoiselle Desnoyers. The warrior’s hands wandered with delight over the fine pleats of the fabrics, appreciating their soft coolness. This touch made him think of Paris, of fashions, of the houses of the great couturiers. The Rue de la Paix was the place he most admired during his visits to the enemy city. Don Marcelo perceived the strong mixture of perfumes emanating from him. His head, his mustache, his whole body. Several bottles from the ladies’ dressing table were on the mantelpiece. “What filth war is!” said the German. “This morning I was able to take a bath, after a week of abstinence; I’ll take another one in the mid-afternoon… By the way, dear sir: these perfumes are good, but not elegant. When I have the pleasure of being introduced to the ladies, I will give them the details of my suppliers… I use essences from Turkey at home : I have many friends there… When the war is over, I will send some to the family.” His eyes had fallen on some portraits placed on a table. The Count recognized Madame Desnoyers when he saw the photograph of Doña Luisa. Then he smiled at the portrait of Chichi. “Very charming: what he admired most about her was her boyish, resolute air.” He cast a broad, deep gaze on the photograph of Julio. ” Excellent young man,” he said. “An interesting head… artistic. He would be a hit at a costume ball.” What a Persian prince!… A white aigrette on his head held by a jewel, his chest bare, a black tunic with golden peacocks… And he continued, in his imagination, to dress Desnoyers’ firstborn son in all the splendor of an oriental monarch. The old man felt a stirring of sympathy for the man because of the interest his son inspired in him. What a pity he chose precious things with such skill and appropriated them for himself!… Beside the head of the bed, on a prayer book forgotten by his wife, he saw a medallion with another photograph. This one wasn’t of the house. The count, who had followed the direction of his gaze, wanted to show it to him. The warrior’s hands trembled… His disdainful and ironic haughtiness vanished at once. An officer of the Death Hussars smiled in the portrait, his lean, curved profile like a fighting bird contracting beneath a cap adorned with a skull and two femurs. “My best friend,” he said, his voice trembling slightly. “The being I love most in the world… And to think that he might be fighting right now and they could kill him!… To think that I, too, could die!” Don Marcelo thought he glimpsed a story from the count’s past. That hussar was undoubtedly an illegitimate son. His simplicity couldn’t conceive of anything else. Only in his tenderness was he a father capable of speaking like that… And he almost felt infected by this tenderness. Here the interview ended. The warrior had turned his back on him, leaving the bedroom, as if he wished to hide his emotions. A few minutes later, a magnificent grand piano, which the commissioner hadn’t been able to take because of the general’s opposition, began to play in the apartment below. The general’s voice rose above the sound of the strings. It was a somewhat dull baritone voice , but one that imparted a passionate tremor to his melody. The old man was moved; he didn’t understand the words, but tears welled in his eyes. He thought of his family, the misfortunes and dangers that surrounded him, the difficulty of finding his loved ones again… As if the music were pulling him, he slowly descended to the lower floor. What an artist that haughty, mocking man was! What a soul he had!… The Germans were deceptive at first glance with their rough exterior and their discipline, which led them to commit the greatest atrocities without scruple. One had to live in close proximity to them to appreciate them for who they truly were. When the music stopped, he was on the castle bridge. A non-commissioned officer was watching the swans glide across the moat. He was a young doctor of law serving as secretary to His Excellency; a university man mobilized by the war. When he spoke with Don Marcelo, he immediately revealed his background. He had received the order to leave while teaching at a private school and on the eve of his wedding. All his plans had been shattered. What a calamity, sir!… What upheaval for the world!… And yet , many of us saw the catastrophe coming. It was bound to happen sooner or later. Capitalism: damned capitalism is to blame. The non-commissioned officer was a socialist. He made no secret of his involvement in party activities, which had led to persecution and setbacks in his career. But Social Democracy was now accepted by the emperor and flattered by the most reactionary Junkers. They were all the same. The party’s deputies formed the most obedient group to the government in the Reichstag… He retained only a certain fervor from his past to anathematize capitalism, which he blamed for the war. Desnoyers dared to argue with this seemingly gentle and tolerant enemy. “Isn’t German militarism truly responsible ? Didn’t it seek and prepare for the conflict, preventing any settlement with its arrogance?” The socialist flatly denied it. His deputies supported the war, and they must have had their reasons. His subservience to discipline was evident —that eternal, blind, and obedient Germanic discipline that governs even the most progressive parties. In vain the Frenchman repeated arguments and facts, everything he had read since the beginning of the war. His words slipped through the cracks of this revolutionary, accustomed to delegating the functions of thought. “Who knows!” he finally said. “Perhaps we were wrong. But at the present moment everything is confused: there is a lack of evidence to form an accurate opinion. When the conflict ends, we will know the true culprits; and if they are our own, we will demand accountability from them.” Desnoyers felt like laughing at this naiveté. Waiting until the end of the war to find out who was to blame!… And if the Empire emerged victorious, what responsibility could they demand in the full pride of victory, they who had always limited themselves to electoral battles , without the slightest attempt at rebellion? “Whoever the author may be,” the non-commissioned officer continued, “this war is tragic. How many men have died!… I was at Charleroi. We must see modern warfare up close… We will win; We are going to enter Paris, they say, but many of our men will fall before we achieve the final victory… And to banish the visions of death fixed in his mind, he followed the swans with his eyes, offering them pieces of bread that made them change the course of their slow and majestic swimming. The caretaker and his family crossed the bridge frequently . Seeing their master on good terms with the invaders, they had lost the fear that had kept them confined to their home. It seemed natural to the woman that Don Marcelo should have his authority recognized by these people: the master is always the master. And as if she had received a share of this authority, she entered the castle without fear, followed by her daughter, to tidy the master’s bedroom. They wanted to spend the night near him, so that he would not be alone among the Germans. The two women moved clothes and mattresses from the pavilion to the top floor. The caretaker was busy heating His Excellency’s second bath . His wife lamented the looting of the castle with desperate gestures. So many precious things gone!… Eager to salvage the last remnants, she searched for the owner to file complaints, as if he could prevent the individual and cautious theft. The count’s orderlies and scribes stuffed everything easy to conceal into their pockets. Smiling, they said they were souvenirs. Then she approached him with a mysterious air to make a new revelation. She had seen an officer force open the drawers where the lady kept the linens, and how he made a bundle of the finest garments and a large quantity of lace. ” That’s him, sir,” she said suddenly, pointing to a German man writing in the garden, receiving a slanting ray of sunlight filtering through the branches as it fell upon his table. Don Marcelo recognized him with surprise. “Commander Blumhardt too!”… But he immediately excused his actions. He found it natural that he should take something from his house, after the commissioner had set such an example. He also considered the quality of the objects he appropriated. They weren’t for him: they were for his wife, for the girls… A good family man. He had been at his desk for over an hour, writing incessantly, conversing, pen in hand, with his Augusta, with all the family who lived in Kassel. It was better that this good man should get what was his than the other haughty officers, with their sharp voices and insolent stiffness… He saw how he raised his head every time Georgette, the caretaker’s daughter, passed by, following her with his eyes. Poor father!… He undoubtedly thought of the two young ladies who lived in Germany, their thoughts occupied by the dangers of war. He, too, thought of Chichi, fearing he would never see her again. On one of his trips from the castle to the pavilion, the girl was summoned by the German. She stood upright at his desk, timid, as if she sensed danger, but making an effort to smile. Meanwhile, Blumhardt spoke to her, caressing her cheeks with his large, hardened hands. Desnoyers was moved by this sight. Memories of a peaceful and virtuous life resurfaced through the horrors of war. Decidedly, this enemy was a good man. That’s why he smiled kindly when the commander, leaving the table, came to him. He handed his letter and a bulky package to a soldier to take to the village, where the battalion post office was located. ” It’s for my family,” he said. “I don’t let a day of rest pass without sending a letter. Yours are so precious to me!… I’m also sending a few small souvenirs. ” Desnoyers was close to protesting. “Small, no!”… But with a gesture of indifference, he indicated that he accepted the gifts made at his expense. The commander continued speaking of sweet Augusta and her children, while the invisible storm thundered on the serene horizon of the evening. The cannon fire grew ever more intense. ” The battle continued,” Blumhardt said. Always the battle!… Surely it’s the last, and we’ll win it. Before a week is out, we’ll enter Paris… But how many won’t live to see it! So many dead!… I think we won’t be here tomorrow. All the reserves will have to attack to overcome the supreme resistance… As long as I don’t fall!… The possibility of dying the next day contorted his face with a resentful expression. A vertical wrinkle split his eyebrows. He glared at Desnoyers ferociously , as if holding him responsible for his death and his family’s misfortune . For a few minutes, Don Marcelo didn’t recognize the gentle, familiar Blumhardt of just moments before, realizing the transformations that war wrought in men. Dusk was beginning to fall when a non-commissioned officer, the same one from the Social Democrats, came running in search of the commander. Desnoyers couldn’t understand him because he was speaking German, but following the directions indicated by his hand, he saw a group of peasants and a few soldiers with rifles at the castle entrance, beyond the gate . After a brief moment’s thought, Blumhardt set off toward the group, and Don Marcelo followed him. He saw a village boy between two Germans who had their bayonets pointed at his chest. He was pale, waxen. His shirt, covered in soot, was tragically torn, bearing witness to the blows of the fight. On one temple, he had a gash that was bleeding. A short distance away, a woman with loose hair was surrounded by four girls and a small boy, all stained black, as if they had emerged from a coal pit. The woman spoke, raising her hands, her moans interrupting her story, addressing the soldiers in vain, unable to understand her. The non-commissioned officer in charge of the escort spoke to the commander in German, and meanwhile the woman approached Desnoyers. She displayed a sudden serenity upon recognizing the owner of the castle, as if he could save her. That strapping young man was her son. They had been taking refuge since the previous day in the cave beneath their burned-down house. Hunger had forced them out, after narrowly escaping death by suffocation. The Germans, upon seeing her son, had beaten him and intended to shoot him, as they were doing to all the others. Young men. They believed the boy was twenty years old: they considered him old enough to be a soldier, and to prevent him from joining the French army, they were going to kill him. “It’s a lie!” the woman cried. “He’s only eighteen…” “Not even eighteen… even less: he’s only seventeen.” She turned to the other women who were behind her, to invoke their testimony; sad women, equally filthy, with blackened faces and torn clothes, smelling of fire, of misery, of corpses. They all nodded, adding their cries to those of the mother. Some went to extremes, attributing to the boy sixteen years… fifteen. And to this chorus of feminine shouts were added the moans of the little ones, who gazed at their brother with eyes wide with terror. The commander examined the prisoner while listening to the non-commissioned officer. A municipal employee had dazedly confessed to being twenty years old, without realizing that this would cause his own death. “Lies!” repeated the mother, instinctively guessing what they were talking about. “That man is mistaken… My son is robust, he looks older , but he’s not twenty… The gentleman, who knows him, can tell you. Isn’t that right, Mr. Desnoyers?” Seeing his mother’s desperation calling for help, Don Marcelo felt he should intervene and spoke to the commander. He knew this young man well, though he didn’t recall ever having seen him before and believed him to be under twenty . “And even if he were,” he added, “is that a crime that warrants shooting a man? ” Blumhardt didn’t answer. Since regaining his command , he seemed to be unaware of Don Marcelo’s existence. He was about to say something, to give an order, but hesitated. It was better to consult His Excellency. And seeing that he was heading for the castle, Desnoyers went to his side. “Commander, this can’t be,” he began. “This makes no sense. To shoot a man on the suspicion that he might be twenty years old!” But the commander remained silent and continued walking. As they crossed the bridge, they heard the sounds of a piano. This seemed a good omen to Desnoyers. That artist who moved him with his passionate voice was about to utter the saving words. Upon entering the room, he was slow to recognize His Excellency. He saw a man at the piano wearing nothing but a Japanese robe, a pink women’s kimono with golden birds, belonging to his Chichi. On another occasion, he would have burst out laughing at the sight of this gaunt, bony warrior with cruel eyes, his sinewy arms emerging from the loose sleeves, on one wrist still gleaming a gold bracelet. He had bathed and was delaying the moment of donning his uniform, savoring the silky touch of the woman’s tunic, so similar to his oriental garments from Berlin. Blumhardt showed not the slightest surprise at his general’s appearance. Standing erect in military bearing, he spoke in his own language, while the count listened with a bored air, running his fingers over the keys. A nearby window offered a view of the setting sun, enveloping the piano and the player in a golden halo. The poetry of dusk drifted in : whispers of the foliage, dying birdsong, the buzzing of insects that glittered like sparks in the last rays of sunlight. His Excellency, his melancholy reverie interrupted by the untimely visit, cut short the commander’s tale with a commanding gesture and a single word. He said no more. He took two drags on a Turkish cigarette that was slowly scorching the piano’s wood, and his hands fell back onto the ivory, resuming the vague and tender improvisation inspired by the twilight. “Thank you, Your Excellency,” the old man said, anticipating his magnanimous reply. The commander had disappeared. He didn’t find him outside the house either. A soldier trotted near the gate to relay the order. He saw the escort repel the vociferous group of women and children with their rifle butts . The entrance was clear. Everyone was undoubtedly moving away toward the village after the general’s pardon… He was in the middle of the He was walking down the avenue when a howl, composed of many voices, rang out—a bloodcurdling scream such as only a woman’s despair could produce. At the same time, the air was shaken by the crack of gunfire, a sound he had heard since the day before. Gunshots!… He glimpsed a rough movement of people on the other side of the gate, some writhing, restrained by strong arms, others fleeing in a gallop of fear. He saw a terrified woman running toward him, her hands on her head, moaning. It was the caretaker’s wife, who had recently joined the group of women. “Don’t go, sir!” she cried, blocking his path. “They’ve killed him… they’ve just shot him.” Don Marcelo froze in shock. “Shot!… And what about the general’s words?”… He ran toward the castle without realizing what he was doing and suddenly found himself in the drawing room. His Excellency was still at the piano. Now he sang softly, his eyes moist with the poetry of his memories. But the old man couldn’t hear him. “Your Excellency, he’s been shot… They’ve just killed him, despite the order.” The commander’s smile suddenly made him realize his deception. ” It’s war, my dear sir,” he said, ceasing to play. “War with its cruel necessities… It’s always prudent to eliminate tomorrow ‘s enemy . ” And with a pedantic air, as if giving a lesson, he spoke of the Orientals, great masters in the art of living well. One of the figures he most admired was a certain sultan of the Turkish conquest, who strangled the children of his adversaries with his own hands. “Our enemies don’t come into the world on horseback, wielding lances,” the hero said. “Children are born like everyone else, and it’s wise to eliminate them before they grow up.” Desnoyers listened without understanding. A single thought occupied his mind. And that man he had believed to be good, that sentimental man who was moved to tears by singing, had coldly given, between two arpeggios, his death order! The count made a gesture of impatience. He could leave, and advised him to be discreet from then on, avoiding meddling in the affairs of the service. Then he turned his back on him and ran his hands over the piano, surrendering to his harmonious melancholy. For Don Marcelo, an absurd life began that would last four days, during which the most extraordinary events unfolded. This period represented in his history a long parenthesis of stupefaction, punctuated by horrible visions. He refused to see those men again and fled from his own bedroom, taking refuge on the top floor, in a servant’s room, near the one chosen by the caretaker’s family. In vain the good woman offered him food at nightfall: he had no appetite. He lay in bed. He preferred the darkness and being alone with his thoughts. When would this anguish end?… He remembered a trip he had taken to London years before. He pictured the British Museum and certain Assyrian reliefs that had filled him with dread, like remnants of a bestial humanity. Warriors burned towns, prisoners were slaughtered en masse, and peaceful peasant masses marched in lines with chains around their necks, forming strings of slaves. Never before had he recognized the grandeur of present civilization as he did then. Wars still broke out from time to time, but they had been regulated by progress. The lives of prisoners were considered sacred, peoples had to be respected, and there was a whole body of international law to regulate how men should kill each other and nations should fight , causing the least possible harm… But now he had just seen the reality of war. Just like thousands of years before! The helmeted men acted in the same manner as the perfumed and ferocious satraps with blue miters and ringed beards. The adversary was shot even if unarmed ; the prisoner died from rifle butts; the civilian populations set out en masse for Germany, like captives elsewhere. Centuries. What had been the point of so-called progress? Where was civilization?… She awoke to the light of a candle. The caretaker’s wife had come upstairs again to ask if she needed anything. What a night!… Listen to them shouting and singing. The bottles full of drinks!… They’re in the dining room. It’s best you don’t see them… Now they’re having fun breaking the furniture. Even the count is drunk; that officer who was talking to you is drunk too, and the others. Some of them are dancing half-naked. She wished to keep certain details to herself, but her feminine verbosity overruled these discreet intentions. Some young officers had disguised themselves in ladies’ hats and dresses and were dancing, shouting and imitating feminine swaying movements. One of them was greeted with a roar of enthusiasm when he appeared wearing nothing but Miss Chichi’s undergarments… Many took a perverse pleasure in depositing their digestive waste on the carpets or in the drawers of the furniture, using whatever fine linens they could find to clean themselves. The owner silenced her. “Why tell him all this?… And we’re forced to serve them!” the woman continued, moaning. ” They’re crazy: they seem like different men. The soldiers say they’re leaving at dawn. There’s a great battle, they’re going to win it, but everyone needs to fight in it… My poor husband can’t take it anymore. So many humiliations… And my daughter… my daughter!” This was her greatest worry. She kept it hidden, but anxiously followed the comings and goings of some of these men, enraged by alcohol. Of them all, the most fearsome was that leader who paternally caressed Georgette. Fear for her daughter’s safety made her leave after uttering more lamentations. God has forgotten the world… Oh, what will become of us! Now Don Marcelo lay awake. Through the open window came the dim light of a serene night. The cannon fire continued, the battle dragging on in the darkness. At the foot of the castle, the soldiers were chanting a slow, melodious song that sounded like a psalm. From inside the building rose to him a cacophony of brutal laughter, the sound of breaking furniture, the scurrying of joyful chases. When would he be able to get out of this hell?… A long time passed; he didn’t fall asleep, but he gradually lost all sense of his surroundings. Suddenly he sat up. Near him, on the same floor, a door had cracked open with a dull thud, unable to withstand several formidable shoves. There were screams of a woman, cries, desperate pleas, the sounds of a struggle, faltering footsteps, bodies crashing against the walls. He had a feeling it was Georgette screaming and fighting back. Before his feet touched the ground, he heard a man’s voice, his concierge’s; he was sure of it. “Ah, bandit!”… Then the din of a second struggle… a gunshot… silence. Stepping out into the wide corridor that ended at the staircase, he saw lights and many men rushing up the steps. He almost fell when he tripped over a body from which a roar of agony escaped. The concierge was at his feet, his chest heaving like a bellows. His eyes were glassy and wide open; his mouth was covered with blood… A kitchen knife gleamed beside him. Then he saw a man with a revolver in his right hand, while with his other hand he was holding open a broken door that someone was trying to force open from the inside. He recognized him despite his greenish pallor and the wildness in his gaze. It was Blumhardt, a new Blumhardt, with a bestial expression of pride and insolence that inspired terror. He imagined him roaming the castle in search of his desired prey, the father’s anxiety following his every move, the girl’s cries, the unequal struggle between the sick man with his makeshift weapon and this warrior sustained by victory. The fury of his youth awoke in him, bold and overwhelming. What did dying matter to him? “Ah, bandit!” he roared like the other. And with clenched fists, he marched toward the German. The latter put his revolver to his eyes, smiling coldly. He was about to fire… But at that very instant, Desnoyers fell to the ground, knocked down by those who had just climbed aboard. He received several blows; the heavy boots of the invaders hammered at him with their heels. He felt a hot stream on his face. Blood!… He didn’t know if it was his own or that of the body in which the mortal gasp was fading. Then he found himself lifted from the ground by several hands that pushed him before a man. It was His Excellency, his uniform unbuttoned and smelling of wine. His eyes trembled, as did his voice. ” My dear sir,” he said, trying to recover his mortifying irony, ” I advised you not to interfere in our affairs, and you didn’t listen to me . Suffer the consequences of your lack of discretion.” He gave an order, and the old man felt himself being led down the stairs to the caves. Those who were escorting him were soldiers under the command of a non-commissioned officer. He recognized the socialist. The young professor was the only one who wasn’t drunk, but he stood erect, unassailable, with the ferocity of discipline. He led him into a vaulted room with no ventilation other than a small window at floor level. Many broken bottles and two crates with some straw were all that was in the cave. ” You have insulted a superior officer,” the non-commissioned officer said rudely, “and it’s certain you’ll be shot at dawn… Your only salvation is for the party to continue and for them to forget about you.” Since the door was broken, as were all the doors in the castle, he had a pile of furniture and crates placed in front of it. Don Marcelo spent the rest of the night tormented by the cold. It was the only thing that worried him at that moment. He had renounced life: even the image of his loved ones faded from his memory. He worked in the darkness to settle himself on the two crates, seeking the warmth of the straw. As the dawn breeze began to blow through the window, he slowly fell into a heavy sleep, a stupefying sleep, like that of those condemned to death or that which precedes a morning of defiance. He thought he heard shouts in German, the trot of horses, a distant rumble of drums and whistles similar to that produced by invading battalions with their fifes and flat drums… Then he completely lost all sense of his surroundings. When he opened his eyes again, a ray of sunlight sliding through the small window traced a golden quadrilateral on the wall, giving a regal splendor to the hanging cobwebs. Someone was removing the barricade from the door. A woman’s voice, timid and anguished, called to him repeatedly. “Sir, are you there?” Jumping up, he wanted to help with this external task and pushed the door forcefully. He thought the invaders were gone. He couldn’t understand otherwise why the caretaker’s wife had dared to bring him out of his confinement. “Yes, they’ve left,” she said. “There’s no one left in the castle.” Finding the exit clear, Don Marcelo saw the poor woman with bloodshot eyes, a gaunt face, and disheveled hair. The night had weighed on her with the weight of many years. All her energy vanished at once when she recognized her master. “Sir… sir!” she moaned convulsively. And she threw herself into his arms, tears streaming down her face. Don Marcelo didn’t want to know anything: he was afraid of the truth. Nevertheless, he asked about the caretaker. Now that he was awake and free, he cherished the momentary hope that everything he had seen the night before had been a nightmare. Perhaps the poor man was still alive… They killed him, sir… He was murdered by that man who seemed good… And I don’t know where his body is: no one has wanted to tell me. I suspected the corpse was in the moat. The green , still waters had mysteriously closed over this offering of the night… Desnoyers guessed that another misfortune worried the mother even more, but he remained modestly silent. It was she who spoke, amid exclamations of pain… Georgette was in the pavilion: she had run away Horrified, she fled the castle as the invaders departed. They had kept her captive until the very last moment. ” Sir, don’t see her… She trembles and weeps at the thought of you speaking to her about what happened. She’s mad; she wants to die. Oh, my daughter!… And won’t anyone punish those monsters?”… They had emerged from the underground chamber and crossed the bridge. The woman stared at the green, mingled waters. The carcass of a swan floated on them. Before leaving, while saddling their horses, two officers had amused themselves by shooting the inhabitants of the lagoon with revolvers. The aquatic plants were stained with blood; among their leaves floated limp, white clumps, like sheets of cloth that had slipped from a washerwoman’s hands. Don Marcelo and the woman exchanged a pitying glance. They felt compassion for each other as they contemplated their misery and aging in the sunlight . She felt her strength reborn at the thought of her daughter. The passage of those people had destroyed everything; There was nothing left in the castle but a few pieces of stale bread forgotten in the kitchen. “And one must live, sir… One must live, if only to see how God punishes them…” The old man shrugged in discouragement: God?… But that woman was right: one must live. With the audacity of his early youth, when he sailed the endless seas of land in the New World guiding herds of cattle, he ventured out of his park. He saw the valley, golden and green, smiling in the sun; the groves of trees; the squares of yellowish earth, with the coarse stubble; the hedges, in which birds sang; all the summer splendor of a countryside cultivated and tended for fifteen centuries by dozens and dozens of generations. And yet, he found himself alone, at the mercy of fate, exposed to perishing from hunger; More alone than when he crossed the horrendous heights of the Andes, the tortuous peaks of rock and snow shrouded in a deathly silence, broken only now and then by the flapping of a condor’s wings. No one… His gaze didn’t discern a single moving point: everything fixed, immobile, crystallized, as if contracting in terror before the thunder that continued rolling on the horizon. He headed toward the village, a mass of black walls from which several intact shacks and a bell tower without tiles, its cross twisted by fire, emerged. No one in its streets either, strewn with bottles, charred timbers, and soot-covered rubble. The corpses had disappeared, but a nauseating stench of decomposing fat and burnt flesh seemed to cling to his nostrils. He crossed it all, until he reached the site occupied by the dragoons’ barricade. The carts were still there by the side of the road. He saw a mound of earth at the very spot of the execution. Two feet and a hand protruded from the ground. As he approached, black bundles broke free from this shallow pit, revealing the corpses. A flock of stiff-winged birds beat through the air, flying away with angry cries. He retraced his steps. He shouted at the least damaged houses; he poked his head through doors and windows that were clear or had half-burned wooden panes. Was there no one left in Villeblanche?… He glimpsed something crawling among the ruins, a kind of reptile, which paused in its crawl with fearful hesitations, ready to retreat and slink back into its burrow. Suddenly reassured, the creature reared up. It was a man, an old man. Other human larvae emerged at the spell of their cries, poor creatures who had renounced the upright posture that betrays them from afar, and envied the lower organisms for their gliding through the dust, their readiness to slip into the bowels of the earth. They were mostly women and children, all filthy, black, with matted hair, the burning of bestial appetites in their eyes, the despondency of the weak animal in their drooping jaws. They lived hidden in the rubble of their houses. Fear had made them forget hunger; but Upon finding themselves free of enemies, all their needs, nurtured by hours of anguish , suddenly reappeared . Desnoyers believed himself surrounded by a tribe of starving and brutish Indians, like those he had seen on his adventures. He had brought with him from Paris a quantity of gold pieces, and he took out a coin, making it gleam in the sun. He needed bread, he needed anything edible: he would pay without haggling. The sight of the gold provoked looks of enthusiasm and greed; but this impression was brief. Their eyes ended up contemplating the yellow disc with indifference. Don Marcelo became convinced that the miraculous fetish had lost its power. They all intoned a chorus of misfortunes and horrors in slow, plaintive voices, as if weeping before a coffin: “Sir, they have killed my husband…” “Sir, my children: I am missing two children…” “Sir, they have taken all the men prisoner; They say it ‘s for working the land in Germany…» «Sir, bread; my little ones are starving.» A woman lamented something worse than death: «My daughter!… My poor daughter!» Her hateful, maddened gaze betrayed the secret tragedy; her shrieks and tears were reminiscent of the other mother who cried out the same thing in the castle. Deep in some cave lay the victim, broken with exhaustion, shaken by delirium, still seeing the succession of brutal assailants, her face contorted with simian enthusiasm. The wretched group held out their hands in a circle toward the man whose wealth they all knew. The women showed him their yellowish children , their eyes veiled by hunger and their breathing barely perceptible. «Bread… bread,» they implored, as if he could perform a miracle. He gave a mother the coin he held between her fingers. Then he gave other gold pieces. They kept them without looking at them and continued their lament: «Bread… bread.» And he had gone all the way there to make the same plea!… He fled, recognizing the futility of his effort. As he returned, in despair, to his property, he found large cars and men on horseback filling the road in a very long convoy. They were traveling in the same direction as him. Upon entering his park, a group of Germans was stringing the wires of a telephone line. They had just toured the disordered rooms and were laughing uproariously as they read the inscription written by Captain von Hartrott: “Please do not loot…” They found the charade very clever, very Germanic. The convoy invaded the park. The cars and vans bore a red cross. A field hospital was to be set up in the castle. The doctors, dressed in green and armed like the officers, imitated their cutting arrogance, their repellent stiffness. Hundreds of folding beds were unloaded from the vans and lined up in the various rooms; The remaining furniture was heaped at the foot of the trees. Groups of soldiers promptly obeyed the brief, imperious orders with mechanical efficiency. A pharmacy-like perfume, the scent of concentrated drugs, permeated the rooms, mingling with the strong odor of the antiseptics that had been sprayed on the walls to erase the remnants of the night’s revelry. He then saw women dressed in white, strapping young women with blue eyes and hemp-like hair. They had a grave, hard, austere, implacable air. They repeatedly shoved Desnoyers as if they didn’t see him. They looked like nuns, but with revolvers hidden beneath their habits. At midday, other cars began to arrive, drawn by the enormous white flag with a red cross that had begun to wave atop the castle. They came from the Marne; their metal was dented by bullets; their windows were cracked in star shapes. Men descended from within, some on their own two feet, others on canvas stretchers: pale, ruddy faces, aquiline, flattened profiles, blond heads and skulls wrapped in white turbans stained with blood; mouths laughing with defiant laughter and mouths moaning with bluish lips; jaws held in place by bandages of Mummy; giants who showed no apparent damage and were in their death throes; shapeless bodies topped by heads that spoke and smoked; legs with dangling scraps that splattered a red liquid among the linens of the first dressing; arms that hung inert like dry branches; torn uniforms in which the tragic emptiness of missing limbs was evident. The avalanche of pain spread through the castle. Within a few hours, it was completely occupied; there wasn’t a free bed; the last stretchers remained in the shade of the trees. The telephones rang incessantly; the operators, wearing aprons, went back and forth, working quickly; human life was subjected to life-saving procedures with rudeness and speed. Those who died left a bed free for the others who were arriving. Desnoyers saw dripping baskets, full of shapeless flesh: scraps, broken bones, whole limbs. The bearers of these remains went to the far end of his park to bury them in a small plaza that was Chichí’s favorite reading spot. Soldiers in pairs carried objects wrapped in sheets that the owner of the castle recognized as his own. These bundles were corpses. The park was becoming a cemetery. The plaza was no longer enough to contain the dead and the remains of the medical procedures: new graves were being dug nearby. The Germans, armed with shovels, had sought help for their gruesome work. A dozen captured peasants turned the earth and helped unload the dead. Now they were taking them in a cart to the edge of the pit, dropping them in like rubble hauled from a demolition. Don Marcelo felt a monstrous pleasure at the growing number of enemies gone, but at the same time he lamented this avalanche of intruders who were going to settle forever on his lands. At nightfall, overwhelmed by so many emotions, he suffered the torment of hunger. He had eaten only one of the pieces of bread the caretaker’s widow had found in the kitchen. He had left the rest for her and her daughter. Georgette’s despair was a torment equal to that of hunger for him . Upon seeing him, she tried to flee, ashamed. “Don’t let the master see me!” she moaned, hiding her face. And the master, whenever he entered the pavilion, avoided approaching her, as if her presence made him feel the memory of the outrage more intensely . In vain, spurred on by need, he approached some doctors who spoke French. They wouldn’t listen to him, and when he insisted on his requests, they shoved him away roughly… He wasn’t going to perish from hunger in the middle of his own property! Those people were eating: the stern nurses had taken up residence in their kitchen… But time passed without him finding anyone who would take pity on him, dragging his frailty from place to place, an old man with the aging of misery, feeling throughout his body the sting of the blows he had received the night before. He knew the torment of hunger as he had never suffered it in his travels across the deserted plains, hunger among men, in a civilized country, wearing a belt full of gold, surrounded by lands and buildings that were his, but which were controlled by others who did not deign to understand him. And to arrive at this situation at the end of his life, he had amassed millions and returned to Europe!… Ah, the irony of fate!… He saw a medical worker, his back against a tree trunk, about to devour a loaf of bread and a piece of sausage. His envious eyes examined this man, tall, square-jawed, with a strong jaw framed by the bloom of a red beard. He extended a gold coin between his fingers with a silent invitation. The German’s eyes gleamed at the sight of the gold; a beatific smile stretched his mouth almost from ear to ear. He spoke, understanding the gesture. And he handed over his provisions, taking the coin. Don Marcelo began to devour them ravenously. He had never tasted the sensuality of food as he did at that moment, in the midst of his The garden, now a cemetery, stood before his looted castle, where hundreds groaned and lay dying. A gray arm flashed before his eyes. It was the German, returning with two loaves of bread and a piece of meat snatched from the kitchen. He smiled again: “Ia…?” And after the old man handed him a second gold coin, he was able to offer this food to the two women sheltering in the pavilion. During the night, a night of agonizing sleeplessness, punctuated by visions of horror, he thought he heard the roar of artillery approaching. It was a barely perceptible difference; perhaps an effect of the night’s silence, which amplified the sounds. The cars kept arriving from the front, unloading their cargo of butchered meat, and departing again. Desnoyers thought his castle was just one of the many hospitals established along a line stretching over a hundred kilometers, and that on the other side, behind the French, similar centers existed, all teeming with activity, with terrifyingly frequent influxes of dying men. Many didn’t even find solace in being taken in: they howled in the middle of the fields, burying their bleeding limbs in the dust or mud ; they expired writhing in their own entrails… And Don Marcelo, who hours before had considered himself the most wretched being in creation, experienced a cruel joy at the thought of so many thousands of vigorous men undone by death who might envy his healthy old age, the tranquility with which he lay in that bed. The next morning, the orderly was waiting for him in the same spot with a full napkin. “A helpful and kind bearded man!” he offered him a gold coin. ” Nein,” he replied, stretching his mouth into a malicious smile. Two shiny rounds appeared on Don Marcelo’s fingers. Another smile, a “no,” and a negative shake of his head. Ah, thief! How he took advantage of his need!… And only after handing over five coins was he able to buy the package of provisions. He soon noticed a silent and cunning conspiracy around him to seize his money. A giant with sergeant’s stripes put a shovel in his hand, shoving him roughly. He found himself in the corner of his park , now a cemetery, next to the cart of corpses; he had to dig his own dirt, mingling with those prisoners exasperated by misfortune, who treated him as an equal. He turned his eyes away so as not to see the rigid and grotesque corpses that protruded above his head, at the edge of the pit, ready to spill into the bottom. The ground exhaled an unbearable stench. The decomposition of the bodies in the nearby graves had begun . The persistence with which his guards harassed him and the sergeant’s sly smile made him suspect blackmail. The bearded medic must be involved. He dropped the shovel, reaching into his pocket in an inviting gesture. “Go ahead,” said the sergeant. And after handing over some coins, he was able to walk away and wander freely. He knew what awaited him: those men were going to subject him to relentless exploitation. Another day passed, just like the last. On the following morning, his senses, heightened by his unease, led him to sense something extraordinary. Cars were arriving and leaving more rapidly; there was noticeable disarray and confusion among the personnel. Telephones rang with a frantic frenzy; the wounded seemed more disheartened. The day before, some had been singing as they climbed out of the vehicles, masking their pain with laughter and bravado. They spoke of the imminent victory, lamenting not to witness the entry into Paris. Now everyone stood silent, sulking, thinking of their own fate, unconcerned with what they left behind. Outside the park, a rumble of a crowd buzzed. The roads darkened. The invasion was beginning again, but with a receding movement. For hours on end, strings of gray trucks passed by, their engines whirring. Then came infantry regiments, squadrons, Rolling batteries. They marched slowly, with a slowness that disconcerted Desnoyers, who couldn’t tell if this retreat was a retreat or a change of position. The only thing that satisfied him was the soldiers’ brutish and sad expression , the officers’ somber silence. No one shouted; they all seemed to have forgotten Nach Paris. The greenish monster still had its armored brow on the other side of the Marne, but its tail was beginning to curl into rings with restless undulations. After nightfall, the troops continued their withdrawal. The cannon fire seemed to be getting closer. Some thunderclaps sounded so immediate that they made the windowpanes rattle. A fugitive peasant took refuge in the park and was able to give news to Don Marcelo. The Germans were retreating. Some of their batteries had established themselves on the banks of the Marne to attempt another stand. And the newcomer stayed, without attracting the attention of the invaders, who days before had been shooting anyone on the slightest suspicion. The mechanical functioning of their discipline had been visibly disrupted . Doctors and nurses ran back and forth, shouting and swearing each time a new carriage arrived. They ordered the driver to proceed to another hospital located further back. They had received orders to evacuate the castle that very night. Despite the prohibition, one of the carriages was relieved of its cargo of wounded. Such was their condition that the doctors accepted them, deeming it pointless for them to continue their journey. They remained in the garden, lying on the same canvas stretchers they had occupied inside the vehicle. By the light of the lanterns, Desnoyers recognized one of the dying men. It was His Excellency’s secretary, the socialist professor who had locked him in the cave. Seeing the owner of the castle, he smiled as if he had found a comrade. He was the only familiar face among all those people who spoke his language. He was pale, with gaunt features and an impalpable veil over his eyes. He had no visible wounds, but beneath the greatcoat draped over his belly, his entrails, torn apart in a gruesome carnage, exhaled a stench of the graveyard. Desnoyers’ presence made him guess where they had taken him, and little by little he pieced together his memories. As if the old man could possibly care about the whereabouts of his comrades, he spoke in a faint, labored voice that seemed to him, without a doubt, natural… Bad luck for his brigade! They had arrived at the front in a moment of urgency, only to be thrown in as fresh troops. Commander Blumhardt was killed in the first moments: a 75mm shell had taken his head. Almost all the officers who had been quartered in the castle were dead. His Excellency’s jaw had been torn off by a shell casing. He had seen him on the ground roaring in pain, pulling a portrait from his chest and trying to kiss it with his shattered mouth. His abdomen was shattered by the same shell. He had lain in the field for forty-two hours without being rescued… And with the eagerness of a university student who wants to see everything and have everything explained, he added at this supreme moment, with the tenacity of one who dies speaking: “Sad war, sir… There’s not enough evidence to decide who is guilty… When the war is over, there will be… there will be…” He closed his eyes, faint from his exertion. Desnoyers walked away. Unhappy man! He placed the hour of justice on the end of the war, and meanwhile, it was he who was ending, disappearing with all his scruples of a slow and disciplined thinker. He didn’t sleep that night. The walls of the pavilion trembled, the windows rattled with cracking sounds, the two women in the next room sighed anxiously. To the roar of German gunfire were added other explosions closer by. He anticipated the bursts of French shells as they sought out the enemy artillery above the Marne. His enthusiasm began to revive; the possibility of victory entered his mind. But he was so depressed by his miserable situation This situation immediately dashed any hopes. His men were advancing, but their progress represented perhaps no more than a local advantage. The battle line was so extensive! What had happened in 1870 was about to happen again: French valor would achieve partial victories, modified at the last minute by the enemy’s strategy until they became defeats. After midnight the cannon fire ceased, but silence was not restored. Cars rolled past the pavilion amid shouts of command. It must have been the medical convoy evacuating the castle. Then, near dawn, a clatter of horses and rolling machinery passed the gate, making the ground tremble. Half an hour later, the sound of a human trot of a crowd marching briskly could be heard, disappearing into the depths of the park. It was dawn when he jumped out of bed. The first thing he saw upon leaving the pavilion was the Red Cross flag still waving atop the castle. There were no more stretchers under the trees. On the bridge, he found several medics and one of the doctors. The hospital had left with all the transportable wounded. Only the most seriously injured, those who couldn’t move, remained in the building, under the watch of a section. The medical staff had also vanished. The bearded man was one of those who had stayed behind, and upon seeing Don Marcelo from afar, he smiled and disappeared immediately. A few moments later, he reappeared with his hands full. Never had his gift been so generous. The old man sensed a great demand, but as he reached for his pocket, the medic stopped him: “No… No. ” What kind of generosity was this? The German insisted on his refusal. His enormous mouth widened in a kind smile; his large hands rested on Don Marcelo’s shoulders. He looked like a good dog, a humble dog that strokes a passerby so he’ll take it with him. “Franzosen… Franzosen.” He couldn’t say more, but his words betrayed a desire to convey that he had always felt great sympathy for the French. Something important was happening; the sullen air of those standing at the castle gate, the sudden obsequiousness of this rustic in uniform, suggested as much. Beyond the building, he saw soldiers, many soldiers. An infantry battalion had spread out along the walls, with their wagons and their draft and riding horses. The soldiers were wielding picks, opening loopholes in the wall, cutting its edge into crenellations. Others knelt or sat beside the openings, removing their packs to be more unencumbered. In the distance, the cannon roared, and in the intervals between its detonations, there was the crack of whips, the bubbling of frying oil, the whirring of a coffee grinder, and the incessant crackle of rifles and machine guns. The morning coolness coated men and things in a damp sheen. Veins of mist floated over the fields, giving nearby objects the indistinct lines of the unreal. The sun was a faint smudge as it rose through curtains of haze. The trees wept from every edge of their bark. A clap of thunder ripped through the air, close and loud, as if it had exploded beside the castle. Desnoyers hesitated, thinking he had been punched in the chest. The other men remained impassive, with the indifference of habit. A cannon had just fired a few paces away… Only then did he realize that two batteries had been set up in his park. The guns were hidden under canopies of branches; the gunners were felling trees to camouflage their cannons with perfect disguise. He saw them placing the last ones. With shovels, they formed a thirty-centimeter-wide rim of earth around each one. This rim protected the feet of the servants, whose bodies were shielded by armored screens on both sides of the chamber. Then they erected a hut of logs and branches, leaving only the mouth of the deadly cylinder visible. Don Marcelo gradually grew accustomed to the gunfire, which seemed to create a void within his skull. He ground his teeth, clenched his fists with each detonation, but remained motionless, with no desire to leave, overwhelmed by the violence of the explosions, admiring the serenity of these men, who gave their orders standing erect and cool, or bustled like humble servants around the thundering beasts. All his thoughts seemed to have been blown away, swept off their feet by the first cannon shot. His mind lived only in the present moment. He kept turning his eyes to the white and red flag waving above the building. “It’s treason,” he thought, “disloyalty.” In the distance, on the other side of the Marne, the French cannons were also firing. Their work was evident from the small yellowish clouds that floated in the air, from the columns of smoke that rose from various points in the landscape, where German troops lay hidden, forming a line that stretched into the distance. An atmosphere of protection and respect seemed to envelop the castle. The morning mists dissolved; the sun finally revealed its bright, clear disk, stretching the shadows of men and trees across the ground to fantastic lengths. Hills and forests emerged from the fog, fresh and dripping after the morning’s cleansing. The valley lay entirely exposed. Desnoyers was surprised to see the river from his vantage point. The cannon had opened large windows in the groves that concealed it during the night. What astonished him most as he gazed upon this smiling, almost childlike morning landscape was the complete absence of anyone, absolutely no one. Peaks and groves thundered, yet not a single person appeared. More than a hundred thousand men must have been crouching in the space within his field of vision, and not one was visible. The deadly roars of weapons as they shook the air left no optical trace. There was no smoke but that of the explosion, the black spirals raised by the large projectiles as they burst on the ground. These columns emerged from all sides. They surrounded the castle like a circle of gigantic, black spinning tops, but none broke the orderly circle, daring to advance and touch the building. Don Marcelo continued to stare at the flag. “It’s treason,” he repeated to himself. But at the same time, he accepted it out of selfishness, seeing in it a defense of his property. The battalion had finished taking up positions along the wall, facing the river. The soldiers, kneeling, rested their rifles on loopholes and battlements. They seemed content with this rest after a night of fighting in retreat. They all appeared to be asleep with their eyes open. Little by little, they lowered themselves onto their heels or sought the support of their backpacks. Snores sounded in the brief silences left by the artillery. The officers, standing behind them, examined the landscape with their field glasses or spoke in groups. Some seemed discouraged; others, furious at the retreat they had been making since the previous day; most remained calm, with the passivity of obedience. The battlefront was immense: who could foresee the end?… There they were retreating, and in other places their comrades would be advancing with a decisive movement. Until the very last moment, no soldier knows the outcome of battles. What pained them all was seeing themselves farther and farther from Paris. Don Marcelo saw a glass disc gleaming. It was a monocle fixed on him with aggressive insistence. A thin, wiry lieutenant, who bore the same resemblance to the officers he had seen in Berlin—a true Junker—stood a few paces away, saber in hand, behind his men, like a shepherd, grim and choleric. “What are you doing here?” he said rudely. He explained that he was the owner of the castle. “French?” the lieutenant continued to ask. “Yes, French…” The officer remained lost in hostile thought, feeling the need to do something against this enemy. The gestures and shouts of other officers roused him from his reflections. They were all looking They looked up, and the old man imitated them. For an hour before, terrifying roars, enveloped in yellowish vapors, had been passing through the air—shreds of cloud that seemed to carry within them a wheel screeching with frantic whirring. These were the shells of the heavy German artillery, firing from several kilometers away, sending its shots soaring above the castle. This could not be what interested the officers. He squinted to see better, and finally , near the edge of a cloud, he made out a kind of mosquito that gleamed, wounded by the sun. In the brief intervals of silence , the faint, distant buzzing that betrayed its presence could be heard . The officers shook their heads: “Franzosen.” Desnoyers thought the same. He could not imagine the two black crosses on the inside of its wings. He saw in his mind two tricolored rings, like the circles that color the fluttering capes of butterflies. The Germans’ unease was now clear. The French plane had hovered for a few moments above the castle, paying no attention to the white bubbles bursting below and around it. The cannons of the nearby positions rained down their shells on it, but in vain. It turned swiftly, heading back toward its point of origin. “He must have seen everything,” Desnoyers thought. “He’s spotted us: he knows what ‘s here.” He sensed that the course of events was about to change rapidly. Everything that had happened up to that point in the early hours of the morning paled in comparison to what was to come. He felt fear, the irresistible fear of the unknown, and at the same time curiosity, anguish, impatience in the face of a danger that threatens but never quite arrives. A shrill explosion sounded outside the park, but a short distance from the wall: something like a gigantic blow struck with an axe as enormous as his castle. Entire treetops flew through the air, several trunks were split in two, blackened ground was strewn with tufts of grass, and a jet of dust obscured the sky. Some stones rolled from the wall. The Germans shrank back, but without visible emotion. They knew this; they had expected its arrival, as something inevitable, after having seen the airplane. The flag with the red cross could no longer deceive the enemy gunners. Don Marcelo had no time to recover from his surprise: a second explosion closer to the wall… a third inside the park. It seemed to him that he had suddenly jumped into another world. He saw men and things through a fantastic atmosphere that roared, destroying everything with the cutting violence of its waves. He had been paralyzed by terror, and yet he was not afraid. Until then, he had imagined fear in a different form. He felt an agonizing emptiness in his stomach. He stumbled repeatedly on his feet, as if someone were pushing him, striking him in the chest, only to straighten him again with a blow to the back. An acidic smell filled the air, making it hard to breathe and causing tears to sting his eyes. Noises, however, ceased to bother him: they didn’t exist for him. He sensed them in the swell of the air, in the shaking of things, in the whirlwind that bent men over, but they didn’t resonate within him. He had lost his hearing: all the power of his senses was concentrated in his sight. His eyes seemed to acquire multiple facets, like those of certain insects. He saw what was happening in front of him, to his sides, behind him. And he witnessed marvelous, instantaneous things, as if all the rules of life had just been capriciously overturned. An officer who had been standing a few steps away took an inexplicable flight. He began to rise, without losing his military bearing, helmet on his head, brow furrowed, short blond mustache, and below him his mustard-colored chest, his gloved hands holding cufflinks and a piece of paper. But here his individuality ended. His gray legs with their gaiters lay on the ground, lifeless, like sheaths. Empty, expelling their red contents as they deflated. The trunk, in its violent ascent, ruptured like a pitcher, spilling its contents of viscera. Further on, some artillerymen who had been standing upright suddenly appeared lying motionless, smeared with purple. The infantry line flattened on the ground. The men huddled together, to make themselves less visible, beside the loopholes through which their rifles protruded. Many had placed their packs on their heads or backs to protect themselves from the shell casings. If they moved, it was to better mold themselves to the earth, trying to burrow into it with their bellies. Several of them had changed position with inexplicable speed. Now they lay on their backs and seemed to be asleep. One man’s uniform was ripped open over his abdomen, revealing loose, blue and red flesh between the tears , which bulged and swelled with expanding bubbles. Another had lost his legs. He also saw eyes wide with surprise and pain, round, black mouths that seemed to twitch their lips in a howl. But they weren’t screaming: at least he couldn’t hear them. He had lost all track of time. He didn’t know if he had been in this immobility for several hours or a minute. The only thing that bothered him was the trembling of his legs, which resisted supporting him… Something fell behind him . Debris rained down. Turning his head, he saw his castle transformed. Half the keep had just been stolen. The slate tiles were scattered in tiny fragments; the ashlars crumbled; the stone frame of a window hung loose and balanced like a frame. The old timbers of the hood began to burn like torches. The sight of this instantaneous transformation of his property impressed him more than the ravages of death. He realized the horror of the blind, implacable forces that roared around him. The life concentrated in his eyes scattered, descending to his feet… And he ran, not knowing where to go, feeling the same need to hide as those men chained by discipline, forced to flatten themselves on the ground, envying the soft invisibility of reptiles. His instinct drove him toward the pavilion, but in the middle of the avenue, another of the astonishing transformations blocked his path. An invisible hand had just ripped off half the roof. An entire section of wall folded over, forming a cascade of bricks and dust. The interior rooms were exposed like a theatrical set: the kitchen where he had eaten; the upper floor with the bedroom, which still bore his unmade bed. Poor women!… He retreated, running toward the castle. He remembered the cave where he had spent a night locked away. And when he found himself beneath its somber vault , he considered it the finest of halls, praising the prudence of its builders. The subterranean silence gradually restored his hearing. He heard, like a storm muffled by the distance, the German cannon fire and the crackle of the French shells. He recalled the praise he had lavished on the 75-pounder cannon, knowing it only by hearsay. He had already witnessed its effects. “It fires too well,” he muttered. In a short time, it would destroy his castle; he found such perfection excessive… But he soon regretted these lamentations of his selfishness. A tenacious idea, like remorse, had taken hold of his mind. It seemed to him that all he was suffering was an expiation for the transgression he had committed in his youth. He had avoided serving his country, and now he found himself engulfed in the horrors of war, with the humility of a passive and defenseless being, without the satisfactions of a soldier who can return fire. He was going to die, he was certain of it, a shameful death, without any glory, anonymously. The ruins of his property would serve as his grave. And the certainty of death in the darkness, like a rodent whose burrow entrances are blocked, began to make him unbearable. This refuge. Above, the storm raged on. A clap of thunder seemed to explode overhead , followed by the crash of a collapse. Another shell had struck the building. He heard roars of agony, screams, and frantic running on the roof. Perhaps the shell, in its blind fury, had torn apart many of the dying who occupied the halls. Fearing he would be buried alive in his refuge, he bounded up the stairs to the basement. As he passed through the lower level, he saw the sky through the shattered ceilings. Pieces of wood hung from the edges, swaying chunks of pavement, and furniture stopped mid-fall. He stepped on rubble as he crossed the hall, where carpets had once been; he stumbled over broken and twisted iron, fragments of beds raining down from the top of the building; he thought he could make out convulsing limbs among the piles of debris; he heard anguished voices he could not understand. He ran out, with the same yearning for light and fresh air that drives a shipwrecked sailor to the deck from the bowels of the vessel… More time had passed than he imagined since he had taken refuge in the darkness. The sun was high in the sky. He saw more corpses in the garden, in tragic and grotesque poses. The wounded groaned, hunched over, or lay on the ground, their backs against a tree, in painful silence. Some had opened their knapsacks to take out their first- aid kits and were tending to the wounds in their flesh. The infantry was now firing their rifles incessantly. The number of riflemen had increased. New groups of soldiers were entering the park: some with their sergeant at the head, others followed by an officer who carried his revolver against his chest, as if he were guiding the men with it. It was the infantry, driven from their positions by the river, coming to reinforce the second line of defense. The machine guns joined their loom-like clatter to the crackle of the rifle fire. The air whistled, incessantly streaked with the buzzing of an invisible swarm. Thousands of sticky flies moved around Desnoyers without him being able to see them. Tree bark leaped, propelled by hidden claws; leaves rained down; branches shook with contradictory swaying; stones split from the ground, propelled by a mysterious foot. All inanimate objects seemed to acquire a fantastic life. The soldiers’ zinc buckets, the metal pieces of their equipment, the artillery buckets, rattled on their own, as if struck by an impalpable hailstorm. He saw a cannon lying on its side, its wheels broken and raised, among many men who seemed to be sleeping; he saw soldiers who lay down and bowed their heads without a cry, without a twitch, as if sleep had instantly overcome them. Others howled as they crawled or walked with their hands on their bellies and their buttocks scraping the ground. The old man felt a sharp sensation of heat. A pungent perfume of explosive drugs made him weep and scratched his throat. At the same time, he felt cold: his forehead felt frozen by glacial sweat. He had to move away from the bridge. Several soldiers were passing by with wounded men to take them into the building, even though it was falling into ruin. Suddenly, he was sprayed with liquid from head to toe, as if the earth had opened up, giving way to a torrent. A shell had landed in the moat, raising an enormous column of water, blowing to pieces the carp sleeping in the mud, breaking part of the edges, turning the white balustrade with its vases of flowers to dust. He started running, blinded by terror, suddenly finding himself before a small glass circle that was coldly examining him. It was the Junker, the officer with the monocle. He was falling into their hands again… He pointed with the butt of his revolver to two buckets a short distance away. He was to fill them at the lagoon and give his men, stifled by the sun, water. The imperious tone brooked no argument, but Don Marcelo tried to resist. Him serving as a servant to the Germans? His astonishment was short-lived .
He received a blow from the butt of the revolver in the middle of his chest, and at the same time, the lieutenant’s other hand fell closed over his face. The old man doubled over: he wanted to weep, he wanted to perish. But he shed neither tears nor did life escape his body at this affront, as he had wished… He found himself with the two buckets in his hands, filling them in the pit, then walking along the line of men, who abandoned their rifles to gulp down the liquid with the voracity of panting beasts. The clamor of the invisible bodies no longer frightened him. His desire was to die; he knew that he was bound to die. His sufferings were too great: there was no room left for him in the world. He had to pass by breaches opened in the wall by the explosion of the shells. Nothing obstructed his view through these breaches. Fences and groves had been altered or obliterated by the artillery fire. At the foot of the slope where his castle stood, he spotted several columns of attackers who had crossed the Marne. The assault troops were pinned down by the heavy German fire. They advanced in leaps and bounds, by companies, then lay down in the shelter of the terrain to let the deadly volleys pass. The old man felt a surge of desperate resolve: since he was going to die, let a French bullet kill him. And he advanced upright, with his two buckets, among those prone men firing. Then, with sudden terror, he froze, his head tucked between his shoulders, thinking that the bullet he took would pose less of a threat to the enemy. It was better that the Germans kill him… And he began to mentally entertain the idea of picking up a weapon from one of the dead, falling upon the Junker who had slapped him. He was filling the buckets for the third time, his back to the lieutenant, when something unbelievable, absurd, happened—something that reminded him of the fantastical transformations in the cinema. Suddenly, the officer’s head vanished: two jets of blood spurted from his neck, and his body collapsed like an empty sack. At the same time, a cyclone swept along the wall, between it and the building, uprooting trees, toppling cannons, and carrying people away in a whirlwind as if they were dry leaves. He sensed that death was blowing in a new direction. Until then, it had come head-on, from the river side, battering the enemy line entrenched on the wall. Now, with the abruptness of a change in the weather, it was coming from the back of the park. A skillful maneuver by the attackers, the use of a secluded path , perhaps a German retreat, had allowed the French to reposition their cannons, bombarding the castle’s occupants from the flank. It was fortunate for Don Marcelo to linger a few minutes at the edge of the moat, sheltered by the bulk of the building. The spray from the hidden battery swept along the avenue, sweeping away the living, tearing the dead apart a second time, killing horses, shattering the wheels of the cannons, and sending a gun carriage flying with volcanic flames, in whose red and blue depths black bodies leaped. He saw hundreds of fallen men; he saw horses running, trampling their entrails. The reaping of death had not been by sheaves: an entire field was flattened with a single blow of the sickle. And as if the batteries opposite had foreseen the catastrophe, they redoubled their fire, sending a rain of shells. They fell from all sides. Beyond the castle, at the far end of the park, craters opened in the grove, spewing forth whole trunks. The projectiles unearthed the dead buried the day before. Those who hadn’t fallen continued firing through the openings in the wall. Then they got up hastily. Some fixed their bayonets, pale, with pursed lips and a gleam of madness in their eyes; others turned their backs, running towards the park exit, paying no attention to the officers’ shouts and the revolver shots fired at the fugitives. All this happened with dizzying speed, like a scene from a nightmare. On the other side of the wall, there was a rising hum like the ebb and flow of the tide. He heard shouts; it seemed to him that hoarse, discordant voices were singing the Marseillaise. The machine guns were working with speed, like sewing machines. The attack was going to be immobilized again by this furious resistance. The Germans, mad with rage, were firing and firing. In a gap, red kepis appeared, legs of the same color trying to get through the rubble. But the vision was instantly erased by the spray of machine gun fire. The attackers must be falling in droves on the other side of the wall. Desnoyers didn’t know for sure how the transformation occurred. Suddenly, he saw the red trousers inside the park. They were leaping over the wall with an irresistible swoop, sliding through the gaps, coming from the depths of the woods through invisible entrances. They were small, square, sweaty soldiers, their greatcoats unbuttoned. And mingled with them, in the disorder of the charge, were African sharpshooters with devilish eyes and foaming mouths, Zouaves in baggy breeches, blue-uniformed chasseurs . The German officers wanted to die. With sabers raised, having exhausted the rounds in their revolvers, they advanced against the attackers, followed by the soldiers who still obeyed them. There was a clash, a melee. It seemed to the old man that the world had fallen into a profound silence. The cries of the combatants, the collision of bodies, the stridency of weapons, meant nothing after the cannons had fallen silent. He saw men impaled through the belly on the end of a rifle, a reddened point protruding from their kidneys; rifle butts held high, falling like hammers; adversaries embracing each other, rolling on the ground, trying to subdue one another with kicks and bites. The mustard-colored chests disappeared; He saw only dark backs fleeing toward the park exit, disappearing among the trees, falling mid-flight, struck by bullets. Many of the attackers wanted to pursue the fugitives but couldn’t, preoccupied as they were with roughly yanking their bayonets from bodies that held them in their death throes. Don Marcelo suddenly found himself in the middle of these mortal clashes, jumping like a child, waving his hands, uttering cries. Then he awoke again, holding in his arms the dusty head of a young officer who stared at him in astonishment. Perhaps he thought him mad when he received his kisses, when he heard his incoherent words, when a shower of tears fell upon his cheeks. He continued weeping when the officer roughly pushed him away… he needed to release his emotions after so many days of silent anguish: Long live France! His men were already at the park entrance. They rode with bayonets fixed, pursuing the last remnants of the German battalion fleeing toward the village. A group of horsemen passed by on the road. They were dragoons arriving to intensify the pursuit. But their horses were exhausted; only the fever of victory, which seemed to be transmitted from the men to the beasts, sustained their forced and painful trot. One of these riders stopped by the entrance to the park. The horse greedily devoured some weeds, while the man remained huddled in the saddle as if asleep. Desnoyers touched him on the hip, trying to wake him, and immediately he rolled over on the opposite side. He was dead; his entrails hung outside his abdomen. Thus he had advanced on his steed, trotting in the same direction as the others. Enormous iron and smoke bombs began to fall nearby. German artillery was firing on their lost positions. The advance continued. Battalions, squadrons, and batteries marched north, weary, dirty, and covered in dust and mud, yet with a fervor that galvanized their nearly exhausted strength. French cannons began to thunder near the town. Groups of soldiers explored the castle and the surrounding groves. From the ruined rooms, from the depths of the caves, from the thickets of the park, from the burned-out stables and garages, greenish men with pointed heads emerged. They all raised their arms, displaying their open hands: “Knights… comrades, not dead.” They feared, with the unease of remorse, that they would be killed immediately. They had suddenly lost all their ferocity upon finding themselves far from the officer and free from discipline. Some who knew a little French spoke of their wives and children, to soften the hearts of the enemies who threatened them with bayonets. A German marched beside Desnoyers, clinging to his back. He was the bearded medic. He beat his chest and then pointed at him. “Franzosen… Franzosen’s great friend.” And he smiled at his protector. He remained in his castle until the following morning. He saw Georgette and her mother emerge unexpectedly from the depths of the ruined pavilion. They wept as they gazed upon the French uniforms. “This can’t go on,” the widow moaned. “God does not die!” The two were beginning to doubt the reality of the previous days. After a restless night spent among the rubble, Don Marcelo decided to leave. What was left for him to do in this shattered castle? The presence of so many dead was a hindrance. There were hundreds, there were thousands. Soldiers and peasants were burying the corpses in piles wherever they found them. Graves beside the building, along all the park’s avenues , in the garden flowerbeds, inside the outbuildings. Even at the bottom of the circular lagoon there were dead. How could he live at all hours with this tragic presence, composed mostly of enemies? “Goodbye, Château de Villeblanche!” He set out for Paris; he was determined to reach it no matter what. He found corpses everywhere, but these were not wearing the greenish uniform. Many of his men had fallen in the saving offensive. Many more would fall in the final convulsions of the battle that raged behind him, shaking the horizon with an incessant thunder . He saw scarlet trousers emerging from the stubble, hobnailed soles gleaming upright by the roadside, livid heads, amputated bodies, ripped open bellies spilling out enormous blue livers, severed torsos, severed legs. And emerging from this funereal jumble were dark red kepis, oriental caps, helmets with manes of horsehair, twisted sabers, broken bayonets , rifles, and piles of cannon cartridges. Dead horses bulged the plain with their swollen ribs. Artillery vehicles , their timbers consumed and their iron frames twisted, revealed the tragic moment of the explosion. Rectangles of packed earth marked the emplacements of the enemy batteries before their retreat. He found overturned cannons with broken wheels, shell snares reduced to twisted tangles of steel bars, cones of charred matter—the remains of men and horses burned by the Germans the night before their withdrawal. Despite these barbaric incinerations, the corpses on both sides were endless, limitless. It seemed as if the earth had vomited up all the bodies it had received since the dawn of humanity. The impassive sun filled the fields of death with points of light, with yellowish glimmers. Pieces of bayonets, metal plates, rifle cartridges, glittered like shards of mirror. The damp night, the rain, the corrosive weather, had not yet altered these remnants of combat with their corrosive action, dulling their luster. The flesh was beginning to decompose. A cemetery stench accompanied the traveler, growing ever stronger as he advanced toward Paris. Every half hour, it led him into a new circle of increasing putrefaction, a descent into the depths of animal decay. At first, the dead were from the previous day: they were fresh. Those he found on the other side of the river had been lying there for two days. The ground; then three, then four. Flocks of crows rose with lazy flapping at the sound of his footsteps; but they returned to the ground, full but not satiated, having lost all fear of man. From time to time he encountered groups of living men. They were cavalry platoons, gendarmes, Zouaves, chasseurs. They bivouacked around the ruined farmhouses, exploring the terrain to hunt down German fugitives . Desnoyers had to explain his story, showing the passport Lacour had given him to travel on the military train. Only then could he continue. These soldiers, many of them slightly wounded, were still under the spell of victory. They laughed, recounted their exploits, the great dangers faced in the preceding days. “We’ll kick them all the way to the border…” Their indignation was rekindled as they looked around them. The villages, the farmhouses, the isolated dwellings, all burned. Like the skeletons of prehistoric beasts , many steel frames twisted by fire stood out on the plain . The brick chimneys of the factories were cut almost flush with the ground or showed in their cylinders several clean, round shell holes. They looked like shepherd’s flutes stuck in the ground. Beside the ruined villages, women were digging in the earth, digging pits. This work seemed insignificant. An immense effort was needed to make so many dead disappear. “We’re going to die after the victory,” Don Marcelo thought. “The plague is going to ravage us.” The water in the streams had not escaped this contagion. Thirst made him drink from a pool, and when he raised his head, he saw green legs emerging from the liquid surface, their boots sinking into the mud on the bank. The head of a German was at the bottom of the pool. He had been marching for several hours when he stopped, thinking he recognized a ruined house. It was the tavern where he had lunch days before, on his way to his castle. He stepped inside the sooty walls, and a swarm of sticky flies buzzed around his face. A stench of rotting fat assaulted his nostrils. A leg that looked like charred cardboard jutted out from among the rubble. He thought he saw the old woman again with her grandchildren clinging to her skirts. “Sir, why are people running away? War is a matter for soldiers. We do no harm to anyone and have nothing to fear.” Half an hour later, as he was going down a hill, he had the most unexpected of encounters. He saw a rental car, a Parisian car, with its meter on the driver’s seat. The chauffeur was strolling calmly beside the vehicle, as if he were at his designated taxi stand. He soon struck up a conversation with this gentleman who appeared ragged and filthy like a vagrant, half his face livid from a blow. He had brought some Parisians who wished to see the battlefield . They were newspaper writers; he was waiting for them there to return at nightfall. Don Marcelo plunged his right hand into his pocket. Two hundred francs if he would take him to Paris. The chauffeur protested with the gravity of a man true to his word… “Five hundred.” And he showed a handful of gold coins. The other, in reply, gave the engine a turn, and it began to rumble. A battle didn’t happen every day in the vicinity of Paris. His clients could wait for him. And Desnoyers, inside the vehicle, watched this field of horrors rush past the doors in a dizzying flight, dissolving behind him. It was rolling toward human life… returning to civilization. Upon entering Paris, the solitary streets seemed teeming with people. He had never found the city so beautiful. He saw the Opera, he saw the Place de la Concorde, and he imagined he was dreaming as he appreciated the enormous leap he had made in an hour. He compared his surroundings with the images from just before, with that plain of death that stretched out a few kilometers away. No, it wasn’t possible. One of the two terms in this contrast had to be false. The car stopped: he had reached Victor Hugo Avenue… He thought he was still dreaming. Was he really home?… The majestic doorman greeted him in astonishment, unable to explain his wretched appearance. “Ah, sir!”… Where did you come from? ” From hell,” muttered Don Marcelo. His bewilderment continued as he found himself inside his house, wandering through the rooms. He was someone again. The sight of his riches, the enjoyment of his comforts, restored his sense of dignity. At the same time, the memory of all the humiliations and outrages he had suffered resurfaced in his mind . “Ah, scoundrels!”… Two days later, the doorbell rang in the morning. A visitor! A soldier approached him, a small, timid infantryman , his kepi in his right hand, stammering excuses in Spanish. I heard you were here… I’ve come to… This voice?… Don Marcelo pulled him into the dimly lit reception area, leading him toward a balcony… How handsome he looked!… The kepi was a red darkened by grime; the greatcoat, too wide, was shaved and mended; the boots reeked of leather. He had never seen his son so elegant and handsome as he was now in these warehouse scraps. You!… You!… The father embraced him convulsively, moaning like a child, feeling his feet refuse to support him. He had always hoped they would eventually understand each other. He had his blood: he was good, with no other fault than a certain stubbornness. He excused him now for everything that had happened, attributing much of the blame to himself. He had been too harsh. You, soldier! he repeated. “You defending my country, which isn’t yours!”… And she kissed him again, then stepped back a few paces to get a better look at him. She found him decidedly more handsome in his grotesque uniform than when he was famous for his elegant dancing, beloved by women. She finally managed to control her emotion. Her eyes, filled with tears, shone with a malevolent gleam. A look of hatred contorted her face. “Go,” she said simply. “You don’t know what this war is; I come from it, I’ve seen it up close. It’s not a war like the others, with loyal enemies: it’s a hunt for wild beasts… Shoot without scruple into the masses. For every one you bring down, you save humanity from danger. ” She paused for a few moments, as if hesitating, and finally added with tragic calm: “Perhaps you’ll find familiar faces before you. Families aren’t always formed to our liking. Men of your blood are on the other side.” If you see any of them… don’t hesitate, shoot! He’s your enemy. Kill him!… kill him! PART THREE. Chapter 11. After the Marne. At the end of October, the Desnoyers family returned to Paris. Doña Luisa couldn’t live in Biarritz, far from her husband. In vain did “the romantic” speak to her of the dangers of returning. The government was still in Bordeaux; the President of the Republic and the ministers only made brief appearances in the capital. The course of the war could change at any moment : the Marne only represented a momentary respite… But the good lady remained unmoved by these suggestions after having read Don Marcelo’s letters. Besides, she was thinking of her son, her Julio, who was a soldier… She believed that by returning to Paris she would be closer to him than on this beach near the Spanish border. Chichí also wanted to return. René occupied a great deal of space in her thoughts. The absence had allowed her to realize she was in love. So long without seeing her “sugar soldier”!… And the family abandoned their hotel life to return to Avenue Victor Hugo. Paris was changing its appearance after the upheaval of early September. The scant two million inhabitants who remained calm in their homes, without succumbing to panic, had greeted the victory with grave serenity. None of them could explain with The exact course of the battle was unknown: they only learned of it after it had already ended. One Sunday in September, at the hour when Parisians strolled, enjoying the beautiful sunset, they learned from the newspapers of the great Allied triumph and the danger they had faced. The people rejoiced , but without abandoning their calm demeanor. Six weeks of war had radically changed the character of Paris, boisterous and impressionable. The victory slowly restored the capital to its former appearance. A street deserted weeks before was now filled with passersby. Shops began to open. The residents, accustomed to a convent-like silence in their homes, once again heard the sounds of installation on the roof and beneath their feet. Don Marcelo’s joy at seeing his family arrive was overshadowed by the presence of Doña Elena. It was Germany returning to meet him, the enemy once more in his home. When could he free himself from this slavery?… She remained silent in the presence of her brother-in-law. Recent events seemed to disorient her. Her face wore an expression of bewilderment, as if she were contemplating the most basic laws of physics in utter disarray. In her thoughtful silences, she couldn’t comprehend how the Germans hadn’t conquered the land she stood on; and to explain this failure, she entertained the most absurd suppositions. A particular worry intensified her sadness. Her children… what would become of them? Don Marcelo never spoke to her of his meeting with Captain von Hartrott. He kept silent about his trip to Villeblanche; he didn’t want to recount his adventures during the Battle of the Marne. Why sadden his family with such misery? He had merely informed Doña Luisa, alarmed by the fate of her castle, that they wouldn’t be able to visit it for many years, as it had become uninhabitable. A corrugated iron roof now replaced the old one to prevent the rains from completing the internal destruction. Later, after the peace, they would consider its renovation. For now, it had too many inhabitants… And all the ladies, even Doña Elena, shuddered at the thought of the thousands of corpses forming a circle around the building, hidden in the ground. This vision made Mrs. Hartrott moan again : “Oh, my children!” Her brother-in-law, out of compassion, had reassured her about the fate of one of them, Captain Otto. He had been in perfect health when the battle began. He knew this from a friend who had spoken with him… And he said no more. Doña Luisa spent part of the day in churches, soothing her anxieties with prayer. These prayers were no longer vague and generous for the fate of millions of unknown men, for the victory of an entire people. With maternal selfishness, she focused them on a single person, her son, who was a soldier like the others and perhaps at that moment was in danger. The tears it cost her!… She had begged that he and his father would come to an understanding, and when at last God seemed to grant her a miracle, Julio walked away to meet death. Her prayers were never alone. Someone was praying beside her in the church, making the same pleas. Her sister’s tearful eyes rose at the same time as hers toward the crucified corpse. “Lord, save my son!…” As Doña Luisa said this, she saw Julio just as her husband had shown him in a pale photograph received from the trenches, wearing a kepi and greatcoat, his legs bound by cloth bands, a rifle in his right hand, and his face shadowed by a nascent beard. “Lord, protect us!…” And Doña Elena, in turn, gazed at a group of officers in helmets and mignonette- green uniforms stained with leather from their revolvers, cufflinks, map cases, and belts from which their sabers hung. Seeing them leave together for Saint Honorée d’Eylau, Don Marcelo sometimes became indignant. “ They’re playing with God… This isn’t serious. How can he attend to a few…” Such contradictory prayers?… Ah, women! And with the superstition that danger awakens, he believed his sister-in-law was causing grave harm to his son. The deity, weary of so much contradictory prayer, was about to turn her back so as not to hear either side . Why didn’t this femme fatale leave?… Just as at the beginning of hostilities, he again felt the torment of her presence. Doña Luisa unconsciously repeated her sister’s statements, submitting them to her husband’s superior judgment. Thus, Don Marcelo learned that the victory at the Marne had never actually occurred: it was an invention of the Allies. The German generals had deemed it prudent to retreat, due to their high strategic expectations, postponing the conquest of Paris, and the French had merely followed in their footsteps, since they were leaving the field clear. That was all. She knew the opinions of some military officers from neutral countries; she had spoken in Biarritz with highly competent people; He knew what the German newspapers were saying. Nobody there believed in the Marne. The public didn’t even know about this battle. “Your sister says so?” Desnoyers interrupted, pale with surprise and anger. All he could think to do was wish for a complete transformation of that enemy sheltered under his roof. “Oh! Why didn’t he become a man? Why didn’t that phantom of a husband of hers come and take his place, even if only for half an hour ?”… “But the war continues,” Doña Luisa insisted naively. “The enemies are still in France… What good was the Marne?” She accepted the explanations, nodding her head with an intelligent gesture, understanding everything immediately, only to forget it just as quickly and repeat the same doubts an hour later. However, she began to show a quiet hostility toward her sister. Until then, she had tolerated her enthusiasm for her husband’s homeland because she considered family ties more important than national rivalries. Just because Desnoyers was French and Karl German, she wasn’t going to fight with Elena. But suddenly this feeling of tolerance vanished. Her son was in danger… May all the Hartrotts die before Julio received the slightest wound!… She shared her daughter’s bellicose feelings , recognizing in her a great talent for discerning events. She wished to see all of Chichi’s fantastical betrayals brought to life . Fortunately, “the romantic” left before this antipathy became apparent. She spent her afternoons away from home. Then, upon returning, she would repeat opinions and news from friends of hers unknown to the family. Don Marcelo was indignant about the spies who still lived hidden in Paris. What mysterious world did his sister-in-law frequent?… Suddenly she announced that she was leaving the next morning: she had a passport for Switzerland, and from there she would go to Germany. It was time to return to her family; She was very grateful for the family’s kindness … And Desnoyers dismissed her with ironic aggression. He gave his regards to von Hartrott; he wished to pay him a visit in Berlin as soon as possible. One morning, Doña Luisa, instead of going into the church on Place Victor Hugo, continued on to the Rue de la Pompe, flattered by the idea of seeing the studio. It seemed to her that this would allow her to make contact with her son. It was a new pleasure, more intense than contemplating his photograph or reading his last letter. She hoped to find Argensola, the friend who offered good advice. She knew he was still living in the studio. Twice she had gone to see him by way of the service staircase, as in days gone by, but he was not there. As she rode up in the elevator, her heart throbbed with a rapidity of pleasure and anguish. It occurred to the good lady, with a certain blush, that something similar must be felt by “mad women” when they neglected their duties for the first time. Her tears flowed freely when she saw herself in that room. whose furniture and paintings reminded her of the absent one. Argensola rushed from the door to the back of the room, agitated and confused, greeting her with welcoming phrases while simultaneously moving objects around. A woman’s coat that had fallen onto a divan was obscured by an oriental cloth; a hat with flowers flew off with a swipe of his hand and hid in a corner. Doña Luisa thought she saw a woman’s shirt slipping through a curtain , revealing pink nudity underneath. On the stove, two bowls and remnants of toast suggested a double breakfast. “These painters!… Just like their son!” And she felt a pang of tenderness thinking of the dissolute life of Julio’s advisor. ” My respectable Doña Luisa… Dear Madame Desnoyers…” He spoke in French and shouted, looking at the door through which the white and pink fluttering had disappeared. He trembled at the thought that his hidden companion might make jealous mistakes, compromising him with an untimely appearance. Then they spoke of the soldier. The two exchanged news. Doña Luisa almost repeated verbatim the paragraphs of her letters, which she had reread so many times. Argensola modestly refrained from showing the texts of his own. The two friends employed an epistolary style that would have made the good lady blush. One brave man proudly declared, considering his companion’s actions as his own , a true hero: “And I, Madame Desnoyers, know something about this… His superiors know how to appreciate him… Julio was a sergeant two months after being on campaign. The captain of his company and other officers of the regiment belonged to the fencing club where he had achieved so many victories. What a career!” he continued. “He’s one of those who reach the highest ranks young, like the generals of the Revolution… And what feats!” The soldier had only briefly mentioned some of his deeds in his letters, with the indifference of one who lives accustomed to danger and appreciates the same courage in his comrades. But the Bohemian exaggerated them, praising them as if they were the most momentous events of the war. He had carried an order through infernal fire, after three messengers had fallen dead without being able to complete the same task. He had been the first to leap into many trenches and had saved numerous comrades with bayonets in hand-to-hand combat. When his superiors needed a trusted man, they invariably said, “Call Sergeant Desnoyers.” He stated it as if he had witnessed it, as if he had just returned from the war; and Doña Luisa trembled, shedding tears of joy and fear at the thought of her son’s glories and dangers. That Argensola had the gift of moving her, with the vehemence with which he recounted things. She felt she should show her appreciation for such enthusiasm by showing some interest in the panegyrist… What had he done lately ?… I, madam, have been where I was meant to be. I haven’t moved from here. I witnessed the “siege” of Paris. In vain, his reason protested the inaccuracy of this word. Under the influence of his readings on the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, he called the operations carried out near Paris during the Battle of the Marne a “siege. ” He modestly pointed to a gold-framed diploma lying on the piano, set against a tricolor flag. It was a piece of paper sold on the streets: a certificate of residence in the capital during the week of danger. He had filled in the blanks with his name and qualifications, and at the bottom were the signatures of two residents of the Rue de la Pompe: a tavern keeper and a friend of the concierge. The district police commissioner guaranteed the responsibility of these honorable witnesses with his signature and seal. After such a precaution, no one would doubt whether or not he had witnessed the “siege” of Paris. He had such incredulous friends !… To move the good lady, he recalled his impressions. He had seen a flock of sheep in broad daylight on the boulevard, next to the fence. From the Madeleine. His footsteps had awakened in many streets the echoing sounds of dead cities. He was the only passerby: stray dogs and cats roamed the sidewalks. His military memories stirred him like breaths of glory. I have seen the Moroccans march… I have seen the Zouaves in automobiles. The same night that Julio had left for Bordeaux, he wandered until dawn, following a line of avenues through half of Paris, from the Lion of Belfort to the Gare de l’Est. Twenty-seven thousand men, with all their field equipment, from Morocco, had disembarked in Marseille and reached the capital, making part of the journey by train and part on foot. They were coming to take part in the great battle that was beginning. They were troops composed of Europeans and Africans. The vanguard, upon entering through the Porte d’Orléans, began the gymnastic march, thus crossing half of Paris, to the Gare de l’Est, where the trains awaited. The neighborhood saw squadrons of Spahis, in theatrical uniforms, mounted on their nimble, light horses; Moroccan sharpshooters with yellow turbans; Senegalese sharpshooters with black faces and red caps; colonial artillerymen; African hunters. They were professional combatants, soldiers who in peacetime lived fighting in the colonies, with energetic profiles, bronzed faces, and predatory eyes. The long parade would freeze in the streets for hours on end to allow time for the forces at the front to board the trains … And Argensola had followed this armed and motionless mass from the boulevards to the Porte d’Orléans, talking with the officers, listening to the naive cries of the African warriors, who had never seen Paris and were passing through it without curiosity, asking where the enemy was. They arrived in time to attack von Kluck on the banks of the Oureq, forcing him to retreat, lest he be surrounded. What Argensola hadn’t mentioned was that his nighttime excursion along this army corps had been made in the company of the kind person who was inside and two other friends, an enthusiastic and generous group who distributed flowers and kisses to the tanned soldiers, laughing at the astonishment with which they flashed their white teeth. Another day, he had witnessed the most extraordinary spectacle of the war. All the rental cars, some two thousand vehicles, loaded with battalions of Zouaves, eight men per carriage, and speeding off , bristling with rifles and red caps. They formed a picturesque procession on the boulevards: a kind of endless wedding. And the soldiers got out of the cars right on the edge of the battle, firing as soon as they jumped from the running board. All the men who knew how to handle a rifle had been thrown by Gallieni against the enemy’s far right at the crucial moment, when victory was still uncertain and the slightest weight could decide it. Clerks from the military offices, orderlies, police officers, gendarmes— all had marched to give the final push, forming a mass of heterogeneous colors. And on Sunday afternoon, as she and her three companions from the siege were sunbathing in the Bois de Boulogne among thousands of Parisians, she learned from the newspaper reports that the fighting that had taken place near the city and was now moving away was a major battle, a victory. “ I’ve seen a lot, Madame Desnoyers… I can tell you great things.” And she agreed: yes, she had seen Argensola… As she was leaving, she offered him her support. He was her son’s friend, and she was used to his requests. Times had changed; Don Marcelo was now of boundless generosity… But the bohemian interrupted her with a stately gesture: he lived in abundance. Julio had appointed him his administrator. The money order from America had been recognized by the Bank as a deposit, and they could draw on a percentage of it, in accordance with the decrees on the moratorium. His friend was sending him a She checked whenever she needed money for household expenses. She had never been in such a comfortable situation. War has its good points too… But wanting to preserve good habits, she announced that she would go up the service stairs once more to fetch a basket of bottles… Doña Luisa, after her sister’s departure, went to church alone, until suddenly she found herself with an unexpected companion. ” Mama, I’m coming with you…” It was Chichí, who seemed to feel a burning devotion. She no longer enlivened the house with her boisterous, manly joy; she no longer threatened enemies with imaginary daggers. She was pale, sad, with eyes haloed in blue. She bowed her head as if a weight of serious, entirely new thoughts were pressing down on the other side of her forehead . Doña Luisa watched her in church with jealous spite. Her eyes were moist, just like hers; She prayed fervently, as did she… but it certainly wasn’t for her brother. Julio had faded into the background of her memories. Another man in danger filled her thoughts. The last of the Lacours was no longer a simple soldier, nor was he in Paris. Upon arriving from Biarritz, Chichi had anxiously listened to the exploits of her “little sugar soldier.” Throbbing with emotion, she wanted to know all the dangers he had faced, and the young warrior of the “auxiliary service” told her of his anxieties in the office during the endless days when the troops fought near Paris, the thunder of artillery fire echoing from the outskirts. Her father had wanted to take him to Bordeaux, but last-minute administrative disarray kept her in the capital. He had done something more. On the day of the great effort, when the garrison governor sent all able-bodied men out in cars, he had taken up a rifle, without being called, and boarded a vehicle with others from his office. She had seen nothing but smoke, burning houses, the dead, and the wounded. Not a single German had passed before her eyes, except for a group of captured Hulans. He had lain for several hours by the side of a road, firing his weapon… and nothing more. For the moment, it was enough for Chichi. She felt proud to be the girlfriend of a hero of the Marne, even though his involvement had only lasted a few hours. But as the days went by, her disposition grew darker. She resented going out in public with René, a mere soldier, and on top of that, an auxiliary one… The women of the village, stirred by the memory of their men fighting at the front or dressed in mourning for the death of one of them, were aggressively insolent. The refinement and elegance of the republican prince seemed to irritate them. She repeatedly overheard harsh words against the “ambushed” soldiers as she passed by. The idea that her brother, who wasn’t French, was fighting made Lacour’s situation even more intolerable. She had a boyfriend who was “in ambush.” How her friends must have laughed!… The senator’s son undoubtedly guessed her thoughts, and this shattered his smiling composure. For three days he didn’t appear at Desnoyers’ house. Everyone thought he was tied up with some office work . One morning, as Chichi was walking to the Avenue del Bosque, escorted by one of her copper-skinned maids, she saw a military officer marching toward her. He was wearing a brand-new uniform, the new grayish-blue color, the “horizon” color, adopted by the French army. The chin strap of his kepi was gold, and he wore a small piece of gold on each sleeve. His smile, his outstretched hands, the confidence with which he advanced toward her, made her recognize him. “René, an officer!… Her boyfriend, a sublieutenant! Yes; I can’t take it anymore… I’ve heard enough.” Behind her father’s back and using his connections, he had accomplished this transformation in just a few days. As a student at the Central School, he was eligible to become a second lieutenant in the reserve artillery, and he had requested to be sent to the front. His auxiliary service completed!… Before two Days later he was going to leave for the war. “You did that!” exclaimed Chichi. “You did that!”… She looked at him, pale, with enormously enlarged eyes, eyes that seemed to devour him with admiration. “Come here, my poor little soldier… Come here, sweet little soldier… I owe you something.” And turning his back on the maid, he invited her to turn a nearby corner. It was the same: the cross street was as busy as the avenue. But the care the curious onlookers showed her!… Vehemently, she threw her arms around his neck, blind and insensible to everything but him. ” Take it… take it.” She planted two violent, loud, aggressive kisses on his face. Then, staggering on her legs, suddenly faint, she brought the handkerchief to her eyes and burst into desperate tears. Chapter 12. In the Study. One afternoon, upon opening the door, Argensola froze, as if stunned . An old man greeted him with a kind smile. ” I am Julio’s father.” And he stepped forward, with the confidence of a man who knew his surroundings perfectly. Fortunately, the painter was alone and didn’t need to rush about trying to conceal the traces of his pleasant company. It took him some time to recover from his shock. He had heard so much about Don Marcelo and his ill temper that his unexpected appearance in the studio caused him great unease . What did the fearsome man want? His composure gradually returned as he discreetly observed him. He had aged considerably since the beginning of the war. He no longer possessed that stubborn, ill-tempered demeanor that seemed to repel people. His eyes shone with a childlike joy; his hands trembled slightly; his back was hunched. Argensola, who had always fled upon encountering him in the street and experienced great fear upon ascending the service stairs of his house, now felt a sudden confidence. He smiled at him as at a comrade; he offered excuses to justify his visit. He had wanted to see his son’s house. Poor old man!… He was drawn by the same attraction of a lover who, to alleviate his loneliness, revisits the places frequented by his beloved. Julio’s letters were not enough : he needed to see his former home, to touch all the objects that had surrounded him, to breathe the same air, to speak with that young man who had been his close companion. He fixed paternal eyes upon the painter… “An interesting young man, this Argensola.” And thinking this, he forgot the times he had called him a “scoundrel” without even knowing him, simply because he accompanied his son in a life of disgrace. Desnoyers’ gaze wandered with delight around the studio. He knew the tapestries, the furniture, all the decorations that had belonged to the previous owner. He easily remembered the things he had bought in his life, despite their number. His eyes now searched for the personal, for anything that might evoke the image of the absent man. And they fell upon the barely sketched paintings, the unfinished studies that filled the corners. Was it all Julio’s?… Many of the canvases belonged to Argensola; but he, influenced by the old man’s emotion, showed great generosity. Yes, all Julio’s… And the father went from painting to painting, pausing with an admiring expression before the most indistinct sketches, as if he sensed in their confusion the disordered visions of genius. He has talent, doesn’t he? he asked, imploring a favorable word. I’ve always thought him intelligent… A bit of a devil, but character changes with age… He’s a different man now. And he almost wept when he heard the Spaniard, with all the vehemence of his eloquence, quick to embrace enthusiasm, praising the absent man, describing him as a great artist who would astonish the world when his time came. The painter of souls felt in the end as moved as his father. He admired this old man with a certain remorse. He didn’t want to remember what he had said against him in the past. What an injustice! Don Marcelo held his hands like those of a friend. His son’s friends were his friends. He knew how young people lived. If he ever had a hard time, if he needed a room to keep painting, he was there, eager to help. For starters, he was expecting him for dinner at his house that very night, and if he wanted to come every night, all the better. They would eat with the family, modestly; the war had changed customs; but he would find himself in the intimacy of a home, just as if he were at his parents’ house. He even spoke of Spain, to make himself more agreeable to the painter. He had only been there once , for a short time; but after the war he planned to travel all over it. His father-in-law was Spanish, his wife had Spanish blood, and in his house they used Castilian as their common language. Ah, Spain, land of noble past and proud character!… Argensola suspected that, had he belonged to another nation, the old man would have praised it just the same. This affection was nothing more than a reflection of love for the absent son, but he appreciated it nonetheless. And he almost embraced Don Marcelo as he said goodbye! After that afternoon, his visits to the studio became very frequent. The painter had to recommend that his female friends take a leisurely stroll after lunch, refraining from appearing on the Rue de la Pompe before nightfall. But sometimes Don Marcelo would arrive unexpectedly in the morning, and he would have to rush about, covering up here, removing there, so that the studio would retain an appearance of diligent work. “Youth… youth!” the old man would murmur with a tolerant smile. And he had to make an effort, to remember the dignity of his years, not to ask Argensola to introduce him to the runaways, whose presence he sensed in the inner rooms. They had perhaps been friends of his son, they represented a part of his past, and this was enough for him to assume in them great qualities that made them interesting. These surprises, with their corresponding anxieties, eventually led the painter to lament his new friendship somewhat. He was also bothered by the old man’s constant invitations to lunch . He found the Desnoyers’ table very good, but far too boring. The father and mother spoke only of the absent one. Chichí barely paid attention to his brother’s friend. His thoughts were fixed on the war; he worried about the postal service, lodging protests against the government when several days passed without a letter from Second Lieutenant Lacour. Argensola excused himself with various pretexts for continuing to eat on Victor Hugo Avenue. He preferred going to cheap restaurants with his female entourage. The old man accepted the refusals with the resigned air of a lover. “Not even today?”… And to compensate for such absences, he would arrive at the studio the next day well in advance. It was an exquisite pleasure for him to let time slip by, seated on a divan that still seemed to bear the imprint of Julio’s body, gazing at those canvases covered in colors by his brush, caressed by the warmth of a stove that snored sweetly in a deep, monastic silence. It was a pleasant refuge, full of memories, in the midst of the monotonous and saddened Paris of the war, where he found no friends, for they all needed to think about their own worries. The pleasures of his past had lost all their charm. The Hotel Drouot no longer tempted him. At that moment, the goods of Germans residing in France, confiscated by the government, were being auctioned off . It was like a response to the forced journey the furniture from the Château de Villeblanche had made, taking the road to Berlin. In vain did the brokers tell him about the sparse public attending the auctions. He felt no attraction to these extraordinary occasions. Why make more purchases?… What was the use of so many useless objects? Thinking about the harsh existence led by millions of men in the open countryside, he Desires for an ascetic life assailed him. He had begun to hate the ostentatious splendors of his house on Victor Hugo Avenue. He recalled the destruction of the castle without regret. He felt an irresistible laziness when his passions tried to push him, as in other times, to incessant shopping. No; he was better off there… And there, always, was Julio’s studio. Argensola worked in Don Marcelo’s presence. He knew that the old man abhorred inactive people, and he had undertaken several works, feeling the contagion of this will inclined to action. Desnoyers followed the brushstrokes with interest and accepted all the explanations of the portraitist of souls. He was a supporter of the Old Masters; in his purchases, he had only acquired works by dead painters; but it was enough for him to know that Julio thought like his friend to humbly accept all of his theories. The artist’s industriousness was different. After a few minutes, he preferred to talk with the old man, sitting down on the same divan. The first topic of conversation was the absent one. They repeated fragments of the letters they had received; they spoke of the past with discreet allusions. The painter described Julio’s life before the war as one entirely devoted to the pursuits of art. The father was aware of the inaccuracy of such words, but he appreciated the lie as a great show of friendship. Argensola was a good and discreet companion; never, in his most uninhibited speech, had he made any mention of Madame Laurier. In those days, the memory of her troubled the old man. He had found her in the street arm in arm with her husband, who had already recovered from his wounds. The illustrious Lacour recounted with satisfaction the couple’s reconciliation. The engineer had only lost one eye. Now he was in charge of his factory, requisitioned by the government for the manufacture of howitzers. He was a captain and held two decorations. The senator certainly didn’t know how the unexpected reconciliation had come about . He had seen them arrive home together one day, gazing at each other tenderly, completely forgetting the past. “Who remembers things from before the war?” the character had said. “They and their friends have completely forgotten about the divorce. We’re all living a new life… I think they’re both happier now than before.” Desnoyers had sensed this happiness upon seeing them. And the man of rigid morals, who the previous year had anathematized his son’s behavior with Laurier, considering it the most pernicious of escapades, felt a certain resentment upon seeing Margarita clinging to her husband, speaking to him with loving interest. This marital happiness seemed to him an ingratitude . A woman who had influenced Julio’s life so much!… Can love be forgotten like this?… The two had passed by as if they didn’t know him. Perhaps Captain Laurier wasn’t seeing things clearly; But she had looked at him with her innocent eyes, hastily averting her gaze to avoid his greeting… The old man was saddened by such indifference, not for himself, but for the other. Poor Julio!… The inflexible gentleman, in the throes of mental derangement, lamented this oversight as something monstrous. The war was another topic of conversation during the afternoons spent in the study. Argensola no longer carried his pockets bulging with printed materials, as he had at the beginning of hostilities. A resigned and serene calm had replaced the excitement of the first moment, when people expected extraordinary and marvelous interventions. All the newspapers said the same thing. It was enough for him to read the official communiqué, and he knew how to await this document without impatience, sensing that, more or less, it would say the same as the previous one. The fever of the first months, with its illusions and optimism, now seemed to him something chimerical. Those who were not in the war had gradually returned to their usual occupations. Life resumed its normal rhythm. “We have to live,” people said. And the need The thought of continuing life filled their minds with its immediate demands. Those who had armed men in the army remembered them, but their occupations softened the violence of the memory, eventually accepting the absence as something that had gone from extraordinary to normal. At first, the war cut short sleep, made food unpalatable, soured pleasure, giving it a funereal pallor. Everyone talked about the same thing. Now, theaters were slowly reopening, money was circulating, people were laughing, they were talking about the great calamity, but only at certain times, as something that was going to be long, very long, and demanded, with its inevitable fatalism, a great resignation. “Humanity easily gets used to misfortune,” Argensola said, “as long as the misfortune is long… That is our strength; that is why we live.” Don Marcelo did not accept his resignation. The war was going to be shorter than everyone imagined. His enthusiasm set an immediate end: in three months, next spring. And if peace didn’t come in the spring, it would come in the summer. A new interlocutor joined their conversations. Desnoyers met the Russian neighbor Argensola had told him about. This strange character had also met his son, and that was enough to pique his interest. In normal times, he would have kept his distance. The millionaire was a proponent of order. He abhorred revolutionaries, with the instinctive fear of all the rich who have built their fortunes and remember the modesty of their origins. Tchernoff’s socialism and his nationality would inevitably have conjured up a series of horrifying images in his mind : bombs, stabbings, just expiations by hanging, exiles to Siberia. No, he wasn’t a friend to be trusted… But now Don Marcelo was experiencing a profound upheaval in his assessment of other people’s ideas . He had seen so much!… The horrific procedures of the invasion, the ruthlessness of the German commanders, the ease with which submarines sank peaceful ships laden with defenseless passengers, the exploits of the aviators who, at two thousand meters high, dropped bombs on open cities, destroying women and children, made him remember as insignificant events the attacks of revolutionary terrorism that years before had provoked his indignation. And to think, he said, that we used to rage, as if the world were about to fall apart, because someone threw a bomb at a prominent figure! These extremists offered him a quality that mitigated their crimes. They died victims of their own actions or surrendered knowing what their punishment would be. They sacrificed themselves without seeking a way out: they had rarely saved themselves by taking advantage of the precautions of impunity. Whereas the terrorists of war!… With the violence of his imperious character, the old man effected a complete reversal of values. “The true anarchists are on top now,” he said with an ironic laugh. “All those who used to frighten us were just wretches… In a second, those of our time kill more innocent people than others did in thirty years. ” Tchernoff’s gentleness, his original ideas, his inconsistencies—the kind of incoherence of a thinker accustomed to leaping from reflection to words without any preparation—ended up seducing Don Marcelo. He consulted him about all his doubts. His admiration made him overlook the origin of certain bottles with which Argensola sometimes gifted his neighbor. He gladly accepted Tchernoff consuming these mementos from the time when he was living, fighting alongside his son. After savoring the wine from Victor Hugo Avenue, the Russian felt a visionary loquacity similar to that of the night he evoked the fantastic ride of the four apocalyptic horsemen. What Desnoyers admired most was his knack for depicting things, capturing them through vivid imagery. The Battle of the Marne, with the subsequent fighting and the race of both armies towards the seashore. These were, for him, easily explained events… If only the French hadn’t been exhausted after their triumph at the Marne! … But human strength, Tchernoff continued, has its limits, and the Frenchman, for all his enthusiasm, is a man like any other. First, the rapid march from East to North to confront the invasion through Belgium; then the fighting; followed by a swift retreat to avoid being encircled; finally, a seven-day battle; and all this in a period of only three weeks… At the moment of victory, the victors lacked the legs to advance and the cavalry lacked the strength to pursue the fleeing troops. The beasts were even more exhausted than the men. When they found themselves pursued with little tenacity, those who were retreating, collapsing from fatigue, lay down and dug into the earth, creating shelters for themselves. The French also lay down, scratching at the ground to avoid losing what they had recovered… And thus began the trench warfare. Then, each line, attempting to envelop the enemy line, had been extending northwest, and from these successive stretches resulted the race to the sea by both sides, forming the largest battlefront known in history. When Don Marcelo, in his enthusiastic optimism, announced the end of the war by the following spring… by summer, always with a four-month deadline at most, the Russian shook his head. ” This will be long… very long. It’s a new kind of war, a truly modern war.” The Germans began hostilities in the old style, as if they had observed nothing since 1870: a war of flanking maneuvers, of open-field battles, just as Moltke might have devised it, imitating Napoleon. They wanted it to end quickly and were certain of victory. Why use new procedures?… But the Marne derailed their plans: from aggressors they had to go on the defensive, and then they employed everything their General Staff had learned in the campaigns against the Japanese and Russians, beginning trench warfare , the subterranean struggle, which is logical, given the range and volume of fire of modern weaponry. The conquest of a kilometer of ground now represents, more than a century ago, the assault on a stone fortress… Neither side will advance for a long time. Perhaps they will never advance definitively. This is going to be long and boring, like fights between athletes of equal strength. But it will end someday, said Desnoyers. Undoubtedly; but who knows when?… And what will become of both sides when it’s all over?… He believed in a swift end, when people least expected it, due to the fatigue of one of the two combatants, carefully concealed until the last moment. Germany will be the defeated one, he added with firm conviction. I don’t know when or how, but it will logically fall. His masterstroke failed him in September, when he didn’t enter Paris and route the enemy army. He laid all his cards on the table then. He didn’t win, and he continues to prolong the game because he has many cards, and he will prolong it for a long time yet… But what he couldn’t do at the first moment he will never do. For Tchernoff, the final defeat did not mean the destruction of Germany or the annihilation of the German people. ” I am outraged,” he continued, “by excessive patriotism. Listening to certain people who formulate plans for the definitive suppression of Germany, it seems to me I am listening to the Pan-Germanists in Berlin when they were dividing up the continents.” Then he specified his opinion. ” The Empire must be defeated, for the tranquility of the world: the great war machine that disturbs the peace of nations must be suppressed… Since 1870 we have all lived terribly.” For forty-four years the danger had been averted, but in all this time, what anguish!… What irritated Tchernoff most was the immoral teaching born of this situation, which had ended up taking hold of the world: the glorification The glorification of force, the sanctification of success, the triumph of materialism, the respect for the fait accompli, the mockery of the noblest sentiments as if they were mere sounding and ridiculous phrases, the distortion of moral values, a philosophy of bandits that pretended to be the last word of progress but was nothing more than a return to despotism, violence, and the barbarism of the most primitive periods of history. He desired the suppression of the representatives of this tendency, but he did not, therefore, call for the extermination of the German people. This people has great merits mixed with unfortunate conditions, which are the legacy of a barbaric past that is all too recent. They possess the instinct for organization and work, and they can render valuable services to humanity… But first, it is necessary to give them a wake-up call: the wake-up call of failure. The Germans are mad with pride, and their madness is dangerous for the world. When those who poisoned them with illusions of world hegemony have disappeared, when misfortune has refreshed their imagination and they are content to be a group of people neither superior nor inferior to others, they will form a tolerant, useful people… and who knows, perhaps even likeable. For Tchernoff, there was no more dangerous people at that time. Their political organization turned them into a warring horde, raised with beatings and subjected to constant humiliation to break their will, which always resists discipline. It is a nation where everyone receives blows and wants to inflict them on those below. The kick delivered by the emperor is transmitted from back to back to the lowest social strata. The beatings begin in school and continue in the barracks, forming part of their education. The learning of the Prussian crown princes always consisted of receiving slaps and beatings from their father, the king. The Kaiser beats his offspring, the officer his soldiers, the father his children and wife, the teacher his students; and when the superior cannot strike, he imposes upon those under him the torment of moral outrage. That is why, when they abandoned their ordinary lives, taking up arms to descend upon another group of people, they were of implacable ferocity. Each of them, the Russian continued, carries on his back a storehouse of kicks received, and wishes to console himself by giving them in turn to the unfortunate souls whom war places under its dominion. This nation of “lords,” as it calls itself, aspires to be so… but outside its home. Within it, it is the one that knows the least about human dignity. That is why it feels with such vehemence the desire to spread itself throughout the world, going from lackey to master. Suddenly, Don Marcelo stopped going to the study frequently. He now sought out his friend the senator. A promise from the latter had disturbed his tranquil resignation. The man had been saddened ever since the heir to his family’s glories had gone off to war, breaking the protective web of recommendations in which he had been ensnared. One evening, while having dinner at Desnoyers’s house, he floated an idea that sent a shiver down Desnoyers’ spine. “Wouldn’t you like to see your son?” The senator was arranging for authorization from Headquarters to go to the front. He needed to see René. He belonged to the same army corps as Julio; perhaps they were in somewhat distant locations, but a car can take many detours before reaching its destination. He didn’t need to say more. Desnoyers suddenly felt a burning desire to see his son. For many months he had had to content himself with reading his letters and looking at a photograph taken by one of his comrades… From then on, he besieged Lacour as if he were one of his constituents eager for a job. He visited him at his home in the mornings, invited him to dinner every evening, and went to find him in the Luxembourg Palace salons in the afternoons. Before the first word of greeting, his eyes always posed the same question… “When will I get the permit?” The great man lamented the military’s indifference towards him. Civilian element. They had always been enemies of parliamentarianism. Besides, Joffre is proving intractable. He doesn’t want any onlookers… Tomorrow I’ll see the President. A few days later he arrived at the house on Avenue Victor Hugo with a gesture of satisfaction that filled Don Marcelo with joy. Is it done?… It’s done… We’re leaving the day after tomorrow. Desnoyers went the following afternoon to the studio on Rue de la Pompe. I’m leaving tomorrow. The painter wanted to accompany him. Couldn’t he also go as the senator’s secretary?… Don Marcelo smiled. The authorization was only valid for Lacour and one companion. He was the one who was going to appear as secretary, valet, or whatever, to his future father-in-law. At the end of the afternoon he left the studio, accompanied to the elevator by Argensola’s lamentations. Not being able to join the expedition!… He thought he had lost the opportunity to paint his masterpiece. Near his house he found Tchernoff. Don Marcelo was in good spirits. The certainty that he would soon see his son filled him with a childlike joy. He almost embraced the Russian, despite his disheveled appearance, his tragic beard, and his enormous hat, which made passersby turn their heads . At the end of the avenue, the imposing Arch of Triumph stood out against a sky colored by the setting sun. A red cloud floated around the monument, its whiteness reflected with purple shimmers. Desnoyers remembered the four horsemen and everything else Argensola had told him before introducing him to the Russian. “Blood,” he said cheerfully. “The whole sky looks like blood… It’s the apocalyptic beast that has received the coup de grâce. We’ll soon see it die. ” Tchernoff smiled as well, but his smile was melancholic. ” No; the beast doesn’t die. It’s the eternal companion of men. It hides, dripping blood, for forty years… sixty… a century, but it reappears.” All we can wish is that his wound be long, that it remain hidden for a long time, and that the generations who will still cherish our memory never see it . Chapter 13. The War. Don Marcelo was ascending a mountain covered with trees. The forest presented a tragic desolation. A silent tempest had settled there , fixing everything in violent, unnatural positions. Not a single tree retained the straight form and abundant foliage of peacetime. The groves of pines resembled the colonnades of ruined temples. Some stood upright along their entire length, but without the crown of their trees, like shafts that had lost their capitals; others were cut in half, like a flute’s beak, just like pilasters split by lightning. Some had filamentary splinters of dead wood hanging around their severed sections , like a broken toothpick. The destructive force had wreaked havoc on the ancient trees: beeches, holm oaks, and oaks. Great tangles of severed branches covered the ground, as if a band of gigantic lumberjacks had just passed through. The trunks lay severed a short distance from the earth, with a clean, polished cut, as if from a single blow. Around the uprooted roots, stones lay mixed with clods of earth; stones that had lain dormant in the depths of the soil and that the explosion had hurled onto the surface. Here and there, glistening among the trees or cutting across the path with an inconvenience that forced troublesome detours, spread their watery sheets enormous pools, all identical, with a geometric regularity, round, perfectly round. Desnoyers compared them to basins sunk in the ground for the use of the invisible titans who had felled the forest. Their immense depth began at the very edges. A swimmer could plunge into these pools without touching the bottom. The water was greenish, dead water, rainwater, with a crust of vegetation perforated by the respiratory bubbles of the small organisms that were beginning to live in its depths. Halfway up the slope, surrounded by pine trees, were several graves marked with wooden crosses; graves of French soldiers topped with tricolor flags. On these moss-covered mounds rested old artillerymen’s caps. The ferocious woodcutter, in ravaging the forest, had blindly struck the ants that moved among the trunks. Don Marcelo wore gaiters, a wide-brimmed hat, and a fine poncho draped over his shoulders like a blanket. He had brought out these garments that reminded him of his distant life on the ranch. Behind him walked Lacour, trying to maintain his senatorial dignity amidst the panting and puffing of fatigue. He too wore high boots and a soft hat, but he had kept his morning coat with its solemn tails, so as not to completely abandon his parliamentary uniform. Ahead marched two captains serving as their guides. They were on a mountain occupied by French artillery. They were heading for the mountain peaks, where cannons were hidden, forming a line several kilometers long. German artillerymen had caused this destruction in return fire. The forest was ripped apart by shells. The circular pools were funnels opened by the German “pots” in the impermeable, limestone soil that held the rainwater. They had left their car at the foot of the mountain. One of the officers, an old artilleryman, explained this precaution. They had to proceed cautiously uphill. They were within range of the enemy, and a car could attract their fire. The somewhat tiring climb continued. “Come on, Senator!… We’re almost there. ” They began to encounter artillerymen along the way. Many of them only had their kepis as military attire. They looked like workers from a metalworking factory, foundrymen and fitters, wearing corduroy trousers and vests . Their arms were bare, and some, to walk more safely through the mud, wore wooden clogs. They were former ironworkers, drafted into the reserve artillery. Their sergeants had been boatswains; many of their officers, engineers and workshop owners. Suddenly, those climbing stumbled upon the iron-clad inhabitants of the forest. When these spoke, the ground trembled, the air shook, and the grove’s inhabitants—crows and hares, butterflies and ants—fled in terror to hide, as if the world were about to perish in a noisy convulsion. Now, the roaring monsters remained silent. They approached without being seen. Sometimes, the end of something like a gray beam would appear among the green branches; at other times, this apparition would emerge from a pile of dry trunks. Rounding the obstacle, a small clearing appeared, occupied by several men who lived, slept, and worked around an enormous contraption mounted on wheels. The senator, who had written verses in his youth and delivered oratorical speeches whenever he inaugurated a statue in his district, saw in these mountain solitaries, blackened by the sun and smoke, shirtless and with rolled-up sleeves, a kind of priest placed at the service of the fatal divinity, which received from their hands the offering of the enormous explosive capsules, vomiting them forth in the form of thunder. Concealed beneath the foliage, to avoid the observation of enemy aviators, the French cannons were scattered across the ridges and plateaus of a series of mountains. In this herd of steel were enormous pieces, with wheels reinforced with skids, similar to those of the agricultural locomotives that Desnoyers kept on his estates for plowing the land. Like lesser beasts, more agile and playful in their incessant barking, the groups of the 75th appeared interspersed among the shadowy monsters. The two captains had received orders from their corps general to meticulously instruct the senator on the workings of the artillery. And Lacour accepted his observations with thoughtful gravity. He glanced from side to side, hoping to recognize his son. What mattered to him was seeing René… But remembering the official pretext for his trip, he continued from cannon to cannon, listening to explanations. The gun crews displayed the projectiles: large, pointed cylinders extracted from the underground magazines. These magazines, called “shelters,” were deep burrows, sloping pits reinforced with sandbags and timbers. They served as refuge for the unspent personnel and kept the ammunition safe from explosions. An artilleryman showed them two joined white cloth bags, well-stuffed. They resembled a double sausage and were the ammunition for one of the large cannons. The bag was opened, revealing packets of pinkish leaves. The senator and his companion were astonished that this paste, which looked like a toiletry item, was one of the terrible explosives of modern warfare. Lacour declared that if he had found one of these bundles in the street, he would have thought it had come from a lady’s purse or been forgotten by a perfumery clerk—anything but an explosive. And with this, which looks like it was made for the lips, you could blow up a building! They continued on their way. At the very top of the mountain, they saw a somewhat crumbling tower . It was the most dangerous position. An officer was surveying the enemy line from there to assess the accuracy of their shots. While his comrades were underground or concealed by the undergrowth, he carried out his mission from this visible vantage point. A short distance from the tower, an underground passage opened before them . They descended into its gloomy depths until they came upon several rooms carved into the ground. A sheer mountainside formed its exterior facade. Narrow windows pierced in the stone provided light and air to these chambers. An elderly commander, in charge of the sector, came out to meet them. Desnoyers thought he saw a section head from a large Parisian department store. His mannerisms were exquisite, his soft voice seemed to implore forgiveness with every word, as if he were addressing a group of ladies offering them the latest fashions. But this impression lasted only a moment. The soldier with gray hair and myopic glasses, who in the midst of war maintained the gestures of a factory manager receiving his clients, revealed, as he moved his arms, bandages and cotton wool inside his sleeves. He had been wounded in both wrists by a shell explosion, and yet he remained at his post. “What a devilish, syrupy gentleman!” thought Don Marcelo. “You have to admit he’s somebody.” They had entered the command post, a vast room that received light through a horizontal window four meters wide and only a hand and a half high. It looked like the open space between two shutters. Beneath it lay a pine table laden with papers, with several stools. From one of these seats , the entire plain could be seen . On the walls were electrical equipment, distribution boards, loudspeakers, and telephones—many telephones. The commander moved aside and piled the papers, offering the stools with the same gesture as if he were in a drawing room. “Here, Senator.” Desnoyers, a humble comrade, took a seat beside him. The commander seemed like a theater director preparing to show something extraordinary. He placed on the table an enormous sheet of paper that reproduced all the features of the plain stretching before them: roads, towns, fields, hills, and valleys. On this map appeared a triangular group of red lines fanned out. The apex was the place where they stood; the wide part of the triangle the limit of the actual horizon they could see. “Let’s fire on this forest,” said the gunner, pointing to one end of the map. “Here’s where,” he continued, pointing to a small dark line on the horizon. “Take the binoculars.” But before the two of them could rest the edges of the eyepieces on their With eyebrows raised, the commander placed a new sheet of paper on the map. It was an enormous, somewhat blurry photograph, overlaid with a fan of red lines identical to the other. ” Our airmen,” the courteous gunner continued, “took some views of the enemy positions this morning. This is an enlargement from our photographic workshop… According to their reports, two German regiments are encamped in the woods.” Don Marcelo saw in the photograph the patch of forest and within it white lines that represented roads, groups of small squares that were blocks of houses in a village. He imagined himself in an airplane , contemplating the earth from a thousand meters high. Then he put his binoculars to his eyes, following the direction of one of the red lines, and saw a black bar enlarge in the lens, something like a thick line of ink: the forest, the enemy’s refuge. “Whenever you are ready, Senator, we will begin,” said the commander, reaching the ultimate expression of courtesy. “Are you ready?”… Desnoyers smiled slightly. What would his illustrious friend soon be up to? What use could he be, a mere onlooker like himself, undoubtedly excited by the novelty of the spectacle?… A multitude of bells rang behind him: vibrations calling, vibrations answering. The acoustic tubes seemed to swell with the gallop of words. The electric wire filled the silence of the room with the pulses of its mysterious life. The amiable chief was no longer concerned with them. They could make him out behind them, at the mouth of a telephone, conversing with his officers several kilometers away. The sweet, well-spoken hero never abandoned his convoluted courtesy for a moment. “Would you be so kind as to begin?” he said gently to the distant officer. “I will gladly relay the order.” Don Marcelo felt a slight nervous tremor near one of his legs. It was Lacour, uneasy with the novelty. The firing was about to begin; something was about to happen that he had never seen before. The cannons were directly overhead : the vaulted ceiling would tremble like a ship’s deck under fire. The room, with its acoustic tubes and telephone-like vibrations, was like a ship’s bridge at the moment of muster. The uproar that was about to erupt!… A few seconds passed, which felt like an eternity… Suddenly, a distant clap of thunder seemed to come from the clouds. Desnoyers no longer felt the nervous vibration near his leg. The senator moved with surprise; his expression seemed to say, “Is that all?…” The meters of earth above them muffled the detonations. The shot from a heavy cannon was equivalent to a blow to a mattress. Even more impressive was the wail of the projectile, sounding high above, yet displacing the air with such force that its shockwaves reached the window. It fled… fled, its roar weakening. It took a long time before its effects were noticeable. The two friends began to believe they had lost themselves in space. “It’s not coming… it’s not coming,” they thought. Suddenly , on the horizon, exactly where they had indicated, above the blur of the forest, appeared an enormous column of smoke, a rotating tower of black vapor, followed by a volcanic explosion. “How awful it must be to live down there!” said the senator. He and Desnoyers experienced a feeling of animal joy, a selfish delight, seeing themselves in a safe place, several meters below ground. ” The Germans are going to fire any moment now,” Don Marcelo said quietly to his friend. The senator agreed. They were undoubtedly going to respond, and an artillery duel would begin. All the French batteries had opened fire. The mountain thundered incessantly: the roars of the projectiles followed one another; the horizon, still silent, was bristling with black Solomonic columns. The two acknowledged that it was quite pleasant in this A shelter, like a theater box… Someone touched Lacour on the shoulder. It was one of the captains guiding them along the front. “Let’s go up,” he said simply. “We have to see up close how our cannons work. The spectacle is worthwhile. ” “Up?”… The man was perplexed, astonished, as if he were being offered an interplanetary journey. “Up, when the enemy was about to return fire at any moment?”… The captain explained that Second Lieutenant Lacour was perhaps waiting for his father. They had telephoned his battery, positioned a kilometer away: he should take advantage of the time to see him. They went back up into the light through the opening of the underground passage. The senator had stood majestically. “They’re going to fire,” a voice inside him said; “the enemy is going to return fire.” But he adjusted his frock coat like a tragic cloak, and continued on, grave and solemn. If those men of war, adversaries of parliamentarianism, hoped to secretly laugh at the emotions of a civilian, they were sorely disappointed. Desnoyers admired the decisiveness with which the great man leaped out of the underground tunnel, as if marching against the enemy. After a few steps, the air was torn apart in tumultuous waves. The two men stumbled, their ears ringing, and they thought they felt a blow against the back of their necks. It occurred to them at the same time that the Germans had already begun firing. But it was their own men who were firing. A wisp of smoke rose from the woods about twelve meters away, dissipating instantly. One of the enormous cannons, hidden in the undergrowth beside them, had just fired . The captains offered an explanation without breaking stride. They had to stay ahead of the cannons, enduring the violent sound of their blasts, to avoid venturing into the open space where the watchtower stood. They too were expecting a reply from the other side at any moment . The man next to Don Marcelo congratulated him on the imperturbability with which he endured the cannon fire. “My friend knows that,” the senator said proudly. “He was at the Battle of the Marne.” The two officers noted Desnoyers’ age with some surprise. Where had he been? What unit did he belong to? ” I was a casualty,” the man in question said modestly. An officer was running toward them from the side of the tower, through the bare clearing. He repeatedly waved his kepi so they could see him better. Lacour trembled for him. The enemy could spot him; he was making himself an easy target by recklessly cutting across the open space, eager to get there first. And he trembled even more when he saw him up close… It was René. His hands clasped, with a certain strangeness, strong, sinewy hands. He saw his son’s face, its features more pronounced, darkened by the patina of country life. An air of resolve, of self-confidence, seemed to emanate from him. Six months of intense life had transformed him. He was the same boy, but with a broader chest, stronger wrists. His mother’s soft, gentle features had been lost beneath this masculine mask. Lacour proudly acknowledged that he now resembled him. After the greeting embraces, René attended to Don Marcelo more frequently than to his father. He thought he could detect something of Chichí’s perfume in him . He asked about her: he wanted to know details of her life, despite how often her letters arrived. The senator, meanwhile, moved by his recent emotion, had adopted a somewhat oratorical tone when addressing his son. He improvised a fragment of a speech in honor of this soldier of the Republic who bore the glorious name of Lacour, judging the moment opportune to inform those professional soldiers of his family’s background. “Fulfill your duty, my son. The Lacours have warrior traditions. Remember our grandfather, the commissioner of the Convention, who…” He covered himself in glory in the defense of Mainz. While he was speaking, everyone had set off, rounding a corner of the woods to take up positions behind the cannons. Here, the din was less violent. After each shot, the large guns released a small cloud of smoke from the breech, like that of a pipe. The sergeants dictated numbers, which were whispered by another gunner who had a telephone receiver to his ear . The gunners silently obeyed around the cannon. They touched a small wheel, and the monster raised its gray muzzle, moving it this way or that, with the intelligent expression and agility of an elephant’s trunk. At the foot of the nearest gun stood an impassive gunner, his rifle in hand. He must have been deaf. His brutish expression betrayed a certain authority. For him, life was nothing more than a series of jolts and thunderclaps. He knew its importance. He was the servant of the storm, the guardian of lightning. “Fire!” shouted the sergeant. And thunder erupted at his voice. Everything seemed to tremble; but the two travelers, accustomed to hearing the muzzle blasts of artillery , found the present din of secondary importance. Lacour was about to continue his tale about the glorious grandfather of the Convention when something extraordinary cut short his eloquence. ” Tiran,” said the gunner on the telephone simply. The two officers repeated this news to the senator, relayed by the lookouts in the tower. Hadn’t he said that the enemy was going to return fire?… Obeying his sacred instinct for self-preservation and urged on at the same time by his son, he found himself in a shelter of the battery. He didn’t want to crouch inside the narrow cave. He remained by the entrance, with a curiosity that overcame his unease. He felt the invisible projectile approaching despite the roar of the nearby cannons. With rare sensitivity, he perceived its passage through the atmosphere above the other, louder, and closer noises. It was a moan that grew in intensity; a sonic triangle, its apex on the horizon, that opened as it advanced, filling all the space. Then it was no longer a moan, but a harsh roar; formed by various collisions and scrapes, like an electric streetcar descending a slope, or a train speeding past a station without stopping. He saw it appear in the form of a cloud, growing larger as if it were about to crash down on the battery. Without knowing how, he found himself at the bottom of the “shelter,” and his hands met the cold contact of a pile of steel cylinders lined up like bottles. They were projectiles. “If the German ‘cauldron’ had thought of exploding over this burrow… what a dreadful blast!…” But he calmed down when he considered the solidity of the vault: beams and sacks of earth followed one another in a thickness of several meters. Suddenly, he was plunged into absolute darkness. Another man had taken refuge in the “shelter,” blocking the light with his body: perhaps his friend Desnoyers. A year passed that on his clock represented only a second; then a century of equal duration passed… and at last the awaited thunderclap erupted, the “shelter” trembling, but softly, with a dull elasticity, as if it were made of rubber. The explosion, despite this, was horrific. Other smaller explosions, coiled, playful, and whistling, emerged behind the first. With his imagination, Lacour gave form to this cataclysm. He saw a winged serpent vomiting sparks and smoke, a kind of Wagnerian monster that, as it flattened itself against the ground, opened its entrails, scattering thousands of fiery serpents that covered everything with their deadly writhing… The shell must have exploded very close by, perhaps in the very square occupied by the battery. He left the shelter, expecting to find a horrifying sight of mangled corpses, and saw his son smiling as he lit a cigar and talked to Desnoyers… Nothing! The artillerymen were finishing up calmly carrying a heavy piece. They had looked up for a moment as the enemy shell passed, then continued their work. ” It must have landed about three hundred meters away,” René said calmly. The senator, an impressionable spirit, suddenly felt a heroic confidence. It wasn’t worth worrying so much about his own safety when the other men, his equals even though they were dressed differently , didn’t seem to recognize the danger. And as more shells passed, which were going to disappear into the woods with crater-like explosions, he stayed by his son’s side, with no other sign of emotion than a slight trembling in his legs. It seemed to him now that only the French shells, because they were “his,” hit their target and killed. The others had the obligation to pass by, disappearing far away amid a useless racket. With such illusions, courage is forged… “And is that all?” his eyes seemed to say. He remembered with some shame his refuge in the “shelter”; He felt capable of living there, as did René. However, the German shells were becoming more and more frequent. They no longer lingered in the woods; their explosions sounded closer. The two officers exchanged glances. They were tasked with ensuring the safety of the distinguished visitor. “Things are heating up,” one of them said. René, as if sensing their thoughts, prepared to leave. “Goodbye, Papa!” He was needed at his battery. The senator tried to resist, wanted to prolong the interview, but he encountered something hard and inflexible that repelled all his influence. A senator was worth little among those people accustomed to discipline. “Goodbye, my son!… Good luck… Remember who you are.” And the father wept as he held him in his arms. He silently lamented the brevity of the interview; he thought of the dangers that awaited his only son upon parting from him. When René had disappeared, the captains began the group’s march . It was getting late; they had to reach a certain encampment before nightfall. They went downhill, sheltered by a mountain ridge , watching enemy projectiles fly high above them. In a hollow, they found several groups of 75mm cannons. They were scattered among the trees, concealed by piles of branches, like crouching dogs barking with their gray muzzles exposed. The great cannons roared with intervals of grave pause. These packs of steel screamed incessantly, without the slightest respite from their noisy fury, like the tearing of fabric ripped endlessly. There were many pieces, the firing was dizzying, and the detonations blended into one, like series of dots joining together to form a solid line. The officers, intoxicated by the din, shouted their orders, waving their arms as they paced behind the guns. The cannons slid along their motionless carriages, advancing and retreating like automatic pistols. Each shot ejected the spent cartridge case, instantly loading a new shell into the smoking chamber. The air swirled behind the batteries in a furious swell. With each shot, Lacour and his companion felt a blow to their chests, the violent contact of an invisible hand pushing them backward. They had to synchronize their breathing with the rhythm of the fire. For a hundredth of a second, between the sweeping wave of air and the next one advancing, their chests experienced the anguish of emptiness. Desnoyers admired the barking of these gray dogs. He knew their bites well; they could travel for miles. They were still fresh in his humble fort. Lacour thought the rows of cannons sang something monotonous and ferocious, like the war hymns of humanity in prehistoric times must have been. This music of dry, deafening, delirious notes was awakening in both of them something that lies dormant in the depths of every soul: the savagery of their distant ancestors. The air grew hot with acrid, pungent, bestially intoxicating smells. The scent of the explosive reached their brains through their mouths, their ears, their eyes. They experienced the same frenzy as the gun crews, who shouted and flailed their arms amidst the thunder. Empty shell casings formed a thick layer behind the cannons. “Fire!… always fire!” “We must spray well!” the officers shouted. “We must give the woods where the Germans are a good soaking !” And the 75mm guns poured without interruption, flooding the remote grove with projectiles. Inflamed by this deadly activity, intoxicated by the destructive speed, subjected to the vertigo of the red hours, Lacour and Desnoyers suddenly found themselves waving their hats, moving from side to side as if they were about to dance the sacred dance of death, shouting with their mouths dry from the acrid vapor of the gunpowder: “Long live… long live!” The car rolled on all afternoon, stopping occasionally on roads clogged by the long procession of convoys. They passed through uncultivated fields dotted with the skeletons of houses. They sped past burned-out villages that were nothing more than a succession of blackened facades with gaping holes in the void. ” Now it’s your turn,” the senator said to Desnoyers. “Let’s go see your son.” At dusk, they crossed paths with numerous groups of infantry, soldiers with long beards and blue uniforms faded by the weather. They were returning from the trenches, carrying shovels, picks, and other tools for turning the earth—which had acquired the importance of weapons—on the humps of their backpacks. They were covered in mud from head to toe. They all looked old in the prime of life. Their joy at returning to the encampment after a week in the trenches filled the silence of the plain with songs accompanied by the dull thud of their hobnailed boots. In the violet-hued twilight, the male choir scattered the winged stanzas of the Marseillaise or the heroic affirmations of the Departure Song. ” They are the soldiers of the Revolution,” the senator exclaimed enthusiastically; ” France has returned to 1792.” They spent the night in a half-ruined village, where a division’s headquarters had been established. The two captains said their farewells. Others would be in charge of guiding them the following morning. They had lodged at the “Hotel de la Sirena,” an old building with a facade riddled with shell holes. The owner proudly showed them a broken window that had taken the shape of a crater. This window dwarfed the establishment’s former emblem: an iron woman with a fish tail. Since Desnoyers occupied the room next to the one that had been hit by the shell, the hotelier wanted to show it to him before he went to bed. Everything was broken: walls, floor, ceiling. The furniture was splintered in the corners; Rags of flowered paper hung from the walls. Through a huge hole, the stars shone through, and the night chill seeped in. The owner stated that this destruction was not the work of the Germans. It had been caused by a 75mm shell when the invaders were repelled from the town. And he smiled with patriotic pride at the destruction, repeating: “It’s the work of our men. What do you think of how the 75mm works?… What do you say to this?”… Despite the fatigue of the journey, Don Marcelo slept poorly, troubled by the thought that his son was nearby. An hour after dawn, they left the town by car, guided by another officer. On both sides of the road, they saw camp after camp. They passed the ammunition depots; they went past the third line of troops; then the second. Thousands upon thousands of men had settled in the open countryside, improvising their homes. This teeming mass of men, with its variety of uniforms and races, was reminiscent of the great invasions of history. It wasn’t a people on the move: the exodus of a people is accompanied by women and children. Here, only men were seen. Men were everywhere. Every type of dwelling devised by humankind, from the cave onward, was used in these military encampments. Caves and quarries served as barracks. Some huts resembled American ranches ; others, conical and elongated, imitated the Gurbi of Africa. Many of the soldiers came from the colonies; some had lived as merchants in countries of the New World, and when they had to improvise a more stable home than a canvas tent, they drew upon their memories, imitating the architecture of the tribes with whom they had come into contact. In addition, within this mass of combatants were Moroccan, Black, and Asian sharpshooters, who seemed to thrive far from the cities, acquiring in the open field a superiority that made them masters of the civilized. Along the streams, white clothes fluttered, laid out to dry. Rows of shirtless men faced the cool morning air, bending over the water’s surface to wash themselves with noisy ablations followed by vigorous scrubbing. On a bridge, a soldier was writing, using the parapet as a table. Cooks bustled around steaming pots. A greasy whiff of morning soup drifted among the resinous perfumes of the trees and the scent of damp earth. Long wooden and zinc barracks served the cavalry and artillery, housing their livestock and equipment. Soldiers cleaned and shod the horses in the open air, sleek and fat. Trench warfare had kept them placidly obese. “If only they’d been like this at the Battle of the Marne!” Desnoyers said to his friend. Now, the horses lived in endless rest. Their riders fought on foot, firing in the trenches. The animals swelled in a monastic tranquility, and had to be taken out for walks so they wouldn’t get sick from the overflowing manger. Several airplanes, poised for takeoff, stood out against the plain like gray dragonflies . Many men gathered around them. The peasants, now soldiers, regarded with admiration the comrade in charge of piloting these machines. They saw in him the same power as the sorcerers venerated and feared in village tales . Don Marcelo noticed the general transformation of the French uniforms. They were all dressed in grayish-blue from head to toe. The scarlet trousers and red kepis he had seen during the Marne campaigns were gone. The men traveling the roads were soldiers. Every vehicle, even the oxcarts, was driven by a soldier. The car suddenly stopped beside some houses ruined and blackened by fire. ” We’ve arrived,” said the officer. “Now we’ll have to walk a bit.” The senator and his friend began walking along the road. “That way,” the guide said. “That road is bad for your health. You have to avoid the drafts.” He explained that the Germans had their cannons and entrenchments at the end of this road, which descended into a depression and rose on the horizon, its white ribbon stretching between two rows of trees and burned-out houses. The livid morning, with its hazy fading light, shielded them from enemy fire. On a sunny day, the arrival of the car would have been greeted with a shell. “This is how this war is,” he finished; “you approach death without seeing it.” The two remembered the general’s advice, the one who had had them at his table the day before. “Be very careful: trench warfare is treacherous.” Before them lay the immense countryside, devoid of a single person, yet with its usual appearance. It was the countryside on a Sunday, when the workers are at home and the ground seems to gather itself in silent meditation. Shapeless objects lay abandoned on the plain, like farm implements on a day off. Perhaps they were wrecked cars, artillery pieces shattered by an explosion. Their load. “This way,” said the officer, to whom four soldiers had been added to carry on their shoulders several sacks and packages brought by Desnoyers on the roof of the car. They advanced in single file along a wall of blackened bricks, following a descending path. After a few steps, the ground was at their knees; further on, it reached their waists; then their shoulders; and thus they sank into the earth, seeing only a narrow strip of sky above their heads. They were in the open countryside. They had left behind the cluster of ruins that concealed the entrance to the path. They marched in an absurd way, as if they abhorred the straight line, in zigzags, in curves, at angles. Other paths, no less complicated, branched off from this ditch, which was the main avenue of an immense underground city. They walked… they walked. A quarter of an hour passed, half an hour, a whole hour. Lacour and his friend thought nostalgically of tree-lined roads, of walking in the open air, gazing at the sky and the fields. They couldn’t take twenty steps in a row in the same direction. The officer, marching in front, disappeared every moment in a turn. Those behind panted and spoke invisibly, having to quicken their pace so as not to get lost. From time to time they stopped to regroup and take a headcount, for fear that someone might have strayed into a cross passage. The ground was slippery. In some places there was an almost liquid mud , white and corrosive, like the kind that drips from the scaffolding of a house under construction. The echo of their footsteps, the scraping of their shoulders, dislodged clods of earth and pebbles from the two embankments. Every now and then the ditch rose, and the walkers rose with it. It took only a little effort to see over the mounds of earth. But what they saw were uncultivated fields, fenced with crossed posts, the same appearance of a flat, uninhabited plain. The officer knew from experience what this curiosity often cost them, and he wouldn’t allow them to linger: “Onward, onward.” They had been walking for an hour and a half. The two travelers began to feel the fatigue and disorientation of this zigzag march. They no longer knew if they were advancing or retreating. The steep slopes, the continuous turns, produced in them a kind of vertigo. “Are we much farther?” asked the senator. ” There,” said the officer, pointing over the mounds of earth. There, a ruined bell tower and several burned houses could be seen in the distance: the remains of a town taken and lost several times by one side and then the other. They would have covered the same distance on the earth’s surface in half an hour marching in a straight line. To the angles of the underground passage, designed to impede an enemy advance, had to be added the obstacles of the field fortification: tunnels cut off by railings; wire cages that were suspended, but upon falling obstructed the trench, allowing the defenders to fire through the mesh. They began to encounter soldiers with bundles and buckets of water. They disappeared into the labyrinth of cross-paths. Some, seated on piles of logs, smiled as they read a small newspaper written in the trenches. The same signs were present along the way that, on the surface, reveal the proximity of a town. Soldiers moved aside to clear the path for the group; bearded, curious faces appeared in the alleyways. In the distance, there was a din of dry noises, as if at the end of the winding road there were a shooting range or a group of hunters practicing shooting pigeons. The morning remained hazy and glacial. Despite the damp air, a sticky-buzzing fly crossed the two visitors several times. “Bullets,” the officer said laconically. Desnoyers had sunk his head slightly between his shoulders. He knew this insect noise perfectly well. The senator quickened his pace: no longer He felt tired. They found themselves before a lieutenant colonel, who greeted them like an engineer showing off his workshops, like a naval officer displaying the batteries and turrets of his battleship. He was the commander of the battalion occupying this sector of the trenches. Don Marcelo looked at him with interest, thinking that his son was under his command. “This is the same thing a ship said after greeting them,” he remarked. The two friends acknowledged that the underground fortifications bore a certain resemblance to the bowels of a vessel. They moved from trench to trench. These were the last line, the oldest: dark galleries where only slivers of light entered through loopholes and the wide, low windows of the machine guns. The long line of defense formed a tunnel, interrupted by brief open spaces. They skipped from light to darkness and from darkness to light with a visual harshness that fatigued their eyes. In the open spaces, the ground was higher. There were wooden benches embedded in the slopes so that observers could stick their heads out or examine the landscape using the periscope. The enclosed spaces served as both gun emplacements and dormitories. These quarters had initially been open trenches, identical to those of the front line. Having repelled the enemy and gained ground, the combatants, who had spent an entire winter there, had sought to settle in as comfortably as possible. Beams from ruined houses had been laid across the open trenches; on top of the beams, planks, doors, and windows; and on top of the timbering, several rows of sandbags. These sandbags were covered with a layer of humus from which grasses sprouted, giving the top of the trench a verdant, pastoral placidity. The makeshift vaults withstood the impact of shells, which lodged in them without causing significant damage. When an explosion damaged them too much, the troglodytes would emerge at night, like sleepless ants, nimbly rebuilding the “roof” of their dwelling. Everything appeared clean, with the rough and somewhat clumsy tidiness that men can achieve when they live far from women and are left to their own devices. These galleries had something of a monastery cloister, a prison cell, or a battleship’s tween deck. Their floor was half a meter lower than that of the open spaces that connected one trench to another. So that the officers could advance without going up and down, planks forming scaffolding were laid from door to door. When the soldiers saw their commander, they would form a line. Their heads were level with the waists of those passing by on the planks. Desnoyers looked eagerly at all these men. Where was Julio?… He noticed the distinctive features of the various redoubts. They all appeared identical in their construction, but the occupants had modified them with their own embellishments. The exterior was always the same, punctuated by loopholes in which rifles were pointed toward the enemy and by machine gun ports. The sentries, standing beside these openings, spied across the solitary field, like quartermaster sailors scanning the sea from the bridge. Inside were the armories and the dormitories: three rows of bunks made of planks, just like the beds of seamen. The desire for artistic ornamentation felt by simple souls had beautified the dugouts. Each soldier had a small museum made up of newspaper clippings and colorful postcards. Portraits of actresses and dancers smiled with painted mouths on glossy cardboard, brightening the chaste atmosphere of the redoubt. Don Marcelo grew impatient seeing so many hundreds of men without finding his son among them. The senator, alerted by his glances, spoke to the commander, who preceded him with great deference. He strained his memory to recall who Julio Desnoyers was. But his doubt was short-lived. He remembered the sergeant’s exploits. ” An excellent soldier,” he said; “they’re going to call him immediately, sir.” Senator… He’s on duty with his section in the front- line trenches.
The father, impatient to see him, suggested they be taken to this forward position; but his request only made the officer and the other soldiers smile . These open trenches, a hundred meters, fifty meters from the enemy, with no defense but barbed wire and sandbags, were not for civilian visits . The mud was perpetual; one had to crawl, exposed to being shot, feeling the earth thrown up by the projectiles fall on one’s back. Only combatants could frequent these forward positions. “There’s always danger,” the officer continued, “there’s always gunfire… Do
you hear them shooting?” Desnoyers did indeed perceive a distant crackle he hadn’t noticed until then. He felt a pang of anguish thinking his son was there, where the rifle fire was ringing out. The dangers that surrounded him daily appeared to him in all their stark reality . What if he died right then, before he could see him?… Time dragged on for Don Marcelo with agonizing slowness. He thought the messenger who had left with the message for the forward trench would never arrive. He barely noticed the rooms the officer was showing them : underground chambers that served as washrooms for the soldiers; bathrooms with a primitive setup; a cave with a sign: “Café de la Victoria”; another cave with a sign : “Theater”… Lacour was interested in all this, celebrating the French spirit, which laughs and sings in the face of danger. His friend continued thinking about Julio. When would he find him?… They stopped by a machine gun window, keeping, on the soldiers’ advice, on either side of the horizontal slit, concealing their bodies, cautiously pushing their heads forward to look out with one eye. They saw a deep excavation and the opposite edge of the ground. A short distance away, several rows of wooden crosses joined by barbed wire formed a compact fence. A hundred meters further on, a second fence. A profound silence reigned, a silence of absolute solitude, as if the world were asleep. ” There are the Germans,” the commander said in a subdued voice. “Where?” the senator asked, straining to see. The commander indicated the second fence, which Lacour and his friend believed belonged to the French. It was from the German trench. ” We are a hundred meters from them,” he continued, “but they haven’t attacked from this side for some time . ” The two felt a thrill at the thought that the enemy was so close, hidden in the ground, in a mysterious invisibility that made him all the more fearsome. What if he suddenly appeared with fixed bayonets, hand grenades, incendiary liquids, and asphyxiating bombs to storm the redoubt!… From this window, they perceived the gunfire from the front line with greater intensity. The shots seemed to be drawing closer. The commander rudely ordered them to abandon their observation post: he feared the fire would spread, reaching them. The soldiers, without orders, with their usual promptness, had approached their rifles, which were held horizontally, protruding from the loopholes. Once again, the visitors marched one after another. They descended into caves that were the old cellars of vanished houses. The officers had set up shop in these dens, using all the remnants of the destruction. A street door on two log trestles served as a table. The vaults and walls were covered with cretonne from Parisian department stores. Photographs of women and children adorned the walls amidst the nickel-plated gleam of telegraph and telephone equipment. Desnoyers saw above a door an ivory Christ, yellowed with age, perhaps with centuries: an image inherited from generation to generation, which must have witnessed many agonies… In another cave He found, in plain sight, a horseshoe with seven holes. Religious beliefs spread their wings in this atmosphere of danger and death, and at the same time , the most grotesque superstitions acquired new significance, without anyone daring to laugh at them. Upon emerging from one of the underground passages, in the middle of an open space, he found his son. He knew it was him from the officer’s gesture, because a soldier was approaching, smiling, extending his hands. The instinct of fatherhood, which he had spoken of so often as something infallible, did not alert him on this occasion. How could he recognize Julio in this sergeant whose feet were two balls of wet earth, wearing a faded greatcoat with frayed edges, covered in mud up to his shoulders, smelling of damp cloth and leather straps?… After the first embrace, he tilted his head back to look at him, without letting go. His dark pallor had taken on a bronze hue. He had a long beard , a black, curly beard. Don Marcelo remembered his father-in-law. The centaur Madariaga would undoubtedly recognize himself in this warrior hardened by life in the open air. At first, he lamented his dirty, tired appearance; then he found him more handsome, more interesting than in his days of worldly glory. “What do you need?… What do you want?” His voice trembled with tenderness. He spoke to the tanned, robust soldier with the same intonation he had used twenty years before, when he would stop before the shop windows of Buenos Aires, leading a child by the hand. “Do you want money?… I had brought a considerable sum to give to my son.” But the soldier made a gesture of indifference, as if he were offering him a toy. He had never been as rich as he was at this moment. He had a lot of money in Paris and didn’t know what to do with it: it was of no use to him. “Send me cigars… They’re for me and my comrades.” He received large packages from his mother filled with carefully selected provisions, tobacco, and clothing. But he kept nothing; nothing was too much to help his comrades, sons of poor families or those alone in the world. His munificence had spread from his group to the company, and from there to the entire battalion. Don Marcelo sensed a certain sympathetic popularity in the glances and smiles of the soldiers who passed by them. He was the generous son of a millionaire. And this popularity touched him equally when news circulated that Sergeant Desnoyers’ father had arrived, a potentate who possessed fabulous riches across the sea. ” I’ve guessed your wishes,” the old man continued. And he searched with his eyes for the sacks brought from the car through the winding underground passage. All the exploits of his son, praised and amplified by Argensola, now paraded through his memory. He had the hero before his eyes. Are you happy?… Don’t you regret your decision?… Yes; I’m happy, Dad… very happy. Julio spoke without boasting, modestly. His life was hard, but the same as that of millions of men. In his section, which consisted of only a few dozen soldiers, there were those superior to him in intelligence, education, and character. And all of them bravely endured the harsh ordeal, experiencing the satisfaction of duty fulfilled. Moreover, the shared danger served to develop the noblest virtues in men. Never in peacetime had he known as he did now what camaraderie was. What beautiful sacrifices he had witnessed! When this is over, men will be better… more generous. Those who remain alive will be able to do great things. Yes; he was happy. For the first time, he savored the joy of considering himself useful, the conviction that he was good for something, that his time on earth would not be in vain. He remembered with pity that Desnoyers who didn’t know how to fill the void in his existence and filled it with all sorts of frivolities. Now he had obligations that absorbed all his strength; he collaborated in shaping the future; he was a man. “I’m happy,” he repeated. His father believed him. But in a corner of his open gaze, he imagined he saw something painful, perhaps a memory from the past that lingered amidst the emotions of the present. The gentle figure of Mrs. Laurier flashed through his mind. He guessed that his son still remembered her. “And not being able to bring her to him!…” The rigid father of the previous year gazed at himself in astonishment as he mentally formulated this immoral desire. They spent a quarter of an hour holding hands, looking into each other’s eyes. Julio asked about his mother and Chichi. He received letters from them frequently , but this was not enough to satisfy his curiosity. He laughed upon learning of Argensola’s wide-ranging and abundant life . This news that pleased him came from a world only a hundred kilometers away as the crow flies, but so distant… so very distant! Suddenly, his father noticed that he was listening less attentively. His senses, sharpened by a life of alarms and ambushes, seemed to be drawn away , attracted by the gunfire. They were no longer isolated shots. They joined together, forming a continuous crackle. The senator appeared, having stepped back so that father and son could speak more freely. ” They’re throwing us out of here, my friend. We have no luck with our visits.” No more soldiers were passing by. They had all rushed to their posts, like a ship preparing for battle. Julio picked up his rifle, which he had left against the embankment. At that very moment, a bit of dust jumped onto his father’s head; a small hole formed in the ground. “Soon, far from here,” he said, pushing Don Marcelo. Inside a covered trench came the brief, nervous farewell: “Goodbye, Papa.” A kiss, and he turned his back on him. He longed to run as quickly as possible to his men. The firing had become widespread along the entire line. The soldiers fired calmly, as if performing a routine duty. It was a daily skirmish, though no one knew for sure who had started it, a consequence of two armed forces positioned at close range, facing each other. The battalion commander abandoned his visitors, fearing an attempted attack. Once again, the officer in charge of guiding them took the lead , and they began to retrace their steps along the winding, slippery path. Mr. Desnoyers marched with his head down, furious at this intervention by the enemy that had cut short his joy. Before his eyes fluttered Julio’s gaze, his black, curly beard, which was the greatest novelty of the trip. He heard his deep voice, the voice of a man who had found a new meaning in life. ” I’m happy, Papa… I’m happy.” The increasingly distant gunfire filled him with a painful unease. Then he felt an instinctive, absurd, unwavering faith. He saw his beautiful, immortal son as a god. He had a feeling that his life would emerge unscathed from all dangers. That others might die was natural: but Julio!… As he walked away from him, hope seemed to sing in his ear. And like an echo of his comforting words, the father repeated mentally: No one can kill him. My heart tells me so, and it never deceives me… No one can kill him! Chapter 14. No one can kill him. Four months later, Don Marcelo’s confidence suffered a severe blow. Julio was wounded. But at the same time that he received the news with a regrettable delay, Lacour reassured him with his inquiries at the Ministry of War. Sergeant Desnoyers was a second lieutenant, his wound was almost healed, and thanks to the senator’s efforts, he would come to spend a fortnight convalescing with his family. “A brave man, a friend of mine,” the man concluded. “I have read what his superiors say about him. At the head of his platoon, he attacked a German company ; He killed the captain with his own hand; he performed countless other feats… They’ve given him the Military Medal, made him an officer… A true hero. And the father, weeping with emotion, shook his head tremulously, every He grew older and more enthusiastic each day. He regretted his initial lack of faith upon receiving news of the wound. He had almost believed his son might die. Absurd! No one could kill Julio: his heart told him so. He saw him enter his house one day amidst the shouts and spasms of the women. Poor Doña Luisa wept, embracing him, clinging to his neck with gasps of emotion. Chichí gazed at him gravely and thoughtfully, half her thoughts on the newcomer, while the other half flew away, searching for another combatant. The copper-skinned maids vied for a slit in a curtain, peering through the opening with curious, antelope-like eyes. The father admired the small patch of gold on the cuffs of the gray overcoat with its tails buttoned at the back, then examined the dark blue helmet with flat brims, the kind the French had adopted for trench warfare . The traditional kepi was gone. A stately helmet, similar to those worn by the arquebusiers of the Spanish Tercios, shaded Julio’s face. He also noticed his short, well-groomed beard, unlike the one he had seen in the trenches. He was clean and well-groomed after his recent release from the hospital. “Doesn’t he look just like me?” the old man said proudly. Doña Luisa protested, with the intransigence mothers display regarding resemblances. ” He’s always been your spitting image.” Seeing him healthy and cheerful, the whole family felt a sudden unease. They wanted to examine his wound to be sure he wasn’t in any danger. “It’s nothing!” the sublieutenant protested. “A bullet in the shoulder. The doctors feared he’d lose his left arm, but everything’s fine… We mustn’t dwell on it.” Chichí scanned Julio from head to toe, immediately noticing the details of his military elegance. His greatcoat was worn and dirty, his gaiters scuffed, he smelled of sweaty cloth, leather, and strong tobacco; but on one wrist he wore a platinum watch and on the other his identification medal, fastened with a gold chain. He had always admired his brother for his innate good taste; and he committed these details to memory to communicate them in writing to René. Then he considered the advisability of surprising his mother with a loan request to send money to the artilleryman at his own expense. Don Marcelo envisioned before him fifteen days of satisfaction and glory. Second Lieutenant Desnoyers could not go out alone. His father hovered around the reception area before the helmet that was displayed on the coat rack with a modest yet glorious gleam. No sooner had Julio placed it on his head than his father appeared, wearing his hat and carrying his cane, ready to go out as well. “May I accompany you?… I won’t bother you?” He spoke with such humility, with such a fervent desire to have his request granted, that his son dared not refuse his company. To stroll the streets with Argensola, he had to slip through the service stairs and resort to other schoolboy tricks. Never had Monsieur Desnoyers walked so contentedly through the streets of Paris as beside this strapping young man in his gloriously aged greatcoat, his chest adorned with two decorations: the Croix de Guerre and the Military Medal. He was a hero, and this hero was his son. He accepted the sympathetic glances of the public on the trams and the subway as a tribute to them both. The intriguing looks that women cast at the handsome young man produced in him a certain tingle of vanity and unease. All the military men he encountered, no matter how many stripes and crosses they displayed, seemed to him like “ambushes,” unworthy of comparison with Julio. The wounded men getting out of the cars, leaning on sticks and crutches, inspired in him a humiliating sense of pity. Wretches!… They didn’t have his son’s luck. No one could kill him, and when he happened to be wounded, the scars disappeared immediately, without diminishing his dignity. Sometimes, especially at night, he would show unexpected magnanimity, letting Julio go out alone. He remembered his triumphant youth in love, the many successes he had achieved before the war. What wouldn’t he obtain now with his prestige as a valiant soldier!… Pacing in his bedroom before going to bed, he would imagine the hero in the pleasant company of a great lady. Only a female celebrity was worthy of him; his paternal pride would accept nothing less… And it never occurred to him that Julio was with Argensola in a music hall, at a cinema, enjoying the monotonous and simple amusements of Paris overshadowed by war, with the simple tastes of a second lieutenant, and that, as far as amorous successes were concerned, his good fortune extended no further than the renewal of a few old friendships. One afternoon, as he was walking beside him along the Champs-Élysées, he shuddered to see a lady coming from the opposite direction. It was Madame de Laurier… Would Julio recognize her? He thought he saw the man turn pale, his eyes darting to other people with feigned distraction. She continued on her way, erect, indifferent. The old man was almost irritated by such coldness. To pass by his son without his instinct alerting him to his presence! Ah, women!… He turned his head to follow her, but immediately had to abandon his attempt. He had caught Margarita standing motionless behind them, pale with surprise, her gaze fixed intently on the departing soldier. Don Marcelo thought he saw in her eyes admiration, love, a whole past suddenly resurfacing in her memory. Poor woman!… He felt a paternal affection for her, as if she were Julio’s wife. His friend Lacour had spoken to him again about the Laurier marriage. He knew that Margarita was going to be a mother. And the old man, disregarding the reconciliation of the spouses and the passage of time, was moved by this birth, as if his son had played a part in it. Meanwhile, Julio continued marching, without turning his head, unaware of the gaze fixed on his back, pale and humming to himself to mask his emotion. And he never knew anything. He continued to believe that Margarita had passed by him without recognizing him, for the old man remained silent. One of Don Marcelo’s concerns was getting his son to recount the battle in which he had been wounded. No visitor arrived at his house to see the second lieutenant without the old man making the same request: “Tell us how you were wounded… Explain how you killed the German captain.” Julio would make excuses with visible annoyance. He was already fed up with his own story. To please his father, he had recounted it to the senator, to Argensola and Tchernoff in their study, to other family friends who had come to see him… He couldn’t take it anymore. And it was the father who undertook the narration himself, giving it the vividness and detail of an event witnessed firsthand . They had to seize the ruins of a sugar refinery opposite the trench. The Germans had been driven off by French shelling. A reconnaissance mission was necessary, led by a reliable man. And the officers had, as always, appointed Sergeant Desnoyers. At daybreak, the platoon had advanced cautiously, encountering no resistance. The soldiers spread out through the ruins. Julio went alone to the far end, intending to examine the enemy positions, when, rounding a corner, he had the most unexpected of encounters. A German captain stood before him. They had almost collided as they turned the corner. They locked eyes, more surprised than hateful, instinctively seeking to kill each other , each trying to outpace the other. The captain had dropped the map of the country he was carrying. His right hand reached for the revolver, struggling to draw it from its holster, his gaze never leaving the enemy. Then he gave up, convinced that this movement was useless. Too late. His eyes, wildly Opened by the proximity of death, they remained fixed on the Frenchman. He had raised his rifle to his face. A shot almost point-blank… and the German fell dead. Only then did he notice the captain’s orderly, who was marching a few paces behind him. The soldier fired his rifle at Desnoyers, wounding him in the shoulder. The French rushed in, killing the orderly. Then they exchanged heavy fire with the enemy company, which had halted further on while its leader scouted the area. Julio, despite his wound, continued leading his section, defending the factory against superior forces, until reinforcements finally arrived and the ground was definitively in French hands. “Wasn’t that so, my son?” Don Marcelo would finish. The son nodded, eager for the story, which was tiresome due to its persistence, to end as soon as possible. Yes; that’s how it had been. But what his father didn’t know, what he would never reveal, was the discovery he had made after killing the captain. The two men, staring at each other for a second that seemed endless, showed in their eyes something more than the surprise of the encounter and the desire to disappear. Desnoyers knew that man. The captain, for his part, knew him. He sensed it in his expression… But each of them, preoccupied with killing to survive, could not gather his memories. Desnoyers fired, certain that he was killing someone he knew. Later, while directing the defense of the position, awaiting reinforcements, the suspicion occurred to him that the enemy whose body lay a short distance away might be a member of his family, one of the Hartrotts. He seemed, however, older than his cousins and much younger than his uncle Karl. The latter, at his age, would hardly be a mere infantry captain. When, weakened by blood loss, he could be led back to the trenches, the sergeant wanted to see his enemy’s body. His doubts persisted before the face paled by death. His eyes, wide open, still seemed to hold the impression of surprise. That man undoubtedly knew him; he, too, knew that face. Who was he?… Suddenly, in his imagination, he saw the sea, a great ship, a tall, blonde woman looking at him with narrowed eyes, a burly, mustachioed man giving speeches in imitation of his emperor’s style. “Rest in peace, Captain Erckmann.” Thus, in a corner of France, the arguments begun in the middle of the ocean had come to an end . He apologized mentally, as if he were in the presence of sweet Berta. He had had to kill to avoid being killed. That’s war. He tried to console himself by thinking that Erckmann might have fallen without recognizing him, without knowing that his killer was his traveling companion from months before… And he kept this encounter, orchestrated by fate, a secret deep in his memory . He refrained from telling his friend Argensola, who knew the details of the Atlantic crossing. When he least expected it, Don Marcelo found himself at the end of that life of joy and pride that his son’s presence had given him . Fifteen days pass quickly. The second lieutenant left, and the whole family, after this period of stark reality, had to return to the deceptive caresses of illusion and hope, awaiting the arrival of letters, speculating about the absent man’s silence, sending him package after package with everything the shops offered for soldiers: useful and absurd things. The mother fell into a deep despondency. Julio’s trip had only served to make her feel his absence more intensely. Seeing him, listening to those tales of death that his father took pleasure in repeating, she became more aware of the dangers surrounding her son. Fate seemed to warn her with grim premonitions. ” They’re going to kill him,” she would say to her husband. “That wound is a warning from heaven.” When she went out into the street, she trembled with emotion at the sight of the disabled soldiers. The convalescent soldiers, looking energetic and about to return to the front, inspired even greater pity in her. She remembered a trip to San Sebastián with her husband, a bullfight that had made her cry out in indignation and pity, moved by the plight of the poor horses. They were left with their entrails hanging out and were subjected to a quick makeover in the corrals, only to be sent back into the arena inflamed by a false sense of energy. Repeatedly they endured this macabre recovery, until at last came the final, decisive goring… The newly recovered men evoked in her the image of the poor beasts. Some had been wounded three times since the beginning of the war and returned patched up and galvanized to submit themselves to the lottery of fate, always awaiting the ultimate blow… “Oh, your son!” Desnoyers grew indignant upon hearing his wife. ” But Julio is unkillable!… He’s my son.” I faced terrible dangers in my youth. I was also wounded in the wars of the other world, and yet here I am, burdened with years. Events only served to strengthen his blind faith. Misfortunes rained down on the family, saddening its relatives, but not a single one touched the intrepid sublieutenant, who persisted in his exploits with the heroic nonchalance of a musketeer. Doña Luisa received a letter from Germany. Her sister was writing to her from Berlin, using a South American consulate in Switzerland. This time, Mrs. Desnoyers wept for someone other than her son: she wept for Elena and for the enemy. There were mothers in Germany too, and she placed the feeling of motherhood above all patriotic differences. Poor Mrs. von Hartrott! Her letter, written a month earlier, contained only mournful news and words of despair. Captain Otto had died. One of her younger brothers was also dead. This one, at least, offered his mother the consolation of having fallen in territory controlled by his own side. She could weep at his grave. The other was buried in French soil; no one knew where. She would never discover his remains, mingled with hundreds of corpses; she would forever be ignorant of where this body, born of her womb, lay. A third son was wounded in Poland. Her two daughters had lost their fiancés, and their silent grief drove her to despair. Von Hartrott continued to preside over patriotic societies and make plans for aggrandizement in anticipation of the next victory, but he had aged considerably in recent months. The “wise man” was the only one who remained steadfast. The family’s misfortunes only intensified Professor Julius von Hartrott’s ferocity. He was calculating, for a book he was writing, the hundreds of billions that Germany would have to demand after its victory and the parts of Europe it needed to annex… Mrs. Desnoyers thought she heard, from Victor Hugo Avenue, that mother’s weeping that flowed silently from a house in Berlin. “You’ll understand my despair, Luisa… We were so happy! May God punish those who have brought so much misfortune upon the world! The Emperor is innocent. His enemies are to blame for everything…” Don Marcelo remained silent in his wife’s presence. He pitied Elena for her misfortune, overlooking the political statements in the letter. He was also moved to see Doña Luisa weeping for her nephew Otto. She had been his godmother, and Desnoyers his godfather. It was true; Don Marcelo had forgotten. He imagined the peaceful life of the estate, the games of the blond children, whom he used to caress behind his grandfather’s back, before Julio was born. For some years he had devoted all his love to his nephews, disoriented by the delay of having a child of his own. In good faith, he was moved to think of Karl ‘s despair . But then, finding himself alone, a selfish coldness erased these feelings. War was war, and the others had brought it about. France had to defend itself, and the more enemies that fell, the better… The only one who should have mattered to him was Julio. And his faith in his son’s destiny filled him with a brutal joy, a loving father’s satisfaction bordering on ferocity. “No one can kill him… My heart tells me so.” Another, more recent misfortune shattered his calm. One evening, returning to Victor Hugo Avenue, he found Doña Luisa looking terrified, clutching her head in her hands. ” The girl, Marcelo… the girl!” Chichí was in the living room, lying on a sofa, pale, with a greenish whiteness, staring straight ahead, as if looking at someone in the void. She wasn’t crying; only a faint pearly gleam made her eyes, rounded by the spasm, tremble. “I want to see him!” she said hoarsely. “I need to see him!” The father guessed that something terrible had happened to Lacour’s son. Only for this reason could Chichí show such despair. His wife told him the sad news. René was wounded, seriously wounded. A shell had exploded above his battery, killing many of his comrades. The officer had been pulled from a pile of corpses: he was missing a hand, and had wounds on his legs, torso, and head . “I want to see him!” Chichi kept repeating. And Don Marcelo had to make a great effort to dissuade his daughter from this painful stubbornness that drove her to demand an immediate trip to the front, overcoming all obstacles, until she reached the wounded man’s side . The senator finally convinced her. They had to wait; he, her father, had to resign himself to it. He was arranging for René to be transferred to a hospital in Paris. The great man inspired pity in Desnoyers. He struggled to maintain his stoic, old-fashioned fatherly serenity, remembering his glorious ancestors and all the heroic figures of the Roman Republic. But these oratorical illusions suddenly crumbled , and his friend caught him weeping more than once. An only child, and he could lose him!… Chichi’s silence inspired even greater pity in him. She didn’t cry: her grief was tearless, without fainting. The greenish pallor of her face, the feverish gleam in her eyes, a rigidity that made her walk like an automaton, were the only signs of her emotion. She lived with her mind far away, unaware of what surrounded her. When the wounded man arrived in Paris, she and the senator were transformed. They went to see him, and this was enough for them to imagine that he had already been saved. The bride rushed to the hospital with her future father-in-law and her mother. Then she went alone; she wanted to stay there, to live beside the wounded man, defying all regulations, clashing with nuns and nurses, who inspired in her a rivalrous hatred. But seeing the meager results of his violence, he diminished himself, becoming humble, trying to win over each woman one by one with his charm. At last, he managed to spend much of the day with René. Desnoyers had to hold back his tears when he saw the gunner in bed… Alas! This is how his son looked!… He resembled an Egyptian mummy, because of the tight bandages. Shells had riddled him. All she could see were gentle eyes and a wisp of blond mustache peeking out from between the white strips. The poor man smiled at Chichí, who kept watch over him with a certain authority, as if she were in her own home. Two months passed. René improved; he was almost fully recovered. His sweetheart had never doubted his recovery since they had allowed her to stay with him. “No one I want to die will,” she would say with a faith similar to her father’s. At any hour I’ll let the Germans leave me without a husband! She kept her “sugar soldier,” but in a deplorable state… Never did Don Marcelo realize the horror of war as he did when he saw this convalescent enter his house, a man he had known months before , refined and slender, with a delicate and somewhat feminine beauty. His face was crisscrossed with several scars that formed a purplish arabesque. His body concealed other similar wounds. His left hand had disappeared along with part of his forearm. The sleeve hung over the painful void of the missing limb. His other hand rested on a cane, a necessary aid to move a leg that refused to regain its elasticity. But Chichi was happy. She looked at her little soldier with more enthusiasm than ever: a little deformed, but very interesting. She, followed by her mother, accompanied the wounded man for walks in the woods. Her gaze would turn fiery when, crossing a street, motorists and coachmen didn’t stop to let the invalid pass… “Shameless ambushes!” She felt the same irate soul as the women of the town who, in other times, had insulted René when they saw him healthy and happy. She trembled with satisfaction and pride as she returned the greetings of her friends. Her eyes spoke: “Yes; this is my sweetheart… A hero.” She was preoccupied with the Croix de Guerre pinned to the chest of his “horizon” blouse. Her hands tended to its arrangement, striving to make it stand out more prominently. She was busy prolonging the life of his uniform, always the same one, the old one, the one he was wearing when he was wounded. A new one would give him a certain air of a bureaucratic military man, one of those who stayed in Paris. In vain did René, growing stronger with each passing day, try to free himself from her controlling care. It was useless for him to try to move with lightness and ease. ” Lean on me. ” And he had to take his sweetheart’s arm. All her plans for the future were based on the fierceness with which she would protect her husband, on the care she would devote to his weakness. “My poor little cripple!” she would whisper lovingly. “So ugly and so useless those scoundrels left him!… But, luckily, he has me , who adores him… It doesn’t matter that you’re missing a hand; I will take care of you: you will be my little boy. You’ll see, when we get married, what a treat you’ll have, how elegantly and well-groomed I’ll dress you… But watch out for the others! The first time you try to seduce me, you cripple, I’ll abandon you to your uselessness. Desnoyers and the senator were also concerned about their future, but in a more positive way. The marriage had to take place as soon as possible. What were they waiting for?… The war was no obstacle. More weddings were being performed than ever, in the secrecy of private life. It wasn’t a time for celebrations. And René Lacour remained forever in the house on Victor Hugo Avenue after the wedding ceremony, witnessed by a dozen people. Don Marcelo had dreamed of other things for his daughter: a noisy wedding that would be talked about at length in the newspapers, a son-in-law with a brilliant future… But alas, the war! Everyone saw some of their illusions shattered at that time . He consoled himself by appreciating his situation. What more could he want? Chichí was happy, with a selfish and boisterous joy that made him forget everything except his love. His business couldn’t be better. After the initial crisis, the needs of the belligerents were snapping up the produce from his ranches. Meat had never fetched such high prices. Money flowed to him more readily than before , and his living expenses had decreased. Julio was in danger of death, but he was convinced that nothing bad could happen to him. His only concern was to remain calm, avoiding strong emotions . He felt a certain alarm when he considered how frequently well-known people died in Paris: politicians, artists, writers. Every day someone of some renown fell. War didn’t only kill at the front. Its emotions flew like arrows through the cities, felling the broken, the weak, who in normal times would have prolonged their lives. “Attention, Marcelo!” he said to himself with selfish glee. “Keep calm. We must avoid Tchernoff’s four horsemen.” He spent an afternoon in the study talking with Tchernoff and Argensola about the news in the newspapers. An offensive had begun. of the French in Champagne, with great advances and many prisoners. Desnoyers thought about the loss of life this might represent. But Julio’s fate didn’t cause him any concern. His son wasn’t on that part of the front. The day before, he had received a letter from him dated a week earlier; but almost all of them arrived with the same delay. Second Lieutenant Desnoyers seemed cheerful and upbeat. He was about to be promoted: he was among those nominated for the Legion of Honor. Don Marcelo saw himself as the future father of a young general, like those of the Revolution. He looked at the sketches around him, marveling that the war had so dramatically altered his son’s career. On his way home, he ran into Margarita Laurier, who was dressed in mourning. The senator had spoken to him about her a few days before. Her brother, the artilleryman, had just died at Verdun. “So many are falling!” he thought. “How his poor mother must be feeling!” But she immediately smiled at the thought of the newborns. Never before had people been so concerned with accelerating reproduction. Mrs. Laurier herself proudly displayed the fullness of her pregnancy, which had reached its most visible extremes. Her eyes caressed the vital volume that was revealed beneath the veils of mourning. Again she thought of Julio, disregarding the passage of time. She felt the attraction of the unborn child, as if she were related to him; she promised herself she would generously help the Laurier’s son if she ever met him. Upon entering her house, Mrs. Luisa came to greet her to tell her that Lacour was waiting for her. ” Let’s see what our illustrious father-in-law has to say,” she said cheerfully. The good lady was uneasy. She had been alarmed, without knowing why, by the senator’s solemn demeanor, with that feminine instinct that pierces through men’s precautions, divining what lies hidden behind them. She had also seen that René and his father were speaking in hushed tones, with restrained emotion. She hovered with irresistible curiosity around the office, hoping to hear something. But her wait wasn’t long. Suddenly, a cry… a shriek… a voice like only a body giving out can utter. And Doña Luisa rushed in just in time to catch her husband, who was collapsing to the floor. The senator, confused, made excuses to the furniture, to the walls, turning his back in his daze to the downcast René, who was the only one who could hear him. “He didn’t let me finish… He guessed from the first word…” Chichí appeared, drawn by the cry, to see her father slip from his wife’s grasp, fall onto a sofa, then roll across the floor, his eyes glazed and bulging, his mouth tight, foaming at the mouth. A lament echoed through the luxurious rooms, a moan, always the same, that passed beneath the doors to the majestic, solitary staircase: Oh, Julio!… Oh, my son!… Chapter 15. Fields of Death. The car moved slowly forward, beneath the livid sky of a winter morning. The ground trembled in the distance with white pulsations, like the fluttering of a band of butterflies alighting on the furrows. Over some fields, the swarm was dense; in others, it formed small groups. As the vehicle approached, the white butterflies came alive with new colors. One wing turned blue; another, crimson… They were small flags, hundreds, thousands of them, that trembled day and night with the warm, sun-drenched breeze, with the watery hurricane of pale mornings , with the biting cold of endless nights. The rain had washed and re-washed their colors, weakening them. The fabrics, restless, had edges gnawed by dampness. Others were scorched by the sun, like insects that had just brushed against fire. The flags, with the throbbing of their trembling, revealed logs. Black crosses. On these wooden beams appeared dark kepis, red caps, helmets topped with manes of slowly rotting horsehair , weeping atmospheric tears from their tips. “So many dead!” sighed Don Marcelo’s voice from inside the car . And René, who was in front of him, shook his head with sorrowful feeling. Doña Luisa gazed at the funereal plain, her lips trembling slightly with a continuous prayer. Chichí turned her eyes this way and that , wide with astonishment. She seemed bigger, stronger, despite the greenish pallor that discolored her face. The two ladies were dressed in mourning, with long veils. The father was also in mourning , slumped in his seat, looking like a ruin, his legs carefully wrapped in a fur blanket. René still wore his field uniform, over which he wore a short motorist’s raincoat. Despite his wounds, he had refused to leave the army. He was attached to a technical office until the end of the war. The Desnoyers family was going to fulfill his wish. Upon regaining consciousness after the fatal news, the father had focused all his will on one request: “I need to see him… Oh, my son!… My son!” The senator tried in vain to explain the impossibility of the trip. They were still fighting in the area where Julio had fallen. Perhaps a visit would be possible later. “I want to see him,” the old man insisted. He needed to see his son’s grave before he died himself . And Lacour had to exert himself for four months, making pleas and overcoming resistance, to get Don Marcelo permission to make the journey. Finally, one morning, a military car took the entire Desnoyers family. The senator could not go with them. Rumors of an upcoming cabinet reshuffle were circulating, and he needed to appear before the High House, in case the Republic called upon his somewhat undervalued services. They spent the night in a provincial town, where the headquarters of an army corps was located. René gathered reports from the officers who had witnessed the major battle. With the map in front of him, he followed their explanations until he identified the section of terrain where Julio’s regiment had moved. The following morning, they resumed their journey. A soldier who had taken part in the battle served as their guide, seated on the driver’s seat next to the chauffeur. René occasionally consulted the map spread out on his knees and asked the soldier questions. This soldier’s regiment had fought alongside Desnoyers’s, but he couldn’t recall exactly the places he had trod months before. The field had changed. It looked quite different from when he had seen it covered with men amidst the chaos of the battle. The solitude disoriented him… And the car moved slowly forward, guided only by the clusters of graves, following the smooth, white main road, turning onto the side roads: winding ditches, deep mud puddles, where it bounced so high its springs squealed. Sometimes it went cross-country, from one group of crosses to another, its tires crushing the furrows plowed by the tillers. Graves… graves everywhere. The white swarms of death covered the landscape. Not a corner remained free from this glorious and funereal fluttering . The gray earth, freshly turned by the plow, the yellowing roads, the dark groves, everything throbbed with a tireless undulation . The ground seemed to scream; its words were the vibrations of the restless flags. And the thousands of cries, with a chant that began incessantly through the days and nights, sang of the monstrous clash that this land had witnessed and from which it still retained a tragic chill. Dead… dead, murmured Chichí, following the line with his eyes. Crosses slid along the sides of the car in constant renewal. “Lord, for them!… for their mothers!” moaned Doña Luisa, resuming her prayer. Here the most terrible part of the battle had unfolded, the old-fashioned fighting, the hand-to-hand combat, outside the trenches, with bayonets, rifle butts, fists, and teeth. The guide, who was beginning to get his bearings, pointed out various spots on the solitary horizon. There were the African sharpshooters; closer, the riflemen. The large clusters of graves were those of line soldiers who had charged with bayonets along the sides of the road. The car stopped. René got out behind the soldier to examine the inscriptions on some crosses. Perhaps these dead came from the regiment they were searching for. Chichí also got out mechanically, with the irresistible urge to protect her husband. Each grave held several men. The number of corpses could be counted by the kepis or helmets that rotted and rusted, clinging to the arms of the cross. Ants formed a rosary on the military garments, riddled with holes of decay, which still bore the regimental insignia. The wreaths with which patriotic piety had adorned some of these graves were blackening and shedding their petals. On some crosses, the names of the dead were still clear; on others, they were beginning to fade and would soon be illegible. “Heroic death!… Glory!” Chichí thought sadly. Not even the names of most of these vigorous men, lost in the prime of youth, would survive. Only the memory would remain, the one that would occasionally assail an old peasant woman leading her cow along a road in France, making her murmur between sighs, “My little one!… Where is my little one buried?” She would only live on in the village woman dressed in mourning who doesn’t know how to solve the problem of her existence, in the children who, going to school in black blouses, would say with a fierce will: “When I grow up, I will go and kill Germans to avenge my father.” And Doña Luisa, motionless in her seat, following Chichí’s steps among the graves, would again interrupt her prayer: “Lord, for the mothers without children… for the little ones without fathers… that your anger may forget us and your smile may return to us!” The husband, slumped in his seat, also gazed at the burial ground. But his eyes were fixed intently on graves without wreaths or flags, simple crosses with a plaque bearing a brief inscription. They were German graves, which seemed to form a separate page in the book of death. To one side, on the countless French graves, inscriptions of little consequence, simple numbers: one, two, three dead. On the other side, in the spaced and unadorned graves, there were heavy numbers, large figures, numbers of a terrifying laconic nature. Long, narrow fences of poles bordered these trenches filled with flesh. The earth was white as if covered with snow or saltpeter. It was lime mixed with clods of earth. The cross bore on its plaque the indication that the grave contained Germans, followed by a number: 200… 300… 400. These figures forced Desnoyers to make an effort of imagination. They spoke quickly, but it wasn’t easy to accurately recall the vision of three hundred dead men together, three hundred bundles of livid, bloody human flesh, their straps torn, their helmets dented, their boots ending in balls of mud, smelling of stiff fabrics where decomposition was beginning, their eyes glazed and tenacious, with the rictus of supreme mystery, lining up in layers, as if they were bricks, at the bottom of a ditch about to close forever … And this funereal alignment was repeated at intervals across the vastness of the plain. Don Marcelo felt a ferocious joy. His grieving fatherhood experienced the fleeting solace of vengeance. Julio had died, and he was going to die too, unable to bear his misfortune; but How many enemies languished in these rotting pits, leaving behind in the world loved ones to remember them, as he remembered his son! He imagined them as they must have been before the moment of their deaths, as he had seen them during the advance of the invasion around his castle. Some of them, the most learned and fearsome, bore on their faces the theatrical scars of university duels. They were soldiers who carried books in their knapsacks and, after the execution of a group of peasants or the sacking of a village, would devote themselves to reading poets and philosophers by the glow of the fires. Swollen with knowledge, with the swelling of a toad, proud of their pedantic and self-sufficient intellect, they had inherited the ponderous and tortuous dialectic of the ancient theologians. Children of sophistry and grandchildren of lies, they considered themselves capable of proving the greatest absurdities with the mental leaps to which their intellectual acrobatics had accustomed them. They employed their favorite method of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis to demonstrate that Germany should be mistress of the world; that Belgium was to blame for its ruin for having defended itself; that happiness consists of all humans living regimented in the Prussian style, without any effort being wasted; that the supreme ideal of existence consists of a clean stable and a full manger; that liberty and justice represent nothing more than illusions of French revolutionary romanticism; that every accomplished fact is sacred from the moment it triumphs, and law is simply a derivative of force. These intellectuals with rifles considered themselves the champions of a civilizing crusade. They wanted the blond man to definitively triumph over the dark-haired man; they wished to enslave the despicable man of the South, ensuring forever that the world would be ruled by the Germans, “the salt of the earth,” “the aristocracy of humanity.” Everything worthwhile in history was German. The ancient Greeks had been of Germanic origin; Germans, too, were the great artists of the Italian Renaissance. The men of the Mediterranean, with the malice inherent in their origins, had falsified history. But at the height of these ambitious dreams, the crusader of Pan-Germanism was struck down by the despicable “Latin,” descending to his grave with all his pride. “You’re right where you are, you bellicose pedant,” thought Desnoyers, recalling his conversations with his Russian friend. What a pity that all the Herr Professors who had remained in the German universities weren’t there too, scholars of undeniable skill, for the most part, at discrediting intellectual works by changing the terminology! These men with flowing beards and gold-rimmed glasses, peaceful lab rats of the laboratory and the lecture hall, had prepared the present war with their sophistry and their pride. His guilt was greater than that of the Herr Lieutenant in his tight corset and gleaming monocle, who, in desiring fighting and killing, was merely following his professional inclinations. While the low-ranking German soldier grabbed whatever he could and drunkenly shot anything that crossed his path, the student warrior read Hegel and Nietzsche in the bivouac. He was too cultured to carry out these acts of “historical justice” with his own hands. But he and his professors had stirred up all the base instincts of the Germanic beast, giving them a veneer of scientific justification. “Stay in your grave, dangerous intellectual,” Desnoyers continued mentally. The ferocious Moroccans, the childlike blacks, the grim Indians seemed more respectable to him than all the ermine gowns that paraded proudly and militarily through the cloisters of German universities. What peace the world would crave if their wearers disappeared! Faced with the refined, cold, and cruel barbarity of the ambitious sage, he preferred the puerile and modest barbarity of the savage: it bothered him less, and besides, he was not a hypocrite. For this reason, the only enemies who inspired his pity were the obscure, uneducated soldiers rotting in those graves. They had been country bumpkins, factory workers, shop clerks, gluttonous Germans with insatiable appetites who saw in war an opportunity to satisfy their cravings, to command and beat someone, after spending their lives in their own country obeying and receiving kicks. The history of their homeland was nothing more than a series of raids southward , like Indian raids, to seize the possessions of the men who lived on the temperate shores of the Mediterranean. The Herr Professors had demonstrated that these plundering expeditions represented a work of high civilization. And the German marched onward, with the enthusiasm of a good father who sacrifices himself to provide bread for his family. Hundreds of thousands of letters written by families with trembling hands followed the great Germanic horde in its advances through the invaded lands. Desnoyers had heard some of them read aloud at dusk, before his ruined castle. They were papers found in the pockets of the dead and prisoners. “Show no mercy to the red trousers. Kill the Welches: spare not even the little ones…” “We appreciate the shoes, but the girl can’t wear them. Those Frenchmen have ridiculously small feet…” “Try to get hold of a piano.” “I’d like a good watch.” “Our neighbor the captain has sent his wife a pearl necklace. And you only send insignificant things!” The virtuous German advanced heroically with the twofold desire to aggrandize his country and send valuable gifts to his children. “Germany over the world!” But at the height of his illusions, he fell into the pit, mingled with other comrades who cherished the same dreams. Desnoyers imagined the impatience, on the other side of the Rhine, of the pious women who waited and waited. The lists of the dead had perhaps said nothing of those who were missing. And the letters kept going out toward the German lines: letters that would never reach their recipients. “Answer. When you don’t write, it’s perhaps because you’re preparing a nice surprise for us. Don’t forget the necklace. Send us a piano. I’d very much like a carved dining room cabinet. The French have beautiful things…” The stark cross stood motionless on the white lime-washed earth. Near it, the flags fluttered. They moved this way and that like a protesting head, smiling ironically. No!… No! The car continued on. The guide was now pointing to a distant group of graves. That was undoubtedly where the regiment had fought. And the vehicle left the road, its wheels sinking into the churned earth, forced to make wide detours to avoid the graves scattered capriciously by the vagaries of battle. Almost all the fields were plowed. The work of man stretched from grave to grave, becoming more visible as the morning repelled its veil of mists. Under the last rays of winter’s sun, Nature began to smile— blind, deaf, unfeeling, ignoring our existence and indifferently welcoming into her womb a poor little human creature as well as a million corpses. The springs still held their icy beards; the earth crumbled beneath the foot with a crunch of glass; the pools had motionless wrinkles; the trees, black and dormant, retained on their trunks the metallic green mantle with which winter had clothed them . The bowels of the earth breathed an absolute and ferocious cold, like that of extinguished and dead planets… But spring had already donned its armor of flowers in the palaces of the tropics, saddling the green steed that neighed impatiently: soon it would gallop across the fields, leading before its run the black winter sprites in disordered flight, while at its back floated the loose A mane of gold like a trail of perfume. The grasses along the paths, covered in tiny buds, announced her arrival. Birds dared to leave their shelters to flutter among the crows that croaked angrily beside the sealed tombs. The landscape, bathed in sunlight, took on a falsely childlike smile, the gesture of a child gazing with innocent eyes, while his pockets are bulging with stolen goods. The farmer had plowed the terrace and filled the furrow with seed. Men could continue killing each other; the land has nothing to do with their hatreds, and their lives will not be interrupted by them. The plowshare had opened its straight and inflexible lines, as it did every year, erasing the tracks of men and beasts, the deep craters of the cannons. Nothing disoriented his industrious stubbornness. He had filled in the funnels opened by the bombs. Sometimes, the steel triangle stumbled upon subterranean obstacles… an anonymous, unmarked corpse. The iron claw pressed on, showing no mercy to what was unseen. From time to time, it halted before less soft obstacles. These were projectiles embedded in the ground, unexploded. The peasant would unearth the device of death, which sometimes , with belated malice, would explode in his hands… But the man of the land knows no fear when he goes in search of sustenance, and he continued his straight advance, only deviating when he came to a visible grave. The furrows parted mercifully, their gentle waves surrounding these patches of earth, marked by flags or crosses, like islands . The clod of earth sunk in a livid mouth held within its depths the seeds of future bread. The seeds, like octopuses in gestation, were preparing to extend the tentacles of their roots to the skulls that, just months before, had held glorious hopes or monstrous ambitions. Life was about to be renewed once more. The car stopped. The guide ran among the crosses, bending down to decipher their faded inscriptions. “Here it is!” He had found the regiment’s number on a grave. Chichí and her husband jumped out of the vehicle. Then Doña Luisa got out, painfully stiff, her face contorted to hide her tears. Finally, the three of them decided to help the father, who had thrown off his fur wrappings. “Poor Mr. Desnoyers!” When he touched the ground, he wobbled; then he moved forward laboriously, his feet moving with difficulty, his cane digging into the furrows. ” Lean on, my old man,” his wife said, offering him an arm. The authoritarian head of the family could no longer move without the protection of his people. The march among the graves began, slow and arduous. The guide explored the thicket of crosses, spelling out names, hesitating before the faded inscriptions. René was doing the same work on the other side. Chichí advanced alone, from grave to grave. The wind made her black veils flutter. Curls escaped from her mourning hat each time she bowed her head before an inscription, struggling to decipher it. Her small feet sank into the furrows. She gathered her skirt to walk more freely, revealing a part of her lovely base. A voluptuous atmosphere, of life, of hidden beauty, of love, followed her steps on this land of death and decay. In the distance, the father’s voice sounded. “Not yet?”… The two old people were growing impatient, wanting to find their son’s grave as soon as possible . Half an hour passed without the searchers finding it. Always unfamiliar names, anonymous crosses, or inscriptions bearing the numbers of other regiments. Don Marcelo could no longer stand. The march through the soft earth, across the furrows, was torture for him. He began to despair… Alas! They would never find Julio’s grave. His parents also searched for it on their own. They bowed their sorrowful heads before every cross; they often sank their feet into the long, narrow mound that seemed to mark the outline of the corpse. They read the names… He wasn’t there either! And they pressed on along the rough path of hope and despair. It was Chichí who called out, “Here… here!” The old folks ran, afraid of falling with every step. The whole family gathered before a mound of earth that had the vague shape of a coffin and was beginning to be covered with weeds. At the head, a cross with letters carved deep with a knife, a pious act by his comrades-in- arms. “Desnoyers…” Then, in military abbreviations, the rank, the regiment, and the company. A long silence. Doña Luisa had instantly knelt, her eyes fixed on the cross: enormous eyes, with reddened corneas, that could not weep. Tears had accompanied her thus far. Now they fled, as if repelled by the immensity of a grief incapable of yielding to ordinary expressions. The father stared in bewilderment at the rustic grave. His son was there, there forever!… and he would never see him again! He imagined him asleep deep within the earth, unwrapped, in direct contact with the soil, just as death had found him, in his wretched yet heroic uniform. The thought that the roots of the plants might touch, with their strands, the very face he had lovingly kissed, that the rain snaked in damp trickles down his body, was the first thing that stirred him, as if it were an outrage. He recalled the exquisite care he had received in life: the long bath, the massage, the invigorating practice of fencing and boxing, the icy shower, the elegant and discreet perfumes… all to come and rot in a wheat field like a dung heap , like a beast of burden that dies burst and is buried where it fell! He wanted to take his son away from there immediately and despaired because he couldn’t. He would move him as soon as they allowed it, erecting a mausoleum like those of kings… And what would he accomplish by this? He would change the location of a pile of bones; but his flesh, his very essence, everything that constituted the charm of his person, would remain there mingled with the earth. The son of the wealthy Desnoyers had been forever added to a poor field in Champagne. Ah, misery! And to achieve this he had worked so hard, amassing millions?… He didn’t even know how his son had died. No one could repeat his last words to him. He didn’t know if his end had been instantaneous, swift, leaving the world with a smile of unconsciousness, or if he had endured long hours of torment, abandoned in the field, writhing like a reptile, rolling in circles of infernal pain before sinking into nothingness. He also didn’t know what lay beneath that mound: a whole body touched by death with a discreet hand, or an amalgam of shapeless remains shattered by the hurricane of steel… And he would never see him again! And that Julio who filled his thoughts would simply be a memory, a name that would live as long as his parents lived and then slowly fade away as they disappeared! He was surprised to hear a groan, a sob… Then he realized it was he himself punctuating his thoughts with a hiccup of pain. His wife was at his feet. She prayed with dry eyes, prayed alone with her despair, fixing a gaze of hypnotic tenacity on the cross… There was her son, lying beside her knees, just as he had been as a child in his cradle, when she watched over his sleep… The father’s exclamation also burst forth in her thoughts, but without angry outbursts, with a disheartened sadness. And she would never see him again!… And this was possible! Chichí interrupted their painful reflections with her presence . She had run to the car and was returning with an armful of Flowers. She hung a wreath on the cross; she placed an enormous bouquet at its foot. Then , grave and frowning, she scattered a shower of petals across the entire surface of the tomb, as if performing a religious rite, accompanying the offering with salutations from her thoughts: “To you, who loved life so much for its beauties and sensualities… To you, who knew how to make women love you…” She wept mentally for his memory with as much admiration as sorrow. Had she not been his sister, she would have wanted to be his lover. And when the shower of flowers had ended, she withdrew, so as not to disturb the parents’ mournful grief with her presence. Faced with the futility of his complaints, Don Marcelo’s old temper had awakened, roaring against fate. He looked at the horizon, where he imagined the enemies must be, and clenched his fists in rage. He thought he saw the beast, the eternal nightmare of men. And would evil go unpunished as so often before?… There was no justice; The world was a product of chance; all lies, words of comfort to help man bear the helplessness in which he lived without fear. He thought he heard the distant gallop of the four apocalyptic horsemen trampling humanity. He saw the brutish, muscular young man with the sword of war, the archer with the repulsive smile and the arrows of plague, the bald miser with the scales of hunger, the galloping corpse with the scythe of death. He recognized them as the only familiar and terrible deities whose presence man felt . Everything else was a dream. The four horsemen were reality… Suddenly, through some mystery of mental assimilation, he seemed to read the thoughts of that weeping head at his feet. The mother, driven by her own misfortunes, had evoked the misfortunes of others. She, too, gazed at the horizon. He imagined seeing beyond the enemy line a procession of grief equal to that of his family. He saw Elena with her daughters marching among graves, searching for a beloved name, falling to their knees before a cross. Alas! This painful satisfaction he could not fully know. It was impossible for him to cross to the other side to seek another grave. And even if he ever did, he would not find it. The adored body had been lost forever in the anonymous tombs, the sight of which had reminded him a little while before of his nephew Otto. Lord, why did we come to these lands? Why don’t we continue living in the place where we were born?… As he guessed these thoughts, Desnoyers saw the immense, green plain of the ranch where he had met his wife. He thought he heard the hooves of cattle. He gazed at the centaur Madariaga in the tranquil night, proclaiming under the starlight the joys of peace, the holy brotherhood of people from the most diverse origins united by work, abundance, and a lack of political ambition. He too, thinking of his son, lamented like the wife: “Why did we come here?…” He too, with the solidarity of grief, pitied those on the other side. They suffered the same as they did: they had lost their children. Human suffering is the same everywhere. But then he turned against his own compassion. Karl was a supporter of war; he was one of those who considered it the perfect state of man, and he had prepared it with his provocations. It was right that war should devour his children: he shouldn’t mourn them. But he, who had always loved peace! He, who had only one son, just one… and was losing him forever! He was going to die; He was sure she was going to die… She only had a few months left to live. And the poor woman who prayed at her feet would soon disappear too. No one survives a blow like the one they had just experienced. They had nothing left to do in the world. Her daughter thought only of herself, of forming her own separate unit, with the harsh instinct for independence that separates children from their parents, so that Humanity continued its renewal. Julio was the only one who could have continued the family, perpetuating the surname. The Desnoyers were dead; his daughter’s children would be Lacours… It was all over. Don Marcelo felt a certain satisfaction at the thought of his impending death. He wished to leave this world as soon as possible. He wasn’t curious about the end of this war that had worried him so much. Whatever its outcome, it would end badly. Even if the beast were mutilated, it would rise again years later, as the eternal companion of men… For him, the only important thing was that the war had stolen his son. All gloomy, all black… The world was going to perish… He was going to rest. Chichí was standing on a mound that perhaps contained corpses. With a furrowed brow, she gazed at the plain. Graves… always graves! The memory of Julio had faded into the background. She couldn’t bring him back to life no matter how much she wept. The sight of the death fields only made her think of the living. She glanced from side to side, holding back the billowing of her skirts with both hands. René stood at the foot of the mound. Several times she looked at him, after surveying the graves, as if drawing a connection between her husband and those dead. “And he had risked his life in battles just like this one!” she exclaimed . “And you, my poor fellow,” she continued loudly, “could be under a pile of earth with a wooden cross by now, just like so many other unfortunate souls!” The second lieutenant smiled melancholically. “That was true. Come on up,” Chichí said imperiously. “I want to tell you something.” When she had him close, she threw her arms around his neck, pressed him against the hidden magnolias of her breast, which exhaled a perfume of life and love, kissed him fiercely on the mouth, bit him, no longer thinking of her brother, no longer seeing the two old people below, weeping, wanting to die… and her skirts, free in the wind, shaped the magnificent curve of hips like amphorae. Thus concludes this powerful story, where war is shown not only as a physical conflict, but as a force that transforms, destroys, and marks all those who cross its path. The four horsemen of the apocalypse represent fate and suffering, but also the struggle for survival and hope in the midst of darkness. Thank you for joining us on this literary journey; we’ll see you in the next story here at Now for Stories.
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