The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse Part 39

And he almost wept at hearing the Spaniard, with his ready, enthusiastic speech, lauding the departed "diable," graphically setting forth the way in which his great genius was going to take the world when his turn should come.

The painter of souls finally worked himself up into feeling as much affected as the father, and began to admire this old Frenchman with a certain remorse, not wis.h.i.+ng to remember how he had ranted against him not so very long ago. What injustice! ...

Don Marcelo clasped his hand like an old comrade. All of his son's friends were his friends. He knew the life that young men lived.

... If at any time, he should be in any difficulties, if he needed an allowance so as to keep on with his painting--there he was, anxious to help him! He then and there invited him to dine at his home that very night, and if he would care to come every evening, so much the better.

He would eat a family dinner, entirely informal. War had brought about a great many changes, but he would always be as welcome to the intimacy of the hearth as though he were in his father's home.

Then he spoke of Spain, in order to place himself on a more congenial footing with the artist. He had never been there but once, and then only for a short time; but after the war, he was going to know it better.

His father-in-law was a Spaniard, his wife had Spanish blood, and in his home the language of the family was always Castilian. Ah, Spain, the country with a n.o.ble past and ill.u.s.trious men! ...

Argensola had a strong suspicion that if he had been a native of any other land, the old gentleman would have praised it in the same way. All this affection was but a reflex of his love for his absent son, but it so pleased the impressionable fellow that he almost embraced Don Marcelo when he took his departure.

After that, his visits to the studio were very frequent. The artist was obliged to recommend his friends to take a good long walk after lunch, abstaining from reappearing in the rue de la Pompe until nightfall.

Sometimes, however, Don Marcelo would unexpectedly present himself in the morning, and then the soulful impressionist would have to scurry from place to place, hiding here, concealing there, in order that his workroom should preserve its appearance of virtuous labor.

"Youth ... youth!" the visitor would murmur with a smile of tolerance.

And he actually had to make an effort to recall the dignity of his years, in order not to ask Argensola to present him to the fair fugitives whose presence he suspected in the interior rooms. Perhaps they had been his boy's friends, too. They represented a part of his past, anyway, and that was enough to make him presume that they had great charms which made them interesting.

These surprises, with their upsetting consequences, finally made the painter rather regret this new friends.h.i.+p; and the invitations to dinner which he was constantly receiving bored him, too. He found the Desnoyers table most excellent, but too tedious--for the father and mother could talk of nothing but their absent son. Chichi scarcely looked at her brother's friend. Her attention was entirely concentrated on the war.

The irregularity in the mails was exasperating her so that she began composing protests to the government whenever a few days pa.s.sed by without bringing any letter from sub-Lieutenant Lacour.

Argensola excused himself on various pretexts from continuing to dine in the avenue Victor Hugo. It pleased him far more to haunt the cheap restaurants with his female flock. His host accepted his negatives with good-natured resignation.

"Not to-day, either?"

And in order to compensate for his guest's non-appearance, he would present himself at the studio earlier than ever on the day following.

It was an exquisite pleasure for the doting father to let the time slip by seated on the divan which still seemed to guard the very hollow made by Julio's body, gazing at the canvases covered with color by his brush, toasting his toes by the beat of a stove which roared so cosily in the profound, conventual silence. It certainly was an agreeable refuge, full of memories in the midst of monotonous Paris so saddened by the war that he could not meet a friend who was not preoccupied with his own troubles.

His former purchasing dissipations had now lost all charm for him. The Hotel Drouot no longer tempted him. At that time, the goods of German residents, seized by the government, were being auctioned off;--a felicitous retaliation for the enforced journey which the fittings of the castle of Villeblanche had taken on the road to Berlin; but the agents told him in vain of the few compet.i.tors which he would now meet.

He no longer felt attracted by these extraordinary bargains. Why buy anything more? ... Of what use was such useless stuff? Whenever he thought of the hard life of millions of men in the open field, he felt a longing to lead an ascetic life. He was beginning to hate the ostentatious splendors of his home on the avenue Victor Hugo. He now recalled without a regretful pang, the destruction of the castle. No, he was far better off there ... and "there" was always the studio of Julio.

Argensola began to form the habit of working in the presence of Don Marcelo. He knew that the resolute soul abominated inactive people, so, under the contagious influence of dominant will-power, he began several new pieces. Desnoyers would follow with interest the motions of his brush and accept all the explanations of the soulful delineator. For himself, he always preferred the old masters, and in his bargains had acquired the work of many a dead artist; but the fact that Julio had thought as his partner did was now enough for the devotee of the antique and made him admit humbly all the Spaniard's superior theories.

The artist's laborious zeal was always of short duration. After a few moments, he always found that he preferred to rest on the divan and converse with his guest.

The first subject, of course, was the absentee. They would repeat fragments of the letters they had received, and would speak of the past with the most discreet allusions. The painter described Julio's life before the war as an existence dedicated completely to art. The father ignored the inexact.i.tude of such words, and gratefully accepted the lie as a proof of friends.h.i.+p. Argensola was such a clever comrade, never, in his loftiest verbal flights, making the slightest reference to Madame Laurier.

The old gentleman was often thinking about her nowadays, for he had seen her in the street giving her arm to her husband, now recovered from his wounds. The ill.u.s.trious Lacour had informed him with great satisfaction of their reconciliation. The engineer had lost but one eye. Now he was again at the head of his factory requisitioned by the government for the manufacture of sh.e.l.ls. He was a Captain, and was wearing two decorations of honor. The senator did not know exactly how this unexpected agreement had come about. He had one day seen them coming home together, looking affectionately at each other, in complete oblivion of the past.

"Who remembers things that happened before the war," said the politic sage. "They and their friends have completely forgotten all about their divorce. Nowadays we are all living a new existence... . I believe that the two are happier than ever before."

Desnoyers had had a presentiment of this happiness when he saw them together. And the man of inflexible morality who was, the year before, anathematizing his son's behavior toward Laurier, considering it the most unpardonable of his adventures, now felt a certain indignation in seeing Marguerite devoted to her husband, and talking to him with such affectionate interest. This matrimonial felicity seemed to him like the basest ingrat.i.tude. A woman who had had such an influence over the life of Julio! ... Could she thus easily forget her love? ...

The two had pa.s.sed on as though they did not recognize him. Perhaps Captain Laurier did not see very clearly, but she had looked at him frankly and then hastily averted her eyes so as to evade his greeting.

... The old man felt sad over such indifference, not on his own account, but on his son's. Poor Julio! ... The unbending parent, in complete mental immorality, found himself lamenting this indifference as something monstrous.

The war was the other topic of conversation during the afternoons pa.s.sed in the studio. Argensola was not now stuffing his pockets with printed sheets as at the beginning of hostilities. A serene and resigned calm had succeeded the excitement of those first moments when the people were daily looking for miraculous interventions. All the periodicals were saying about the same thing. He was content with the official report, and he had learned to wait for that doc.u.ment without impatience, foreseeing that with but few exceptions, it would say the same thing as the day before.

The fever of the first months, with its illusions and optimisms, now appeared to Argensola somewhat chimerical. Those not actually engaged in the war were returning gradually to their habitual occupations. Life had recovered its regular rhythm. "One must live!" said the people, and the struggle for existence filled their thoughts with its immediate urgency.

Those whose relatives were in the army, were still thinking of them, but their occupations were so blunting the edge of memory, that they were becoming accustomed to their absence, regarding the unusual as the normal condition. At first, the war made sleep out of the question, food impossible to swallow, and embittered every pleasure with its funereal pall. Now the shops were slowly opening, money was in circulation, and people were able to laugh; they talked of the great calamity, but only at certain hours, as something that was going to be long, very long and would exact great resignation to its inevitable fatalism.

"Humanity accustoms itself easily to trouble," said Argensola, "provided that the trouble lasts long enough... . In this lies our strength."

Don Marcelo was not in sympathy with the general resignation. The war was going to be much shorter than they were all imagining. His enthusiasm had settled on a speedy termination;--within the next three months, the next Spring probably; if peace were not declared in the Spring, it surely would be in the Summer.

A new talker took part in these conversations. Desnoyers had become acquainted with the Russian neighbor of whom Argensola had so frequently spoken. Since this odd personage had also known his son, that was enough to make Tchernoff arouse his interest.

In normal times, he would have kept him at a distance. The millionaire was a great believer in law and order. He abominated revolutionists, with the instinctive fear of all the rich who have built up a fortune and remember their humble beginnings. Tchernoff's socialism and nationality brought vividly to his mind a series of feverish images--bombs, daggers, stabbings, deserved expiations on the gallows, and exile to Siberia. No, he was not desirable as a friend... .

But now Don Marcelo was experiencing an abrupt reversal of his convictions regarding alien ideas. He had seen so much! ... The revolting proceedings of the invasion, the unscrupulous methods of the German chiefs, the tranquillity with which their submarines were sinking boats filled with defenseless pa.s.sengers, the deeds of the aviators who were hurling bombs upon unguarded cities, destroying women and children--all this was causing the events of revolutionary terrorism which, years ago, used to arouse his wrath, to sink into relative unimportance.

"And to think," he said "that we used to be as infuriated as though the world were coming to an end, just because someone threw a bomb at a grandee!"

Those t.i.tled victims had had certain reprehensible qualities which had justified their execution. They had died in consequence of acts which they undertook, knowing well what the punishment would be. They had brought retribution on themselves without trying to evade it, rarely taking any precautions. While the terrorists of this war! ...

With the violence of his imperious character, the old conservative now swung to the opposite extreme.

"The true anarchists are yet on top," he said with an ironical laugh.

"Those who terrified us formerly, all put together, were but a few miserable creatures... . In a few seconds, these of our day kill more innocent people than those others did in thirty years."

The gentleness of Tchernoff, his original ideas, his incoherencies of thought, bounding from reflection to word without any preparation, finally won Don Marcelo so completely over that he formed the habit of consulting him about all his doubts. His admiration made him, too, overlook the source of certain bottles with which Argensola sometimes treated his neighbor. He was delighted to have Tchernoff consume these souvenirs of the time when he was living at swords' points with his son.

After sampling the wine from the avenue Victor Hugo, the Russian would indulge in a visionary loquacity similar to that of the night when he evoked the fantastic cavalcade of the four hors.e.m.e.n of the Apocalypse.

What his new convert most admired was his facility for making things clear, and fixing them in the imagination. The battle of the Marne with its subsequent combats and the course of both armies were events easily explained... . If the French only had not been so fatigued after their triumph of the Marne! ...

"But human powers," continued Tchernoff, "have their limits, and the French soldier, with all his enthusiasm, is a man like the rest. In the first place, the most rapid of marches from the East to the North, in order to resist the invasion of Belgium; then the combats; then the swift retreat that they might not be surrounded; finally a seven days'

battle--and all this in a period of three weeks, no more... . In their moment of triumph, the victors lacked the legs to follow up their advantage, and they lacked the cavalry to pursue the fugitives. Their beasts were even more exhausted than the men. When those who were retreating found that they were being spurred on with lessening tenacity, they had stretched themselves, half-dead with fatigue, on the field, excavating the ground and forming a refuge for themselves. The French also flung themselves down, sc.r.a.ping the soil together so as not to lose what they had gained... . And in this way began the war of the trenches."

Then each line, with the intention of wrapping itself around that of the enemy, had gone on prolonging itself toward the Northeast, and from these successive stretchings had resulted the double course toward the sea--forming the greatest battle front ever known to history.

When Don Marcelo with optimistic enthusiasm announced the end of the war in the following Spring or Summer--in four months at the outside--the Russian shook his head.

"It will be long ... very long. It is a new war, the genuine modern warfare. The Germans began hostilities in the old way as though they had observed nothing since 1870--a war of involved movements, of battles in the open field, the same as Moltke might have planned, imitating Napoleon. They were desirous of bringing it to a speedy conclusion, and were sure of triumph. Why employ new methods? ... But the encounter of the Marne twisted their plans, making them s.h.i.+ft from the aggressive to the defensive. They then brought into service all that the war staff had learned in the campaigns of the j.a.panese and Russians, beginning the war of the trenches, the subterranean struggle which is the logical outcome of the reach and number of shots of the modern armament. The conquest of half a mile of territory to-day stands for more than did the a.s.sault of a stone fortress a century ago. Neither side is going to make any headway for a long time. Perhaps they may never make a definite advance.

The war is bound to be long and tedious, like the athletic conquests between opponents who are equally matched."

"But it will have to come to an end, sometime," interpolated Desnoyers.

"Undoubtedly, but who knows when? ... And in what condition will they both be when it is all over?" ...

He was counting upon a rapid finale when it was least expected, through the exhaustion of one of the contestants, carefully dissimulated until the last moment.

"Germany will be vanquished," he added with firm conviction. "I do not know when nor how, but she will fall logically. She failed in her master-stroke in not entering Paris and overcoming its opposition. All the trumps in her pack of cards were then played. She did not win, but continues playing the game because she holds many cards, and she will prolong it for a long time to come... . But what she could not do at first, she will never be able to do."

For Tchernoff, the final defeat did not mean the destruction of Germany nor the annihilation of the German people.

"Excessive patriotism irritates me," he pursued. "Hearing people form plans for the definite extinction of Germany seems to me like listening to the Pan-Germanists of Berlin when they talk of dividing up the continents."