The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse Part 21

Have you noticed our uniform? ... It is most distinctive, and the white is so becoming both to blondes and brunettes. Then the cap which allows little curls over the ears--the fas.h.i.+onable coiffure--and the blue cape over the white suit, make a splendid contrast. With this outfit, a woman well shod, and with few jewels, may present a truly chic appearance. It is a mixture of nun and great lady which is vastly becoming."

She was going to study with a regular fury in order to become really useful ... and sooner to wear the admired uniform.

Poor Desnoyers! ... The longing to see her, and the lack of occupation in these interminable afternoons which hitherto had been employed so delightfully, compelled him to haunt the neighborhood of the unoccupied palace where the government had just established the training school for nurses. Stationing himself at the corner, watching the fluttering skirts and quick steps of the feminine feet on the sidewalk, he imagined that the course of time must have turned backward, and that he was still but eighteen--the same as when he used to hang around the establishments of some celebrated modiste. The groups of women that at certain hours came out of the palace suggested these former days. They were dressed extremely quietly, the aspect of many of them as humble as that of the seamstresses. But they were ladies of the well-to-do cla.s.s, some even coming in automobiles driven by chauffeurs in military uniform, because they were ministerial vehicles.

These long waits often brought him unexpected encounters with the elegant students who were going and coming.

"Desnoyers!" some feminine voices would exclaim behind him. "Isn't it Desnoyers?"

And he would find himself obliged to relieve their doubts, saluting the ladies who were looking at him as though he were a ghost. They were friends of a remote epoch, of six months ago--ladies who had admired and pursued him, trusting sweetly to his masterly wisdom to guide them through the seven circles of the science of the tango. They were now scrutinizing him as if between their last encounter and the present moment had occurred a great cataclysm, transforming all the laws of existence--as if he were the sole survivor of a vanished race.

Eventually they all asked the same questions--"Are you not going to the war? ... How is it that you are not wearing a uniform?"

He would attempt to explain, but at his first words, they would interrupt him:

"That's so... . You are a foreigner."

They would say it with a certain envy, doubtless thinking of their loved ones now suffering the privations and dangers of war... . But the fact that he was a foreigner would instantly create a vague atmosphere of spiritual aloofness, an alienation that Julio had not known in the good old days when people sought each other without considering nationality, without feeling that disavowal of danger which isolates and concentrates human groups.

The ladies generally bade him adieu with malicious suspicion. What was he doing hanging around there? In search of his usual lucky adventure?

... And their smiles were rather grave, the smiles of older folk who know the true significance of life and commiserate the deluded ones still seeking diversion in frivolities.

This att.i.tude was as annoying to Julio as though it were a manifestation of pity. They were supposing him still exercising the only function of which he was capable; he wasn't good for anything else. On the other hand, these empty heads, still keeping something of their old appearance, now appeared animated by the grand sentiment of maternity--an abstract maternity which seemed to be extending to all the men of the nation--a desire for self-sacrifice, of knowing first-hand the privations of the lowly, and aiding all the ills that flesh is heir to.

This same yearning was inspiring Marguerite when she came away from her lessons. She was advancing from one overpowering dread to another, accepting the first rudiments of surgery as the greatest of scientific marvels. At the same time, she was astonished at the avidity with which she was a.s.similating these hitherto unsuspected mysteries. Sometimes with a funny a.s.sumption of a.s.surance, she would even believe she had mistaken her vocation.

"Who knows but what I was born to be a famous doctor?" she would exclaim.

Her great fear was that she might lose her self-control when the time came to put her newly acquired knowledge into practice. To see herself before the foul odors of decomposing flesh, to contemplate the flow of blood--a horrible thing for her who had always felt an invincible repugnance toward all the unpleasant conditions of ordinary life! But these hesitations were short, and she was suddenly animated by a das.h.i.+ng energy. These were times of sacrifice. Were not the men s.n.a.t.c.hed every day from the comforts of sensuous existence to endure the rude life of a soldier? ... She would be, a soldier in petticoats, facing pain, battling with it, plunging her hands into putrefaction, flas.h.i.+ng like a ray of sunlight into the places where soldiers were expecting the approach of death.

She proudly narrated to Desnoyers all the progress that she was making in the training school, the complicated bandages that she was learning to adjust, sometimes over a mannikin, at others over the flesh of an employee, trying to play the part of a sorely wounded patient. She, so dainty, so incapable in her own home of the slightest physical effort, was learning the most skilful ways of lifting a human body from the ground and carrying it on her back. Who knew but that she might render this very service some day on the battlefield! She was ready for the greatest risks, with the ignorant audacity of women impelled by flashes of heroism. All her admiration was for the English army nurses, slender women of nervous vigor whose photographs were appearing in the papers, wearing pantaloons, riding boots and white helmets.

Julio listened to her with astonishment. Was this woman really Marguerite? ... War was obliterating all her winning vanities. She was no longer fluttering about in bird-like fas.h.i.+on. Her feet were treading the earth with resolute firmness, calm and secure in the new strength which was developing within. When one of his caresses would remind her that she was a woman, she would always say the same thing,

"What luck that you are a foreigner! ... What happiness to know that you do not have to go to war!"

In her anxiety for sacrifice, she wanted to go to the battlefields, and yet at the same time, she was rejoicing to see her lover exempt from military duty. This preposterous lack of logic was not gratefully received by Julio but irritated him as an unconscious offense.

"One might suppose that she was protecting me!" he thought. "She is the man and rejoices that I, the weak comrade, should be protected from danger... . What a grotesque situation!" ...

Fortunately, at times when Marguerite presented herself at the studio, she was again her old self, making him temporarily forget his annoyance.

She would arrive with the same joy in a vacation that the college student or the employee feels on a holiday. Responsibility was teaching her to know the value of time.

"No cla.s.ses to-day!" she would call out on entering; and tossing her hat on a divan, she would begin a dance-step, retreating with infantile coquetry from the arms of her lover.

But in a few minutes she would recover her customary gravity, the serious look that had become habitual with her since the outbreak of hostilities. She spoke often of her mother, always sad, but striving to hide her grief and keeping herself up in the hope of a letter from her son; she spoke, too, of the war, commenting on the latest events with the rhetorical optimism of the official dispatches. She could describe the first flag taken from the enemy as minutely as though it were a garment of unparalleled elegance. From a window, she had seen the Minister of War. She was very much affected when repeating the story of some fugitive Belgians recently arrived at the hospital. They were the only patients that she had been able to a.s.sist until now. Paris was not receiving the soldiers wounded in battle; by order of the Government, they were being sent from the front to the hospitals in the South.

She no longer evinced toward Julio the resistance of the first few days.

Her training as a nurse was giving her a certain pa.s.sivity. She seemed to be ignoring material attractions, stripping them of the spiritual importance which she had hitherto attributed to them. She wanted to make Julio happy, although her mind was concentrated on other matters.

One afternoon, she felt the necessity of communicating certain news which had been filling her mind since the day before. Springing up from the couch, she hunted for her handbag which contained a letter. She wanted to read it again to tell its contents to somebody with that irresistible impulse which forestalls confession.

It was a letter which her brother had sent her from the Vosges. In it he spoke of Laurier more than of himself. They belonged to different batteries, but were in the same division and had taken part in the same combats. The officer was filled with admiration for his former brother-in-law. Who could have guessed that a future hero was hidden within that silent and tranquil engineer! ... But he was a genuine hero, just the same! All the officials had agreed with Marguerite's brother on seeing how calmly he fulfilled his duty, facing death with the same coolness as though he were in his factory near Paris.

He had asked for the dangerous post of lookout, slipping as near as possible to the enemy's lines in order to verify the exact.i.tude of the artillery discharge, rectifying it by telephone. A German sh.e.l.l had demolished the house on the roof of which he was concealed, and Laurier, on crawling out unhurt from the ruins, had readjusted his telephone and gone tranquilly on, continuing the same work in the shelter of a nearby grove. His battery, picked out by the enemy's aeroplanes, had received the concentrated fire of the artillery opposite. In a few minutes all the force were rolling on the ground--the captain and many soldiers dead, officers wounded and almost all the gunners. There only remained as chief, Laurier, the Impa.s.sive (as his comrades nicknamed him), and aided by the few artillerymen still on their feet, he continued firing under a rain of iron and fire, so as to cover the retreat of a battalion.

"He has been mentioned twice in dispatches," Marguerite continued reading. "I do not believe that it will be long before they give him the cross. He is valiant in every way. Who would have supposed all this a few weeks ago?" ...

She did not share the general astonishment. Living with Laurier had many times shown her the intrepidity of his character, the fearlessness concealed under that placid exterior. On that account, her instincts had warned her against rousing her husband's wrath in the first days of her infidelity. She still remembered the way he looked the night he surprised her leaving Julio's home. His was the pa.s.sion that kills, and, nevertheless, he had not attempted the least violence with her... .

The memory of his consideration was awakening in Marguerite a sentiment of grat.i.tude. Perhaps he had loved her as no other man had.

Her eyes, with an irresistible desire for comparison, sought Julio's, admiring his youthful grace and distinction. The image of Laurier, heavy and ordinary, came into her mind as a consolation. Certainly the officer whom she had seen at the station when saying good-bye to her brother, did not seem to her like her old husband. But Marguerite wished to forget the pallid lieutenant with the sad countenance who had pa.s.sed before her eyes, preferring to remember him only as the manufacturer preoccupied with profits and incapable of comprehending what she was accustomed to call "the delicate refinements of a chic woman." Decidedly Julio was the more fascinating. She did not repent of her past. She did not wish to repent of it.

And her loving selfishness made her repeat once more the same old exclamation--"How fortunate that you are a foreigner! ... What a relief to know that you are safe from the dangers of war!"

Julio felt the usual exasperation at hearing this. He came very near to closing his beloved's mouth with his hand. Was she trying to make fun of him? ... It was fairly insulting to place him apart from other men.

Meanwhile, with blind irrelevance, she persisted in talking about Laurier, commenting upon his achievements.

"I do not love him, I never have loved him. Do not look so cross! How could the poor man ever be compared with you? You must admit, though, that his new existence is rather interesting. I rejoice in his brave deeds as though an old friend had done them, a family visitor whom I had not seen for a long time... . The poor man deserved a better fate. He ought to have married some other woman, some companion more on a level with his ideals... . I tell you that I really pity him!"

And this pity was so intense that her eyes filled with tears, awakening the tortures of jealousy in her lover. After these interviews, Desnoyers was more ill-tempered and despondent than ever.

"I am beginning to realize that we are in a false position," he said one morning to Argensola. "Life is going to become increasingly painful. It is difficult to remain tranquil, continuing the same old existence in the midst of a people at war."

His companion had about come to the same conclusion. He, too, was beginning to feel that the life of a young foreigner in Paris was insufferable, now that it was so upset by war.

"One has to keep showing pa.s.sports all the time in order that the police may be sure that they have not discovered a deserter. In the street car, the other afternoon, I had to explain that I was a Spaniard to some girls who were wondering why I was not at the front... . One of them, as soon as she learned my nationality, asked me with great simplicity why I did not offer myself as a volunteer... . Now they have invented a word for the stay-at-homes, calling them Les Embusques, the hidden ones... . I am sick and tired of the ironical looks shot at me wherever I go; it makes me wild to be taken for an Embusque."

A flash of heroism was galvanizing the impressionable Bohemian. Now that everybody was going to the war, he was wis.h.i.+ng to do the same thing. He was not afraid of death; the only thing that was disturbing him was the military service, the uniform, the mechanical obedience to bugle-call, the blind subservience to the chiefs. Fighting was not offering any difficulties for him but his nature capriciously resented everything in the form of discipline. The foreign groups in Paris were trying to organize each its own legion of volunteers and he, too, was planning his--a battalion of Spaniards and South Americans, reserving naturally the presidency of the organizing committee for himself, and later the command of the body.

He had inserted notices in the papers, making the studio in the rue de la Pompe the recruiting office. In ten days, two volunteers had presented themselves; a clerk, s.h.i.+vering in midsummer, who stipulated that he should be an officer because he was wearing a suitable jacket, and a Spanish tavern-keeper who at the very outset had wished to rob Argensola of his command on the futile pretext that he was a soldier in his youth while the Bohemian was only an artist. Twenty Spanish battalions were attempted with the same result in different parts of Paris. Each enthusiast wished to be commander of the others, with the individual haughtiness and aversion to discipline so characteristic of the race. Finally the future generalissimos, decided to enlist as simple volunteers ... but in a French regiment.

"I am waiting to see what the Garibaldis do," said Argensola modestly.

"Perhaps I may go with them."

This glorious name made military service conceivable to him. But then he vacillated; he would certainly have to obey somebody in this body of volunteers, and he did not believe in an obedience that was not preceded by long discussions... . What next!

"Life has changed in a fortnight," he continued. "It seems as if we were living in another planet; our former achievements are not appreciated.

Others, most obscure and poor, those who formerly had the least consideration, are now promoted to the first ranks. The refined man of complex spirituality has disappeared for who knows how many years!

... Now the simple-minded man climbs triumphantly to the top, because, though his ideas are limited, they are sure and he knows how to obey. We are no longer the style."

Desnoyers a.s.sented. It was so; they were no longer fas.h.i.+onable. None knew that better than he, for he who was once the sensation of the day, was now pa.s.sing as a stranger among the very people who a few months before had raved over him.

"Your reign is over," laughed Argensola. "The fact that you are a handsome fellow doesn't help you one bit nowadays. In a uniform and with a cross on my breast, I could soon get the best of you in a rival love affair. In times of peace, the officers only set the girls of the provinces to dreaming; but now that we are at war, there has awakened in every woman the ancestral enthusiasm that her remote grandmothers used to feel for the strong and aggressive beast... . The high-born dames who a few months ago were complicating their desires with psychological subtleties, are now admiring the military man with the same simplicity that the maid has for the common soldier. Before a uniform, they feel the humble and servile enthusiasm of the female of the lower animals before the crests, foretops and gay plumes of the fighting males. Look out, master! ... We shall have to follow the new course of events or resign ourselves to everlasting obscurity. The tango is dead."

And Desnoyers agreed that truly they were two beings on the other side of the river of life which at one bound had changed its course. There was no longer any place in the new existence for that poor painter of souls, nor for that hero of a frivolous life who, from five to seven every afternoon, had attained the triumphs most envied by mankind.