The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse | Page 4

full. A few women
were occupying camp stools with that feeling of superiority which
ownership always confers. The iron chairs, "pay-seats," were serving as
resting places for various suburban dames, loaded down with packages,
who were waiting for straggling members of their families in order to
take the train in the Gare Saint Lazare. . . .
And Julio, in his special delivery letter, had proposed meeting in this
place, supposing that it would be as little frequented as in former times.
She, too, with the same thoughtlessness, had in her reply, set the usual
hour of five o'clock, believing that after passing a few minutes in the
Printemps or the Galeries on the pretext of shopping, she would be able
to slip over to the unfrequented garden without risk of being seen by
any of her numerous acquaintances.
Desnoyers was enjoying an almost forgotten sensation, that of strolling
through vast spaces, crushing as he walked the grains of sand under his
feet. For the past twenty days his rovings had been upon planks,
following with the automatic precision of a riding school the oval
promenade on the deck of a ship. His feet accustomed to insecure
ground, still were keeping on terra firma a certain sensation of elastic
unsteadiness. His goings and comings were not awakening the curiosity
of the people seated in the open, for a common preoccupation seemed
to be monopolizing all the men and women. The groups were
exchanging impressions. Those who happened to have a paper in their
hands, saw their neighbors approaching them with a smile of
interrogation. There had suddenly disappeared that distrust and
suspicion which impels the inhabitants of large cities mutually to
ignore one another, taking each other's measure at a glance as though
they were enemies.

"They are talking about the war," said Desnoyers to himself. "At this
time, all Paris speaks of nothing but the possibility of war."
Outside of the garden he could see also the same anxiety which was
making those around him so fraternal and sociable. The venders of
newspapers were passing through the boulevard crying the evening
editions, their furious speed repeatedly slackened by the eager hands of
the passers-by contending for the papers. Every reader was instantly
surrounded by a group begging for news or trying to decipher over his
shoulder the great headlines at the top of the sheet. In the rue des
Mathurins, on the other side of the square, a circle of workmen under
the awning of a tavern were listening to the comments of a friend who
accompanied his words with oratorical gestures and wavings of the
paper. The traffic in the streets, the general bustle of the city was the
same as in other days, but it seemed to Julio that the vehicles were
whirling past more rapidly, that there was a feverish agitation in the air
and that people were speaking and smiling in a different way. The
women of the garden were looking even at him as if they had seen him
in former days. He was able to approach them and begin a conversation
without experiencing the slightest strangeness.
"They are talking of the war," he said again but with the commiseration
of a superior intelligence which foresees the future and feels above the
impressions of the vulgar crowd.
He knew exactly what course he was going to follow. He had
disembarked at ten o'clock the night before, and as it was not yet
twenty-four hours since he had touched land, his mentality was still that
of a man who comes from afar, across oceanic immensities, from
boundless horizons, and is surprised at finding himself in touch with
the preoccupations which govern human communities. After
disembarking he had spent two hours in a cafe in Boulogne, listlessly
watching the middle-class families who passed their time in the
monotonous placidity of a life without dangers. Then the special train
for the passengers from South America had brought him to Paris,
leaving him at four in the morning on a platform of the Gare du Nord in
the embrace of Pepe Argensola, the young Spaniard whom he

sometimes called "my secretary" or "my valet" because it was difficult
to define exactly the relationship between them. In reality, he was a
mixture of friend and parasite, the poor comrade, complacent and
capable in his companionship with a rich youth on bad terms with his
family, sharing with him the ups and downs of fortune, picking up the
crumbs of prosperous days, or inventing expedients to keep up
appearances in the hours of poverty.
"What about the war?" Argensola had asked him before inquiring about
the result of his trip. "You have come a long ways and should know
much."
Soon he was sound asleep in his dear old bed while his