The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

V >> Vicente Blasco Ibanez >> The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse


She appeared to tear herself away from these recollections, impelled
by a tenacious obsession which had slipped from her mind in the first
moments of their meeting.

"Do you know much about what's happening? Tell me all. People talk so
much. . . . Do you really believe that there will be war? Don't you
think that it will all end in some kind of settlement?"

Desnoyers comforted her with his optimism. He did not believe in the
possibility of a war. That was ridiculous.

"I say so, too! Ours is not the epoch of savages. I have known some
Germans, chic and well-educated persons who surely must think exactly as
we do. An old professor who comes to the house was explaining yesterday
to mama that wars are no longer possible in these progressive times. In
two months' time, there would scarcely be any men left, in three, the
world would find itself without money to continue the struggle. I do not
recall exactly how it was, but he explained it all very clearly, in a
manner most delightful to hear."

She reflected in silence, trying to co-ordinate her confused
recollections, but dismayed by the effort required, added on her own
account.

"Just imagine what war would mean--how horrible! Society life paralyzed.
No more parties, nor clothes, nor theatres! Why, it is even possible
that they might not design any more fashions! All the women in mourning.
Can you imagine it? . . . And Paris deserted. . . . How beautiful it
seemed as I came to meet you this afternoon! . . . No, no, it cannot
be! Next month, you know, we go to Vichy. Mama needs the waters. Then to
Biarritz. After that, I shall go to a castle on the Loire. And besides
there are our affairs, my divorce, our marriage which may take place the
next year. . . . And is war to hinder and cut short all this! No, no,
it is not possible. My brother and others like him are foolish enough
to dream of danger from Germany. I am sure that my husband, too, who is
only interested in serious and bothersome matters, is among those
who believe that war is imminent and prepare to take part in it. What
nonsense! Tell me that it is all nonsense. I need to hear you say it."

Tranquilized by the affirmations of her lover, she then changed the
trend of the conversation. The possibility of their approaching marriage
brought to mind the object of the voyage which Desnoyers had just made.
There had not been time for them to write to each other during their
brief separation.

"Did you succeed in getting the money? The joy of seeing you made me
forget all about such things. . . ."

Adopting the air of a business expert, he replied that he had brought
back less than he expected, for he had found the country in the throes
of one of its periodical panics; but still he had managed to get
together about four hundred thousand francs. In his purse he had a check
for that amount. Later on, they would send him further remittances.
A ranchman in Argentina, a sort of relative, was looking after his
affairs. Marguerite appeared satisfied, and in spite of her frivolity,
adopted the air of a serious woman.

"Money, money!" she exclaimed sententiously. "And yet there is no
happiness without it! With your four hundred thousand and what I have,
we shall be able to get along. . . . I told you that my husband wishes
to give me back my dowry. He has told my brother so. But the state of
his business, and the increased size of his factory do not permit him to
return it as quickly as he would like. I can't help but feel sorry for
the poor man . . . so honorable and so upright in every way. If he only
were not so commonplace! . . ."

Again Marguerite seemed to regret these tardy spontaneous eulogies which
were chilling their interview. So again she changed the trend of her
chatter.

"And your family? Have you seen them?" . . .

Desnoyers had been to his father's home before starting for the Chapelle
Expiatoire. A stealthy entrance into the great house on the avenue
Victor Hugo, and then up to the first floor like a tradesman. Then he
had slipt into the kitchen like a soldier sweetheart of the maids.
His mother had come there to embrace him, poor Dona Luisa, weeping and
kissing him frantically as though she had feared to lose him forever.
Close behind her mother had come Luisita, nicknamed Chichi, who always
surveyed him with sympathetic curiosity as if she wished to know better
a brother so bad and adorable who had led decent women from the paths
of virtue, and committed all kinds of follies. Then Desnoyers had been
greatly surprised to see entering the kitchen with the air of a tragedy
queen, a noble mother of the drama, his Aunt Elena, the one who had
married a German and was living in Berlin surrounded with innumerable
children.

"She has been in Paris a month. She is going to make a little visit to
our castle. And it appears that her eldest son--my cousin, 'The Sage,'
whom I have not seen for years--is also coming here."

The home interview had several times been interrupted by fear. "Your
father is at home, be careful," his mother had said to him each time
that he had spoken above a whisper. And his Aunt Elena had stationed
herself at the door with a dramatic air, like a stage heroine resolved
to plunge a dagger into the tyrant who should dare to cross the
threshold. The entire family was accustomed to submit to the rigid
authority of Don Marcelo Desnoyers. "Oh, that old man!" exclaimed Julio,
referring to his father. "He may live many years yet, but how he weighs
upon us all!"

His mother, who had never wearied of looking at him, finally had to
bring the interview to an end, frightened by certain approaching sounds.
"Go, he might surprise us, and he would be furious." So Julio had fled
the paternal home, caressed by the tears of the two ladies and the
admiring glances of Chichi, by turns ashamed and proud of a brother who
had caused such enthusiasm and scandal among her friends.

Marguerite also spoke of Senor Desnoyers. A terrible tyrant of the old
school with whom they could never come to an understanding.

The two remained silent, looking fixedly at each other. Now that they
had said the things of greatest urgency, present interests became more
absorbing. More immediate things, unspoken, seemed to well up in their
timid and vacillating eyes, before escaping in the form of words.
They did not dare to talk like lovers here. Every minute the cloud of
witnesses seemed increasing around them. The woman with the dogs and the
red wig was passing with greater frequency, shortening her turns through
the square in order to greet them with a smile of complicity. The
reader of the daily paper was now exchanging views with a friend on a
neighboring bench regarding the possibilities of war. The garden
had become a thoroughfare. The modistes upon going out from their
establishments, and the ladies returning from shopping, were crossing
through the square in order to shorten their walk. The little avenue was
a popular short-cut. All the pedestrians were casting curious glances at
the elegant lady and her companion seated in the shadow of the shrubbery
with the timid yet would-be natural look of those who desire to hide
themselves, yet at the same time feign a casual air.

"How exasperating!" sighed Marguerite. "They are going to find us out!"

A girl looked at her so searchingly that she thought she recognized in
her an employee of a celebrated modiste. Besides, some of her personal
friends who had met her in the crowded shops but an hour ago might be
returning home by way of the garden.

"Let us go," she said rising hurriedly. "If they should spy us here
together, just think what they might say! . . . and just when they are
becoming a little forgetful!"

Desnoyers protested crossly. Go away? . . . Paris had become a shrunken
place for them nowadays because Marguerite refused to go to a single
place where there was a possibility of their being surprised. In another
square, in a restaurant, wherever they might go--they would run the same
risk of being recognized. She would only consider meetings in public
places, and yet at the same time, dreaded the curiosity of the people.
If Marguerite would like to go to his studio of such sweet
memories! . . .

"To your home? No! no indeed!" she replied emphatically "I cannot forget
the last time I was there."

But Julio insisted, foreseeing a break in that firm negative. Where
could they be more comfortable? Besides, weren't they going to marry as
soon as possible? . . .

"I tell you no," she repeated. "Who knows but my husband may be watching
me! What a complication for my divorce if he should surprise us in your
house!"

Now it was he who eulogized the husband, insisting that such
watchfulness was incompatible with his character. The engineer had
accepted the facts, considering them irreparable and was now thinking
only of reconstructing his life.

"No, it is better for us to separate," she continued. "Tomorrow we shall
see each other again. You will hunt a more favorable place. Think it
over, and you will find a solution for it all."

But he wished an immediate solution. They had abandoned their seats,
going slowly toward the rue des Mathurins. Julio was speaking with a
trembling and persuasive eloquence. To-morrow? No, now. They had only to
call a taxicab. It would be only a matter of a few minutes, and then the
isolation, the mystery, the return to a sweet past--to that intimacy
in the studio where they had passed their happiest hours. They would
believe that no time had elapsed since their first meetings.

"No," she faltered with a weakening accent, seeking a last resistance.
"Besides, your secretary might be there, that Spaniard who lives with
you. How ashamed I would be to meet him again!"

Julio laughed. . . . Argensola! How could that comrade who knew all
about their past be an obstacle? If they should happen to meet him in
the house, he would be sure to leave immediately. More than once, he had
had to go out so as not to be in the way. His discretion was such that
he had foreseen events. Probably he had already left, conjecturing that
a near visit would be the most logical thing. His chum would simply go
wandering through the streets in search of news.

Marguerite was silent, as though yielding on seeing her pretexts
exhausted. Desnoyers was silent, too, construing her stillness as
assent. They had left the garden and she was looking around uneasily,
terrified to find herself in the open street beside her lover, and
seeking a hiding-place. Suddenly she saw before her the little red door
of an automobile, opened by the hand of her adorer.

"Get in," ordered Julio.

And she climbed in hastily, anxious to hide herself as soon as possible.
The vehicle started at great speed. Marguerite immediately pulled down
the shade of the window on her side, but, before she had finished and
could turn her head, she felt a hungry mouth kissing the nape of her
neck.

"No, not here," she said in a pleading tone. "Let us be sensible!"

And while he, rebellious at these exhortations, persisted in his
advances, the voice of Marguerite again sounded above the noise of the
rattling machinery of the automobile as it bounded over the pavement.

"Do you really believe that there will be no war? Do you believe that we
will be able to marry? . . . Tell me again. I want you to encourage me
. . . I need to hear it from your lips."



CHAPTER II

MADARIAGA, THE CENTAUR


In 1870 Marcelo Desnoyers was nineteen years old. He was born in the
suburbs of Paris, an only child; his father, interested in little
building speculations, maintained his family in modest comfort. The
mason wished to make an architect of his son, and Marcelo was in the
midst of his preparatory studies when his father suddenly died, leaving
his affairs greatly involved. In a few months, he and his mother
descended the slopes of ruin, and were obliged to give up their snug,
middle-class quarters and live like laborers.

When the fourteen-year-old boy had to choose a trade, he learned wood
carving. This craft was an art related to the tastes awakened in Marcelo
by his abandoned studies. His mother retired to the country, living with
some relatives while the lad advanced rapidly in the shops, aiding his
master in all the important orders which he received from the provinces.
The first news of the war with Prussia surprised him in Marseilles,
working on the decorations of a theatre.

Marcelo was opposed to the Empire like all the youths of his generation.
He was also much influenced by the older workmen who had taken part in
the Republic of '48, and who still retained vivid recollections of the
Coup d'Etat of the second of December.

One day he saw in the streets of Marseilles a popular manifestation in
favor of peace which was practically a protest against the government.
The old republicans in their implacable struggle with the Emperor, the
companies of the International which had just been organized, and a
great number of Italians and Spaniards who had fled their countries on
account of recent insurrections, composed the procession. A long-haired,
consumptive student was carrying the flag. "It is peace that we want--a
peace which may unite all mankind," chanted the paraders. But on this
earth, the noblest propositions are seldom heard, since Destiny amuses
herself in perverting them and turning them aside.

Scarcely had the friends of peace entered the rue Cannebiere with their
hymn and standard, when war came to meet them, obliging them to resort
to fist and club. The day before, some battalions of Zouaves from
Algiers had disembarked in order to reinforce the army on the
frontier, and these veterans, accustomed to colonial existence and
undiscriminating as to the cause of disturbances, seized the opportunity
to intervene in this manifestation, some with bayonets and others with
ungirded belts. "Hurrah for War!" and a rain of lashes and blows
fell upon the unarmed singers. Marcelo saw the innocent student, the
standard-bearer of peace, knocked down wrapped in his flag, by the
merry kicks of the Zouaves. Then he knew no more, since he had received
various blows with a leather strap, and a knife thrust in his shoulder;
he had to run the same as the others.

That day developed for the first time, his fiery, stubborn character,
irritable before contradiction, even to the point of adopting the most
extreme resolution. "Down with War!" Since it was not possible for him
to protest in any other way, he would leave the country. The Emperor
might arrange his affairs as best he could. The struggle was going to
be long and disastrous, according to the enemies of the Empire. If he
stayed, he would in a few months be drawn for the soldiery. Desnoyers
renounced the honor of serving the Emperor. He hesitated a little when
he thought of his mother. But his country relatives would not turn her
out, and he planned to work very hard and send her money. Who knew what
riches might be waiting for him, on the other side of the sea! . . .
Good-bye, France!

Thanks to his savings, a harbor official found it to his interest to
offer him the choice of three boats. One was sailing to Egypt, another
to Australia, another to Montevideo and Buenos Aires, which made the
strongest appeal to him? . . . Desnoyers, remembering his readings,
wished to consult the wind and follow the course that it indicated, as
he had seen various heroes of novels do. But that day the wind blew from
the sea toward France. He also wished to toss up a coin in order to test
his fate. Finally he decided upon the vessel sailing first. Not until,
with his scanty baggage, he was actually on the deck of the next boat
to anchor, did he take any interest in its course--"For the Rio de la
Plata." . . . And he accepted these words with a fatalistic shrug. "Very
well, let it be South America!" The country was not distasteful to him,
since he knew it by certain travel publications whose illustrations
represented herds of cattle at liberty, half-naked, plumed Indians, and
hairy cowboys whirling over their heads serpentine lassos tipped with
balls.

The millionaire Desnoyers never forgot that trip to America--forty-three
days navigating in a little worn-out steamer that rattled like a heap
of old iron, groaned in all its joints at the slightest roughness of the
sea, and had to stop four times for repairs, at the mercy of the winds
and waves.

In Montevideo, he learned of the reverses suffered by his country and
that the French Empire no longer existed. He felt a little ashamed
when he heard that the nation was now self-governing, defending itself
gallantly behind the walls of Paris. And he had fled! . . . Months
afterwards, the events of the Commune consoled him for his flight. If
he had remained, wrath at the national downfall, his relations with his
co-laborers, the air in which he lived--everything would surely have
dragged him along to revolt. In that case, he would have been shot or
consigned to a colonial prison like so many of his former comrades.

So his determination crystallized, and he stopped thinking about the
affairs of his mother-country. The necessities of existence in a foreign
land whose language he was beginning to pick up made him think only
of himself. The turbulent and adventurous life of these new nations
compelled him to most absurd expedients and varied occupations. Yet he
felt himself strong with an audacity and self-reliance which he never
had in the old world. "I am equal to everything," he said, "if they
only give me time to prove it!" Although he had fled from his country
in order not to take up arms, he even led a soldier's life for a
brief period in his adopted land, receiving a wound in one of the many
hostilities between the whites and reds in the unsettled districts.

In Buenos Aires, he again worked as a woodcarver. The city was beginning
to expand, breaking its shell as a large village. Desnoyers spent many
years ornamenting salons and facades. It was a laborious existence,
sedentary and remunerative. But one day he became tired of this slow
saving which could only bring him a mediocre fortune after a long time.
He had gone to the new world to become rich like so many others. And
at twenty-seven, he started forth again, a full-fledged adventurer,
avoiding the cities, wishing to snatch money from untapped, natural
sources. He worked farms in the forests of the North, but the locusts
obliterated his crops in a few hours. He was a cattle-driver, with the
aid of only two peons, driving a herd of oxen and mules over the snowy
solitudes of the Andes to Bolivia and Chile. In this life, making
journeys of many months' duration, across interminable plains, he lost
exact account of time and space. Just as he thought himself on the verge
of winning a fortune, he lost it all by an unfortunate speculation.
And in a moment of failure and despair, being now thirty years old, he
became an employee of Julio Madariaga.

He knew of this rustic millionaire through his purchases of flocks--a
Spaniard who had come to the country when very young, adapting himself
very easily to its customs, and living like a cowboy after he had
acquired enormous properties. The country folk, wishing to put a title
of respect before his name, called him Don Madariaga.

"Comrade," he said to Desnoyers one day when he happened to be in a good
humor--a very rare thing for him--"you must have passed through many ups
and downs. Your lack of silver may be smelled a long ways off. Why lead
such a dog's life? Trust in me, Frenchy, and remain here! I am growing
old, and I need a man."

After the Frenchman had arranged to stay with Madariaga, every landed
proprietor living within fifteen or twenty leagues of the ranch, stopped
the new employee on the road to prophesy all sorts of misfortune.

"You will not stay long. Nobody can get along with Don Madariaga. We
have lost count of his overseers. He is a man who must be killed or
deserted. Soon you will go, too!"

Desnoyers did not doubt but that there was some truth in all this.
Madariaga was an impossible character, but feeling a certain sympathy
with the Frenchman, had tried not to annoy him with his irritability.

"He's a regular pearl, this Frenchy," said the plainsman as though
trying to excuse himself for his considerate treatment of his latest
acquisition. "I like him because he is very serious. . . . That is the
way I like a man."

Desnoyers did not know exactly what this much-admired seriousness could
be, but he felt a secret pride in seeing him aggressive with everybody
else, even his family, whilst he took with him a tone of paternal
bluffness.

The family consisted of his wife Misia Petrona (whom he always called
the China) and two grown daughters who had gone to school in Buenos
Aires, but on returning to the ranch had reverted somewhat to their
original rusticity.

Madariaga's fortune was enormous. He had lived in the field since his
arrival in America, when the white race had not dared to settle outside
the towns for fear of the Indians. He had gained his first money as a
fearless trader, taking merchandise in a cart from fort to fort. He had
killed Indians, was twice wounded by them, and for a while had lived as
a captive with an Indian chief whom he finally succeeded in making his
staunch friend. With his earnings, he had bought land, much land, almost
worthless because of its insecurity, devoting it to the raising of
cattle that he had to defend, gun in hand, from the pirates of the
plains.

Then he had married his China, a young half-breed who was running around
barefoot, but owned many of her forefathers' fields. They had lived in
an almost savage poverty on their property which would have taken many a
day's journey to go around. Afterwards, when the government was pushing
the Indians towards the frontiers, and offering the abandoned lands
for sale, considering it a patriotic sacrifice on the part of any one
wishing to acquire them, Madariaga bought and bought at the lowest
figure and longest terms. To get possession of vast tracts and populate
it with blooded stock became the mission of his life. At times,
galloping with Desnoyers through his boundless fields, he was not able
to repress his pride.

"Tell me something, Frenchy! They say that further up the country, there
are some nations about the size of my ranches. Is that so?" . . .

The Frenchman agreed. . . . The lands of Madariaga were indeed greater
than many principalities. This put the old plainsman in rare good humor
and he exclaimed in the cowboy vernacular which had become second nature
to him--"Then it wouldn't be absurd to proclaim myself king some day?
Just imagine it, Frenchy;--Don Madariaga, the First. . . . The worst of
it all is that I would also be the last, for the China will not give me
a son. . . . She is a weak cow!"

The fame of his vast territories and his wealth in stock reached even to
Buenos Aires. Every one knew of Madariaga by name, although very few had
seen him. When he went to the Capital, he passed unnoticed because of
his country aspect--the same leggings that he was used to wearing in the
fields, his poncho wrapped around him like a muffler above which rose
the aggressive points of a necktie, a tormenting ornament imposed by his
daughters, who in vain arranged it with loving hands that he might look
a little more respectable.

One day he entered the office of the richest merchant of the capital.

"Sir, I know that you need some young bulls for the European market, and
I have come to sell you a few."

The man of affairs looked haughtily at the poor cowboy. He might explain
his errand to one of the employees, he could not waste his time on such
small matters. But the malicious grin on the rustic's face awoke his
curiosity.

"And how many are you able to sell, my good man?"

"About thirty thousand, sir."

It was not necessary to hear more. The supercilious merchant sprang from
his desk, and obsequiously offered him a seat.

"You can be no other than Don Madariaga."

"At the service of God and yourself, sir," he responded in the manner of
a Spanish countryman.

That was the most glorious moment of his existence.

In the outer office of the Directors of the Bank, the clerks offered him
a seat until the personage the other side of the door should deign to
receive him. But scarcely was his name announced than that same director
ran to admit him, and the employee was stupefied to hear the ranchman
say, by way of greeting, "I have come to draw out three hundred thousand
dollars. I have abundant pasturage, and I wish to buy a ranch or two in
order to stock them."

His arbitrary and contradictory character weighed upon the inhabitants
of his lands with both cruel and good-natured tyranny. No vagabond ever
passed by the ranch without being rudely assailed by its owner from the
outset.

"Don't tell me any of your hard-luck stories, friend," he would yell as
if he were going to beat him. "Under the shed is a skinned beast;
cut and eat as much as you wish and so help yourself to continue your
journey. . . . But no more of your yarns!"