Page:The four horsemen of the Apocalypse - (Los cuatro jinetes de Apocalipsis) (IA cu31924014386738).djvu/298

 The first person that he encountered on his arrival was Chichí. She declared that the town was impossible because of the families of rich Spaniards who were summering there. "The Boches are in the majority, and I pass a miserable existence quarrelling with them.… I shall finally have to live alone." Then he met his mother—embraces and tears. Afterwards he saw his Aunt Elena in the hotel parlors, most enthusiastic over the country and the summer colony.

She could talk at great length with many of them about the decadence of France. They were all expecting to receive the news from one moment to another, that the Kaiser had entered the Capital. Ponderous men who had never done anything in all their lives, were criticizing the defects and indolence of the Republic. Young men whose aristocracy aroused Doña Elena's enthusiasm, broke forth into apostrophes against the Corruption of Paris, corruption that they had studied thoroughly, from sunset to sunrise, in the virtuous schools of Montmartre. They all adored Germany where they had never been, or which they knew only through the reels of the moving picture films. They criticized events as though they were witnessing a bull fight. "The Germans have the snap! You can't fool with them! They are fine brutes!" And they appeared to admire this inhumanity as the most admirable characteristic. "Why will they not say that in their own home on the other side of the frontier?" Chichí would protest. "Why do they come into their neighbor's country to ridicule his troubles?… Possibly they consider it a sign of their wonderful good-breeding!"

But Julio had not gone to Biarritz to live with his family.… The very day of his arrival, he saw Marguerite's mother in the distance. She was alone. His inquiries developed the information that her daughter