Page:The four horsemen of the Apocalypse - (Los cuatro jinetes de Apocalipsis) (IA cu31924014386738).djvu/414

 just as God was miraculously granting her supplication Julio had taken himself off to the field of death.

Her entreaties never went alone to the throne of grace. Someone was praying near her, formulating identical requests. The tearful eyes of her sister were raised at the same time as hers to the figure of the crucified Savior.… "Lord, save my son!" … When uttering these words. Doña Luisa always saw Julio as he looked in a pale photograph which he had sent his father from the trenches—with kepis and military cloak, a gun in his right hand, and his face shadowed by a growing beard. "O Lord have mercy upon us!" … and Doña Elena was at the same time contemplating a group of officers with helmets and reseda uniforms reinforced with leather pouches for the revolver, field glasses and maps, with sword-belt of the same material.

Oftentimes when Don Marcelo saw them setting forth together toward Saint Honoré d'Eylau, he would wax very indignant.

"They are juggling with God.… This is most unreasonable! How could He grant such contrary petitions? … Ah, these women!"

And then, with that superstition which danger awakens, he began to fear that his sister-in-law might cause some grave disaster to his son. Divinity, fatigued with so many contradictory prayers was going to turn His back and not listen to any of them. Why did not this fatal woman take herself off?…

He felt as exasperated at her presence in his home as he had at the beginning of hostilities. Doña Luisa was still innocently repeating her sister's statements, submitting them to the superior criticism of her husband. In this way, Don Marcelo had learned that the victory of the Marne had never really happened; it was an invention of the allies. The German generals had deemed it