" Now
all her wrath was concentrated upon him. The thousands of women that
were weeping through his fault! The mothers without sons, the wives
without husbands, the poor children left in the burning towns! . . .
Ah, the vile wretch! . . . And she would brandish her knife of the old
Peoncito days--a dagger with silver handle and sheath richly chased, a
gift that her grandfather had exhumed from some forgotten souvenirs
of his childhood in an old valise. The very first German that she
came across was doomed to death. Dona Luisa was terrified to find her
flourishing this weapon before her dressing mirror. She was no longer
yearning to be a cavalryman nor a diable bleu. She would be entirely
content if they would leave her, alone in some closed space with the
detested monster. In just five minutes she would settle the universal
conflict.
"Defend yourself, Boche," she would shriek, standing at guard as in her
childhood she had seen the peons doing on the ranch.
And with a knife-thrust above and below, she would pierce his imperial
vitals. Immediately there resounded in her imagination, shouts of joy,
the gigantic sigh of millions of women freed at last from the bloody
nightmare--thanks to her playing the role of Judith or Charlotte Corday,
or a blend of all the heroic women who had killed for the common weal.
Her savage fury made her continue her imaginary slaughter, dagger in
hand.
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