. . And is there no one who will punish these monsters?"
They had come up from the cellars and crossed the bridge, the woman
looking fixedly into the silent waters. The dead body of a swan was
floating upon them. Before their departure, while their horses were
being saddled, two officers had amused themselves by chasing with
revolver shots the birds swimming in the moat. The aquatic plants were
spotted with blood; among the leaves were floating some tufts of
limp white plumage like a bit of washing escaped from the hands of a
laundress.
Don Marcelo and the woman exchanged a compassionate glance, and then
looked pityingly at each other as the sunlight brought out more strongly
their aging, wan appearance.
The passing of these people had destroyed everything. There was no food
left in the castle except some crusts of dry bread forgotten in the
kitchen. "And we have to live, Monsieur!" exclaimed the woman with
reviving energy as she thought of her daughter's need. "We have to
live, if only to see how God punishes them!" The old man shrugged his
shoulders in despair; God? . . . But the woman was right; they had to
live.
With the famished audacity of his early youth, when he was travelling
over boundless tracts of land, driving his herds of cattle, he now
rushed outside the park, hunting for some form of sustenance.
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