They had died in consequence of acts which
they undertook, knowing well what the punishment would be. They had
brought retribution on themselves without trying to evade it, rarely
taking any precautions. While the terrorists of this war! . . .
With the violence of his imperious character, the old conservative now
swung to the opposite extreme.
"The true anarchists are yet on top," he said with an ironical laugh.
"Those who terrified us formerly, all put together, were but a few
miserable creatures. . . . In a few seconds, these of our day kill more
innocent people than those others did in thirty years."
The gentleness of Tchernoff, his original ideas, his incoherencies
of thought, bounding from reflection to word without any preparation,
finally won Don Marcelo so completely over that he formed the habit
of consulting him about all his doubts. His admiration made him, too,
overlook the source of certain bottles with which Argensola sometimes
treated his neighbor. He was delighted to have Tchernoff consume these
souvenirs of the time when he was living at swords' points with his son.
After sampling the wine from the avenue Victor Hugo, the Russian would
indulge in a visionary loquacity similar to that of the night when he
evoked the fantastic cavalcade of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse.
What his new convert most admired was his facility for making things
clear, and fixing them in the imagination.
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