The mother became very despondent. Julio's visit home but made her feel
his absence with greater intensity. Seeing him, hearing those tales of
death that her husband was so fond of repeating, made her realize all
the more clearly the dangers constantly surrounding her son. Fatality
appeared to be warning her with funereal presentiments.
"They are going to kill him," she kept saying to Desnoyers. "That wound
was a forewarning from heaven."
When passing through the streets, she trembled with emotion at sight of
the invalid soldiers. The convalescents of energetic appearance, filled
her with the greatest pity. They made her think of a certain trip with
her husband to San Sebastian where a bull fight had made her cry out
with indignation and compassion, pitying the fate of the poor, gored
horses. With entrails hanging, they were taken to the corrals, and
submitted to a hurried adjustment in order that they might return to the
arena stimulated by a false energy. Again and again they were reduced to
this makeshift cobbling until finally a fatal goring finished them.
. . . These recently cured men continually brought to her mind those poor
beasts. Some had been wounded three times since the beginning of the
war, and were returning surgically patched together and re-galvanized to
take another chance in the lottery of Fate, always in the expectation of
the supreme blow.
Pages:
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561
562
563
564
565
566
567
568
569
570