The guide was still exploring the spot bristling with crosses, spelling
out the names, and hesitating before the faded lettering. Rene was doing
the same on the other side of the road. Chichi went on alone, the wind
whirling her black veil around her, and making the little curls escape
from under her mourning hat every time she leaned over to decipher a
name. Her daintily shod feet sunk deep into the ruts, and she had to
gather her skirts about her in order to move more comfortably--revealing
thus at every step evidences of the joy of living, of hidden beauty,
of consummated love following her course through this land of death and
desolation.
In the distance sounded feebly her father's voice:
"Not yet?"
The two elders were growing impatient, anxious to find their son's
resting place as soon as possible.
A half hour thus dragged by without any result--always unfamiliar names,
anonymous crosses or the numbers of other regiments. Don Marcelo was
no longer able to stand. Their passage across the irregularities of the
soft earth had been torment for him. He was beginning to despair. . . .
Ay, they would never find Julio's remains! The parents, too, had been
scrutinizing the plots nearest them, bending sadly before cross after
cross. They stopped before a long, narrow hillock, and read the name.
. . . No, he was not there, either; and they continued desperately along
the painful path of alternate hopes and disappointments.
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