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"You know," continued Argensola, "that in quarrelling with Wagner about the excess of Germanism in his art, Nietzsche proclaimed the necessity of mediterraneanizing music. His ideal was a culture for all Europe, but with a Latin base." Julius von Hartrott replied most disdainfully to this, repeating the Spaniard's very words. Men who thought much said many things.
And Argensola, like a dog who gets up and shakes himself, would disappear to continue his reading in some miserable little coffee house in the neighborhood. In his official capacity, this widely gifted man often descended from the peaks of intellectuality to the vulgarities of everyday life.
Argensola, who already knew the ideas and history of the Russian, started with astonishment, and Julio persisted in his suspicion, "Surely Tchernoff is drunk." "It is true," declared the Russian earnestly, "that I do not worry about God, nor do I believe in dogmas, but my soul is Christian as is that of all revolutionists. The philosophy of modern democracy is lay Christianity.
And he actually had to make an effort to recall the dignity of his years, in order not to ask Argensola to present him to the fair fugitives whose presence he suspected in the interior rooms. Perhaps they had been his boy's friends, too. They represented a part of his past, anyway, and that was enough to make him presume that they had great charms which made them interesting.
Then the special train for the passengers from South America had brought him to Paris, leaving him at four in the morning on a platform of the Gare du Nord in the embrace of Pepe Argensola, the young Spaniard whom he sometimes called "my secretary" or "my valet" because it was difficult to define exactly the relationship between them.
The women, groaning with weariness, were standing in the corridors, looking with ferocious envy at those who had seats. The children were bleating like hungry kids. Julio finally gave up his place, sharing with the needy and improvident the bountiful supply of eatables with which Argensola had provided him. The station restaurants had all been emptied of food.
Sunday strolls in the suburbs of Paris, various trips to the moving picture shows, comments upon the fine points of the latest novel published in the sheets of a popular paper, kisses of farewell when she took the night train from Bois Colombes in order to sleep at home that was all. But Argensola was wickedly counting on Father Time to mellow the sharpest virtues.
Argensola had found a new occupation even more exciting than marking out on the map the manoeuvres of the armies. "I am now devoting myself to the taube," he announced. "It appears from four to five with the precision a punctilious guest coming to take tea." Every afternoon at the appointed hour, a German aeroplane was flying over Paris dropping bombs.
As night approached, cars and cabs were running with increasing irregularity, many of the employees having abandoned their posts to take leave of their families and make the train. All the life of Paris was concentrating itself in a half-dozen human rivers emptying in the stations. Desnoyers and Argensola met in a boulevard cafe toward midnight.
No, he was far better off there . . . and "there" was always the studio of Julio. Argensola began to form the habit of working in the presence of Don Marcelo. He knew that the resolute soul abominated inactive people, so, under the contagious influence of dominant will-power, he began several new pieces.
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