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But the daughter's independence was as nothing compared to the worry which the other child gave the Desnoyers. Ay, that other one! . . . Julio, upon arriving in Paris, had changed the bent of his aspirations. He no longer thought of becoming an engineer; he wished to become an artist. Don Marcelo objected in great consternation, but finally yielded. Let it be painting!
Suppose Don Marcelo should ever find it out, what a scene! . . . But the Spaniard deemed it unseemly to return empty-handed, and always bore away a basket of bottles from the well-stocked wine-cellar of the Desnoyers. Every morning Dona Luisa went to Saint-Honore-d'Eylau to pray for her son. She felt that this was her own church.
There only remained in the castle, under the care of a company, those most gravely wounded. The Valkyries of the health department had also disappeared. The red-bearded Shylock was among those left behind, and on seeing Don Marcelo afar off, he smiled and immediately vanished. A few minutes after he returned with full hands. Never before had he been so generous.
"Where are the sharpshooters?" he asked. He was pale with the pallor of wrath, vengeance and fear. His face was trembling under the influence of his triple emotion. Don Marcelo explained slowly, contemplating at a short distance from his eyes the black circle of the threatening tube. He had not seen any sharpshooters.
The gentle and sweet features of his mother were lost under the virile mask. . . . Lacour recognized with pride that he now resembled himself. After greetings had been exchanged, Rene paid more attention to Don Marcelo than to his father, because he reminded him of Chichi. He inquired after her, wishing to know all the details of her life, in spite of their ardent and constant correspondence.
He looked at this man, who was scrutinizing him with his little hard blue eyes that had carved his spare, furrowed countenance with lines. He must be the general. His arrogant and piercing gaze was sweeping him from head to foot. Don Marcelo felt a presentiment that his life was hanging on this examination; should an evil suggestion, a cruel caprice flash across this brain, he was surely lost.
The terrible Don Marcelo embraced them with moist eyes, and the two had to exert themselves to prevent his accompanying them to the station. Outside of his home he was slipping about humbly as though mutely asking pardon of the many people around him. To him they all appeared his superiors.
To think that he could not join that expedition! . . . He believed that he had lost the opportunity to paint his masterpiece. Just outside of his home, he met Tchernoff. Don Marcelo was in high good humor. The certainty that he was soon going to see his son filled him with boyish good spirits.
And his Aunt Elena had stationed herself at the door with a dramatic air, like a stage heroine resolved to plunge a dagger into the tyrant who should dare to cross the threshold. The entire family was accustomed to submit to the rigid authority of Don Marcelo Desnoyers. "Oh, that old man!" exclaimed Julio, referring to his father. "He may live many years yet, but how he weighs upon us all!"
The cannons painted gray, the gun-carriages, the artillery equipment, all that Don Marcelo had seen clean and shining with the enthusiastic friction that man has given to arms from remote epochs even more persistent than that which woman gives to household utensils were now dirty, overlaid with the marks of endless use, with the wreckage of unavoidable neglect.
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