The Enemies of Women (Los enemigos de la mujer)

An expression of amazement gradually took possession of Martinez' face. He hesitated for a moment, with his eyes fixed on Lubimoff's. No, it was not a jest: the hostile look of this man who had always treated him with amiable indifference, the sharpness of his tone, and a certain trembling of his right hand, indicated that he had expressed his real thoughts, and that behind these thoughts lay enormous depths of hatred against him.

His surprise caused him to talk with timidity. He visited the Duchess because the lady asked him to come and see her every day. He had often felt his assiduity might prove to be a nuisance, but every attempt he had made to break off his visits had been fruitless. He scarcely left her for a few hours but the good lady had him sent for. She was as kind to him as a mother. Suddenly his humble tone vanished. His eyes guessed in those of the man who had stopped him something that he himself had never imagined. The Lieutenant seemed transfigured, as though rising to the same level as the Prince. His eyes shone with the same wild splendor as the other man's; his body stiffened with the tension of a spring about to be released; his nostrils quivered nervously. The little clerk, with his timid bearing, recovered the air of gallant bravery of the fighting man. His voice sounded harsh, as he went on talking.

He would go wherever he was asked, wherever he felt like going, without recognizing the right of any man to interfere in his actions. The Duchess was the only one who could close her door to him. Why did the Prince interfere in that lady's affairs without consulting her first?

"I am related to her," said Michael, inwardly hesitating somewhat at making use of the relationship which he had often preferred to deny.

They both found themselves on the other side of the entry, on the platform above the steps of the Casino, in the open air, opposite the groves of the square and the groups of passersby who were walking about the "Camembert." They were obliged to stand aside, in order not to disturb those who were entering and coming out.

"Besides," continued the Prince, "it is my duty to shield her from gossip. I cannot permit that. Seeing you in there at all hours, they should suppose…"

He almost regretted these words on noticing the double effect that they had on the young man. First he became indignant. Had any one dared gossip about that great lady who had been such a saint in his eyes? But this protest was accompanied by a certain unconscious satisfaction, by childish pride, as though he were flattered, in spite of everything that his name should be connected in absurd conjecture with that of the Duchess. It seemed that Martinez had just been revealed to himself, giving substance and a name to the obscure sentiments that until then, in an embryonic stage, had pulsed unrecognized within him.

The jealous mind of the Prince guessed, with keen penetration, everything that the other man was thinking, and this added fuel to his wrath. What impudence in this little clerk to take up Alicia's defense? What a conceited show he was making of his love for her!

"If any one takes the liberty of talking about the Duchess," said the Lieutenant, "if anybody dares to gossip because she does me the honor of receiving me in her home – the greatest honor in my life! – I will take it on my shoulders to punish whoever invents such a lie, no matter how high up he may be, no matter how powerful he may think himself to be!"

Lubimoff listened impatiently. Now it was Martinez daring to attack him. Those last words had carried a threat for him.

Besides, the Prince felt irritated at his own clumsiness. His imprudent action had served merely to open this young man's eyes, and make him think of the possibilities of many things which he had never yet imagined, and which if he had imagined them, he would have cast aside immediately as foolish. And now no less than the Prince Lubimoff had elected to show this cheap Lieutenant that, in the opinion of gossips, such things were possible.

The tone in which the officer defended Alicia aroused his anger even more. He divined in it great pride, the vanity of a poor fellow who had known love adventures only in books, and who suddenly found himself in supposed relations with a Duchess, as the rival of a Prince. How glorious for an upstart!

"Boy …" said Lubimoff, in a hard voice.

This simple word, which was the term in which waiters were addressed in the hotels, was followed by a haughty look of overwhelming superiority, which seemed to sweep away everything extraordinary which the war had given Martinez: his uniform, his decorations, and his glorious wounds. For the Prince the officer no longer existed: there only remained the poor vagabond of a few years before, wandering from one hemisphere to another in quest of bread. "Boy," he repeated in a tone that brought back all the class distinction and social gradations of dead centuries, so that the man whom he had accosted might realize the enormous separation between him and the man to whom he deigned to give advice —

"Boy, let's come to the point – . And if I were to order you not to return to that house? And if I demand that…?"

He was unable to finish the sentence. His threatening voice, harsh as a cry of command, roused the indignation of the man in uniform. To have faced death for three long years, among thousands of comrades who were now lying in the ground; to have learned to set little store on life, as something proved worthless at every moment on the battlefield; to have stripped himself forever, by dint of frightful adventures and awful wounds, of that fear which the instinct of self-preservation puts in all beings, only to the end that now, in a pleasure resort, at the door of the most luxurious of gambling houses, a man, rich and powerful, but who had never done anything useful in his whole life, should dare to threaten him!..

"You say that to me!" he said, stammering with rage. "You give orders to me!"

Michael felt a hand seize him by the lapel of his coat. It was like a bird, tremulous and aggressive, pausing for an instant in its blind impulse, before flying upward. He was aware of the blow that was coming, and raised his arm instinctively, both hands met as that of the young man whirled close to the face of the Prince. The latter, who was stronger, seized the ascending hand and held it motionless, in a firm grip, while at the same time he smiled in a gruesome fashion. His eyes contracted as his eyebrows arched in the smile. They became again the eyes of an Asiatic. His nostrils dilated as he breathed like a stallion. The remote ancestors of the Princess Lubimoff must have smiled thus in their moments of anger.

"Enough: I consider that I have received it," he said slowly, "Name two friends to confer with mine!"

And freeing that hand of Martinez, he turned his back on him, after making a deep bow. The movements of both men had been rapid. Only one of the doorkeepers, with his official cap, standing guard on the platform above the steps, had guessed that anything had happened; but his professional experience advised him to remain passive as long as there were no blows. He imagined that it was merely a dispute over some gambling affair. It would all be settled by an explanation, and forgotten after a winning! He had seen so many such things!

Prince Lubimoff reënters the Casino. He crosses the vestibule and the anteroom holding his head high, but without seeing any one, gazing straight ahead, with a faraway expression.

It seems to him that time has suddenly been reversed, causing him to return to the past with one bound. He is back in his youth. He walks arrogantly. He is surprised that the sound of his firm tread is not accompanied by the tinkling of spurs and the metallic scraping of a saber. At the same time he begins to see imaginary faces, faces of those who disappeared from the earth many years ago: the Cossack who had come from a distant garrison in Siberia to avenge his sister; a friend in the same regiment as the Prince, who died from a sword thrust in his breast after a tumultuous supper, while Lubimoff wept, suddenly awakening from his homicidal intoxication; the faces of others who had been present as mere witnesses, but who had died and were now resurrected in his memory, cold and insensible to remorse and vain regrets.

"The Colonel. Where in the devil is the Colonel!"

He crosses the gambling room, in quest of a gray head, with a straight part from the forehead to the back of the neck, dividing the glistening hair into two shining sections. He sees it finally rising above the back of a divan, between two women's hats, four eyes darkly bordered as though in mourning, and cheeks with wrinkles filled with white and rose-colored enamel. A terse sentence of the Prince interrupts the explanations of the war news with which the Colonel had been thrilling the two ladies.

"Colonel, an affair of honor. I intend to fight to-morrow. Look for another second."

Toledo seems disconcerted by this order. His first thought flies to Villa Sirena. He sees his black frock coat, the solemn vestment of honor ready to leave its prison. Then a cloud of doubt obscures this joyous thought. A duel! Would it be fitting now that men are fighting in masses of millions, giving their lives for something higher and more important than personal hatred? His training immediately smothers this scruple. "A gentleman should always be at the orders of another gentleman." Besides, it is his Prince. And ready to fulfill his mission, he asks the name of the adversary.

"Lieutenant Martinez."

Don Marcos thinks he had heard wrong; then he seems to totter and stands there looking at his "Highness" in a sort of stupor. Instinctively, without taking the pains to disentangle the confused thoughts that assail him, he sees in his imagination the Duchess de Delille. Why did the Prince ever give up his wise theories on the woman question! He recalls, like a happy past, the flourishing days of the "enemies of women"! Only four months had gone by, and it seems as though they were centuries. A duel right in war time – and with an officer! And that officer is Martinez, his hero!

He shrugs his shoulders, bows his head, and makes a gesture denying all responsibility as he always does when his Prince, with a hard look on his face which reminds Toledo of the dead Princess in her stormy days, gives absurd orders.

"Shall I look for Don Atilio? He has had several affairs of honor; he knows what it means, and may be able to help me."

The Prince is willing. In the bar of the private gambling rooms, he will wait for them both to talk over the conditions of the encounter.

He remains motionless in a deep armchair, opposite a window gilded by the light of the setting sun, on which the threads of shadows, projected by the moving branches of the trees, weave and unweave. Suddenly it seems to him that he is obliged to wait an unreasonable length of time. It occurs to him that Castro is not in the Casino and that Don Marcos is looking for him in vain. He scarcely remembers the past at all. The officer's figure is sunk into a gray mist which falls across his memory: it is no longer anything save a vague outline. The one thing that he can see, in sharp relief and as though looming close to his eyes, is a hand: a hand which is gripping his breast and rising toward his face, that no man ever yet had slapped. His indignation causes him to come out of his deep fit of distraction. To do that to him! Trying to slap Prince Lubimoff!

When he raises his eyes he sees Toledo approaching, but alone, with a certain embarrassment, fearing in advance the anger of the Prince. The latter, who feels kindly and tolerant since the scene of violence on the stairway, guesses what he is going to say to him. He has not found Castro and he absolves him with a benevolent smile.

The Colonel speaks:

"Marquis: Don Atilio refuses."

"What!" And at the questioning glance of Lubimoff, who cannot understand, and who does not want to understand what he hears, Toledo repeats, growing more and more embarrassed.

"He refuses to be your representative. He told me to find some one else. He has some ideas of his own that…"

And he hesitates to express these ideas. He stops, in order not to say anything which the Prince ought not to hear from his lips: and he accepts as a blessing the silence of amazement which comes between them; he is afraid to let the Prince recover from the astonishment with which this news has overwhelmed him.

As he starts to go away, he proposes something which seems to him a way out.

"Does your Highness want me to call Don Atilio? He will surely come. Perhaps the two of you talking together…"

And he goes away in search of Castro, while Michael Fedor once more becomes motionless in his seat, quite unable to comprehend the situation.

* * * * * * *

The Prince saw Castro standing by the little table close to his chair, with a certain appearance of haste in his look and bearing, like a man who is facing a difficult situation, and anxious to get out of it as soon as possible.

The Prince invited him to take the nearest seat, but Castro consented only to sit down lightly on the arm of the chair, to indicate his desire that the interview be brief. Besides, he spoke first, bluntly expressing his thoughts, without any preamble.

"The Colonel has doubtless told you my reply. I can't. You know very well that I am your friend: you even do me the honor of recognizing me as a relative; I owe you a great deal; but what you ask me now … no! It is a piece of foolishness, madness. It all had to end like this! There was no other way out of it. I had a presentiment of it some time ago. Perhaps you were right when you talked about women as you did, and about the necessity of being their enemies – if such a thing is possible. But it doesn't do any good to bring up the past: You are no longer the Lubimoff who said those incoherent things. As for me I am mad, I'll grant you that: but you are even more so than I: and for that reason I can't be with you."

Michael looked at him fixedly, without abandoning his silent immobility, waiting for him to go on.

"A duel right in war time! Is there any common sense to that? You are the gentleman who remains quietly in his home, with all the comforts that the present time can allow, without running any risk whatsoever, while half of humanity is weeping, starving, bleeding, or dying. And just because one fine day you happen to be in an ill-humor – perhaps you know why – you want to fight a poor boy who has survived almost by a miracle, and who is sick and weak from having done what you and I are not capable of doing. You ask me to represent you in such a piece of business?"

"He insulted me – he tried to strike me. I caught his hand close to my face," said the Prince in a low but rancorous voice from the depths of his chair.

This caused Castro to hesitate for a moment, as he had no idea of the importance of the clash between the two men. But his hesitation was brief.

"There is something that I don't understand and that you are keeping silent. The very seriousness of the insult indicates that there was something extraordinary on your part. For that poor, respectful, and timid boy to dare to strike, and strike a man like you!.. What did you do to rouse him to such a pitch?"

Lubimoff did not deign to reply. Without abandoning his frowning reserve he asked briefly:

"Well, are you going to, or are you not?"

Castro, irritated by this attitude, replied without hesitating:

"It's all nonsense, and I refuse."

Lubimoff still remained motionless at this refusal, but Atilio was sure he guessed the Prince's thoughts in the hostile look fixed on him. He was accusing him of ingratitude. At the same time he was holding the "General" responsible: believing that the latter must have influenced his decision. That Lieutenant was so greatly admired by Doña Clorinda!

As though replying to these unexpressed ideas, Atilio went on:

"Do you think I am interested in that boy you are bent on fighting? He is quite indifferent to me; I even dislike him, because of the great extremes to which certain women go in their admiration of his heroism. That is always annoying to those who are not heroes. I think how insignificant he must have been only four years ago. If I had met him then, I would have found him, I dare say, a book-keeper in some hotel, or a clerk in my haberdasher's in Paris. Imagine what a friend! But the war has swept over us, turning everything upside down, making some emerge, and burying others in the deepest depths, without any certainty of rising again. This boy happens to be somebody now. He is of more consequence than you or I. He has been of some use; and for me he is sacred, in spite of the fact that he inspires envy in me rather than admiration."

The Prince finally made a gesture of protest. Then he shrugged his shoulders disdainfully, and sank once more into motionless silence. That little adventurer worth more than he, because they had punctured his skin in a fight or two!

"We would never come to an understanding, even if we talked all the afternoon," continued Castro. "I have changed considerably, and you are the same man you have always been. I believe that yesterday I came to my 'road to Damascus.' I feel to-day that I am a different man."

And, through a certain need of expressing his great inner turmoil, he went on talking, without paying any attention to whether or not the Prince was listening to him.

He had come to his "road of Damascus" near the Monte Carlo railway station, beside the tracks. He was with two ladies, in one of whom he was greatly interested. (Michael thought once more of Doña Clorinda.) A trainload of soldiers was returning from Italy; a somber train, without flags and without any branches of trees adorning the doors and windows. They were Frenchmen. They had been sent to Italy as reënforcements, after the disaster of Caporetto, and now they were being hurriedly recalled, to defend their own soil, which was again in danger.

"No songs and no wild merriment; they were all silent, tired and dirty, with an epic dirtiness. The cars were more like wild beasts' cages, with their pungent odors of the animal ring. The soldiers were young men but they looked old, with their bristling beards, spotted uniforms, and faces parched by the sun, hardened by the cold, and cracked and chapped by the wind. The heat had caused them to remove their blouses, and they were in flannel shirts of an undefinable color, drenched with the sweat of so many fatigues and so many emotions.

"One could guess that they were the battalion always predestined to arrive in time to sustain the hardest shocks; the one that punctually appeared in the places of greatest danger, with the heroic resignation of the strong, who allow themselves to be exploited, and who not only do their own work, but help out all the others who work less. Where had these men not fought? On their own soil, and on that of the Allies, and perhaps in the Orient, and now, they were returning again to the land of their first combats. Just when they were thinking they had accomplished everything, they had discovered they had as yet done nothing. In the weaving and unweaving of the web of war, it was necessary to begin all over again. Four years before, they imagined they had triumphed decisively on the banks of the Marne, and now they were returning once more to the Marne. Every winter, sunk in the mud, buried in the trenches, under the rain, they said to one another: 'This will be the last.' And another winter came, and another, and still another on the heels of the last, without any noticeable change. This was the reason for their fatalistic and resigned demeanor, the look of men who adapt themselves to everything and finally come to believe that their misery will be eternal, that human times of peace will never return."

Castro stopped talking a moment and paid no attention to the face of his friend, which seemed to be asking what all that story had to do with him. "We were standing on the edge of an embankment, leaning on the barriers, and our heads were on a level with the men huddled in the carriages. The long train, the head of which had already reached the station, was slowly advancing. The two ladies were waving their handkerchiefs, smiling at the soldiers, and calling words of greeting to them. Many of the latter remained unmoved, looking at them with eyes of sleepy wild beasts. They had been greeted with ovations for four years. They knew realities, the terrible realities that lie beyond ovations! Others, young or more ardent, aroused themselves at the sight of these two elegant women. Electrified by their smiles, they stood erect, passing a hand over their wrinkled flannels, and threw kisses, trying to recover their gentleness of the days when they were not soldiers. Suddenly, one of those who were passing, forgot the women and noticed me, also waving my hat to them, and shouting hurrah. He was a sort of red-haired, bitter devil."

Castro could still see him, as though his head were peering through one of the bar-room windows; perhaps he would be able to see, as long as he lived, the whitish parchment of the man's face, drawn across his prominent cheek-bones; his red beard hanging from his jaws, as though it were a piece of make-up, and above all, his insolent, sarcastic eyes, a muddy green color, like that of oysters. He was the soldier who criticizes, grumbles, and talks against the officers, while carrying out their orders. In civil life he must have been the disagreeable rebel who never approves of anything. As his eyes met those of Castro, the latter had a feeling of repulsion. He divined the man with whom one always clashes in the street, in the cars, and in the theater. And nevertheless, he would never forget his momentary meeting with that soldier who was passing and was disappearing in the distance, with only just enough time to say six words.

He gave the two women a scornful, ironic smile – then another at Castro, who was still waving his hat, and pointed to the end of the carriage, shouting to him:

"There's still room for one more!"

And that was all he said.

"He said enough, Michael. Since then I keep hearing his harsh voice: I shall always hear it, in my happiest moments, if I remain here. And the look in his eyes? I understood all the mute insults, the rapid comparisons that he made between his misery and my strong, well-groomed appearance. For him I was a coward gallivanting with women, when men are with men, giving their lives for something of importance."

"Bah! You are a foreigner," interrupted the Prince, who seemed wearied by his friend's words.

"I live here; and the land where I live cannot be foreign to me. This war is for something more than questions of land; it concerns all men. Look at the Americans, whom we all considered very practical and incapable of idealism; they know that they are not going to gain anything positive; and nevertheless they are entering the struggle with all their might. Besides, there is the spirit of the women. Would you imagine that the two that were with me laughed at the red-headed fellow's insult, considering it very apropos? And don't tell me that women are always attracted by the warrior, on every occasion. Perhaps by the warrior in peace times, shiny and beplumed. But these fellows now look so miserable! No; there is something very lofty in everything that surrounds us, something that you and I have not been able to see, because of our selfishness."

His listener once more shrugged his shoulders with a gesture of indifference.

"And when I think of my meeting yesterday, as I constantly am doing, and see the place that that damned redhead offered me jokingly, as though I were a woman, and as though I would never have the courage to take it, you propose that I arrange for a deadly combat with another of these men who consider themselves, not without reason, superior to us! No; now you know my answer: I won't accept."

He had left the arm of the chair and was standing, facing the Prince. The latter made a gesture of weariness. He was bored by Atilio's words, by that childlike story about the train, the red-haired soldier and his insolent invitation. That might move Doña Clorinda, but nobody else; he had more important things to think about just then. And since he refused to do him the favor, he could leave him alone.

"Good-by, Michael!" said Castro, with the conviction that this farewell was going to be something more than a momentary parting.