The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

“My best friend,” said the Count in tremulous tones. “The being that I love most in all the world. . . . And to think that at this moment he may be fighting, and they may kill him! . . . To think that I, too, may die!”

Desnoyers believed that he must be getting a glimpse into a romance of the nobleman’s past. That Hussar was undoubtedly his natural son. His simplicity of mind could not conceive of anything else. Only a father’s tenderness could so express itself . . . and he was almost touched by this tenderness.

Here the interview came to an end, the warrior turning his back as he left the room in order to hide his emotion. A few minutes after was heard on the floor below the sound of a grand piano which the Commissary had not been able to carry off, owing to the general’s interposition. His voice was soon heard above the chords that he was playing. It was rather a lifeless baritone, but he managed to impart an impassioned tremolo to his romance. The listening old man was now really affected; he did not understand the words, but the tears came into his eyes. He thought of his family, of the sorrows and dangers about them and of the difficulties surrounding his return to them. . . . As though under the spell of the melody, little by little, he descended the stairs. What an artist’s soul that haughty scoffer had! . . . At first sight, the Germans with their rough exterior and their discipline which made them commit the greatest atrocities, gave one a wrong impression. One had to live intimately with them to appreciate their true worth.

By the time the music had ceased, he had reached the castle bridge. A sub-officer was watching the graceful movements of the swans gliding double over the waters of the moat. He was a young Doctor of Laws who just now was serving as secretary to His Excellency—a university man mobilized by the war.

On speaking with Don Marcelo, he immediately revealed his academic training. The order for departure had surprised the professor in a private institute; he was just about to be married and all his plans had been upset.

“What a calamity, sir! . . . What an overturning for the world! . . . Yet many of us have foreseen that this catastrophe simply had to come. We have felt strongly that it might break out any day. Capital, accursed Capital is to blame.”

The speaker was a Socialist. He did not hesitate to admit his co-operation in certain acts of his party that had brought persecutions and set-backs to his career. But the Social-Democracy was now being accepted by the Emperor and flattered by the most reactionary Junkers. All were now one. The deputies of his party were forming in the Reichstag the group most obedient to the government. . . . The only belief that it retained from its former creed, was its anathematization of Capital—responsible for the war.

Desnoyers ventured to disagree with this enemy who appeared of an amiable and tolerant character. “Did he not think that the real responsibility rested with German militarism? Had it not sought and prepared this conflict, by its arrogance preventing any settlement?”

The Socialist denied this roundly. His deputies were supporting the war and, therefore, must have good reason. Everything that he said showed an absolute submission to discipline—the eternal German discipline, blind and obedient, which was dominating even the most advanced parties. In vain the Frenchman repeated arguments and facts which everybody had read from the beginning of the war. His words simply slid over the calloused brains of this revolutionist, accustomed to delegating all his reasoning functions to others.

“Who can tell?” he finally said. “Perhaps we have made a mistake. But just at this moment all is confused; the premises which would enable us to draw exact conclusions are lacking. When the conflict ends, we shall know the truly guilty parties, and if they are ours we shall throw the responsibility upon them.”

Desnoyers could hardly keep from laughing at his simplicity. To wait till the end of the war to know who was to blame! . . . And if the Empire should come out conqueror, what responsibility could the Socialists exact in the full pride of victory, they who always confined themselves to electoral battles, without the slightest attempt at rebellion?

“Whatever the cause may be,” concluded the Socialist, “this war is very sad. How many dead! . . . I was at Charleroi. One has to see modern warfare close by. . . . We shall conquer; we are going to enter Paris, so they say, but many of our men must fall before obtaining the final victory.”

And as though wishing to put these visions of death out of his mind, he resumed his diversion of watching the swans, offering them bits of bread so as to make them swing around in their slow and majestic course.

The Keeper and his family were continually crossing and recrossing the bridge. Seeing their master on such friendly terms with the invaders, they had lost some of the fear which had kept them shut up in their cottage. To the woman it seemed but natural that Don Marcelo’s authority should be recognized by these people; the master is always the master. And as though she had received a part of this authority, she was entering the castle fearlessly, followed by her daughter, in order to put in order her master’s sleeping room. They had decided to pass the night in rooms near his, that he might not feel so lonely among the Germans.

The two women were carrying bedding and mattresses from the lodge to the top floor. The Keeper was occupied in heating a second bath for His Excellency while his wife was bemoaning with gestures of despair the sacking of the castle. How many exquisite things had disappeared! . . . Desirous of saving the remainder, she besought her master to make complaints, as though he could prevent the individual and stealthy robberies. The orderlies and followers of the Count were pocketing everything they could lay their hands on, saying smilingly that they were souvenirs. Later on the woman approached Desnoyers with a mysterious air to impart a new revelation. She had seen a head officer force open the chiffoniers where her mistress was accustomed to keep her lingerie, and he was making up a package of the finest pieces, including a great quantity of blonde lace.

“That’s the one, Master,” she said soon after, pointing to a German who was writing in the garden, where an oblique ray of sunlight was filtering through the branches upon his table.

Don Marcelo recognized him with surprise. Commandant Blumhardt, too! . . . But immediately he excused the act. He supposed it was only natural that this official should want to take something away from the castle, since the Count had set the example. Besides, he took into account the quality of the objects which he was appropriating. They were not for himself; they were for the wife, for the daughters. . . . A good father of his family! For more than an hour now, he had been sitting before that table writing incessantly, conversing, pen in hand, with his Augusta and all the family in Cassel. Better that this good man should carry off his stuff than those other domineering officers with cutting voices and insolent stiffness.

Desnoyers noticed, too, that the writer raised his head every time that Georgette, the Warden’s daughter, passed by, following her with his eyes. The poor father! . . . Undoubtedly he was comparing her with his two girls home in Germany, with all their thoughts on the war. He, too, was thinking of Chichi, fearing sometimes, that he might never see her again. In one of her trips from the castle to her home, Blumhardt called the child to him. She stopped before the table, timid and shrinking as though she felt a presentiment of danger, but making an effort to smile. The Prussian father meanwhile chatted with her, and patted her cheeks with his great paws—a sight which touched Desnoyers deeply. The memories of a pacific and virtuous life were rising above the horrors of war. Decidedly this one enemy was a good man, anyway.

Because of his conclusion, the millionaire smiled indulgently when the Commandant, leaving the table, came toward him—after delivering his letter and a bulky package to a soldier to take to the battalion post-office in the village.

“It is for my family,” he explained. “I do not let a day pass without sending them a letter. Theirs are so precious to me! . . . I am also sending them a few remembrances.”

Desnoyers was on the point of protesting. . . . But with a shrug of indifference, he concluded to keep silence as if he did not object. The Commandant continued talking of the sweet Augusta and their children while the invisible tempest kept on thundering beyond the serene twilight horizon. Each time the cannonading was more intense.

“The battle,” continued Blumhardt. “Always a battle! . . . Surely it is the last and we are going to win. Within the week, we shall be entering Paris. . . . But how many will never see it! So many dead! . . . I understand that to-morrow we shall not be here. All the Reserves are to combine with the attack so as to overcome the last resistance. . . . If only I do not fall!” . . .

Thoughts of the possibility of death the following day contracted his forehead in a scowl of hatred. A deep, vertical line was parting his eyebrows. He frowned ferociously at Desnoyers as though making him responsible for his death and the trouble of his family. For a few moments Don Marcelo could hardly recognize this man, transformed by warlike passions, as the sweet-natured and friendly Blumhardt of a little while before.

The sun was beginning to set when a sub-officer, the one of the Social-Democracy, came running in search of the Commandant. Desnoyers could not understand what was the matter because they were speaking in German, but following the direction of the messenger’s continual pointing, he saw beyond the iron gates a group of country people and some soldiers with guns. Blumhardt, after a brief reflection, started toward the group and Don Marcelo behind him.

Soon he saw a village lad in the charge of some Germans who were holding their bayonets to his breast. His face was colorless, with the whiteness of a wax candle. His shirt, blackened with soot, was so badly torn that it told of a hand-to-hand struggle. On one temple was a gash, bleeding badly. A short distance away was a woman with dishevelled hair, holding a baby, and surrounded by four children all covered with black grime as though coming from a coal mine.

The woman was pleading desperately, raising her hands appealingly, her sobs interrupting her story which she was uselessly trying to tell the soldiers, incapable of understanding her. The petty officer convoying the band spoke in German with the Commandant while the woman besought the intervention of Desnoyers. When she recognized the owner of the castle, she suddenly regained her serenity, believing that he could intercede for her.

That husky young boy was her son. They had all been hiding since the day before in the cellar of their burned house. Hunger and the danger of death from asphyxiation had forced them finally to venture forth. As soon as the Germans had seen her son, they had beaten him and were going to shoot him as they were shooting all the young men. They believed that the lad was twenty years old, the age of a soldier, and in order that he might not join the French army, they were going to kill him.

“It’s a lie!” shrieked the mother. “He is not more than eighteen . . . not eighteen . . . a little less—he’s only seventeen.”

She turned to those who were following behind, in order to implore their testimony—sad women, equally dirty, their ragged garments smelling of fire, poverty and death. All assented, adding their outcries to those of the mother. Some even went so far as to say that the overgrown boy was only sixteen . . . fifteen! And to this feminine chorus was added the wailing of the little ones looking at their brother with eyes distended with terror.

The Commandant examined the prisoner while he listened to the official. An employee of the township had said carelessly that the child was about twenty, never dreaming that with this inaccuracy he was causing his death.

“It was a lie!” repeated the mother guessing instinctively what they were saying. “That man made a mistake. My boy is robust and, therefore, looks older than he is, but he is not twenty. . . . The gentleman from the castle who knows him can tell you so. Is it not so, Monsieur Desnoyers?”

Since, in her maternal desperation, she had appealed to his protection, Don Marcelo believed that he ought to intervene, and so he spoke to the Commandant. He knew this youth very well (he did not ever remember having seen him before) and believed that he really was under twenty.

“And even if he were of age,” he added, “is that a crime to shoot a man for?”

Blumhardt did not reply. Since he had recovered his functions of command, he ignored absolutely Don Marcelo’s existence. He was about to say something, to give an order, but hesitated. It might be better to consult His Excellency . . . and seeing that he was going toward the castle, Desnoyers marched by his side.

“Commandant, this cannot be,” he commenced saying. “This lacks common sense. To shoot a man on the suspicion that he may be twenty years old!”

But the Commandant remained silent and continued on his way. As they crossed the bridge, they heard the sound of the piano—a good omen, Desnoyers thought. The aesthete who had so touched him with his impassioned voice, was going to say the saving word.

On entering the salon, he did not at first recognize His Excellency. He saw a man sitting at the piano wearing no clothing but a Japanese dressing gown—a woman’s rose-colored kimono, embroidered with golden birds, belonging to Chichi. At any other time, he would have burst into roars of laughter at beholding this scrawny, bony warrior with the cruel eyes, with his brawny braceleted arms appearing through the loose sleeves. After taking his bath, the Count had delayed putting on his uniform, luxuriating in the silky contact of the feminine tunic so like his Oriental garments in Berlin. Blumhardt did not betray the slightest astonishment at the aspect of his general. In the customary attitude of military erectness, he spoke in his own language while the Count listened with a bored air, meanwhile passing his fingers idly over the keys.

A shaft of sunlight from a nearby window was enveloping the piano and musician in a halo of gold. Through the window, too, was wafting the poetry of the sunset—the rustling of the leaves, the hushed song of the birds and the hum of the insects whose transparent wings were glowing like sparks in the last rays of the sun. The General, annoyed that his dreaming melancholy should be interrupted by this inopportune visit, cut short the Commandant’s story with a gesture of command and a word . . . one word only. He said no more. He took two puffs from a Turkish cigarette that was slowly scorching the wood of the piano, and again ran his hands over the ivory keys, catching up the broken threads of the vague and tender improvisation inspired by the gloaming.

“Thanks, Your Excellency,” said the gratified Desnoyers, surmising his magnanimous response.

The Commandant had disappeared, nor could the Frenchman find him outside the castle. A soldier was pacing up and down near the iron gates in order to transmit commands, and the guards were pushing back with blows from their guns, a screaming group of women and tiny children. The entrance was entirely cleared! undoubtedly the crowds were returning to the village after the General’s pardon. . . . Desnoyers was half way down the avenue when he heard a howling sound composed of many voices, a hair-raising shriek such as only womanly desperation can send forth. At the same time, the air was vibrating with snaps, the loud cracking sound that he knew from the day before. Shots! . . . He imagined that on the other side of the iron railing there were some writhing bodies struggling to escape from powerful arms, and others fleeing with bounds of fear. He saw running toward him a horror-stricken, sobbing woman with her hands to her head. It was the wife of the Keeper who a little while before had joined the desperate group of women.

“Oh, don’t go on, Master,” she called stopping his hurried step. “They have killed him. . . . They have just shot him.”

Don Marcelo stood rooted to the ground. Shot! . . . and after the General’s pardon! . . . Suddenly he ran back to the castle, hardly knowing what he was doing, and soon reached the salon. His Excellency was still at the piano humming in low tones, his eyes moistened by the poesy of his dreams. But the breathless old gentleman did not stop to listen.

“They have shot him, Your Excellency. . . . They have just killed him in spite of your order.”

The smile which crossed the Count’s face immediately informed him of his mistake.

“That is war, my dear sir,” said the player, pausing for a moment. “War with its cruel necessities. . . . It is always expedient to destroy the enemy of to-morrow.”

And with a pedantic air as though he were giving a lesson, he discoursed about the Orientals, great masters of the art of living. One of the personages most admired by him was a certain Sultan of the Turkish conquest who, with his own hands, had strangled the sons of the adversary. “Our foes do not come into the world on horseback and brandishing the lance,” said that hero. “All are born as children, and it is advisable to wipe them from the face of the earth before they grow up.”

Desnoyers listened without taking it in. One thought only was occupying his mind. . . . That man that he had supposed just, that sentimentalist so affected by his own singing, had, between two arpeggios, coldly given the order for death! . . .

The Count made a gesture of impatience. He might retire now, and he counselled him to be more discreet in the future, avoiding mixing himself up in the affairs of the service. Then he turned his back, running his hands over the piano, and giving himself up to harmonious melancholy.

For Don Marcelo there now began an absurd life of the most extraordinary events, an experience which was going to last four days. In his life history, this period represented a long parenthesis of stupefaction, slashed by the most horrible visions.

Not wishing to meet these men again, he abandoned his own bedroom, taking refuge on the top floor in the servants’ quarters, near the room selected by the Warden and his family. In vain the good woman kept offering him things to eat as the night came on—he had no appetite. He lay stretched out on the bed, preferring to be alone with his thoughts in the dark. When would this martyrdom ever come to an end? . . .

There came into his mind the recollection of a trip which he had made to London some years ago. In his imagination he again saw the British Museum and certain Assyrian bas-reliefs—relics of bestial humanity, which had filled him with terror. The warriors were represented as burning the towns; the prisoners were beheaded in heaps; the pacific countrymen were marching in lines with chains on their necks, forming strings of slaves. Until that moment he had never realized the advance which civilization had made through the centuries. Wars were still breaking out now and then, but they had been regulated by the march of progress. The life of the prisoner was now held sacred; the captured towns must be respected; there existed a complete code of international law to regulate how men should be killed and nations should combat, causing the least possible harm. . . . But now he had just seen the primitive realities of war. The same as that of thousands of years ago! The men with the helmets were proceeding in exactly the same way as those ferocious and perfumed satraps with blue mitre and curled beard. The adversary was shot although not carrying arms; the prisoner died of shot or blow from the gun; the civilian captives were sent in crowds to Germany like those of other centuries. Of what avail was all our so-called Progress? Where was our boasted civilization? . . .

He was awakened by the light of a candle in his eyes. The Warden’s wife had come up again to see if he needed anything.

“Oh, what a night, Master! Just hear them yelling and singing! The bottles that they have emptied! . . . They are in the dining room. You better not see them. Now they are amusing themselves by breaking the furniture. Even the Count is drunk; drunk, too, is that Commandant that you were talking with, and all the rest. . . . Some of them are dancing half-naked.”

She evidently wished to keep quiet about certain details, but her love of talking got the better of her discretion. Some of the officers had dressed themselves up in the hats and gowns of her mistress and were dancing and shouting, imitating feminine seductiveness and affectations. . . . One of them had been greeted with roars of enthusiasm upon presenting himself with no other clothing than a “combination” of Mademoiselle Chichi’s. Many were taking obscene delight in soiling the rugs and filling the sideboard drawers with indescribable filth, using the finest linens that they could lay their hands on.

Her master silenced her peremptorily. Why tell him such vile, disgusting things? . . .

“And we are obliged to wait on them!” wailed the woman. “They are beside themselves; they appear like different beings. The soldiers are saying that they are going to resume their march at daybreak. There is a great battle on, and they are going to win it; but it is necessary that everyone of them should fight in it. . . . My poor, sick husband just can’t stand it any longer. So many humiliations . . . and my little girl . . . . My little girl!”

The child was her greatest anxiety. She had her well hidden away, but she was watching uneasily the goings and comings of some of these men maddened with alcohol. The most terrible of them all was that fat officer who had patted Georgette so paternally.

Apprehension for her daughter’s safety made her hurry restlessly away, saying over and over:

“God has forgotten the world. . . . Ay, what is ever going to become of us!”

Don Marcelo was now tinglingly awake. Through the open window was blowing the clear night air. The cannonading was still going on, prolonging the conflict way into the night. Below the castle the soldiers were intoning a slow and melodious chant that sounded like a psalm. From the interior of the edifice rose the whoopings of brutal laughter, the crash of breaking furniture, and the mad chase of dissolute pursuit. When would this diabolical orgy ever wear itself down? . . . For a long time he was not at all sleepy, but was gradually losing consciousness of what was going on around him when he was roused with a start. Near him, on the same floor, a door had fallen with a crash, unable to resist a succession of formidable batterings. This was followed immediately by the screams of a woman, weeping, desperate supplications, the noise of a struggle, reeling steps, and the thud of bodies against the wall. He had a presentiment that it was Georgette shrieking and trying to defend herself. Before he could put his feet to the floor he heard a man’s voice, which he was sure was the Keeper’s; she was safe.

“Ah, you villain!” . . .

Then the outbreak of a second struggle . . . a shot . . . silence!

Rushing down the hallway that ended at the stairway Desnoyers saw lights, and many men who came trooping up the stairs, bounding over several steps at a time. He almost fell over a body from which escaped a groan of agony. At his feet lay the Warden, his chest moving like a pair of bellows, his eyes glassy and unnaturally distended, his mouth covered with blood. . . . Near him glistened a kitchen knife. Then he saw a man with a revolver in one hand, and holding shut with the other a broken door that someone was trying to open from within. Don Marcelo recognized him, in spite of his greenish pallor and wild look. It was Blumhardt—another Blumhardt with a bestial expression of terrifying ferocity and lust.

Don Marcelo could see clearly how it had all happened—the debauchee rushing through the castle in search of his prey, the anxious father in close pursuit, the cries of the girl, the unequal struggle between the consumptive with his emergency weapon and the warrior triumphant. The fury of his youth awoke in the old Frenchman, sweeping everything before it. What did it matter if he did die? . . .

“Ah, you villain!” he yelled, as the poor father had done.