The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

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Blasco Ibáñez Vicente. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

PART I

CHAPTER I. THE TRYST

CHAPTER II. MADARIAGA, THE CENTAUR

CHAPTER III. THE DESNOYERS FAMILY

CHAPTER IV. THE COUSIN FROM BERLIN

CHAPTER V. IN WHICH APPEAR THE FOUR HORSEMEN

PART II

CHAPTER I. WHAT DON MARCELO ENVIED

CHAPTER II. NEW LIFE

CHAPTER III. THE RETREAT

CHAPTER IV. NEAR THE SACRED GROTTO

CHAPTER V. THE INVASION

CHAPTER VI. THE BANNER OF THE RED CROSS

PART III

CHAPTER I. AFTER THE MARNE

CHAPTER II. IN THE STUDIO

CHAPTER III. WAR

CHAPTER IV “NO ONE WILL KILL HIM”

CHAPTER V. THE BURIAL FIELDS

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(In the Garden of the Chapelle Expiatoire)

They were to have met in the garden of the Chapelle Expiatoire at five o’clock in the afternoon, but Julio Desnoyers with the impatience of a lover who hopes to advance the moment of meeting by presenting himself before the appointed time, arrived an half hour earlier. The change of the seasons was at this time greatly confused in his mind, and evidently demanded some readjustment.

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Julio was finding her even lovelier than before, and felt sure that possessing her was well worth all the contrarieties which had brought about his trip to South America. She was taller than he, with an elegantly proportioned slenderness. “She has the musical step,” Desnoyers had told himself, when seeing her in his imagination; and now, on beholding her again, the first thing that he admired was her rhythmic tread, light and graceful as she passed through the garden seeking another seat. Her features were not regular but they had a piquant fascination—a true Parisian face. Everything that had been invented for the embellishment of feminine charm was used about her person with the most exquisite fastidiousness. She had always lived for herself. Only a few months before had she abdicated a part of this sweet selfishness, sacrificing reunions, teas, and calls in order to give Desnoyers some of the afternoon hours.

Stylish and painted like a priceless doll, with no loftier ambition than to be a model, interpreting with personal elegance the latest confections of the modistes, she was at last experiencing the same preoccupations and joys as other women, creating for herself an inner life. The nucleus of this new life, hidden under her former frivolity, was Desnoyers. Just as she was imagining that she had reorganized her existence—adjusting the satisfactions of worldly elegance to the delights of love in intimate secrecy—a fulminating catastrophe (the intervention of her husband whose possible appearance she seemed to have overlooked) had disturbed her thoughtless happiness. She who was accustomed to think herself the centre of the universe, imagining that events ought to revolve around her desires and tastes, had suffered this cruel surprise with more astonishment than grief.

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