last trumpet, a thousand
bloody specters--desperate shades of murdered men, women violated,
fathers torn from their families, vices stimulated and encouraged,
virtues mocked, now rose in answer to the mysterious question. For
the first time in his criminal career, since in Havana he had by
means of corruption and bribery set out to fashion an instrument
for the execution of his plans--a man without faith, patriotism, or
conscience--for the first time in that life, something within rose up
and protested against his actions. He closed his eyes and remained
for some time motionless, then rubbed his hand over his forehead,
tried to be deaf to his conscience, and felt fear creeping over
him. No, he must not analyze himself, he lacked the courage to turn
his gaze toward his past. The idea of his courage, his conviction,
his self-confidence failing him at the very moment when his work was
set before him! As the ghosts of the wretches in whose misfortunes
he had taken a hand continued to hover before his eyes, as if issuing
from the shining surface of the river to invade the room with appeals
and hands extended toward him, as reproaches and laments seemed to
fill the air with threats and cries for vengeance, he turned his gaze
from the window and for the first time began to tremble.

"No, I must be ill, I can't be feeling well," he muttered. "There
are many who hate me, who ascribe their misfortunes to me, but--"

He felt his forehead begin to burn, so he arose to approach the window
and inhale the fresh night breeze. Below him the Pasig dragged along
its silvered stream, on whose bright surface the foam glittered,
winding slowly about, receding and advancing, following the course of
the little eddies. The city loomed up on the opposite bank, and its
black walls looked fateful, mysterious, losing their sordidness in
the moonlight that idealizes and embellishes everything. But again
Simoun shivered; he seemed to see before him the severe countenance
of his father, dying in prison, but dying for having done good; then
the face of another man, severer still, who had given his life for him
because he believed that he was going to bring about the regeneration
of his country.

"No, I can't turn back," he exclaimed, wiping the perspiration from
his forehead. "The work is at hand and its success will justify me! If
I had conducted myself as you did, I should have succumbed. Nothing
of idealism, nothing of fallacious theories! Fire