ails of the artillery were all clanking as though in an imperceptible
hailstorm. He saw a cannon lying on its side with the wheels broken
and turned over among many men who appeared asleep; he saw soldiers
who stretched themselves out without a contraction, without a sound, as
though overcome by sudden drowsiness. Others were howling and dragging
themselves forward in a sitting position.

The old man felt an extreme sensation of heat. The pungent perfume of
explosive drugs brought the tears to his eyes and clawed at his throat.
At the same time he was chilly and felt his forehead freezing in a
glacial sweat.

He had to leave the bridge. Several soldiers were passing bearing the
wounded to the edifice in spite of the fact that it was falling in
ruins. Suddenly he was sprinkled from head to foot, as if the earth had
opened to make way for a waterspout. A shell had fallen into the moat,
throwing up an enormous column of water, making the carp sleeping in
the mud fly into fragments, breaking a part of the edges and grinding to
powder the white balustrades with their great urns of flowers.

He started to run on with the blindness of terror, when he suddenly saw
before him the same little round crystal, examining him coolly. It
was the Junker, the officer of the monocle. . . . With the end of
his revolver, the German pointed to two pails a short distance away,
ordering Desnoyers to fill them from the lagoon and give the water to
the men overcome by the sun. Although the imperious tone admitted of no
reply, Don Marcelo tried, nevertheless, to resist. He received a blow
from the revolver on his chest at the same time that the lieutenant
slapped him in the face. The old man doubled over, longing to weep,
longing to perish; but no tears came, nor did life escape from his body
under this affront, as he wished. . . . With the two buckets in his
hands, he found himself dipping up water from the canal, carrying it the
length of the file, giving it to men who, each in his turn, dropped his
gun to gulp the liquid with the avidity of panting beasts.

He was no longer afraid of the shrill shrieks of invisible bodies. His
one great longing was to die. He was strongly convinced that he was
going to die; his sufferings were too great; there was no longer any
place in the world for him.

He had to pass by breaches opened in the wall by the bursting shells.
There was no natural object to arrest the eye looking through these
gaps. Hedges