pable of expressing
itself in the usual ways.

The father was staring at the rustic grave in dumb amazement. His son
was there, there forever! . . . and he would never see him again! He
imagined him sleeping unshrouded below, in direct contact with the
earth, just as Death had surprised him in his miserable and heroic old
uniform. He recalled the exquisite care which the lad had always given
his body--the long bath, the massage, the invigorating exercise of
boxing and fencing, the cold shower, the elegant and subtle perfume
. . . all that he might come to this! . . . that he might be interred
just where he had fallen in his tracks, like a wornout beast of burden!

The bereaved father wished to transfer his son immediately from the
official burial fields, but he could not do it yet. As soon as possible
it should be done, and he would erect for him a mausoleum fit for a
king. . . . And what good would that do? He would merely be changing the
location of a mass of bones, but his body, his physical semblance--all
that had contributed to the charm of his personality would be mixed
with the earth. The son of the rich Desnoyers would have become an
inseparable part of a poor field in Champagne. Ah, the pity of it
all! And for this, had he worked so hard and so long to accumulate his
millions? . . .

He could never know how Julio's death had happened. Nobody could tell
him his last words. He was ignorant as to whether his end had been
instantaneous, overwhelming--his idol going out of the world with his
usual gay smile on his lips, or whether he had endured long hours of
agony abandoned in the field, writhing like a reptile or passing through
phases of hellish torment before collapsing in merciful oblivion. He was
also ignorant of just how much was beneath this mound--whether an
entire body discreetly touched by the hand of Death, or an assemblage of
shapeless remnants from the devastating hurricane of steel! . . . And
he would never see him again! And that Julio who had been filling his
thoughts would become simply a memory, a name that would live while
his parents lived, fading away, little by little, after they had
disappeared! . . .

He was startled to hear a moan, a sob. . . . Then he recognized dully
that they were his own, that he had been accompanying his reflections
with groans of grief.

His wife was still at his feet, kneeling, alone with her heartbreak,
fixing her dry eyes on the cross with a gaze of hypnotic