of existence—as if he were the sole survivor of a vanished race.
Eventually they all asked the same questions—"Are you not going to the war?… How is it that you are not wearing a uniform?"
He would attempt to explain, but at his first words, they would interrupt him:
"That's so.… You are a foreigner."
They would say it with a certain envy, doubtless thinking of their loved ones now suffering the privations and dangers of war.… But the fact that he was a foreigner would instantly create a vague atmosphere of spiritual aloofness, an alienation that Julio had not known in the good old days when people sought each other without considering nationality, without feeling that disavowal of danger which isolates and concentrates human groups.
The ladies generally bade him adieu with malicious suspicion. What was he doing hanging around there? In search of his usual lucky adventure?… And their smiles were rather grave, the smiles of older folk who know the true significance of life and commiserate the deluded ones still seeking diversion in frivolities.
This attitude was as annoying to Julio as though it were a manifestation of pity. They were supposing him still exercising the only function of which he was capable; he wasn't good for anything else. On the other hand, these empty heads, still keeping something of their old appearance, now appeared animated by the grand sentiment of maternity—an abstract maternity which seemed to be extending to all the men of the nation—a desire for self-sacrifice, of knowing first-hand the privations of the lowly, and aiding all the ills that flesh is heir to.
This same yearning was inspiring Marguerite when
