The house stood at a corner, and while the side of it was in a small street, the front overlooked one of the many wide and beautiful paséos, with which the city abounded.
A little breeze borne of the incoming tide in the harbour came sweeping along, and its coolness stirred him into fresh vitality.
It was the hour of pleasure, when the inhabitants threw off their sun-begotten sloth and thronged the cafés and public gardens and promenades.
On the Rambla, once the bed of a river, the military bands played waltz music, and the favourite operas, and hot blood moved faster to the unfailing enchantment of the Habernera, and the newest works of Massenet and Charpentier.
It was now dark, and the stars blazed down upon the never-resting city, with its sinister record of outrages and crimes, and its charm which was as the alluring of some wild gypsy queen.
Men fleeing from the justice or vengeance of their own country could find here a City of Refuge. Here the tide of life ran swiftly, and churches and cruelty walked hand in hand, and Hate trod close upon the heels of Love.
Here no man's life was safe, for from time to time an epidemic of bomb throwing would break out. Infernal machines would be hurled in an apparently purposeless fashion wherever there was a large gathering of people in street or square. A few policemen, soldiers, or onlookers would be killed or mutilated, and a panic created, but few arrests were ever made. The whole of the Press would unite to lift up its voice in an indignant appeal to the Government, and then everything would be forgotten till the next explosion. People in Barcelona lived from day to day and accepted lawlessness as a matter of course.
Emile's own particular circle had no hand in these promiscuous destructions of life. Their own attempts were invariably well organised and directed towards some definite end. They did not destroy life for mere wanton cruelty, and their victims were marked out and hunted down with an accurate aim.
It suddenly occurred to Emile that during the last few months he had looked upon Barcelona with a changed vision. He had always seen her beauties and hated them, as a man may hate the fair body of a despised mistress, while he yet sees it fair. Now the thought that he might at any time, and at a few days' notice, be forced to leave the place, struck him with a feeling of blankness and desolation.
The sense of exile was almost gone, the nostalgia for his own land no longer keen. Had he turned traitor to his own country, the country for whose woes he was now suffering—?