"I am fighting, Captain, because of Danton and Hoche."
Ferragut in his imagination saw the white, disheveled hair of Michelet and the romantic foretop of Lamartine upon a double pedestal of volumes which used to contain the story-poem of the Revolution.
"And I am also fighting for France," concluded the lad triumphantly, "because it is the country of Victor Hugo."
Ulysses suspected that this twenty-year-old Republican was probably hiding in his knapsack a blank book full of original verses written in lead pencil.
The South American, accustomed to the disputes of his two companions, looked at his black fingernails with the melancholy desperation of a prophet contemplating his country in ruins. Blanes, the son of a middle-class citizen, used to admire him for his more distinguished family. The day of the mobilization he had gone to Paris in an automobile of fifty horse-power to enroll as a volunteer; he and his chauffeur had enlisted together. Then he had donated his luxurious vehicle to the cause.
He had wished to be a soldier because all the young fellows in his club were leaving for the war. Furthermore, he felt greatly flattered that his latest sweetheart, seeing him in uniform, should devote a few tears of admiration and astonishment to him. He had felt the necessity of producing a touching effect upon all the ladies that had danced the tango with him up to the week before. Besides that, the millions of his grandfather, "the Galician," held rather tight by his father, the Creole, were slipping through his hands.
"This experience is lasting too long, Captain."
In the beginning he had believed in a six months' war. The shells didn't trouble him much; for him the terrible things were the vermin, the impossibility of changing his clothing, and being deprived of his daily bath. If he could ever have supposed!…
And he summed up his enthusiasm with this affirmation:
"I am fighting for France because it is a chic country. Only in Paris do the women know how to dress. Those Germans, no matter how much they try, will always be very ordinary."