Upon seeing his wife, Ulysses imagined that no time had passed by. He found her just as at parting, with her two nieces seated at her feet, making interminable, complicated blonde lace upon the cylindrical pillows supported on their knees.
The only novelty of the captain's stay in this dwelling of monastic calm was that Don Pedro abstained from his visits. Cinta received her husband with a pallid smile. In that smile he suspected the work of time. She had continued thinking of her son every hour, but with a resignation that was drying her tears and permitting her to continue the deliberate mechanicalness of existence. Furthermore, she wished to remove the impression of the angry words, inspired by grief,—the remembrance of that scene of rebellion in which she had arisen like a wrathful accuser against the father. And Ferragut for some days believed that he was living just as in past years when he had not yet bought the Mare Nostrum and was planning to remain always ashore. Cinta was attentive to his wishes and obedient as a Christian wife ought to be. Her words and acts revealed a desire to forget, to make herself agreeable.
But something was lacking that had made the past so sweet. The cordiality of youth could not be resuscitated. The remembrance of the son was always intervening between the two, hardly ever leaving their thoughts. And so it would always be!
Since that house could no longer be a real home to him, he again began to await impatiently the hour of sailing. His destiny was to live henceforth on the ship, to pass the rest of his days upon the waves like the accursed captain of the Dutch legend, until the pallid virgin wrapped in black veils—Death—should come to rescue him.
While the steamer finished loading he strolled through the city visiting his cousins, the manufacturers, or remaining idly in the cafés. He looked with interest on the human current passing through the Ramblas in which were mingled the natives of the country and the picturesque and absurd medley brought in by the war.
The first thing that Ferragut noticed was the visible diminution of
German refugees.
Months before he had met them everywhere, filling the hotels and monopolizing the cafés,—their green hats and open-neck shirts making them recognized immediately. The German women in showy and extravagant gowns, were everywhere kissing each other when meeting, and talking in shrieks. The German tongue, confounded with the Catalan and the Castilian, seemed to have become naturalized. On the roads and mountains could be seen rows of bare-throated boys with heads uncovered, staff in hand, and Alpine knapsack on the back, occupying their leisure with pleasure excursions that were at the same time, perhaps, a foresighted study.
These Germans had all come from South America,—especially from Brazil, Argentina, and Chile. From Barcelona they had, at the beginning of the war, tried to return to their own country but were now interned, unable to continue their voyage for fear of the French and English cruisers patrolling the Mediterranean.
At first no one had wished to take the trouble to settle down in this land, and they had all clustered together in sight of the sea with the hope of being the first to embark at the very moment that the road of navigation might open for them.
The war was going to be very short…. Exceedingly short! The Kaiser and his irresistible army would require but six months to impose their rule upon all Europe. The Germans enriched by commerce were lodged in the hotels. The poor who had been working in the new world as farmers or shop clerks were quartered in a slaughter house on the outskirts. Some, who were musicians, had acquired old instruments and, forming strolling street bands, were imploring alms for their roarings from village to village.