deousness. He
had been accustomed to speak of it heretofore as those in robust health
speak of death, knowing that it exists and is horrible, but seeing it
afar off . . . so far off that it arouses no real emotion. The explosion
of the shells were accompanying their destructive brutality with a
ferocious mockery, grotesquely disfiguring the human body. He saw
wounded objects just beginning to recover their vital force who were but
rough skeletons of men, frightful caricatures, human rags, saved from
the tomb by the audacities of science--trunks with heads which were
dragged along on wheeled platforms; fragments of skulls whose brains
were throbbing under an artificial cap; beings without arms and without
legs, resting in the bottom of little wagons, like bits of plaster
models or scraps from the dissecting room; faces without noses that
looked like skulls with great, black nasal openings. And these half-men
were talking, smoking, laughing, satisfied to see the sky, to feel
the caress of the sun, to have come back to life, dominated by that
sovereign desire to live which trustingly forgets present misery in the
confident hope of something better.

So strongly was Julio impressed that for a little while he forgot the
purpose which had brought him thither. . . . If those who provoke war
from diplomatic chambers or from the tables of the Military Staff could
but see it--not in the field of battle fired with the enthusiasm which
prejudices judgments--but in cold blood, as it is seen in the hospitals
and cemeteries, in the wrecks left in its trail! . . .

To Julio's imagination this terrestrial globe appeared like an enormous
ship sailing through infinity. Its crews--poor humanity--had spent
century after century in exterminating each other on the deck. They did
not even know what existed under their feet, in the hold of the vessel.
To occupy the same portion of the surface in the sunlight seemed to be
the ruling desire of each group. Men, considered superior human beings,
were pushing these masses to extermination in order to scale the last
bridge and hold the helm, controlling the course of the boat. And all
those who felt the overmastering ambition for absolute command knew the
same thing . . . nothing. Not one of them could say with certainty what
lay beyond the visible horizon, nor whither the ship was drifting.
The sullen hostility of mystery surrounded them all; their life was
precarious, necessitating incessant care