sted in wild contortions under the father's strong arms;
the parent had to make a powerful effort to subdue him under the rope
that sank into his flesh.... To have lived so many years only to behold
himself at last obliged to perform such a task! To give life to a
creature, only to pray that it might be extinguished as soon as
possible, horrified by so much useless pain!... Good God in heaven! Why
not put an end to the poor boy at once, since his death was now
inevitable?...

He closed the door of the sick room, fleeing from the rasping shriek
that set everybody's hair on end; but the madman's panting continued to
sound in the silence of the cabin, accompanied by the lamentations of
the mother and the weeping of the other women grouped around the lamp,
that had just been lighted.

_Caldera_ stamped upon the floor. Let the women be silent! But for the
first time he beheld himself disobeyed, and he left the cabin, fleeing
from this chorus of grief.

Night descended. His gaze wandered toward the thin yellow band that was
visible on the horizon, marking the flight of day. Above his head shone
the stars. From the other homes, which were scarcely visible, resounded
the neighing of horses, barking and the clucking of fowl,--the last
signs of animal life before it sank to rest. That primitive man felt an
impression of emptiness amid the Nature which was insensible and blind
to the sufferings of its creatures. Of what concern to the points of
light that looked down upon him from above could be that which he was
now going through?... All creatures were equal; the beasts that
disturbed the silence of dusk before falling asleep, and that poor youth
similar to him, who now lay fettered, writhing in the worst of agony.
How many illusions his life had contained!... And with a mere bite, a
wretched animal kicked about by all men could finish them all. And no
remedy existed in heaven or upon earth!...

Once again the distant shriek of the sufferer came to his ears from the
open window of the _estudi_. The tenderness of his early days of
paternity emerged from the depths of his soul. He recalled the nights he
had spent awake in that room, walking up and down, holding in his arms
the little child that was crying from the pains of infancy's illness.
Now he lay crying, too, but without hope, in the agonies of a hell that
had come before its time, and at last... death. His countenance grew
frightened, and he raised his hands to his foreh