believe that we live so peacefully because there is such abundance that everyone gets his share. . . . How quickly we would spring to arms if the rations were less than the people!”
Again he fell into reflective silence, shortly after announcing the result of his meditations.
“Be that as it may be, we must recognize that here life is more tranquil than in the other world. Men are taken for what they are worth, and mingle together without thinking whether they came from one country or another. Over here, fellows do not come in droves to kill other fellows whom they do not know and whose only crime is that they were born in an unfriendly country. . . . Man is a bad beast everywhere, I know that; but here he eats, owns more land than he needs so that he can stretch himself, and he is good with the goodness of a well-fed dog. Over there, there are too many; they live in heaps getting in each other’s way, and easily run amuck. Hurrah for Peace, Frenchy, and the simple life! Where a man can live comfortably and runs no danger of being killed for things he doesn’t understand—there is his real homeland!”
And as though an echo of the rustic’s reflections, Karl seated at the piano, began chanting in a low voice one of Beethoven’s hymns—
“We sing the joy of life, We sing of liberty, We’ll ne’er betray our fellow-man, Though great the guerdon be.”
Peace! . . . A few days afterward Desnoyers recalled bitterly the old man’s illusion, for war—domestic war—broke loose in this idyllic stage-setting of ranch life.
“Run, Senor Manager, the old Patron has unsheathed his knife and is going to kill the German!” And Desnoyers had hurried from his office, warned by the peon’s summons. Madariaga was chasing Karl, knife in hand, stumbling over everything that blocked his way. Only his son-in-law dared to stop him and disarm him.
“That shameless pedigreed fellow!” bellowed the livid old man as he writhed in Desnoyers’ firm clutch. “Half famished, all he thinks he has to do is to come to my house and take away my daughters and dollars. . . . Let me go, I tell you! Let me loose that I may kill him.”
And in order to free himself from
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