“Glory!” said Gabriel, ironically.  “I know all about that.  Very often, seeing you all so young and inexperienced, so full of vain hopes, I have reconstructed in my own mind what might be called the psychology of the cadet.  I can guess all that you thought before entering the academy, and I foresee the bitter and crushing disillusion that awaits you on leaving it.  The history of wars and the artistic trappings of the uniform have seduced your youth.  Afterwards, warlike tales of an irresistible fascination—­Bonaparte with his little band crossing the bridge at Arcola amid showers of bullets.  And then our own generals, not to go further—­Espartero at Luchana, O’Donnel in Africa, and, above all, Prim, that almost legendary leader, directing the battalion at Castillejos with his sword.  ‘I wish to be the same,’ say these youths; ‘where one man has arrived another may also succeed’; enthusiasm is taken for predestination, and each one thinks himself created by God on purpose to be a famous leader.  In the meanwhile you live in Toledo, dreaming of glory, of hairbreadth enterprises, of gigantic battles and noisy triumphs.  But when, with the two stars on your arm you go to a regiment, the first thing that comes to meet you at the barrack gate, even before you receive the salute of the sentry, is the ugly and disagreeable reality.  He who dreams of covering himself with glory and becoming a great leader before he is thirty, thinking of nothing but strategic combinations and original fortifications, must occupy himself with the washing and decency of a lot of wild lads, who come in from the fields reeking with excessive health; try the rations, discuss drawers and shirts, calculate the lasting of ankle boots and hempen shoes, and he who never went near the kitchen at home, was most carefully looked after by his mother, and thought that everything was women’s work except giving words of command and drawing soldiers up in line, now finds the first requirement in a regiment is to be cook, tailor, shoemaker, etc., very often receiving reprimands from his superiors if he prove lazy in those duties.”

“That is true,” said Juanito laughing; “but without these things there cannot be an army, and an army is necessary.”

“We are not discussing if it is necessary or no.  I only wish to point out that you (or perhaps not you, as you enter on a good footing, but certainly your companions) are self-deceivers, and are preparing without knowing it the shipwreck of your lives, precisely like those other youths who, poorer, or perhaps less energetic, crowd to enter the Church.  The Church has come to an end as there is no longer faith; military glory has ended in Spain as there are no longer wars of conquest, and our character as strong fighting men has been lost for centuries.  If we have a war, it is either civil or colonial—­wars that might be called disasters—­without glory and without profit, but in which men die as at Thermopyle or Austerlitz, as a man can only die once; but without the consolation of fame, or of public applause, without in fact that aureole that you call glory.  You have all been born too late; you are the warriors of a people who must perforce live in peace; just as those seminarists will be the future priests in a country where there are no longer miracles nor faith, only routine and utter stagnation of thought.”