Her devout expression of gratitude for mere existence usually included the monument in the centre of the square, all bristling with wings as if about to fly away from the ground.  Victor Hugo! . . .  It was enough for her to have heard this name on the lips of her son to make her contemplate the statue with a family interest.  The only thing that she knew about the poet was that he had died.  Of this she was almost sure, and she imagined that in life, he was a great friend of Julio’s because she had so often heard her son repeat his name.

Ay, her son! . . .  All her thoughts, her conjectures, her desires, converged on him and her strong-willed husband.  She longed for the men to come to an understanding and put an end to a struggle in which she was the principal victim.  Would not God work this miracle? . . .  Like an invalid who goes from one sanitarium to another in pursuit of health, she gave up the church on her street to attend the Spanish chapel on the avenue Friedland.  Here she considered herself even more among her own.

In the midst of the fine and elegant South American ladies who looked as if they had just escaped from a fashion sheet, her eyes sought other women, not so well dressed, fat, with theatrical ermine and antique jewelry.  When these high-born dames met each other in the vestibule, they spoke with heavy voices and expressive gestures, emphasizing their words energetically.  The daughter of the ranch ventured to salute them because she had subscribed to all their pet charities, and upon seeing her greeting returned, she felt a satisfaction which made her momentarily forget her woes.  They belonged to those families which her father had so greatly admired without knowing why.  They came from the “mother country,” and to the good Chicha were all Excelentisimas or Altisimas, related to kings.  She did not know whether to give them her hand or bend the knee, as she had vaguely heard was the custom at court.  But soon she recalled her preoccupation and went forward to wrestle in prayer with God.  Ay, that he would mercifully remember her!  That he would not long forget her son! . . .

It was Glory that remembered Julio, stretching out to him her arms of light, so that he suddenly awoke to find himself surrounded by all the honors and advantages of celebrity.  Fame cunningly surprises mankind on the most crooked and unexpected of roads.  Neither the painting of souls nor a fitful existence full of extravagant love affairs and complicated duels had brought Desnoyers this renown.  It was Glory that put him on his feet.

A new pleasure for the delight of humanity had come from the other side of the seas.  People were asking one another in the mysterious tones of the initiated who wish to recognize a familiar spirit, “Do you know how to tango? . . .”  The tango had taken possession of the world.  It was the heroic hymn of a humanity that was suddenly concentrating its aspirations on the harmonious rhythm of the thigh joints, measuring its intelligence by the agility of its feet.  An incoherent and monotonous music of African inspiration was satisfying the artistic ideals of a society that required nothing better.  The world was dancing . . . dancing . . . dancing.