Some soliloquized in this way: 

“It will be necessary to hurry up matters.  They say drafts and contributions; we will say blows and more blows.”

In another house were heard these words uttered joyfully: 

“Perhaps my son is coming!  Perhaps my brother is coming!”

Everywhere people were springing out of bed, dressing hastily, opening the windows to see the regiment that caused all this excitement entering the city in the early dawn.  The city was gloom, silence, age; the army gayety, boisterousness, youth.  As the army entered the city it seemed as if the mummy received by some magic art the gift of life and sprang with noisy gayety from its damp sarcophagus to dance around it.  What movement, what shouting, what laughter, what merriment!  There is nothing so interesting as a regiment.  It is our country in its youthful and vigorous aspect.  All the ineptitude, the turbulence, the superstition at times, and at times the impiety of the country as represented in the individual, disappears under the iron rule of discipline, which of so many insignificant figures makes an imposing whole.  The soldier, or so to say, the corpuscle, separating at the command “Break ranks!” from the mass in which he has led a regular and at times a sublime life, occasionally preserves some of the qualities peculiar to the army.  But this is not the general rule.  The separation is most often accompanied by a sudden deterioration, with the result that if an army is the glory and honor of a nation, an assemblage of soldiers may be an insupportable calamity; and the towns that shed tears of joy and enthusiasm when they see a victorious battalion enter their precincts, groan with terror and tremble with apprehension when they see the same soldiers separate and off duty.

This last was what happened in Orbajosa, for in those days there were no glorious deeds to celebrate, nor was there any motive for weaving wreaths or tracing triumphal inscriptions, or even for making mention of the exploits of our brave soldiers, for which reason all was fear and suspicion in the episcopal city, which, although poor, did not lack treasures in chickens, fruits, money, and maidenhood, all of which ran great risk from the moment when the before-mentioned sons of Mars entered it.  In addition to this, the native town of Polentinos, as a city remote from the movement and stir brought with them by traffic, the newspapers, railroads, and other agents which it is unnecessary now to specify, did not wish to be disturbed in its tranquil existence.

Besides which, it manifested on every favorable occasion a strong aversion to submitting to the central authority which, badly or well, governs us; and calling to mind its former privileges and ruminating upon them anew, as the camel chews the cud of the grass which it ate yesterday, it would occasionally display a certain rebellious independence, and vicious tendencies much to be deplored, which at times gave no little anxiety to the governor of the province.