Ever since the day that he had been told he would be killed by accident, he detected vanity and treachery in everything that was shown to him, in all the gifts that men and women and nature itself offered him. The days assumed the vain, deceitful and malleable shape of his death, a sort of itinerary, a calendar whose final date had already been set. Even the Princess’s melancholic dance, light-footed and yet desperate, was a kind of death, an escape.
III
‘War,’ Colonel Verri said, gravely and ironically, ‘we’ll have it, there’s no doubt about it, we’ll have it.’
The officers had taken refuge in the kitchen. They had carefully ensured the door was shut.
‘And we’ll lose it!’
‘Of course we’re going to lose it. But we’ll give them hell!’ the Colonel retorted.
‘For honour!’ the Captain ex
