Don Marcelo walked all the morning long. The white, rectilinear ribbon of roadway was spotted with approaching groups that on the horizon line looked like a file of ants. He did not see a single person going in his direction. All were fleeing toward the South, and on meeting this city gentleman, well-shod, with walking stick and straw hat, going on alone toward the country which they were abandoning in terror, they showed the greatest astonishment. They concluded that he must be some functionary, some celebrity from the Government.
At midday he was able to get a bit of bread, a little cheese and a bottle of white wine from a tavern near the road. The proprietor was at the front, his wife sick and moaning in her bed. The mother, a rather deaf old woman surrounded by her grandchildren, was
