THE WOMAN WHO HAD TWO NAVELS
407
tains; the Yanqui soldiery hot on their heels. But he had resisted
to the end-he and so many other splendid young men-resisting
with the spirit when, bound and jailed, they could no longer resist
with arms. Their general might submit; their general might take
the oath of allegiance; their general might call on all the still em–
battled caudillos to come out and surrender-but these hardheaded
young men flung at the Yanquis their gesture of spiritual resistance,
preferring exile to submission. A foolish gesture, perhaps, and a futile
one-but a beautiful, beautiful gesture nevertheless- and during
those days that saw the failure of the Revolution and the establish–
ment of new masters; when her father went about tight-lipped and
stern-eyed, and her mother wept continually and put on black, and
wailing people peeping through cracks in shut windows beheld what
was left of their armies being led into prison camps by the Yanquis;
all through those bleak black days that were the early springtime
of her girlhood, the proud gesture of all those hardheaded young
men had burst upon the deep gloom like holiday fireworks. People
began to wear their grief with a smile, their defeat with a fine air.
The conquering Yanquis might jeer at the quaint architecture, the
primitive plumbing, the ceremonious manners; behind impassive
faces, people shared a secret pride, a secret exultation, and a length–
ening litany of names.
She remembered the night the news came that Doctor Monson
too, though wounded and gravely ill, had chosen exile. She remem–
bered her father standing up very straight, her mother kneeling, as
though the Sacrament were passing by, and how she herself, a mere
child, had understood what they saluted. She had fled to her room
and had wept behind the locked door for the magnificent young man
with fierce whiskers who had fed her grapes and ice cream and had
so deeply sympathized with her difficulties in arithmetic . . .
"How I would love to see your father again!" she exclaimed.
She had learned, as a child, the feel of greatness. She would always
see her childhood as a page in an epic, brilliant with tears and
splendid with heroes.
"I'm sure he would be delighted to see you, too," said Pepe
Monson. "Unfortunately," he added, lowering his eyes, "he's having
a nap just now," and frowned, for it was more than a nap his father
was having. When he went to call his father to tiffin that noon he
