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The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Julio
Julio, the son of Desnoyers, was the favorite grandchild of Madariaga. "Ah, the fine cowboy! What a pretty fellow you are!" he would say. "Have a good time, for grandpa is always here with his money."
One evening the Patron's horse came slowly home without its rider. The old man had fallen on the highway, and when they found him he was dead. The Hartrotts moved to Berlin at once and the Desnoyers went to Paris, each household in possession of an enormous fortune. Besides establishing his family in an ostentatious house in Paris, Desnoyers bought a castle, Villeblanche-sur-Marne, a mixture of palace and fortress, where he could put his rapidly accumulating purchases of paintings, furniture, statues--all those things which he carried away from the auctions which it had now become his habit to frequent.
The only disappointment in Desnoyers's new life came from his children--his daughter Chichi because of her independence, and Julio because of his aimless existence. Julio has had to make a trip to South America in order to realize on a bequest from his grandfather, so that he might marry the fascinating and frivolous Marguerite Laurier, with whom he had become infatuated. Suddenly the cloud of war cast its shadow over this family. The self-sufficient Dr. Julius von Hartrott said to his cousin, "War will be declared to-morrow or the day after. Nothing can prevent it now. It is necessary for the welfare of humanity."
On the eve of mobilization Tchernoff, a friend of Julio's, had a vision in which he saw the Apocalyptic Beast rising out of the sea. Four terrible horsemen preceded the appearance of the monster, and these scourges of the earth, Conquest, War, Famine, and Death, were beginning their mad, desolating course over the heads of terrified humanity.
Julio, being an Argentinian, was exempt from military service and had hoped to continue his life as though nothing were happening. His inamorata, however, from a woman infatuated with dress was gradually transformed by her desire to serve. The war had made her ponder much on the values of life, and her sense of duty to the husband whom she so greatly wronged sent her back to his side when she heard that he had been severely wounded. To Julio she said, "You must leave me. . . . Life is not what we have thought it. Had it not been for the war we might, perhaps, have realized our dream, but now! .. For the remainder of my life, I shall carry the heaviest burden, and yet at the same time it will be sweet, since the more it weighs me down the greater will my atonement be."