His mother had come there to embrace him, poor Dona Luisa, weeping and
kissing him frantically as though she had feared to lose him forever.
Close behind her mother had come Luisita, nicknamed Chichi, who always
surveyed him with sympathetic curiosity as if she wished to know better
a brother so bad and adorable who had led decent women from the paths
of virtue, and committed all kinds of follies. Then Desnoyers had been
greatly surprised to see entering the kitchen with the air of a tragedy
queen, a noble mother of the drama, his Aunt Elena, the one who had
married a German and was living in Berlin surrounded with innumerable
children.

"She has been in Paris a month. She is going to make a little visit to
our castle. And it appears that her eldest son--my cousin, 'The Sage,'
whom I have not seen for years--is also coming here."

The home interview had several times been interrupted by fear. "Your
father is at home, be careful," his mother had said to him each time
that he had spoken above a whisper. And his Aunt Elena had stationed
herself at the door with a dramatic air, like a stage heroine resolved
to plunge a dagger into the tyrant who should dare to cross the
threshold. The entire family was accustomed to submit to the rigid
authority of Don Marcelo Desnoyers. "Oh, that old man!" exclaimed Julio,
referring to his father. "He may live many years yet, but how he weighs
upon us all!"

His mother, who had never wearied of looking at him, finally had to
bring the interview to an end, frightened by certain approaching sounds.
"Go, he might surprise us, and he would be furious." So Julio had fled
the paternal home, caressed by the tears of the two ladies and the
admiring glances of Chichi, by turns ashamed and proud of a brother who