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The baron saw her leave the room and knew that before doing anything else she had gone off to tell Sebastiana everything. He sent for Aristarco and discussed the preparations for the journey with him. Then he shut himself up in his study and spent a long time destroying notebooks, papers, letters. The things that he would take with him filled no more than two small valises. As he went up to Gall’s room, he saw that Sebastiana and Estela had already gone to work. The house was caught up in feverish activity, with maids and menservants rushing all about, carrying things here and there, taking things down from walls, filling baskets, boxes, trunks, and whispering together with panicked expressions on their faces. He entered Gall’s room without bothering to knock, and found him sitting writing at the bedside table; on hearing him come into the room, Gall looked up, pen still in hand, and gazed at him with questioning eyes.

“I know it’s madness to allow you to leave,” the baron said with a half smile that was really a grimace. “What I should do is parade you through the streets of Salvador, of Rio, the way they paraded your hair, your fake corpse, the fake English rifles…” Too dispirited to go on, he did not finish the sentence.

“Make no mistake about it,” Galileo said. He and the baron were so close now their knees were touching. “I’m not going to help you solve your problems; I’ll never collaborate with you. We’re at war, and every weapon counts.”

There was no hostility in his voice, and the baron looked at him as though he were already far away: a tiny figure, picturesque, harmless, absurd.

“Every weapon counts,” he repeated softly. “That is a precise definition of the times we’re living in, of the twentieth century that will soon be upon us, Mr. Gall. I’m not surprised that those madmen think that the end of the world has come.”

He saw so much anguish in the Scotsman’s face that he suddenly felt pity for him. He thought: “The one thing he really wants to do is go die like a dog among people who don’t understand him and whom he doesn’t understand. He thinks that he’s going to die like a hero, and the truth is that he’s going to die exactly as he fears he will: like an idiot.” The whole world suddenly seemed to him to be the victim of an irremediable misunderstanding.

“You may leave,” he said to him. “I’ll provide you with a guide to take you there. Though I doubt that you’ll get as far as Canudos.”

He saw Gall’s face light up and heard him stammer his thanks.

“I don’t know why I’m letting you go,” he added. “I’m fascinated by idealists, even though I don’t share their feelings in the slightest. But, even so, perhaps I do feel a certain sympathy for you, inasmuch as you’re a man who is irredeemably lost, and your end will be the result of an error.”

But he realized that Gall was not listening to him. He was gathering together the pages filled with his handwriting that lay on the bedside table, and held them out to him. “They’re a summary of what I am, of what I think.” The look in his eyes, his hands, his very skin seemed to quiver with excitement. “You may not be the best person to leave it with, but there’s nobody else around. Read it, and when you’ve finished, I’d be grateful to you if you’d send it on to this address in Lyons. It’s a review, published by friends of mine. I don’t know if it’s going to continue to come out…” He fell silent, as though overcome with shame for some reason or other. “When may I leave?” he asked.

“This very minute,” the baron answered. “I needn’t warn you of the risk you’re taking, I presume. It’s more than likely that you’ll fall into the army’s hands. And in any event, the colonel will kill you.”

“One can’t kill dead men, sir, as you yourself said,” Gall answered. “I’ve already been killed in Ipupiará, remember…”

[V]

The group of men advance across the stretch of sand, their eyes riveted on the brush. There is hope in their faces, though not in that of the nearsighted journalist who has been thinking