San Francisco is occupied by the troops, and everything there has been torn to pieces for me. Ruin, nothing but ruin! Is it a right thing to burn houses merely to retard the conquest by the French?”
“War makes it necessary to do these things,” I answered him. “And this heroic city desires to carry her defence to the last extreme.”
“And what induces Saragossa to wish to carry her defence to the last extreme? What good does it do to the dead? You may talk to them of glory, of heroism—of all those notions. Before I ever come back to live in an heroic city, I would go to a desert. I concede that there should be a certain resistance, but not to such a barbarous extreme as this. It is true the burned buildings are worth little, perhaps less than the great mass of charcoal which will result. Don’t let them come to me with their foolish talk. Those fat sharpers are already planning to make a good business out of the carbon.”
This made me laugh. My readers must not think that I exaggerate, since he said all this to me very nearly as I repeat it; and those who have the misfortune to know him would most readily have faith in my veracity. If Candiola had lived in Numantia, it would have been said that the Numantines were merchants of charcoal mixed with heroes.
“I am lost! I am ruined forever!” he went on, crossing his hands forlornly. “Those receipts were part of my fortune. How am I going to claim the amounts without any documents to show, and when almost all my debtors are dead, and lying rotting about the streets! I said, and I repeat it, those who have made me all this trouble are disobedient to God. It is a mortal sin; it is an unforgivable offence to let themselves be killed when they owe money on such old accounts that their creditor will not be able to collect easily. Paying up is very hard work; so some of these people say, ‘Let us wall ourselves in and burn with the money.’ But God is inexorable with this heroic rabble, and to chastise them He will resurrect