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discussions of a metaphysical kind. From time to time they had quarrelled over different forms of government. Their divergent views then were friendly, but they had finally provoked the unhappiness and disruption of the whole of Spain. They had brought his friend before the firing squad.
But what was the good of recalling the past? What was the good of reasoning? Since the beginning of the civil war, of what use was reason? In the silence of the prison yard, all these questions crowded feverishly on the officer's mind. No. The past must be swept clean away. Only the future counts. The future? A world that would be short of many old friends.
It was the first time, that particular morning, that they had met since war began. They had said nothing. They had only exchanged a smile as they were getting ready to enter the prison yard.
The tragic dawn painted red and silvery rays over the prison wall and everything breathed quietude, a repose whose rhythm united with the calm of the yard, a rhythm of silent throbbings like the beating of a heart. Into this silence, the voice of the officer commanding the firing squad resounded against the prison walls : "Attention ! "
At this command, six subordinates clasped their guns and grew rigid: the unity of their movement was followed by a pause during which the second command should have been given.
But, during that respite, something happened, something that broke the rhythm. The condemned man coughed, cleared his throat. That interruption upset the sequence of events.
The officer turned towards the prisoner. He was waiting to hear him speak. But not a word came. Turning again to his men, he got ready to give the second command. But a sudden revulsion seized upon his mind, a psychic amnesia that turned his brain into an empty space. Distraught, he stood silent before his men. What was happening? The scene in the prison yard meant nothing. He saw nothing more, objectively, than a man, his back to the wall, facing six other men. And these last, on the side, what an idiotic air they had, just like watches that had suddenly stopped ticking. No one moved. Nothing, had any meaning. There was something abnormal going on. All this. was nothing but a dream, and the officer must escape from it.
Obscurely, memory came gradually back to him. For how long had he been there? What had happened? Ah yes! He had given an order. But what was the next order?
After "Attention!" it was "Shoulder arms!" then "Present!" then finally "Fire ! ". He had a vague idea of it in his subconscious. But the words to be pronounced seemed far away, vague, and outside him.
In his embarassment, he called out in an incoherent fashion, a con