Читать книгу The Temptress (La tierra de todos) онлайн

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At rare intervals he wrote to Torre, but his letters contained more illusions to the past than to the present. Yet somehow, in spite of his discreet reticence, Torre Bianca gathered that his chum had become a general in one of the small republics of Central America.

It was two years now since he had heard from Robledo, whose last letter announced that he was employed in Argentine, having had enough, for the time being, of those countries still continually shaken by revolution. He was contracting for the government as well as for private undertakings, and constructing canals and railroads; and through all the discomforts of the rough life he led, the belief that he was helping the advance guard of civilization to cross one of the earth’s desert places, gave him intimate satisfaction and happiness.

Torre had among his papers a photograph of his friend in which Robledo appeared on horseback, wearing an African helmet and a poncho that fell over his shoulders. Several half-breeds were planting linesman’s flags on the mesa which, for the first time since creation, was to receive the imprint of material civilization. Robledo, who was of the same age as himself, must have been thirty-seven when the photograph was taken; yet he looked many years younger than Torre Bianca did at forty.