Because, oddly, what rose at such times towards the still sunlit terraces, in the absence of the sounds of vehicles and machinery that usually make up the language of towns, was only the vast noise of footsteps and muffled voices, the painful groan of thousands of shoes marching to the rhythm of the pestilence in the heavy sky, an endless and eventually stifling trample which gradually filled the whole town and which, evening after evening, was the most faithful and most melancholy expression of the blind obstinacy which at that time replaced love in our hearts.
Zeren, gauza bitxia bada ere, oraingoan, hiri guztien mintzaira osatzen duten makina eta ibilgailu zarata ezean, oraindik ere eguzkiak jotzen zien terrazetara igotzen zen pauso eta ahots lausoen zurrumurru handia baino ez zen, errauspen txistuaren erritmopeko milaka zolen errenkada mingarria zeru astunaren pean, etengabeko oinkatu itogarria azken batean, pixkanaka-pixkanaka hiri osoa betetzen zuena eta, arratsaldea joan arratsaldea etorri, gure bihotzetan amodioaren lekua betetzen zuen egoskorkeria itsuari ahotsik aproposena eta goibelena jartzen ziona.