As a matter of fact he was already above the plains. “I spotted it all of a sudden when I came out into a clear patch.” And he explained how it had felt at that moment; just as if he had escaped from a cave.

“Storm at Mendoza, too?”

“No. The sky was clear when I made my landing, not a breath of wind. But the storm was at my heels all right!”

It was such a damned queer business, he said; that was why he mentioned it. The summits were lost in snow at a great height while the lower slopes seemed to be streaming out across the plain, like a flood of black lava which swallowed up the villages one by one. “Never saw anything like it before....” Then he relapsed into silence, gripped by some secret memory.

Rivière turned to the inspector.

“That’s a Pacific cyclone; it’s too late to take any action now. Anyhow these cyclones never cross the Andes.”

No one could have foreseen that this particular cyclone would continue its advance toward the east.

The inspector, who had no ideas on the subject, assented.

The inspector seemed about to speak. Then he hesitated, turned toward Pellerin, and his Adam’s apple stirred. But he held his peace and, after a moment’s thought, resumed his air of melancholy dignity, looking straight before him.

That melancholy of his, he carried it about with him everywhere, like a handbag. No sooner had he landed in Argentina than Rivière had appointed him to certain vague functions, and now his large hands and inspectorial dignity got always in his way. He had no right to admire imagination or ready wit; it was his business to commend punctuality and punctuality alone. He had no right to take a glass of wine in company, to call a comrade by his Christian name or risk a joke; unless, of course, by some rare chance, he came across another inspector on the same run.

“It’s hard luck,” he thought, “always having to be a judge.”

As a matter of fact he never judged; he merely wagged his head. To mask his utter ignorance he would slowly, thoughtfully, wag his head at everything that came his way, a movement that struck fear into uneasy consciences and ensured the proper upkeep of the plant.

He was not beloved—but then inspectors are not made for love and such delights, only for drawing up reports. He had desisted from proposing changes of system or technical improvements since Rivière had written: Inspector Robineau is requested to supply reports, not poems. He will be putting his talents to better use by speeding up the personnel. From that day forth Inspector Robineau had battened on human frailties, as on his daily bread; on the mechanic who had a glass too much, the airport overseer who stayed up of nights, the pilot who bumped a landing.

Rivière said of him: “He is far from intelligent, but very useful to us, such as he is.” One of the rules which Rivière rigorously imposed—upon himself—was a knowledge of his men. For Robineau the only knowledge that counted was knowledge of the orders.

“Robineau,” Rivière had said one day, “you must cut the punctuality bonus whenever a plane starts late.”

“Even when it’s nobody’s fault? In case of fog, for instance?”

“Even in case of fog.”

Robineau felt a thrill of pride in knowing that his chief was strong enough not to shrink from being unjust. Surely Robineau himself would win reflected majesty from such overweening power!

“You postponed the start till six fifteen,” he would say to the airport superintendents. “We cannot allow your bonus.”

“But, Monsieur Robineau, at five thirty one couldn’t see ten yards ahead!”

“Those are the orders.“

“But, Monsieur Robineau, we couldn’t sweep the fog away with a broom!”

He alone amongst all these nonentities knew the secret; if you only punish men enough, the weather will improve!

“He never thinks at all,” said Rivière of him, “and that prevents him from thinking wrong.”

The pilot who damaged a plane lost his no-accident bonus.

“But supposing his engine gives out when he is over a wood?” Robineau inquired of his chief.

“Even when it occurs above a wood.”

Robineau took to heart the ipse dixit.

“I regret,” he would inform the pilots with cheerful zest, “I regret it very much indeed, but you should have had your breakdown somewhere else.”

“But, Monsieur Robineau, one doesn’t choose the place to have it.”

“Those are the orders.”

The orders, thought Rivière, are like the rites of a religion; they may look absurd but they shape men in their mold. It was no concern to Rivière whether he seemed just or unjust. Perhaps the words were meaningless to him. The little townsfolk of the little towns promenade each evening round a bandstand and Rivière thought: It’s nonsense to talk of being just or unjust toward them; they don’t exist.

For him, a man was a mere lump of wax to be kneaded into shape. It was his task to furnish this dead matter with a soul, to inject will power into it. Not that he wished to make slaves of his men; his aim was to raise them above themselves. In punishing them for each delay he acted, no doubt, unjustly, but he bent the will of every crew to punctual departure; or, rather, he bred in them the will to keep to time. Denying his men the right to welcome foggy weather as the pretext for a leisure hour, he kept them so breathlessly eager for the fog to lift that even the humblest mechanic felt a twinge of shame for the delay. Thus they were quick to profit by the least rift in the armor of the skies.

“An opening on the north; let’s be off!”

Thanks to Rivière the service of the mails was paramount over twenty thousand miles of land and sea.

“The men are happy,” he would say, “because they like their work, and they like it because I am hard.”

And hard he may have been—still he gave his men keen pleasure for all that. “They need,” he would say to himself, “to be urged on toward a hardy life, with its sufferings and its joys; only that matters.”

As the car approached the city, Rivière instructed the driver to take him to the Head Office. Presently Robineau found himself alone with Pellerin and a question shaped itself upon his lips.

V

Robineau was feeling tired tonight. Looking at Pellerin—Pellerin the Conqueror—he had just discovered that his own life was a gray one.