"You know better than I," he said, "that all courts-martial are farces and that you're really paying for the crimes of other people, because this time we're going to win the war at any price. Wouldn't you have done the same in my place?" General Moncada got up to clean his thick horn-rimmed glasses on his shirttail. "Probably," he said. "But what worries me is not your shooting me, because after all, for people like us it's a natural death." He lais his glasses on the bed and took off his watch and chain. "What worries me," he went on "is that out of so much and thinking about them so much, you've ended up as bad as they are. And no ideal in life is worth that much baseness." He took off his wedding ring and the medal of the Virgin of Help and put them alongside his glasses and watch. "At this rate," he concluded, "you'll not only be the most despotic and bloody dictator in our history, but you'll shoot my dear friend Ursula in an attempt to pacify your conscience."