Residents in Santiago's plush Providencia suburb dusted down their Chilean flags and joyfully hung them from the steel gates of fortress-like homes yesterday morning, celebrating the news that Gen Augusto Pinochet was on his way home.
"It's great, I feel like I've been holding my breath for the past 16 months," said Ms Josefina Diaz, a middle-aged woman who declared "unconditional love" for Gen Pinochet.
His hardcore followers at the Pinochet Foundation held an all-night vigil, taking care to begin celebrations only when the plane was safely in the air.
Elsewhere the mood was more sombre, as hundreds of people stopped and stared at the headlines on the afternoon papers, while armed police took up positions close to the presidential palace and knots of protestors gathered outside court buildings.
Mr Hugo Gutierrez, a human rights lawyer, said it was the nation's "hour of truth" yesterday morning, as he filed papers at the Supreme Court offices, beginning a process which, if successful, will strip Gen Pinochet of his senatorial immunity.
Crowds will gather from early morning today outside Santiago's Military Hospital where Gen Pinochet will appear before his supporters, but no speeches are expected. He will earlier be greeted by military bands and a cavalcade when he touches down at the northern city of Iquique, where his plane will refuel before arriving in Santiago. Relatives of the Disappeared have planned a counter-demonstration at the same time.
When he lands at Pudahuel airport in Santiago, at 8 a.m. local time, he will receive a formal welcome from the Chilean Air Force, while the current head of the armed forces, Gen Ricardo Izurieta, is also expected to salute the former army chief and make a brief speech.
Chileans gathered in small groups in public squares yesterday, looking for excuses to open up discussion: "Where are you from?" growled one stocky man, always a worrying opening line in these parts. "If they can't try Pinochet for war crimes, do you think we can?" he added.
Gen Pinochet's release occurred at a strategic time for Chile's changing presidency, as the outgoing President, Mr Eduardo Frei, fulfilled his pledge to see Gen Pinochet home before he left office. He hands over to Mr Ricardo Lagos in a week.
Chile remains deeply divided over the legacy of Gen Pinochet, who abandoned power in 1990 after he had revised the constitution, perpetuated his control over the senate and tamed the nation's judicial system.
On the streets of Santiago yesterday, the only issue on which everyone seemed to agree was that there was no chance at all that the former dictator would be tried, much less punished once he returned home. "Forget it," said one person after another, contradicting official statements. "He'll be too sick, too old, too tired, any excuse will do," said one woman, waiting for a bus.
This street wisdom was challenged by Mr Lagos, who insisted that "all the conditions" were in place to put Gen Pinochet on trial. "Otherwise we have a castrated democracy," he said.
Gen Pinochet returns home with less political leverage than when he left, yet still relatively safe in the knowledge that the constitution he drew up should prevent him from receiving sanctions for his involvement in the estimated 3,197 political killings during his dictatorship.
Judge Juan Guzman, who is working on 59 civil cases filed against Gen Pinochet for kidnap and torture, will demand a fresh series of medical examinations to establish if the former head of state is capable of facing trial. The humanitarian grounds used by the British Home Secretary, Mr Jack Straw, to release the general have no legal basis in Chile, where unfitness to stand trial can be based only on insanity.
Judge Guzman has proceeded with his investigations by invoking the principle of "perpetual kidnapping", successfully arguing that without the bodies of the disappeared, Gen Pinochet's victims are presumed to be still in custody. They therefore fall outside the scope of an amnesty law approved before Gen Pinochet handed over power.
Army representatives and human rights lawyers involved in the "table of dialogue" announced preliminary agreement for a deal which would allow investigators to learn more about the fate of the disappeared.
The proposed "reward and punishment" system, yet to be approved by the army hierarchy, would allow former agents of the dictatorship to reveal information about their involvement in disappearances, in return for reductions in sentences, using legislation usually applied to drug-trafficking cases.
However, many human rights groups have opposed the proposal, as the text includes an acknowledgment that Chile was not a democratic state in September 1973, despite President Salvador Allende's democratic mandate. In return, the armed forces would tacitly recognise that their regime was marked by a co-ordinated policy of state repression, whereas only "isolated excesses" were accepted until now.
"Our greatest victory was in having Pinochet spend 16 months in London," said Ms Viviana Diaz, spokeswoman for the Relatives of the Disappeared Group. "The next step is to force our authorities to stand by their promise to judge Pinochet here," she said.