I
The vast plain stretched out under the blue splendour of dawn, a broad
sash of light which appeared in the direction of the sea.
The last nightingales, tired of animating with their songs this autumn
night, which seemed like spring in the balminess of its atmosphere,
poured forth their final warble, as if the light of dawn wounded them
with its steely reflections.
Flocks of sparrows arose like crowds of pursued urchins from the
thatched roofs of the farm-houses, and the tops of the trees trembled at
the first assault of these gamins of the air, who stirred up everything
with the flurry of their feathers.
The sounds which fill the night had gradually died away: the babbling of
the canals, the murmur of the cane-plantations, the bark of the watchful
dog.
The _huerta_ was awaking, and its yawnings were growing ever noisier.
The crowing of the cock was carried on from farm-house to farm-house;
the bells of the village were answering, with noisy peals, the ringing
of the first mass which floated from the towers of Valencia, blue and
hazy in the distance. From the corrals came a discordant animal-concert;
the whinnying of horses, the lowing of gentle cows, the clucking of
hens, the bleating of lambs, the grunting of pigs, ... all the noisy
awakening of creatures who, upon feeling the first caress of dawn,
permeated with the pungent perfume of vegetation, long to be off and run
about the fields.
Space became saturated with light; the shadows dissolved as though
swallowed up by the open furrows and the masses of foliage; and in the
hazy mist of dawn, humid and shining rows of mulberry-trees, waving
lines of cane-brake, large square beds of garden vegetables like
enormous green handkerchiefs, and the carefully tilled red earth, became
gradually more and more defined.
Along the high-road there came creeping rows of moveable black dots,
strung out like files of ants, all marching toward the city. From all
the ends of the _vega_, resounded the creaking of wheels mingled with
idle songs interrupted by shouts urging on the beasts; and from time to
time, like the sonorous heralding of dawn, the air was rent by the
furious braying of the donkey protesting so to speak against the heavy
labour which fell upon him with break of day.
Along the canals, the glassy sheet of ruddy crystal was disturbed by
noisy plashings and loud beating of wings which silenced the frogs as
the ducks advanced like galleys of ivory, moving their serpentine necks
like fantastic prows.
The plain was flooded with light, and life penetrated into the interior
of the farm-houses.
Doors creaked as they opened; under the grape-arbours white figures
could be seen, which upon awakening stretched out, hands clasped behind
their heads, and gazed toward the illumined horizon.
The stables stood with doors wide-open, vomiting forth a stream of
milch-cows, herds of goats, and the nags of the cart-drivers, all bound
for the city. From behind the screen of dwarfish trees which concealed
the road, came the jingle of cow-bells, while mingling with their gay
notes, there sounded the shrill _arre, aca!_[A] urging on the stubborn
beasts.
At the doorways of the farm-houses stood those who were city-bound and
those who remained to work in the fields, saluting each other.
May the Lord give us a good-day!
Good-day!
And after this salutation, exchanged with all the gravity of country
folk who carry the blood of Moors in their veins, and who speak the name
of God only with solemn gesture, silence fell again if the passer-by
were one unknown; but if he were an intimate, he was commissioned with
the purchase, in Valencia, of small objects for the house or wife.
The day had now completely dawned.
The air was already cleared of the tenuous mist that rose during the
night from the damp fields and the noisy canals. The sun was coming out;
in the ruddy furrows the larks hopped about with the joy of living one
day more, and the mischievous sparrows, alighting at the still-closed
windows, pecked away at the wood, chirping to those within, with the
shrill cry of the vagabond used to living at the expense of others:
"Up, you lazy drones! Work in the fields so we may eat!"
Pepeta, wife of Toni, known throughout the neighbourhood as Pimentó, had
just entered their _barraca_. She was a courageous creature, and despite
her pale flesh, wasted white by anaemia while still in full youth, the
most hard working woman in the entire _huerta_.[B]
At daybreak, she was already returning from market. She had risen at
three, loaded herself with the baskets of garden-truck gathered by Toni
the night before, and groping for the paths while she cursed the vile
existence in which she was worked so hard, had guided herself like a
true daughter of the _huerta_ through the darkness to Valencia.
Meanwhile her husband, that good fellow who was costing her so dearly,
continued to snore in the warm bed-chamber, bundled in the matrimonial
blankets.
The wholesalers who bought the vegetables were well acquainted with this
woman, who, even before the break of day, was already in the
market-place of Valencia. Seated amid her baskets, she shivered beneath
her thin, thread-bare shawl while she gazed, with an envy of which she
was not aware, at those who were drinking a cup of coffee to combat the
morning chill the better. She hoped with a submissive, animal-like
patience to get the money she had reckoned upon, in her complicated
calculations, in order to maintain Toni and run the house.
When she had sold her vegetables, she returned home, running all the
way, to save an hour on the road.
A second time she set forth to ply another trade; after the vegetables
came the milk. And dragging the red cow by the halter, followed along by
the playful calf which clung like an amorous satellite to its tail,
Pepeta returned to the city, carrying a little stick under her arm, and
a measuring-cup of tin with which to serve her customers.
_La Rocha_, as the cow was called on account of her reddish coat, mooed
gently and trembled under her sackcloth cover as she felt the chill of
morning, while she rolled her humid eyes toward the _barraca_, which
remained behind with its black stable and its heavy air, and thought of
the fragrant straw with the voluptuous desire of sleep that is not
satisfied.
Meanwhile, Pepeta urged her on with the stick: it was growing late, and
the customers would complain. And the cow and little calf trotted along
the middle of the road of Alboraya, which was muddy and furrowed with
deep ruts.
Along the sloping banks passed interminable rows of cigarette-girls and
silk-mill workers, each with a hamper on one arm, while the other swung
free. The entire virginity of the _huerta_ went along this way toward
the factories, leaving behind, with the flutter of their skirts, a wake
of harsh, rough chastity.
The blessing of God was over all the fields.
The sun rising like an enormous red wafer from behind the trees and
houses which hid the horizon, shot forth blinding needles of gold. The
mountains in the background and the towers of the city took on a rosy
tint; the little clouds which floated in the sky grew red like crimson
silk; the canals and the pools which bordered the road seemed to become
filled with fiery fish; the swishing of the broom, the rattle of china,
and all the sounds of the morning's cleaning came from within the
_barracas_.
The women squatted by the edges of the pools, with baskets of clothes
for the wash at their sides; dark-grey rabbits came hopping along the
paths with their deceiving smile, showing, in their flight, their
reddish quarters, parted by the stub of a tail; with an eye red and
flaming with anger, the cock mounted the heap of reddish manure with his
peaceful odalisks about him and sent forth the cry of an irritated
sultan.
Pepeta, oblivious to this awakening of dawn which she witnessed every
day, hurried on her way, her stomach empty, her limbs aching, her poor
clothing drenched with the perspiration characteristic of her pale, thin
blood, which flowed for weeks at a time contrary to the laws of Nature.
The crowds of labouring people who were entering Valencia filled all the
bridges. Pepeta passed the labourers from the suburbs who had come with
their little breakfast-sacks over their shoulders, and stopped at the
_octroi_ to get her receipt,--a few coins which grieved her soul anew
each day,--then went on through the deserted streets, whose silence was
broken by the cowbells of _La Rocha_, a monotonous pastoral melody,
which caused the drowsy townsman to dream of green pastures and idyllic
scenery.
Pepeta had customers in all parts of the city. She went her intricate
way through the streets, stopping before the closed doors; it was a blow
on a knocker here, three or more repeated raps there, and ever the
continuation of the strident, high-pitched cry, which it seemed could
not possibly come from a chest so poor and flat:
_La lleeet!_
And the dishevelled, sunken-eyed servant came down in slippers, jug in
hand, to receive the milk; or the aged concierge appeared, still wearing
the mantilla which she had put on to go to mass.
By eight all the customers had been served. Pepeta was now near the
Fishermen's quarter.
Here she had business also, and the poor farmer's wife bravely
penetrated the dirty alleys which, at this hour, seemed to be dead. She
always felt at first a certain uneasiness,--the instinctive repugnance
of a delicate stomach: but her spirit, that of a woman who, though ill,
was respectable, succeeded in rising above it, and she went on with a
certain proud satisfaction--the pride of a chaste woman who consoles
herself by remembering that though bent and weakened by her poverty, she
is still superior to others.
From the closed and silent houses came forth the breath of the cheap,
noisy, shameless rabble mingled with an odour of heated, rotting flesh;
and through the cracks of the doors, there seemed to escape the gasping
and brutal breathing of heavy sleep, after a night of wild-beast
caresses and amorous, drunken desires.
Pepeta heard some one calling her. At the entrance to a narrow stairway
stood a sturdy girl, making signs to her. She was ugly, without any
other charm than that of youth disappearing already; her eyes were
humid, her hair twisted in a topknot, and her cheeks, still stained by
the rouge of the preceding night, seemed like a caricature of the red
daubs on the face of a clown,--a clown of vice.
The peasant woman, tightening her lips with a grimace of pride and
disdain, in order that the distance between them might be well-marked,
began to fill a jar which the girl gave her with milk from La Rocha's
udders. The latter, however, did not take her eyes from the farmer's
wife.
"Pepeta,"--she said, in an indecisive voice, as though she were
uncertain if it were really she.
Pepeta raised her head; she fixed her eyes for the first time upon the
girl; then she also appeared to be in doubt.
"Rosario,--is it you?"
Yes, it was; with sad nods of the head she confirmed it. Pepeta
immediately showed her surprise. She here! A daughter of such honourable
parents! God! What shame!
The prostitute, through professional habit, tried to receive those
exclamations of the scandalized farmer's wife with a cynical smile and
the sceptical expression of one who has been initiated into the secret
of life, and who believes in nothing; but Pepeta's clear eyes seemed to
shame the girl, and she dropped her head as though she were about to
weep.
No: she was not bad. She had worked in the factories, she had been a
servant, but finally, her sisters, tired of suffering hunger, had given
her the example. So here she was, sometimes receiving caresses, and
sometimes receiving blows, and here she would stay till she ceased to
live forever. It was natural: any family may end thus where there is no
mother nor father left. The cause of it all was the master of the land;
he was to blame for everything, that Don Salvador, who assuredly must be
burning in hell! Ah, thief! How he had ruined the entire family!
Pepeta forgot her frigid attitude and cold reserve in order to join in
the girl's indignation. It was the truth, the whole truth! That
avaricious old miser was to blame. The entire _huerta_ knew it! Heaven
save us! How easily a family may be ruined! And poor old Barret had been
so good! If he could only raise his head and see his daughters!... It
was well-known yonder that the poor father had died in Ceuta two years
before; and as for the mother, the poor widow had ended her suffering on
a hospital-bed.
What changes take place in the world in ten years! Who would have said
to her, and her sisters, who were reigning like queens in their homes at
the time, that they would come to such an end? Oh Lord! Lord! Deliver us
from evil!
Rosario became animated during this conversation; she seemed rejuvenated
by this friend of her childhood. Her eyes, previously dead, sparkled as
she recalled the past.
And the _barraca_? And the land? They were still deserted. Truly? That
pleased her;--let them go to smash,--let them go to rack and
ruin,--those sons of the rascally don Salvador.
That alone seemed to console her: she was very grateful to Pimentó and
to all the others, because they had prevented those people yonder from
coming to work the land which rightfully belonged to the family. And if
any one wished to take possession of it, he knew only too well the
remedy.... Bang! A report from a gun which would blow his head off!
The girl grew bolder; her eyes gleamed fiercely; within the passive
breast of the prostitute, accustomed to blows, there came to life the
daughter of the _huerta_, who, from very birth, has seen the musket hung
behind the door, and breathed in the smell of gunpowder on feast-days
with delight.
After speaking of the sad past Rosario, whose curiosity was awakened,
went on inquiring about all the folks at home, and ended by noticing how
badly Pepeta looked. Poor thing! It was perfectly apparent that she was
not happy. Although still young, her eyes, clear, guileless, and timid
as a virgin's, alone revealed her real age. Her body was a mere
skeleton, and her reddish hair, the colour of a tender ear of corn, was
streaked with grey though as yet she had not reached her thirtieth year.
What kind of a life was Pimentó giving her? Always drunk and averse to
work? She had brought it upon herself, marrying him contrary to every
one's advice. He was a strapping fellow, that was true; every one feared
him in the tavern of Copa on Sunday evenings, when he played cards with
the worst bullies of the _huerta_; but in the house, he was bound to
prove an insufferable husband. Still, after all, men are all alike!
Perhaps she didn't know it! Dogs, all of them, not worth the trouble of
being looked after! Great Heavens! how ill poor Pepeta was looking!
The loud, deep voice of a virago resounded like a clap of thunder down
the narrow stairway.
"Elisa! Bring up the milk at once! The gentleman is waiting!"
Rosario began to laugh as though mad. "I am called Elisa now! You didn't
know that!"
It was a requirement of her business to change her name, as well as to
speak with an Andalusian accent. And she began to imitate the voice of
the virago upstairs with a species of rough humour.
But in spite of her mirth, she was in a hurry to get away. She was
afraid of those upstairs. The owner of the rough voice or the gentleman
who wanted the milk might give her some memento of the delay. So she
hurried up after urging Pepeta to stop again some other time to tell her
the news of the _huerta_.
The monotonous tinkling of the bell of La Rocha continued for more than
an hour through the streets of Valencia; the wilted udders yielded up
their last drop of insipid milk, produced by a miserable diet of
cabbage-leaves and garbage, and Pepeta finally was ready to start back
toward the _barraca_.
The poor labouring-woman walked along sadly deep in thought. The
encounter had impressed her; she remembered, as though it had just
happened the day before, the terrible tragedy which had swallowed up old
Barret and his entire family.
Since then, the fields, which his ancestors had tilled for more than a
hundred years, had lain abandoned at the edge of the high road.
The uninhabited _barraca_ was slowly crumbling to pieces without any
merciful hand to mend the roof or to cast a handful of clay upon the
chinks in the wall.
Ten years of passing and re-passing had accustomed people to the sight
of this ruin, so they paid no further attention to it. It had been some
time since even Pepeta had looked at it. It now interested only the boys
who, inheriting the hatred of their fathers, trampled down the nettles
of the abandoned fields in order to riddle the deserted house with
rocks, which split great gaps in the closed door, or to fill up the well
under the ancient grape-arbour with earth and stones.
But this morning Pepeta, under the spell of the recent meeting, not only
looked at the ruin, but stopped at the edge of the highway to see it the
better.
The fields of old Barret, or rather, of the Jew, Don Salvador, and his
excommunicated heirs, were an oasis of misery and abandonment in the
midst of the _huerta_, so fertile, well-tilled, and smiling.
Ten years of desolation had hardened the soil, causing all the parasitic
plants, all the nettles which the Lord has created to chasten the
farmer, to spring up out of its sterile depths. A dwarfish forest,
tangled and deformed, spread itself out over those fields in waving
ranks of strange green tones, varied here and there by flowers,
mysterious and rare, of the sort which thrive only amid cemeteries and
ruins.
Here, in the rank maze of this thicket, fostered by the security of
their retreat, there bred and multiplied all species of loathsome
vermin, which spread out into the neighbouring fields; green lizards
with corrugated loins, enormous beetles with shells of metallic
reflection, spiders with short and hairy legs, and even snakes, which
slid off to the adjoining canals. Here they thrived in the midst of the
beautiful and cultivated plain, forming a separate estate, and devouring
one another. Though they caused some damage to the farmers, the latter
respected them even with a certain veneration, for the seven plagues of
Egypt would have seemed but a trifle to the dwellers of the _huerta_ had
they descended upon those accursed fields.
The lands of old Barret never had been destined for man, so let the
most loathsome pests nest among them, and the more, the better.
In the midst of these fields of desolation, which stood out in the
beautiful plain like a soiled patch on a royal robe of green velvet, the
_barraca_ rose up, or one should rather say fell away, its straw roof
bursting open, showing through the gaps, which the rain and wind had
pierced, the worm-eaten framework of wood within.
The walls, rotted away by the rains, laid bare the clay-adobe. Only some
very light stains revealed the former whitewash; the door was ragged
along the lower edge which rats had gnawed, with wide cracks that ran,
full length, from end to end. The two or three little windows, gaping
wide, hung loosely on one hinge exposed to the mercy of the south-west
winds, ready to fall as soon as the first gust should shake them.
This ruin hurt the spirit and weighed upon the heart. It seemed as
though phantoms might sally forth from the wretched and abandoned hut as
soon as darkness closed in; that from the interior might come the cries
of the assassinated, rending the night; that all this waste of weeds
might be a shroud to conceal hundreds of tragic corpses from sight.
Horrible were the visions which were conjured up by the contemplation of
these desolate fields; and their gloomy poverty was sharpened by the
contrast with the surrounding fields, so red and well-cultivated, with
their orderly rows of garden-truck and their little fruit-trees, to
whose leaves the autumn gave a yellowish transparency.
Even the birds fled from these plains of death, perhaps from fear of the
hideous reptiles which stirred about under the growth of weeds, or
possibly because they scented the vapour of abandonment.
If anything were seen to flutter over the broken roof of straw, it was
certain to be of funereal plumage with black and treacherous wings,
which as they stirred, cast silence over the joyful flappings and
playful twitterings in the trees, leaving the _huerta_ deathly still, as
though no sparrows chirped within a half-league roundabout.
Pepeta was about to continue on her way toward her farm-house, which
peered whitely among the trees some distance across the fields; but she
had to stand still at the steep edge of the highroad in order to permit
the passing of a loaded wagon, which seemed to be coming from the city,
and which advanced with violent lurches.
At the sight of it, her feminine curiosity was aroused.
It was the poor cart of a farmer drawn by an old and bony nag, which was
being helped over the deep ruts by a tall man, who marched alongside the
horse, encouraging him with shouts and the cracking of a whip.
He was dressed like a labourer; but his manner of wearing the
handkerchief knotted around the head, his corduroy trousers, and other
details of his costume, indicated that he was not from the _huerta_,
where personal adornment had gradually been corrupted by the fashions of
the city. He was a farmer from some distant _pueblo_; he had come,
perhaps, from the very centre of the province.
Heaped high upon the cart, forming a pyramid which mounted higher even
than the side-poles, was piled a jumble of domestic objects. This was
the migration of an entire family. Thin mattresses, straw-beds, filled
with rustling leaves of corn, rush-seats, frying-pans, kettles, plates,
baskets, green bed-slats: all were heaped upon the wagon, dirty, worn,
and miserable, speaking of hunger, of desperate flight, as if disgrace
stalked behind the family, treading at its heels. And on top of this
disordered mass were three children, embracing each other as they looked
out across the fields with wide-open eyes, like explorers visiting a
country for the first time.
Treading close at the heels of the wagon, watching vigilantly to see
that nothing might fall, trudged a woman with a slender girl, who
appeared to be her daughter. At the other side of the nag, aiding him
whenever the cart stuck in a rut, stalked a boy of some eleven years.
His grave exterior was that of a child accustomed to struggle with
misery. He was already a man at an age when others were still playing. A
little dog, dirty and panting, brought up the rear.
Pepeta, leaning on the flank of her cow, and possessed with growing
curiosity, watched them pass on. Where could these poor people be going?
This road, running into the fork of Alboraya, did not lead anywhere; it
was lost in the distance as though exhausted by the innumerable
forkings of its lanes and paths, which gave entrance to the various
_barracas_.
But her curiosity had an unexpected gratification. Holy Virgin! The
wagon turned away from the road, crossed the tumbledown little bridge
made of tree-trunks and sod which gave access to the accursed fields,
and went on through the meadows of old Barret, crushing the hitherto
respected growth of weeds beneath its wheels.
The family followed behind, manifesting by gestures and confused words,
the impression which this miserable poverty and decay were making upon
them, but all the while going directly in a straight line toward the
ruined _barraca_ like those who are taking possession of their own.
Pepeta did not stop to see more; she fairly flew toward her own home. In
order to arrive the sooner, she abandoned the cow and little calf, who
tranquilly pursued their way like animals who have a good, safe stable
and are not worried about the course of human affairs.
Pimentó was lazily smoking, as he lay stretched out at the side of his
_barraca_ with his gaze fixed upon three little sticks smeared with
bird-lime, which shone in the sun, and about which some birds were
fluttering,--the occupation of a gentleman.
When he saw his wife arrive with astonished eyes and her weak chest
panting, Pimentó changed his position in order to listen the better, at
the same time warning her not to come near the little sticks.
What was up now? Had the cow been stolen from her?
Pepeta, between weariness and emotion, was scarcely able to utter two
consecutive words.
The lands of Barret, ... an entire family, ... were going to work; they
were going to live in the ruined _barraca_,--she had seen it herself!
Pimentó, a hunter with bird-lime, an enemy of labour, and the terror of
the entire community, was no longer able to preserve his composure, the
impressive gravity of a great lord, before such unexpected news.
_Cordons!_
And with one bound, he raised his heavy, muscular frame from the ground,
and set out on a run without awaiting further explanations.
His wife watched him as he hurried across the fields until he reached a
cane-brake adjoining the accursed land. Here he knelt down, threw
himself face forward, crawling upon his belly as he spied through the
cane-brake like a Bedouin in ambush. After a few minutes, he began to
run again, and was soon lost to sight amid the labyrinth of paths, each
of which led off to a different _barraca_, to a field where bending
figures wielded large steel hoes, which glittered as the light struck
upon them.
The _huerta_ lay smiling and rustling, filled with whisperings and with
light, drowsy under the cascade of gold reflected from the morning sun.
But soon there came, from the distance, the mingled sound of cries and
halloes. The news passed on from field to field. With loud shouts, with
a trembling of alarm, of surprise, of indignation, it ran on through all
the plain as though centuries had not elapsed, and the report were being
spread that an Algerian galley was about to land upon the beach, seeking
a cargo of white flesh.