It was Thursday, and according to a custom which dated back for five
centuries, the Tribunal of the Waters was going to meet at the doorway
of the Cathedral named after the Apostles.
The clock of the Miguelete pointed to a little after ten, and the
inhabitants of the _huerta_ were gathering in idle groups or seating
themselves about the large basin of the dry fountain which adorned the
_plaza_, forming about its base an animated wreath of blue and white
cloaks, red and yellow handkerchiefs, and skirts of calico prints of
bright colours.
Others were arriving, drawing up their horses, with their rush-baskets
loaded with manure, satisfied with the collection they had made in the
streets; still others, in empty carts, were trying to persuade the
police to allow their vehicles to remain there; and while the old folks
chatted with the women, the young went into the neighbouring café, to
kill time over a glass of brandy, while chewing at a three-centime
cigar.
All those of the _huerta_ who had grievances to avenge were here,
gesticulating and scowling, speaking of their rights, impatient to let
loose the interminable chain of their complaints before the syndics or
judges of the seven canals.
The bailiff of the tribunal, who had been carrying on this contest with
the insolent and aggressive crowd for more than fifty years, placed a
long sofa of old damask which was on its last legs within the shadow of
the Gothic portal, and then set up a low railing, thereby closing in the
square of sidewalk which had to serve the purpose of an
audience-chamber.
The portal of the Apostles, old, reddish, corroded by the centuries,
extending its gnawed beauty to the light of the sun, formed a background
worthy of an ancient tribunal; it was like a canopy of stone devised to
protect an institution five centuries old.
In the tympanum appeared the Virgin with six angels, with stiff white
gowns and wings of fine plumage, chubby-cheeked, with heavy curls and
flaming tufts of hair, playing violas and flutes, flageolets and
tambourines. Three garlands of little figures, angels, kings, and
saints, covered with openwork canopies, ran through three arches
superposed over the three portals. In the thick, solid walls, forepart
of the portal, the twelve apostles might be seen, but so disfigured, so
ill-treated, that Jesus himself would not have known them; the feet
gnawed, the nostrils broken, the hands mangled; a line of huge figures
who, rather than apostles, looked like sick men who had escaped from a
clinic, and were sorrowfully displaying their shapeless stumps. Above,
at the top of the portal, there opened out like a gigantic flower
covered with wire netting, the coloured rose-window which admitted light
to the church; and on the lower part the stone along the base of the
columns adorned with the shields of Aragon, was worn, the corners and
foliage having become indistinct through the rubbing of innumerable
generations.
By this erosion of the portals the passing of riot and revolt might be
divined. A whole people had met and mingled beside these stones; here,
in other centuries, the turbulent Valencian populace, shouting and red
with fury, had moved about; and the saints of the portal, mutilated and
smooth as Egyptian mummies, gazing at the sky with their broken heads,
appeared to be still listening to the Revolutionary bell of the Union,
or the arquebus shots of the Brotherhood.
The bailiff finished arranging the Tribunal, and placed himself at the
entrance of the enclosure to await the judges. The latter arrived
solemnly, dressed in black, with white sandals, and silken handkerchiefs
under their broad hats, they had the appearance of rich farmers. Each
was followed by a cortège of canal-guards, and by persistent supplicants
who, before the hour of justice, were seeking to predispose the judges'
minds in their favour.
The farmers gazed with respect at these judges, come forth from their
own class, whose deliberations did not admit of any appeal. They were
the masters of the water: in their hands remained the living of the
families, the nourishment of the fields, the timely watering, the lack
of which kills a harvest. And the people of these wide plains, separated
by the river, which is like an impassable frontier, designated the
judges by the number of the canals.
A little, thin, bent, old man, whose red and horny hands trembled as
they rested on the thick staff, was Cuart de Faitanar; the other, stout
and imposing, with small eyes scarcely visible under bushy white brows,
was Mislata. Soon Roscaña arrived; a youth who wore a blouse that had
been freshly ironed, and whose head was round. After these appeared in
sequence the rest of the seven:--Favara, Robella, Tornos and Mestalla.
Now all the representatives of the four plains were there; the one on
the left bank of the river; the one with the four canals; the one which
the _huerta_ of Rufaza encircles with its roads of luxuriant foliage
ending at the confines of the marshy Albufera; and the plain on the
right bank of the Turia, the poetic one, with its strawberries of
Benimaclet, its _cyperus_ of Alboraya and its gardens always overrun
with flowers.
The seven judges saluted, like people who had not seen each other for a
week; they spoke of their business beside the door of the Cathedral:
from time to time, upon opening the wooden screens covered with
religious advertisements, a puff of incense-laden air, somewhat like the
damp exhalation from a subterranean cavern, diffused itself into the
burning atmosphere of the _plaza_.
At half-past eleven, when the divine offices were ended and only some
belated devotee was still coming from the temple, the Tribunal began to
operate.
The seven judges seated themselves on the old sofa; then the people of
the _huerta_ came running up from all sides of the _plaza_, to gather
around the railing, pressing their perspiring bodies, which smelled of
straw and coarse sheep's wool, close together, and the bailiff, rigid
and majestic, took his place near the pole topped with a bronze crook,
symbolic of aquatic majesty.
The seven syndics removed their hats and remained with their hands
between the knees and their eyes upon the ground, while the eldest
pronounced the customary sentence:
"Let the Tribunal begin."
Absolute stillness. The crowd, observing religious silence, seemed here,
in the midst of the _plaza_, to be worshipping in a temple. The sound of
carriages, the clatter of tramways, all the din of modern life passed
by, without touching or stirring this most ancient institution, which
remained tranquil, like one who finds himself in his own house,
insensible to time, paying no attention to the radical change
surrounding it, incapable of any reform.
The inhabitants of the _huerta_ were proud of their tribunal. It
dispensed justice; the penalty without delay, and nothing done with
papers, which confuse and puzzle honest men.
The absence of stamped paper and of the clerk of court who terrifies,
was the part best liked by these people who were accustomed to looking
upon the art of writing of which they were ignorant with a certain
superstitious terror. Here were no secretary, no pens, no days of
anxiety while awaiting sentence, no terrifying guards, nor anything more
than words.
The judges kept the declarations in their memory, and passed sentence
immediately with the tranquillity of those who know that their decisions
must be fulfilled. On him who would be insolent with the tribunal, a
fine was imposed; from him who had refused to comply with the verdict,
the water was taken away forever, and he must die of hunger.
Nobody played with this tribunal. It was the simple patriarchal justice
of the good legendary king, coming forth mornings to the door of his
palace in order to settle the disputes of his subjects; the judicial
system of the Kabila chief, passing sentences at his tent-entrance. Thus
are rascals punished, and the honourable triumph, and there is peace.
And the public, men, women, and children, fearful of missing a word,
pressed close together against the railing, moving, sometimes, with
violent contortions of their shoulders, in order to escape from
suffocation.
The complainants would appear at the other side of the railing, before
the sofa as old as the tribunal itself.
The bailiff would take away their staffs and shepherds' crooks, which he
regarded as offensive arms incompatible with the respect due the
tribunal. He pushed them forward until with their mantle folded over
their hands they were planted some paces distant from the judges, and if
they were slow in baring their head, the handkerchief was wrested from
it with two tugs. It was hard, but with this crafty people it was
necessary to act thus.
The line filing by brought a continuous outburst of intricate questions,
which the judges settled with marvellous facility.
The keepers of the canals and the irrigation-guards, charged with the
establishment of each one's turn in the irrigation, formulated their
charges, and the defendants appeared to defend themselves with
arguments. The old men allowed their sons, who knew how to express
themselves with more energy, to speak; the widow appeared, accompanied
by some friend of the deceased, a devoted protector, who acted as her
spokesman.
The passion of the south cropped out in every case.
In the midst of the accusation, the defendant would not be able to
contain himself. "You lie! What you say is evil and false! You are
trying to ruin me!"
But the seven judges received these interruptions with furious glances.
Here nobody was permitted to speak before his own turn came. At the
second interruption, he would have to pay a fine of so many _sous_. And
he who was obstinate, driven by his vehement madness, which would not
permit him to be silent before the accuser, paid more and more _sous_.
The judges, without giving up their seats, would put their heads
together like playful goats, and whisper together for some seconds;
then the eldest, in a composed and solemn voice, pronounced the
sentence, designating the fine in _sous_ and pounds, as if money had
suffered no change, and majestic Justice with its red robe and its
escort of plumed crossbowmen were still passing through the centre of
the _plaza_.
It was after twelve, and the seven judges were beginning to show signs
of being weary of such prodigious outpouring of the stream of justice,
when the bailiff called out loudly to Bautista Borrull, denouncing him
for infraction and disobedience of irrigation-rights.
Pimentó and Batiste passed the railing, and the people pressed up even
closer against the bar.
Here were many of those who lived near the ancient land of Barret.
This trial was interesting. The hated new-comer had been denounced by
Pimentó, who was the "_atandador_"[G] of that district.
The bully, by mixing up in elections, and strutting about like a
fighting cock all over the neighbourhood, had won this office which gave
him a certain air of authority and strengthened his prestige among the
neighbours, who made much of him and treated him on irrigation days.
Batiste was amazed at this unjust denunciation. His pallor was that of
indignation. He gazed with eyes full of fury at all the familiar mocking
faces, which were pressing against the rail, and at his enemy Pimentó,
who was strutting about proudly, like a man accustomed to appearing
before the tribunal, and to whom a small part of its unquestionable
authority belonged.
"Speak," said the eldest of the judges, putting one foot forward, for
according to a century-old custom, the tribunal, instead of using the
hands, signalled with the white sandal to him who should speak.
Pimentó poured forth his accusation. This man who was beside him,
perhaps because he was new in the _huerta_, seemed to think that the
apportionment of the water was a trifling matter, and that he could suit
his own blessed will.
He, Pimentó, the _atandador_, who represented the authority of the
canals in his district, had set for Batiste the hour for watering his
wheat. It was two o'clock in the morning. But doubtless the señor, not
wishing to arise at that hour, had let his turn go, and at five, when
the water was intended for others, he had raised the flood-gate without
permission from anybody (the _first_ offence), and attempted to water
his fields, resolving to oppose, by main force, the orders of the
_atandador_, which constituted the _third_ and last offence.
The thrice-guilty delinquent, turning all the colours of the rainbow,
and indignant at the words of Pimentó, was not able to restrain himself.
"You lie, and lie doubly!"
The tribunal became indignant at the heat and the lack of respect with
which this man was protesting.
If he did not keep silent he would be fined.
But what was a fine for the concentrated wrath of a peaceful man! He
kept on protesting against the injustice of men, against the tribunal
which had, as its servants, such rogues and liars as Pimentó.
The tribunal was stirred up; the seven judges became excited.
Four _sous_ for a fine!
Batiste, realizing his situation, suddenly grew silent, terrified at
having incurred a fine, while laughter came from the crowd and howls of
joy from his enemies.
He remained motionless, with bowed head, and his eyes dimmed with tears
of rage, while his brutal enemy finished formulating his denunciation.
"Speak," the tribunal said to him. But little sympathy was noted in the
looks of the judges for this disturber, who had come to trouble the
solemnity of their deliberations with his protests.
Batiste, trembling with rage, stammered, not knowing how to begin his
defence because of the very fact that it seemed to him perfectly just.
The court had been misled; Pimentó was a liar and furthermore his
declared enemy. He had told him that his time for irrigation came at
five, he remembered it very well, and was now affirming that it was two;
just to make him incur a fine, to destroy the wheat upon which the life
of his family depended.... Did the tribunal value the word of an honest
man? Then this was the truth, although he was not able to present
witnesses. It seemed impossible that the honourable syndics, all good
people, should trust a rascal like Pimentó!
The white sandal of the president struck the square tile of the
sidewalk, as if to avert the storm of protests and the lack of respect
which he saw from afar.
"Be silent."
And Batiste was silent, while the seven-headed monster, folding itself
up again on the sofa of damask, was whispering, preparing the sentence.
"The tribunal decrees ..." said the eldest judge, and there was absolute
silence.
All the people around the roped space showed a certain anxiety in their
eyes, as if they were the sentenced. They were hanging on the lips of
the eldest judge.
"Batiste Borrull shall pay two pounds for a penalty, and four _sous_ for
a fine."
A murmur of satisfaction arose and spread, and one old woman even began
to clap her hands, shouting "Hurrah! hurrah!" amid the loud laughter of
the people.
Batiste went out blindly from the tribunal, with his head lowered as
though he were about to fight, and Pimentó prudently stayed behind.
If the people had not parted, opening the way, for him, it is certain
that he would have struck out with his powerful fists, and given the
hostile rabble a beating on the spot.
He departed. He went to the house of his masters to tell them of what
had happened, of the ill will of this people, pledged to embitter his
existence for him; and an hour later, already more composed by the kind
words of the _señores_, he set forth on the road toward his home.
Insufferable torment! Marching close to their carts loaded with manure
or mounted on their donkeys above the empty hampers, he kept meeting on
the low road of Alboraya many of those who had been present at the
trial.
They were hostile people, neighbours whom he never greeted.
When he passed beside them, they remained silent, and made an effort to
keep their gravity, although a malicious joy glowed in their eyes; but
as soon as he had gone by, they burst into insolent laughter behind his
back, and he even heard the voice of a lad who shouted, mimicking the
grave tone of the president:
"Four _sous_ for a fine!"
In the distance he saw, in the doorway of the tavern of Copa, his enemy
Pimentó, with an earthen jug in hand, in the midst of a circle of
friends, gesticulating and laughing as if he were imitating the protests
and complaints of the one denounced. His sentence was the theme of
rejoicing for the _huerta_: all were laughing.
God! Now he, a man of peace and a kind father, understood why it is that
men kill.
His powerful arms trembled, and he felt a cruel itching in the hands. He
slackened his pace on approaching the house of Copa; he wanted to see
whether they would mock him to his face.
He even thought, a strange novelty, of entering for the first time to
drink a glass of wine face to face with his enemies; but the two pound
fine lay heavy on his heart and he repented of his generosity. This was
a conspiracy against the footwear of his sons; it would take all the
little pile of farthings hoarded together by Teresa to buy new sandals
for the little ones.
As he passed the front of the tavern, Pimentó hid with the excuse of
filling the jug, and his friends pretended not to see Batiste.
His aspect of a man ready for anything inspired respect in his
neighbours.
But this triumph filled him with sadness. How hateful the people were
to him! The entire _vega_ arose before him, scowling and threatening at
all hours. This was not living. Even in the daytime, he avoided coming
out of his fields, shunning all contact with his neighbours.
He did not fear them, but like a prudent man, avoided disputes.
At night, he slept restlessly, and many times, at the slightest barking
of the dogs, he leaped out of bed, rushed from the house, shotgun in
hand, and even believed on more than one occasion that he saw black
forms which fled among the adjoining paths.
He feared for his harvest, for the wheat which was the hope of the
family and whose growth was followed in silence but with envious glances
from the other farm-houses.
He knew of the threats of Pimentó, who supported by all the _huerta_,
swore that this wheat should not be cut by him who had sowed it, and
Batiste almost forgot his sons in thinking about his fields, of the
series of green waves which grew and grew under the rays of the sun and
which must turn into golden piles of ripe wheat.
The silent and concentrated hatred followed him out upon the road. The
women drew away, with curling lips, and did not deign to salute him, as
is the custom in the _huerta_; the men who were working in the fields
adjoining the road, called to each other with insolent expressions which
were directed indirectly at Batiste; and the little children shouted
from a distance, "Thug! Jew!" without adding more to such insults, as if
they alone were applicable to the enemy of the _huerta_.
Ah! If he had not had the fists of a giant, those enormous shoulders and
that expression of a man who has few friends, how soon the entire _vega_
would have settled with him! Each one hoping that the other would be the
first to dare, they contented themselves with insulting him from a
distance.
Batiste, in the midst of the sadness which this solitude inspired in
him, experienced one slight satisfaction. Already close to the
farm-house, when he heard the barkings of the dog who had scented his
approach, he saw a boy, an overgrown youth, seated on a sloping bank
with the sickle between his legs, and holding some piles of cut
brushwood at his side, who stood up to greet him.
"Good day, Señor Batiste!"
And the salutation, the trembling voice of a timid boy with which he
spoke to him, impressed him pleasantly.
The friendliness of this child was a small matter, yet he experienced
the impression of a feverish man upon feeling the coolness of water.
He gazed with tenderness at the blue eyes, the smiling face covered by a
coat of down, and searched his memory as to who the boy might be.
Finally he remembered that he was the grandson of old Tomba, the blind
shepherd whom all the _huerta_ respected; a good boy who was serving as
a servant to a butcher at Alboraya, whose herd the old man tended.
"Thanks, little one, thanks," he murmured, acknowledging the salute.
And he went ahead, and was welcomed by his dog, who leaped before him,
and rubbed himself against his corduroy trousers.
In the door of the cabin stood his wife surrounded by the little ones,
waiting impatiently, for the supper hour had already passed.
Batiste looked at the fields, and all the fury he had suffered an hour
ago before the Tribunal of the Waters, returned at a stroke and like a
furious wave flooded his consciousness.
His wheat was thirsty. He had only to see it; its leaves shrivelled, the
green colour, before so lustrous, now of a yellow transparency. The
irrigation had failed him; the turn of which Pimentó, with his sly and
evil tricks, had robbed him, would not belong to him until fifteen days
had passed, because the water was scarce; and on top of this misfortune
all that damned string of pounds and _sous_ for a fine. Christ!
He ate without any appetite, telling his wife the while of the
occurrence at the Tribunal.
Poor Teresa listened to her husband, pale with the emotion of the
countrywoman who feels a pang in her heart when there must be a
loosening of the knot of the stocking which guards the money in the
bottom of the chest. Sovereign queen! They had determined to ruin them!
What sorrow at the evening-meal!
And letting her spoon fall into the frying-pan of rice, she wept,
swallowing her tears. Then she became red with sudden passion, looked
out at the expanse of plain with she saw in front of her door, with its
white farm-houses and its waves of green, and stretching out her arms,
she cried: "Rascals! Rascals!"
The little folks, frightened by their father's scowl, and the cries of
their mother, were afraid to eat. They looked from one to the other with
indecision and wonder, picked at their noses to be doing something, and
all of them ended by imitating their mother and weeping over the rice.
Batiste, agitated by the chorus of sobs, arose furiously, and almost
kicked over the little table as he flung himself out of the house.
What an afternoon! The thirst of his wheat and the remembrance of the
fine were like two fierce dogs tearing at his heart. When one, tired of
biting him, was going to sleep, the other arrived at full speed and
fixed his teeth in him.
He wanted to distract his thoughts, to forget himself in work, and he
gave himself over with all his will to the task he had in hand, a pigsty
which he was putting up in the corral.
But the work did not progress. He was suffocating between the mud-walls;
he wanted to look at the fields, he was like those who feel the need to
look upon their misfortune, to yield utterly and drink the cup of sorrow
to the dregs. And with his hands full of clay, he came out from the
farm-yard, and remained standing before the oblong patch of shrivelled
wheat.
A few steps away, at the edge of the road, the murmuring canal brimmed
with red water ran by.
The life-giving blood of the _huerta_ was flowing far away, for other
fields whose masters did not have the misfortune of being hated; and
here was his poor wheat, shrivelled, languishing, bowing its green head
as if it were making signs to the water to come near and caress it with
its cool kiss.
To poor Batiste, it seemed that the sun was burning hotter than on other
days. The sun was at the horizon, yet the poor man imagined that its
rays were vertical, and that everything was burning up.
His land was cracking open, it parted in tortuous grooves, forming a
thousand mouths which vainly awaited a swallow of water.
Nor would the wheat hold its thirst until the next irrigation. It would
die, it would become dried up, the family would not have bread; and
besides so much misery, a fine on top of everything. And people even
find fault if men go to ruin!
Furious he walked back and forth along the border of his oblong plot.
Ah, Pimentó! Greatest of scoundrels! If there were no Civil Guards!
And like shipwrecked mariners, agonizing with hunger and thirst, who in
their delirium see only interminable banquet-tables, and the clearest
springs, Batiste confusedly saw fields of wheat whose stalks were green
and straight, and the water entering, gushing from the mouths of the
sloping-banks, extending itself with a luminous rippling, as if it
laughed softly at feeling the tickling of the thirsty earth.
At the sinking of the sun, Batiste felt a certain relief, as though it
had gone out forever, and his harvest was saved.
He went away from his fields, from his farm-house, and unconsciously,
with slow steps, took the road below, toward the tavern of Copa. The
thought of the rural police had left his mind, and he accepted the
possibility of a meeting with Pimentó, who should not be very far away
from the tavern, with a certain feeling of pleasure.
Along the borders of the road, there were coming toward him swift rows
of girls, hamper on arm, and skirts flying, returning from the factories
of the city.
Blue shadows were spreading over the _huerta_; in the background, over
the darkening mountains, the clouds were growing red with the splendour
of some far distant fire; in the direction of the sea, the first stars
were trembling in the infinite blue; the dogs were barking mournfully;
and with the monotonous singing of the frogs and the crickets, was
mingled the confused creaking of invisible wagons, departing over all
the roads of the immense plain.
Batiste saw his daughter coming, separated from all the girls, walking
with slow steps. But not alone. It seemed to him that she was talking
with a man who followed in the same direction as herself, although
somewhat apart, as the betrothed always walk in the _huerta_, for whom
approach is a sign of sin.
When he saw Batiste in the middle of the road, the man slackened his
pace and remained at a distance as Roseta approached her father.
The latter remained motionless, as he wanted the stranger to advance so
that he might recognize him.
"Good night, Señor Batiste."
It was the same timid voice which had saluted him at midday. The
grandson of old Tomba. That scamp seemed to have nothing to do but
wander over the roads, and greet him, and thrust himself before his eyes
with his bland sweetness.
He looked at his daughter, who grew red under the gaze, and lowered her
eyes.
"Go home; home, ... I will settle with you!"
And with all the terrible majesty of the Latin father, the absolute
master of his children, and more inclined to inspire fear than
affection, he started after the tremulous Roseta, who, as she drew near
the farm, anticipated a sure cudgeling.
She was mistaken. At that moment the poor father had no other children
in the world but his crops, the poor sick wheat, shrivelling, drying,
and crying out to him, begging for a swallow in order not to die.
And of this he thought while his wife was getting the supper ready.
Roseta was bustling about pretending to be busy, in order not to attract
attention and expecting from one moment to the next an outburst of
terrible anger. But Batiste, seated before the little dwarfish table,
surrounded by all the young people of his family, who were gazing
greedily by the candle-light at the earthenware dish, filled with
smoking hake and potatoes, went on thinking of his fields.
The woman was still sighing, pondering the fine; making comparisons,
without doubt, between the fabulous sum which they were going to wrest
from her, and the ease with which the entire family were eating.
Batiste, contemplating the voracity of his children, scarcely ate.
Batistet, the eldest son, even appropriated with feigned abstraction of
the pieces of bread belonging to the little ones. To Roseta, fear gave a
fierce appetite.
Never until then did Batiste comprehend the load which was weighing upon
his shoulders. These mouths which opened to swallow up the meagre
savings of the family would be without food if that land outside should
dry.
And all for what? On account of the injustice of men, because there are
laws made to molest honest workmen.... He should not stand this. His
family before everything else. Did he not feel capable of defending his
own from even greater dangers? Did he not owe them the duty of
maintaining them? He was capable of becoming a thief in order to give
them food. Why then, did he have to submit, when he was not trying to
steal, but to give life to his crops, which were all his own?
The image of the canal, which at a short distance was dragging along its
murmuring supply for others, was torturing him. It enraged him that life
should be passing by at his very door without his being able to profit
by it, because the laws wished it so.
Suddenly he arose, like a man who has adopted a resolution and who in
order to fulfil it, stamps everything under foot.
"To irrigate! To irrigate!"
The woman was terrified, for she quickly guessed all the danger of the
desperate resolution. For Heaven's sake, Batiste!... They would impose
upon him a greater fine; perhaps the Tribunal, offended by his
rebellion, would take the water away from him forever! He ought to
consider it.... It was better to wait.
But Batiste had the enduring wrath of phlegmatic and slow men, who, when
they once lose their composure, are slow to recover it.
"Irrigate! Irrigate!"
And Batistet, gaily repeating the words of his father, picked up the
large hoes, and started from the house, followed by his sister and the
little ones.
They all wished to take part in this work, which seemed like a holiday.
The family felt the exhilaration of a people which, by a revolution,
recovers its liberty.
They approached the canal, which was murmuring in the shade. The immense
plain was lost in the blue shadow, the cane-brake undulated in dark and
murmuring masses, and the stars twinkled in the heavens.
Batiste went into the canal knee-deep, lowering the gates which held the
water, while his son, his wife and even his daughter attacked the
sloping banks with the hoes, opening gaps, through which the water
gushed.
All the family felt a sensation of coolness and of well-being.
The earth sung merrily with a greedy glu-glu, which touched the heart.
"Drink, drink, poor thing!" And their feet sank in the mud, as bent over
they went from one side to the other of the field, looking to see if the
water had reached every part.
Batiste muttered with the cruel satisfaction which the joy of the
prohibited produces. What a load was lifted from him! The Tribunal might
come now, and do whatever it wished. His field had drunk; this was the
main thing.
And as with the acute hearing of a man accustomed to the solitude, he
thought that he perceived a certain strange noise in the neighbouring
cane-brake, he ran to the farm, and returned immediately, holding a new
shotgun.
With the weapon over his arm, and his finger on the trigger, he stood
more than an hour close to the bars of the canal.
The water did not flow ahead; it spread itself out in the fields of
Batiste, which drank and drank with the thirst of a dropsical man.
Perhaps those down below were complaining; perhaps Pimentó, notified as
an _atandador_, was prowling in the vicinity, outraged at this insolent
breach of the law.
But here was Batiste, like a sentinel of his harvest, a hero made
desperate by the struggle of his family, guarding his people who were
moving about in the field, extending the irrigation; ready to deal a
blow at the first who might attempt to raise the bars, and re-establish
the water's course.
So fierce was the attitude of this great fellow who stood out motionless
in the midst of the canal; in this black phantom there might be divined
such a resolution of shooting at whoever might present himself, that no
one ventured forth from the adjoining cane-brake, and the fields drank
for an hour without any protest.
And this is what is yet stranger: on the following Thursday the
_atandador_ did not have him summoned before the Tribunal of the Waters.
The _huerta_ had been informed that in the ancient farm-house of Barret
the only object of worth was a double-barreled shotgun, recently bought
by the intruder, with that African passion of the Valencian, who
willingly deprives himself of bread in order to have behind the door of
his house a new weapon which excites envy and inspires respect.
V
Every morning, at dawn, Roseta, Batiste's daughter, leaped out of bed,
her eyes heavy with sleep, and after stretching out her arms in graceful
writhings which shook all her body of blonde slenderness, opened the
farm-house door.
The pulley of the well creaked, the ugly little dog, which passed the
night outside the house, leaped close to her skirts, barking with joy,
and Roseta, in the light of the last stars, cast over her face and hands
a pail of cold water drawn from that round and murky hole, crowned at
the top by thick clumps of ivy.
Afterward, in the light of the candle, she moved about the house
preparing for her journey to Valencia.
The mother followed her without seeing her from the bed with all kinds
of suggestions. She could take away what was left from the supper: that
with three sardines which she would find on the shelf would be
sufficient. And take care not to break the dish as she did the other
day. Ah! And she should not forget to buy thread, needles and some
sandals for the little one. Destructive child!... She would find the
money in the drawer of the little table.
And while the mother turned over in bed, sweetly caressed by the warmth
of the bedroom, planning to sleep a half-hour more close to the enormous
Batiste, who snored noisily, Roseta continued her evolutions. She placed
her poor meal in a basket, passed a comb through her light-blond hair,
which looked as though the sun had absorbed its colour, and tied the
handkerchief under her chin. Before going out, she looked with the
tender solicitousness of an elder sister, to see if the little ones who
slept on the floor, all in the same room, were well covered. They lay
there in a row from the eldest to the youngest, from the overgrown
Batistet to the little tot who as yet could hardly talk, like a row of
organ pipes.
"Good-bye, until tonight!" shouted the brave girl, and passing her arm
through the handle of the basket, she closed the door of the farm-house,
placing the key underneath.
It was already daylight. In the bluish light of dawn the procession of
workers could be seen passing over the paths and roads, all walking in
the same direction, drawn by the life of the city.
Groups of graceful spinning-mill girls passed by, marching with an even
step, swinging with jaunty grace their right arms which cut the air like
a strong oar, and all screaming in chorus every time that any strapping
young fellow saluted them from the neighbouring fields with coarse
jests.
Roseta walked to the city alone. Well did the poor child know her
companions, daughters and sisters of those who hated her family so
bitterly.
Several of them were working in the factory, and the poor little
yellow-haired girl, making a show of courage more than once, had to
defend herself by sheer scratching. Taking advantage of her
carelessness, they threw dirty things into her lunch-basket; made her
break the earthenware dish of which she was reminded so many times, and
never passed near her in the mill without trying to push her over the
smoking kettle where the cocoon was being soaked while they called her a
pauper, and applied similar eulogies to her and her family.
On the way she fled from them as from a throng of furies, and felt safe
only when she was inside the factory, an ugly old building close to the
market, whose façades, painted in water-colours the century before,
still preserved between peeling paint and cracks certain groups of
rose-coloured legs, and profiles of bronzed colour, remnants of
medallions, and mythological paintings.
Of all the family, Roseta was the most like her father: a fury for work,
as Batiste said of himself. The fiery vapour of the caldron where the
cocoon is soaked mounted about her head, burning her eyes; but, in spite
of this, she was always in her place, fishing in the depths of the
boiling water for the loosened ends of those capsules of soft silk of
the mellow colour of caramel, in whose interior the laborious worm, the
larva of precious exudation, had just perished for the offence of
creating a rich dungeon for its transformation into the butterfly.
Throughout the large building reigned the din of work, deafening and
tiresome for the daughters of the _huerta_, who were used to the calm of
the immense plain, where the voice carries a great distance. Below
roared the steam-engine, giving forth frightful roaring sounds which
were transmitted through the multiple tubing: pulleys and wheels
revolved with an infernal din, and as though there were not noise
enough, the spinning-mill girls, according to traditional custom, sang
in chorus with a nasal voice, the _Padre nuestro_, the _Ave Maria_, and
the _Gloria Patri_, with the same musical interludes as the chorus which
roamed about the _huerta_ Sunday mornings at dawn.
This did not prevent them from laughing as they sang, nor from insulting
each other in an undertone between prayers, and threatening each other
with four long scratches on coming out, for these dark-complexioned
girls, enslaved by the rigid tyranny which rules in the farmer's family,
and obliged by hereditary conventions to lower their eyes in the
presence of men, when gathered together without restraint were regular
demons, and took delight in uttering everything they had heard from the
cart-drivers and labourers on the roads.
Roseta was the most silent and industrious of them all. In order not to
distract her attention from her work, she did not sing; she never
provoked quarrels and she learned everything with such facility, that
in a few weeks she was earning three reals, almost the maximum for the
day's work, to the great envy of the others.
At the lunch-hour these bands of dishevelled girls sallied forth from
the factory to gobble up the contents of their earthen-ware dishes. As
they formed a loafing group on the side-walk or in the immediate
porches, and challenged the men with insolent glances to speak to them,
only falsely scandalized, to fire back shameless remarks in return,
Roseta remained in a corner of the mill, seated on the floor with two or
three good girls who were from another _huerta_, from the right side of
the river, and who did not care a rap for the story of old Barret and
the hatred of their companions.
During the first weeks, Roseta saw with a certain terror the arrival of
dusk, and with it, the hour for departure.
Fearing her companions, who took the same road as herself, she stayed in
the factory for a time, letting them set out ahead like a cyclone, with
scandalous bursts of laughter, flauntings of skirts, daring vulgarisms,
and the odour of health, of hard and rugged limbs.
She walked lazily through the streets of the city in the cold twilight
of winter, making purchases for her mother, stood open-mouthed before
the shop windows which began to be illumined, and at last, passing over
the bridge, she entered the dark narrow alleys of the suburbs to set
forth upon the road of Alboraya.
So far, all was well. But after she came to the dark _huerta_ with its
mysterious noises, its dark and alarming forms which passed close to her
saluting with a deep "Good night," fear set in, and her teeth chattered.
And it was not that the silence and the darkness intimidated her. Like a
true daughter of the country, she was accustomed to these. If she had
been certain that she would encounter no one on the road, it would have
given her confidence. In her terror, she never thought, as did her
companions, of death, nor of witches and phantasms; it was the living
who disturbed her.
She recalled with growing fear certain stories of the _huerta_ that she
had heard in the factory; the fear that the little girls had of Pimentó,
and other bullies who congregated in the tavern of Copa: heartless
fellows who pinched the girls wherever they could, and pushed them into
the canals, or made them fall behind the haylofts. And Roseta, who was
no longer innocent after entering the factory, gave free rein to her
imagination, till it reached the utmost limits of the horrible; and she
saw herself assassinated by some one of these monsters, her stomach
ripped up and soaked in blood, like those children of the legends of the
_huerta_ whose fat sinister and mysterious murderers extracted and used
in making wonderful salves and potions for the rich.
In the twilight of winter, dark and oftentimes rainy, Roseta passed over
more than half of the road all a tremble. But the most cruel crisis, the
most terrible obstacle was almost at the end, and close to the farm--the
famous tavern of Copa.
Here was the den of the wild beast. This was the most frequented and the
brightest bit of road. The sound of voices, the outbursts of laughter,
the thrumming of a guitar, and couplets of songs with loud shouting came
forth from the door which, like the mouth of a furnace, cast forth a
square of reddish light over the black road, in which grotesque shadows
moved about. And nevertheless, the poor mill girl, on arriving near this
place, stopped undecided, trembling like the heroines of the fairy-tales
before the den of the ogre, ready to set out through the fields in
order to make a détour around the rear of the building, to sink into the
canal which bordered the road, and to slip away hidden behind the
sloping banks; anything rather than to pass in front of this red gullet
which gave forth the din of drunkenness and brutality.
Finally she decided; made an effort of will like one who is going to
throw himself over a high cliff, and passed swiftly before the tavern,
along the edge of the canal, with a very light step, and the marvellous
poise which fear lends.
She was a breath, a white shadow which did not give the turbid eyes of
the customers of Copa time to fix themselves upon it.
And the tavern passed, the child ran and ran, believing that some one
was just behind her, expecting to feel the tug of his powerful paw at
her skirt.
She was not calm until she heard the barking of the dog at the
farm-house, that ugly animal, who by way of antithesis no doubt, was
called The Morning Star, and who came bounding up to her in the middle
of the road with bounds and licked her hands.
Roseta never told those at home of the terrors encountered on the road.
The poor child composed herself on entering the house, and answered the
questions of her anxious mother quietly, meeting the situation
valorously by stating that she had come home with some companions.
The spinning-mill girl did not want her father to come out nights to
accompany her on the road. She knew the hatred of the neighbourhood: the
tavern of Copa with its quarrelsome people inspired her with fear.
And on the following day she returned to the factory to suffer the same
fears upon returning, enlivened only by the hope that the spring would
soon come with its longer days and its luminous twilights, which would
permit her to return to the house before it grew dark.
One night, Roseta experienced a certain relief. While she was still
close to the city, a man came out upon the road and began to walk at the
same pace as herself.
"Good evening!"
And while the mill-girl was walking over the high bank which bordered
the road, the man walked below, among the deep cuts opened by the
wheels of the carts, stumbling over the red bricks, chipped dishes, and
even pieces of glass with which farsighted hands wished to fill up the
holes of remote origin.
Roseta showed no disquietude. She had recognized her companion even
before he saluted her. It was Tonet, the nephew of old Tomba, the
shepherd: a good boy, who served as an apprentice to a butcher of
Alboraya, and at whom the mill-girls laughed when they met him upon the
road, taking delight in seeing how he blushed, and turned his head away
at the least word.
Such a timid boy! He was alone in the world without any other relatives
than his grandfather, worked even on Sundays, and not only went to
Valencia to collect manure for the fields of his master, but also helped
him in the slaughter of cattle and tilled the earth, and carried meat to
the rich farmers. All in order that he and his grandfather might eat,
and that he might go dressed in the old ragged clothes of his master. He
did not smoke; he had entered the tavern of Copa only two or three times
in his life, and on Sundays, if he had some hours free, instead of
squatting on the Plaza of Alboraya, like the others to watch the
bullies playing hand-ball, he went out into the fields and roamed
aimlessly through the tangled net-work of paths. If he happened to meet
a tree filled with birds, he would stop there fascinated by the
fluttering and the cries of these vagrants of the air.
The people saw in him something of the mysterious eccentricities of his
grandfather, the shepherd: all regarded him as a poor fool, timid and
docile.
The mill-girl became enlivened with company. She was safer if a man
walked with her, and more so if it were Tonet, who inspired confidence.
She spoke to him, asking him whence he came, and the youth answered
vaguely, with his habitual timidity: "From there ... from there...." and
then became silent as if those words cost him a great effort.
They followed the road in silence, parting close to the _barraca_.
"Good night and thanks!" said the girl.
"Good night," and Tonet disappeared, walking toward the village.
It was an incident of no importance, an agreeable encounter which had
banished her fear, nothing more. And nevertheless, Roseta ate supper
that night and went to bed thinking of old Tomba's nephew.
Now she recalled the times that she had met him mornings on the road,
and it seemed to her that Tonet always tried to keep the same pace as
herself, although somewhat apart so as not to attract the attention of
the sarcastic mill-girls. It even seemed to her that at times, on
turning her head suddenly, she had surprised him with his eyes fixed
upon her.
And the girl, as if she were spinning a cocoon, grasped these loose ends
of her memory, and drew and drew them out, recalling everything in her
existence which related to Tonet: the first time that she saw him, and
her impulse of sympathetic compassion on account of the mockery of the
mill-girls which he suffered crestfallen and timid, as though these
harpies in a troop inspired him with fear; then the frequent encounters
on the road, and the fixed glances of the boy, who seemed to wish to say
something to her.
The following day, when she went to Valencia, she did not see him, but
at night, upon starting to return to the _barraca_, the girl was not
afraid in spite of the twilight being dark and rainy. She foresaw that
the companion who gave her such courage would put in an appearance, and
true enough he came out to meet her at almost the same spot as on the
preceding day.
He was as expressive as usual: "Good night!" and went on walking at her
side.
Roseta was more loquacious. Where did he come from? What a chance to
meet on two succeeding days! And he, trembling, as though the words cost
him a great effort, answered as usual: "From there ... from there ..."
The girl, just as timid, felt nevertheless a temptation to laugh at his
agitation. She spoke of her fear, and the scares which she had met with
on the road during the winter, and Tonet, comforted by the service which
he was lending to her, unglued his lips at last, in order to tell her
that he would accompany her frequently. He always had business for his
master in the _huerta_.
They took leave of each other with the brevity of the preceding day; but
that night the girl went to her bed restless and nervous, and dreamed a
thousand wild things; she saw herself on a black road, very black,
accompanied by an enormous dog which licked her hands and had the same
face as Tonet; and afterward there came a wolf to bite her, with a snout
which vaguely reminded her of the hateful Pimentó; and the two fought
with their teeth, and her father came out with a club, and she was
weeping as if the blows which her faithful dog received were falling on
her own shoulders; and thus her imagination went on wandering. But in
all the confused scenes of her dream she saw the grandson of old Tomba,
with his blue eyes, and his boyish face covered with light down, first
indication of his manhood.
She arose weak and broken as if she were coming out of a delirium. This
was Sunday, and she was not going to the factory. The sun came in
through the little window of her bedroom, and all the people of the
farm-house were already out of their beds. Roseta began to get ready to
go with her mother to church.
The diabolical dream still upset her. She felt differently, with
different thoughts, as though the preceding night were a wall which
divided her existence into two parts.
She sang gaily like a bird while she took her clothes out of the chest,
and arranged them upon the bed, which, still warm, held the impress of
her body.
She liked these Sundays with her freedom to arise late, with her hours
of leisure, and her little trip to Alboraya to hear mass; but this
Sunday was better than the others; the sun shone more brightly, the
birds were singing with more passion, through the little window the air
entered gloriously balsamic; how should one express it! in short, this
morning had something new and extraordinary about it.
She reproached herself now for having up to that time paid no attention
to her personal appearance. It is time, at sixteen, to think about
fixing oneself up. How stupid she had been, always laughing at her
mother who called her a dowdy! And as though it were new attire which
she looked on for the first time, she drew over her head as carefully as
if it were thin lace, the calico petticoat which she wore every Sunday;
and laced her corset tightly, as though that armour of high whalebones,
a real farmer-girl's corset, which crushed the budding breasts cruelly,
were not already tight enough. For in the _huerta_ it is considered
immodest for unmarried girls not to hide the alluring charms of nature,
so that no one might sinfully behold in the virgin the symbols of her
future maternity.
For the first time in her life, the mill-girl passed more than a quarter
of an hour before the four inches of looking-glass, in its frame of
varnished pine, which her father had presented to her, a mirror in which
she had to look at her face by sections.
She was not beautiful, and she knew it; but uglier ones she had met by
the dozen in the _huerta_. And without knowing why, she took pleasure in
contemplating her eyes, of a clear green; the cheeks spotted with
delicate freckles which the sun had raised upon the tanned skin; the
whitish blond hair, which had the wan delicacy of silk; the little nose
with its palpitating nostrils, projecting over the mouth; the mouth
itself, shadowed by soft down, tender as that on a ripe peach, her
strong and even teeth, of the flashing whiteness of milk, and a gleam
which seemed to light up the whole face: the teeth of a poor girl!
The mother had to wait; the poor woman was in a hurry, moving about the
house impatiently as though spurred on by the bell which sounded from a
distance. They were going to miss mass: and meanwhile Roseta was calmly
combing her hair, constantly undoing her work, which did not satisfy
her; she went on arranging the mantle with tugs of vexation, never
finding it to her liking.
In the _plaza_ of Alboraya, upon entering and leaving the church,
Roseta, hardly raising her eyes, scanned the door of the meat-market,
where the people were crowding in, coming from mass.
There he was, assisting his master, giving him the flayed pieces of
meat, and driving away the swarms of flies which were covering it.
How the big simpleton flushed on seeing her.
As she passed the second time, he remained like one who has been
charmed, with a leg of mutton in his hand, while his stout employer,
waiting in vain for him to pass it to him, poured forth a round volley
of oaths, threatening the youth with a cleaver.
She was sad that afternoon. Seated at the door of the farm-house, she
believed she saw him several times prowling about the distant paths, and
hiding in the cane-brake to watch her. The mill-girl wished that Monday
might arrive soon, so she might go back to the factory, and come home
over the horrible road accompanied by Tonet.
The boy did not fail her at dusk on the following day.
Even nearer to the city than upon the other nights, he came forth to
meet her.
"Good evening!"
But after the customary salutation, he was not silent. The rogue had
made progress on the day of rest.
And slowly, accompanying his expressions with grimaces, and scratches
upon his trousers legs, he tried to explain himself, although at times a
full two minutes passed between his words. He was happy at seeing her
well. (A smile from Roseta and a "thanks," murmured faintly.) "Had she
enjoyed herself Sunday?" ... (Silence.) "He had had quite a dull time.
It had bored him. Doubtless, the custom ... then ... it seemed that
something had been lacking ... naturally he had taken a fancy for the
road ... no, not the road: what he liked was to accompany her...."
And here he stopped high and dry: it even seemed to him that he bit his
tongue nervously to punish it for its boldness and pinched himself for
having gone so far.
They walked some distance in silence. The girl did not answer; she went
along her way with the gracefully affected air of the mill-girls, the
basket at the left hip, and the right arm cutting the air with the
swinging motion of a pendulum.
She was thinking of her dream; she imagined herself again to be in the
midst of that delirium, seeing wild phantasies; several times she turned
her head, believing that she saw in the twilight the dog which had
licked her hands, and which had the face of Tonet, a remembrance which
even made her laugh. But no; he who was at her side was a good fellow
capable of defending her; somewhat timid and bashful, yes, with his head
drooping, as though it hurt him to bring forth the words which he had
just spoken.
Roseta even confused him the more. Come now; why did he go out to meet
her on the way? What would the people say? If her father should be
informed, how annoyed he would be!
"Why? Why?" asked the girl.
And the youth, sadder and sadder, and more and more timid, like a
convicted culprit who hears his accusation, answered nothing. He walked
along at the same pace as the girl, but apart from her, stumbling along
the edge of the road. Roseta almost believed that he was going to cry.
But when they were near the _barraca_, and as they were about to
separate, Tonet had an impulse: as he had been intensely silent, so now
he was intensely eloquent, and as though many minutes had not elapsed,
he answered the question of the girl:
"Why?... because I love you."
As he said it he approached her so closely that she even felt his breath
on her face and his eyes glowed as if through them all the truth must go
out to her; and after this, repenting again, afraid, terrified by his
words, he began to run like a child.
So then he loved her!... For two days the girl had been expecting the
word, and nevertheless, it gave her the effect of a sudden, unexpected
revelation. She also loved him, and all that night, even in dreams, she
heard him murmuring a thousand times, close to her ears, the same words:
"Because I love you."
Tonet did not await her the following night. At dawn Roseta saw him on
the road, almost hidden behind the trunk of a mulberry-tree, watching
her with anxiety, like a child who fears a reprimand and has repented,
ready to flee at the first gesture of displeasure.
But the mill-girl smiled blushingly, and there was need of nothing more.
All was said: they did not tell each other again that they loved each
other, but this matter decided their betrothal, and Tonet no longer
failed a single time to accompany her on the road.
The stout butcher of Alboraya blustered with anger at the sudden change
in his servant, so far so diligent, and now ever inventing pretexts to
pass hours and ever more hours in the _huerta_, especially at night.
But with the selfishness of happiness, Tonet cared no more for the oaths
and threats of his master than the mill-girl did for her father, for
whom she felt more fear than respect.
Roseta always had some nest or other in her bedroom, which she claimed
to have found upon the road. This boy did not know how to present
himself with empty hands, and explored all the cane-brake and the trees
of the _huerta_ in order to present her, his betrothed, with round mats
of straw and twigs, in whose depths were some little rogues of
fledgelings whose rosy skin was covered with the finest down, peeping
desperately as they opened their monstrous beaks, always hungry for more
crumbs of bread.
Roseta guarded the gift in her room, as though it were the very person
of her betrothed, and wept when her brothers, the little people who had
the farm-house for a nest, showed their admiration for the birds so
strenuously that they ended by stifling them.
At other times, Tonet appeared with his clothes bulging, his sash filled
with lupines and peanuts bought in the tavern of Copa, and as they
walked along the road, they would eat and eat, gazing into each other's
eyes, smiling like fools, without knowing why, often seating themselves
upon a bank, without realizing it.
She was the more sensible and scolded him. Always spending money! There
were two reals or a little less, which, in a week's time, he had left at
the tavern for such treats. And he showed himself to be generous. For
whom did he want the money if not for her? When they would be
married--which had to happen some day--he would then take care of his
money. That, however, would not be for ten or twelve years; there was
no need of haste; all the betrothals of the _huerta_ lasted for some
time.
The matter of the wedding brought Roseta back to reality. The day her
father would learn of it.... Most holy Virgin! he would break her back
with a club. And she spoke of the future thrashing with serenity,
smiling like a strong girl accustomed to this parental authority, rigid,
imposing, and respected, which manifested itself in cuffs and cudgels.
Their relations were innocent. Never did there arise between them the
poignant and rebellious desire of the flesh. They walked along the
almost deserted road in the dusk of the evening-fall, and solitude
seemed to drive all impure thoughts from their minds.
Once when Tonet involuntarily and lightly touched Roseta's waist, he
blushed as if he, not she, were the girl in question.
They were both very far from thinking that their daily meeting might
result in something more than words and glances. It was the first love,
the budding of scarcely awakened youth, content with seeing, speaking,
laughing, without a trace of sensual desire.
The mill-girl, who on the nights of fear, had longed so for the coming
of spring, saw with anxiety the arrival of the long and luminous
twilights.
Now she met her betrothed in full daylight, and there were never lacking
companions of the factory or some neighbour along the road, who on
seeing them together smiled maliciously, guessing the truth.
In the factory, jokes were started by all her enemies, who asked her
with sarcasm when the wedding was to take place and nicknamed her The
Shepherdess, for being in love with the grandson of old Tomba.
Poor Roseta trembled with anxiety. What a thrashing she was going to
bring upon herself! Any day the news might reach her father's ears. And
then it was that Batiste, on the day of his sentence in the Tribunal of
the Waters, saw her on the road, accompanied by Tonet.
But nothing happened. The happy incident of the irrigation saved her.
Her father, contented at having saved the crops, limited himself to
looking at her several times, with his eyebrows puckered, and to
notifying her in a slow voice, forefinger raised in air, and with an
imperative accent, that henceforth she should take care to return alone
from the factory, or otherwise she would learn who he was.
And she came back alone during all the week. Tonet had a certain respect
for Señor Batiste, and contented himself with hiding in the cane-brake,
near the road, to watch the mill-girl pass by, or to follow her from a
distance.
As the days now were longer, there were more people on the road.
But this separation could not be prolonged for the impatient lovers, and
one Sunday afternoon, Roseta, inactive, tired of walking in front of the
door of her house, and believing she saw Tonet in all who were passing
over the neighbouring paths, seized a green-varnished pitcher, and told
her mother that she was going to bring water from the fountain of the
Queen.
The mother allowed her to go. She ought to divert herself; poor girl!
she did not have any friends and you must let youth claim its own.
The fountain of the Queen was the pride of all that part of the
_huerta_, condemned to the water of the wells and the red and muddy
liquid which ran through the canals.
It was in front of an abandoned farm-house, and was old and of great
merit, according to the wisest of the _huerta_; the work of the Moors,
according to Pimentó; a monument of the epoch when the apostles were
baptizing sinners as they went about the world, so that oracle, old
Tomba, declared with majesty.
In the afternoons, passing along the road, bordered by poplars with
their restless foliage of silver, one might see groups of girls with
their pitchers held motionless and erect upon their heads, reminding one
with their rhythmical step and their slender figures of the Greek
basket-bearers.
This defile gave to the Valencian _huerta_ something of a Biblical
flavour; it recalled Arabic poetry, which sings of the woman beside the
fountain with the pitcher on her head, uniting in the same picture the
two most vehement passions of the Oriental: beauty and water.
The fountain of the Queen was a four-sided pool, with walls of red
stone, and the water below at the level of the ground. One descended by
a half-dozen steps, always slippery and green with humidity. On the
surface of the rectangle of stone facing the stairs a bas-relief
projected, but the figures were indistinct; it was impossible to make
them out beneath the coat of whitewash.
It was probably the Virgin surrounded by angels; a work of the rough and
simple art of the Middle Ages; some votive offering of the time of the
conquest: but with some generations picking at the stones, in order to
mark better the figures obliterated by the years, and others
white-washing them with the sudden impulse of barbaric curiosity, had
left the slab in such condition that nothing except the shapeless form
of a woman could be distinguished, the queen who gave her name to the
fountain: the queen of the Moors, as all queens necessarily must be in
all country-tales.
Nor was the shouting and the confusion a small matter here on Sunday
afternoons. More than thirty girls would crowd together with their
pitchers, desiring to be the first to fill them, but then in no hurry to
go away. They pushed each other on the narrow stairway, with their
skirts tucked in between their limbs, in order to bend over and sink the
pitcher into the pool, whose surface trembled with the bubbles of water
which incessantly surged up from the bottom of the sand, where clumps of
gelatinous plants were growing, green tufts of hair-like fibres, waving
in the prison of crystal liquid, trembling with the impulse of the
current. The restless water-skippers streaked across the clear surface
with their delicate legs.
Those who had already filled their pitchers sat down on the edge of the
pool, hanging their legs over the water and drawing them in with
scandalized screams whenever a boy came down to drink and looked up at
them.
It was a reunion of turbulent gamin. All were talking at the same time;
they insulted each other, they flayed those who were absent, revealing
all the scandal of the _huerta_, and the young people, free from
parental severity, cast off the hypocritical expression assumed for the
house, revealing an aggressiveness characteristic of the uncultured who
lack expansion. These angelic brunettes, who sang songs to the Virgin
and litanies in the church of Alboraya so softly when the festival of
the unmarried women was celebrated, now on being alone, became bold and
enlivened their conversation with the curses of a teamster, speaking of
secret things with the calmness of old women.
Roseta arrived here with her pitcher, without having met her betrothed
upon the road, in spite of the fact that she had walked slowly and had
turned her head frequently, hoping at every moment to see him come
forth from a path.
The noisy party at the fountain became silent on seeing her. The
presence of Roseta at first caused stupefaction: somewhat like the
apparition of a Moor in the church of Alboraya in the midst of high
mass. Why did this pauper come here?
Roseta greeted two or three who were from the factory, but they pinched
their lips with an expression of scorn and hardly answered her.
The others, recovered from their surprise, and not wishing to concede to
the intruder even the honour of silence, went on talking as though
nothing had happened.
Roseta descended to the fountain, filled the pitcher and stood up,
casting anxious glances above the wall, around over all the plain.
"Look away, look away, but he won't come!"
It was a niece of Pimentó who said this; the daughter of a sister of
Pepeta, a dark, nervous girl, with an upturned and insolent nose, proud
of being an only daughter, and of the fact that her father was nobody's
tenant, as the four fields which he was working were his own.
Yes; she might go on looking as much as she pleased, but he would not
come. Didn't the others know whom she was expecting? Her betrothed, the
nephew of old Tomba: a fine arrangement!
And the thirty cruel mouths laughed and laughed as though every laugh
were a bite; not because they considered it a great joke, but in order
to crush the daughter of the hated Batiste.
The shepherdess!... The divine shepherdess!
Roseta shrugged her shoulders with indifference. She was expecting this:
moreover, the jokes of the factory had blunted her susceptibility.
She took the pitcher and went down the steps, but at the bottom the
little mimicking voice of the niece of Pimentó held her. How that small
insect could sting!
"She would not marry the grandson of old Tomba. He was a poor fool,
dying of hunger, but very honourable and incapable of becoming related
to a family of thieves."
Roseta almost dropped her pitcher. She grew red as if the words, tearing
at her heart, had made all the blood rise to her face; then she became
deathly pale.
"Who is a thief? Who?" she asked with trembling voice, which made all
the others at the fountain laugh.
Who? Her father. Pimentó, her uncle, knew it well, and in the tavern of
Copa nothing else was discussed. Did they believe that the past could be
hidden? They had fled from their own _pueblo_ because they were known
there too well: for that reason they had come here, to take possession
of what was not theirs. They had even heard that Señor Batiste had been
in prison for ugly crimes.
And thus the little viper went on talking, pouring forth everything that
she had heard in her house and in the _huerta_: the lies forged by the
dissolute fellows at the tavern of Copa, all invented by Pimentó, who
was growing less and less disposed to attack Batiste face to face, and
was trying to annoy him, to persecute and wound him with insults.
The determination of the father suddenly surged up in Roseta. Trembling,
stammering with fury, and with bloodshot eyes, she dropped the pitcher,
which broke into pieces drenching the nearest girls, who protested in a
chorus, calling her a stupid creature. But she was in no mood to take
notice of such things!
"My father ..." she cried, advancing toward the one who had insulted
her. "My father a thief? Say that again and I will smash your face!"
But the dark-haired girl did not have to repeat it, for before she could
open her lips, she received a blow in the mouth, and the fingers of
Roseta fixed themselves in her hair. Instinctively, impelled by pain,
she seized the blond hair of the mill-girl in turn, and for some time
the two could be seen struggling together, bent over, pouring forth
cries of pain and madness, with their foreheads almost touching the
ground, dragged this way and that by the cruel tugs which each one gave
to the head of the other. The hair-pins fell out, loosening the braids;
the heavy heads of hair seemed like banners of war, not floating and
victorious, but crumpled and torn by the hands of the opponent.
But Roseta, either stronger or more furious, succeeded in disengaging
herself, and was going to drag her enemy to her, perhaps to give her a
spanking, for she was trying to take off her slipper with her free hand,
when there occurred an irritating, brutal, unheard-of scene.
Without any spoken agreement, as if all the hatred of their families,
all the words and maledictions heard in their homes, had surged up in
them at a bound, all threw themselves together upon the daughter of
Batiste.
"Thief! Thief!"
In the twinkling of an eye, Roseta disappeared under the wrathful arms.
Her face was covered with scratches; she was carried down by the shower
of blows, though unable to fall, for the very crush of her enemies
impeded her; but driven from one side to the other, she ended by rolling
down head-long on the slippery stones, striking her forehead on an angle
of the stone.
Blood! It was like the casting of a stone into a tree covered with
sparrows. They flew away, all of them, running in different directions,
with their pitchers on their heads, and in a short time no one could be
seen in the vicinity of the fountain of the Queen but poor Roseta, who
with loosened hair, skirts torn, face dirty with dust and blood, went
crying home.
How her mother screamed when she saw her come in! How she protested
upon being told of what had occurred! Those people were worse than Jews!
Lord! Lord! Could such crimes occur in a land of Christians?
It was impossible to live. They had not done enough already with the men
attacking poor Batiste, persecuting him and slandering him before the
Tribunal, and imposing unjust fines upon him. Now here were these girls
persecuting her poor Roseta, as though that unfortunate child had done
anything wrong. And why was it all? Because they wished to earn a living
and work, without offending anybody, as God commanded.
Batiste turned pale as he looked at his daughter. He took a few steps
toward the road, looking at Pimentó's farm-house, whose roof stood out
behind the canes.
But he stopped and finally began to reproach his daughter mildly. What
had occurred would teach her not to go walking about the _huerta_. They
must avoid all contact with others: live together and united in the
farm-house and never leave these lands which were their life.
His enemies would take good care not to seek him out in his own home.