A wasp-like buzzing, the murmur of a bee-hive, was what the dwellers in
the _huerta_ heard as they passed before the Cadena mill by the road
leading to the sea.
A thick curtain of poplar-trees closed in the little square formed by
the road as it widened before the heap of old tiled roofs, cracked walls
and small black windows of the mill, the latter an old and tumble-down
structure erected over the canal and based on thick buttresses, between
which poured the water's foaming cascade.
The slow, monotonous noise that seemed to issue from between the trees
came from Don Joaquín's school, situated in a farm-house hidden by the
row of poplar-trees.
Never was knowledge worse-lodged, though wisdom does not often, to be
sure, dwell in palaces.
An old farm-house, with no other light than from the door and that which
filtered in through the cracks of the roofs: the walls of doubtful
whiteness, for the master's wife, a stout lady who lived in her
rush-chair, passed the day listening to her husband and admiring him; a
few benches, three grimy alphabets, torn at the ends, fastened to the
wall with bits of chewed bread, and in the room adjoining the school
some few old pieces of furniture which seemed to have knocked about half
of Spain.
In the whole _barraca_ there was one new object: the long cane which the
master kept behind the door and which he renewed every couple of days
from the nearby cane-brake; it was very fortunate that the material was
so cheap, for it was rapidly used up on the hard, close-clipped heads of
those small savages.
Only three books could be seen in the school; the same primer served for
all. Why should there be more? There reigned the Moorish method;
sing-song and repetition, till with continual pounding you got things
into their hard heads.
Hence from morning to night the old farm-house sent from its door a
wearisome sing-song which all the birds of the neighbourhood made fun
of.
"Our ... fa ... ther, who ... art ... in heaven."
"Holy ... Mary ..."
"Two times two ... fo ... up...."
And the sparrows, the linnets, and the calendar larks who fled from the
youngsters when they saw them in a band on the roads, alighted with the
greatest confidence on the nearest trees, and even hopped up and down
with their springy little feet before the door of the school, laughing
scandalously at their fierce enemies on seeing them thus caged up, under
the threat of the rattan, condemned to gaze at them sideways, without
moving, and repeating the same wearisome and unlovely song.
From time to time the chorus stilled and the voice of Don Joaquín rose
majestically, pouring out his fund of knowledge in a stream.
"How many works of mercy are there?"
"Two times seven are how many?"
And rarely was he satisfied with the answers.
"You are a lot of dunces. You sit there listening as though I were
talking Greek. And to think that I treat you with all courtesy, as in a
city college, so you may learn good forms and know how to talk like
persons of breeding!... In short, you have some one to imitate. But you
are as rough and ignorant as your parents, who are also dishonest: they
have money left to go to the tavern and they invent a thousand excuses
to avoid giving me Saturdays the two coppers that are due me."
And he walked up and down indignant as he always was when he complained
of the Saturday omissions. You could see it in his hair and in his
figure, which seemed to be divided into two parts.
Below, his torn hempen-sandals always stained with mud: his old cloth
trousers; his rough, scaly hands, which retained in the fissures of the
skin the dirt of his little orchard, a square of garden-truck which he
owned in front of the school-house, and many times this produce was all
that went into his stew.
But from the waist upward his nobility was shown, "the dignity of the
priest of knowledge," as he would say; that which distinguished him from
all the population of the farm-houses, worms fastened to the glebe; a
necktie of loud colours over his dirty shirt-front, a grey and bristly
moustache, cutting his chubby and ruddy face, and a blue cap with an
oilcloth visor, souvenir of one of the many positions he had filled in
his chequered career.
This was what consoled him for his poverty; especially the necktie,
which no one else in the whole district wore, and which he exhibited as
a sign of supreme distinction, a species of golden fleece, as it were,
of the _huerta_.
The people of the farm-houses respected Don Joaquín, though as regards
the assistance of his poverty they were remiss and slothful. What that
man had seen! How he had travelled over the world! Several times a
railway employé; other times helping to collect taxes in the most remote
provinces of Spain; it was even said that he had been a policeman in
America. In short, he was a "somebody" in reduced circumstances.
"Don Joaquín," his stout wife would say, who was always the first to
give him his title, "has never seen himself in the position he is in
today; we are of a good family. Misfortune has brought us to this, but
in our time we have made a mint of money."
And the gossips of the _huerta_, despite the fact that they sometimes
forgot to send the two coppers for the instruction Saturdays, respected
Don Joaquín as a superior being, reserving the right to make a little
sport of his short jacket, which was green and had square tails; and
which he wore on holidays, when he sang at high mass in the choir of
Alboraya church.
Driven by poverty, he had landed there with his obese and flabby
better-half as he might have landed anywhere else. He helped the
secretary of the village with extra work; he prepared with herbs known
only to himself certain brews which accomplished wonders in the
farm-houses, where they all admitted that that old chap knew a lot; and
without the title of schoolmaster, but with no fear that any one else
would try to take away from him a school which did not bring in enough
even to buy bread, he succeeded by much repetition and many canings, in
teaching all the urchins of five or ten, who on holidays threw stones at
the birds, stole fruit, and chased the dogs on the roads of the
_huerta_, to spell and to keep quiet.
Where had the master come from? All the wives of the neighbours knew,
from beyond the _churrería_. And vainly were further explanations asked,
for as far as the geography of the _huerta_ was concerned, all those who
do not speak Valencian are of the _churrería_.
Don Joaquín had no small difficulty in making his pupils understand him
and preventing them from being afraid of Castilian. There were some who
had been two months in school and who opened their eyes wide and
scratched the backs of their heads without understanding what the master
who used words never heard before in his school said to them.
How the good man suffered! He who attributed all the triumphs of his
teaching to his refinement, to his distinction of manners, to his use of
good language, as his wife declared!
Every word which his pupils pronounced badly (and they did not pronounce
one well), made him groan and raise his hands indignantly till they
touched the smoky ceiling of his school-house. Nevertheless he was proud
of the urbanity with which he treated his pupils.
"You should look upon this humble school-house," he would say to the
twenty youngsters who crowded and pushed one another on the narrow
benches, listening to him half-bored and half-afraid of his rattan, "as
a temple of courtesy and good-breeding. Temple, did I say? It is the
torch that shines and dissolves the barbaric darkness of this _huerta_.
Without me, what would you be? Beasts, and pardon me the word; the same
as your worthy fathers whom I do not wish to offend! But with God's aid
you must leave here educated, able to present yourselves anywhere, since
you have had the good fortune to find a master like me. Isn't that so?"
And the boys replied with furious noddings, some knocking their heads
against their neighbours' heads; and even his wife, moved by the temple
and the torch, stopped knitting her stocking and pushed back the
rush-chair to envelop her husband in a glance of admiration.
He would question all the band of dirty urchins whose feet were bare and
whose shirt-tails were in the air, with astonishing courtesy:
"Let's see, Señor de Lopis; rise."
And Señor de Lopis, a mucker of seven with short knee trousers held up
by one suspender, tumbled off his bench and stood at attention before
the master, gazing askance at the terrible cane.
"For some time, I've been watching you picking your nose and making
little balls of it. An ugly habit, Señor de Lopis. Believe your master.
I will let it pass this time because you are industrious and know your
multiplication table; but knowledge is nothing when good-breeding is
lacking; don't forget that, Señor de Lopis."
And the boy who made the little balls agreed with everything, overjoyed
to get off without a caning. But another big boy who sat beside him on
the bench and who must have been nourishing some old grudge, seeing him
standing, gave him a treacherous pinch.
"Oh, oh, master!" cried the boy. "'_'Orse-face_' pinched me!"
What was not Don Joaquín's indignation? What most excited his anger was
the fondness the boys had for calling each other by their father's
nicknames and even for inventing new ones.
"Who is '_'Orse_-Face'? Señor de Peris, you probably mean. What mode of
address is that, great heavens! One would think you were in a
drinking-house! If at least you had said _Horse_-Face! Wear yourself out
teaching such idiots! Brutes!"
And raising his cane, he began to distribute resounding blows to each;
to the one for the pinch and to the other for the "impropriety of
language," as Don Joaquín expressed it, without stopping his whacks. And
his blows were so blind that the other boys on the benches shrank
together, each one hiding his head on his neighbour's shoulder; and one
little fellow, the younger son of Batiste, frightened by the noise of
the cane, had a movement of the bowels.
This appeased the master, made him recover his lost majesty, while the
well-thrashed audience picked their noses.
"Doña Pepa," he said to his wife, "take Señor de Borrull away, for he is
ill, and clean him after school."
And the old woman, who had a certain consideration for the three sons of
Batiste, because they paid her husband every Saturday, seized the hand
of _Señor de Borrull_, who left the school walking unsteadily on his
weak little legs, still weeping with fear, and showing somewhat more
than his shirttail through the rear-opening of his trousers.
These incidents concluded, the lesson-chanting was continued, and the
grove trembled with displeasure, its monotonous whisper filtering
through the foliage.
Sometimes a melancholy sound of bells was heard and the whole school was
filled with joy. It was the flock of old Tomba approaching; all knew
that when the old man arrived with his flock, there were always a couple
of hours of freedom.
If the shepherd was talkative, the master was no whit behind him; both
launched out on an interminable conversation, while the pupils left the
benches and came close to listen, or slipping quietly away, went to play
with the sheep who were grazing on the grass of the nearby slopes.
Don Joaquín liked the old man. He had seen the world, showed him the
respect of speaking to him in Castilian, had a knowledge of medicinal
herbs, and yet did not take from him his own customers; in short, he was
the only person in the _huerta_ worthy of enjoying friendly relations
with him.
His appearance was always attended by the same circumstances. First the
sheep arrived at the school-door, stuck their heads in, sniffed
curiously and withdrew with a certain contempt, convinced that there was
no food here other than intellectual, and that of small value;
afterwards old Tomba appeared walking along confidently in this
well-known region, holding his shepherd's crook, the only aid of his
failing sight, in front of him.
He would sit down on the brick bench next to the master's door, and
there the master and the shepherd would talk, silently admired by Doña
Josefa and the bigger boys of the school, who would approach slowly and
form a group around them.
Old Tomba, who would even talk with his sheep along the roads, spoke
slowly at first like a man who fears to reveal his limitations, but the
chat of the master would give him courage and soon he would plunge into
the vast sea of his eternal stories. He would lament over the bad state
of Spain, over what those who came from Valencia said in the _huerta_,
over bad governments in general which are to blame for bad harvests, and
he always would end by repeating the same thing:
"Those times, Don Joaquín, those times of mine were different. You did
not know them, but your own were better than these. It's getting worse
and worse. Just think what all these youngsters will see when they are
men!"
This was always the introduction of his story.
"If you had only seen the followers of the Fliar!" (The shepherd could
never say friar.) "_They_ were true Spaniards; now there are only
boasters in Copa's tavern. I was eighteen years old; I had a helmet with
a copper eagle which I took from a dead man, and a gun bigger than
myself. And the Fliar!... What a man! They talk now of General
So-and-So. Lies, all lies! Where Father Nevot was, there was no one
else! You should have seen him with his cassock tucked up, on his nag,
with his curved sabre and pistols! How we galloped! Sometimes here,
sometimes in Alicante-province, then near Albacete: they were always at
our heels; but we made mince-meat of every Frenchman we caught. It seems
to me I can see them still: _musiu_ ... mercy! and I, slash, slash, and
a clean bayonet-thrust!"
And the wrinkled old man grew bolder and rose; his dim eyes shone like
dull embers and he brandished his shepherd's staff as though he were
still piercing the enemy with his bayonet. Then came the advice; behind
the kind old fellow there arose a man all fierceness, with a hard,
relentless heart, the product of a war to the death. His fierce
instincts appeared, instincts which had, as it were, become petrified in
his youth, and thus made impervious to the flight of time. He addressed
the boys in Valencian, sharing with them the fruit of his experience.
They must believe what he told them, for he had seen much. In life,
patience to take revenge upon the enemy; to wait for the ball, and when
it comes, to hit it hard. And as he gave these counsels, he winked his
eyes, which in the hollows of the deep sockets seemed like dying stars
on the point of flickering out. He related with senile malice a past of
struggles in the _huerta_, a past of ambuscades and stratagems, and of
complete contempt for the life of one's fellow-beings.
The master, fearing the moral effect of this on his pupils, would divert
the course of the conversation, speaking of France, which was old
Tomba's greatest memory.
It was an hour-long topic. He knew that country as well as though he had
been born there. When Valencia surrendered to Marshal Suchet, he had
been taken prisoner with several thousand more to a great
city--Toulouse. And he intermingled in the conversation the horribly
mutilated French words which he still remembered after so many years.
What a country! There men went about with white plush hats, coloured
coats with collars reaching up to the back of their heads, high boots
like riding-boots; and the women with skirts like flute-sheaths, so
narrow that they showed all they encased; and so he went on talking of
the costumes and customs of the time of the Empire, imagining that it
all still continued and that France of today was as it was at the
beginning of the century.
And while he related in detail all his recollections, the master and his
wife listened attentively, and some of the boys, profiting by the
unexpected recess, slipped away from the school-house, attracted by the
sheep, who fled from them as from the devil in person. For they pulled
their tails and grabbed them by the legs, forcing them to walk on their
fore-feet, and they sent them rolling down the slopes or tried to mount
on their dirty fleece; the poor creatures protested with gentle
bleatings in vain, for the shepherd did not hear them, absorbed as he
was in telling with great relish of the agony of the last Frenchman who
had died.
"And how many fell?" the master would ask at the end of the story.
"A matter of a hundred and twenty or thirty. I don't remember exactly."
And the husband and wife would exchange a smile. Since the last time the
total had risen by twenty. As the years passed, his deeds of prowess
and the number of victims increased.
The lamentations of the flock would attract the master's attention.
"Gentlemen," he would call out to the rash youths as he reached for his
rattan, "come here, all of you. Do you imagine you can spend the day
enjoying yourself? This is the place for work."
And to demonstrate this by example, he would brandish his cane so that
it was a delight to see it driving back all the flock of playful
youngsters into the sheep-fold of knowledge with blows.
"With your leave, Uncle Tomba: we've been talking over two hours. I must
go on with the lesson."
And while the shepherd, courteously dismissed, guided his sheep toward
the mill to repeat his stories there, there began once again in the
school the chant of the multiplication-table which was Don Joaquín's
great symbol of learning.
At sunset, the boys sang their last song, thanking the Lord "because He
had helped them with His light," and each one took up again his
dinner-bag. As the distances in the _huerta_ were not small, the
youngsters would leave their homes in the morning with provisions enough
to pass the whole day in school; and the enemies of Don Joaquín even
said that one of his favourite punishments was to take away their
rations in order thus to supplement the deficiencies of Doña Pepa's
cooking.
Fridays, when school was out, the pupils invariably heard the same
oration.
"Gentlemen: tomorrow is Saturday: remind your mothers and tell them that
the one who does not bring his two coppers won't be let into the school.
I tell you this particularly, Mr. de ... So and So, and you, Mr. de ...
So and So" (and he would enumerate about a dozen names). "For three
weeks now you have not brought the sum agreed upon, and if this goes on,
it will prove that instruction is impossible, and learning impotent to
combat the innate barbarity of these rustic regions. I contribute
everything: my erudition, my books" (and he would glance at the three
primer-charts, which his wife picked up carefully to put them away in
the old bureau), "and you contribute nothing. Well, what I said, I
said: Any one who comes tomorrow empty-handed will not pass that
threshold. Notify your mothers."
The boys would form in couples, holding each other's hands (the same as
in the schools of Valencia; what do you suppose?), and depart, after
kissing the horny hand of Don Joaquín and repeating glibly as they
passed near him:
"Good-bye, until tomorrow, by God's grace."
The master would accompany them to the little mill-square which was as a
star for roads and paths; and there the formation was broken up into
small groups and dispersed over different sections of the plain.
"Take care, my masters, I've got an eye on you," cried Don Joaquín as a
last warning. "Look out when you steal fruit, throw stones or jump over
canals. I have a little bird who tells me everything and if tomorrow I
hear anything bad, my rattan will play the very deuce with you."
And standing in the little square, he followed with his gaze the largest
group which was departing up the Alboraya road.
These paid the best. Among them walked the three sons of Batiste, for
whom many a time the road had been turned into a way of suffering.
Hand in hand the three tried to follow the other boys, who because they
lived in the farm-house next to old Batiste, felt the same hatred as
their fathers for him and for his family and never lost an opportunity
to torment them.
The two elder ones knew how to defend themselves, and with a scratch
more or less even came out victorious at times.
But the smallest, Pascualet, a fat-stomached little chap who was only
five years old and whom his mother adored for his sweetness and
gentleness, and hoped to make a chaplain, broke into tears the moment he
saw his brothers involved in deadly conflict with their fellow-pupils.
Many a time the two elder boys would reach home covered with sweat and
dust as though they had been wallowing in the road, with their trousers
torn and their shirts unfastened. These were the signs of combat; the
little fellow told it all with tears. And the mother had to minister to
one or another of the larger boys, which she did by pressing a
penny-piece on the bump raised by some treacherous stone.
Teresa was much upset on hearing of the attacks to which her son were
subjected. But she was a rough, courageous woman who had been born in
the country, and when she heard that her boys had defended themselves
well and given a good thrashing to the enemy, she would again regain her
calm.
Good heaven! let them take care of Pascualet first of all. And the
oldest brother, indignant, would promise a thrashing to all the lousy
crew when he met them on the roads.
Hostilities began every afternoon, as soon as Don Joaquín lost sight of
them.
The enemies, sons or nephews of those in the tavern who threatened to
put an end to Batiste, began to walk more slowly, lessening the distance
between themselves and the three brothers.
The words of the master, however, and the threat of the accursed bird
who saw and told everything, would still be ringing in their ears; some
laughed but on the wrong side of their mouths. That old fellow knew such
a lot!
But the farther off they got, the less effective became the master's
threat.
They would begin to prance around the three brothers, and laughingly
chase each other, a mere malicious pretext, inspired by the instinctive
hypocrisy of youth, to push them as they ran by, with the pious desire
of landing them in the canal that ran along the road.
Afterwards when this manoeuvre proved unsuccessful, they would resort
to slaps on the head and sudden pulls as they ran by at full speed.
"Thieves! Thieves!"
And as they hurled this insult, they would pull their ears and run off,
only to turn after a little and repeat the same words.
This calumny, invented by the enemies of their father, made the boys
absolutely frantic. The two older ones, abandoning Pascualet, who took
refuge weeping behind a tree, would seize stones and a battle would
begin in the middle of the road.
The cobbles whistled between the branches, making the leaves fall in
showers, and bounce against the trunks and slopes: the dogs drawn by the
noise of the battle, would rush out from the farm-houses barking
fiercely, and the women from the doors of their houses would raise their
arms to heaven, crying indignantly--
"Rascals! Devils!"
These scandals touched Don Joaquín to the quick and gave impetus next
day to the relentless cane. What would people say of his school, the
temple of good-breeding!
The battle would not end until some passing carter would brandish his
whip, or until some old chap would come from the farm-houses, cudgel in
hand, when the aggressors would flee, and disperse, repenting of their
deed on seeing themselves alone, thinking fearfully, with the rapid
shifting of impressions characteristic of childhood, of that bird who
knew everything and of what Don Joaquín would have in store for them the
following day.
And meanwhile, the three brothers would continue on their way, rubbing
the bruises they had received in the battle.
One afternoon, Batiste's poor wife sent up a cry to heaven on seeing the
state in which her young ones arrived.
The battle had been a fierce one! Ah! the bandits! The two older ones
were bruised as usual; nothing to worry about.
But the little boy, the Bishop, as his mother called him caressingly,
was wet from head to foot, and the poor little fellow was crying and
trembling from cold and fear.
The savage young rascals had thrown him into a canal of stagnant water
and his brothers had fished him out covered with disgusting black mud.
The mother put him to bed, for the poor little chap was still trembling
in her arms, clinging around her neck, and murmuring with a voice that
sounded like the bleating of a lamb,
"Mother! Mother!"
"Lord God! give us patience!" All that base rabble, big and little, had
resolved to put an end to the whole family.