Sad and frowning as though he were going to a funeral, Batiste started
forth one Thursday morning on the road to Valencia. It was horse-market
day at the river-bed and the little bag of sackcloth containing the
remainder of his savings bulged out his sash.
Misfortunes were pouring on the family in a steady stream. The last and
fitting climax now would be that the roof should fall on their heads and
crush them to death. What people! What a place had they got into!
The little boy was steadily getting worse, and trembled with fever in
his mother's arms, while the latter wept continually. He was visited
twice a day by the doctor; in short, it was a sickness which was going
to cost twelve or fifteen dollars,--a mere trifle, so to speak.
The oldest boy, Batistet, could hardly go about. His head was still
swathed in bandages and his face crisscrossed with scratches, after a
big battle which he had had one morning with other boys of his own age
who were going like himself to gather manure in Valencia. All the
_fematers_ (manure-gatherers) of the district had banded against
Batistet and the poor boy could not show himself upon the road.
The two younger ones had stopped going to school through fear of the
fights that would be forced on them on the way home.
And Roseta, poor girl! she was the saddest of all. Her father put on a
gloomy countenance in the house, casting severe glances at her to remind
her that she must not show her feelings and that her sufferings were an
outrage on paternal authority. But when he was alone, the worthy Batiste
felt grieved over the poor girl's sadness. For he had once been young
himself and knew how heavy the sufferings of love may be.
Everything had been discovered. After the famous quarrel at the fountain
of the Queen, the whole _huerta_ gossiped for days about Roseta's
love-affair with old Tomba's grandson.
The fat-bellied butcher of Alboraya stormed angrily at his hired-man.
Ah, the big rascal! Now he knew why he forgot all his duties, why he
passed his afternoons wandering over the _huerta_ like a gipsy. The
young gentleman indulged himself in a fiancée, as though he had the
means to support her. And what a fiancée, great Heaven! All he had to do
was to listen to his customers as they chatted before his butcher's
table. They all said the same: they were surprised that a man like him,
religious and respectable, whose only defect was to cheat a little in
the weight, should allow his hired-man to keep company with the daughter
of the _huerta's_ enemy, an evil man who, it was said, had been in the
penitentiary.
And as all this to the mind of the fat boss was a dishonour to his
establishment, he would become furious at every murmur of the gossiping
women and threaten his timid hired-man with his knife, or reproach old
Tomba as he tried to persuade him to reform his rascally grandson.
Finally the butcher discharged the boy and his grandfather found him a
position in Valencia in another butcher-shop, where he asked them not to
give him any time off even on holidays, so that he would not be able to
wait for Batiste's daughter on the road.
Tonet departed submissively, his eyes wet like one of the young lambs
whom he had so often dragged before the master's knife. He would not
return. The poor girl remained in the farm-house, hiding herself in her
bedroom to weep, making efforts not to show her suffering to her mother,
who, exasperated by so many vexations, was very intolerant, and before
her father, who threatened to kill her if she had another lover and gave
their enemies in the district any more chance to talk.
Poor Batiste, who seemed so severe and threatening, was more grieved
than by anything else at the girl's inconsolable sorrow, her lack of
appetite, her yellow complexion and hollow eyes, and by the efforts she
made to feign indifference, in spite of the fact that she scarcely slept
at all: this, however, did not prevent her from trudging off punctually
every day to the factory with a vagueness in her eyes which showed that
her mind was far afield, and that she lived perpetually in a state of
inward dream.
Though they did not succeed in crushing Batiste, they undoubtedly cast
on him the evil eye, for his poor Morrut, the old horse who was like a
member of the family, who had drawn the poor furniture and the
youngsters over the roads in the various peregrinations of poverty,
gradually grew weaker and weaker in his new stable, the best lodging he
had ever known in his long life of labour.
He had behaved like a respectable equine in the worst period, when the
family had just moved to the farm, and he had had to plough up the land
accursed and petrified by ten years' neglect; when he had had to plod
continuously to Valencia to bring back débris and old boards from
buildings being torn down; when the food was not plentiful and the work
heavy. And now, when before the little window of the stable there
stretched out a large field of grass, cool, high and waving, all for
him; now that he had his table set with that green and juicy covering
which smelled gloriously, now that he was growing fat, that his angular
haunches and his bony back were rounding out, he died without even a
reason, perhaps in the exercise of his perfect right to rest, after
having helped the family through its time of trouble and tribulation.
He lay down one day on his straw and refused to go out, gazing at
Batiste with glassy yellow eyes which silenced all angry oaths and
threats upon the master's lips. Poor Morrut seemed to be a human being!
Batiste, remembering his glance, felt like weeping. The farm-house was
all upset, and this misfortune for the time being made the family forget
poor Pascualet, who was trembling with fever in his bed.
Batiste's wife was weeping. That poor beast whose gentle face lay there
flat on the ground had seen almost all her children come into the world.
She still remembered as though it were yesterday when they bought him in
the Sagunto-market, small, dirty, covered with scabs, a nag condemned.
It was a member of the family that was passing now. And when some
repellent old men came in a cart to take the corpse of the old worker to
the "boneyard" where they would convert his skeleton into bones of
polished brilliancy and his flesh into fertilizer, the children wept,
and called interminable farewells to poor Morrut who was carried away
with his feet stretched out stiffly and his head swaying, while the
mother, as though she felt some terrible presentiment, threw herself
with open arms upon her sick little boy.
She saw her little son when he entered the stable to pull Morrut's tail,
Morrut, who endured all the youngster's pranks with affectionate
submission. She saw the little fellow when his father placed him on the
animal's hard spine, beating his little feet against the shining flanks
and crying, "Get up! Get up!" with his stammering child's voice. And she
felt that the death of the poor animal had somehow opened up a way for
others. Oh God! grant that her sorrowful mother's fears might be
mistaken; that only the long-suffering horse should die; and that he
should not, on his road to heaven, carry away upon his flanks the poor
little fellow now as in other times he used to carry him along the paths
of the _huerta_ grasping his mane, walking slowly so as not to make him
lose his balance!
And poor Batiste, his mind preoccupied by so many misfortunes, confusing
all together in his fancy the sick child, the dead horse, the wounded
son and the daughter with her concentrated grief, reached the outskirts
of the city and passed over the bridge of Serranos.
At the end of the bridge, on the esplanade between the two gardens in
front of the octagonal towers whose Gothic arcades, projecting barbicans
and noble crown of battlements rose above the grove, Batiste stopped
and passed his hands over his face.
He had to visit the masters, the sons of Don Salvador, and ask them to
loan him a small sum to make up the necessary amount to buy a horse to
take poor Morrut's place. And as cleanliness is the poor man's luxury,
he sat down on a stone-bench, waiting his turn to have his beard
shaved,--a two weeks' growth, stiff and bristly like porcupine-quills,
which blackened his whole face.
In the shade of the high plane-trees, the barber-shops of the district,
the open-air barbers as they were called, plied their trade. A couple of
arm-chairs with rush-seats and arms made shiny by use, a portable
furnace on which boiled the pot of water, towels of doubtful colour, and
nicked razors which scraped the hard skin of the customers with raspings
that made you shiver, constituted all the stock-in-trade of those
open-air establishments.
Clumsy boys who aspired to be apprentices in the barber-shops of the
town were there learning how to use their arms; and while they learned
by inflicting cuts or by covering the victims' heads with clips and
bald-spots, the master conversed with the customers on the
promenade-bench or read the newspaper aloud to the group who listened
impassively.
As for those who sat on the chair of torment, a piece of hard soap was
nibbed over their jaws, until the lather came. Then the cruel razor, and
cuts endured stoically by the customer, whose face was tinged with
blood. A little further on resounded the enormous scissors in continuous
movement passing back and forth over the round head of some vain youth,
who was left shaved like a poodle; the height of elegance, with a long
lock falling over the brow, and half the head behind carefully cropped.
Batiste, swallowed up in the rush-chair, listened with closed eyes to
the head-barber as he read in a nasal and monotonous voice, and
commented and glossed like a man well versed in public affairs. His
shave resulted quite fortunately: all he got was three scrapes and a cut
on his ear. Other times there had been more. He paid his half-real and
departed; and entered the city through the Serranos gate.
Two hours later he came out again and sat down on the stone-bench among
the group of customers to listen to the head-barber until the time of
the market arrived.
The masters had just loaned him the small amount he needed to buy the
horse. The important thing now was to have a good eye in making his
choice; to keep his temper and not let himself be cheated by the cunning
gipsies who passed before him with their animals and went down the slope
to the river-bed.
Eleven o'clock. The horse-market had evidently reached its moment of
greatest animation. There came to Batiste's ears the confused sound of
something like an invisible ebullition; the neighs of horses and voices
of men rose from the river-bed. He hesitated, hung back, like a man who
wants to put off an important resolution, and at last decided to go down
to the market.
The river-bed as usual was dry. Some pools of water which had escaped
from the water-wheels and dams which irrigated the plain wound in and
out like serpents, forming curves and islands in a soil which was dusty,
hot and uneven, more like an African desert than a river-bed.
At such times it was all white with sunlight, without the slightest spot
of shade.
The carts of the farmers with their white awnings formed an encampment
in the middle of the river-bed, and along the railing, placed in a row,
stood the horses which were for sale; the black, kicking mules with
their red caparisons and their shining flanks all aquiver with
nervousness; the plough horses, strong and sad, like slaves condemned to
eternal labour, gazing with glassy eyes at all those who passed as
though they divined in them the new tyrant, and the small and lively
nags, pawing up the dust and dragging on the halter fastened to their
nose-pieces.
Near the descent were the cast-off animals; earless dirty donkeys; sad
horses whose coat seemed to be pierced by the sharp angles of their
fleshless bones; blind mules with long stork-like necks; all the
castaways of the market, the wrecks of labour, whose hide had been
well-tanned by the stick and who awaited the arrival of the contractor
of bullfights or of the beggar who still put them to some use.
Near the currents of water in the centre of the river-bed, on the shores
which dampness had covered with a thin cloak of grassy sod, trotted the
colts who had not been broken, their long manes flying in the wind, and
their tails sweeping the ground. Beyond the bridges, through the round
stone "eyes" could be seen the herds of bulls with their legs drawn up,
tranquilly ruminating the grass which the shepherds threw them, or
stepping lazily over the hot ground, feeling the longing for green
pastures and taking a fierce pose whenever the youngsters whistled to
them from the railings.
The animation of the market was increasing. Around each horse whose sale
was being arranged crowded groups of gesticulating and loquacious
farmers in their shirt sleeves, their ash-sticks in their hands. The
thin, bronzed gipsies, with their long bowed legs, in sheepskin jackets
covered with patches, and fur-caps beneath which their black eyes shone
feverishly, talked ceaselessly, breathing into the faces of the
customers as though they wished to hypnotize them.
"But just look at the horse! Notice her lines,--why, she's a beauty!"
And the farmer, impervious to the gipsy's honeyed phrases, reserved,
thoughtful and uncertain, gazed at the ground, looked at the animal,
scratched his head and finally said with a species of obstinate energy:
"All right ... but I won't give any more."
To arrange the terms and solemnize the sales, the protection of a shed
was sought, under which a big woman sold small cakes or filled sticky
glasses with the contents of half a dozen bottles lined up on a
zinc-covered table.
Batiste passed back and forth among the horses, paying no attention to
the venders who pursued him, divining his intention.
Nothing pleased him. Alas, poor Morrut! How hard it was to find his
successor! If he had not been compelled by necessity, he would have left
without purchasing: he felt that it was an offence to the dead horse to
fix his attention on these repellent beasts.
At last he stopped before a white nag, not very fat or sleek, with a few
galls on his legs and a certain air of fatigue; a beast of burden who,
though dejected, looked strong and willing.
But scarcely had he passed his hand over the animal's haunches when he
found at his side the gipsy, obsequious, familiar, treating him as
though he had known him all his life.
"That animal is a treasure; it is easy to see that you know good horses
when you see them.... And cheap: I don't think we'll quarrel over the
price ... Monote! Walk him out so this gentleman can see what a graceful
swing he has!"
And the Monote referred to, a little gipsy, took the horse by the halter
and ran off with him over the uneven sand. The poor beast trotted after
him reluctantly, as though bored by an operation that was so frequently
repeated.
The curious people ran up and gathered around Batiste and the gipsy, who
were gazing at the horse as it ran. When Monote returned with the animal
Batiste examined it in detail; he put his fingers between the yellow
teeth, passed his hands over his whole body, raised his hoofs to inspect
them, and looked carefully between his legs.
"Look, look!" said the gipsy, ... "he's just made for it.... Cleaner
than the plate of the Eucharist. No one is cheated here; everything open
and aboveboard. I don't fix up horses the way the others do who
disfigure a burro before you can take your breath. I bought him last
week and I even didn't fix up those trifles he has on the legs. You saw
what a graceful swing he has. And for drawing a wagon? Why an elephant
wouldn't have the push to him that he has! You can see the signs of it
there on his neck."
Batiste did not look dissatisfied with his examination, but he tried to
look displeased and made grimaces and rasped his throat. His misfortunes
as a carter had given him knowledge of horses and he laughed inwardly at
some of the curious ones who, influenced by the bad looks of the horse,
were arguing with the gipsy, telling him that the horse was fit only to
be sent to the boneyard. His sad and weary appearance was that of beasts
of labour who obey as long as they can stand on their legs.
The moment of decision came. He would buy him. How much?
"Since it's for a friend," said the gipsy, touching his shoulder
caressingly, "since it's for a nice fellow like you who will treat this
jewel of a horse well, I'll let him go for forty dollars and the
bargain's made."
Batiste received this broadside calmly, like a man well used to such
discussions, and smiled slyly.
"Well, since it's you I'm dealing with. I won't offer you much less. Do
you want twenty-five?"
The gipsy stretched out his arms with dramatic indignation, retreated a
few steps, pulled at his fur cap, and made all kinds of extravagant and
grotesque gestures to express his amazement.
"Mother of God! Twenty-five dollars! But did you look at the animal?
Even if I had stolen him, I couldn't sell him at that price!"
But Batiste, to all his extravagant talk, always made the same reply:
"Twenty-five. Not a cent more."
And the gipsy, after exhausting all his persuasions, which were by no
means few, fell back on the supreme argument.
"Monote ... walk the horse out ... so the gentleman can get a good look
at him."
And away trotted Monote again, pulling the horse by the halter, more and
more bored by all these promenadings.
"What a gait, hey?" said the gipsy. "You'd think he was a prince. Isn't
he worth twenty-five dollars to you?"
"Not a penny more," repeated the hard-headed Batiste.
"Monote ... come back. That's enough."
And feigning indignation, the gipsy turned his back on the purchaser,
intimating thereby that all the bargaining was off, but on seeing that
Batiste was really leaving, his seriousness disappeared.
"Come, sir.... What's your name?... Ah! Well, look, Mr. Batiste, so that
you can see that I like you and want you to own this treasure, I'm going
to do for you what I wouldn't do for any one else. Do you agree to
thirty-five dollars? Come now, say yes. I swear to you on your life that
I wouldn't do as much for my own father."
This time his protestations, on seeing that the farmer was not moved by
the reduction and offered him a beggarly two dollars more, were even
livelier and more gesticulatory than before. Why, did that jewel of a
horse inspire him with no more liking than that? But man alive, hadn't
he eyes in his head to see his value? Come, Monote; take him out again.
But Monote didn't have to tire himself out again, for Batiste departed,
pretending that he had given up the purchase.
He wandered through the market looking at other horses from afar, but
always gazing out of the tail of his eye at the gipsy, who similarly
feigning indifference, was following and watching him.
He approached a big, strong, sleek horse which he did not think of
buying, divining his high price. He had scarcely passed his hand over
the haunches when he felt a warm breath on his face, and heard the
gipsy's voice murmuring:--
"Thirty-three.... On your children's lives, don't say no; you see I'm
reasonable."
"Twenty-eight," said Batiste, without turning around.
When he grew tired of admiring that beautiful beast, he went on, and to
have something to do, watched an old farmer's wife haggling over a
donkey.
The first gipsy had gone back to his horse again, and was gazing at him
from afar, and shaking the halter-rope as though he were calling him.
Batiste slowly drew near him, pretending absent-mindedness, looking at
the bridges over which passed the parasols of the women of the city,
like many-coloured movable cupolas.
It was now noon. The sand of the river-bed grew hot; not the slightest
breath of wind passed over the space between the railings. In that hot
and sticky atmosphere, the sun beat down vertically penetrating the skin
and burning the lips.
The gipsy advanced a few steps toward Batiste, offering him the end of
the rope, as a kind of taking of possession.
"Neither your offer nor mine. Thirty, and God knows I get no profit on
it. Thirty ... don't say no, or you'll make me wild. Come, put it
there!"
Batiste took the rope and offered his hand to the vender who pressed it
with much feeling. The bargain was concluded.
The former began to take from his sash all that plethora of savings
which swelled out his stomach like an undigested meal: a bank-note that
the master had loaned him, a few silver dollars, a handful of small
change wrapped up in a paper-cone. When the count was completed, he
could not get out of going with the gipsy to the shed to invite him to
take a drink, and giving a few pennies to Monote for all his trottings.
"You're carrying off the treasure of the market. It's a lucky day for
you, Mist' Bautista: you crossed yourself with your right hand, and the
Virgin came out to look at you."
And he had to drink a second glass, the gipsy's treat, but at last,
cutting short his torrent of offers and flatteries, he seized the
halter of his new horse and helped by the obliging Monote, mounted on
the steed's bare back and left the noisy market at a trot.
He departed well satisfied with the animal; he had not lost his day. He
scarcely remembered poor Morrut, and he felt the pride of ownership when
on the bridge and on the road, some one from the _huerta_ turned around
to examine the white steed.
But his greatest satisfaction came when he passed before the house of
Copa. He made the beast break into an arrogant little trot as though he
were a horse of pedigree, and he saw how Pimentó and all the loafers of
the _huerta_ came to the door to look after him; the wretches! Now they
would be convinced that it was difficult to crush him, and that by his
unaided efforts, he could defend himself. Now they saw that he had a new
horse. If only the trouble within the home could be as easily adjusted!
His high, green wheat formed a kind of lake of restless waves by the
roadside; the alfalfa-grass grew luxuriantly and had a perfume which
made the horse's nostrils dilate. Batiste could not complain of his
land, but it was inside the house that he feared to meet misfortune,
eternal companion of his existence, waiting to dig its claws into him.
On hearing the trotting of the horse, Batistet came out with his
bandaged head, and ran to hold the animal while his father dismounted.
The boy waxed enthusiastic over the new animal. He caressed him, put his
hands between his lips, and in his eagerness to get on his back, he put
one foot on the hook, seized his tail and mounted with the agility of an
Arab on his crupper.
Batiste entered the house. As white and clean as usual, with its shining
tiles and all the furniture in its place, it seemed to be enveloped in
the sadness of a clean and shining sepulchre.
His wife came out to the door of the room, her eyes red and swollen and
her hair dishevelled, revealing in her tired aspect the long, sleepless
nights she had spent.
The doctor had just gone away: as usual, little hope. His manner was
forbidding, he spoke in half-words, and after examining the boy a
little, he went out without leaving any new prescription. Only when he
mounted his horse, he had said that he would return at night. And the
child was the same, with a fever that consumed his little body, which
grew thinner and thinner.
It was the same thing every day. They had grown accustomed now to that
misfortune; the mother wept automatically, and the others went about
their usual occupations with sad faces.
Then Teresa, who had a business head, asked her husband about the result
of his journey; she wanted to see the horse; and even sad Roseta forgot
her sorrows of love and inquired about the new acquisition.
All, large and small, went to the barnyard to see the horse in his
stable; Batistet full of enthusiasm had brought him there. The child
remained abandoned in the big bed of the bedroom where he tossed about,
his eyes glazed with sickness, bleating weakly: "Mother! Mother!"
Teresa examined her husband's purchase with a grave expression,
calculating in detail whether he was worth more than thirty dollars; the
daughter sought out the differences between the new horse and Morrut of
happy memory, and the two youngsters, with sudden confidence, pulled his
tail and stroked his belly, and vainly begged their older brother to put
them up on his white back.
Everybody was decidedly pleased with this new member of the family, who
sniffed the manger in an odd way as though he found there some trace,
some remote odour of his dead companion.
The whole family had dinner, and the excitement and enthusiasm over the
new acquisition was such that several times Batistet and the little ones
slipped away from the table to go and take a look in the stable, as
though they feared the horse had sprouted wings and flown away.
The afternoon passed without anything happening. Batiste had to plough
up a part of the land which he was keeping uncultivated, preparing the
crop of garden-truck, and he and his son put the horse in harness, proud
to see the gentleness with which he obeyed and the strength with which
he drew the plough.
At nightfall, when they were about to return, Teresa called them,
screaming from the farm-house door, and her voice was like that of one
who is crying for help.
"Batiste!--Batiste!--Come quickly!"
And Batiste ran across the field, frightened by the tone of his wife's
voice and by her wild actions; for she was tearing her hair and
moaning.
The child was dying; you had only to see him to be convinced of it.
Batiste entered the bedroom and leaning over the bed, felt a shudder of
cold go over him, a sensation as though some one had just thrown a
stream of cold water on him from behind. The poor little Bishop scarcely
moved; he breathed stertorously and with difficulty; his lips grew
purple; his eyes, almost closed, showed the glazed and motionless pupil;
they were eyes which saw no more; and his little brown face seemed to be
darkened by a mysterious sadness as though the wings of death cast their
shadow on it. The only bright thing in that countenance was the blond
hair streaming over the pillows like a skein of curly silk; the flame of
the candle shone on it strangely.
The mother's groans were desperate; they were like the howlings of a
maddened beast. Her son, weeping silently, had to check her, to hold her
in order to keep her from throwing herself on the little one or dashing
her head against the wall. Outside the youngsters were weeping, not
daring to come in, as though the lamentations of the mother frightened
them, and by the side of the bed stood Batiste, absorbed, clenching his
fists, biting his lips, his eyes fixed on that little body, which it was
costing so much anguish, so many shudders, to give up its hold on life.
The calm of that giant, his dry eyes winking nervously, his head bent
down toward his son, gave an even more painful impression than the
lamentations of the mother.
Suddenly, he noticed that Batistet stood by his side; he had followed
him, alarmed by his mother's cries. Batiste was angry when he found out
that his son had left the horse alone in the middle of the field, and
the boy, drying his eyes, ran out to bring the horse back to the stable.
In a short while, new cries awakened Batiste from his stupor.
"Father! Father!"
It was Batistet calling him from the door of the farm-house. The father,
foreseeing some new misfortune, ran after him, not understanding his
confused words. "The horse ... the poor white horse ... lay on the
ground ... blood...."
And after a few steps he saw him lying on his haunches, still harnessed
to the plough but trying in vain to rise, stretching out his neck and
neighing dolorously, while from his side, near one of his forelegs, a
black liquid trickled slowly, soaking the freshly opened furrows.
They had wounded him; perhaps he was going to die. God! A beast that he
needed like his own life and which had cost him money borrowed from the
master.
He looked around as though seeking the perpetrator of the deed. There
was no one on the plain, which was growing purple in the twilight;
nothing could be heard but the far-off rumbling of wheels, the rustling
noise of the canebrakes, and the cries of people calling from one
farm-house to another. In the nearby roads, on the paths, there was not
a single soul.
Batistet tried to excuse himself to his father for negligence. While he
was running toward the farm-house, he had seen a group of men coming
along the road, gay people who were laughing and singing, returning
doubtless from the inn. Perhaps it was they.
The father would not listen to anything more.... Pimentó, who else could
it be? The hatred of the district had caused his son's death, and now
that thief was killing his horse, guessing how much he needed it. God!
Was that not enough to make a Christian turn to evil ways?
And he argued no more. Scarcely realizing what he was doing, he returned
to the farm-house, seized his musket from behind the door, and ran out,
mechanically opening the breech to see if the two barrels were loaded.
Batistet remained near the horse, trying to staunch the blood with the
bandage from his own head. He was fear-stricken when he saw his father
running along the road with his musket cocked, longing to give vent to
his rage by slaying.
It was terrible to see that big, quiet, slow man in whom the wild beast,
tired of being daily harassed, was now awakened. In his bloodshot eyes
burned a murderous light; all his body trembled with anger, that
terrible anger of the peaceful man who, when he passes the boundaries of
gentleness, becomes ferocious.
Like a furious wild boar, he entered the fields, trampling down the
plants, jumping over the irrigation streams, breaking off the canes; if
he diverged from the road, it was only to reach Pimentó's farm more
quickly.
Some one was at the door. The blindness of anger and the twilight
shadows prevented him from distinguishing if it was a man or a woman,
but he saw how the person with one leap sprang in and closed the door
suddenly, frightened by that vision on the point of raising his gun and
firing.
Batiste stopped before the closed door of the farm-house:
"Pimentó!... Thief! Come out!"
And his voice amazed him as though it was another's.
It was a voice which was trembling and shrill, high-pitched and
suffocated by anger.
No one answered. The door remained closed; closed the windows and the
three loop-holes at the top which lighted the upper story, the _cambra_,
where the crops were kept.
The scoundrel was probably gazing at him through some crack, perhaps
even cocking his gun to fire some treacherous shot from one of the high
small windows. And instinctively, with that foresight of the Moor always
alert in suspecting all kinds of evil tricks of the enemy, he hid behind
the trunk of a giant fig-tree which cast its shade over Pimentó's
house.
The latter's name resounded ceaslessly in the silence of the twilight
accompanied by all kinds of insults.
"Come down! You coward! Come out, you thug!"
And the farm-house remained silent and closed, as though it had been
abandoned.
Batiste thought he heard a woman's stifled cries; the noise of a
struggle; something which made him suppose a fight was going on between
poor Pepeta and Pimentó, whom she was trying to prevent from going out
to answer the insults; but after that he heard nothing, and his insults
reverberated in a silence which made him desperate.
This infuriated him more than if the enemy had shown himself. He felt
himself going mad. It seemed to him that the mute house was mocking him,
and abandoning his hiding-place, he threw himself against the door,
striking it with the butt of his gun.
The timbers trembled with the pounding of the infuriated giant. He
wished to vent his rage on the dwelling, since he could not annihilate
the master, and not only did he beat the door, but he also struck his
gun against the walls, dislodging enormous pieces of plaster. Several
times, he even raised the weapon to his face, wishing to fire his two
shots at the two little windows of the _cambra_, and was deferred from
this only by his fear that he would remain disarmed.
His anger increased; he roared forth insults; his bloodshot eyes could
scarcely see; he staggered like a drunken man. He was almost on the
point of falling to the ground in a fit of apoplexy, agonized with
anger, choked by fury, when suddenly the red clouds which surrounded him
tore themselves apart, his fury gave way to weakness, he saw all his
misfortune, felt himself crushed; his anger, broken by the terrible
tension, vanished, and Batiste, amidst the torrent of insults, felt his
voice grow stifled till it became a moan, and at last he burst out
crying.
And he stopped insulting Pimentó. He began gradually to retreat, till he
reached the road, and sat down on a bank, his musket at his feet. There
he wept and wept, feeling a great relief, caressed by the shadows of
night which seemed to share his sorrow, for they became deeper, deeper,
hiding his childish weeping.
How unfortunate he was! Alone against all! He would find the little
fellow dead when he returned to the farm; the horse which was his
livelihood made useless by those traitors; trouble coming on him from
every direction, surging up from the roads, from the houses, from the
cane-brakes, profiting by all occasions to wound him and his; and he
defenceless, could not protect himself from these enemies who vanished
the moment, weary of suffering, he tried to turn on them.
Lord! what had he done to deserve such sufferings? Was he not an honest
man?
He felt himself more and more crushed by grief. Unable to move he
remained seated on the bank; his enemies might come; he had not even the
strength to pick up the musket that lay at his feet.
Over the road resounded the slow tolling of a bell which filled the
darkness with mysterious vibrations. Batiste thought of his little boy,
of the poor "Bishop" who probably had died by now. Perhaps that sweet
chime was made by the angels who came down from heaven to bear the
child's soul away; and who unable to find his farm were flying over the
_huerta_. If only the others did not remain, those who needed the
strength of his arm to support them!... The poor man longed for
annihilation; he thought of the happiness of leaving down there on that
bank, that ugly body, the life of which it cost him so much to sustain,
and embracing the innocent little soul of his boy, of flying away like
the blessed ones whom he had seen guided by angels in the paintings of
the church.
The chimes seemed to approach and dark figures which his tear-wet eyes
could not distinguish passed by on the road. He felt some one touch him
with the end of a stick and, raising his head, he saw a solitary figure,
a kind of spectre leaning toward him.
And he recognized old Tomba, the only one of the _huerta_ to whom he
owed no suffering.
The shepherd, considered as a sorcerer, possessed the amazing intuition
of the blind. Scarcely had he recognized Batiste when he seemed to
understand all his misfortune. He felt with his stick the musket lying
at his feet, and turned his head, as though looking for Pimentó's farm
in the darkness.
He spoke slowly, with a quiet sadness, like a man accustomed to the
miseries of a world which he must soon leave. He divined that Batiste
was weeping.
"My son ... my son...."
He had expected everything that had occurred. He had warned him the
first day when he saw him settled on the accursed lands. They would
bring him misfortune.
He had just passed by Batiste's farm and had seen lights through the
open door ... he had heard cries of despair; the dog was howling ... the
little boy had died, hadn't he? And he yonder, thinking he was seated on
a bank, when in reality he sat with one foot in prison. Thus men are
lost and their families broken up. He would end with some mad and
foolish murder, like poor Barret, and would die like him, in prison. It
was inevitable; those lands were cursed by the poor and could give forth
only accursed fruits.
And muttering his terrible prophecies, the shepherd went his way behind
his sheep on the village road, advising poor Batiste to leave also, and
go away, very far away, where he could earn his bread without having to
struggle against the hatred of the poor. And now invisible, shrouded in
the shadows, Batiste still heard his slow, sad voice which made him
shudder:
"Believe me, my son ... they will bring you misfortune!"