Vicente Blasco Ibáñez

“ Rosario, like a sphinx in dudgeon, stood upright and stiff behind her counter, indifferent to the passing trade, spots on her cheeks and temples turning black-and-blue from the buffets they had received. Dolores kept her back turned toward her enemy, but she was doing her best to stifle the cries that her pain was almost tearing from her. Tia Picores seemed to be in a thoughtful mood, as she talked aloud and in monologue to the fish lying about in front of her. And those spit-fires would keep at it for the rest of their lives, eh! I kill you or you kill me! Fine! And all over a man! Men! Men! ”

“ As a boat would slowly scrape along up out of the water, a throng of ragged disheveled youngsters would rush down to meet it, running along beside it through the surf like a cortege of nereids and tritons, noisily begging for a handful of cabets!
A market was being improvised right on the beach, and sales were going on in a hub-bub of shouting, cursing, and shaking of fists. The wives of the captains, intrenched behind their overflowing baskets, were going it hammer and tongs with the fish-women who would retail the catch next day at Valencia. ”

“ The old hulk, that served them as lair, was a sort of vantage point from which they were able to follow the war between the two families.
"Men! Men! What fleas!" siñá Tona would say, with a glance at the picture of the patrolman, who seemed to be the presiding genius of the place. "Men! Crooks every one of them, not worth the rope to hang them with!" And Roseta, with her big bright sea-green eyes—the eyes of a virgin who knows all about the world and is quite sure of herself—would murmur for once approvingly: "And those who are not scamps like Tonet are like the Rector—puddingheads!" ”

“ Not a boat had dared go so far from home that day. The rest of the fleet could be dimly seen, strung out on the horizon in a wide arc from in front of Valencia to the offings of Cullera. The sky was a leaden gray; the sea a deep purple, turning to an ebony black in the troughs of the waves. The wind came in a succession of long frigid squalls that whipped the sails about and whistled through the rigging. The Mayflower and its running mate kept on, however, under full sail, dragging the bòu-net that was getting heavier and heavier from minute to minute. ”

“ By God, the first man who tried any tricks would get something!
By the time the Rector had recovered his composure after that nerve-racking day and that terrible landing through the surf, and after he had stopped nursing the bruises received from a fall as the vessel struck, the last wagon was driving off; and the long-shoremen had vanished silently in all directions, as though the beach had eaten them alive. Not a bundle had been lost. Even those caught in the hold of the Garbosa had been pried loose from the crushed timbers, now sunk deep in the sand. ”

“ The driveling idiot seemed to grow fat on getting people into trouble! And in fact, Pascualo's moon-face was glowing in the excitement of this battle with the sea. At every buffet of the waves he smiled, a purple flush suffusing his features, as though he were rising from a holiday meal. His arms seemed part and parcel of the heavy tiller, and his legs might just as well have been nailed to the deck. As the old Garbosa leapt and lunged, shrieking in every seam from stem to stern as though in panic-stricken agony, the Rector's spherical corpulence scarcely moved at all. ”

“ But a sudden shouting of redoubled violence awakened them from their swooning dream of guilty anticipation. "The Rector! There he goes! Flor de Mayo! 'Mayflower'!" And the most rousing of all the send-offs was for him. It was not only the young ones this time. Grown-ups, men and women, joined in the scathing jollity. For Dolores, the beautiful, Dolores, the bewitching, had her enemies in that throng of jealous wives. "Hey, the Rector! Hey, the prize-lanudo! A toreador for you, when you come home! The devil will want you, for the horns you'll have! ”

“ The women of the Cabañal, crowding the beach in the afternoon, were sure of that. The boats had been out two nights and a day, and they were already coming home. The stiff horizon line was dotted with sails, in pairs, the bòu-teams hurrying shoreward before a favoring breeze, like couples of doves yoked by a belt at the water-line. The oldest women along shore could not remember such fishing! Lord, the fish just seemed to be sitting there in solid packs, waiting patiently to be scooped out. The poorest people in town would have plenty to eat for once in their lives. ”

“ In the first days of her widowhood, when she saw the two little heads sleeping side by side in the narrow cabin, resting perhaps on the very timbers that had crushed their father's skull, she had felt an equal tenderness for them both, as though the deadly bark were to destroy them as it had killed Pascualo. But when prosperity came, and the memory of the tragedy grew dim with the years, siñá Tona showed unmistakable fondness for Tonet, a child of feline shrewdness, who treated everybody with imperious petulance, but for his mother always had the speculative fondness of a sly cat. ”

“ You can't have all the men there are. You're envious!" "Me, envious!" Rosario retorted. "Envious of your reputation, I suppose,—the best in the Cabañal, as even the lamp-post knows! Thanks! I'm a decent woman, I am, I never tried to get another girl's husband!" "And whose husband could you get with that sculpin-face? No, dearest, no one is jealous of you!" And Rosario, growing paler than ever, sunk her nails into her clenched hands, while Dolores, her fists on her hips, wreathed her delicious countenance in a smile, which seemed to serve for volumes of insults. ”

“ While Pascualo was putting body and soul into his new enterprise, Tonet, with his share in the booty—the Rector had done his best to make it as large as could be—was enjoying one of his seasons of prosperity. In the tumble-down shack where he lived with Rosario to the tune of quarrels, swear-words and cudgelings, not the slightest trace of abundance entered after the lucky trip "across the way." The poor woman was as usual up at sunrise to carry her baskets of fish to Valencia or even to Torrente or Betera, at times—always on foot—to save the price of a wagon. ”

“ Men in oil skins and sea boots came hurrying along the shore, jumping from stone to stone, stopping many times, when they reached the Breakwater, to let a wave go by as it leapt over that obstruction into the inner harbor, leaving the red granite shining with the angry sweat of the tempest.
On the farthest projection of the jetty, where the storm surf was dashing highest against the outer rocks, stood Dolores, bareheaded, her face pale, clinging to siñá Tona, who was wild with anguish for her boy, her Pascualet, who was still out there! ”

“ Either scamps like Tonet, or puddingheads, like the Rector. Men! She would have none of them! And the Cabañal could never make out why she refused every boy who proposed to her! She would never have one of the wretched animals kicking around between her feet. She had taken well to heart all the curses she had heard her mother heap on men in her bitterest moments of despair down there in the loneliness and gloom of the tavern-boat. ”

“ The people on the rocks were now in plain sight. Spray could be seen dashing over them, and occasionally their anguished voices even reached as far as the Mayflower's deck. Recristo! To be drowned like rats in a trap, under the very eyes of your folks, and they unable to help you! Dog of a sea! Pig of a wind! And the Rector, to vent his impotent fury, spat at the waves, as the vessel reared and plunged this way and that, the scuppers under, clear to the hatch, first to starboard and then to port, the cross-yard shoving its point under at every roll. ”

“ Dolores finally drew her shawl about her and crouched for shelter behind the outermost rock, the wash from the surf climbing up around her legs, but her eyes she held seaward with the fixed motionless stare of a sphinx. On a stone farther back tia Picores towered on high with her massive bony frame. Anger writhing at her mouth, and her fists clenched in threat, she faced the sea with the sublimity of a tragic witch, insulting the wild turmoil with the gibes of the Fishmarket: "Pig of a sea! Streetwalker! Sow! They call you a woman, but you're a man, I say!" ”

“ Pascualo was recovering to a new life. It seemed as though another being were inside him, and thinking for him. Anguish had put an edge on his intelligence. God was his only companion in that loneliness. With God he would have to reckon. And did God care if a man found his wife unfaithful? What a small detail that must seem to a Being as great as that! Just like a pair of rats down there on earth! No, much more important it must seem to God for a fellow to be good, and not answer treason with murder ... murder!
Slowly the Rector turned back toward the Cabañal. ”

“ When Rosario, flaming with anger and weeping from sheer despair, would simply have to tell some one of her troubles, she would go off to the tavern-boat, which, like its mistress, was also aging rapidly with the years. There she would be listened to in silence, with an expression of sorrow, or a shake of the head from siñá Tona and Roseta, who were living on in sullen antipathy toward one another in spite of their relationship, agreeing only on one thing, that men were beneath contempt. ”

“ And now you would dirty the reputation of Dolores! And she's a saint! A saint, do you hear! And a woman like you isn't good enough to kiss the bottom of her shoe, you snake! And now, get out of here, and do it quick, damn quick! Get out of here, or I'll kill you like a rat!"
But Rosario stood there impassively. The calm determination in her did not shrink before those insults and those menacing fists.
"Pascualo, Dolores is not being true to you," she repeated slowly, and with despairing firmness. "She is making a fool of you. And the man ... is ... Tonet!" ”

“ And as this conclusion settled deeper in the skipper's mind, he tore at the flesh through his open shirt front, and frowned with sullen animosity at the water, the boat, and the sailors, who kept looking at him out of the corners of their eyes, wondering why the captain was in such a black temper, though it was owing probably to the weather.
And why should he go on slaving like a dog? To earn money for that wench of a woman who had been making a public fool of him all this time? And create a future for Pascualet, leave him the richest fisherman in the Cabañal? ”

“ He forgot his beautiful wife and even Pascualet—the rogue was as busy as could be with the cinnamon balls, up on deck—to give all his attention to siñá Tona.
"A full-fledged master, outfitter, owner of a boat—my own boat!" And he kissed and hugged the old mother who was weeping streams from her puffy eyes. Tona's thoughts indeed were running back over long, long years of widowhood and loneliness and ostracism and over the memory of that mad adventure with the guardsman, to a similar christening she had witnessed in her youth. ”

“ Darkness, everywhere, and a sea bellowing in the gloom, the reeds and shore-grass bent low under the gale, the breakers tumbling in as though bent on swallowing up the land, while a legion of dark-skinned men, with their clothes off, tugged at great bales in the hold of the vessel that was rapidly going to pieces, or fished them out from the foaming waters and dragged them up on the beach, where they disappeared mysteriously, while, in the intervals between gusts of wind, the sound of creaking wagon wheels could be heard. ”

“ In spite of his courage in the face of terror, Pascualo could not stand this horrifying sight. With a groan of agony he buried his face in his hands. Like a mighty catapult, the barrel caught the youngest of the sailors on the head, and crushed him to pulp against the mast; and then, like an assassin running away with blood streaming from his hands, the heavy keg rolled into the scupper and overboard. Eddies of water coming along the deck, swept the mangled headless torso against the hands and faces of the other men, and washed blood and bits of flesh around over the planking. ”

“ Tia Picores gave a grunt of satisfaction as she settled into a chair. Chocolate after the day's work was her greatest comfort in life. How well she knew that little café, with its striped matting on the floor, its white tiled walls, its frosted glass windows with red curtains; in front of the doors, ice-cream freezers in cork casings with metal covers; the counter, then, with its jars for cookies and sweets, and behind it the proprietor of the place sleepily brushing at the flies with a bundle of long paper streamers fastened to a stick. ”

“ The fleet was returning like a frightened herd in stampede, each boat plunging in the combers with the bellow of the tempest upon its heels. Would they make the lee of the Breakwater? The wind in devilish playfulness would here tear off a shred of canvas, there a yard, and there a mast or a tiller, till a rudderless craft, caught abeam by a mountain of greenish water, would seem surely to be swallowed up. ”