Vicente Blasco Ibáñez

“ The crowing of the cock was carried on from farm-house to farm-house; the bells of the village were answering, with noisy peals, the ringing of the first mass which floated from the towers of Valencia, blue and hazy in the distance. From the corrals came a discordant animal-concert; the whinnying of horses, the lowing of gentle cows, the clucking of hens, the bleating of lambs, the grunting of pigs, ... all the noisy awakening of creatures who, upon feeling the first caress of dawn, permeated with the pungent perfume of vegetation, long to be off and run about the fields. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There could be no evil people here. Upon awakening, Batiste stretched himself with a pleasurable feeling of laziness, yielding to the tranquil comfort with which the atmosphere seemed to be impregnated. Roseta had gone away with the little ones to a dance at a farm-house: his wife was taking her siesta, and he was walking back and forth from his house to the road over the bit of uncultivated land which served as an entrance for vehicles.
Standing on the little bridge, he answered the salutations of the neighbours, who passed by laughing, as if they were going to witness a very funny spectacle. ”

“ We never know God's plans. Often he turns evil into good for his creatures."
And interrupting his string of commonplaces, uttered pompously as though he were in school, he lowered his voice and added, blinking his eyes maliciously:
"Did you notice, Mr. Batiste, all these people? Yesterday they were cursing you and your family; and God knows how many times I have censured them for this wickedness; today they enter your house as though they were entering their own, and overwhelm you with manifestations of affection. Misfortune makes them forget, brings them close to you." ”

“ Why should he take the blame of being in conflict with these people, who, as Don Joaquín, the master, said, were very good but very stupid?
The afternoon closed in; the twilight, grey and sad, sifted over the plain. The wind, growing continually stronger, carried toward the farm-house the distant echo of lamentations and furious voices.
Batiste saw the people eddying in the door of the distant farm-house, saw arms extended with a sorrowful expression, clenched hands which snatched handkerchief from head and cast it in fury to the ground. ”

“ The family smiled at times, recalling the threatening words of Pimentó. This wheat, which according to the bully, nobody should reap, began to fatten all the family. Roseta had two more skirts, and Batistet and the little ones strutted about on Sundays, dressed anew from head to foot.
While crossing the plain during the sunniest hours, when the atmosphere burned, and the flies and bees buzzed heavily, one felt a sensation of comfort before this farm-house, which was so fresh and clean. The corral through its walls of mud and stakes, revealed the life which it enclosed. ”

“ Here it was that the odour of alcohol proved to be most intolerable. The breath and the clothing of all the people seemed impregnated with it.
Batiste looked at Pimentó and his opponents seated upon stools of strong carob-wood, with the cards before their eyes, the jar of brandy within easy reach, and on the zinc the little heap of corn which was equivalent to chips for the game. And at each play, one of the three grasped the jar, drank deliberately, then passed it on to his companions, who took a long draft with no less ceremony. ”

“ On the dry earth, however, he noticed some black stains, and touched them with his hands: they smelled of blood. Now he knew that he had not missed his aim. But, though he looked about, hoping to see his enemy's corpse, he sought in vain.
That Pimentó had a tough skin. Dripping mud and mire, he would go along dragging himself up to his own farm-house. Perhaps that vague rustle which he believed he heard in the immediate fields, as though a great reptile were dragging itself over the furrows, came from him. All the dogs were barking at him, filling the huerta with desperate howlings. ”

“ But the assassin roamed like a madman through the fields, fleeing from people, lying low behind the sloping banks, concealing himself under the little bridges, running across the fields, frightened by the barking of the dogs, until on the following day, the rural police surprised him sleeping in a hayloft.
For six weeks, they talked of nothing in the huerta but old Barret.
Men and women went on Sundays to the prison of Valencia as though on a pilgrimage, in order to look through the bars at the poor liberator, who grew thinner and thinner, his eyes more sunken, and his glance more troubled. ”

“ Teresa, returning to her room, searched the depths of her chests, tearing up linen cloths, untying bandages, while the girl washed and washed again the lips of the bleeding wound, which was cut like a sabre-slash across the fleshy shoulder.
The two women checked the hemorrhage as best they could, bandaged the wound, and Batiste breathed with satisfaction, as though he were already cured. Worse blows than this had descended upon him in this life.
And he began to admonish the little ones to be prudent. Of what they had seen, not a word to anybody. There are subjects which it is best to forget. ”

“ Behind them walked an old man, like dried up parchment, yellowish, with deep sunken eyes and a mouth surrounded by a circle of wrinkles. He was walking with firm steps, but with his shepherd's crook ahead of him, as though feeling his way along the road.
The family looked at him with attention; he was the only person who had ventured to approach the land within the two weeks they were here. On noticing the hesitation of the sheep, he shouted to them to go on.
Batiste went out to meet the old man; he could not pass through; the fields were now under cultivation. ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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. ”

“ No one would have suspected that behind the slope of the high banks, farther on beyond the rushes and the cane-brake, lay the plain with its smiling atmosphere and its green vistas. Even the light of the sun seemed dismal, as it sank to the depths of the ravine, sifting through the wild vegetation and pallidly reflecting itself in the dead waters.
Batiste spent the afternoon firing at the wheeling swallows. A few cartridges still remained in his belt, and at his feet, forming a mound of blood-stained feathers, he already had two dozen birds. What a supper! How happy the family would be! ”

“ On hearing her sobs, Batiste and his wife raised their heads in astonishment. They knew now that she was a good woman: he was the bad one. And a mother's and father's gratitude shone in their eyes.
Batiste even trembled when he saw how poor Pepeta embraced Teresa and her daughter, and mingled her tears with theirs. No; here was no duplicity. She herself was a victim; that was why she could understand the misfortunes of others who were also victims.
The little woman wiped away her tears, and became again the brave, strong woman accustomed to the labour of a beast of burden to keep up her house. ”

“ Good-bye, Pimentó! You were departing from the world well-served. The farm-house and the fortune of the odious intruder were lighting up your corpse with merrier splendour than the candles bought by the bereaved Pepeta, mere yellowish tears of light.
Batistet returned desperate from his useless trip. Nobody had answered.
The plain, silent and scowling, had said good-bye to them for ever.
They were more alone than if they had been in the midst of a desert; the solitude of hatred was a thousand times worse than that of Nature. ”

“ Every one was happy, all worked joyfully. The carts creaked on all the roads, bands of boys ran over the fields, or gambled on the threshing-floors, thinking of the cakes of new wheat, of the life of abundance and satisfaction which began in the farm-house upon the filling of the lofts; even the old nags seemed to look on with happy eyes, and to walk with more alacrity, as though stimulated by the odour of the mounds of straw which, like rivers of gold, would slip through their cribs during the course of the year. ”

“ 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. ”