Vicente Blasco Ibáñez

“ Vicente Blasco Ibañez, the famous author of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse that have galloped around the entire civilized world over a path of glory, is easily one of the most interesting personages now before the public. Had he never written a book his name would have gone down in the annals of a race rich in versatile men as one of the most gifted and prolific figures produced in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. ”

“ Once again he bent to the oars, heading out toward midstream over the moonlit water, as if to vouchsafe the groves on either bank an equal pleasure in the romantic escapade.
It had been one of her caprices—a desire repeated during his visits to the Blue House on some afternoons, in the presence of doña Pepa and the maid, and on every night, as he passed through the opening in the hedge where Leonora's bare arms were waiting for him in the darkness.
For more than a week Rafael had been living in a sweet dream. Never had he imagined that life could be so beautiful. ”

“ Passion would give them back the fires of youth. Love was like a springtime that brings new sap to branches grown numb in the winter's cold. Let her say "Yes," and on the instant she would behold the miracle, the resurrection of their slumbering past, the awakening of their souls to the future of love!
"And your wife? And your children?" Leonora asked, brutally, as if she wished to bring him back to realities, with a smarting lash from a whip.
But Rafael was now beside himself, drunk with the nearness of all that beauty, and with the waves of perfume that filled the interior of the carriage. ”

“ At night Rafael could not sleep. The orange-trees were beginning to bloom. The blossoms, like an odorous snow, covered the orchards and shed their perfume as far even as the city streets. The air was heavy with fragrance. To breathe was to scent a nosegay. Through the window-gratings under the doors, through the walls, the virginal perfume of the vast orchards filtered—an intoxicating breath, that Rafael, in his impassioned restlessness, imagined as wafted from the Blue House, caressing Leonora's lovely figure, and catching something of the divine fragrance of her redolent beauty. ”

“ And the girl leered at the Rector so unguardedly, in saying this, that Pascualo, in spite of his corpulent obtuseness, caught the glimmer of an allusion and studied her face enquiringly. But his immense faith, at bottom, in people and in things stood him in good stead against any dangerous inference. And he protested, mildly, at her exaggeration. Bosh! People in the Cabañal made him sick! They were always talking about somebody, to pass the time. If you listened to what people said, there wasn't a decent woman in town, nor a husband that wasn't the joke of the beach. ”

“ Renovales sat up, rose to his feet as if he had awakened, as if the cemetery, until then invisible, was suddenly restored to reality. The faint odor of decay once more struck him.
Now he saw the grave, as he had seen it the day before. He no longer wept. The immense disappointment dried his tears, though within him he felt the longing for weeping increased. Horrible awakening! Josephina was not there; only the void was about him. It was useless to seek the past in the field of death. Memories could not be aroused in that cold ground, stirred by worms and decay. ”

“ 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. ”

“ On the other side of the Plaza, the old magistrate smiled tenderly under his white beard, admiring the youngster's courage, and thinking how well the gala dress became him. On seeing him rolled over by the bull, he threw himself back in his seat as if he were fainting. That was too much for him.
Between the barriers Encarnacion's husband strutted with pride, he was a saddler with a small open shop; a prudent man, detesting vagrancy, he had fallen in love with the cigarette maker's charms, and married her, but on the express condition of having nothing to do with that bad lot, her brother. ”

“ Suddenly Febrer experienced an overwhelming impression, as if he beheld an extraordinary light, never before seen. His brain seemed to dilate, to expand like a mass of water bursting an encompassing vessel of stone. At that instant a lightning flash colored the sea with livid light, and a thunder clap burst above his head, its echoes rattling with awesome reverberation over the expanse of the sea, in the caverns, and over the hilltops along the shore.
No, the dead do not command! The dead do not rule! As if he were a different man, Jaime ridiculed his recent thoughts. ”

“ René was better, almost well. His betrothed had never doubted his recovery from the moment that they permitted her to remain with him.
"No one that I love, ever dies," she asserted with a ring of her father's self-confidence. "As if I would ever permit the Boches to leave me without a husband!"
She had her little sugar soldier back again, but, oh, in what a lamentable state!... Never had Don Marcelo realized the de-personalizing horrors of war as when he saw entering his home this convalescent whom he had known months before—elegant and slender, with a delicate and somewhat feminine beauty. ”

“ Rafael noticed finally that the recluse was approaching, unable to restrain a desire to communicate his admiration to someone.
"What a woman!" the man cried, rolling his eyes to express his full enthusiasm.
She had given him a duro, one of those white discs which, in that atheistic age, so rarely ascended that mountain trail! And there the poor invalid sat at the door of the Hermitage, staring into her apron blankly, hypnotized by the glitter of all that wealth! Duros, pesetas, two-pesetas, dimes! All the money the lady had brought! Even a gold button, which must have come from her glove! ”

“ In their industry, they were like a nest of squirrels, unable to keep idle while the father was working. Teresa, the wife, and Roseta, the eldest daughter, with their skirts tucked in between their legs, and hoe in hand, dug with more zeal than day-labourers, resting only to throw back the locks of hair which kept straggling over their red, perspiring foreheads. The eldest son made continuous trips to Valencia with the rush-basket on his shoulder, carrying manure and rubbish which he piled up in two heaps like columns of honour at the entrance to the farm-house ”

“ The sea filled the darkness with a gentle moan whose undulations broke on all the projections and windings of the coast.
Suddenly, Febrer, who sat silently listening with a quiet resembling that of timid children who are afraid to turn over in bed in order not to augment the mystery which surrounds them, stirred in his chair. Something extraordinary rent the air, dominating with its stridor the confused sounds of night. It was a cry, a howl, a whinny, one of those hostile, mocking voices with which vengeful youths call one another in the shadows. ”

“ She was a cosy secluded refuge where he might sleep after a tempest. His mother's satisfied smile was there to encourage him in this feeling. Never had he seen her so kind and so communicative. The pleasure of having him once more safe and obedient in her hands had mollified that disposition so stern by nature as to verge on rudeness.
Remedios, with her head bowed low over her embroidery, would blush deep red whenever Rafael praised her work or told her she was the prettiest girl in all Alcira. He would help her thread her needles, and hold his hands out to make a winding frame for the skeins ”

“ 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. ”

“ The master admired her healthy beauty. What a splendid specimen! The race would not die out with her. She was like him, wholly like him; if he had been a woman, he would have been like his Milita.
She kept on talking, without taking her arms from her father's shoulders, with her eyes, tremulous like molten gold, fixed on the master.
She was going for her daily walk with "Miss," a two hours' tramp through the Castellana and the Retiro, without stopping a moment to sit down, taking a peripatetic lesson in English on the way. ”

“ What have I to live for? No children! Not a friend in the world! Work like a dog from morning till night, to give him the money I earn so as to escape a beating. And he beats me just the same! Wring my neck! That doesn't scare me! Look, Pascualo, look!"
Rosario rolled up her sleeve, and showed on the sallow skin that covered the bones and tendons of her fore-arm, the black-and-blue marks where a heavy hand had squeezed it as in a vise. "And that's only one. I can show you others almost anywhere on my body! And they come from having complained about his bad behavior with Dolores! ”

“ He stepped away from the bed so that Febrer might see Margalida, hidden behind the captain, shrinking and timid, now that the señor could look at her with eyes free from fever. Ah, Almond Blossom! Jaime's glance, tender and sweet, brought a flush to her cheeks. She feared that the sick man might remember what she had done in the most critical moments, when she was almost sure that he was going to die.
"Now you must keep still," continued Valls. "I will stay here until we can go back to Palma together. You know me. I understand everything; I'll arrange it all. Eh? Do I make myself clear?" ”

“ 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. ”

“ The boy hoped that this man would be his sister's choice; that the vèrro, with his astonishing skill, would become a member of his family.
"Maybe Margalida will like him, and then Ferrer will give me one of his pistols. What do you think, Don Jaime?"
He plead the vèrro's cause as if he were already a relative. The poor fellow lived so wretchedly, alone in his shop with no other companion than an old woman always dressed in the black garb of long-past mourning; one of her eyes was watery, the other was shut. She would blow the bellows while her nephew hammered the red-hot iron. ”

“ Say, Rafael, where do you dig up all those things?"
But Rafael looked uneasily at her cruel smile and refused to accept her praise. Besides, what did he care about his speech? It seemed to him that he had been for years and years in that coach; that a whole lifetime had gone by since he left the halls of the Congress. His gaze was fixed on her in admiration, and his astonished eyes were drinking in the beauty of her face, and of her figure.
"How beautiful you are!" he murmured in impulsive enchantment. "The same as you were then. It seems impossible that eight years can have flown by." ”

“ You love her and that is sufficient. Why should my sister have to wear out her life digging in the ground when a señor like yourself pays attention to her? Besides," here the young rascal smiled mischievously, "this marriage suits me. You are not going to till the fields, you will take Margalida away with you, and the old man, having no one to leave Can Mallorquí to, will let me marry and become a farmer, and, adios to the priesthood! I tell you, Don Jaime, you'll win. Here am I, the Little Chaplain, to fight half the island in your defense." ”

“ I am sure that my sister loves you dearly—only she is rather afraid of you—she feels a kind of respect. Who would ever have thought that you would notice her! At home everybody seems to be crazy; father looks cross and goes around grumbling to himself; mother sighs and calls on the Virgin, and meantime people imagine that we are rejoicing. But it will all come out right, Don Jaime, I promise you.
"But be careful, señor, be on your guard," added the boy, thinking of his former friends, the youths who were courting Almond Blossom. ”

“ That it would all pass; that it was a young man's whim; that youth must have its fling! What was the use? Rafael hadn't studied to be a monk! Many boys his age, and even older ones, were far worse!... And the old gentleman smiled, for he was thinking of his own easy conquests with the wretched flock of dirty, unkempt peasant girls who wrapped the oranges in the shipping houses of Alcira. "You see, doña Bernarda, you suffered too much with don Ramón. You are a bit too exacting with Rafael. Let him have a good time! Let him enjoy himself! ”