The Cabin Part 9

The friendliness of this child was a small matter, yet he experienced the impression of a feverish man upon feeling the coolness of water.

He gazed with tenderness at the blue eyes, the smiling face covered by a coat of down, and searched his memory as to who the boy might be.

Finally he remembered that he was the grandson of old Tomba, the blind shepherd whom all the _huerta_ respected; a good boy who was serving as a servant to a butcher at Alboraya, whose herd the old man tended.

"Thanks, little one, thanks," he murmured, acknowledging the salute.

And he went ahead, and was welcomed by his dog, who leaped before him, and rubbed himself against his corduroy trousers.

In the door of the cabin stood his wife surrounded by the little ones, waiting impatiently, for the supper hour had already pa.s.sed.

Batiste looked at the fields, and all the fury he had suffered an hour ago before the Tribunal of the Waters, returned at a stroke and like a furious wave flooded his consciousness.

His wheat was thirsty. He had only to see it; its leaves shrivelled, the green colour, before so l.u.s.trous, now of a yellow transparency. The irrigation had failed him; the turn of which Pimento, with his sly and evil tricks, had robbed him, would not belong to him until fifteen days had pa.s.sed, because the water was scarce; and on top of this misfortune all that d.a.m.ned string of pounds and _sous_ for a fine. Christ!

He ate without any appet.i.te, telling his wife the while of the occurrence at the Tribunal.

Poor Teresa listened to her husband, pale with the emotion of the countrywoman who feels a pang in her heart when there must be a loosening of the knot of the stocking which guards the money in the bottom of the chest. Sovereign queen! They had determined to ruin them!

What sorrow at the evening-meal!

And letting her spoon fall into the frying-pan of rice, she wept, swallowing her tears. Then she became red with sudden pa.s.sion, looked out at the expanse of plain with she saw in front of her door, with its white farm-houses and its waves of green, and stretching out her arms, she cried: "Rascals! Rascals!"

The little folks, frightened by their father's scowl, and the cries of their mother, were afraid to eat. They looked from one to the other with indecision and wonder, picked at their noses to be doing something, and all of them ended by imitating their mother and weeping over the rice.

Batiste, agitated by the chorus of sobs, arose furiously, and almost kicked over the little table as he flung himself out of the house.

What an afternoon! The thirst of his wheat and the remembrance of the fine were like two fierce dogs tearing at his heart. When one, tired of biting him, was going to sleep, the other arrived at full speed and fixed his teeth in him.

He wanted to distract his thoughts, to forget himself in work, and he gave himself over with all his will to the task he had in hand, a pigsty which he was putting up in the corral.

But the work did not progress. He was suffocating between the mud-walls; he wanted to look at the fields, he was like those who feel the need to look upon their misfortune, to yield utterly and drink the cup of sorrow to the dregs. And with his hands full of clay, he came out from the farm-yard, and remained standing before the oblong patch of shrivelled wheat.

A few steps away, at the edge of the road, the murmuring ca.n.a.l brimmed with red water ran by.

The life-giving blood of the _huerta_ was flowing far away, for other fields whose masters did not have the misfortune of being hated; and here was his poor wheat, shrivelled, languishing, bowing its green head as if it were making signs to the water to come near and caress it with its cool kiss.

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!

Furious he walked back and forth along the border of his oblong plot.

Ah, Pimento! Greatest of scoundrels! If there were no Civil Guards!

And like shipwrecked mariners, agonizing with hunger and thirst, who in their delirium see only interminable banquet-tables, and the clearest springs, Batiste confusedly saw fields of wheat whose stalks were green and straight, and the water entering, gushing from the mouths of the sloping-banks, extending itself with a luminous rippling, as if it laughed softly at feeling the tickling of the thirsty earth.

At the sinking of the sun, Batiste felt a certain relief, as though it had gone out forever, and his harvest was saved.

He went away from his fields, from his farm-house, and unconsciously, with slow steps, took the road below, toward the tavern of Copa. The thought of the rural police had left his mind, and he accepted the possibility of a meeting with Pimento, who should not be very far away from the tavern, with a certain feeling of pleasure.

Along the borders of the road, there were coming toward him swift rows of girls, hamper on arm, and skirts flying, returning from the factories of the city.

Blue shadows were spreading over the _huerta_; in the background, over the darkening mountains, the clouds were growing red with the splendour of some far distant fire; in the direction of the sea, the first stars were trembling in the infinite blue; the dogs were barking mournfully; and with the monotonous singing of the frogs and the crickets, was mingled the confused creaking of invisible wagons, departing over all the roads of the immense plain.

Batiste saw his daughter coming, separated from all the girls, walking with slow steps. But not alone. It seemed to him that she was talking with a man who followed in the same direction as herself, although somewhat apart, as the betrothed always walk in the _huerta_, for whom approach is a sign of sin.

When he saw Batiste in the middle of the road, the man slackened his pace and remained at a distance as Roseta approached her father.

The latter remained motionless, as he wanted the stranger to advance so that he might recognize him.

"Good night, Senor Batiste."

It was the same timid voice which had saluted him at midday. The grandson of old Tomba. That scamp seemed to have nothing to do but wander over the roads, and greet him, and thrust himself before his eyes with his bland sweetness.

He looked at his daughter, who grew red under the gaze, and lowered her eyes.

"Go home; home, ... I will settle with you!"

And with all the terrible majesty of the Latin father, the absolute master of his children, and more inclined to inspire fear than affection, he started after the tremulous Roseta, who, as she drew near the farm, antic.i.p.ated a sure cudgeling.

She was mistaken. At that moment the poor father had no other children in the world but his crops, the poor sick wheat, shrivelling, drying, and crying out to him, begging for a swallow in order not to die.

And of this he thought while his wife was getting the supper ready.

Roseta was bustling about pretending to be busy, in order not to attract attention and expecting from one moment to the next an outburst of terrible anger. But Batiste, seated before the little dwarfish table, surrounded by all the young people of his family, who were gazing greedily by the candle-light at the earthenware dish, filled with smoking hake and potatoes, went on thinking of his fields.

The woman was still sighing, pondering the fine; making comparisons, without doubt, between the fabulous sum which they were going to wrest from her, and the ease with which the entire family were eating.

Batiste, contemplating the voracity of his children, scarcely ate.

Batistet, the eldest son, even appropriated with feigned abstraction of the pieces of bread belonging to the little ones. To Roseta, fear gave a fierce appet.i.te.

Never until then did Batiste comprehend the load which was weighing upon his shoulders. These mouths which opened to swallow up the meagre savings of the family would be without food if that land outside should dry.

And all for what? On account of the injustice of men, because there are laws made to molest honest workmen.... He should not stand this. His family before everything else. Did he not feel capable of defending his own from even greater dangers? Did he not owe them the duty of maintaining them? He was capable of becoming a thief in order to give them food. Why then, did he have to submit, when he was not trying to steal, but to give life to his crops, which were all his own?

The image of the ca.n.a.l, which at a short distance was dragging along its murmuring supply for others, was torturing him. It enraged him that life should be pa.s.sing by at his very door without his being able to profit by it, because the laws wished it so.

Suddenly he arose, like a man who has adopted a resolution and who in order to fulfil it, stamps everything under foot.

"To irrigate! To irrigate!"

The woman was terrified, for she quickly guessed all the danger of the desperate resolution. For Heaven's sake, Batiste!... They would impose upon him a greater fine; perhaps the Tribunal, offended by his rebellion, would take the water away from him forever! He ought to consider it.... It was better to wait.

But Batiste had the enduring wrath of phlegmatic and slow men, who, when they once lose their composure, are slow to recover it.

"Irrigate! Irrigate!"

And Batistet, gaily repeating the words of his father, picked up the large hoes, and started from the house, followed by his sister and the little ones.

They all wished to take part in this work, which seemed like a holiday.