Part 5

One afternoon, Batiste returned from Valencia very well pleased with the result of his trip. He wanted no idle hands in his house. Batiste, when the work in the field did not take his time, was occupied in going to the city for manure. The little girl, a willing youngster, who once they were settled was of small use at home, had, thanks to the patronage of the sons of Don Salvador, who seemed very well satisfied with his new tenant, just succeeded in getting taken into a silk factory.

On the following day, Roseta would be one of the string of girls who, awakening with the dawn, marched with waving skirts and their little baskets on their arm, over all the paths, on their way to the city to spin the silky cocoon with the thick fingers of the daughters of the _huerta_.

When Batiste arrived near the tavern of Copa, a man appeared in the road, emerging from an adjoining path, and walked slowly toward him, giving him to understand that he desired to speak to him.

Batiste stopped, regretting inwardly that he did not have with him so much as a clasp knife or a hoe; but calm and quiet, he raised his round head with the imperious expression so much feared by his family and crossed his muscular arms, the arms of a former millhand, on his breast.

He knew this man, although he had never spoken with him; it was Pimentó.

The meeting which he had dreaded so much finally occurred.

The bully measured this odious intruder with a glance, and spoke to him in a bland voice, striving to give an accent of good-natured counsel to his ferocity and evil intention.

He wished to say to him just two words: he had been wanting to do so for some time, but how? did he never come forth from his land?

Two little words, no more.

And he gave him the couple of words, counselling him to leave the lands of old Barret as soon as possible. He should believe the people who wished him well, those who knew the _huerta_. His presence there was an offence, and the farm-house, which was almost new, was an insult to the poor people. He ought to believe him, and with his family go away to other parts.

Batiste smiled ironically on hearing Pimentó, who seemed confused by the serenity of the intruder, humbled by meeting a man who did not seem afraid of him.

Go away? There was not a bully in all the _huerta_ who could make him abandon that which was now his; that which was watered by his sweat; moreover he had to earn bread for his family. He was a peaceful man, understand! but if they trifled with him, he had just as much manly spirit as most. Let every one attend to his own business, for he thought that he would do enough if he attended to his own, and failed nobody.

And scornfully turning his back upon the Valencian, he went his way.

Pimentó, accustomed to making all the _huerta_ tremble, was more and more disconcerted by the serenity of Batiste.

"Is that your last word?" he shouted to him when he was already at some distance.

"Yes, the last," answered Batiste without turning.

And he went ahead, disappearing in a curve of the road. At some distance, on the old farm of Barret, the dog was barking, scenting the approach of his master.

On finding himself alone, Pimentó again recovered his arrogance. _Cristo!_ How this old fellow had mocked him! He muttered some curses, and clenching his fist, shook it threateningly at the bend in the road where Batiste had disappeared.

"You shall pay for this,--you shall pay for this, you thug!"

In his tone which trembled with madness, there vibrated all the condensed hatred of the _huerta_.

IV

It was Thursday, and according to a custom which dated back for five centuries, the Tribunal of the Waters was going to meet at the doorway of the Cathedral named after the Apostles.

The clock of the Miguelete pointed to a little after ten, and the inhabitants of the _huerta_ were gathering in idle groups or seating themselves about the large basin of the dry fountain which adorned the _plaza_, forming about its base an animated wreath of blue and white cloaks, red and yellow handkerchiefs, and skirts of calico prints of bright colours.

Others were arriving, drawing up their horses, with their rush-baskets loaded with manure, satisfied with the collection they had made in the streets; still others, in empty carts, were trying to persuade the police to allow their vehicles to remain there; and while the old folks chatted with the women, the young went into the neighbouring café, to kill time over a glass of brandy, while chewing at a three-centime cigar.

All those of the _huerta_ who had grievances to avenge were here, gesticulating and scowling, speaking of their rights, impatient to let loose the interminable chain of their complaints before the syndics or judges of the seven canals.

The bailiff of the tribunal, who had been carrying on this contest with the insolent and aggressive crowd for more than fifty years, placed a long sofa of old damask which was on its last legs within the shadow of the Gothic portal, and then set up a low railing, thereby closing in the square of sidewalk which had to serve the purpose of an audience-chamber.

The portal of the Apostles, old, reddish, corroded by the centuries, extending its gnawed beauty to the light of the sun, formed a background worthy of an ancient tribunal; it was like a canopy of stone devised to protect an institution five centuries old.

In the tympanum appeared the Virgin with six angels, with stiff white gowns and wings of fine plumage, chubby-cheeked, with heavy curls and flaming tufts of hair, playing violas and flutes, flageolets and tambourines. Three garlands of little figures, angels, kings, and saints, covered with openwork canopies, ran through three arches superposed over the three portals. In the thick, solid walls, forepart of the portal, the twelve apostles might be seen, but so disfigured, so ill-treated, that Jesus himself would not have known them; the feet gnawed, the nostrils broken, the hands mangled; a line of huge figures who, rather than apostles, looked like sick men who had escaped from a clinic, and were sorrowfully displaying their shapeless stumps. Above, at the top of the portal, there opened out like a gigantic flower covered with wire netting, the coloured rose-window which admitted light to the church; and on the lower part the stone along the base of the columns adorned with the shields of Aragon, was worn, the corners and foliage having become indistinct through the rubbing of innumerable generations.

By this erosion of the portals the passing of riot and revolt might be divined. A whole people had met and mingled beside these stones; here, in other centuries, the turbulent Valencian populace, shouting and red with fury, had moved about; and the saints of the portal, mutilated and smooth as Egyptian mummies, gazing at the sky with their broken heads, appeared to be still listening to the Revolutionary bell of the Union, or the arquebus shots of the Brotherhood.

The bailiff finished arranging the Tribunal, and placed himself at the entrance of the enclosure to await the judges. The latter arrived solemnly, dressed in black, with white sandals, and silken handkerchiefs under their broad hats, they had the appearance of rich farmers. Each was followed by a cortège of canal-guards, and by persistent supplicants who, before the hour of justice, were seeking to predispose the judges' minds in their favour.

The farmers gazed with respect at these judges, come forth from their own class, whose deliberations did not admit of any appeal. They were the masters of the water: in their hands remained the living of the families, the nourishment of the fields, the timely watering, the lack of which kills a harvest. And the people of these wide plains, separated by the river, which is like an impassable frontier, designated the judges by the number of the canals.

A little, thin, bent, old man, whose red and horny hands trembled as they rested on the thick staff, was Cuart de Faitanar; the other, stout and imposing, with small eyes scarcely visible under bushy white brows, was Mislata. Soon Roscaña arrived; a youth who wore a blouse that had been freshly ironed, and whose head was round. After these appeared in sequence the rest of the seven:--Favara, Robella, Tornos and Mestalla.

Now all the representatives of the four plains were there; the one on the left bank of the river; the one with the four canals; the one which the _huerta_ of Rufaza encircles with its roads of luxuriant foliage ending at the confines of the marshy Albufera; and the plain on the right bank of the Turia, the poetic one, with its strawberries of Benimaclet, its _cyperus_ of Alboraya and its gardens always overrun with flowers.

The seven judges saluted, like people who had not seen each other for a week; they spoke of their business beside the door of the Cathedral: from time to time, upon opening the wooden screens covered with religious advertisements, a puff of incense-laden air, somewhat like the damp exhalation from a subterranean cavern, diffused itself into the burning atmosphere of the _plaza_.

At half-past eleven, when the divine offices were ended and only some belated devotee was still coming from the temple, the Tribunal began to operate.

The seven judges seated themselves on the old sofa; then the people of the _huerta_ came running up from all sides of the _plaza_, to gather around the railing, pressing their perspiring bodies, which smelled of straw and coarse sheep's wool, close together, and the bailiff, rigid and majestic, took his place near the pole topped with a bronze crook, symbolic of aquatic majesty.

The seven syndics removed their hats and remained with their hands between the knees and their eyes upon the ground, while the eldest pronounced the customary sentence:

"Let the Tribunal begin."

Absolute stillness. The crowd, observing religious silence, seemed here, in the midst of the _plaza_, to be worshipping in a temple. The sound of carriages, the clatter of tramways, all the din of modern life passed by, without touching or stirring this most ancient institution, which remained tranquil, like one who finds himself in his own house, insensible to time, paying no attention to the radical change surrounding it, incapable of any reform.

The inhabitants of the _huerta_ were proud of their tribunal. It dispensed justice; the penalty without delay, and nothing done with papers, which confuse and puzzle honest men.

The absence of stamped paper and of the clerk of court who terrifies, was the part best liked by these people who were accustomed to looking upon the art of writing of which they were ignorant with a certain superstitious terror. Here were no secretary, no pens, no days of anxiety while awaiting sentence, no terrifying guards, nor anything more than words.

The judges kept the declarations in their memory, and passed sentence immediately with the tranquillity of those who know that their decisions must be fulfilled. On him who would be insolent with the tribunal, a fine was imposed; from him who had refused to comply with the verdict, the water was taken away forever, and he must die of hunger.

Nobody played with this tribunal. It was the simple patriarchal justice of the good legendary king, coming forth mornings to the door of his palace in order to settle the disputes of his subjects; the judicial system of the Kabila chief, passing sentences at his tent-entrance. Thus are rascals punished, and the honourable triumph, and there is peace.

And the public, men, women, and children, fearful of missing a word, pressed close together against the railing, moving, sometimes, with violent contortions of their shoulders, in order to escape from suffocation.

The complainants would appear at the other side of the railing, before the sofa as old as the tribunal itself.

The bailiff would take away their staffs and shepherds' crooks, which he regarded as offensive arms incompatible with the respect due the tribunal. He pushed them forward until with their mantle folded over their hands they were planted some paces distant from the judges, and if they were slow in baring their head, the handkerchief was wrested from it with two tugs. It was hard, but with this crafty people it was necessary to act thus.

The line filing by brought a continuous outburst of intricate questions, which the judges settled with marvellous facility.

The keepers of the canals and the irrigation-guards, charged with the establishment of each one's turn in the irrigation, formulated their charges, and the defendants appeared to defend themselves with arguments. The old men allowed their sons, who knew how to express themselves with more energy, to speak; the widow appeared, accompanied by some friend of the deceased, a devoted protector, who acted as her spokesman.

The passion of the south cropped out in every case.

In the midst of the accusation, the defendant would not be able to contain himself. "You lie! What you say is evil and false! You are trying to ruin me!"

But the seven judges received these interruptions with furious glances. Here nobody was permitted to speak before his own turn came. At the second interruption, he would have to pay a fine of so many _sous_. And he who was obstinate, driven by his vehement madness, which would not permit him to be silent before the accuser, paid more and more _sous_.

The judges, without giving up their seats, would put their heads together like playful goats, and whisper together for some seconds; then the eldest, in a composed and solemn voice, pronounced the sentence, designating the fine in _sous_ and pounds, as if money had suffered no change, and majestic Justice with its red robe and its escort of plumed crossbowmen were still passing through the centre of the _plaza_.

It was after twelve, and the seven judges were beginning to show signs of being weary of such prodigious outpouring of the stream of justice, when the bailiff called out loudly to Bautista Borrull, denouncing him for infraction and disobedience of irrigation-rights.

Pimentó and Batiste passed the railing, and the people pressed up even closer against the bar.

Here were many of those who lived near the ancient land of Barret.

This trial was interesting. The hated new-comer had been denounced by Pimentó, who was the "_atandador_"[G] of that district.

The bully, by mixing up in elections, and strutting about like a fighting cock all over the neighbourhood, had won this office which gave him a certain air of authority and strengthened his prestige among the neighbours, who made much of him and treated him on irrigation days.

Batiste was amazed at this unjust denunciation. His pallor was that of indignation. He gazed with eyes full of fury at all the familiar mocking faces, which were pressing against the rail, and at his enemy Pimentó, who was strutting about proudly, like a man accustomed to appearing before the tribunal, and to whom a small part of its unquestionable authority belonged.

"Speak," said the eldest of the judges, putting one foot forward, for according to a century-old custom, the tribunal, instead of using the hands, signalled with the white sandal to him who should speak.

Pimentó poured forth his accusation. This man who was beside him, perhaps because he was new in the _huerta_, seemed to think that the apportionment of the water was a trifling matter, and that he could suit his own blessed will.

He, Pimentó, the _atandador_, who represented the authority of the canals in his district, had set for Batiste the hour for watering his wheat. It was two o'clock in the morning. But doubtless the señor, not wishing to arise at that hour, had let his turn go, and at five, when the water was intended for others, he had raised the flood-gate without permission from anybody (the _first_ offence), and attempted to water his fields, resolving to oppose, by main force, the orders of the _atandador_, which constituted the _third_ and last offence.

The thrice-guilty delinquent, turning all the colours of the rainbow, and indignant at the words of Pimentó, was not able to restrain himself.

"You lie, and lie doubly!"

The tribunal became indignant at the heat and the lack of respect with which this man was protesting.

If he did not keep silent he would be fined.

But what was a fine for the concentrated wrath of a peaceful man! He kept on protesting against the injustice of men, against the tribunal which had, as its servants, such rogues and liars as Pimentó.

The tribunal was stirred up; the seven judges became excited.

Four _sous_ for a fine!

Batiste, realizing his situation, suddenly grew silent, terrified at having incurred a fine, while laughter came from the crowd and howls of joy from his enemies.

He remained motionless, with bowed head, and his eyes dimmed with tears of rage, while his brutal enemy finished formulating his denunciation.

"Speak," the tribunal said to him. But little sympathy was noted in the looks of the judges for this disturber, who had come to trouble the solemnity of their deliberations with his protests.

Batiste, trembling with rage, stammered, not knowing how to begin his defence because of the very fact that it seemed to him perfectly just.

The court had been misled; Pimentó was a liar and furthermore his declared enemy. He had told him that his time for irrigation came at five, he remembered it very well, and was now affirming that it was two; just to make him incur a fine, to destroy the wheat upon which the life of his family depended.... Did the tribunal value the word of an honest man? Then this was the truth, although he was not able to present witnesses. It seemed impossible that the honourable syndics, all good people, should trust a rascal like Pimentó!

The white sandal of the president struck the square tile of the sidewalk, as if to avert the storm of protests and the lack of respect which he saw from afar.

"Be silent."

And Batiste was silent, while the seven-headed monster, folding itself up again on the sofa of damask, was whispering, preparing the sentence.

"The tribunal decrees ..." said the eldest judge, and there was absolute silence.

All the people around the roped space showed a certain anxiety in their eyes, as if they were the sentenced. They were hanging on the lips of the eldest judge.

"Batiste Borrull shall pay two pounds for a penalty, and four _sous_ for a fine."

A murmur of satisfaction arose and spread, and one old woman even began to clap her hands, shouting "Hurrah! hurrah!" amid the loud laughter of the people.

Batiste went out blindly from the tribunal, with his head lowered as though he were about to fight, and Pimentó prudently stayed behind.

If the people had not parted, opening the way, for him, it is certain that he would have struck out with his powerful fists, and given the hostile rabble a beating on the spot.

He departed. He went to the house of his masters to tell them of what had happened, of the ill will of this people, pledged to embitter his existence for him; and an hour later, already more composed by the kind words of the _señores_, he set forth on the road toward his home.

Insufferable torment! Marching close to their carts loaded with manure or mounted on their donkeys above the empty hampers, he kept meeting on the low road of Alboraya many of those who had been present at the trial.

They were hostile people, neighbours whom he never greeted.

When he passed beside them, they remained silent, and made an effort to keep their gravity, although a malicious joy glowed in their eyes; but as soon as he had gone by, they burst into insolent laughter behind his back, and he even heard the voice of a lad who shouted, mimicking the grave tone of the president:

"Four _sous_ for a fine!"

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.

He even thought, a strange novelty, of entering for the first time to drink a glass of wine face to face with his enemies; but the two pound fine lay heavy on his heart and he repented of his generosity. This was a conspiracy against the footwear of his sons; it would take all the little pile of farthings hoarded together by Teresa to buy new sandals for the little ones.

As he passed the front of the tavern, Pimentó hid with the excuse of filling the jug, and his friends pretended not to see Batiste.

His aspect of a man ready for anything inspired respect in his neighbours.

But this triumph filled him with sadness. How hateful the people were to him! The entire _vega_ arose before him, scowling and threatening at all hours. This was not living. Even in the daytime, he avoided coming out of his fields, shunning all contact with his neighbours.

He did not fear them, but like a prudent man, avoided disputes.

At night, he slept restlessly, and many times, at the slightest barking of the dogs, he leaped out of bed, rushed from the house, shotgun in hand, and even believed on more than one occasion that he saw black forms which fled among the adjoining paths.

He feared for his harvest, for the wheat which was the hope of the family and whose growth was followed in silence but with envious glances from the other farm-houses.

He knew of the threats of Pimentó, who supported by all the _huerta_, swore that this wheat should not be cut by him who had sowed it, and Batiste almost forgot his sons in thinking about his fields, of the series of green waves which grew and grew under the rays of the sun and which must turn into golden piles of ripe wheat.

The silent and concentrated hatred followed him out upon the road. The women drew away, with curling lips, and did not deign to salute him, as is the custom in the _huerta_; the men who were working in the fields adjoining the road, called to each other with insolent expressions which were directed indirectly at Batiste; and the little children shouted from a distance, "Thug! Jew!" without adding more to such insults, as if they alone were applicable to the enemy of the _huerta_.

Ah! If he had not had the fists of a giant, those enormous shoulders and that expression of a man who has few friends, how soon the entire _vega_ would have settled with him! Each one hoping that the other would be the first to dare, they contented themselves with insulting him from a distance.

Batiste, in the midst of the sadness which this solitude inspired in him, experienced one slight satisfaction. Already close to the farm-house, when he heard the barkings of the dog who had scented his approach, he saw a boy, an overgrown youth, seated on a sloping bank with the sickle between his legs, and holding some piles of cut brushwood at his side, who stood up to greet him.

"Good day, Señor Batiste!"

And the salutation, the trembling voice of a timid boy with which he spoke to him, impressed him pleasantly.

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.