Part 9

But the smallest, Pascualet, a fat-stomached little chap who was only five years old and whom his mother adored for his sweetness and gentleness, and hoped to make a chaplain, broke into tears the moment he saw his brothers involved in deadly conflict with their fellow-pupils.

Many a time the two elder boys would reach home covered with sweat and dust as though they had been wallowing in the road, with their trousers torn and their shirts unfastened. These were the signs of combat; the little fellow told it all with tears. And the mother had to minister to one or another of the larger boys, which she did by pressing a penny-piece on the bump raised by some treacherous stone.

Teresa was much upset on hearing of the attacks to which her son were subjected. But she was a rough, courageous woman who had been born in the country, and when she heard that her boys had defended themselves well and given a good thrashing to the enemy, she would again regain her calm.

Good heaven! let them take care of Pascualet first of all. And the oldest brother, indignant, would promise a thrashing to all the lousy crew when he met them on the roads.

Hostilities began every afternoon, as soon as Don Joaquín lost sight of them.

The enemies, sons or nephews of those in the tavern who threatened to put an end to Batiste, began to walk more slowly, lessening the distance between themselves and the three brothers.

The words of the master, however, and the threat of the accursed bird who saw and told everything, would still be ringing in their ears; some laughed but on the wrong side of their mouths. That old fellow knew such a lot!

But the farther off they got, the less effective became the master's threat.

They would begin to prance around the three brothers, and laughingly chase each other, a mere malicious pretext, inspired by the instinctive hypocrisy of youth, to push them as they ran by, with the pious desire of landing them in the canal that ran along the road.

Afterwards when this manoeuvre proved unsuccessful, they would resort to slaps on the head and sudden pulls as they ran by at full speed.

"Thieves! Thieves!"

And as they hurled this insult, they would pull their ears and run off, only to turn after a little and repeat the same words.

This calumny, invented by the enemies of their father, made the boys absolutely frantic. The two older ones, abandoning Pascualet, who took refuge weeping behind a tree, would seize stones and a battle would begin in the middle of the road.

The cobbles whistled between the branches, making the leaves fall in showers, and bounce against the trunks and slopes: the dogs drawn by the noise of the battle, would rush out from the farm-houses barking fiercely, and the women from the doors of their houses would raise their arms to heaven, crying indignantly--

"Rascals! Devils!"

These scandals touched Don Joaquín to the quick and gave impetus next day to the relentless cane. What would people say of his school, the temple of good-breeding!

The battle would not end until some passing carter would brandish his whip, or until some old chap would come from the farm-houses, cudgel in hand, when the aggressors would flee, and disperse, repenting of their deed on seeing themselves alone, thinking fearfully, with the rapid shifting of impressions characteristic of childhood, of that bird who knew everything and of what Don Joaquín would have in store for them the following day.

And meanwhile, the three brothers would continue on their way, rubbing the bruises they had received in the battle.

One afternoon, Batiste's poor wife sent up a cry to heaven on seeing the state in which her young ones arrived.

The battle had been a fierce one! Ah! the bandits! The two older ones were bruised as usual; nothing to worry about.

But the little boy, the Bishop, as his mother called him caressingly, was wet from head to foot, and the poor little fellow was crying and trembling from cold and fear.

The savage young rascals had thrown him into a canal of stagnant water and his brothers had fished him out covered with disgusting black mud.

The mother put him to bed, for the poor little chap was still trembling in her arms, clinging around her neck, and murmuring with a voice that sounded like the bleating of a lamb,

"Mother! Mother!"

"Lord God! give us patience!" All that base rabble, big and little, had resolved to put an end to the whole family.

VII

Sad and frowning as though he were going to a funeral, Batiste started forth one Thursday morning on the road to Valencia. It was horse-market day at the river-bed and the little bag of sackcloth containing the remainder of his savings bulged out his sash.

Misfortunes were pouring on the family in a steady stream. The last and fitting climax now would be that the roof should fall on their heads and crush them to death. What people! What a place had they got into!

The little boy was steadily getting worse, and trembled with fever in his mother's arms, while the latter wept continually. He was visited twice a day by the doctor; in short, it was a sickness which was going to cost twelve or fifteen dollars,--a mere trifle, so to speak.

The oldest boy, Batistet, could hardly go about. His head was still swathed in bandages and his face crisscrossed with scratches, after a big battle which he had had one morning with other boys of his own age who were going like himself to gather manure in Valencia. All the _fematers_ (manure-gatherers) of the district had banded against Batistet and the poor boy could not show himself upon the road.

The two younger ones had stopped going to school through fear of the fights that would be forced on them on the way home.

And Roseta, poor girl! she was the saddest of all. Her father put on a gloomy countenance in the house, casting severe glances at her to remind her that she must not show her feelings and that her sufferings were an outrage on paternal authority. But when he was alone, the worthy Batiste felt grieved over the poor girl's sadness. For he had once been young himself and knew how heavy the sufferings of love may be.

Everything had been discovered. After the famous quarrel at the fountain of the Queen, the whole _huerta_ gossiped for days about Roseta's love-affair with old Tomba's grandson.

The fat-bellied butcher of Alboraya stormed angrily at his hired-man. Ah, the big rascal! Now he knew why he forgot all his duties, why he passed his afternoons wandering over the _huerta_ like a gipsy. The young gentleman indulged himself in a fiancée, as though he had the means to support her. And what a fiancée, great Heaven! All he had to do was to listen to his customers as they chatted before his butcher's table. They all said the same: they were surprised that a man like him, religious and respectable, whose only defect was to cheat a little in the weight, should allow his hired-man to keep company with the daughter of the _huerta's_ enemy, an evil man who, it was said, had been in the penitentiary.

And as all this to the mind of the fat boss was a dishonour to his establishment, he would become furious at every murmur of the gossiping women and threaten his timid hired-man with his knife, or reproach old Tomba as he tried to persuade him to reform his rascally grandson.

Finally the butcher discharged the boy and his grandfather found him a position in Valencia in another butcher-shop, where he asked them not to give him any time off even on holidays, so that he would not be able to wait for Batiste's daughter on the road.

Tonet departed submissively, his eyes wet like one of the young lambs whom he had so often dragged before the master's knife. He would not return. The poor girl remained in the farm-house, hiding herself in her bedroom to weep, making efforts not to show her suffering to her mother, who, exasperated by so many vexations, was very intolerant, and before her father, who threatened to kill her if she had another lover and gave their enemies in the district any more chance to talk.

Poor Batiste, who seemed so severe and threatening, was more grieved than by anything else at the girl's inconsolable sorrow, her lack of appetite, her yellow complexion and hollow eyes, and by the efforts she made to feign indifference, in spite of the fact that she scarcely slept at all: this, however, did not prevent her from trudging off punctually every day to the factory with a vagueness in her eyes which showed that her mind was far afield, and that she lived perpetually in a state of inward dream.

Though they did not succeed in crushing Batiste, they undoubtedly cast on him the evil eye, for his poor Morrut, the old horse who was like a member of the family, who had drawn the poor furniture and the youngsters over the roads in the various peregrinations of poverty, gradually grew weaker and weaker in his new stable, the best lodging he had ever known in his long life of labour.

He had behaved like a respectable equine in the worst period, when the family had just moved to the farm, and he had had to plough up the land accursed and petrified by ten years' neglect; when he had had to plod continuously to Valencia to bring back débris and old boards from buildings being torn down; when the food was not plentiful and the work heavy. And now, when before the little window of the stable there stretched out a large field of grass, cool, high and waving, all for him; now that he had his table set with that green and juicy covering which smelled gloriously, now that he was growing fat, that his angular haunches and his bony back were rounding out, he died without even a reason, perhaps in the exercise of his perfect right to rest, after having helped the family through its time of trouble and tribulation.

He lay down one day on his straw and refused to go out, gazing at Batiste with glassy yellow eyes which silenced all angry oaths and threats upon the master's lips. Poor Morrut seemed to be a human being! Batiste, remembering his glance, felt like weeping. The farm-house was all upset, and this misfortune for the time being made the family forget poor Pascualet, who was trembling with fever in his bed.

Batiste's wife was weeping. That poor beast whose gentle face lay there flat on the ground had seen almost all her children come into the world. She still remembered as though it were yesterday when they bought him in the Sagunto-market, small, dirty, covered with scabs, a nag condemned. It was a member of the family that was passing now. And when some repellent old men came in a cart to take the corpse of the old worker to the "boneyard" where they would convert his skeleton into bones of polished brilliancy and his flesh into fertilizer, the children wept, and called interminable farewells to poor Morrut who was carried away with his feet stretched out stiffly and his head swaying, while the mother, as though she felt some terrible presentiment, threw herself with open arms upon her sick little boy.

She saw her little son when he entered the stable to pull Morrut's tail, Morrut, who endured all the youngster's pranks with affectionate submission. She saw the little fellow when his father placed him on the animal's hard spine, beating his little feet against the shining flanks and crying, "Get up! Get up!" with his stammering child's voice. And she felt that the death of the poor animal had somehow opened up a way for others. Oh God! grant that her sorrowful mother's fears might be mistaken; that only the long-suffering horse should die; and that he should not, on his road to heaven, carry away upon his flanks the poor little fellow now as in other times he used to carry him along the paths of the _huerta_ grasping his mane, walking slowly so as not to make him lose his balance!

And poor Batiste, his mind preoccupied by so many misfortunes, confusing all together in his fancy the sick child, the dead horse, the wounded son and the daughter with her concentrated grief, reached the outskirts of the city and passed over the bridge of Serranos.

At the end of the bridge, on the esplanade between the two gardens in front of the octagonal towers whose Gothic arcades, projecting barbicans and noble crown of battlements rose above the grove, Batiste stopped and passed his hands over his face.

He had to visit the masters, the sons of Don Salvador, and ask them to loan him a small sum to make up the necessary amount to buy a horse to take poor Morrut's place. And as cleanliness is the poor man's luxury, he sat down on a stone-bench, waiting his turn to have his beard shaved,--a two weeks' growth, stiff and bristly like porcupine-quills, which blackened his whole face.

In the shade of the high plane-trees, the barber-shops of the district, the open-air barbers as they were called, plied their trade. A couple of arm-chairs with rush-seats and arms made shiny by use, a portable furnace on which boiled the pot of water, towels of doubtful colour, and nicked razors which scraped the hard skin of the customers with raspings that made you shiver, constituted all the stock-in-trade of those open-air establishments.

Clumsy boys who aspired to be apprentices in the barber-shops of the town were there learning how to use their arms; and while they learned by inflicting cuts or by covering the victims' heads with clips and bald-spots, the master conversed with the customers on the promenade-bench or read the newspaper aloud to the group who listened impassively.

As for those who sat on the chair of torment, a piece of hard soap was nibbed over their jaws, until the lather came. Then the cruel razor, and cuts endured stoically by the customer, whose face was tinged with blood. A little further on resounded the enormous scissors in continuous movement passing back and forth over the round head of some vain youth, who was left shaved like a poodle; the height of elegance, with a long lock falling over the brow, and half the head behind carefully cropped.

Batiste, swallowed up in the rush-chair, listened with closed eyes to the head-barber as he read in a nasal and monotonous voice, and commented and glossed like a man well versed in public affairs. His shave resulted quite fortunately: all he got was three scrapes and a cut on his ear. Other times there had been more. He paid his half-real and departed; and entered the city through the Serranos gate.

Two hours later he came out again and sat down on the stone-bench among the group of customers to listen to the head-barber until the time of the market arrived.

The masters had just loaned him the small amount he needed to buy the horse. The important thing now was to have a good eye in making his choice; to keep his temper and not let himself be cheated by the cunning gipsies who passed before him with their animals and went down the slope to the river-bed.

Eleven o'clock. The horse-market had evidently reached its moment of greatest animation. There came to Batiste's ears the confused sound of something like an invisible ebullition; the neighs of horses and voices of men rose from the river-bed. He hesitated, hung back, like a man who wants to put off an important resolution, and at last decided to go down to the market.

The river-bed as usual was dry. Some pools of water which had escaped from the water-wheels and dams which irrigated the plain wound in and out like serpents, forming curves and islands in a soil which was dusty, hot and uneven, more like an African desert than a river-bed.

At such times it was all white with sunlight, without the slightest spot of shade.

The carts of the farmers with their white awnings formed an encampment in the middle of the river-bed, and along the railing, placed in a row, stood the horses which were for sale; the black, kicking mules with their red caparisons and their shining flanks all aquiver with nervousness; the plough horses, strong and sad, like slaves condemned to eternal labour, gazing with glassy eyes at all those who passed as though they divined in them the new tyrant, and the small and lively nags, pawing up the dust and dragging on the halter fastened to their nose-pieces.

Near the descent were the cast-off animals; earless dirty donkeys; sad horses whose coat seemed to be pierced by the sharp angles of their fleshless bones; blind mules with long stork-like necks; all the castaways of the market, the wrecks of labour, whose hide had been well-tanned by the stick and who awaited the arrival of the contractor of bullfights or of the beggar who still put them to some use.

Near the currents of water in the centre of the river-bed, on the shores which dampness had covered with a thin cloak of grassy sod, trotted the colts who had not been broken, their long manes flying in the wind, and their tails sweeping the ground. Beyond the bridges, through the round stone "eyes" could be seen the herds of bulls with their legs drawn up, tranquilly ruminating the grass which the shepherds threw them, or stepping lazily over the hot ground, feeling the longing for green pastures and taking a fierce pose whenever the youngsters whistled to them from the railings.

The animation of the market was increasing. Around each horse whose sale was being arranged crowded groups of gesticulating and loquacious farmers in their shirt sleeves, their ash-sticks in their hands. The thin, bronzed gipsies, with their long bowed legs, in sheepskin jackets covered with patches, and fur-caps beneath which their black eyes shone feverishly, talked ceaselessly, breathing into the faces of the customers as though they wished to hypnotize them.

"But just look at the horse! Notice her lines,--why, she's a beauty!"

And the farmer, impervious to the gipsy's honeyed phrases, reserved, thoughtful and uncertain, gazed at the ground, looked at the animal, scratched his head and finally said with a species of obstinate energy:

"All right ... but I won't give any more."

To arrange the terms and solemnize the sales, the protection of a shed was sought, under which a big woman sold small cakes or filled sticky glasses with the contents of half a dozen bottles lined up on a zinc-covered table.

Batiste passed back and forth among the horses, paying no attention to the venders who pursued him, divining his intention.

Nothing pleased him. Alas, poor Morrut! How hard it was to find his successor! If he had not been compelled by necessity, he would have left without purchasing: he felt that it was an offence to the dead horse to fix his attention on these repellent beasts.

At last he stopped before a white nag, not very fat or sleek, with a few galls on his legs and a certain air of fatigue; a beast of burden who, though dejected, looked strong and willing.

But scarcely had he passed his hand over the animal's haunches when he found at his side the gipsy, obsequious, familiar, treating him as though he had known him all his life.

"That animal is a treasure; it is easy to see that you know good horses when you see them.... And cheap: I don't think we'll quarrel over the price ... Monote! Walk him out so this gentleman can see what a graceful swing he has!"

And the Monote referred to, a little gipsy, took the horse by the halter and ran off with him over the uneven sand. The poor beast trotted after him reluctantly, as though bored by an operation that was so frequently repeated.

The curious people ran up and gathered around Batiste and the gipsy, who were gazing at the horse as it ran. When Monote returned with the animal Batiste examined it in detail; he put his fingers between the yellow teeth, passed his hands over his whole body, raised his hoofs to inspect them, and looked carefully between his legs.

"Look, look!" said the gipsy, ... "he's just made for it.... Cleaner than the plate of the Eucharist. No one is cheated here; everything open and aboveboard. I don't fix up horses the way the others do who disfigure a burro before you can take your breath. I bought him last week and I even didn't fix up those trifles he has on the legs. You saw what a graceful swing he has. And for drawing a wagon? Why an elephant wouldn't have the push to him that he has! You can see the signs of it there on his neck."

Batiste did not look dissatisfied with his examination, but he tried to look displeased and made grimaces and rasped his throat. His misfortunes as a carter had given him knowledge of horses and he laughed inwardly at some of the curious ones who, influenced by the bad looks of the horse, were arguing with the gipsy, telling him that the horse was fit only to be sent to the boneyard. His sad and weary appearance was that of beasts of labour who obey as long as they can stand on their legs.

The moment of decision came. He would buy him. How much?

"Since it's for a friend," said the gipsy, touching his shoulder caressingly, "since it's for a nice fellow like you who will treat this jewel of a horse well, I'll let him go for forty dollars and the bargain's made."

Batiste received this broadside calmly, like a man well used to such discussions, and smiled slyly.

"Well, since it's you I'm dealing with. I won't offer you much less. Do you want twenty-five?"

The gipsy stretched out his arms with dramatic indignation, retreated a few steps, pulled at his fur cap, and made all kinds of extravagant and grotesque gestures to express his amazement.

"Mother of God! Twenty-five dollars! But did you look at the animal? Even if I had stolen him, I couldn't sell him at that price!"

But Batiste, to all his extravagant talk, always made the same reply:

"Twenty-five. Not a cent more."

And the gipsy, after exhausting all his persuasions, which were by no means few, fell back on the supreme argument.

"Monote ... walk the horse out ... so the gentleman can get a good look at him."

And away trotted Monote again, pulling the horse by the halter, more and more bored by all these promenadings.

"What a gait, hey?" said the gipsy. "You'd think he was a prince. Isn't he worth twenty-five dollars to you?"

"Not a penny more," repeated the hard-headed Batiste.

"Monote ... come back. That's enough."

And feigning indignation, the gipsy turned his back on the purchaser, intimating thereby that all the bargaining was off, but on seeing that Batiste was really leaving, his seriousness disappeared.

"Come, sir.... What's your name?... Ah! Well, look, Mr. Batiste, so that you can see that I like you and want you to own this treasure, I'm going to do for you what I wouldn't do for any one else. Do you agree to thirty-five dollars? Come now, say yes. I swear to you on your life that I wouldn't do as much for my own father."

This time his protestations, on seeing that the farmer was not moved by the reduction and offered him a beggarly two dollars more, were even livelier and more gesticulatory than before. Why, did that jewel of a horse inspire him with no more liking than that? But man alive, hadn't he eyes in his head to see his value? Come, Monote; take him out again.

But Monote didn't have to tire himself out again, for Batiste departed, pretending that he had given up the purchase.

He wandered through the market looking at other horses from afar, but always gazing out of the tail of his eye at the gipsy, who similarly feigning indifference, was following and watching him.

He approached a big, strong, sleek horse which he did not think of buying, divining his high price. He had scarcely passed his hand over the haunches when he felt a warm breath on his face, and heard the gipsy's voice murmuring:--

"Thirty-three.... On your children's lives, don't say no; you see I'm reasonable."

"Twenty-eight," said Batiste, without turning around.

When he grew tired of admiring that beautiful beast, he went on, and to have something to do, watched an old farmer's wife haggling over a donkey.