The Cabin [La barraca]

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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:

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.

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.

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?"

"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."

"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.

"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.

The first gipsy had gone back to his horse again, and was gazing at him from afar, and shaking the halter-rope as though he were calling him. Batiste slowly drew near him, pretending absent-mindedness, looking at the bridges over which passed the parasols of the women of the city, like many-coloured movable cupolas.

The gipsy advanced a few steps toward Batiste, offering him the end of the rope, as a kind of taking of possession.

"Neither your offer nor mine. Thirty, and God knows I get no profit on it. Thirty ... don't say no, or you'll make me wild. Come, put it there!"

Batiste took the rope and offered his hand to the vender who pressed it with much feeling. The bargain was concluded.

The former began to take from his sash all that plethora of savings which swelled out his stomach like an undigested meal: a bank-note that the master had loaned him, a few silver dollars, a handful of small change wrapped up in a paper-cone. When the count was completed, he could not get out of going with the gipsy to the shed to invite him to take a drink, and giving a few pennies to Monote for all his trottings.

"You're carrying off the treasure of the market. It's a lucky day for you, Mist' Bautista: you crossed yourself with your right hand, and the Virgin came out to look at you."

He departed well satisfied with the animal; he had not lost his day. He scarcely remembered poor Morrut, and he felt the pride of ownership when on the bridge and on the road, some one from the huerta turned around to examine the white steed.

But his greatest satisfaction came when he passed before the house of Copa. He made the beast break into an arrogant little trot as though he were a horse of pedigree, and he saw how Pimentó and all the loafers of the huerta came to the door to look after him; the wretches! Now they would be convinced that it was difficult to crush him, and that by his unaided efforts, he could defend himself. Now they saw that he had a new horse. If only the trouble within the home could be as easily adjusted!

On hearing the trotting of the horse, Batistet came out with his bandaged head, and ran to hold the animal while his father dismounted. The boy waxed enthusiastic over the new animal. He caressed him, put his hands between his lips, and in his eagerness to get on his back, he put one foot on the hook, seized his tail and mounted with the agility of an Arab on his crupper.

Batiste entered the house. As white and clean as usual, with its shining tiles and all the furniture in its place, it seemed to be enveloped in the sadness of a clean and shining sepulchre.

His wife came out to the door of the room, her eyes red and swollen and her hair dishevelled, revealing in her tired aspect the long, sleepless nights she had spent.

It was the same thing every day. They had grown accustomed now to that misfortune; the mother wept automatically, and the others went about their usual occupations with sad faces.

Then Teresa, who had a business head, asked her husband about the result of his journey; she wanted to see the horse; and even sad Roseta forgot her sorrows of love and inquired about the new acquisition.

All, large and small, went to the barnyard to see the horse in his stable; Batistet full of enthusiasm had brought him there. The child remained abandoned in the big bed of the bedroom where he tossed about, his eyes glazed with sickness, bleating weakly: "Mother! Mother!"

Everybody was decidedly pleased with this new member of the family, who sniffed the manger in an odd way as though he found there some trace, some remote odour of his dead companion.

The whole family had dinner, and the excitement and enthusiasm over the new acquisition was such that several times Batistet and the little ones slipped away from the table to go and take a look in the stable, as though they feared the horse had sprouted wings and flown away.

The afternoon passed without anything happening. Batiste had to plough up a part of the land which he was keeping uncultivated, preparing the crop of garden-truck, and he and his son put the horse in harness, proud to see the gentleness with which he obeyed and the strength with which he drew the plough.

At nightfall, when they were about to return, Teresa called them, screaming from the farm-house door, and her voice was like that of one who is crying for help.

"Batiste!—Batiste!—Come quickly!"

The child was dying; you had only to see him to be convinced of it. Batiste entered the bedroom and leaning over the bed, felt a shudder of cold go over him, a sensation as though some one had just thrown a stream of cold water on him from behind. The poor little Bishop scarcely moved; he breathed stertorously and with difficulty; his lips grew purple; his eyes, almost closed, showed the glazed and motionless pupil; they were eyes which saw no more; and his little brown face seemed to be darkened by a mysterious sadness as though the wings of death cast their shadow on it. The only bright thing in that countenance was the blond hair streaming over the pillows like a skein of curly silk; the flame of the candle shone on it strangely.

Suddenly, he noticed that Batistet stood by his side; he had followed him, alarmed by his mother's cries. Batiste was angry when he found out that his son had left the horse alone in the middle of the field, and the boy, drying his eyes, ran out to bring the horse back to the stable.

In a short while, new cries awakened Batiste from his stupor.

"Father! Father!"

It was Batistet calling him from the door of the farm-house. The father, foreseeing some new misfortune, ran after him, not understanding his confused words. "The horse ... the poor white horse ... lay on the ground ... blood...."

They had wounded him; perhaps he was going to die. God! A beast that he needed like his own life and which had cost him money borrowed from the master.

He looked around as though seeking the perpetrator of the deed. There was no one on the plain, which was growing purple in the twilight; nothing could be heard but the far-off rumbling of wheels, the rustling noise of the canebrakes, and the cries of people calling from one farm-house to another. In the nearby roads, on the paths, there was not a single soul.

Batistet tried to excuse himself to his father for negligence. While he was running toward the farm-house, he had seen a group of men coming along the road, gay people who were laughing and singing, returning doubtless from the inn. Perhaps it was they.

And he argued no more. Scarcely realizing what he was doing, he returned to the farm-house, seized his musket from behind the door, and ran out, mechanically opening the breech to see if the two barrels were loaded.

Batistet remained near the horse, trying to staunch the blood with the bandage from his own head. He was fear-stricken when he saw his father running along the road with his musket cocked, longing to give vent to his rage by slaying.

It was terrible to see that big, quiet, slow man in whom the wild beast, tired of being daily harassed, was now awakened. In his bloodshot eyes burned a murderous light; all his body trembled with anger, that terrible anger of the peaceful man who, when he passes the boundaries of gentleness, becomes ferocious.

Some one was at the door. The blindness of anger and the twilight shadows prevented him from distinguishing if it was a man or a woman, but he saw how the person with one leap sprang in and closed the door suddenly, frightened by that vision on the point of raising his gun and firing.

Batiste stopped before the closed door of the farm-house:

"Pimentó!... Thief! Come out!"

And his voice amazed him as though it was another's.

It was a voice which was trembling and shrill, high-pitched and suffocated by anger.

No one answered. The door remained closed; closed the windows and the three loop-holes at the top which lighted the upper story, the cambra, where the crops were kept.

The latter's name resounded ceaslessly in the silence of the twilight accompanied by all kinds of insults.

"Come down! You coward! Come out, you thug!"

And the farm-house remained silent and closed, as though it had been abandoned.

Batiste thought he heard a woman's stifled cries; the noise of a struggle; something which made him suppose a fight was going on between poor Pepeta and Pimentó, whom she was trying to prevent from going out to answer the insults; but after that he heard nothing, and his insults reverberated in a silence which made him desperate.

This infuriated him more than if the enemy had shown himself. He felt himself going mad. It seemed to him that the mute house was mocking him, and abandoning his hiding-place, he threw himself against the door, striking it with the butt of his gun.

His anger increased; he roared forth insults; his bloodshot eyes could scarcely see; he staggered like a drunken man. He was almost on the point of falling to the ground in a fit of apoplexy, agonized with anger, choked by fury, when suddenly the red clouds which surrounded him tore themselves apart, his fury gave way to weakness, he saw all his misfortune, felt himself crushed; his anger, broken by the terrible tension, vanished, and Batiste, amidst the torrent of insults, felt his voice grow stifled till it became a moan, and at last he burst out crying.

And he stopped insulting Pimentó. He began gradually to retreat, till he reached the road, and sat down on a bank, his musket at his feet. There he wept and wept, feeling a great relief, caressed by the shadows of night which seemed to share his sorrow, for they became deeper, deeper, hiding his childish weeping.

Lord! what had he done to deserve such sufferings? Was he not an honest man?

He felt himself more and more crushed by grief. Unable to move he remained seated on the bank; his enemies might come; he had not even the strength to pick up the musket that lay at his feet.

The chimes seemed to approach and dark figures which his tear-wet eyes could not distinguish passed by on the road. He felt some one touch him with the end of a stick and, raising his head, he saw a solitary figure, a kind of spectre leaning toward him.

And he recognized old Tomba, the only one of the huerta to whom he owed no suffering.

The shepherd, considered as a sorcerer, possessed the amazing intuition of the blind. Scarcely had he recognized Batiste when he seemed to understand all his misfortune. He felt with his stick the musket lying at his feet, and turned his head, as though looking for Pimentó's farm in the darkness.

"My son ... my son...."

He had expected everything that had occurred. He had warned him the first day when he saw him settled on the accursed lands. 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.

And muttering his terrible prophecies, the shepherd went his way behind his sheep on the village road, advising poor Batiste to leave also, and go away, very far away, where he could earn his bread without having to struggle against the hatred of the poor. And now invisible, shrouded in the shadows, Batiste still heard his slow, sad voice which made him shudder:

BATISTE and his family did not realize how the unheard-of, unexpected event began; who was the first who decided to pass the bridge that joined the road to the hated fields.

In the farm-house they were in no condition to notice such details. Exhausted with suffering, they saw that the people of the huerta had suddenly begun to come to them, and they did not protest, for misfortune needs counsel, nor did they offer thanks for the unexpected impulse to approach.

The news of the little boy's death had been transmitted through all the neighbourhood with the strange swiftness with which all news spreads in the huerta, flying from farm to farm on the wings of scandal, which is the swiftest of all telegraphs.

All shared the responsibility of that death, but each one with hypocritical egotism attributed to his neighbour the chief blame for the bitter persecution whose consequences had fallen on the little fellow's head; each gossiping woman blamed her enemy for the deed. And at last she went to sleep with the intention of undoing all the evil done, of going in the morning to offer her aid to the family, of weeping over the poor child; and amid the mists of sleep they thought they saw Pascualet, as white and resplendent as an angel, looking with reproachful eyes at those who had been so hard with him and his family.

It had scarcely dawned when two old women who lived in a neighbouring farm-house entered Batiste's home. The family, crushed with grief, felt almost no wonder at seeing those two women appear in the house which no one had entered for more than six months. They wanted to see the child, the poor little "Bishop," and entering the bedroom they gazed at him still lying there in the bed; the edge of the sheet pulled up to his chin scarcely outlining the shape of his body, his blond head inert and heavy on the pillow. The mother could only weep in her corner, all shrunken and crouched together, as small as a child, as though she were trying to annihilate herself and disappear.

After these women came others and still others; it was a stream of weeping old women who arrived from all parts of the plain; surrounding the bed, they kissed the little corpse and seemed to take possession of him as their own, leaving Teresa and her daughter aside; the latter, exhausted by lack of sleep and weeping, seemed imbecile as they hung their red and tear-wet faces on their breasts.

Only the dog curling up at his feet seemed to remember and feel hatred: he sniffed hostilely at all the procession of petticoats that came and went, and growled as though he wanted to bite and only refrained from doing so in order not to displease his masters.

The young people shared the dog's resentment. Batistet scowled at all those old women who had made fun of him so often when he passed before their houses, and he took refuge in the stable so as not to lose sight of the poor horse, whom he was curing according to the instructions of the veterinary, called in the night before. He was very fond of his little brother; but death has no remedy, and what he was anxious about now was that the horse should not be permanently lame.

The appearance of a weak, pale little woman seemed to bring suddenly on the whole family a host of painful recollections. It was Pepeta, Pimentó's wife! Even she came!

But Pepeta went straight to the bed, pushing the other women aside. She bore in her arms an enormous bunch of flowers and leaves which she spread out upon the bed. The first perfumes of the nascent springtime spread through the room which smelled of medicine, and in whose heavy atmosphere insomnia and sighs of desperation seemed to be inhaled.

Pepeta, the poor beast of burden, dead for maternity though married with the hope of becoming a mother, lost her calm on seeing that little marble face, framed in the turned-back hair as in a nimbus of gold.

"My son!... my poor little boy!"

And she wept with all her soul, as she bent over the little corpse, barely grazing with her lips the pale, cold brow, as though she feared to awaken him.

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.

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. She cast an amazed glance around. Things could not stay like that. The child in the bed and everything in disorder! The "Bishop" must be laid out for his last journey, he must be dressed in white, pure and resplendent as the dawn, whose name he bore.

And with the instinct of a superior being born for practical life, with the power of imposing obedience on others, she began to give orders to all the women who vied in doing some service for the family they had hitherto cursed so vehemently.

She would go to Valencia with two companions to buy the shroud and the coffin. Others went to the village, or scattered about among the neighbouring farm-houses in search of the objects which Pepeta charged them to procure.

Since the previous night he felt himself transformed. That man who had defied and insulted him and kept him shut up in his own house like a timid hen; his wife, who for the first time had imposed her will upon him and taken his musket away; his lack of courage to face his victim, who was wholly in the right; all these reasons kept him confused and crushed.

At ten in the morning, when Pepeta and her two companions returned from the city, the house was filled with people.

Some men who were very slow and heavy and domestic, who had taken little part in the crusade against the strangers, formed a group with Batiste in the door of the farm-house; some squatting, in Moorish fashion, others seated in rush-chairs, smoking and speaking slowly of the weather and the crops.

Some old women took possession of the cupboard and every moment prepared big glasses of sugared wine and water, offering them to Teresa and her daughter so they could weep more comfortably, and when the poor creatures, swollen by this sugary inundation, declined to drink, the officious old gossips took turns in swallowing the refreshments themselves, for they also needed to recover from their sorrow.

Pepeta began to shout, desirous of inspiring respect in this confusion. "Go away, all of you!" Instead of staying here and bothering people, they ought to take the two poor women away with them, for they were exhausted with sorrow and driven crazy by so much noise.

Teresa objected to abandoning her son even for a short time; she would soon see him no more; they should not steal from her any of the time that remained to her to look upon her treasure. And bursting out into even greater lamentations, she threw herself on the cold corpse, wishing to embrace it.

Pepeta began to arrange the funeral ceremony. She placed in the centre of the entrance the little white table on which the family ate, and covered it with a sheet, fastening the ends with pins. On it they placed a quilt which was starched and lace-trimmed, and there they placed the little coffin brought from Valencia, a jewel of a coffin which the neighbours admired; a white casket trimmed with gold braid, padded inside like a baby's cradle.

Pepeta took out of a bundle the last finery of the dead child; the shroud of gauze woven of silver thread, the sandals, the garland of flowers, all white, whose purity was symbolic of that of the poor little "Bishop."

Slowly, with maternal care, Pepeta shrouded the corpse. She pressed the cold little body against her breast, introduced into the shroud, with the greatest care, the rigid little arms, as though they were bits of glass which might be broken at the least shock, and kissed the icy feet before putting them into the sandals.

Nor was this all: the best was still lacking, the garland, a bonnet of white flowers with festoons which hung over the ears; a barbaric adornment like those worn by savages at the opera. Pepeta's pious hand, engaged in a terrible struggle with death, stained the pale cheeks a rosy colour; the mouth, blackened by death, she toned up with a layer of bright scarlet, but her efforts to open the weak eyelids wide were vain; they kept falling, covering the dull filmed eyes, eyes without lustre, which had the grey sadness of death.

Poor Pascualet ... unhappy little Bishop! With his grotesque garland and his painted face, he was turned into a ridiculous scarecrow. He had inspired more sorrowful tenderness when his pale little face had been livid in death on his mother's pillow, adorned only with his own blond hair.

And they filled the hollows of his casket with flowers; flowers on the white vestment, scattered on the table, piled up in clusters at the ends; the whole plain's luxuriance embraced the child's body, which it had so often seen running along its paths like a bird; enveloped it with a wave of colour and perfume.

The two small brothers gazed on Pascualet astonished, piously, as on a superior being who might take flight at any time; the dog prowled around the catafalque stretching out his muzzle to lick the cold, waxen, little hands, and burst out into an almost human lamentation, a moan of despair which made the women nervous and impelled them to chase the poor beast away with kicks.

It was dinner-time. Batistet and the little ones, whose grief did not succeed in killing their appetites, devoured a broken crust, hidden in the corners. Teresa and her daughter had no thought of food. The father, still seated in his rush-chair, smoked cigar after cigar, impassive as an Oriental, turning his back on his dwelling as if he feared to see the white catafalque which served as an altar for his son's body.

In the afternoon, the visitors were more numerous. The women arrived, decked out in holiday attire, and wearing their mantillas for the funeral; the girls disputed energetically as to who should be one of the four to carry the poor little Bishop to the cemetery.

Doña Josefa, in a threadbare woollen dress and a large yellow mantilla, entered the farm-house silently, and after a few pompous phrases caught from her husband, seated her robust self in a large rope-chair and remained as mute as if asleep, in contemplation of the coffin. The good woman, accustomed to hearing and admiring her husband, could not carry on a conversation by herself.

The schoolmaster, who was showing off his short green jacket which he wore on days of ceremony, and his necktie of gigantic proportions, sat down outside by the father's side. His big farmer's hands were encased in black gloves which had grown grey in the course of years, till now they were the colour of a fly's wing; he moved them constantly, desirous of drawing attention to the garments he wore on occasions of great solemnity.

"It's life, Mr. Bautista; resignation. 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."

And after a pause, during which he stood with lowered head, he added with conviction, striking his breast:

He was silent for some time, and then he added with the fervour of a merchant praising his article:

"What is necessary here is education, much education. Temples of wisdom to spread the light of knowledge over this plain; torches which ... which.... In short, if more youngsters came to my temple, I mean to my school, and if the fathers, instead of getting drunk paid punctually like you, Mr. Bautista, things would be different. And I say nothing more, for I don't like to offend."

There was danger of this, for many of the fathers who sent him pupils unballasted by the two pennies were near.

Other farmers, those who had shown the family the most hostility, did not dare to approach the house, and remained grouped together on the road.

Among them was Pimentó, who had just arrived from the tavern with five musicians, his conscience easy after remaining a few hours near Copa's counter.

Within were heard lamentations, counsels energetically uttered, the noise of a struggle. It was Pepeta, trying to separate Teresa from her son's body. Come!... she must be reasonable; the "Bishop" could not stay there for ever, it was getting late, and it was better to drink the bitter cup down and get it over with.

And she struggled with the mother to make her leave the coffin and enter the bedroom, so as not to be present at the terrible moment of departure, when the "Bishop" would rise and take flight on the white wings of his shroud never to return.

"My son! his mother's darling!" moaned poor Teresa.

She would see him no more; one kiss, another; and the head, more and more marblelike and livid despite the paint, moved from one side of the pillow to the other, making the diadem of flowers shake in the anxious hands of the mother and sister who disputed the last kiss.

Four girls with hoop-skirts, their silk mantillas falling over their eyes, and who had a modest and nun-like expression, seized the legs of the little table, raising all the white catafalque. Like the salvos saluting the flag as it is raised, there resounded a strange, prolonged, terrifying moan, which made chills run down the backs of many. It was the dog taking leave of the poor "Bishop," uttering an interminable lamentation, tears in his eyes and paws outstretched as if he wished himself to follow his very cry.

The youngsters started out, raising high great bunches of sweet basil. Don Joaquín knew how to do things properly. Afterward, breaking through the crowd, appeared the four damsels holding the light, white altar on which the poor "Bishop," lying in his coffin, moved his head with a slight movement from side to side as though he were taking leave of the farm-house.

The musicians burst forth into a playful, merry waltz, taking up their position behind the bier, and behind them, all the curious people ran along the little road to the farm in compact groups.

The farm-house remained mute and dark, with that melancholy atmosphere of places over which misfortune has passed.

Auspiciously did the poor "Bishop" set out upon his way to the heaven of the innocents. The plain, stretching out voluptuously under the kiss of the springtime sun, enveloped the dead child with its fragrance, accompanied him to the tomb, and covered him with an imperceptible shroud of perfumes. The old trees, which had germinated, filled with the sap of new life, seemed to greet the little corpse as they moved in the breeze, their branches heavy-laden with flowers. Never had Death passed over the earth so beautiful a mask.

Dishevelled and screaming like madwomen, waving their arms furiously, the two unhappy women appeared in the door of the farm-house, their voices prolonged like an interminable moan in the quiet atmosphere of the plain, pervaded with soft light.

"My son!... My soul!..." moaned poor Teresa and her daughter.

"Good-bye, Pascualet!... Good-bye!" cried the little ones, swallowing their tears.

And from afar, among the foliage, borne over the green waves of the fields, replied the echoes of the valley, accompanying the poor "Bishop" to eternity, as he swayed back and forth in his white barge trimmed with gold. The complicated scales of the cornet, with its diabolic capers, seemed like a happy outburst of laughter from Death, who with the child in her arms, departed amid the sunset resplendencies of the plain.

At evening-fall, the procession returned home.

The little ones, sleepy from the excitement of the preceding night, when Death had visited them, slept in their chairs. Teresa and her daughter, overcome by weeping, their energy exhausted after so many sleepless nights, were prostrated. They fell on the bed which still showed signs of the poor child's body, while Batistet snored in the stable near the sick horse.

The father, still silent and impassive, received visitors, shook hands, and gave thanks with movements of the head to the offers and consolatory expressions.

The farm-house remained dark and silent. Through the murky open door there came, like a far-off whisper, the weary breathing of the tired family, all of whom had fallen exhausted as though slain in the battle of grief.

Batiste, still motionless, gazed stupefied at the stars which twinkled in the dark blue of night.

Solitude brought him to his senses; he began to realize his situation.

The plain had its usual aspect, but to him it appeared more beautiful, more tranquillizing, like a frowning face which unbends and smiles.

The people, whose shouts resounded in the distance in the doors of the farm-houses, no longer hated him and would no longer persecute his children. They had been beneath his roof and had blotted out with their footsteps the curse that lay on the lands of old Barret. He would begin a new life. But at what a price!