A FAMILY ENTERPRISE
Though spring had not yet come, the sun was so hot, that day, that the Rector and Tonet, to talk things over down on the beach, had sought out the shade of an old boat drawn up high and dry on the sand. There would be plenty of time to get their tan on when they got out to sea. The two men talked slowly and sleepily as if the glare and the heat along shore had gone to their heads. A real day, come now! Who would have thought Easter was still a week away, when, usually, there were squalls all the time and sudden tempests.
The sky, overflowing with sunlight, had a whitish sheen. A few silver clouds were lazily drifting along like handfulls of foam scattered hap-hazard over the expanse of heaven; and from the heated sands a damp radiation was shimmering, giving tremulous, hazy outlines to objects in the distance. Nothing was going on along the beach itself. Thecasa del bòus, where the launching oxen were idly chewing their cud, rose with its red roof and its blue trimmings, over long lines of boats drawn up on shore to make a sort of nomad city with streets and cross roads, much like a Greek encampment of the Heroic Age, when the triremes were used for entrenchments. The lateen masts, gracefully tilted forward, with their points blunt and fat, looked like a forest of headless lances. The tarred ropes twined and intertwined like lichens and vines. Under the big sails, which had been lowered to the decks, a whole people of amphibians was swarming,—red legs bare and caps pulled down over ears—repairing nets or tending galley fires where fish were frying with appetizing fragrance. The hulls, of wide bilge, painted white or blue, stretched away along the glaring shore, like big-bellied sailors lying on their backs and taking the sun.
In this improvised city, which might, before the night was over, be broken up and scattered to the four winds beyond the girdling horizon, the order and symmetry of a modern town laid out by a surveyor could have been discerned. In the front line, nearest the waves which rippled in like thin blades of crystal over the spangled sand, were the little boats, the trollers,al volantí, tiny spry craft that looked like chicks of the heavy boats lying, in the row behind, in pairs of the same size and color—barcas del bòu. In the third file, the retired veterans of the shore, old hulks, their sides wide open, their worm-eaten ribs showing through the black gaps, reminded one of the decrepit nags used in the bull ring, and lay meditating, it seemed, on the ingratitude of men who do so little for deserving old age.
Rust-colored nets, with flannel shirts and trousers of yellow baize, were strung along most of the masts; and above this array of color, some gulls, apparently drunk with sunshine, were leisurely planing in wide circles, occasionally dropping for a moment into the sea, where the water was shivering and seething in blebs of light under the high noon.
The Rector was talking about the weather, letting his yellowish eyes wander sleepily and placidly over the sea and down the coast. Along the green horizon line some pointed sails dotted the sky like wings of doves that might have been drinking off there. The shore at this point receded, forming a bight in the land, with masses of green and clusters of white cottages alternating along the coast. Here were the hills of the Puig, big swellings in the low-lying strand, which the sea sometimes swept over in its angry moods. And there was the castle of Sagunto, its wavy ramparts curling up and down along the summit of the ridge of caramel brown. Beyond that, and closing the horizon shoreward, was the saw-toothed Cordillera, with ripples of red granite, its unmoving crests reaching up to lap the sky like tongues.
Yes, the good weather had come early that year! You could take it from the Rector! Everybody from the Cabañal knew that, in such matters, he had inherited from his master,tioBorrasca, an instinct that never failed. A puff or two next week, a bit of chop, but nothing much! The stormy season was over ahead of time, thank heaven, and a fellow could earn an honest day's pay without fear of putting to sea.
The Rector talked drawlingly, biting at a black "cardoon" from a smuggler's stock, his whole being swallowed up in the majestic slumber of the shore. Above the peaceful lulling whispers of the sea, the voice of a girl came from far away, up from under the ground, it seemed, chanting the monotonous cadence of a hoisting song:Oh ... oh ... isa!and a number of boys would tug at the mast they were stepping, pulling all together at the proper beat in the sleepy rhythm. It was dinner time; and tangle-haired women kept calling in shrill notes from the galley doors; for the "cats" were off gadding in the barn, looking at the oxen. In every direction the heavy mallets of calkers could be heard hammering away in deadening regularity. And all these noises evaporated, as it were, into the vast, light-filled calm, where sounds and things took on outlines of fantastic indistinctness.
Tonet studied his brother's face expectantly, waiting for that phlegmatic fellow, to whom words came so hard, to finish formulating his proposal.
At last the Rector came to the point. In two words, he was tired of making money penny by penny and day by day. He wanted to make a killing as so many others had done. There was a living in the sea for any man. Some people ate bread black, after sweating for it; others took it white and without the crust, for a moment's work—but risking something! You get the idea, eh, Tonet!
But the Rector did not wait for Tenet's reply. He got up and walked to the bow of the old boat, to see if any one were eavesdropping on the other side.
Not a soul! The beach was deserted as far as the eye could see, away along to the bath-houses at the resort, where the Valencians came to play in summer. Beyond lay the harbor, prickly with masts from the shipping, and flags everywhere, a maze of cross-trees and yards, red and black smokestacks and cranes that looked like gibbets. Seaward stretched the Breakwater, a cyclopean wall of red bowlders heaped up in confusion to make a lee on that storm-swept shore. As background to the whole scene, the tall buildings of the Grao, warehouses, office buildings,—the aristocracy and money of the port; and then a long straight line of roofs, theCabañal, theCañamelar, theCap de Fransa, a rambling agglomeration of many colored houses, less close together as they left the water, summer places in front with many stories and slender cupolas, white cabins behind, where the farm land began, the thatched coverings of the huts rumpled by the strong sea winds.
There were no spies around. The Rector sat down again at his brother's side.
His wife had put the idea into his head. He had thought it over carefully, and come to the conclusion it was a good one. A trip "across the way," as people remembered his father used to say, over to thecosta d'afora, to Algiers! No fishing, you understand. Fish aren't always around when you need them most. No, not that! But a cargo of contraband, the boat crammed to the decks withalguillaandflor de mayo, God of Gods! There,rediel, was business for you! And that was what the old man had done a thousand times. Well, what did Tonet say?
The honest Rector, who would never have dreamed of breaking a town ordinance or a harbor rule, laughed like a saint in heaven at the thought of that haul of tobacco which for days and days had been dancing before his eyes, till now he could actually see the fragrant bundles standing there wrapped in burlap on the sand. He was a son of the Spanish coast, proud of the deeds of his ancestors. In his eyes smuggling was the one thing a self-respecting sailor could take up when he got tired of fishing.
Tonet thought it was a bright idea. He had made two trips like that, though as ordinary seaman. Now that business was dull on the wharves, andtioMariano hadn't gotten him that job in the coast and harbor survey he had wanted so, there was no reason why he shouldn't go along with his brother.
The Rector rounded out the plan. The most important thing he had already—his own boat,la Garbosa. Tonet gasped with surprise, so the Rector enlarged further on that detail. Of course he realized the tub was broken amidships, the ribs strained, the deck warped and sagging in the middle—squeaking like an old guitar every time a sea went under her, ready for breaking up, about. But they hadn't fooled him, they hadn't fooled him! Thirtyduros, he had paid, not a cent more. And the firewood in her was worth that much. But she would keep afloat under men who knew the taste of salt water. For his part, he could negotiate that pond in a shoe with the tap gone! Besides, you see,—and he gave a knowing wink—if the revenue people caught them and confiscated the boat—well, thirtyduros! And that clinched the argument for the wily Rector. Not a thought of the chance he was taking with his life in such a sieve!
The crew?... Himself, his brother, and two men he knew and could trust. That was all there was to that. Now all he needed to do was have a talk withtioMariano, who was on the inside track down in Algiers, as an old hand at the business. And like a man who has his mind made up and is afraid he'll change it if he waits too long, he thought he would go at once to see that influential personage whom they both could be mighty proud to call their uncle. They would probably find him—it was around noon you see—up at theCarabina, where he usually went to sit a while and smoke.
And the two brothers started off in that direction. On walking past the ox-barn they glanced casually at the tavern-boat, blacker and more ramshackle every day.Adiós, mare!They had caught sight of their mother's glossy wrinkly face peering over the counter in front of the opening into the wine store, her head swathed as usual in a white kerchief like a coif. Some dirty underfed sheep were browsing the marsh grass near the first houses of the village. From the pools of fresh water behind the dunes frogs were croaking in monotone, theirgarumpsfaintly blending with the murmuring of the surf. Wine-colored nets, the warps festooned with cork toggles, were spread out on the sand, and among them some young roosters were pecking about or grooming their shiny feathers, all agleam with a metallic rainbow luster. Along the drain from the Gas House a number of women on hands and knees were scrubbing clothes or washing dishes in a pestilential water that stained the stones on its edges black. Here was the frame of a new boat about which some carpenters were pounding, and from a distance the skeleton of unpainted timber looked like the remains of some prehistoric saurian. Across the drain, some rope-walkers, hanks of hemp about their waists, were backing away from the lathe, letting the yellow strands revolve between their deft fingers. And then the Cabañal, so called from the miserable cabins there which sheltered the very poorest of all those toilers of the sea! The streets were as straight and regular as the buildings were capricious, of every shape and size. The red-brick sidewalks went joyously up and down at different levels according to the height of the door sills on the huts. The roads were sloughs of mud, with deep ruts, and puddles from rain that had fallen weeks before. Two rows of dwarf olive trees brushed the heads of passersby with their dusty branches, and ropes were stretched from trunk to trunk to serve as clothes-lines for the wash of the water-front, which was waving like a regalia of banners in the fresh sea-breeze.
Cabins alternated with tenements of several stories. Those incorrigible tars could not forget the water-line even when they were ashore, for all the buildings were finished off with spar-varnish, and painted in two colors, like boats. Many a front door had a figure-head carved in wood, as though that portal were the bow-sprit of the sailor's habitation, which, in all its details of architecture, of color and line, called up memories of life at sea. The village looked like a collection of grounded craft. In front of some of the cabins stout masts with pulleys had been set up, and the pulley and mast meant that there lived a skipper of a pair ofbòu-boats. At the top of the staffs, the most complicated tackle was out drying, waving in the wind like the majestic emblem of a consul. The Rector eyed those poles in envy unconcealed. When would that Christ up at the Grao answer his prayer so that he could plant a mast like that in front of his door in honor of Dolores?
Now the drain had come to an end. They were well into the village, in the section where people from Valencia had their summer cottages. The houses here were low studded, with bulging gratings, painted green, over the windows. Everything was closed and silent. Footsteps echoed back across the broad sidewalks as in an abandoned town. Tufted plane trees were languishing in the solitude, pining for the gay nights of summer when there was laughing everywhere, people running about, and a piano banging in every cottage. Now scarcely any one was in sight. An occasional villager went by, in his pointed cap, with his hands in his pockets, and his pipe in his mouth, sauntering lazily toward this tavern or that; for the cafés were the only places where anything was going on.
TheCarabina, for instance, was crowded. Under the awning in front were any number of blue coats, black silk caps, and weather-beaten countenances. Dominoes were rattling on the tables, and though everything was open to the air, the strong smell of gin and tobacco struck you in the face.
Tonet had pleasant memories of the place—the scene of his triumphs in generosity in the first months of his marriage to Rosario.
At one of the stands sattioMariano, pulling at his pipe and waiting, probably, for the sheriff, or some other town notable, to enjoy the usual afternoon chat. He was listening in disdainful condescension totioGori, an old ship-carpenter from down the beach, who had been going to that café every afternoon for twenty years, to read the newspaper aloud, advertisements and all, to a greater or smaller number of sailors, according to the chance offshore; and the men would sit there silent and attentive till nightfall.
"So then, if you are ready, gentlemen ...SiñorSegasta has something to say to us to-day...."
ButtioGori held up his reading to observe to the man next to him:
"That Segasta is a humbug, you know!"
And with that comprehensive annotation, he adjusted his spectacles, and the Premier's speech in the Cortes began to unwind, syllable by syllable, from under the carpenter's white tobacco-stained mustache:
"Gen-tle-men-of-the-Cham-ber! In-re-ply-to-what-the-Hon-o-ra-ble-De-pu-ty-said-yes-ter-day...."
But before getting to the reply, the carpenter again looked up from his paper and, with a smile of canny superiority, observed to his speechless expectant audience:
"That is a d—— d lie!"
Though the Rector had also spent whole afternoons at the feet of that man of letters, he now failed to noticetioGori at all. Respectfully and obediently, he advanced, instead, directly toward his uncle, who had gone so far as to take the pipe out of his mouth to call to his nephews with an: "Hey there, boys!" and motion to them to take the chairs he had been keeping for his influential friends. Tonet sat down with his back to his brother and uncle, so as to follow the fast game of dominoes that was rattling in a lively fashion at the next table. At times his eyes would wander off through the smoky atmosphere toward the bar, where the pretty daughter oftioCarabina—for him the principal attraction of the café—was serving drinks under a line of marine chromos.
SeñorMarianoel Callao—though no one dared use that last epithet in his hearing—was getting on toward sixty, but was still a muscular and rather handsome man, with a weather-beaten face, blood-shot eyes, a gray mustache as stiff and long and prickly as a tom-cat's whiskers, and the general bullying air of an uneducated lout who had money enough to live on without working. People had dubbed himel Callaobecause at least a dozen times every day he told the story of that famous battle for the Peruvian seaport—the last that Spain relinquished in South America—which he had witnessed as an ordinary seaman on theNumancia. In these narratives he mentioned the admiral, Mendez Nuñez, in every other sentence,—"and don Casto says to me, says he"—as if the hero had had him for his most intimate friend and right-hand man. What delighted his audiences invariably, however, was his description of the actual combat, with imitations of a broadside from his glorious frigate:boom! boo-oo-oo-oo—m!
In additiontioMariano was one of the big men about town. He had been a smuggler in the happy days when revenue agents, from Captain of the Port to ordinary patrolman, had hands but never eyes. And even now, when things were not so lax, he would take a passive share in some enterprise of the sort. But his principal activity was doing charity—lending the fishermen, or their wives, advances on their pay at fifty per cent a month; and this had given him a grip on the throats of the poorest elements along shore, so that he could deliver their vote bodily in every election campaign. His nephews could hardly contain their pride when they heard him calling mayors and sheriffs by their first names, or saw him, even, going up to Valencia in his best clothes and a top hat, as member of a committee of leading citizens, to wait on the Governor.
A grasping, heartless Shylock,tioMariano had a scent for loosening his purse strings at the right moment. He knew the inside workings of every home for miles around. The Rector and Tonet, who owed him nothing but the hope they had of inheriting something when he died, thought him the most respectable and kindly man in the whole village, though very seldom had they been admitted to his pretty house on Queen street,Calle de la Reina, where he lived alone with a good-looking housekeeper, the only person in town who dared talk back to him, and was intimate enough with his affairs even to know where he kept his "pile."
TioMariano listened to the Rector with eyes half closed and a vertical line knit between his eyebrows. "Be d—— d, be d—— d! Of course! Not a bad idea at all, not at all!" That's the way he liked people—with some gumption! And he seized the occasion to brag of his own biography as a fool successful in getting rich, telling how he had left the navy without a cent in his pocket, and, to get out of the rut his father and grandfather had been in as fishermen, had started off on the underground route to Gibraltar and Algiers, to do his bit toward keeping business going and to give people something else to smoke besides the stink-weed forced on the public by the government! Thanks to the Lord, who had stood by him through thick and thin, and to his own guts—don't forget that—he had made a little something—enough to keep him from worrying in his old age! But times weren't what they had been! The revenue men were now in charge of young navy officers just off the school-ships, with all sorts of stuck-up ideas in their heads and ears a yard long to catch any talk that was going around; and not a one of them would keep his eyes shut for an hour, if you paid him half his weight in gold. Why, last month they had caught three boats coming from Marseilles with a cargo of cloth! You had to be careful, you had to be careful! Too much blabbing going on all the time. The Q. T., that was the watchword! The Rector had made up his mind? Well, then, straight ahead! His Uncle Mariano would not be the man to throw cold water on an idea like that. He wanted the boys in his family to have ambition and try to get somewhere in the world. Poor old Pascualo would have turned out better if he'd stuck to that business and not gone back to fishing!
Well, how much did the Rector need? Quite frank now!—as though he were talking to a father. If it had been a matter of fishing, not a penny. Hell of a trade for a fellow, that, where you killed yourself working and died poor as a rat. But for something of that other kind, all he wanted, all he wanted! Somehow or other, this business of cheating the government always appealed totioMariano! A man's job!
The Rector timidly outlined what he thought he ought to have, stopping every other word, as though he were afraid of asking too much. But his uncle took the short cut to the conclusion. Boat? He had the boat. Very well! He,tioMariano, would see to all the rest. He would drop a line to some friends of his on the "market" at Algiers. They would give the Rector a good load on credit, and if he were spry and got it ashore all right, a way would be found to sell it. "Thanks ever so much, uncle,grasies, tio!Que bo es vosté!It's certainly nice of you." And the Rector's eyes were almost running over with tears. ButtioMariano didn't like sentiment. What was he in the family for? He always had poor Pascualo on his mind. What a way to die! There was a man of pluck for you! Oh, by the way, the Rector would get a full third of the proceeds ... seeing he was one of the family.... You couldn't stick on your full rights with a boy of your own flesh and blood! And the Rector, still moved at his uncle's lavish kindness, nodded grateful assent.
They sat on in silence for a while. Tonet was all taken up with the game nearby, and did not try to follow the conversation which the two men were carrying on, as much with their eyes, almost, as with their lips, which hardly moved.
And when were they intending to start,tioMariano went on. Right away, he supposed; so he had better get his letter off without delay. The Rector assured him, however, it would be out of the question to sail before Easter-Saturday. He would be better pleased to leave earlier in the week, but there was that procession to the Sepulcher with the body of Christ on Good Friday, and he had promised to lead the mob of "Jews." Something he couldn't really miss. Been in the family, years and years—that part in the ceremonies of Holy Week, and many people were waiting for a chance to get it. The hangman's costume he wore for that occasion had belonged to his father.
ThoughtioMariano passed for an infidel in town, because the curate never got a red cent out of him on any pretext, he nodded solemn approval of his nephew's pious intention. Quite right, quite right—everything in its own time and place! The Rector and his brother rose to their feet on seeing that the august personages their uncle had been expecting were approaching. They could depend on him, then. Yes, and another talk later on to fix on the last details. Would they have a little something? What? Not been to dinner yet? Well, it would be waiting for them at home, probably!Hasta la vista, chiquets!And the two boys walked slowly off down the deserted sidewalk on their way back to the cabin district.
"And what did uncle say?" Tonet asked casually.
The Rector, who never wasted any words if he could help it, moved his head up and down vertically. Tonet beamed with excited joy. A sure thing, then! Fine! Pascualo was at last on the road to money, and he, well, at least, he could see his way through the summer. The good-natured Rector kept reflecting to himself on what an unselfish fellow his brother was, and almost felt like hugging him. Yes, that boy's heart was in the right place! Fond as could be of him and of Dolores, and he loved little Pascualet as though the baby were his own child! If only their two wives could get along together a little better....
MARY AND JESUS MEET
Though the early morning sky was bright and cloudless, the streets of the Cabañal were rumbling as in a thunderstorm. People jumped out of bed as the crashing almost split their eardrums; and good women of the village, their hair still down and in wrappers hastily thrown on, went out on the sidewalk in front of their doors to see what was going on. The bluish transparency of dawn was barely gilded with the rays of the still invisible sun. But the "Jews of Jerusalem" were on a rampage, banging their harsh cymbals together as they marched along the streets. One would have thought the Calendar had suddenly gone mad and transported Carnival to Easter week. The most grotesque horribles were gathering in the squares. The young folks of the town were out in costume; for the procession of theEncuentro, in the environs of Valencia, is virtually a masquerade.
Far down the long street, what looked like an army of cockroaches could be seen assembling, figures, calledlas vestas, in tall, black, sharp-pointed hoods, like so many astrologers, or judges of the Inquisition, their cloth masks rolled up over their foreheads, their long black trains hung over their arms, and each with a baton painted black in one hand. Some of the paraders, to add a touch of ingenuity, had slipped white petticoats on, well ironed and pleated, and from under them pairs of trousers protruded with the legs turned up, and, at the very bottom, top-shoes unutterably tormenting enormous feet accustomed to walking bare on the sands.
Then came the "Jews," fierce villains apparently snatched from some lowly stage for dramas of the Middle Ages that could afford only a conventional costume of poor quality. Their induments were what the Valencian populace refers to as its "war trappings," short skirts or kilts, much mottled with spangles, trimmings and lace fringes, like the tunic of the Apaches; helmets topped off with huge cock plumes, arms and legs "armored" with a rude fabric of cotton tufts to give a distant suggestion of mail. To cap the climax of caricature and anachronism, following thevestasand the "Jews," came—tall and handsome fellows all—the "Virgin's Grenadiers," wearing high-fronted caps like those of Frederick's Prussian guards, with black uniforms decorated with silver lace that must surely have been ripped from the caskets in an undertaker's store.
A stranger might have laughed at that naïf array had he dared brook the wrath of those solemn boys whose faces all wore expressions of stern professional seriousness. It is never safe to make fun of an army ready to fight; and these "Jews" and "grenadiers" who were to guard the crucified Christ and his mother were carrying, unsheathed in their hands, all the varieties of sword known from the dawn of history to the present time, beginning with the heavy cavalry saber of the ordinary marcher, to the slender, delicate rapier of the drum-major.
Following the march, or keeping up with it along its flanks, trooped the gamins of the town, enviously studying the colorful uniforms. Mothers, sisters and sweethearts looked on admiringly from their doorways: "There he is, there! Do you see him?Reina y siñora!How grand he looks!" The devout procession, like the parade that heralds the coming of a circus to town, seemed to recall to the sinful, backsliding population of the Cabañal that at seven A. M. sharp Jesus and his mother would meet—hence the nameEncuentro—in the middle of the Calle de San Antonio, in front of the "Side of Bacon," the tavern oftio Chulla.
As the twilight brightened into the rosy glow of sunrise, promising a warm spring day, the martial uproar about the village grew. There were drums, cornets and brass horns sounding on every hand. An army seemed suddenly to have descended on the Cabañal. The various companies—collas, as they are called—had formed four abreast, and solemn, stiff, and as much admired as soldiers returning from victory, were marching to the homes of their respective captains to collect the banners displayed there—weird standards of black velvet embroidered with the horrifying symbols of the Passion.
The Rector was hereditary captain of the "Jews," and long before dawn he had gotten up and crammed his person into the handsome costume that was kept securely locked in a chest at other times of the year and was revered by the whole family as the treasure of the house. Lord help us! What are we coming to! Every Easter the poor Rector was getting fatter and fatter and finding it a more and more serious task to stuff his corpulency into that tight-fitting "coat-of-mail." Dolores, in her nightgown and with her hair down, was making the tour of his spacious waist, pushing in the stomach here, and stretching the cloth there, to make room for one more cubic inch of husband inside the cotton armor. On the bed sat little Pascualet gazing in amazement and alarm at that helmet with Indian plumes on the man's head and at that menacing cavalry saber which clanked against the walls and the furniture every time the Rector turned around. Could that be papa?
At last the dread toilette was over. Not exactly what you would call comfortable, but they had spent enough time over it. The Rector's underwear, at odds with the stringency encircling it, was all lumpy, and what looked like tumors could be seen standing out under the "Jew's" stockings. And those trousers! They were so tight around the middle that the poor man could hardly breathe. His helmet, far too small for his head, kept slipping forward and bumping on his nose. But this was a day for dignity, not for ease! And the Rector drew his saber, struck up a rub-a-dub-dub in his stentorian voice, and began to stride up and down the room, as though the baby there were a crown prince reviewing guard. His wife's golden, mysterious eyes followed him as he walked back and forth from one wall of the bedroom to the other like a bear in a cage. She was tempted to laugh at those bandy legs; but no—she liked him better in that costume than in the tarred and pitchy clothes he came home from work in at night, tired out and stupid from toil.
And now they were coming! The "Jews" could be heard, with their band, down the street. They would be wanting their banner. Dolores hastily threw a wrapper on, while the captain advanced to the frontiers of his domain to welcome his army. The lurid company drew up in front of the house. The drum-beat softened in tone, but continued to give the rhythm for the privates who stood there marking time, keeping their heads and bodies and legs moving energetically in space but without moving from their positions. Tonet and two other "Jews" came gravely forward, entered the house, and started for the second story, whence the standard was hanging from a window.
Dolores met her brother-in-law on his way upstairs, and instantly, instinctively, she drew the overwhelming comparison. There was a real soldier, a general! Tonet had something about him that distinguished him from the uncouthness and clumsiness of the others—of the other. His legs were straight, and his stockings had no wrinkles—everything in his make-up was stylish, well fitting, sleek. He belonged to the Juan Tenorios, the royal don Pedros, the Henri Lagardères, she had seen on the stage of the theater of La Marina, reciting verses and fighting duels that had thrilled her to the bottom of her soul.
And now all thecollaswere off toward the church, their bands and banners in front of them, looking, from a distance, like troops of glossy insects moving up and down in the rhythm of the march. TheEncuentrowas at hand! Two processions were coming-down different streets. In one was the Virgin, weeping, sorrowful, escorted by her guard of funereal grenadiers; in the other, Jesus, in a showy purple mantle spangled with gold, his hair awry, his face stained with blood, collapsing under the burden of the Cross. The image had fallen on the rocks of painted cork that covered its pedestal. Around the Christ, to prevent his escape, crowded the ruthless "Jews," who, in line with their parts, had marshaled ferocious scowls; and with the "Jews" came thevestas, their masks lowered now and their trains dropped and dragging through the puddles. The whole scene was so dreadful, so awe-inspiring, that children along the road began to scream and to hide in fright behind their mothers' skirts.
Siñor!... Ay, siñor, Deu meu!...the old fisherwomen murmured sympathetically at sight of the bleeding Christ in the clutches of that mob of infidels.
The low-pitched cymbals were clanging meanwhile, and the cornets were shrieking long-sustained, ear-splitting blasts like the bellowing of calves in a slaughter-house. In the midst of the throng of cruel guards marched some tall, well-built girls, with painted cheeks, and in costumes copied from the Turkish maidens of comic opera. They carried water jugs to show they were the Biblical women from Samaria. From their mothers they had borrowed earrings and breast-pins. Their plump legs were ostentatiously exposed in open-work stockings under short Polish peasant skirts. But this was not the occasion for mocking raillery from the men in the crowds.
Among the spectators, to be sure, were a few pale faces and blue-ringed eyes—revelers who had been up all night and, to finish their carousals, had come down from Valencia to witness the famous popular festival. But if such people ventured a smile at any incongruity in the costumes, a soldier of Pilate would step up and raise his saber menacingly, calling them to order in righteous indignation:
"Morrals! Morrals!Hey, there, you pig! This is not a joke! The idea! The most religious ceremony of the coast, and as old as the Cabañal itself! You're no gentleman! You must come from Valencia. But I'll teach you manners, if you don't behave yourself!"
The "meeting" place, on a crossing of the Calle de San Antonio, along which, every now and then, some tiles of curious design had been placed to mark the stations of the march to Calvary, was drawing the bulk of the crowd. Rough, aggressive shore-women, in checkered shawls and with kerchiefs on their heads for hats, were competing restlessly for places in the front line.
Among a group of older ones Rosario was stoutly defending her excellent position on the sidewalk with her elbows and her knees. Had they seen her Tonet? Not a "Jew" in the whole lot to compare with him! And in all this enthusiasm for her handsome husband, the poor woman was still rubbing the bruises he had inflicted on her that morning in the course of getting his costume out and on. But suddenly Rosario felt a rude shove which brushed her aside, while a compact, muscular female body crowded into the place she had been occupying. She looked around. Did any one ever hear of such brazen impudence! It was Dolores, leading Pascualet by the hand! They had at last forced their way through the crushing throng. The comely girl still had her usual pout of disdain as she looked at people and carried herself with her habitual queenly pride. The harlot! Yet how everybody made way for her and fawned upon her in spite of her conceit!
To the exceeding alarm oftiaPicores, the two women stood there frowning at each other angrily. Their reconciliation some days before in the ice-cream place had been nothing but a truce. They had promised to be good friends, but without much warmth, and one could see from the looks in their eyes at the time that there would be trouble again soon. Rosario, taken aback by the violence of the push that had displaced her, rested content with a grimace. What nice manners some people had! Some people wanted the earth with a fence around it! Gangway for Her Majesty the Queen! Well, there are people and people in this world! And the wrong sort reveal themselves—you don't have to bother to point them out.
As the pale, sickly woman muttered on, her face grew redder and redder with the intoxication of her own words. Her friends near by kept nudging her, egging her on to stand her ground. Dolores, meanwhile, began to toss her gorgeous head like a lioness preparing to cuff at a hornet buzzing behind her back. However, the processions were debouching into the square, and a wave of expectancy swept over the multitude.
Slowly the two lines of celebrants approached each other, measuring their steps so as to reach the designated spot at exactly the same moment. The sun was darting its first golden rays upon the purple robe of Jesus, the maze of plumes, helmets and upraised swords of the guards—one bright, sparkling brilliancy. From the other direction came the Virgin, bobbing up and down on her throne in rhythm with the footsteps of her bearers, dressed in a black velvet gown with widow's weeds, some big wax tears glistening on her face, and—to catch them, supposedly—a black-bordered mourning handkerchief in her stiff, lifeless hands. She it was who riveted the attention of all the mothers present. Many of them began to weep.Ay reina y soberana!How she must be suffering! A mother finding her boy in a fix like that! Suppose I should meet my boy—do you see him over there, and isn't he handsome?—handcuffed, and on the way to the penitentiary! And I'm only an ordinary mother! The fisherwomen were now groaning and weeping all around the square, not forgetting, meanwhile, to study the Virgin's costume for any improvement or shortcoming as compared with the year before.
The exciting moment was now at hand. The drums ceased beating, the cornets interrupted their dolorous bleating, and the bands were hushed. The images of Jesus and Mary were face to face. A plaintive, tremulous voice began to recite in monotone some stanzas which told how very sad and mournful the whole scene was.TioGrancha, an aged velvet-spinner, came down from Valencia every year to declaim those couplets, and his art was one of the attractions of the festival! What a voice! How it went to your heart! And that is why a riot almost started when some gamblers in the "Side-of-Bacon" began to laugh at a turn in their game, and people rushed to the doors exclaiming angrily:
"Shut up ... shut up ... you vermin!"
The images tilted back and forth, in symbolic pantomime of desperate and sorrowful farewell!
Meanwhile, Dolores could not take her eyes off the arrogant, elegant "Jew" who contrasted so favorably with his bandy-legged captain. She was standing with her back toward Rosario, but that did not prevent the latter from divining the object of her gaze. And did you see that? A married woman making eyes at a married man, and right in the presence of her husband! And all this in public! And what went on in private, when that Tonet went to her house on the pretext of playing with the baby, and found her alone?
The two processions had now joined and were going back toward the church. The jealous, infuriated woman continued, in a half-audible voice, to hurl her insulting tirade over those broad, exuberant shoulders in front of her—a splendid pedestal for a beautiful head with luxuriant hair. Dolores turned around with a smirk of biting ridicule on her face. Beg pardon! Had all that been for her? When would that dirty scullion stop annoying a lady? Couldn't a person look at a parade without being insulted? And a glitter of gold sparkled with a wicked gleam in the pupils of her sea-green eyes.
Yes, came the reply. It had all been for her, every word! An immoral, impudent wench, who was always eyeing other women's husbands! Dolores laughed contemptuously. Thanks! Rosario could keep her husband, for all she cared. What a jewel he was, besides! She had her own man and that was enough for her. Tonet might do for other women, if they were fool enough to take him on. But for the thief there's nobody in the world but thieves! No, madam, her job in life was not stealing husbands, but slapping the faces of lying gossips who talked too much!
"Mare, Mare!" screamed Pascualet, clinging to the skirts of his beautiful mother, who, her dark skin pale as death, had drawn herself up to her full height preparing to throw herself upon her enemy. Rosario, meanwhile, was struggling to shake off a number of women who were holding her pinioned by her weak, flaccid arms.
"What's going on here? At it again, eh?" It was the harsh, scolding voice oftiaPicores, who had interposed her towering form between the combatants. She would settle the row! She knew how to handle those hot-heads. "You, Dolores, home with you! And you, you groveling, lying slanderer, get out of my sight and hearing." And with a shove and a threat, first in one direction and then the other, she put them both to rout.
Lord, Lord, what people! And on Good Friday! On Good Friday! And right in front of Mary and Jesus! God might forgive them, but she wouldn't! The thousandth time! And that's the way they bring up girls nowadays. And when the stern old woman saw that the younger ones were still shouting insults at each other from a distance, she went at them again, shaking her fists and calling them names, till they were dragged away by their partisans.
The quarrel was soon the talk of all the Cabañal. After the services were over there was another disturbance in the household of Tonet, who, without waiting to take his costume off, thrashed his wife within an inch of her life for making a fool of him in public. And the Rector also brought the subject up while Dolores was prying him out of his uniform, and his flesh was gradually resuming its normal rotundity. He was sorry to say so, but that poor Rosario was crazy. Tonet might be all he might be—and it was true that brandy didn't do him any good! Just the same, it was a pity to see him tied to a woman about as easy to handle as a porcupine. But a brother was a brother in his eyes! He wasn't going to break with the son of his own father just to please that fool of a woman! Much less at that particular moment, when there would be a chance to make a real man of Tonet. Dolores, though hardly yet recovered from the excitement of the brawl, nodded approval to all he said.
And the Rector thought no more about it. He had that little matter on his mind. And, in fact, the following day, just as the bells were ringing for the service of Holy Saturday, while revolvers were being fired in festive celebration about town, and gamins were going from house to house beating upon front doors with sticks,la Garbosa, that leaky death-trap hardly able to keep afloat, with a complete outfit for fishing aboard to make her look like a seiner, raised her huge lateen sail, new and strong and white, and slipped away from the beach of the Cabañal, taking the first sea swells like a time-worn beauty, frilled and painted up to make one last conquest.
TWO WOMEN QUARREL
It had stopped raining about daybreak. At five o'clock the street lamps of Valencia were still burning, their flickering lights mirrored red as blood in the puddles of the uneven pavement. The irregular line of housetops was just beginning to stand out against an ashen background of sky brightening with the first glow of morning. The night watch-men were unhooking their lanterns from their stations at the street-crossings and walking off, stamping their chilled feet after wishing a listlessbon diato the pairs of hooded policemen who would not be relieved until seven o'clock. Faint from the distance through the stillness came the whistling of the morning trains leaving the suburbs. The church towers were beginning to clang with the first calls to the mass of sunrise, some of the bells droning and indistinct like the voices of old women, others shrill and high pitched like the chirping of children. From roof to roof—their city quarters—cocks were exchanging strident challenges to battle.
And now the deserted, rain-soaked streets were slowly awakening with the strangely resonant sounds of footsteps, as the earliest risers stepped out upon the sidewalks, though the closed doors and the grated windows still transmitted the subdued murmur of a city in the last heavy breathings of tranquil slumber. The sky was growing gradually brighter as if numberless thin veils were being torn asunder one by one from across the pathway of the invisible sun. A gray, cold pallor was stealing over the darker alleys and side streets, while, like a fade-in on the cinema screen, the contours of the town began to come into clearer view: the fronts of the houses shining from their recent drenching; the eaves dripping with the last few drops of rain; the roofs gleaming like polished silver; the trees along the broader avenues, naked and shorn as brooms, shaking their leafless branches, while water seemed to ooze from their fungus-covered trunks.
The Gas House of Valencia, weary from its sustained labors of a night, was snorting with the last puffs of steam. The huge gasometers were sinking low between their steel girders; and the tall brick chimney was throwing out its final belches of thick black smoke, which spread curling over the field of space in an ever-widening blotch. In the neighborhood of the Sea Bridge, the customs agents, burying their faces in their mufflers, were walking up and down to shake off the damp chill of the morning. Through the windows of the revenue office the clerks who had just arrived could be seen moving their sleepy heads to and fro.
They had been waiting there for the vendors to come into town—a quarrelsome crew trained to haggling and embittered by poverty, ready, for the difference of a centime, to spend a limitless capital of swear-words and insults, and never successful in reaching market without a string of brawls with the guards who laid the duties on their goods. The produce wagons and the milch cows with their rattling bells had gone through before daybreak. Only the fisherwomen were still to come, a noisy flock of witches, dirty, slimy, in rags, making the air ring with their shrieks and wrangling, stinking to heaven with dead fish and all the odors of shore life which clung to their uncouth petticoats.
It was broad day, and the light, now harsh and blue, was throwing every object into a clean-cut outline up against the leaden sky, when, with a lazy tinkle of distant bells, fourtartanashove in view, making their way toward the Sea-Bridge, drawn by wretched nags that seemed able to keep their feet only because the drivers, huddled low in their seats, their coat collars turned up over their ears, kept pulling at the reins. The black bodies of the two-wheeled wagons pitched about over the ruts in the road like old belly-cracked boats tossing at the mercy of the waves. The wagon-hoods showed their reed framework here and there through the rents in their tarred canvas. Plasters of red paste covered some of the smaller holes. The ironwork was squeaky and broken, the breaks repaired with strings. The wheels were splashed and scaly with the winter's mud. Outfits, decidedly, that had seen better days!
The front openings of the wagon-coverings were protected by flaps, painted, for one trace of ornament, at least, in a red, now faded. Looking into the vehicles from behind, where everything was open, theseñorasof the Fishmarket, sitting in rows with their baskets, might have been seen, each woman wearing a checkered shawl, with a colored kerchief covering breast and shoulders. So the rickety carts came on, leaving behind them as they passed a sickening stench of rotting sea-life. They tilted alarmingly as one wheel would sink into a deep hole, till the wheel on the other side would find a chasm just as deep, and the hood careened in that direction.
The fourtartanaspulled up in front of the office; and down over their steps numberless worn-out shoes, undarned stockings, dirty, protruding heels began to come, under a flutter of skirts caught up in front over yellow petticoats with black arabesques. The baskets were set down in line near the platform of the scales, each covered with a wet cloth. From underneath the strip of canvas shone the silver of a herring or the vermilion of a salmon, or the greenish blue of a lobster's claw, quivering with the tremor of agony. Alongside the baskets lay the bigger fish, broad-tailed sea-bass, their circular jaws wide open, showing the white, round tongues and the dark throats, while their bodies were stretched backward, taut in the contraction of death; and flat, enormously wide skates, their fins spread out on the ground like kites of brown cloth, slimy and viscous to the touch.
The scales happened to be occupied by some out-of-town bakers, good-looking fellows with square leather aprons, their sleeves rolled up, and flour in their hair and eyebrows. They were weighing out bags of fresh, nutty bread, which seemed to bring a fragrance of life into that nauseating ambient of sea-carrion. Waiting for their turn, the fish-women were blarneying with customs men or idlers who stood about looking at the big fish with the curiosity of landlubbers. Meanwhile, other women were coming in on foot from down the coast, carrying their baskets on their heads or by the handles. The group was growing in numbers every minute, and the line of baskets now reached clear from the scales to the bridge.
The officials were getting bad-tempered with that snarling, loud-talking mob of harpies who wore them out every morning with their quarrelsomeness and unreasonable haggling. Every one of them shouted at you as if you had no ears, reënforcing every other word with an interjection from that inexhaustible store of epithet native to the shores of the Mediterranean. Rivals, on meeting here again after a set-to on the beach the day before, would revive the passions of the unsettled argument, annotating insults with obscene gestures, emphasizing accusations with cadenced slapping of hands on thighs, or lifting clenched fists above their heads as if they were about to strike. And then, when you would think of calling the police, if not the undertaker, laughter, suddenly everywhere, as though the hens in a big hen coop had started cackling all at once! Some one of the combatants had scored with an unusually cutting or scurrilous phrase!
The bakers were slow in getting off the scales; so gibes began to rain on them; and they, for their part, were not the men to accept such taunts in silence. Indecencies, blasphemies, slanderous genealogies began to fly back and forth, though the deadliest thrusts seemed to rouse only friendly grins and guffaws.
Outstanding in the thickest of the riot, and the center of most attention, stood Dolores,la del Retor, as comely as usual and better dressed than any of the others, carelessly leaning against a corner of the office shanty, her arms folded behind her back, her magnificent bust thrown forward, smiling with satisfied complacency at the interested glances that reached her tan shoes and the red stockings so blatantly advertising her well-shaped ankles. At the sharpest jokes she heard she opened her luscious lips and her man-eating jaws wide enough to show two rows of strong, even, pearl-white teeth that gave a suggestion of marble luminousness to her darkish features.
A girl of "prestige," obviously—and why not? A solid cuff in that plump right hand of hers, and a tongue in her head, I can tell you, when she had a mind to use it! The wife of Pascualoel Retor, besides, a good-natured fat-head who ate out of her hand and never dared peep inside his own house; but all there, when it came to making a living out of the sea—a pot of money, earned, every cent of it, by good, honest, straightforward fishing.
All this Dolores knew. And that, doubtless, was why she stood there with the self-possession of a Grand Duchess, surveying that dirty-mouthed, dirty-clothed rabble of the Fishmarket, and perking her lips disparagingly when some one noticed her real pearl earrings, or the Algerian scarf, or the red-flannel petticoat from Gibraltar the Rector had given her! In fact, the only woman she thought quite her class was "Granny" Picores,agüela Picores, a veteran of the Fishmarket, a whale of a woman, mastodontic, who cowed every policeman in the market with one glare from her incinerating eyes, or one bellow from that cavernous mouth of hers, the center upon which all the wrinkles in her face converged.
"Cristo, when will you fools be through!" Dolores finally shouted at the bakers, her seductive arms akimbo. And the husky young men, moving a little slower than usual, if anything, answered in kind, but tossing their salacious repartees in the direction of the fish-hags who lined up around the scales with hands folded over protruding abdomens and adding a grotesque enlargement to those already conspicuous bulges. But at last the weighing of the fish could begin: "Hey there, me first, you——!" "No, my turn, you——!" "You were first yesterday!" The usual morning fight for precedence was on, waiting for arbitration bytiaPicores, with her cannonading voice and formidable obscenities. But Dolores had not joined the squabble—she even missed the place her basket held, by rights, in the line. Something on the bridge had caught her eye; and, in fact, over the side rails of that structure the head and shoulders of a straggler could be seen advancing slowly, staggering along under the weight of a heavy load.
An expression of diabolical cruelty overspread the handsome countenance of Dolores; and when the laggart fish-woman had reached the nearer end of the bridge, near the customs office, the girl burst into an insolent, ridiculing laugh. She touchedagüelaPicores on the arm:
"Look, granny, late as usual. And what can you expect from a mess of lazy-bones like that!"
Rosario grew pale as death, and it was with a sigh of faintness and fatigue that she set her basket on the ground. She looked at Dolores, with what hatred her exhaustion could let gather in her eyes. Then she sat down on the burden she had been carrying. For a second the two enemies surveyed each other from head to foot, their year-long resentment boiling up within them.
Dolores wiped her nose with an arm, snorting, as at a pinch of snuff. "Yes, I'd sit down, if I were you, mud-puppy. God, when Tonet was taking a wife, why didn't he get a woman!" Rosario did her best to parry the flood of insults: Sit down? Why not sit down—since God had given her something to sit on and she had a place to put it! Besides, an honest woman need not be afraid to be seen walking. She couldn't hire a coach-in-four—by playing fast and loose with her husband! "And it's me you're talking to!" exclaimed Dolores, stepping forward with blood in her eyes. But she did not go far. For her "Granny's" clawed talons were upon her shoulder, pulling her back. "Into the cart with you! Your fish is weighed! No public scenes to-day! It's late, and they want their orders up in the Market! Of all the loving pairs of sisters!..." And the old Tartar was now in front of Dolores, thrusting the girl back toward thetartanawith bumps from her huge stomach. But the beauty's lips were trembling white with emotion, though she obeyed; but with one foot on the step of the cart, she hurled back one parting shot:
"Tu, ya se vorem, Rosario!"
Have it out later? Of course they would. You say when, Dolores! And Rosario, her arms really so weak and flaccid, laid hold on a heavy basket in an impulse of rage and tossed it like a pebble on to the scales.
The clouds from the night's storm were burning off with the advent of the sun, which was making a triumphant entrance upon the day, rolling its molten gold horizontally over the streets, gilding the puddles, and painting the house fronts and window-panes with the reddening brilliancy of a conflagration. The town was now quite awake. The street-cars were crowded with people, and the sidewalks on either hand were lined with still drowsy laborers on their way to work, their lunch baskets hung over their shoulders and cigar butts in their mouths. Pairs of relief horses for the police were being driven through the street by boys riding bareback on one of their two steeds.
Servant girls were tripping along toward market. Street sweepers were busy at work on the mud the rain had washed into the gutters, where cows at intervals were being milked. The sheet-iron coverings of store windows were being raised, letting the light in upon the colorful displays inside. Through open doors the scratching of brooms on floors could be heard, while clouds of dust came driving out, making Jacob's-ladders of the sunbeams.
When thetartanasreached thePescaderíathe women porters there hurried out to meet them and help the sailors' wives unload. Servile before these latter, whom they regarded as bosses, they trooped in line through the narrow cell-like doors of the fish-portico, fetid air-holes, through which the stenches from inside poured out. The baskets were dumped on the marble flooring and the fish arranged in line on beds of seaweed. On every hand were trundles of big fish and barrels where the "produce" of the day before was packed in ice.
Across the market was another line of vendors, dressed in costumes like those from the Cabañal, but more miserable in appearance, if anything, and with more repulsive faces still. They were the women of Albufera, a strange concentration of poverty and degradation, housing in wretched shanties a people that lives among the reeds and mud of the lake marshes, fishing in the murky, shallow waters from black, bluff-bowed boats that look like coffins. On these ashen, weather-beaten features indigence was drawn in its most ghastly outlines. Every eye was aglow with the wild gleam of fever; and the odors that came from clothes, here, had not the vigorous pungency of the open seashore, but the subtle nausea of swamp land and the infectious muck of stagnant pools. The bags these women were emptying on the tables were squirming masses of life. As the eels came out they twisted into rings of black slime, or wriggled on their white bellies, or lifted their pointed heads like snakes. Nearby, whitening, dead, lay the fresh-water fry, tench, for the most part, insufferably noisome, glittering with the subdued metallic luster of poisonous tropical fruit. Here, too, was a higher and lower caste in misery, for the least fortunate vendors of this section had seats, not at the tables, but on the floors, whence they were offering frogs strung on sticks with their four legs distended.
Business was just beginning in the Fishmarket. The customers were coming in, and mysterious signals were flying back and forth among the stalls mixed with strange words from the jargon of the fish-mongers. The inspectors were outside! As fast as possible false scales vanished under aprons or petticoats. Meanwhile, old and grimy knives were slitting the silvery bellies of the fish, the guts falling hap-hazard under tables or counters. An occasional dog would come running by, sniffing at the offals lying around and with a snort of disgust passing on toward the neighboring porticos, where the butchers were holding forth. The fish-women who had been playfully twitting each other an hour before in theirtartanasor at the customs house now sat watching each other, whenever a marketer came along, with hostile jealousy. An atmosphere of struggle, of relentless competition pervaded the ill-smelling, reeking environment. The women kept calling off their fish in shrill, piercing tones, or beating on their dirty scales to attract the attention of some possible purchaser. Smiles and quaint greetings of endearment would welcome the housewife as she came up; but if she found prices too high and passed on, a deluge of filthy epithet would follow after her, and the insolent ridicule would be taken up by the whole crew of vendors, instinctively standing together against the buyer.
TiaPicores, towering with the majesty of a battle-scarred whale in her tall armchair, sat twitching her wrinkly mustached lips and frequently changing position to get the full warmth of the brazier she kept daily burning at her feet till full summer-time. As a veteran of the market, she had her regular trade and did not try overmuch to attract new customers. Her delight it was to take the lead in spitting curses upon the grumbling townswomen who went in person to do their shopping with their maids; and her drawling voice always had the last word in the disputes that went on. Her hair-raising obscenity and the apothegms from her philosophy of shame, which she got off with the solemnity of an oracle, were the principal sources of mirth throughout the portico. The stall across the aisle in front of her belonged to Dolores, who worked with her sleeves rolled up, playing with the bright, gilded scales she owned or showing her beautiful teeth in coquettish smiles when men came by. For many gentlemen in town went marketing by themselves, filling their neat, red-edged baskets at her counter for the pleasure of a chat with the charming girl. Rosario, two tables beyondtiaPicores, was busy putting the freshest of her wares to the fore. The two girls were thus face to face, though they avoided each other's eyes disdainfully, each turning her back when the other one looked her way, though immediately afterwards they would be staring impudently and angrily at each other again.
It was not long before a pretext for their daily quarrel was available. A man had stopped at Rosario's counter and was bargaining, when Dolores, with a vigorous rapping on her scales and one of her prettiest smiles, enticed him in her direction. "Thief! Thief! He was my customer—one of my best! And you've taken him away! I sell fish, I do; but you sell ...!" And the pale, bony cheeks of the frail, overworked Rosario flamed red with spite and her gleaming eyes flashed fire. Dolores, drawing herself up to her most crushing height of haughtiness, seemed to sniff with her chubby but handsome nose: "Huh! Thief! Never mind about thieves, darling! People here know who I am; and they know who you are; and if they come to me ..."
The outlook for an interesting morning in the market suddenly improved. The fish-women brightened on every hand, even neglecting their custom to crane their necks and take in everything that was going on. With smiles of amusement, the customers began to crowd around, while the inspector, foreseeing what was coming, prudently slipped out, though he had scarcely begun his rounds.TiaPicores, in despair at such everlasting quarrelsomeness, contented herself with a resigned invocation to heaven. "Thief is what I said," Rosario resumed. "And everybody knows it. You want everything I've got, and I can prove it. Here you steal my customers and down at the Cabañal you steal ... well, you steal ... something else ... something else.... She's not fooling me, I can tell you, even if she is pulling the wool over her husband's eyes ... dolt that he is, fool of a Rector, who don't know his chin from his elbow." But Dolores was not moved from her patronizing self-possession. She could see from the faces of the onlookers that every one was wondering how she would take those allusions to herself and her good-natured husband; and she was not going to let the Fishmarket have a day's fun at her expense. "Close your mouth, deary, before you slip and fall into it! Don't be bitter! You can't have all the men there are. You're envious!" "Me, envious!" Rosario retorted. "Envious of your reputation, I suppose,—the best in the Cabañal, as even the lamp-post knows! Thanks! I'm a decent woman, I am, I never tried to get another girl's husband!" "And whose husband could you get with that sculpin-face? No, dearest, no one is jealous of you!" And Rosario, growing paler than ever, sunk her nails into her clenched hands, while Dolores, her fists on her hips, wreathed her delicious countenance in a smile, which seemed to serve for volumes of insults.
The joy of combat had taken possession of the whole portico. Idlers had gathered in throngs at the doors. The fish-women were leaning far forward over their counters with the eager appetites of furies, clacking their tongues as though they were sicking two dogs upon each other and banging on their scales to applaud each cutting thrust. It was time for Dolores to fall back on theultima ratioof a fish-woman's contempt.
"Look, Rosario! Don't talk to me! Talk to this!"
And she turned squarely around and, bending slightly, registered a resonant slap on the pair of spacious hips that trembled under her calico skirt with all the elasticity of her firm flesh.
Thistrovatahad immense success with the audience. Women fell from their chairs in the contortions of laughter. The tunny-men in the near section doubled up in the gripes of joy, while the hilarity found its outer boundaries in the meat-market, stalls and stalls away. Staid gentlemen from town set their baskets down to do full justice with their clapping hands to the beauty and the wit of the inimitable Dolores.
But the triumph of the Rector's wife was of short duration. As she looked around to see the effect her blow had had, a handful of sardines struck her full in the face. Rosario was blind with fury. "Come out of that stall! Show your face out here where I can get at you, you low-lived street-walker!" And Dolores did show her face. Rolling her sleeves up still higher, as though clearing for action, she strode forth from her stall, her eyes aglow with the enthusiasm of combat. Toward her Rosario came running, brushing aside the arms that tried to restrain her, aquiver with rage from head to foot and shrieking curse on curse.
They met in the wet, slippery passageway between the two lines of counters. Head down, the smaller woman rushed full tilt into her taller and sturdier antagonist. It was a shock of nerve on muscle. Dolores was scarcely stirred, and the blows Rosario rained on her did not seem even to ruffle her temper. Answering in kind, she began to deliver the most merciless slaps upon the pale, bony cheeks of her assailant, which grew red under the punishment.
But suddenly Dolores shrieked in agony and raised both hands to one ear. "The dog! The dog!" she cried.
Rosario's fingers had closed over one of those pearl earrings that had been the admiration of the Fishmarket. She had torn it out. The pretty girl began to sob, pressing her torn ear under both her hands, while blood streamed through her fingers. "Was that the way to fight fairly?" she moaned. That showed the kind of woman she had to deal with. People had gone to jail for life for less than that! Then, whipped to a violent rage by the pain she felt, she started once more for her enemy. But the fish-women had gathered round her, petting and consoling her, and they held her back.TiaPicores, meanwhile, was spitting oaths and insults into the face of Rosario, who stood there pale, fainting, in fright and horror at what she had done.
Above the crowd outside the portico the top-knots of several policemen had appeared. The forces of law and order were trying to elbow their way into the throng. Sh ... h ... h!TiaPicores assumed command. "Back to your stalls, everybody! And mum's the word! Those pretty boys will be in here with their summonses and their papers! Nothing's the matter, remember, everybody, nothing happened at all!" Some one threw a big handkerchief over the bleeding ear of the wounded girl. The women were all in their places looking straight ahead as solemnly as in church, and calling off their prices with laughable mechanicalness. As the officers passed from counter to counter the market was again in turmoil, but of a different kind. "What are those dudes doing in here? Some people never know where they belong. What's the idea? Just butting in, eh, lolly-pop!" And the police marched out as wise as they had entered, chased away by the drawling voice oftiaPicores—who could never understand how people allowed such a government of thugs and grafters to exist among honest people—and marking time to the banging of metal scales, which all began to clatter as a parting salutation.
The market returned to its usual routine. The vendors were busy with their custom. Rosario, like a sphinx in dudgeon, stood upright and stiff behind her counter, indifferent to the passing trade, spots on her cheeks and temples turning black-and-blue from the buffets they had received. Dolores kept her back turned toward her enemy, but she was doing her best to stifle the cries that her pain was almost tearing from her.TiaPicores seemed to be in a thoughtful mood, as she talked aloud and in monologue to the fish lying about in front of her. And those spit-fires would keep at it for the rest of their lives, eh! I kill you or you kill me! Fine! And all over a man! Men! Men! As though there weren't enough hogs in the world to go round! But she would put a stop to it, she would. Any more of their nonsense and she would thrash them, thrash them both, by God! And perhaps they didn't think she could! Well, she would see!
Distractedly she seized the lunch that the char-woman brought at eleven o'clock—a roll of black bread with two dripping chops—and she swallowed it in a few hurried mouthfuls. Then, wiping her furrowed face with her dirty, greasy apron, she walked over to her niece's stall, planted herself with arms folded in front of it, and began her lecture.
That business had got to stop, if you please! The family oftiaPicores could not be the talk of the Fishmarket all the time. It had got to stop! She had made up her mind, and whentiaPicores made up her mind to a thing, she got what she wanted, even if God himself got in the way, even if she had to lick half of Spain to get it.TiaPicores had a bit of a temper herself when she got really mad. What had just happened would be nothing, nothing, compared to the fuss there'd be when she set out on the warpath. Those girls would have to make up!
"No, no!" Dolores groaned, clenching her fists and shaking her head decisively.
"No, no! No, no!" mimickedtiaPicores. "What's the meaning of that? No, no! No, no! Like it or lump it, but you make up, you make up! The idea, such a scandal in the family! And lucky you are in the family, both of you. That gives you a chance to make up. She tore your ear? Now, now, Dolores, think of those blows you gave her on the face. Tit for tat, with tit having a little the best of it. There's a good girl now! No, no—no use arguing ... you just mind your auntie!"
And thence the fish-woman passed to the table of Rosario, where her language was stronger still. And Rosario called that being a lady? A mad dog, rather, a mad dog, yes—not to use the real word! "Don't you look at me like that, you jackanape, or I'll give you this pair of scales over your head, I will! That's what I get for being nice to you two brats. That's the way you treat an old friend of your mother! Well, now, Your Highness, this nonsense is going to stop, and stop here—just because I say so, I! Look at that poor Dolores over there, crying because her ear hurts so. Is that the way decent people fight, pulling each other's ears off? Only sneaks fight like that—sneaks, do you hear? When you fight, you fight straightforward and honest. Strike as hard as you want, but where it won't do any harm. Man alive! In my time I've pulled the hair of every wench in the market. You get their skirts up, and you take your shoe, and there, where it's all soft and tender, whack, whack, whack, till they have to sit on one side for a week. But after that ... a cup of chocolate in the café, and then ... better friends than ever. Yes, sir, that's the way respectable people fight. And that's what you are going to do, if I have to lick you every inch of the way. You won't, eh! Well, we'll see! Dolores is stealing your man, eh! Ten thousand fleas on the good-for-nothing, anyhow! Excuse me, the girls don't chase the men. It's the men that chase the girls. Listen to me, dearie. If you want that man of yours to mind his business, you just keep things going at home right and proper. Keep him busy! Keep him busy! Then he won't go browsing around where he don't belong.Diós!such girls as are growing up nowadays. As much brains as so many geese. I'd like to see a man of mine with enough to him to have anything to spare for other women! Anyhow ... this mess is all over. You're going to make up ... because I say so, if not for a better reason.... OtherwisetiaPicores will take a hand...."
And with a mixture of threats and words of endearment the sturdy dean of the fish-women went muttering back to her place, to sell the rest of her stock.
Work was over early that day. There was quite a demand for fish in town, and the counters were emptying by noontime. The vendors began to sweep their leavings into kegs of cracked ice and to cover them with damp cloths. The teamsters were collecting their baskets, large and small, and piling them up in the tails of their ricketytartanas.TiaPicores was putting on her checked shawl and chatting, in the middle of the portico, with a group of old women of her time who went shares with her in paying for a wagon. She still had that matter of the two girls on her mind; and as soon as everything was ready for the drive home she made for their stalls, and pushed and pinched till she had brought the rivals together.
Dolores and Rosario, unable to resist the brow-beating of the terrible woman, stood with lowered heads, as though deeply humiliated at what was going on, but not daring to say a word. "We're going to stop a minute at the chocolate place,"tiaPicores directed to her teamster; and the company of mottled shawls and dirty skirts went out of thePescadería, the flagstones echoing to the clatter of heavy shoes. In Indian file the women crossed the crowded market, where the last bargainings were in progress,tiaPicores opening her way through the throngs with her vigorous elbows, behind her the bevy of wrinkly-faced, yellow-eyed veterans, then Rosario with her load of baskets,—for she always went to and fro on foot—and finally Dolores, her ear still smarting cruelly, but able, nevertheless, to raise a smile of pleasure when her pretty brown face, no less winsome under the rude bandage around her head, attracted remarks of appreciation from the men around.
They invaded and occupied the chocolate shop, where they were regular customers. Rosario set her reeking, smelly baskets on one of the marble tables, and the odor of stale fish mingled through the room with the fragrance of cheap cocoa that drifted out from the adjoining kitchen.TiaPicores gave a grunt of satisfaction as she settled into a chair. Chocolate after the day's work was her greatest comfort in life. How well she knew that little café, with its striped matting on the floor, its white tiled walls, its frosted glass windows with red curtains; in front of the doors, ice-cream freezers in cork casings with metal covers; the counter, then, with its jars for cookies and sweets, and behind it the proprietor of the place sleepily brushing at the flies with a bundle of long paper streamers fastened to a stick.
And what would they have? Same as usual, of course; a half-pint cup all around, and a glass of lemon water apiece. This would make the fourth chocolate thattiaPicores had downed that fore-noon; but the stomachs of those tough daughters of the sea were poison proof, and they could sip gallons of that imitation "Venezuela" with the gusto of sybarites. Nothing to beat chocolate! Drink a lot of it if you wanted to last beyond your apportioned three-score and ten! And eagerly the aged cronies sniffed at the bluish steam that was rising from the plain white cups before dipping pieces of bread into the muddy paste and raising them, dripping brown, to the toothless caverns of their mouths. The two girls sat there, however, barely touching the good things in front of them, their chins on their breasts and avoiding each other's eyes. But whentiaPicores's cup was almost empty her thundering voice came out to change the situation. "Did you ever see such a pair of sillies! Still mad, still mad! Well, well, the girls in the Market these days are not what they used to be! Once their faces are out of joint, there's no ironing them out again! Mad once, mad for always, eh! Couldn't be worse if they were tony folks up town! No, there's something wrong with the hearts of girls nowadays. And if you don't believe it just see here. Is there one of you at this table that at some time or other hasn't had her hair pulled or her face slapped by me? No! Not a one. What's more, I'll bet that if any one of you were to show the place you sit on, you'd find the scars of where I beat you with a hob-nailed shoe. No? Well, there you are! And we've never been better friends, and we're ready to stand by when any one of us gets into trouble. And that's the way for people to be. Quick-tempered? Very well. But ready to make up afterwards, like honest Christians. Leave your grumps at the door and have a cup of chocolate, say I. And that's what my old ma said, in her day. And that's what the Fishmarket people always said. 'Don't swallow hard feelings! Throats are made for chocolate, white bread andquinset,' as the old song runs: