The Cabin [La barraca]. Vicente Blasco Ibanez

were broken by sobs; the father and the daughters embraced again, and Pepeta, the mistress of the house, as well as other women, wept and repeated the maledictions against the old miser until Pimentó opportunely intervened.

      There would be time left to speak of what had occurred; now it was time for supper. What the deuce! Grieve like this because of an old Jew! If he could but see all this, how his evil heart would rejoice! The people of the huerta were kind; all of them would help to care for the family of old Barret, and would share with them a loaf of bread if they had nothing more.

      The wife and daughters of the ruined farmer went off with some neighbours to pass the night in their houses. Old Barret remained behind, under the vigilance of Pimentó.

      The two men remained seated until ten in their rush-chairs, smoking cigar after cigar in the candle-light.

      The poor old farmer appeared to be crazy. He answered in short monosyllables the reflections of this bully, who now assumed the rôle of a good-natured fellow; and when he spoke it was always to repeat the same words:

      "Pimentó! Give me my shot-gun!"

      And Pimentó smiled with a sort of admiration. The sudden ferocity of this little old man, who was considered a good-natured fool by all the huerta, astounded him. Return him the shot-gun! At once! He well divined by the straight wrinkles which stood out between his eyebrows, his firm intention of blowing the author of his ruin to atoms.

      Barret grew more and more vexed with the young fellow. He went so far as to call him a thief: he had refused to give him his weapon. He had no friends; he could see that well enough; all of them were only ingrates, equal to don Salvador in avarice; he did not wish to sleep here; he was suffocating. And searching in the bag of implements, he selected a sickle, shoved it through his sash, and left the farm-house. Nor did Pimentó attempt to bar his way.

      At such an hour, he could do no harm; let him sleep in the open if it suited his pleasure. And the bully, closing the door, went to bed.

      Old Barret started directly toward the fields, and like an abandoned dog, began to make a détour around his farm-house.

      Closed! Closed forever! These walls had been raised by his grandfather and renovated by himself through all these years. Even in the darkness, the pallor of the neat whitewash, with which his little girls had coated them three months before, stood out plainly.

      The corral, the stable, the pigsties were all the work of his father; and this straw-roof, so slender and high, with the two little crosses at the ends, he had built himself as a substitution for the old, which had leaked everywhere.

      And the curbstone at the well, the post of the vineyard, the cane-fences over which the pinks and the morning-glories were showing their tufts of bloom;—these too were the work of his hands. And all this was going to become the property of another, because—yes, because men had arranged it so.

      He searched in his sash for the pasteboard strip of matches in order to set fire to the straw-roof. Let the devil fly away with it all; it was his own, anyway, as God knew, and he could destroy his own property and would do so before he would see it fall into the hands of thieves.

      But just as he was going to set fire to his old house, he felt a sensation of horror, as if he saw the ghosts of all his ancestors rising up before him; and he hurled the strip of matches to the ground.

      But the longing for destruction continued roaring through his head, and sickle in hand, he set forth over the fields which had been his ruin.

      Now at a single stroke he would get even with the ungrateful earth, the cause of all his misfortunes.

      The destruction lasted for entire hours. Down they came tumbling to his heels, the arches of cane upon which the green tendrils of the tender kidney-beans and peas were climbing; parted by the furious sickle, the beans fell, and the cabbages and lettuce, driven by the sharp steel, flew wide like severed heads, scattering their rosettes of leaves all around. No one should take advantage of his labour.

      And thus he went on mowing until the break of dawn, trampling under foot with mad stampings, shouting curses, howling blasphemies, until weariness finally deadened his fury, and casting himself down upon a furrow, he wept like a child, thinking that the earth henceforth would be his real bed, and his only occupation begging in the streets.

      He was awakened by the first rays of the sun striking his eyes, and the joyful twitter of the birds which hopped around his head, availing themselves of the remnants of the nocturnal destruction for their breakfast.

      Benumbed with weariness and chilled with the dampness, he rose from the ground. Pimentó and his wife were calling him from a distance, inviting him to come and take something. Barret answered them with scorn. Thief! After taking away his shot-gun! And he set out on the road toward Valencia, trembling with cold, without even knowing where he was going.

      He stopped at the tavern of Copa and entered. Some teamsters of the neighbourhood spoke to him, expressing sympathy for him in his misfortune, and invited him to have a drink. He accepted gratefully. He craved something which would counteract this cold, which had penetrated his very bones. And he who had always been so sober, drank, one after the other, two glasses of brandy, which fell into his weakened stomach like waves of fire.

      His face flushed, then became deadly pale; his eyes grew bloodshot. To the teamsters who sympathized with him, he seemed expressive and confiding, almost like one who is happy. He called them his sons, assuring them that he was not fretting over so little. Nor had he lost everything. There still remained in his possession the best thing in his house, the sickle of his grandfather, a jewel which he would not exchange, no, not for fifty measures of grain.

      And from his sash he drew forth the curved steel, an implement brilliant and pure, of fine temper and very keen edge, which, as Barret declared, would cut a cigarette-paper in the air.

      The teamsters paid up, and urging on their beasts, set off for Valencia, filling the air with the creaking of wheels.

      The old man stayed in the tavern for more than an hour, talking to himself, feeling more and more dizzy, until, made ill at ease by the hard glances of the landlord, who divined his condition, he experienced a vague feeling of shame, and set out with unsteady steps without saying good-bye.