The Cabin [La barraca]

The vast plain stretched out under the blue splendour of dawn, a broad sash of light which appeared in the direction of the sea.

The last nightingales, tired of animating with their songs this autumn night, which seemed like spring in the balminess of its atmosphere, poured forth their final warble, as if the light of dawn wounded them with its steely reflections.

Flocks of sparrows arose like crowds of pursued urchins from the thatched roofs of the farm-houses, and the tops of the trees trembled at the first assault of these gamins of the air, who stirred up everything with the flurry of their feathers.

The sounds which fill the night had gradually died away: the babbling of the canals, the murmur of the cane-plantations, the bark of the watchful dog.

The huerta was awaking, and its yawnings were growing ever noisier. The crowing of the cock was carried on from farm-house to farm-house; the bells of the village were answering, with noisy peals, the ringing of the first mass which floated from the towers of Valencia, blue and hazy in the distance. From the corrals came a discordant animal-concert; the whinnying of horses, the lowing of gentle cows, the clucking of hens, the bleating of lambs, the grunting of pigs, ... all the noisy awakening of creatures who, upon feeling the first caress of dawn, permeated with the pungent perfume of vegetation, long to be off and run about the fields.

Space became saturated with light; the shadows dissolved as though swallowed up by the open furrows and the masses of foliage; and in the hazy mist of dawn, humid and shining rows of mulberry-trees, waving lines of cane-brake, large square beds of garden vegetables like enormous green handkerchiefs, and the carefully tilled red earth, became gradually more and more defined.

Along the high-road there came creeping rows of moveable black dots, strung out like files of ants, all marching toward the city. From all the ends of the vega, resounded the creaking of wheels mingled with idle songs interrupted by shouts urging on the beasts; and from time to time, like the sonorous heralding of dawn, the air was rent by the furious braying of the donkey protesting so to speak against the heavy labour which fell upon him with break of day.

Along the canals, the glassy sheet of ruddy crystal was disturbed by noisy plashings and loud beating of wings which silenced the frogs as the ducks advanced like galleys of ivory, moving their serpentine necks like fantastic prows.

The plain was flooded with light, and life penetrated into the interior of the farm-houses.

Doors creaked as they opened; under the grape-arbours white figures could be seen, which upon awakening stretched out, hands clasped behind their heads, and gazed toward the illumined horizon.

The stables stood with doors wide-open, vomiting forth a stream of milch-cows, herds of goats, and the nags of the cart-drivers, all bound for the city. From behind the screen of dwarfish trees which concealed the road, came the jingle of cow-bells, while mingling with their gay notes, there sounded the shrill _arre, aca!_[A] urging on the stubborn beasts.

At the doorways of the farm-houses stood those who were city-bound and those who remained to work in the fields, saluting each other.

May the Lord give us a good-day!

Good-day!

And after this salutation, exchanged with all the gravity of country folk who carry the blood of Moors in their veins, and who speak the name of God only with solemn gesture, silence fell again if the passer-by were one unknown; but if he were an intimate, he was commissioned with the purchase, in Valencia, of small objects for the house or wife.

The day had now completely dawned.

The air was already cleared of the tenuous mist that rose during the night from the damp fields and the noisy canals. The sun was coming out; in the ruddy furrows the larks hopped about with the joy of living one day more, and the mischievous sparrows, alighting at the still-closed windows, pecked away at the wood, chirping to those within, with the shrill cry of the vagabond used to living at the expense of others:

"Up, you lazy drones! Work in the fields so we may eat!"

Pepeta, wife of Toni, known throughout the neighbourhood as Pimentó, had just entered their barraca. She was a courageous creature, and despite her pale flesh, wasted white by anaemia while still in full youth, the most hard working woman in the entire huerta.[B]

At daybreak, she was already returning from market. She had risen at three, loaded herself with the baskets of garden-truck gathered by Toni the night before, and groping for the paths while she cursed the vile existence in which she was worked so hard, had guided herself like a true daughter of the huerta through the darkness to Valencia. Meanwhile her husband, that good fellow who was costing her so dearly, continued to snore in the warm bed-chamber, bundled in the matrimonial blankets.

The wholesalers who bought the vegetables were well acquainted with this woman, who, even before the break of day, was already in the market-place of Valencia. Seated amid her baskets, she shivered beneath her thin, thread-bare shawl while she gazed, with an envy of which she was not aware, at those who were drinking a cup of coffee to combat the morning chill the better. She hoped with a submissive, animal-like patience to get the money she had reckoned upon, in her complicated calculations, in order to maintain Toni and run the house.

When she had sold her vegetables, she returned home, running all the way, to save an hour on the road.

A second time she set forth to ply another trade; after the vegetables came the milk. And dragging the red cow by the halter, followed along by the playful calf which clung like an amorous satellite to its tail, Pepeta returned to the city, carrying a little stick under her arm, and a measuring-cup of tin with which to serve her customers.

La Rocha, as the cow was called on account of her reddish coat, mooed gently and trembled under her sackcloth cover as she felt the chill of morning, while she rolled her humid eyes toward the barraca, which remained behind with its black stable and its heavy air, and thought of the fragrant straw with the voluptuous desire of sleep that is not satisfied.

Meanwhile, Pepeta urged her on with the stick: it was growing late, and the customers would complain. And the cow and little calf trotted along the middle of the road of Alboraya, which was muddy and furrowed with deep ruts.

Along the sloping banks passed interminable rows of cigarette-girls and silk-mill workers, each with a hamper on one arm, while the other swung free. The entire virginity of the huerta went along this way toward the factories, leaving behind, with the flutter of their skirts, a wake of harsh, rough chastity.

The blessing of God was over all the fields.

The sun rising like an enormous red wafer from behind the trees and houses which hid the horizon, shot forth blinding needles of gold. The mountains in the background and the towers of the city took on a rosy tint; the little clouds which floated in the sky grew red like crimson silk; the canals and the pools which bordered the road seemed to become filled with fiery fish; the swishing of the broom, the rattle of china, and all the sounds of the morning's cleaning came from within the barracas.

The women squatted by the edges of the pools, with baskets of clothes for the wash at their sides; dark-grey rabbits came hopping along the paths with their deceiving smile, showing, in their flight, their reddish quarters, parted by the stub of a tail; with an eye red and flaming with anger, the cock mounted the heap of reddish manure with his peaceful odalisks about him and sent forth the cry of an irritated sultan.

Pepeta, oblivious to this awakening of dawn which she witnessed every day, hurried on her way, her stomach empty, her limbs aching, her poor clothing drenched with the perspiration characteristic of her pale, thin blood, which flowed for weeks at a time contrary to the laws of Nature.

The crowds of labouring people who were entering Valencia filled all the bridges. Pepeta passed the labourers from the suburbs who had come with their little breakfast-sacks over their shoulders, and stopped at the octroi to get her receipt,--a few coins which grieved her soul anew each day,--then went on through the deserted streets, whose silence was broken by the cowbells of La Rocha, a monotonous pastoral melody, which caused the drowsy townsman to dream of green pastures and idyllic scenery.

Pepeta had customers in all parts of the city. She went her intricate way through the streets, stopping before the closed doors; it was a blow on a knocker here, three or more repeated raps there, and ever the continuation of the strident, high-pitched cry, which it seemed could not possibly come from a chest so poor and flat:

La lleeet!

And the dishevelled, sunken-eyed servant came down in slippers, jug in hand, to receive the milk; or the aged concierge appeared, still wearing the mantilla which she had put on to go to mass.

By eight all the customers had been served. Pepeta was now near the Fishermen's quarter.

Here she had business also, and the poor farmer's wife bravely penetrated the dirty alleys which, at this hour, seemed to be dead. She always felt at first a certain uneasiness,--the instinctive repugnance of a delicate stomach: but her spirit, that of a woman who, though ill, was respectable, succeeded in rising above it, and she went on with a certain proud satisfaction--the pride of a chaste woman who consoles herself by remembering that though bent and weakened by her poverty, she is still superior to others.

From the closed and silent houses came forth the breath of the cheap, noisy, shameless rabble mingled with an odour of heated, rotting flesh; and through the cracks of the doors, there seemed to escape the gasping and brutal breathing of heavy sleep, after a night of wild-beast caresses and amorous, drunken desires.

Pepeta heard some one calling her. At the entrance to a narrow stairway stood a sturdy girl, making signs to her. She was ugly, without any other charm than that of youth disappearing already; her eyes were humid, her hair twisted in a topknot, and her cheeks, still stained by the rouge of the preceding night, seemed like a caricature of the red daubs on the face of a clown,--a clown of vice.

The peasant woman, tightening her lips with a grimace of pride and disdain, in order that the distance between them might be well-marked, began to fill a jar which the girl gave her with milk from La Rocha's udders. The latter, however, did not take her eyes from the farmer's wife.

"Pepeta,"--she said, in an indecisive voice, as though she were uncertain if it were really she.