The Torrent

.. I am up so early not to miss the marketing. I remember that Wednes

essed at the numbers of bustling people crowding the little square, called del

body and as neatly dressed as the peasant girls of an opera ballet, their hair in se?orita style, their skirts of bright batiste gathered up to hold their purchases and showing fine stockings and

d calico, and black woolsey, the eternal garb of every native of the Júcar valley. Beyond the Prado, in El Alborchí, was the hog market; and then came the Hostal Gran where horses were tried out. On Wednesdays all the business of the neighborhood was transacted-money borrowed or

d from time to time, to "buck up" a little, would go off in parties to swallow a glass of sweet brandy. In and out among the rustics walked the city people: "petty bourgeois" of set manners, with old capes, and huge hempen baskets, where they would place the provisions they had bought after tenacious hagglings;

What a beauty she was! Who could ever have taken h

knotted low on the back of her head. Not a jewel, not a flower! Only her height and her striking comeliness marked her off from the other girls. Under the curious, devouring glances of the whole market throng,

flash of her teeth. The market-place began to buzz with admiring curiosity, or the thrill of scandal. There, face to face

hief," smiling at him, even. What an honor for "the Party!" But after all, why not? Everything considered, don Rafael Brull deserved all that, and more! And those men, who were very careful to keep silent when their wives spoke indignantly

hey would make wry faces and say ironically: "Did you see?... here she is, in full sight of everybody, casting

list. A regular housewife she had become, yes, sir! She knew the price of everything and could tell down to a centime just what it was costing her to live. It was like those hard times back in Milan, when she had gone with her music roll under her arm to get macaroni, butter or coffee at the grocer's. And what fun it all was!... However, Leon

by the vendors with their best smiles, as a customer who never haggled; interrupting her purchases to fondle the filthy, whinin

name to show greater intimacy. And she would smile, with a familiar intimate word for everybody, her hand frequently visiting the purse of Russian leather that hun

according to his enemies-affirmed with sparkling eyes that for a woman like that he was capable of doing almost any crazy thing. And they all joined in a chorus of invidious p

ill make out a mass of golden hair rising above the chevelures of the other girls. Willingly he would have followed; but Don Matias was at h

g the young man advice on a new bill he had drawn up and wanted to have introduced in Congress-a protectionist measure for Spanish oranges

hard to be courteous, even, to this man who, according to authentic rumor, was destined to be his father-in-law. Of all the drawling trickling words only a few reached h

ing lest Leonora should already have gone. He felt relieved, however, when a gap opened in the crowd and he could see the actress seated in a chair that had been offered her by

think of my plan?

ou, who knows the question from top to bottom. We'll dis

boor on the back, and wondered why in the world Fortun

y in Valencia with bull-fighters, gamblers and horse-dealers, went barefoot in those days, scampering about the roads with the children of the gipsies encamped in El Alborchi. His daughter-the now well-behaved, the now modest, Remedios, who was

hese days!" the barber Cupido would say

selected oranges of other merchants would land at Liverpool or London when the markets were glutted and prices were falling scandalously. The lucky dolt would send anything at all along, whatever was available, cheap; and circumstances always seemed to favor him with an empty market and prices sky-high regardless of quality. He realized fabulous profits. He had nothing but scorn for all the wiseacres who subscribed to the English papers, received daily bulletins and compared market quotations from year to year

owned warehouses as large as churches in the vicinity of Alcira, employing armies of girls to wrap the oranges and regiments of carpenters to make the crates. He would buy the crop of an entire orchard at a single glance and never be more than a few pounds off. As for the pay he gave, the city was proud of its millionaire. N

telligent dealer, presuming to approach Rafael, "his deputy," with a proposal for a freight-rate bill to promote the shipping of or

his life. It seemed as though he could still see don Ramón stopping on his big horse in front of his humble farmhouse and, with the air of a grand lord, leaving orders for what don Matías was to do in the coming elections. He knew the bad state in which the great man had left his affairs upon his death; and more than once he had given money to do?a Bernarda outright, proud that she should do him the honor of appealing to him in her straits. But in his eyes, the House of

only a town girl, you see. The se?or deputy is probably

ount of his touching loyalty to the Brull family. But the girl was an utterly insignificant creature, pretty, to be sure, but only as any ordinary young girl is pretty. And underneath

ive smile of the future slave with which she usually greeted him had disappeared. She was quite pale, and her colorless lips were pressed tight together. Without a doubt in the world she had seen him, from a distance, talking and laughing wit

the market place to avoid another meeting with Remedios. Leonora was still there. He w

on the orange-trees, filling with the new sap, were ready to burst, as in one grand explosion of perfume, into white fragrant bloom. In the matted herbage on the river-ban

s! And he went looking along the stream for those little purple flowers that bring dream

his own sense of daring. He had resolved to settle things that very morning. The fatuity of the man who feels himself rid

new she was treating him as an insignificant friend, a good little boy w

, in whose house he had been living like a stranger, without affection, at daggers' points; months of exposure to the criticism of his enemies, who suspected him of a liaison with the "chorus girl" and were raising their brows, horror-stric

ing at Leonora, timidly, submissively, from afar, as an idolater might look at an ikon. Bosh! Wasn't he a man, and isn't the man the stronger? Some show of a male authority, that was what she needed! He

ion in his weak, irresolute character, Rafael heard voices down the road. He jumped to his feet. Leonora

er the white skin of her throat. "You are getting to be my shadow. In the m

the young man's hand, inhaling their fr

ough I felt her coming days before! I am so happy-can't you see? I feel as though I'd been a silkworm all winter, coiled up in a cocoon, and had now

empting smoothness, its white beauty set off by the red kerchief; and over the violets resting on that strong, robust bosom. The two orchard women exchanged a shrewd smile, a meanin

aid. "We'll take our time

ng she resumed, pointing to the

he road?... Oh, Rafael! You are blind as a bat! And no good is going to come of it! If I had any repu

though for her part, she did not care what people

ortunity to tell me how handsome you are. You ought to thank her.... Even my aunt, my poor aunt, with one leg in the grave, drew it out the other day to say to me: 'Do you no

d happy at its liberty, though her frank, mocking laughter was in strang

ou look today! Are you il

, like a jail to him. Off to the fields; to the orchards, to the Blue House where she lived! He would wait and wait for afternoon to come-the time when, by a tacit arrangement neither of them had proposed, he might enter her orchard and find her on the bench under the four dead palms!... Well, he could not go on living that way. Poor folks envied him his power, because he was a deputy, at twenty-five! And yet his one purpose in life was to be ... well, she could guess what ... that garden bench, for instance, gently, deliciously burdened with her weight for whole afternoons; or that needlework which played about in her sof

ed wide; her nostrils were quivering with emotion. She s

dear boy!... And wha

air with which she welcomed him at the door; the irony with which she met his every hint at a declaration had always crushed

her!... Ignorant, humble, recognizing the vast gulf that separated them because of the different lives they had led, how he had worked to raise himself to a level with the men who had loved and won her! If she spoke of the Russian count-a model of stylish elegance-the next day, to the great astonishment of his mother, Rafael would take out his best clothes and, all sweating in the hot sun and nearly strangled by a high collar, he would set out along that same road-his Road to Calvary-walking on his toes like a boarding-school girl in order not to get his shoes dirty. If Hans Keller had come to Leonora's mind, he would run through his histories of mus

ply moved, unconsciously drew closer to him, almost grazing him as they walked along; and she s

l!... My po

The walk inside was deserted. In the lit

y months, Rafael leaned against the trunk of an old orange-tree. Leonora stood in front of him, li

ome tragic manner. The violent, domineering blood of his father seethed in his veins. Once firmly convinced she could never be his, he would kill her, to keep her from belonging to anybody... and then stab himself! They would fal

were in front of her. She shuddered with a strange fascination as she pictured his barbarous dreams, fraught with blood and death. This was something new! This boy, when he saw that his love was vain, wo

, letting herself be carried along by his anguished rapture. He had taken her arm and

ora seemed to be drinking in the virile p

fended her, and was sorr

d his frequent visits. Love?... Of course she did not love him-poor unhappy wretch that he was, incapable of inspiring passion in a woman like her. But let her just accept him. He would teach her to love him in time, win her by the sheer beauty of his own tenderness and worship. His love alone, alas, was great eno

's, looking for his own image in the depths of her gr

.... That hurts!

full of a sweet dream, she shuddered and

o which she had been led by Rafael's passionate

content with just living. Besides, what a horror! Imagine a "grand passion" in a petty environment such as they were in, a tiny world of gossip-mongers and evil tongues! Imagine having to hide like a criminal to express a noble emotion! No, when she loved, she loved in the open, with the sublime immodesty of the masterpiece that scandalizes bumpkins with its naked beauty! How impo

a boyish petulance. "You think of yourself and of other people, b

y here any longer. We two must separate. I will leave before Spring is over; I'll go ... I don't know where, back to the world at an

l's eyes. On her face she felt the ardent breath of lips that were see

not go; I refus

ot, in a clasp to which madness added strength. Her feet left the ground,

g vise, sat up, threw Rafael violently to his back, got to her feet, and stamped a foot brutally and mercilessly

ere pale from emotion. And in that wild posture, whether through force of habit, or the suggestiveness of the effort she had made, she raised her warcry-a piercing, savage "Hojotoho!" that rent the calm of the orchard, frig

shame. He lay motionless on the ground, without protesting, and as if not caring ever to rise again-longing

and slowly stepped back. Rafael

cold, as if the sun had gone out and a gla

thought of his disordered clothes, which were soiled with dirt; humiliated at having bee

him with the scornful "tu" a lady mi

G

ora looking at him, her eyes abla

she said coldly. "I give m

hought he caught a trace of loathing at some memory of Boldini-that repugna

ut that hateful association of the b

at you again!... An

with dirt, was leaving the garden, she shut the gate behind